Did I miss something? I thought after the pvp season ended there was going to be a Balance patch. I’m a little disappointed , too many classes got nerfed in the last patch i was hoping ANET would have came up with some ideas by now. GS necro , ELementalist and Engineer really need some rework… Is it being delayed ? Did i miss the memo?
There was no guarantee we’d get the balance patch today. Last season’s balance patch came two weeks after the season ended, so I’d assume we’ll get the same again this time.
C’mon, by now you must realize ANet doesn’t prioritize important aspects of core gameplay.
Thie question is would you rather them push out a “balance” patch right away, or take their time and do a much more complete patch?
Balance patch right away. They can release complete patches and all that other crap when they release the new episode.
Thie question is would you rather them push out a “balance” patch right away, or take their time and do a much more complete patch?
Following that mentality has reduced the PvP population to what it currently is. so… no i wouldnt.
jeez no patience …
I guess they believe the game is perfectly balanced as-is. (I would certainly like to see the Elementalist Staff skill #2’s recharge speed restored to something closer to where it used to be. It seems sooooooo slow now. I have been doing a lot more of “1111111111” since it got nerfed).
Thie question is would you rather them push out a “balance” patch right away, or take their time and do a much more complete patch?
Seeing as quality from ANet’s balance team is almost completely unrelated to the amount of time between patches because they don’t know what they’re doing… immediately.
jeez no patience …
….
We have been waiting for 2 months now (if next week then 2,5)
its fine if they give 4 big balance patches per year but they also need to do smaller updates in between.. Anet is just way too slow on this for 4 years now.
and even with the big balance updates they just shift the meta around and be done with it. thats what Anet does.
I agree. For content patches it is fine to have them quarterly. For balance patches, those should be going out monthly at least. The best way to keep the game balanced is to be constantly tweaking it. If you are trying to shift a class’s role, then waiting 3 months to change something, and then another 3 months to determine whether that was too much or not enough means that you only achieve real “progress” on your balancing every 6 months.
Balance the classes every month ANet. You can save the bigger reworks for every 3 – 6 months, but at least be tweaking numbers every month.
jeez no patience …
….
We have been waiting for 2 months now (if next week then 2,5)
its fine if they give 4 big balance patches per year but they also need to do smaller updates in between.. Anet is just way too slow on this for 4 years now.
and even with the big balance updates they just shift the meta around and be done with it. thats what Anet does.I agree. For content patches it is fine to have them quarterly. For balance patches, those should be going out monthly at least. The best way to keep the game balanced is to be constantly tweaking it. If you are trying to shift a class’s role, then waiting 3 months to change something, and then another 3 months to determine whether that was too much or not enough means that you only achieve real “progress” on your balancing every 6 months.
Balance the classes every month ANet. You can save the bigger reworks for every 3 – 6 months, but at least be tweaking numbers every month.
Preach! PREEEACH. Anet never listens to the god kitten Players.. The people that play the dang game…
I don’t mind even every 4 months balance changes but – Anet sledge hammers balance changes and wait 4 months to pick any pieces up – they often times it shifts one class “out of meta”; not just PvP; and waiting 4 months for ANY changes just sucks for that class.
Anet had mentioned more frequent balance updates; I guess that’s for next year lol. My guess is when the big halloween update comes will be balance stuff.
Apparently we haven’t been “patient enough”.
The balance patch is usually a little after the season ends rather than bang on season end. They make the big patch, possibly put in a second one just before the season starts if it’s obvious that they’ve gone too far or not far enough with something, and then the next season starts.
I think unrealistic expectations pretty much sums up this forum.
Last balance patch was late July. So 3 months later would be late October. I would say in 2 or 3 weeks.
Yes release a balance patch immediately so that we can immediately complain about how terrible it is and demand another balance patch immediately
Yes release a balance patch immediately so that we can immediately complain about how terrible it is and demand another balance patch immediately
Honestly this is what the game needs though. It needs several quick iteration balance patches back to back to get the classes more balanced with each other.
