Guild Wars 2

hooma.9642:

Sensotix.4106:

hooma.9642:

Sensotix.4106:

hooma.9642:

Sensotix.4106:

hooma.9642:

Sensotix.4106:

hooma.9642:

Knote.2904:

hooma.9642:

Sensotix.4106:

hooma.9642:

Sensotix.4106:

Sarrs.4831:

Sensotix.4106:

i agree with what you said and yes you don’t have to be a top player to say new game modes etc

but then i see others doing videos and posting it on the forums saying stuff like make mesmers gs close ranged ..and something like that … it just seems like some people don’t have enough knowledge of pvp and the problem is people agree with them because they know as little as they do and then the devs will start thinking about it since a lot of people agree..

Even if they did end up with “make mesmer gs short-ranged”, which is a ludicrously tight avenue to actually gain any real support as this seems to be a vote as to which topics to discuss, there’s nothing to imply that they’ll actually think about acting on the request. This is just starting discussions, not actually deciding what to do. It’s stage two in a four/five stage procedure.

yea this was one example of what i read or see on the forums and i just couldn’t watch it and say nothing so i will also make a video and see if people agree

actual u are just 1 of the 90% who thinks only his suggestions are the right one and all others are wrong. thx for the showcase!

have you ever played one single team q?
how can you judge me and my knowledge about pvp when you don’t even play it

lol.. just lol.. so i cant judge anything, but you? funny.

can a mod please step in and close this bullkitten?

edit: i reported that clearly insulting thread. u can post your suggestion and discuss it. but claiming to be the only who has a plan and start to insult others to be stupid has to be closed.

Please stop, this is just derailing the thread which could otherwise have good discussion. I should report you if anything, but I won’t. Just stop.

no problem. he just needs to remove the part where he judge others in his opening thread.

I cant because that’s just the point of this whole thing…
For example my highest pve char is rank 45 or smth..and thats why i never say smth about pve changes..but there are so many pve players doing hotjoin and complaining…

as long as u dont understand the viewpoint of that players u hasnt any right to judge if that complain is right or not. accept it and show your own point of view and suggestions. there is not ultimate true or wrong in a not boolean environment.

if i follow your argumentation u should stop that discussion unless you can prove all what u suggest is ultimate true. leaderboard and that things u posted to justify doesnt count. use the gameengine, formulas and show it mathematical.. a real prove.. or else remove your insulting part.

it’s no insult to say that people who are not actively playing pvp shouldnt keep a big thing of suggestions rolling in the pvp section as simple as that

first u dont say that. u say that only the top of leaderboards has the right to post suggestions. and besides that unless u can prove that someone never plays or played tpvp u has no right to judge!

i just said that those people shouldnt make suggestions “90% or people that know little or nothing about pvp”

where is your source of knowledge to judge how much a player knows about pvp or not?

how often you will change your statement?
first it was just plain 90%
now in this case its 90% + ppl who in your opinion dont know anything

the funny part is even if they dont anything, u cant deny the right to suggest something. its not your duty to judge that!

i will stop talking to you no since it wont lead to anything

yeah i know its hard to argue against that. now u just need to say it…. speak after me: “i was wrong and hasnt the right to judge other suggestions or mental state or how often they play pvp or not”

you sir are hilarious

just for the lol

Sensotix.4106:

I am really glad they did this patch for ele but I am quite disappointed about the rest of the patch

Sensotix.4106:

…
I really liked some of the changes in the last patches but we are still missing a lot of things that can be implemented really easily because they are not that big
…

u like it and was still disappointed?

hooma.9642:

just for the lol

Sensotix.4106:

I am really glad they did this patch for ele but I am quite disappointed about the rest of the patch

Sensotix.4106:

…
I really liked some of the changes in the last patches but we are still missing a lot of things that can be implemented really easily because they are not that big
…

u like it and was still disappointed?

yes you know it is possible that someone likes parts of something but doesnt like other parts?

another for the lol and improvement of wrong understatement.

Sensotix.4106:

panicbutton.1053:

What is this business of “a top thief”? This is quite kitteny to come into a forum and post “a top thief” as if everyone knows anything about this shadow. The ones that advertise themselves get torn down the fastest.

I bet I could nail down this “top thief” >:) What say you good sir? A duel, or multiple?

if you don’t know ningyou you have never played guild wars 2 pvp

thanks for the comment.

Sensotix.4106:

hooma.9642:

just for the lol

Sensotix.4106:

I am really glad they did this patch for ele but I am quite disappointed about the rest of the patch

Sensotix.4106:

…
I really liked some of the changes in the last patches but we are still missing a lot of things that can be implemented really easily because they are not that big
…

u like it and was still disappointed?

yes you know it is possible that someone likes parts of something but doesnt like other parts?

no first u say u liked some parts and the rest is bad.
in the second u say u like some part and the rest showing its the right direction.

but nevermind u has edited away.

hooma.9642:

another for the lol and improvement of wrong understatement.

Sensotix.4106:

panicbutton.1053:

What is this business of “a top thief”? This is quite kitteny to come into a forum and post “a top thief” as if everyone knows anything about this shadow. The ones that advertise themselves get torn down the fastest.

