Guild Wars 2

Justin ODell.9517:

I think the big reason we need to streamline things and make it easy to pickup is NOT because newbies are dumb or incapable of figuring it out, but rather because PvP is very, very intimidating. Reduction in apparent complexity helps PvP be more approachable and less intimidating.
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Justin ODell.9517:

When I say new players, I mean players new to PvP, not necessarily new to the game. In this sense PvP can be a new endgame for some players.
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Uh, english is not my main language, so Justin or someone see if i get that right.

Justin you say you reduce the complexity in PvP to not intimidate new players.
And new players are most probably players not new to the game, but to PvP.
Means these players play PvE and/or WvW, both gamemodes were ALL stats and customization options are available, and food on top.
And you say these players are intimidated by a PvP system that has, right now, less option than the rest of the game, so intimidated that you plan to reduce the complexity even more.
I dont get the logic behind that.
Someone who manages the stats in PvE/WvW should be able to manage the bit in PvP.

You want to know what prevents me from playing PvP, although one of the reasons i got GW2 in the first place was for PvP (and the reputation Anet got with PvP in GW1)?
That i cant play with my gear i use in PvE/WvW and all the build options i have there. Not only do i not have the options in PvP, there are also special rules (crit cap).
That there is only one gamemode (ok, deathmatch soon).
That every class/build that is not fit for this one gamemode is useless, even counteracting to your win as a team.
That all the balance topics are solely for PvP and solely discussed here in the PvP section (in WvW players are fighting other players too).
That there is no way to test changes (public test server) beforehand.
That there are no or almost no iterations between the player base and Anet before a change actually goes live.
That Anet drops the bomb and then needs MONTH to react to feedback.

Justin ODell.9517:

…
I believe it will do both. Reducing perceptual complexity will help us attract additional players, and rewards will give them reason to stay.

Rewards will never be a reason for someone to stay and commit to PvP, never. As someone who has played PvP in MMOs for over 15 years, i can promise you, the moment players find something more rewarding, they will drop it like its hot and switch. Look at PvE, farming whats most rewarding, switching the moment somewhere its more profitable.
You can lure players with rewards to try out PvP, but if you want them to stay longterm you have to deliver a fun PvP experience.

Justin ODell.9517:

I think the big reason we need to streamline things and make it easy to pickup is NOT because newbies are dumb or incapable of figuring it out, but rather because PvP is very, very intimidating. Reduction in apparent complexity helps PvP be more approachable and less intimidating.

Reducing stat customization in order to reduce the intimidation factor makes no sense. Stats are a relatively simple concept to grasp and relatively unintimidating. If anything, limited stat combinations can be frustrating for new players, who often tend toward some balance of stats rather than an extreme. Not allowing them to do that can result in them goofing up the rest of their build as they try to suit a rigid set of three stats.

The intimidation factor and potential for failure in builds comes from choosing weapon pairings, utility skills, traits, runes, and sigils, most of which have effects that can’t be easily quantified. If you wanted to reduce the potential for bad builds, you would reduce these hard-to-quantify factors; remove half the traits, some of the trait lines, half the runes, half the sigils. No experienced player uses a good chunk of them anyway.

The other part of intimidation occurs because everyone is grouped together regardless of skill level or experience. When something goes wrong, the new people are the easiest target for blame. The best way around that is to get rid of hot join and push everyone toward solo and team queue with proper matchmaking.

Also, I can’t undersell the benefits of reducing conceptual complexity for assisting designers achieve balance. We are finite creatures, us humans, and can only hold so many things in our mind at one time. We can create tools to help work around this, but anything that helps make balance easier gets my vote.

But reducing stat customization makes balance worse! The rigid amulet combinations favor professions that can ignore half the stats in the game. If your profession can’t do that, it’s doomed to failure. With rigid amulets, the only way to balance in that situation is to make traits so ridiculously powerful that they compensate for the 200-400 stat points of a fourth or fifth stats that can’t be combined. That starts an arms race in each balance iteration where the only way to counter this now more powerful profession is to have more powerful traits or abilities of your own. “Flavor of the Month” balance like that kills PvP.

The difficulty in balance is not how many knobs you can turn – more is usually better – it’s to what extremes can they turn.

Justin ODell.9517:

It isn’t just about jewels, it’s about stats in general. I can totally see why our designers would want the most influential thing (stats) to be locked down.

There are two things wrong with that statement.

First, stats are important, but are not the most influential part of a build. You can’t slap on a Berserker amulet and be great at damage. Nor can you wear a Soldier or Cleric or Settler’s amulet and be a good bunker. Traits, utilities, and weapons define whether you can succeed at a role more than stats. Stats are used to boost your main role while shoring up weaknesses or to just drive you so far to an extreme that you can ignore a lot of threats. A full damage build without CC or evasion is a free kill, as is a bunker that can’t adequately remove conditions or negate incoming damage. However, a good build can use a more offensive or more defensive set of stats and fulfill their role in an average setting.

Second, locking down such an important part of character customization defeats the purpose of having character customization at all. When you can only customize half and can’t change the other half to complement it, thereby restricting viable options, why bother allowing customization? At that point, you may as well only allow fixed builds for each profession like heroes in a MOBA. But then you’d still have a problem like in MOBAs where half of those “heroes” aren’t viable. Through locking down customization, improved balance has not been achieved.