This company doesn’t have the resources to do anything that actually makes sense for pvp. It’s a small group of staff members making the most out of a crappy situation.
Yes release a balance patch immediately so that we can immediately complain about how terrible it is and demand another balance patch immediately
Honestly this is what the game needs though. It needs several quick iteration balance patches back to back to get the classes more balanced with each other.
Exactly!, why Anet it’s not getting that constant balance patches is one of the keys for have a succesful pvp, nobody wants to play a stale meta (specially if your fav class got kittened with the last balance patch), if they did AT LEAST, a mid season balance, along with the off season balance, i’m 100% people would be not so angry with the balances patches because hey “maybe my class can take a comeback in mid season with the next balance patch”.
This company doesn’t have the resources to do anything that actually makes sense for pvp. It’s a small group of staff members making the most out of a crappy situation.
It’s a small group of staff that hasn’t decided on a concept and keeps changing everything to “shake things up”, if they allocated their resources accordingly and set forth an actual concept it wouldn’t be an issue.
Right now with them finally allowing for separate gamemode balance they could implement small balance tweaks on a shorter schedule which if done properly and actually attempt for a semblance of balance will draw more players in and would increase their resources, one way they could be able to have the resources for these balances for pvp would be to give the pvp dev team control over class balance solely for pvp skills and traits.
The biggest issue it seems is they are setting a lot of their resources on future content before setting up a foundation of balance in the mean time.
This company doesn’t have the resources to do anything that actually makes sense for pvp. It’s a small group of staff members making the most out of a crappy situation.
It’s a small group of staff that hasn’t decided on a concept and keeps changing everything to “shake things up”, if they allocated their resources accordingly and set forth an actual concept it wouldn’t be an issue.
Right now with them finally allowing for separate gamemode balance they could implement small balance tweaks on a shorter schedule which if done properly and actually attempt for a semblance of balance will draw more players in and would increase their resources, one way they could be able to have the resources for these balances for pvp would be to give the pvp dev team control over class balance solely for pvp skills and traits.
The biggest issue it seems is they are setting a lot of their resources on future content before setting up a foundation of balance in the mean time.
The concept of separating balance by game mode is all lip service. Sure you’re going to have minor tweaks that they separate, but they don’t have the resources to manage it the way they want you to believe they can. This was completely evident when they stated that the pvp team does not do the balancing. They also have no direction, because they lack the man power to push in any given direction. They are simply in game maintenance mode.
That’s right. Your favorite spec didn’t get buffed today. It also didn’t get nerfed. We have the same meta for 2 more weeks. The same meta that sees very little overlap in terms of roles that the meta builds fill. A meta where every class has a useful meta build. A meta where there is plenty of niche stuff that works well enough as well.
Devs have done a nice job of shaving HOT specs since they launched, and buffing vanilla utilities, weapons and traits. As a returning player I’m very happy with the current state of the game compared to even pre HOT metas. There isn’t currently any class that’s as dominant as the old D/D cele ele. No class in the meta that does absolutely everything.
Also 3 months is a pretty solid cadence for balance, considering the combat system in this game. There are so many different skill combinations and interactions for each class individually before you even start looking at how classes work with and against one another. The most recent world champ is a great example of how long it takes for the meta to actually settle after a balance patch.
That’s right. Your favorite spec didn’t get buffed today. It also didn’t get nerfed. We have the same meta for 2 more weeks. The same meta that sees very little overlap in terms of roles that the meta builds fill. A meta where every class has a useful meta build. A meta where there is plenty of niche stuff that works well enough as well.
Devs have done a nice job of shaving HOT specs since they launched, and buffing vanilla utilities, weapons and traits. As a returning player I’m very happy with the current state of the game compared to even pre HOT metas. There isn’t currently any class that’s as dominant as the old D/D cele ele. No class in the meta that does absolutely everything.
Also 3 months is a pretty solid cadence for balance, considering the combat system in this game. There are so many different skill combinations and interactions for each class individually before you even start looking at how classes work with and against one another. The most recent world champ is a great example of how long it takes for the meta to actually settle after a balance patch.