I bet I could nail down this “top thief” >:) What say you good sir? A duel, or multiple?

if you don’t know ningyou you have never played guild wars 2 pvp

thanks for the comment.

i wont change my opinion on that and now leave this thread or else i will report you…you neither give constructive feedback nor do you help others..
i could start the same thing with your posts btw but i haver other stuff to do

do what u want do. unless u i dont deny u something.. the funy part is i clicked so far throught your first 2 sides of posts and missing somewhere the big suggestions u made… dont say they are all on your youtubechannel cause u expect the devs to watch it?

the next funny thing is im constructive towards your opening posts. unless the bold text you just talk about your to judge. wasnt that the topic in the last posts i wrote?

Sensotix.4106:

…seems like i am wasting my time tho since a lot of people think i am an arrogant prick that only wants attention -.-’

all your other stuff beside that is exact how you look. if u has suggestions shouldnt they are in this forum and not in your youtube channel? yeah i know there u can delete negative posts and shine with complete agreement.

Sensotix.4106:

I feel like the devs are really listening to what people on the forums say but the big problem with this is that there are 90% or people that know little or nothing about pvp, 6 % people that have a decent knowledge and then 4% that are top tier pvp players

The problem i want to adress is that most of the time you see suggestions from the 90% and the other 10% can’t really say something against it since the mass of players kinda rules how the game developes..
To my mind it would be important to listen to the 4% (or the 10%) because then we might see good changes that 90% of the people wont understand at first but those changes would be much better for the game than the changes the 90% suggest…

I really liked some of the changes in the last patches but we are still missing a lot of things that can be implemented really easily because they are not that big

I play with a lot of the 10 % players and then we end up talking about the game between the matches and i hear so many great ideas …

Cheers
Sensotix

PS: Therefore I will make a video in which I collect ideas from other players i think know enough about the game to bring things forward and also to say what I think

the main problem is that Devs are not realy top pvp players in this game and they share the same ideas of the 90% of bad players.

Knote.2904:

Pretty much anyone here is afraid anything they post won’t be considered by the devs. Hell even if I spend a few hours posting some indepth criticism/ideas I have in my head, and it does get seen, and maybe even acknowledged assuming the criticism/ideas are good, what are the odds they even happen or inspire the devs? Especially when you get these tiny changes after 4 months?

That’s just the nature of things. It helps to keep in mind that developers value open-ended concepts more than concrete suggestions. While I might think “Dogged March would totally be better off if it were swapped with this trait in the Master tier!”, it may not look that way when you’re viewing it from the much wider perspective of a developer. Instead, it might be better to phrase it as “Dogged March might be too strong for an Adept trait,” and let them worry about how exactly to address that issue, if they feel it’s an issue.

I’d also recommend Occam’s Razor (or the much simpler KISS, or “Keep It Simple, Stupid”) when you’re making a suggestion. The simpler the change is, the easier it’ll be to implement, and the more likely it’ll be noticed and possibly put into the game in one way or another. Changing a value from 10% to 15% is a lot more likely to happen than completely restructuring a trait line.

It’d be awesome if the developers communicated exactly what they were thinking, so you’d actually know if they agree or not… but you have to remember that they’re already getting blasted for “not taking any action.” What happens if they report their thought processes? Now they get blasted for going in the “wrong” direction?

If you played World of Warcraft, you might remember their dev team and community managers being much more open and candid during the early phases of vanilla. And then you might remember a guy that went by the name Tseric, and that pretty much explained exactly why being open and candid is not a recipe for success; not unless you’re talking to people face to face and not when they’re hiding behind a shield of anonymity.

Also people complaining about things you think aren’t an issue usually are issues. That’s where balancing for casuals vs balancing for top tier comes in, and it’s something I think Riot has does a decent job at.

It’s more about “do I want to make money off of this?” If the answer is yes, you “balance for casuals.” In general, trickle-down is the best way of balancing things, but you run into the issue you just mentioned – someone that just ain’t very good isn’t going to notice (or, in all likelihood, even care) that there’s a solution to it that players up the totem pole have figured out. This exists in pretty much every competitive game I’ve ever played, from UT (Link Gun is bullkitten, mmkay?) to Counter-Strike (try using awp sometime, see the reactions it generates), to Team Fortress (W+M1 Pyro lolololol) to World of Warcraft (hell… take your pick; people whined about literally everything.)

It’s a problem without any real solution, at least not that I’ve seen. On one hand, you tell the players that just aren’t very good (I prefer “newbies” to “casuals”) that… well, you aren’t very good, and this isn’t actually a problem at higher levels of play. I wish I could say most of them would go “Ohhhhh, okay! I’ll just get better, then!” But this is the internet; most of them will pitch a fit and call you an idiot, and say you don’t know your own game. You know… the game that you make and know more about than the next fifty players put together.

Your other option is telling those high level players to pipe down, but as you can see pretty much everywhere (in this very thread, even), those players tend to have an ego problem, and the results are pretty much the same.

Unfortunately, you can’t please everyone, so you mostly focus on pleasing the people that are paying the bills – the shareholders.

IMO, I just want more “fun” for all parts of the game including spvp, just make the classes more fun, more options etc, there will always be builds that are on top, but it makes the game much more fun/interesting and offers a better chance for the players to develop/counter the meta themselves.

I haven’t played any class but Warrior yet, but I feel like ArenaNet has already done a better job of this than any other MMO company out there. Blizzard was a solid competitor back in the days of Wrath of the Lich King, but especially with Mists of Pandaria, I feel like they treaded too far into the deadly waters of “homogenization” (yay, buzzwords!)