Nike.2631:

Justin ODell.9517:

You aren’t alone in that. Just because we’re trying to appeal to one type of player does not mean we will ignore the others.

To put a more positive spin on it, it would be nice if there were a “novice tier” of amulet that are all one stat combo, and after you’ve played a while with those you unlock the option to use Amulet + jewel combos that have the same stat total, but allow you to flex that last 10-15% as we see now.

Since you’re already shifting to a starter set of traits and skills with earning additional options later through play (after the player is more versed in the “basics”) perhaps the same philosophy can be applied consistently so it includes gear too?

The community would eat that idea alive – time gated stat combos?

As a veteran PvPer, I welcome this change. Jewels in amulets were never build defining. They never were playstyle altering. Sure, I felt better with 18,832 HP instead of 18,082 HP, but I think I would prefer that creative freedom to be used on Runes and Sigil choices.

Chaith.8256:

The community would eat that idea alive – time gated stat combos?

Then the community better brace for a heavy lunch, because we ARE going to see play-gated Traits and play-gated Skills, which, as you say are far more impactful than being able to fine tune the last 15% of your total stats.

Also to be clear, I wasn’t suggesting play-gating the adjectives/stat clusters. No “you must play 25 games before you can use Rabid Amulets.” More “you can play any stat right out of the gate. Experienced players can use jewels that don’t mimic and reinforce the amulet to tweak their build.”

Nobody wants to be locked within completely one sided options. The stat decrease is a really good idea. Would lower the overall damage floating around.

You mentionned players new to pvp. What most ask themselves when they come in is “where are rings, backpieces and accessories”, not “omg, having the possibility to chose another jewel is intimidating”. ESPECIALLY when amulets come with their respective jewels by default. Those arguments are a bunch of bullkitten. But hey, once you guys have an idea, be it terrible, chances are you’re gonna stick to it for the sake of it (cough immob stacking cough).

Although I like sPvP one of the most frustrating aspects for me other then the isolation from the rest of the game (which with the introduction of gold and the new reward changes brings sPvP back into the overall game) has been the difference in stat allocation.

Justin you talk about new players to PvP not necessarily the game, but we come from WvW or PvE were we have weapons, armour, amulets, rings, accessories and backpieces plus traits. We get used to the broad range of stat allocation in WvW & PvE that provides so much finer stat allocation and then come to sPvP and go WHAT!!. Weapons, Armour No Stats, Rings, Accessories and Backpieces, Gone. All we have is one amulet approx 93% of stats overall with one attached jewel approx 7% of stats (not including stats from traits).

For a new player to the game jumping straight into sPvP having only 1 amulet for stats, Great but changing from WvW and/or PvE even with existing system there’s a kind of Shock. Like what do I do now. It’s a interface / UI shock the two systems are nothing alike and what about changing back from sPvP to WvW or PvE).

Only some builds seem to carry across into sPvP, all others;

You want that stat distribution! Dream On…

The level of stat refinement in sPvP compared to WvW/PvE can not be achieved. This then restricts builds as you can now not assign the stats you want to cover weakness for certain builds, it’s all or nothing approach. To help new players build templates having up to date builds which change with the meta plus maps and spectating would help so much more then the reduction of complexity. But yes for game balance 1 amulet fits all will help but I don’t see WvW or PvE players liking the lost and change of customisation.

Justin ODell.9517:

Master of Timespace.2548:

But does this change make the game easier to balance in any meaningful sense? How many balance problems have there been due to the jewels?

It isn’t just about jewels, it’s about stats in general. I can totally see why our designers would want the most influential thing (stats) to be locked down.

You got to be kidding me, the thread Allie references points out the major problem comes from the trait system.

You can play with your stats +/- 300 with trait system, that stays same and a jewel that barely change the stats for 100 is locked, cheapest solution for sure but definetely not the most effective.

Now it forces me with my Elementalist in sPVP get a rune set with Vitality which absolutely I don’t want to.

I think it is really time to stop playing unviable classes and start playing FOTMs like Hambows, Pistol Whip Thiefs, PU Mersmer, Sprit Rangers, Terror Necro, AH Guardians.

Then you will have single build for classes and there will be no balancing problems.

posthumecaver.6473:

Now it forces me with my Elementalist in sPVP get a rune set with Vitality which absolutely I don’t want to.

Try Celestial then. It got a nice upgrade :o http://dulfy.net/2014/03/28/gw2-ready-up-episode-9-livestream-notes/#more-81021

Man you guys got things so backwards.

Anet does not seem to understand that it is the complexity of builds that gives good pvp longevity. Look at LOL or GW1 and this is what made these games so great. I see no reason to log in after the 15th. The game offers nothing interesting as far as class building goes. Might as well go roam the streets and play rock paper scissors with random people… its the same concept they got going here.

Secondly, they say they are making the change so its more accessible to new players.’ What new players? Games in decline and will continue to decline. People don’t like spvp and it will continue to be a big let down so long as you cated to players that don’t exist.

Let me choose an armor set, jewellery, weapon and give me some diversity.

I’m also disappointed with this change. Less rather than more build homogeneity please.