Balance is about more than just PvP. But even if we just look at PvP, few classes had more than 1-2 viable builds this past season, which indicates that while balance appears good, true balance is not that great. Yea, no class was “terrible”, but being forced into a certain build is not what GW2 was advertised as (what happened to play how you like?), and the truth is that some classes were forced into a single build or 2 for the entire season.
Besides, it doesn’t really matter how long the meta takes to “settle” after a balance patch. The game mode would be more diverse and more engaging with more frequent balance patches (especially if at least one happened during each season). Everyone playing their meta build becomes stale extremely quickly, you know what to expect from the other team before the match starts. Only exceptions are extremely low divisions, where the skill level is so low it doesn’t matter, and extremely high levels of play (like the ESL) where the skill level is so high that they can adapt. It would be healthy for the game if it were balanced so frequently that people didn’t have time to “settle” into the meta and you didn’t know exactly what people were running before the match started based on their class.
Honestly if any PvP player can’t handle not knowing what the other team may be running buildwise then they aren’t very competent in the first place. If you can only play “well” by knowing what to expect then you don’t deserve to get to a high division ( /minirant).
But even beyond that. PvP is a small part of this game, and the leagues are something that just a portion of the PvP community partakes in. It is NOT healthy for ANet to wait on balancing the rest of the kittening game to fit around the timetable of this minority of content and minority of players.
I think it’s clear at this point that we need a dedicated team to work solely only in pvp balance, and therefore, more constant balance patches
One of the big problems with constant balance patches, is the changes they make to a build, affect both PvP AND PvE alike right now. There’s no real separation between the two of how they work. So you can buff something or nerf something to work well in pvp between individual classes, but it can and will affect the PvE play style drastically. The AI you fight in the world are nothing like going against PvP players. So until they make a way to keep the two separated in terms of balancing, it takes too much work to find how changing a skill for PvP will affect the player in PvE.
Take the necro “Rise” nerf from 50%-33% reduction. It did lower a necros survivability somewhat in PvP, but not drastically (at least through my experience of using it on a necro). However in PvE, that has made a huge change in how much damage you can take through Raids, and even some of the newer maps if you run solo. There’s just too much being affected right now for “fast/quick” hotfixes to balances.
As I stated, maybe if/when they get a way to separate the balances, then maybe…MAYBE there could be the potential for more frequent balance patches.
That’s right. Your favorite spec didn’t get buffed today. It also didn’t get nerfed. We have the same meta for 2 more weeks. The same meta that sees very little overlap in terms of roles that the meta builds fill. A meta where every class has a useful meta build. A meta where there is plenty of niche stuff that works well enough as well.
Devs have done a nice job of shaving HOT specs since they launched, and buffing vanilla utilities, weapons and traits. As a returning player I’m very happy with the current state of the game compared to even pre HOT metas. There isn’t currently any class that’s as dominant as the old D/D cele ele. No class in the meta that does absolutely everything.
Also 3 months is a pretty solid cadence for balance, considering the combat system in this game. There are so many different skill combinations and interactions for each class individually before you even start looking at how classes work with and against one another. The most recent world champ is a great example of how long it takes for the meta to actually settle after a balance patch.
Balance is about more than just PvP. But even if we just look at PvP, few classes had more than 1-2 viable builds this past season, which indicates that while balance appears good, true balance is not that great. Yea, no class was “terrible”, but being forced into a certain build is not what GW2 was advertised as (what happened to play how you like?), and the truth is that some classes were forced into a single build or 2 for the entire season.
Besides, it doesn’t really matter how long the meta takes to “settle” after a balance patch. The game mode would be more diverse and more engaging with more frequent balance patches (especially if at least one happened during each season). Everyone playing their meta build becomes stale extremely quickly, you know what to expect from the other team before the match starts. Only exceptions are extremely low divisions, where the skill level is so low it doesn’t matter, and extremely high levels of play (like the ESL) where the skill level is so high that they can adapt. It would be healthy for the game if it were balanced so frequently that people didn’t have time to “settle” into the meta and you didn’t know exactly what people were running before the match started based on their class.