That might just be because I’m new, though. I feel like I have a variety of ways of playing my Warrior that, while most probably aren’t the “best” way of play, are at least effective enough to let me have fun and not be a complete deadweight to my teammates or party members.

I’d definitely rather see the focus be on encouraging players to try different playstyles – whether or not those playstyles are “the best” – by focusing efforts on shoring up weaknesses in trait lines and skill choices, rather than focus on the top-tier metagame and balance solely around that.

I feel like the eSports thing will take care of itself when the game generates enough interest.

Allie Murdock.8152:

There is no single part of our player base that we should or do listen to more than the other. Every player has equal opportunity to say how they feel, and the “4%-10%” is not excluded in that. What we “listen” to is reason and objective feedback.

Do note though, what we listen to != what we implement (at least not right away). We read your suggestions all the time, but sometimes those suggestions are not in line with the pillars of our game. Sometimes those suggestions are ill-informed. Sometimes those suggestions are selfish (buff x class “cuz it’s my fave and I want to roll over everyone”). Sometimes those suggestions are so great that it inspires us to add a new project to the backlog. Sometimes those suggestions are already a part of the project we are working on.

Most of the time, we can’t immediately implement good suggestions. These things take time and discussion. These things have to be weighed against other things and prioritized.

All of this doesn’t matter though, if the 4%-10% spends little to no time giving us feedback for one reason or another (inactive, don’t care, think we don’t listen even if that’s wrong, etc.).

Ideally, you would all feel comfortable and willing to share your objective feedback, but that is not always the case, and that is not something we can control.

thx allie

exact what i said. its not our duty to judge and filter.

I agree with Sensotix, it’s the main problem because now we have a bad balance.

In a few days probably we’ll have a new official thread dedicated to balance, the problem will be the direction of this thread.

I think if too many people with little pvp experience talk about changes and balance, this game never will have a good balance.

Dunno, probably anet should introduce some like “experience status” on forum, with a different color (like red color for devs) based on hours played on tournament pvp or something like that, in this way reply from experience people would be more in evidence.

seems you hasnt read what allie wrote. suggestions != implementations…

playtime != good suggestions and sometime bad suggestions = other good improvements…

whats so hard to understand that?

nobody is better than someone else.. simple. allie i think you should close this. as u can see there are a lot of ignorant ppl here who arent accept other opinions and think all u do is implement what the majority of player wants.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The patch has been out for 2 days. There were so many changes that we really need to let things settle and let people find their way. Big balance changes like this shake things up a lot, and nobody can know how the community will adapt to the change until they adapt to the change, which usually takes longer than a couple days.

Any feedback on the changes at this point is knee-jerk, because there simply has not been enough time to gauge how things will be until it settles.

here is not a single suggestion. just a discussion who has the right to suggest something and who not. and the suggestions the thread-opener has announced hasnt been here. they would be on his youtubechannel.

Allie Murdock.8152:

There is no single part of our player base that we should or do listen to more than the other. Every player has equal opportunity to say how they feel, and the “4%-10%” is not excluded in that. What we “listen” to is reason and objective feedback.

Do note though, what we listen to != what we implement (at least not right away). We read your suggestions all the time, but sometimes those suggestions are not in line with the pillars of our game. Sometimes those suggestions are ill-informed. Sometimes those suggestions are selfish (buff x class “cuz it’s my fave and I want to roll over everyone”). Sometimes those suggestions are so great that it inspires us to add a new project to the backlog. Sometimes those suggestions are already a part of the project we are working on.

Most of the time, we can’t immediately implement good suggestions. These things take time and discussion. These things have to be weighed against other things and prioritized.

All of this doesn’t matter though, if the 4%-10% spends little to no time giving us feedback for one reason or another (inactive, don’t care, think we don’t listen even if that’s wrong, etc.).

Ideally, you would all feel comfortable and willing to share your objective feedback, but that is not always the case, and that is not something we can control.

Allie I don’t want to be disrespectfull but at the moment the balance is terrible in this game. What we need now is constructive changes about the game from experienced players who have a deep understanding of the meta and previous meta’s and how everything in it has evolved.

quote from lord helseth “we were really close to near perfect balance in the past, back in the burst meta what we needed to do is nerfing mesmer and elementalist”.

Ideas like these should be brought to the devs before anything else! This game needs more things like state of the game where experienced players bring out their suggestions and the devs actually listen carefully to those ideas (because let’s be fair, not many suggestions from the sotg have made clear ways to the actual game)

~american capitalist

the ‘top players’ do offer ideas/suggestions, but after a while it just feels pointless doing so.

renegade.4851:

Allie Murdock.8152:

There is no single part of our player base that we should or do listen to more than the other. Every player has equal opportunity to say how they feel, and the “4%-10%” is not excluded in that. What we “listen” to is reason and objective feedback.

Do note though, what we listen to != what we implement (at least not right away). We read your suggestions all the time, but sometimes those suggestions are not in line with the pillars of our game. Sometimes those suggestions are ill-informed. Sometimes those suggestions are selfish (buff x class “cuz it’s my fave and I want to roll over everyone”). Sometimes those suggestions are so great that it inspires us to add a new project to the backlog. Sometimes those suggestions are already a part of the project we are working on.

Most of the time, we can’t immediately implement good suggestions. These things take time and discussion. These things have to be weighed against other things and prioritized.

All of this doesn’t matter though, if the 4%-10% spends little to no time giving us feedback for one reason or another (inactive, don’t care, think we don’t listen even if that’s wrong, etc.).