I want more build diversity options and would prefer that you didn’t take away one of the very few options we have had. It matters to be able to put a little more offence on a mainly defensive build or vice-versa. Having this option matters to my gameplay and also to the feeling that I have more control over my builds.

All these players who would be confused by something as basic as switching a gem should not be catered to.

Instead, I would suggest trying to appeal to more WvW (and PVE) players who are turned off by the lack of stat diversity options in PVP (if they are anything like me).

This may pose more of a challenge for your balancing team – but see it as one of the challenges that you should be ready to tackle if your goal is to offer PVP as a more cohesive component of an MMORPG game.

stof.9341:

posthumecaver.6473:

Now it forces me with my Elementalist in sPVP get a rune set with Vitality which absolutely I don’t want to.

Try Celestial then. It got a nice upgrade :o http://dulfy.net/2014/03/28/gw2-ready-up-episode-9-livestream-notes/#more-81021

currently Celestial Amulet + Jewel give
295 + 45 = 330

it will be 434 will that save Celestial in a typical build I was getting with Celestial 2237 attack power before now will be 2337 that will not save me.

And I don’t want extra 434 healing/434 condition I even don’t want 434 extra toughness I just want extra 200 Vitality give me that with 798 power 512 crit and 512 crit damage I don’t want anything else.

Proven.2854:

Alekt.5803:

Proven.2854:

Alekt.5803:

Proven.2854:

Let me be Devil’s Advocate for a moment.

The last argument I’ve seen most used is that it makes underpowered builds out of the realm of completely impossible. I don’t like the WvW argument because much of the time you don’t know exactly what your opponent is running. They could be running an experimental build as well, and if they’re not you could just be more experienced fighting their meta build than they are at fighting your experimental build.

My build is totally viable. Theorycrafter try to find viable build, and even defy the current best builds. It might probably be the best build available for staff right now. It has every signs of great potential. I have been perfecting it for months and even yet, I am not using it to its full potential. Now, by limiting theorycrafting, it seems to be pigeonholding builds.

It might be a small portion of the stats, but it’s big enough to make the difference. And now, I ask again, is its removal a small thing?

Here’s the thing.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEUQFAWhcM6Z2ywuBd0ACRBKYCiHXAEwhFF7wMA-zUCBYjBhwAgQAJRViNdVIr4qIasabYaXKqqYBOAACwNvZAYoDdoDdoDtbezbezbezA-w

It’s currently set for WvW. I abandon Signet of Restoration for Either Renewal in SPvP, get armor of earth instead of signet of air. Valkyrie with zerker gem and Divinity runes.

Swap atunements in-between cast time or travel time of lighning attacks to proc fresh-air. Don’t forget to move while casting to use One with Air properly as it is the equivalent of out-of-combat-swiftness speed.

Keep health above threshold for 20% damage inscrease due to the self-heal mechanics. Fast cast means more heal (see fresh-air and attunement swaps). Keep pressure on target while moving away (done with One with Air). If health Threshold is kept, the damage should be overwhelming.

I tell you, it’s not easy to do at all. The build is not focused on creativity above all, it’s made to compliment every extra stats the Celestial can provide. It focuses on efficiency with style points. It will also be buffed next patch with Celestial gear update.

It looks like your build is going to depend on whatever change they do to Divinity Runes more than the jewel change. Assuming that they’re going to keep the “equal number of stats given to each attribute” theme, either you’ll lose a lot of crit damage and be better served by switching to runes that give Precision + Ferocity anyway, or you’ll lose net ~2% crit chance if they buff it instead. Signet of Restoration is also being unsplit from PvE/PvP so you may get more survivability out of that.

somsom.5201:

@ Allie:

You wanted build specifics?

There are PLENTY of builds that rely upon swapping the jewel to get that little bit of something extra that is lacking overall(be it toughness, prec, healing power, condi, vit, whatever).

On the build I’ve been running on my Ranger for the past 6+ months, I’ve been using a combo and it allows me to gain some NEEDED prec(~8%). Without it…the procs I was hoping on are already small, once you deduct 8% from them…yea the build is dead.

Could you link the build?

Viking Jorun.5413:

You players are awful people, I’ll just start there.

Allie — I’m glad you stood up for yourself under heavy assault, and I’m pretty up hauled over the state of the official forums after news of getting a massive update for free, and the amount of entitlement that goes on specifically in the PvP forums is a horrifying display of this game’s generally kind and helpful population.

Now, as for removing jewels, it’s not a massive hit to anyone’s build, but for example, in my turret death build I use a Barbarian’s Amulet and a Valkyrie jewel, which gives that ever-so-slight DPS boost that makes me an actual threat while still letting me take a hit or fifteen. I’m not going to whine over it, but I did want to show you that some builds are affected ever so slightly. I suppose gaining extra health and crit chance won’t be so bad, though, so I may need to adjust my build when the patch hits live (aside from the AR nerf).

Yeah, you’ll lose out on 50 power, but also about 2% crit damage from the Ferocity changes if you were allowed to keep the same amulet + jewel setup. You’re also losing out on crit damage from traits, again thanks to the Ferocity change.

Yes. Thanks for pointing that out in perspective. Maybe it won’t be that bad after all. But I don’t see this new change as anything positive, that’s the point to remember here.

Losing the ability to gain add 125 healing, 6% crit etc. is not a small matter. Can only say that it still baffles me and they’re reducing build diversity they strived for.