Honestly if any PvP player can’t handle not knowing what the other team may be running buildwise then they aren’t very competent in the first place. If you can only play “well” by knowing what to expect then you don’t deserve to get to a high division ( /minirant).
But even beyond that. PvP is a small part of this game, and the leagues are something that just a portion of the PvP community partakes in. It is NOT healthy for ANet to wait on balancing the rest of the kittening game to fit around the timetable of this minority of content and minority of players.
Whether you like it or not match up knowledge is a large part of what makes a skilled player skilled. It’s what informs his or her decisions in preparing for the match, rotations during the match and then what skills to use or plays to make once youre in the desired match up. In fact I’d argue that a lack of knowledge regarding matchups is what catches players off guard and fuels the success of the non meta builds that are out there. What you suggest as far as what you consider makes a pvp player good isn’t actually that the base their play less on match up knowledge but that they have knowledge of every possible matchup in the game ever. That’s a pretty high skill floor indeed!
If you have 1 or 2 really strong builds per class, let’s call them archetypes or roles, then players can better predict what they’re team is capable of relative to the opposing team.
Again 3 months is a really solid balance cadence, not just for pvp but for the game as a whole. In that period of time, without balance changes being made, you will still see players at all levels of the game tweaking builds to better counter specific comps or get faster clears or whatever. If you want to talk about balance and other game modes it’s probably also going to be important to note that changes to the actual game mode have as important an effect on builds and comps as actual balance changes do. Heck, just sticking to pvp look at how differently each map plays!
Whether you like it or not, a skilled PvP player will know all the classes to some degree and be able to adjust his or her build on the fly if it isn’t cutting it in the current game. The current meta style of PvP is not good for the game, encourages learning a specific rotation on your skills instead of how to think through playing against any opponent. Going in expecting others to be playing meta builds and knowing how to counter those doesn’t make you “good” at PvP, it makes you good at learning a simple rotation of your skills. Which is useless when you try to fight against someone who is actually good at PvP.
The fact of the matter is that balance changes don’t come often enough.
To address the OP: there will be an off-season balance patch – it just won’t happen this week. Sorry for the confusion!
grouch when or i blow up ur skype
grouch when or i blow up ur skype
I’m contacting the cyber police right meow.
Whether you like it or not match up knowledge is a large part of what makes a skilled player skilled. It’s what informs his or her decisions in preparing for the match, rotations during the match and then what skills to use or plays to make once youre in the desired match up. In fact I’d argue that a lack of knowledge regarding matchups is what catches players off guard and fuels the success of the non meta builds that are out there. What you suggest as far as what you consider makes a pvp player good isn’t actually that the base their play less on match up knowledge but that they have knowledge of every possible matchup in the game ever. That’s a pretty high skill floor indeed!
Skill is almost solely determined in PvP games by the capacity to adapt and have that knowledge at any given time for any scenario. A player that knows a few select builds says next to nothing about the quality of player; this is the sole reason chess is timed.
You’re confusing skill floor with the skill ceiling. A perfect player will know all of the builds and possibilities. A new one will know none of them. It doesn’t require any more knowledge of the other professions to perform on a semi-functional level on any given one of them. The thief stands as a half-exception, but honestly that has more to do with imbalances within the class/sPvP amulet system more than anything.
It ends up being no different from the current sPvP scene; low-tier play has more diverse builds running around because the people in low-tier play either do not care about the meta or are not aware of it. Innately the argument that allowing more builds => higher skill floor is invalid on the sheer principle that this is already how it is at the lowest echelons of play, and the meta stabilizes more and more as one progresses upwards. Good design dictates either an inconsistency between what is considered good across tiers of play or simply consistency of a degree of diversity. GW2 lacks this in pretty much every game mode, indicating design flaws are rampant.
If you have 1 or 2 really strong builds per class, let’s call them archetypes or roles, then players can better predict what they’re team is capable of relative to the opposing team.
I disagree. My enemy should not know how to beat me as soon as he sees my profession icon. I shouldn’t be able to know the same against him, either.