Ideally, you would all feel comfortable and willing to share your objective feedback, but that is not always the case, and that is not something we can control.

Allie I don’t want to be disrespectfull but at the moment the balance is terrible in this game. What we need now is constructive changes about the game from experienced players who have a deep understanding of the meta and previous meta’s and how everything in it has evolved.

quote from lord helseth “we were really close to near perfect balance in the past, back in the burst meta what we needed to do is nerfing mesmer and elementalist”.

Ideas like these should be brought to the devs before anything else! This game needs more things like state of the game where experienced players bring out their suggestions and the devs actually listen carefully to those ideas (because let’s be fair, not many suggestions from the sotg have made clear ways to the actual game)

~american capitalist

but you are disrespectfull. u act like allie has forbid any ppl to post constructive feedback.

Sensotix.4106:

hooma.9642:

Sensotix.4106:

Sarrs.4831:

Sensotix.4106:

i agree with what you said and yes you don’t have to be a top player to say new game modes etc

but then i see others doing videos and posting it on the forums saying stuff like make mesmers gs close ranged ..and something like that … it just seems like some people don’t have enough knowledge of pvp and the problem is people agree with them because they know as little as they do and then the devs will start thinking about it since a lot of people agree..

Even if they did end up with “make mesmer gs short-ranged”, which is a ludicrously tight avenue to actually gain any real support as this seems to be a vote as to which topics to discuss, there’s nothing to imply that they’ll actually think about acting on the request. This is just starting discussions, not actually deciding what to do. It’s stage two in a four/five stage procedure.

yea this was one example of what i read or see on the forums and i just couldn’t watch it and say nothing so i will also make a video and see if people agree

actual u are just 1 of the 90% who thinks only his suggestions are the right one and all others are wrong. thx for the showcase!

have you ever played one single team q?
how can you judge me and my knowledge about pvp when you don’t even play it

Just like you judge people you don’t even know. What is the difference?

I think everyone is entitled to their opinion and I think it would be somewhat dangerous to invalidate the experience of the 90% of the player base.

Pvp should be for the 100% and the 4% will hopefully inspire and share their experience and ideas with the 90%.

I am fairly certain some of the problems, that the 90% experience in solo q, is different from what the 4-10% experience in team arenas. I am fairly certain a new player struggles with different issues than an experienced player.

Do I think experienced players carry more weight?

Yes I do. Helseth was an excellent example of that. It was nice to hear someone with his experience explain how he saw things. It was nice finding myself agreeing with him on many of his points.

Overall, I think making a video is an excellent idea. I think you (and the other 9.9999%) know a lot more about this area of the game than I do.

I just think you sold that idea really badly. There are many ways of saying: “I have more experience than you do in this particular area of the game and I have some important suggestions”, without saying: “Your opinions are worthless”.

@hooma, I’m not saying people shouldn’t post constructive feedback. But good balance changes will come from “top players” more than from newer players, nobody can deny that

Oblivion.8307:

the ‘top players’ do offer ideas/suggestions, but after a while it just feels pointless doing so.

mmh if top players means helseth or in this example sensotix. i can understand why. do u think anet has nothing to do to browse to every persons twitch or youtubeaccount, who thinks they are “top” and dont post in the forum or get banned for rude behaviour? if the actual state of the game leads to that such ppl leave im glad.

renegade.4851:

@hooma, I’m not saying people shouldn’t post constructive feedback. But good balance changes will come from “top players” more than from newer players, nobody can deny that

hasnt allie said that it doesnt is the matter? i said the same a page before. sometimes even the in your opinion dumbest suggestion leads to something great. so why we should shut down the source of inspiration, cause we think it isnt worth listening to that?

u should stop judging suggestions how they impact the game and see it more as a inspiration. thats how it is for the developers.

your argumentation has a error. who says the best balance is at top tier level? shouldn be all levels be balanced? so why do u think a top tier player knows how it is to play in lower tiers?

i think the suggestions of all player give the perfect overview how something affect different type of playstyles.. the developer then need to figure out how to shave it that it fits overall.

maybe you misunderstood my point. I want experienced players to get the opportunity to talk personal to the devs (more than just sotg) so we get good constructive talk about how we can improve this game. That never meant that we should ignore the posts on the forum by other players, they might just have that golden ticket.

+1 on this matter.

hooma.9642:

Oblivion.8307:

the ‘top players’ do offer ideas/suggestions, but after a while it just feels pointless doing so.

mmh if top players means helseth or in this example sensotix. i can understand why. do u think anet has nothing to do to browse to every persons twitch or youtubeaccount, who thinks they are “top” and dont post in the forum or get banned for rude behaviour? if the actual state of the game leads to that such ppl leave im glad.

You’d be surprised at how many times developers are in pvp twitch streams, however most of the people who were in the ‘top’ or w/e of the game that offered suggestions have probably already quit, several months ago. You headbutt a wall enough and you eventually just give up.

renegade.4851:

maybe you misunderstood my point. I want experienced players to get the opportunity to talk personal to the devs (more than just sotg) so we get good constructive talk about how we can improve this game. That never meant that we should ignore the posts on the forum by other players, they might just have that golden ticket.

nothing wrong with that. im on your side with this. as addition i think the round table should also include lower tier players. they has a other perspective of the game. a top player can some unbalanced things negate througt skill. u cant expect that from normal players. thats why balancing should start at bottom in my opinion. if some top players abuse it it only affects a certain percentage of the playerbase and needs a little shaving.

but actual this thread goes about your last sentence. thats exact what that “top” player has requested.