Players will still be imtimidated by PvP, beacause of the playerbase reactions, not the tiny jewel with its seperate stats. If you’ve played PvE/WvW, you’ll likely be disappointed at how few options there are and how simple it’s made to be.

How much easier will it be to balance, really? If you were to seperate SPvP and the rest of the game, you wouldn’t have to make impulsive changes that reduce options and thereby game value as you’re about to do now.

How are you going to balance Elementalist and hybrid classes with that change? Will it make the balance process simpler, or will it just add another layer of complex balance changes due to hybrid class being hit greatly by this major change?

Although i see the sense of making the jewels locked down in light of other pvp global changes. From a designers point of view this would make things easier, of this I have no doubt

Perhaps we should think of what draws people to pvp, the simplicity of getting started? maybe. In my mind though, it is the building process, the idea that just maybe (although be it unlikely) that i may come up with a build or tweak that no one else has and make it perform.

Limiting choices makes this less likely and sadly less fun. the little tweaks and refinements are what makes pvp a ongoing concern. If every build is locked within a small dynamic of choices it becomes less interesting not more.

If there are tools to allow designers to balance within a vast number of build choices ( stats), then make them, use them.

Player retention should be as important as new player introduction. After all once they are introduced you want them to stay, right?

In pvp, choices are content, you wouldn’t dream of trying to expand pve player base by removing content would you?

Just my humble opinion

Lexiceta.4156:

Although i see the sense of making the jewels locked down in light of other pvp global changes. From a designers point of view this would make things easier, of this I have no doubt

Perhaps we should think of what draws people to pvp, the simplicity of getting started? maybe. In my mind though, it is the building process, the idea that just maybe (although be it unlikely) that i may come up with a build of tweak that no one else has and make it perform.

Limiting choices makes this less likely and sadly less fun. the little tweaks and refinements are what makes pvp a ongoing concern. If every build is locked within a small dynamic of choices it becomes less interesting not more.

If there are tools to allow designers to balance within a vast number of build choices ( stats), then make them, use them.

Player retention should be as important as new player introduction. After all once they are introduced you want them to stay, right?

Just my humble opinion

I approve this message

Alekt.5803:

How are you going to balance Elementalist and hybrid classes with that change? Will it make the balance process simpler, or will it just add another layer of complex balance changes due to hybrid class being hit greatly by this major change?

It will take more than the minor stat increase that jewels provided to fix the elementalist. The removal of jewels or the inclusion of it, was not the thing that made the elementalist terrible. The elementalist problems are fundamental mechanics and Anet’s balance team inability to balance a chair on a flat surface or maybe is the fact that the devs team don’t know what to do with the elementalist or are too afraid to do a major overhaul of it.

I agree with the link that Allie posted 100%, but the OP there is talking about an overhaul, not insignificant changes like taking out jewels in amulets. At some point I feel like an overhaul is necessary, although dangerous. Well no, because you can always go back and fix the damage easily seeing as we are talking about a virtual world.

i like the existing system of amulet + gemstone. Already, the amulets comes with a “preset” gemstone in them. therefore the customization aspect and “dumbing down” aspect is already in place.
However, i think that adding 6 pieces of customizationable gear would be too much. Perhaps a simply system of Amulet + Gem (merged) and a backpiece. The backpiece offers unique stat combinations that does NOT mirror the amulets completely (kinda like how some ascended gear is merged with another part type of gear, IE; Rabid + apothecary). This way, customization can be further increased, while retaining a overall simple selection system.

I also think that in the case of PvP, Arena Net should produce some more engaging and informative ingame guides. The current system where you walk around with golems is ok enough, but it is too fragmented, and it is not obvious that you have to check out this or that in order to understand the game. A simple recording from a game with supplemental commentary, compartmentalized into sections covering node capture, node defense, basic strategy, basic linguistics and a easy to understand “how to set up gear 101” would go a long way in helping new players more then any form of “lack of customization” will.

Remember that the greatest obstacle to new players is not the basic gear setup itself, most players understand this part fairly well. It is how to interact with the whole game mode that creates problems.

atleast, that is how i see it.

It would be interesting if someone from the designing team could talk to us about their views on the issues raised in this thread.

So far, the red posts have been mostly focused on defending the advantages of the new system, but I think it would be interesting for us all to read anet’s thoughts on the breaking restrictions it’ll demand from balanced builds.

If anything, much like J.Sharp’s post on the runes of perplexity thread, I think the removal of jewels should be post-poned to another time, and given a rethought.

I believe the game, design-wise and balance-wise, isn’t prepared for such a change yet. I wouldn’t mind the removal of jewels and the streamlining of the system someday, but only after the other three stat-building systems (traits, amulets, runes) are rebalanced to tone down extremes and avoid excess.

Until such a day comes, I believe the game is better with jewels than without. No need to cripple some professions, like the elementalist, so much.

I, personally, as an elementalist, don’t want to be stuck to the extreme instant-kill-or-die zerker cheese build out there, and outside of that, building mostly around celestial and valkyrie amulets is going to be very restricting, especially now that soldier’s will give us more vitality/ toughness than what we need, which makes it less appealing (the extra precision/ critical damage/ healing power from zerker or from valkyrie jewels were very handy).