Again 3 months is a really solid balance cadence, not just for pvp but for the game as a whole. In that period of time, without balance changes being made, you will still see players at all levels of the game tweaking builds to better counter specific comps or get faster clears or whatever. If you want to talk about balance and other game modes it’s probably also going to be important to note that changes to the actual game mode have as important an effect on builds and comps as actual balance changes do. Heck, just sticking to pvp look at how differently each map plays!
I’m not sure what you’re getting thse claims from, but 3 months is considered horrible cadence if the meta does not change. Minor fluctuations in how people approach the game should be happening almost every month, if not new strategies on a game-by-game basis shifting rapidly. We’re almost a year in with next to no changes in the overarching meta since HoT, and almost four years in with next to no changes in the overarching style in terms of how people approach PvP. Competitive GW2 never took off for this sole reason: the meta is simply too stale to make the game interesting to play on that hyper-competitive level, and the gameplay is too stale in terms of its balance to make people want to watch it, because every game looks pretty much the same.
Pretending like the state of the game in PvP and WvW is good right now is nothing more than pretending.
Grouch, are you going to nerf my precious symbolic guardian and make me sad again or nah?
To be honest he should at least fix DH f1 and make it slower and the pull stop interrupting dodges. But other than that and and maybe some instant traps that need cast time, DH damage is fine.
jeez no patience …
….
We have been waiting for 2 months now (if next week then 2,5)
its fine if they give 4 big balance patches per year but they also need to do smaller updates in between.. Anet is just way too slow on this for 4 years now.
and even with the big balance updates they just shift the meta around and be done with it. thats what Anet does.
Yes, that is exactly what Anet does. They shoot towards cyclical imbalance. Once you understand that they, the developers don’t want the game to be perfectly imbalanced and you understand what cyclical imbalance is, the way the Devs have balanced GW2 makes the absolute sense.
jeez no patience …
….
We have been waiting for 2 months now (if next week then 2,5)
its fine if they give 4 big balance patches per year but they also need to do smaller updates in between.. Anet is just way too slow on this for 4 years now.
and even with the big balance updates they just shift the meta around and be done with it. thats what Anet does.Yes, that is exactly what Anet does. They shoot towards cyclical imbalance. Once you understand that they, the developers don’t want the game to be perfectly imbalanced and you understand what cyclical imbalance is, the way the Devs have balanced GW2 makes the absolute sense.
people are waiting for critical class bugfixes since HoT started and hoped it would have been implemented this tuesday. But meh.
Please make thief press more buttons than just auto attacking for max dps/. ele need to press 1 million buttons no lag just to match theif dps who is only press 1 button.. no fair.
if thief not checked . making and abusing this easy mode class to press only 1 button for most dps int he entire game.
Please make thief press more buttons than just auto attacking for max dps/. ele need to press 1 million buttons no lag just to match theif dps who is only press 1 button.. no fair.
if thief not checked . making and abusing this easy mode class to press only 1 button for most dps int he entire game.
You try playing thief in PvP and see how easy-mode it is. You can’t ask for this change simply based on raid DPS. Besides, I think the highest thief DPS comes from keeping up Lead Attacks, which requires you to spend Initiative. That means they need to use more than AA’s.
Edit: I made an assumption and not sure if it’s correct but calling thief easy-mode is in any case wrong.
(edited by Yannir.4132)
jeez no patience …
….
We have been waiting for 2 months now (if next week then 2,5)
its fine if they give 4 big balance patches per year but they also need to do smaller updates in between.. Anet is just way too slow on this for 4 years now.
and even with the big balance updates they just shift the meta around and be done with it. thats what Anet does.Yes, that is exactly what Anet does. They shoot towards cyclical imbalance. Once you understand that they, the developers don’t want the game to be perfectly imbalanced and you understand what cyclical imbalance is, the way the Devs have balanced GW2 makes the absolute sense.
So you watched a youtube vid about perfect imbalance? good for you.