Oblivion.8307:

hooma.9642:

Oblivion.8307:

the ‘top players’ do offer ideas/suggestions, but after a while it just feels pointless doing so.

mmh if top players means helseth or in this example sensotix. i can understand why. do u think anet has nothing to do to browse to every persons twitch or youtubeaccount, who thinks they are “top” and dont post in the forum or get banned for rude behaviour? if the actual state of the game leads to that such ppl leave im glad.

You’d be surprised at how many times developers are in pvp twitch streams, however most of the people who were in the ‘top’ or w/e of the game that offered suggestions have probably already quit, several months ago. You headbutt a wall enough and you eventually just give up.

i know they are on some streams. but i think u can use 1 hand or at maximum 2 hands to count how many different. dont u think the first source of suggestions should always be the official forum? nothing wrong to use vids as showcase. but if the suggestions are constructive and objective and not rude nobody has a reason to be feared to get banned by mods.

Yeah, the key is opinion from experience players need to be more in evidence.

Every people can talk about everything but look to the process:

Report system/forum feedbak —-> anet read all and anet decides what it’s good for the game and what it’s not good for the game

But you know what?

They did a bad job with this process because what we have now is a bad pvp.

So it’s ok listening everyone but i think anet should look with more attention feedback from experience people.

Anet could implement a lot of different tools to facilitate this way.

Anet experience is not enough to give to this game a decent balance.

NOTHING happened to thieves. S/D is totally broken.

MarkPhilips.5169:

Yeah, the key is opinion from experience players need to be more in evidence.

Every people can talk about everything but look to the process:

Report system/forum feedbak —-> anet read all and anet decides what it’s good for the game and what it’s not good for the game

But you know what?

They did a bad job with this process because what we have now is a bad pvp.

So it’s ok listening everyone but i think anet should look with more attention feedback from experience people.

Anet could implement a lot of different tools to facilitate this way.

Anet experience is not enough to give to this game a decent balance.

when is pvp good or bad? all that changed was the meta. pvp is in the same state like before. if u find that meta good or bad or boring or something else is personal opinion i think.

Sensotix.4106:

I feel like the devs are really listening to what people on the forums say but the big problem with this is that there are 90% or people that know little or nothing about pvp, 6 % people that have a decent knowledge and then 4% that are top tier pvp players

You are too kind.
Being bad devs isn’t caused by the forums.

Like no patch yet has been well made… that isn’t caused by listening to the wrong people on the forums.
In the end, when there are raw concepts either from the forums or your class of ‘right people’… it’s the devs and only the devs that can put them into the game and decide on the specifics…

That’s the issue.
There is no other issue.
These devs are incapable (either from corporate issues or… something else…)

PizzaSHARK.2741:

Knote.2904:

Pretty much anyone here is afraid anything they post won’t be considered by the devs. Hell even if I spend a few hours posting some indepth criticism/ideas I have in my head, and it does get seen, and maybe even acknowledged assuming the criticism/ideas are good, what are the odds they even happen or inspire the devs? Especially when you get these tiny changes after 4 months?

That’s just the nature of things. It helps to keep in mind that developers value open-ended concepts more than concrete suggestions. While I might think “Dogged March would totally be better off if it were swapped with this trait in the Master tier!”, it may not look that way when you’re viewing it from the much wider perspective of a developer. Instead, it might be better to phrase it as “Dogged March might be too strong for an Adept trait,” and let them worry about how exactly to address that issue, if they feel it’s an issue.

I’d also recommend Occam’s Razor (or the much simpler KISS, or “Keep It Simple, Stupid”) when you’re making a suggestion. The simpler the change is, the easier it’ll be to implement, and the more likely it’ll be noticed and possibly put into the game in one way or another. Changing a value from 10% to 15% is a lot more likely to happen than completely restructuring a trait line.

It’d be awesome if the developers communicated exactly what they were thinking, so you’d actually know if they agree or not… but you have to remember that they’re already getting blasted for “not taking any action.” What happens if they report their thought processes? Now they get blasted for going in the “wrong” direction?

If you played World of Warcraft, you might remember their dev team and community managers being much more open and candid during the early phases of vanilla. And then you might remember a guy that went by the name Tseric, and that pretty much explained exactly why being open and candid is not a recipe for success; not unless you’re talking to people face to face and not when they’re hiding behind a shield of anonymity.

Also people complaining about things you think aren’t an issue usually are issues. That’s where balancing for casuals vs balancing for top tier comes in, and it’s something I think Riot has does a decent job at.

It’s more about “do I want to make money off of this?” If the answer is yes, you “balance for casuals.” In general, trickle-down is the best way of balancing things, but you run into the issue you just mentioned – someone that just ain’t very good isn’t going to notice (or, in all likelihood, even care) that there’s a solution to it that players up the totem pole have figured out. This exists in pretty much every competitive game I’ve ever played, from UT (Link Gun is bullkitten, mmkay?) to Counter-Strike (try using awp sometime, see the reactions it generates), to Team Fortress (W+M1 Pyro lolololol) to World of Warcraft (hell… take your pick; people whined about literally everything.)