This is a mistake. The problem with spvp is simply that it’s not fun, not that it’s too complex to understand. It’s more confusing that there is a difference between wvw vs spvp.

From my POV, amulets need more jewels not less.

It’s no wonder pvp changes are so kitten slow when you keep going off on these crazy tangents that have little to do with why spvp has flopped.

Justin ODell.9517:

I think the big reason we need to streamline things and make it easy to pickup is NOT because newbies are dumb or incapable of figuring it out, but rather because PvP is very, very intimidating. Reduction in apparent complexity helps PvP be more approachable and less intimidating.

Also, I can’t undersell the benefits of reducing conceptual complexity for assisting designers achieve balance. We are finite creatures, us humans, and can only hold so many things in our mind at one time. We can create tools to help work around this, but anything that helps make balance easier gets my vote.

+1

however, complexity can also be seen as deviation from norms. a thing that is different from pve, no matter how simple, is still more complex than a system that mirrors it.

also, seems like all effort goes to bringing players in but not on keeping them

Why not have newbie friendly templates instead of dumbing down the whole system for the experienced players? Let’s say we have a hambow template for the new players to start out with and as they learn the game more and more they can tweak the build or come up a completely new build if they wish.

There’s so many different ways of improving the system but they chose this route? Infuriating.

milo.6942:

Justin ODell.9517:

I think the big reason we need to streamline things and make it easy to pickup is NOT because newbies are dumb or incapable of figuring it out, but rather because PvP is very, very intimidating. Reduction in apparent complexity helps PvP be more approachable and less intimidating.

Also, I can’t undersell the benefits of reducing conceptual complexity for assisting designers achieve balance. We are finite creatures, us humans, and can only hold so many things in our mind at one time. We can create tools to help work around this, but anything that helps make balance easier gets my vote.

also, seems like all effort goes to bringing players in but not on keeping them

What you said could be true for the old rewards system but not the new.

Alekt.5803:

Yes. Thanks for pointing that out in perspective. Maybe it won’t be that bad after all. But I don’t see this new change as anything positive, that’s the point to remember here.

No problem. I’m just thinking now that people should look at as many different builds as possible and figure out just how affected everything is.

Just what a load of crap. You honestly think any player was intimidated by a jewel that came inbuilt to the amulet that didn’t force any choice unless you wanted to change it. And to say that the tiny stat allocation of the jewel affected balance in any way shape or form is just a slap in the face to any semi intelligent player.

This just makes no sense, you guys keep talking about bringing PVE and PVP together and then you go the total opposite direction with a stupid change like this. If you want to lessen the option shock in SPVP the best way to do it would be to increase the stat weight of the jewels so players can mix n match to find their perfect stats with less available choices. Instead you’ve taken away jewels completely and will try to add a bunch more amulets to compensate which increases option shock tenfold.

I personally don’t like those stat combination, it’s benefits more one class or build than others. Now these differences will become larger (

One of things that attracted me to this game was freedom to build my character as i want. Now the game will walk to one simplicity that one day may be infant.

I d think that Anet could improve the match system instead drop down the build diversity.

JETWING.2759:

I personally don’t like those stat combination, it’s benefits more one class or build than others. Now these differences will become larger (

One of things that attracted me to this game was freedom to build my character as i want. Now the game will walk to one simplicity that one day may be infant.

This.

My main profession is an elementalist and I see the small tweaks to the almost all-in-one amulets gone with the upcoming patch. The limitations of the existing amulets is a hindrance to begin with, as they are extreme in numbers (high numbers on few stats) and will become more extreme. Some amulets have stats that “belong” to certain professions it would seem. An example would be necromancer and Rabids Amulet. High condition damage, high toughness and precision, well suited with 30/20/0/0/20, on-critical bleeds and a high base health. It also works great for engis I hear.

The changes to celestial will be interesting, but certain professions would benefit from four-stat combination amulets, like Rampager’s.

Removing all the moving parts is a good thing. Something to consider with this jewel change though is it is a bigger change/nerf to lower health classes than higher health classes.

A Guardian or Elementalist with a clerics amulet often uses a soldiers jewel to buff their health since it is so low. You would never see a higher health class make this kind of decision and instead probably stick with a clerics jewel.

To lengthen this point, certain classes and builds only really need to use 3 or 4 stats, while something like a guardian or elementalist often diversifies into many stats to increase survivability while also doing damage. This jewel change hinders this part of it too.

Overall not that big of a deal but maybe balance measures will need to be made to take into account the removal of jewels. Maybe increasing the base health of Thief/Ele/Guardian by marginal amounts to make up for the loss of the jewel. Although this doesn’t really apply to thieves since they always just go full zerker.

I dont think they are gonna do any global hp increase in pvp just to fix this situation.It wouldnt work anyway.I think we have to get used to running 10.8k hp with half the current stat comps and runes presets.
Yay!! Im totally gonna scream full of joy when a burn proc eats half of that since now the game is totally in the limits of my tiny understanding.. If i was any smarter i would have stopped caring a long time ago afterall..
Seriously though..You CANT force people into a few predetermined stat paths where half of them lead to unviable builds for the low end classes. You cant play with 10k hp.You just cant..so those combination are already locking the trait selection of your build.And even then traits are only 3k more hp..