I recall that video mentioning that games which utilize cyclical imbalance well, tend to have a vast amount of different characters that fluctuate in viability, like LoL. The problem here is that there is a very limited amount of builds that flactuate in viability. With more elite specs that could change, but right now cyclical imbalance seems to make for a stale game in every game mode.
Also, if the rumors are true, the next balance patch will focus on WvW. Expect stuff like boonshare nerfs. I don’t think much will be fixed in PvP in this patch.
Where are the balance patch rumors posted, btw?
Where are the balance patch rumors posted, btw?
No rumors, just confirmed balance patch for the next week or 2 weeks
Please make thief press more buttons than just auto attacking for max dps/. ele need to press 1 million buttons no lag just to match theif dps who is only press 1 button.. no fair.
if thief not checked . making and abusing this easy mode class to press only 1 button for most dps int he entire game.
You try playing thief in PvP and see how easy-mode it is. You can’t ask for this change simply based on raid DPS. Besides, I think the highest thief DPS comes from keeping up Lead Attacks, which requires you to spend Initiative. That means they need to use more than AA’s.
Edit: I made an assumption and not sure if it’s correct but calling thief easy-mode is in any case wrong.
Adding more to what you said, a thief in pvp can’t just stay there AAing, it would be suicide once they are aware of you.
Thief in raids concist of using Bounding Dodger + Fist Flurry or Weakening Charge in order to achieve max dps, it’s not only aa, there are many other classes with more worse dps situations than ele, be glad your class is accepted around all the wings at least, *cough*Engies*cough*.
Easy in pve, but hard and unrewarding in pvp.
(edited by Ivantreil.3092)
Grouch, are you going to nerf my precious symbolic guardian and make me sad again or nah?
Yes, please do and thank you.
Grouch, are you going to nerf my precious symbolic guardian and make me sad again or nah?
Yes, please do and thank you.
Not a guardian’s fault you pickef thf.
Whether you like it or not match up knowledge is a large part of what makes a skilled player skilled. It’s what informs his or her decisions in preparing for the match, rotations during the match and then what skills to use or plays to make once youre in the desired match up. In fact I’d argue that a lack of knowledge regarding matchups is what catches players off guard and fuels the success of the non meta builds that are out there. What you suggest as far as what you consider makes a pvp player good isn’t actually that the base their play less on match up knowledge but that they have knowledge of every possible matchup in the game ever. That’s a pretty high skill floor indeed!
Skill is almost solely determined in PvP games by the capacity to adapt and have that knowledge at any given time for any scenario. A player that knows a few select builds says next to nothing about the quality of player; this is the sole reason chess is timed.
You’re confusing skill floor with the skill ceiling. A perfect player will know all of the builds and possibilities. A new one will know none of them. It doesn’t require any more knowledge of the other professions to perform on a semi-functional level on any given one of them. The thief stands as a half-exception, but honestly that has more to do with imbalances within the class/sPvP amulet system more than anything.
It ends up being no different from the current sPvP scene; low-tier play has more diverse builds running around because the people in low-tier play either do not care about the meta or are not aware of it. Innately the argument that allowing more builds => higher skill floor is invalid on the sheer principle that this is already how it is at the lowest echelons of play, and the meta stabilizes more and more as one progresses upwards. Good design dictates either an inconsistency between what is considered good across tiers of play or simply consistency of a degree of diversity. GW2 lacks this in pretty much every game mode, indicating design flaws are rampant.
If you have 1 or 2 really strong builds per class, let’s call them archetypes or roles, then players can better predict what they’re team is capable of relative to the opposing team.
I disagree. My enemy should not know how to beat me as soon as he sees my profession icon. I shouldn’t be able to know the same against him, either.
Again 3 months is a really solid balance cadence, not just for pvp but for the game as a whole. In that period of time, without balance changes being made, you will still see players at all levels of the game tweaking builds to better counter specific comps or get faster clears or whatever. If you want to talk about balance and other game modes it’s probably also going to be important to note that changes to the actual game mode have as important an effect on builds and comps as actual balance changes do. Heck, just sticking to pvp look at how differently each map plays!