It’s a problem without any real solution, at least not that I’ve seen. On one hand, you tell the players that just aren’t very good (I prefer “newbies” to “casuals”) that… well, you aren’t very good, and this isn’t actually a problem at higher levels of play. I wish I could say most of them would go “Ohhhhh, okay! I’ll just get better, then!” But this is the internet; most of them will pitch a fit and call you an idiot, and say you don’t know your own game. You know… the game that you make and know more about than the next fifty players put together.

Your other option is telling those high level players to pipe down, but as you can see pretty much everywhere (in this very thread, even), those players tend to have an ego problem, and the results are pretty much the same.

Unfortunately, you can’t please everyone, so you mostly focus on pleasing the people that are paying the bills – the shareholders.

I actually follow the KISS rule when making suggestions. I do my absolute best to make it simple, even as far as a simple value change. I had a whole thread about Ele Staff changes that followed that rule.

hooma.9642:

when is pvp good or bad? all that changed was the meta. pvp is in the same state like before. if u find that meta good or bad or boring or something else is personal opinion i think.

Numbers are the solution.

How people left this pvp? How viewers has this game on streaming channel? How much interest is there about gw2 pvp in numbers? How many people approach pvp and after left?

I agree many things are personal opinion but if u want to make a very good pvp game u need to aim to big numbers, in player base and in viewers.

For now, they failed, so yes, this pvp is bad, speaking about numbers.

PizzaSHARK.2741:

IMO, I just want more “fun” for all parts of the game including spvp, just make the classes more fun, more options etc, there will always be builds that are on top, but it makes the game much more fun/interesting and offers a better chance for the players to develop/counter the meta themselves.

I haven’t played any class but Warrior yet, but I feel like ArenaNet has already done a better job of this than any other MMO company out there. Blizzard was a solid competitor back in the days of Wrath of the Lich King, but especially with Mists of Pandaria, I feel like they treaded too far into the deadly waters of “homogenization” (yay, buzzwords!)

That might just be because I’m new, though. I feel like I have a variety of ways of playing my Warrior that, while most probably aren’t the “best” way of play, are at least effective enough to let me have fun and not be a complete deadweight to my teammates or party members.

I’d definitely rather see the focus be on encouraging players to try different playstyles – whether or not those playstyles are “the best” – by focusing efforts on shoring up weaknesses in trait lines and skill choices, rather than focus on the top-tier metagame and balance solely around that.

I feel like the eSports thing will take care of itself when the game generates enough interest.

This is going slightly off topic, but with the way weapon skills are, it’s really hard to change your playstyle, you can change your build, but not really your playstyle. A Power necro with Staff is still just spamming 1 and marks on cooldown, just like a conditionmancer, for example.

If we had alternative weapon skills to choose from, or if traits actually changed how things function we would have more playstyle customization.

For example, you have a Mesmer trait that makes torch skills remove a condition, that somewhat changes the functions of your abilities, now you can think of saving those skills purely for condition removal when you need it, rather than for w/e previous function they had.

Where as if you take my Engy atm, I have for traits : Bigger Radius, or bleed/fire proc, 10% Dmg boost, Extra Grenade (more dmg), 10% Rifle dmg, 20% Reduced rifle CD, Extra Rifle range, Swiftness on kits.

That’s it, none of that changes how I play, it just adds a few more numbers to everything I was already doing previously, that’s where I feel the game could really use some improvement on.

MarkPhilips.5169:

hooma.9642:

when is pvp good or bad? all that changed was the meta. pvp is in the same state like before. if u find that meta good or bad or boring or something else is personal opinion i think.

Numbers are the solution.

How people left this pvp? How viewers has this game on streaming channel? How much interest is there about gw2 pvp? in numbers? How many people approach pvp and after left?

I agree many things are personal opinion but if u want to do a very good pvp game u need to hire to aim to big numbers, in player base and in viewers.

For now, they failed, so yes, this pvp is bad, speaking about numbers.

but thats not a necessary a reason of bad balancing. leaving the game with that reason is just an excuse in my opinion. if u accept the fact that gw2 is a complex game with many variables its hard to balance and maybe never perfect. using this as a reason to leave is an excuse.

if the suggestions arent about balancing whats the difference between a top and a normal player? does a normal player want different things? no progression? no reward? no other modes? no better leaderboard? i think except balance all the players share the same needs no matter how competive they play.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The patch has been out for 2 days. There were so many changes that we really need to let things settle and let people find their way. Big balance changes like this shake things up a lot, and nobody can know how the community will adapt to the change until they adapt to the change, which usually takes longer than a couple days.

Any feedback on the changes at this point is knee-jerk, because there simply has not been enough time to gauge how things will be until it settles.

I really appreciate your posts Allie, but you’re really going to annoy some people if you say stuff like this, I don’t think any players here feel this patch had “big balance changes” at all, a few balance changes and the rest mostly bug fixes and QOL fixes (which btw were great QOL fixes).

I honestly don’t feel there’s that much room for innovation in the game atm for players to really “adapt to the changes”.

It’s tricky getting heard here dude.. The art is in coming across like your opinion matters without putting down other players.

It can be tricky though, for example most of my contributions rarely cause people to disagree or criticise, but that can often prevent them from being discussed fully. Can be a real shame sometimes.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The patch has been out for 2 days. There were so many changes that we really need to let things settle and let people find their way. Big balance changes like this shake things up a lot, and nobody can know how the community will adapt to the change until they adapt to the change, which usually takes longer than a couple days.