If you really want to ease new players into pvp then why dont you lock them half the amulets based on the class they choose…So an ele cant take rabids and unlocks valks only with water traits..that, even if it sounds comical its actually the reality atm.

Its hardly a big deal. Go on worrying about your stupid jewels and how “deep” gw2 is for having them. kittening ridiculous. If this were a PvP game instead of a theme park MMO the amulets probably wouldn’t exist in the first place. 14 trait slots, 6 armor slots and soon to be 2-4 sigil slots is significantly more customization “slots” than hell any moba out there. The game already has a significant amount of meaningful customization available before stats even come into play.

Which creates the question how good is gw2 PvP now with all the customization it offers as if quantity is what is helping the quality when it isn’t. You will still have 23-25 individual “slots” of customization when jewels are removed instead of 24-26 discluding weapons of course. Its stupidly negligible. I’d be surprised that people actually cared but then improving the PvP situation obv wouldnt be attractive to this audience. Too busy worrying about pve players skins.

Then they’ll be complaining again about how the quality of player decreased when they think 23 customization slots is too little when fighting games often have none, Mobas have what 6-10. If the quality of gw2 PvP is bothering you the removal of jewels isn’t why it leaves you wanting. Nor is it why GW2 isn’t some huge PvP game whether it aims to be an e-sport or doesn’t. Making a mountain out of a hole in the ground…

Half the traits of those 14 arent really a choice,rune pieces are all tied together after next patch so there it goes another 5 of your “slots” . Then only 2-3 rune sets are actually worth it so there it goes that MULTITUDE of choices gw2 has..
Mobas have talent trees. The stat difference is small but for that reason alone its meaningful and promotes skill and not luck.Then you have 100s of champions to play..you cant compare it.This is an rpg afterall.Building is a very important aspect of the game. If i wanted moba id go to a moba..period
In fact if we really have to go into truly competitive games ,that small negligible differnce you called jewels could be EVERYTHING even in this game if it wasnt that chaotic as it is now.
Jewels were the final touch of your build and now they are lost. That will only make more obvious how poorly balanced the current stat comps on amulets are for most classes.
I couldnt care if there were only 5 amulets if all of them could produce builds and were wortht aking for each class.

ensoriki.5789:

Its hardly a big deal. Go on worrying about your stupid jewels and how “deep” gw2 is for having them. kittening ridiculous. If this were a PvP game instead of a theme park MMO the amulets probably wouldn’t exist in the first place. 14 trait slots, 6 armor slots and soon to be 2-4 sigil slots is significantly more customization “slots” than hell any moba out there. The game already has a significant amount of meaningful customization available before stats even come into play.

GW2 is not a MOBA or a fighting game. You can’t apply the same balance philosophy to both.

In a MOBA or fighting game, the role and style of each character is predetermined and balanced already. Any customization on top of that is limited and rarely changes the original design of the character.

An MMORPG like GW2 is the opposite. It gives you a wealth of choices, sometimes too many, that need to be assembled into a working character. The balance of stats that you choose has a huge impact on how well or poorly your character does. Not allowing a balance of stats to complement other choices destroys the entire idea of broad customization. When you limit stat customization, you may as well only offer a few fixed trait choices as well because there’s no point in choosing any other possible combinations; none of them can be complemented by the few viable amulets for each profession.

Yes, it’s only one customization slot that’s being lost, but it’s an important one for professions that work best with a mix of stats. If we lost some trait and rune choices, there wouldn’t be such a reaction.

Well, they might make up for that by buffing celestial amulet. It rewards with more stat points people who can make use of them.

redslion.9675:

Well, they might make up for that by buffing celestial amulet. It rewards with more stat points people who can make use of them.

Although the buff to celestial is cool, there’s a middleground between extreme burst/ extreme bunker/ extreme condition, and celestial. Balanced builds can still be specialized in any role. And then there’s also the classes that rely on defensive stats to be as viable as others, even when it comes to offensive builds.

Unlike a zerker thief, that can spam evades, stealth and shadow steps, or a zerker mesmer, that can stealth-hide behind clones and has decent access to blurs and other tricks, elementalists rely on auras, heals, boons and a few other tricks to survive. Almost every defensive skill they have rely on defensive stats to be viable, unless you are built to instant burst someone and hope they don’t make a lucky dodge.

Jewels were very important in this, because they helped giving you enough base toughness/ vitality/ healing alongside traits and sometimes runes, while still maximizing power. And, because elementalists want both extra toughness and vitality they can’t even be viable otherwise (nice balance!), outside of soldier’s amulet, a combination of zerker + valkyrie or vice-versa were effective when coupled with a few points in earth and water magic traits. This would give them an healtyh mix of toughness, vitality, healing power, while still allowing them to maximize power, and make use of valkyrie’s critical damage.

This is just one example of builds that require stat thresholds to be any effective. “Thresholds” is a key word here: only a minimum number of specific stats are needed to make some builds more acceptable: anything higher than that number comes at the sacrifice of other key stats, and end up being a waste.

With the removal of jewels, and with most amulets promoting extremes, the game will only further pidgeonhole you into going extreme burst with full zerker builds with massive innate survival, or going extreme bunker by stacking as many defensive stats as possible, or going extreme condition damage, or the like.