I’m not sure what you’re getting thse claims from, but 3 months is considered horrible cadence if the meta does not change. Minor fluctuations in how people approach the game should be happening almost every month, if not new strategies on a game-by-game basis shifting rapidly. We’re almost a year in with next to no changes in the overarching meta since HoT, and almost four years in with next to no changes in the overarching style in terms of how people approach PvP. Competitive GW2 never took off for this sole reason: the meta is simply too stale to make the game interesting to play on that hyper-competitive level, and the gameplay is too stale in terms of its balance to make people want to watch it, because every game looks pretty much the same.
Pretending like the state of the game in PvP and WvW is good right now is nothing more than pretending.
Finally someone gets it.
This needs to happen right meow! Sick of it. It would be especially nice if you could do it before WvW reset tomorrow night?
Right now with them finally allowing for separate gamemode balance they could implement small balance tweaks on a shorter schedule
The impediment to a faster turn-around time and more experimentation with balance changes is a highly interconnected, vertical company structure; you generally need a flat, sparse structure for rapid iteration.
Splitting skills between modes would help in as much as it untangled that structure. In the case of GW2, it has, as best I can tell, made it even more tangled. So I would not get my hopes up there.
I recall that video mentioning that games which utilize cyclical imbalance well, tend to have a vast amount of different characters that fluctuate in viability, like LoL. The problem here is that there is a very limited amount of builds that flactuate in viability.
Games that are built for PvP in that way build their characters (or options, or whatnot) on similar skeletons with minor variations. Fighting games are the canonical example, where every character gets a variety of similar moves that fill similar purposes – this ensures that they all, at the very least, have the tools necessary to be minimally viable. If you’re playing DotA or LoL, a lot of early game efficacy is simply in your basic attacks, and your late game power from your items – character kits do matter immensely in how different characters play, but you can be minimally effective simply by farming effectively with your basic attack and building tank / DPS / etc on basically anything (in LoL, ADC Soraka or tank Yi aren’t optimal by any stretch, but are useful examples of how far the common elements take you).
GW2 lacks many of those common pieces. It hews closer to it than some MMOs (basic attacks and dodges), but GW2 instead piles most of its power into unique abilities and effects that are specific not even to certain classes, but to specific builds for those classes. Furthermore, since there is not a big common pool of abilities, counters or anti-strategies are not widespread – they are also confined to specific characters and builds.
If I’m playing Magic, and a particular card is wildly overpowered, it ends up fueling a variety of decks – a core strategy with more synergy, as well as a bunch of unrelated strategies that may not want it if it were balanced, but will distort to include it anyway. There are hard specific counters as well as natural counters in the variety of options that emerge to prey upon the alpha strategy.
If I’m playing GW1 and hexes are too powerful (which, for most of the prime of the game, they were), you could adapt by piling hard anti-hex counters into builds (and, eventually, add stronger and stronger anti-hex tools so they took up less space). This had collateral damage, but you eventually hit a stable point where ‘balanced’ builds ran enough hard hex counters to endure those builds without completely throwing your power against everything else.
If I’m playing GW2 during the chronotank meta, or pre-expansion in the ele stack meta…what tools are available to counter those builds? How can I make small variations on those builds? What abilities make natural predators to those builds? As a rule, there weren’t answers to those questions – the build system is too rigid, lacking both options, and trade-offs, for it to self balance.
Unlike every popular competitive game out there, GW2 is not self balancing. People don’t have the tools to find the counters and stabilize a meta. It all has to be designed and balanced, specifically, by the team – because builds are so locked down with so few options. I don’t think there’s a balance team in the world that could pull that off – there are too many moving parts and too many specific interactions that you have to get right, and the only way to make that tractable for human beings to do is to vastly simplify the problem.
Hence one build per class, not all of which are viable. It’s not ideal, but given the systems the game was built upon, it’s the best anyone can do.
Fixing the thread.
Grouch, are you going to nerf my precious symbolic guardian and make me sad again or nah?
Yes, please do and thank you.
Not a guardian’s fault you pickef thf.
Translation please.
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