Maybe this is a bad place to post a suggestion, as I am not an experienced tournament player. ^^

I think it would be rather awesome if the top teams could test balance changes. A custom arena maybe, where those teams could play matches against one another, before the changes went live.

That way, feedback from experienced players could be handed directly to the developers. Balance would be tested by experienced players, and the rest of us would still have the option to voice our opinions afterwards to cower anything not discovered through testing.

I am sure I am not the first to think of this

Phaeton.9582:

It’s tricky getting heard here dude.. The art is in coming across like your opinion matters without putting down other players.

It can be tricky though, for example most of my contributions rarely cause people to disagree or criticise, but that can often prevent them from being discussed fully. Can be a real shame sometimes.

maybe they arent bad and the most ppl agree with them and doesnt see any faults atm?

Everyone send me your ideas. The devs listen to me.

I also have mind control.

I think Balance really is a very difficult beast.

So i think everyone can talk about suggestions to every aspect of the game but i really think balance is a different beast and no everyone can give good suggestions if they don’t have the right experience, expecially in tournament pvp.

So my point is:

better tools to communicate with anet for experience people or a different way to underline their replies in a forum discussion or more events like sotg with top players/experience players.

Of course, the very important key is how many resources anet wants to spend in pvp.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Big balance changes like this shake things up a lot…

This is the sort of willful ignorance that infuriates me to no end. Please do tell us of all the “BIG BALANCE CHANGES.” We have Allie in here telling us that we need time to adapt to big changes and then we have Sharp in another thread commenting on how tool tip clarifications are going to open up whole new world of builds to the people who already knew what the actual abilities did (guess why, because people have been testing the abilities for over a year).

There were no BIG changes, we got tool tip descriptions, minor changes to a few professions on abilities or sets that still need tuning, and stun rounding changes (which crippled a moderately successful build in s/p thieves and did nothing to stun/cc lock warriors).

it bothers me that the devs see this patch as a “balance” patch, when the majority of the changes were bug fixes and tooltips.

any know coh2? some of the streamers has sometimes a dev as co-moderator where they talk about something what they think or how they intended how to use something or the philosophy or reason behind something.

i think if some streamers would get sometimes anet-devs as co-mods would be nice. it doesnt need to be a long cast and not necessary about future plans. the evolving of the meta could be topic or the streamer and the dev try to build a new build for a profession and test it.

The problem is that Anet likes to makes it seem like they are doing a lot by putting out these “big changes” patches. I don’t understand why the priorities always seem to be on the most useless fixes, and not addressing the most important issues head-on. It happens all the time. Previously, you would see a “big balance patch” and when you read the list of changes, 90% of it are tool-tip fixes. How exactly is fixing tool-tips going to affect gameplay? I’m not going to go “OMG, THE RADIUS WAS WRONG THIS WHOLE TIME??? NO WONDER I KEEP LOSING!”

It almost seems like the staff think that pvpers don’t test their skills/traits enough to realize that a tool-tip is working as intended or not. Regardless, tool-tip changes are not going to all of a sudden fix imbalances…in fact it only highlights them.

I don’t think I speak for myself when I say that the whole trait description add-on was totally unnecessary. It’s much more of a perk to add on AFTER the meta is in a good place. Just because we have descriptions of traits now, it doesn’t make them anymore used than before. Veterans would still be using the same traits, and no description is going to make a light bulb go off in their head.

Claiming that these patches are big balance changes is just nonsense. I’m sure a lot of players would have wanted the devs to spend their time working on things that are actually important, than to work on trivial systems such as trait descriptions.

I just don’t understand how their prioritizing works, and who agrees to those priorities…do they just sit down and go “Hey, I think a trait description add-on would be a total game changer!!! Pvpers would love it!! Let us do that before serious balances and better reward systems.”

It seems so silly to me. When I see “big balance patches” like these, I just think that they don’t have the resources to put out the necessary changes, so they just start doing the things that don’t really matter so that it seems like a lot was done. I believe true pvpers would rather wait for a quality balance patch than to see a patch like this after months of horrible Meta play.

I wouldn’t say you need top players to help with design which I find to be the larger issue here. So things like game mode, skill set flow, risk/reward and profession roles. Those are things I don’t expect to be correlated to a persons skill with the game.

Now top players can help with tweaking things from a balance perspective but it takes a designer to get it into the ball park, which I don’t feel has been done successfully yet. The problem for me is beyond number tweaks, its the out of the box thinking the game needs.

Say if the game was still in early stages of development, for myself it would be completely redesigned the very role of guardians and thieves. Then retooling ranger, necro, mesmer and engi with counterplay in mind. Engi could use a more refined role too but doesn’t need to throw away what it currently has. Warrior needs some pretty extensive balance changes but the foundation is much closer. Eles a bit like the warrior but less extensive.

So for my standards players can help with warrior and ele but the rest of the classes falls on the devs to still retool and give us an acceptable ball park figure. Now my standards are probably much higher than the average developer so I definitely don’t expect large fundamental changes to guardian or thief. But for the game to have a chance at least some retooling of skill sets is necessary to get away from all the rotation spamming and create some real player interaction.

Now when it comes to warrior and ele, where player feedback can be valuable, yep I would definitely say there is a lot of listening to the wrong people based on recent changes. The hard about providing this feedback is finding a standard to use kitten much still needs work.