Assuming that divinity runes stop being viable due to the lack of critical damage, and without a zerker jewel, most valkyrie ele builds are going to be pidgeonholed into 20+ air and 30 water. Very fun, right? You’ll need precision to make use of valkyrie’s critical damage, and probably a rune for that too. Your only source of vitality is going to be a trait tree.

Of course, this is not as much a jewel issue, but a balance issue. Anet gave to some classes unviable base values, and they refuse to change that because they believe that classes can still be balanced that way. Well, they can be balanced that way: as long as players are pidgeonholed into specific traits and gears created specifically for that. Which is a different want to say, as long as they remain pidgeonholed.

Celestial isn’t for everyone that doesn’t want to be pure dps/bunker/etc.

It would leave too many currently viable builds in the waistbin.

So the patch is probably already ready to ship and these crys will probably have little or no effect on whether or not we see this change, but what the heck Ill post anyways.

Build I run that this change ruins:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJAWRlknpWtNoxMNcrNig6B2ldfHJFmGrVSBudhA-ToAg0CuIKSVkrITRyisFN+Y9B

The logic given by the dev’s defending this so far falls very short in my opinion.
Build customization != intimidation in any case.
When people are hesitant to enter pvp, I can say with great confidence that stat choices in amulets has very little/ nothing to do with it.

Taking away stat variations that have been available to us since release should go over really well. If my best build as a mesmer forces me into a condition line even though it is a power centered build, why would i want to synergize with that?

Arena-Net I truly think that you should put your heads together and ask yourself, how does this change affect the game in a positive way?

If your logic truly is that allowing a small statistical variation in an area of the game where the stat variation is already at its most confined, please show us some metrics or evidence that this change really will improve new player experience.

I know, I know, celestial amulet alone won’t be enough. But at least it’s something.

All of these changes, should have just been how the game was launched in the first place, you’d have less backfire from people. BUT didn’t listen to any of the well written feedback gave in beta so…here we are years later putting them in and ticking people off.

Truth is these are all healthier. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 options for a character or 3000. As things go “pro” it will be narrowed down to 1-3 “optimal” options that if you don’t pick your a fing scrub. Its a bit above an average persons head, so I expect a lot of people to rage on it. At the end of the day, some people were playing magic the gathering more obsessed with the pre-building of their character than actually playing it. Unfortunatly just like ccg’s that path is impossible to balance especially on a grand scale, and usually results in a “meta” build that is the only “optimal” option. So what you create is the illusion of options by adding 1000 options. You still will only have 1-3. So I say, let the developers focus in on a few options make them all very entertaining to play, so people can enjoy playing without having to watch a youtube video or copy and paste a pros build so they can get into the action.

Seriously, its not dumbing it down. Its saving new players some time from having to copy and paste a pro build. Lets leave it at that, and move on.

the change to amulets is just so wrong.. it should be the exact opposite:

give us amulets with jewels, rings and accessoires so we can build more complex builds instead of having just that one amulet with that one set of stats. it should’ve been like that from the start.

making complex decisions for new players more easy is a bad excuse. if you’re not even smart enough to mix some stats you shouldn’t play pvp at all…

Stream lining jewels is not necessarily dumbing down. It appears clear the core of any possible build design or function a player may want to be achieving will be front loaded with selection of traits and weapons. This core build can either be consolidated or augmented with runes. This would leave sigils as a tool to put emphasis on niche aspects of the builds (I.E crit chance/additional condi/short duration chill etc etc) and the amulet now becomes the wing nut that gives consistency to the build overall.

Instead of a player now currently choosing what direction they wish to go in by choosing berserker/settler etc etc amulets they now have to invest in actual power/precision/crit lines (or whatever) etc etc trait lines and skills that enforce this direction and the amulet, as stated above, simply becomes a device of providing consistency to the build overall with runes and sigils now having a stronger emphasis on creating niche abilities within the build itself.

Ultimately this seems the runes and sigils reworks play a larger role. Being able to choose 2 sigils now, or not having them share ICD helps create a favourable situation for this change, however with many rune reworks not being disclosed as yet, they carry a lot of weight. Once new traits have also been added this ultimately leads to making builds simpler, but also far more specific by design where a lot of the play style of the build will depend upon player ability and what trait/skills they have taken and how they are used. This leads to players having to become better with what they have built and and reduces (Forgive me for saying this.) Lazy builds where extreme health regen, or near impossibly high toughness etc have carried a less than optimal player to get wins over more skilled players simply because any mistake they make is extremely forgiving with their current build set out.

The reason for the change is due to the stacking of certain stats and still being viable with your build. Without amulets, you either tank and don’t do damage or play balanced or play full glass.

It’s rather irritating when a overly bunkered engi can stand in 100b from a full zerker with no buffs (no prot) and only losing about 10% hp and still being viable for laying out conditions that still hurt.

It makes it so you actually have to play your spec within s/tPvP. I have been thinking about this for a while and this answered my questions. Taking out those secondary states really negate min-maxing. People just angry because their troll builds won’t work anymore… :/

already to many comments but for the sake of arguments i agree that amulet gems be removed, so thats its easier for players to understand how pvp work less thing to worry about. and removing gems does little effect to builds. removing them will only streamline pvp not dumb it down but newbie friendly.

candlecan.9827:

So the patch is probably already ready to ship and these crys will probably have little or no effect on whether or not we see this change, but what the heck Ill post anyways.