Fourth.1567:

I wouldn’t say you need top players to help with design which I find to be the larger issue here. So things like game mode, skill set flow, risk/reward and profession roles. Those are things I don’t expect to be correlated to a persons skill with the game.

Now top players can help with tweaking things from a balance perspective but it takes a designer to get it into the ball park, which I don’t feel has been done successfully yet. The problem for me is beyond number tweaks, its the out of the box thinking the game needs.

Say if the game was still in early stages of development, for myself it would be completely redesigned the very role of guardians and thieves. Then retooling ranger, necro, mesmer and engi with counterplay in mind. Engi could use a more refined role too but doesn’t need to throw away what it currently has. Warrior needs some pretty extensive balance changes but the foundation is much closer. Eles a bit like the warrior but less extensive.

So for my standards players can help with warrior and ele but the rest of the classes falls on the devs to still retool and give us an acceptable ball park figure. Now my standards are probably much higher than the average developer so I definitely don’t expect large fundamental changes to guardian or thief. But for the game to have a chance at least some retooling of skill sets is necessary to get away from all the rotation spamming and create some real player interaction.

Now when it comes to warrior and ele, where player feedback can be valuable, yep I would definitely say there is a lot of listening to the wrong people based on recent changes. The hard about providing this feedback is finding a standard to use kitten much still needs work.

There needs to be a lot more tweaks, even just simple band-aid fixes like value changes.

Look at Engy turrets, they’ve been terrible since beta, and they STILL haven’t really tried to make them useful. Target priority was one small thing, and even that doesn’t work very well.

20+ turret bugs aside, why is it that they can’t buff the cooldowns on turrets to something reasonable? But they can hotfix a trait to stop doing 16k dmg? (Just reducing the cooldowns to the point of using them reliably would be make me happy about them even with bugs)

These sort of things are what TRULY bother me. I would be baffled if I had something in my game of one year that was still this poor, even ignoring bugs or hard to fix bugs, you can give them bandaid fixes.

Which is another thing, Anet is capable of band aid fixes. Kits and Conjures were full of them. Conjures especially, they’re the epitome of what band-aid fixes can do, despite their very clunky implementation. Conjures used to be GARBAGE, then they just gave them a bunch of dmg, boom, now they’re useful.

This is off topic now…. so I’ll stop.

Allie Murdock.8152:

There is no single part of our player base that we should or do listen to more than the other. Every player has equal opportunity to say how they feel, and the “4%-10%” is not excluded in that. What we “listen” to is reason and objective feedback.

Do note though, what we listen to != what we implement (at least not right away). We read your suggestions all the time, but sometimes those suggestions are not in line with the pillars of our game. Sometimes those suggestions are ill-informed. Sometimes those suggestions are selfish (buff x class “cuz it’s my fave and I want to roll over everyone”). Sometimes those suggestions are so great that it inspires us to add a new project to the backlog. Sometimes those suggestions are already a part of the project we are working on.

Most of the time, we can’t immediately implement good suggestions. These things take time and discussion. These things have to be weighed against other things and prioritized.

All of this doesn’t matter though, if the 4%-10% spends little to no time giving us feedback for one reason or another (inactive, don’t care, think we don’t listen even if that’s wrong, etc.).

Ideally, you would all feel comfortable and willing to share your objective feedback, but that is not always the case, and that is not something we can control.

Good response to a problem as old as game forums. I used to get concerned when I saw a bunch of people suggesting stuff I thought was a bad idea. But then I realized that someone more casual (or more hardcore) than me might have a good idea, and I might not be right 100% of the time.

Amaterasu.6280:

The problem is that Anet likes to makes it seem like they are doing a lot by putting out these “big changes” patches. I don’t understand why the priorities always seem to be on the most useless fixes, and not addressing the most important issues head-on. It happens all the time. Previously, you would see a “big balance patch” and when you read the list of changes, 90% of it are tool-tip fixes. How exactly is fixing tool-tips going to affect gameplay? I’m not going to go “OMG, THE RADIUS WAS WRONG THIS WHOLE TIME??? NO WONDER I KEEP LOSING!”

It almost seems like the staff think that pvpers don’t test their skills/traits enough to realize that a tool-tip is working as intended or not. Regardless, tool-tip changes are not going to all of a sudden fix imbalances…in fact it only highlights them.

I don’t think I speak for myself when I say that the whole trait description add-on was totally unnecessary. It’s much more of a perk to add on AFTER the meta is in a good place. Just because we have descriptions of traits now, it doesn’t make them anymore used than before. Veterans would still be using the same traits, and no description is going to make a light bulb go off in their head.

Claiming that these patches are big balance changes is just nonsense. I’m sure a lot of players would have wanted the devs to spend their time working on things that are actually important, than to work on trivial systems such as trait descriptions.

I just don’t understand how their prioritizing works, and who agrees to those priorities…do they just sit down and go “Hey, I think a trait description add-on would be a total game changer!!! Pvpers would love it!! Let us do that before serious balances and better reward systems.”

It seems so silly to me. When I see “big balance patches” like these, I just think that they don’t have the resources to put out the necessary changes, so they just start doing the things that don’t really matter so that it seems like a lot was done. I believe true pvpers would rather wait for a quality balance patch than to see a patch like this after months of horrible Meta play.

I agree with you but the other side to the story is this helps new players get into pvp faster, and learn. Sadly this shouldn’t be needed as we all learned the hard way by testing repeatedly. Or for the lazy/dumb reading the wiki.