Build I run that this change ruins:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJAWRlknpWtNoxMNcrNig6B2ldfHJFmGrVSBudhA-ToAg0CuIKSVkrITRyisFN+Y9B

The logic given by the dev’s defending this so far falls very short in my opinion.
Build customization != intimidation in any case.
When people are hesitant to enter pvp, I can say with great confidence that stat choices in amulets has very little/ nothing to do with it.

Taking away stat variations that have been available to us since release should go over really well. If my best build as a mesmer forces me into a condition line even though it is a power centered build, why would i want to synergize with that?

Arena-Net I truly think that you should put your heads together and ask yourself, how does this change affect the game in a positive way?

If your logic truly is that allowing a small statistical variation in an area of the game where the stat variation is already at its most confined, please show us some metrics or evidence that this change really will improve new player experience.

You lose… about 8% of your bleed damage and 6% of your burn damage, a tiny bit of vitality, and get an increase in power, precision, and crit damage to compensate. I don’t think your build is totally destroyed. Since most of your Condition Damage comes from the traitline and signet, you’re not losing all that much, even though it looks like a lot numbers wise.

You’d probably be better served if PvP got a new 3 or 4 stat distribution with something like high power, medium precision, and low condition and critical damage.

Krittz.6013:

The reason for the change is due to the stacking of certain stats and still being viable with your build. Without amulets, you either tank and don’t do damage or play balanced or play full glass.

It’s rather irritating when a overly bunkered engi can stand in 100b from a full zerker with no buffs (no prot) and only losing about 10% hp and still being viable for laying out conditions that still hurt.

It makes it so you actually have to play your spec within s/tPvP. I have been thinking about this for a while and this answered my questions. Taking out those secondary states really negate min-maxing. People just angry because their troll builds won’t work anymore… :/

lol

u realize with jewels used for custom builds it was against min-maxing? now with no customisation via jewels u will always have min-max builds playing against each other.

the situation u describing will still be there. as a hint: settlers amulett

problem with this change is that usually min-max builds + bunch of certain traits to compensate cause problems. this change push every player into thoose builds.

hooma.9642:

Krittz.6013:

The reason for the change is due to the stacking of certain stats and still being viable with your build. Without amulets, you either tank and don’t do damage or play balanced or play full glass.

It’s rather irritating when a overly bunkered engi can stand in 100b from a full zerker with no buffs (no prot) and only losing about 10% hp and still being viable for laying out conditions that still hurt.

It makes it so you actually have to play your spec within s/tPvP. I have been thinking about this for a while and this answered my questions. Taking out those secondary states really negate min-maxing. People just angry because their troll builds won’t work anymore… :/

lol

u realize with jewels used for custom builds it was against min-maxing? now with no customisation via jewels u will always have min-max builds playing against each other.

the situation u describing will still be there. as a hint: settlers amulett

problem with this change is that usually min-max builds + bunch of certain traits to compensate cause problems. this change push every player into thoose builds.

Sigh, I have to re-type this again… I’ll do the short version:

Customization is with the traits, not the amulet. This would force people to experiment more with other traits and trait lines even though there will still be some core traits to have (like mesmer dodge-roll, for example).

Also, this means if you have 30 in Toughness and Vitality branches, you’ll hit like a wet noodle. The balance between Tankiness to Glass will be much more even; you give up something to gain without having any other factors to give what you do not have.

Krittz.6013:

hooma.9642:

Krittz.6013:

The reason for the change is due to the stacking of certain stats and still being viable with your build. Without amulets, you either tank and don’t do damage or play balanced or play full glass.

It’s rather irritating when a overly bunkered engi can stand in 100b from a full zerker with no buffs (no prot) and only losing about 10% hp and still being viable for laying out conditions that still hurt.

It makes it so you actually have to play your spec within s/tPvP. I have been thinking about this for a while and this answered my questions. Taking out those secondary states really negate min-maxing. People just angry because their troll builds won’t work anymore… :/

lol

u realize with jewels used for custom builds it was against min-maxing? now with no customisation via jewels u will always have min-max builds playing against each other.

the situation u describing will still be there. as a hint: settlers amulett

problem with this change is that usually min-max builds + bunch of certain traits to compensate cause problems. this change push every player into thoose builds.

Sigh, I have to re-type this again… I’ll do the short version:

Customization is with the traits, not the amulet. This would force people to experiment more with other traits and trait lines even though there will still be some core traits to have (like mesmer dodge-roll, for example).

Also, this means if you have 30 in Toughness and Vitality branches, you’ll hit like a wet noodle. The balance between Tankiness to Glass will be much more even; you give up something to gain without having any other factors to give what you do not have.

there is only 1 problem. the traits are more valuable if choosen by function and not line. if some dps-depended traits as example are not in dmg-lines then its more a problem of design and not really a customisation option.

Zinwrath.2049:

Truth is these are all healthier. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 options for a character or 3000. As things go “pro” it will be narrowed down to 1-3 “optimal” options that if you don’t pick your a fing scrub. Its a bit above an average persons head, so I expect a lot of people to rage on it.

Yes, there will always be a few optimal builds per profession with some minor customization. But by limiting stat customization, it reduces the number of possible optimal builds.

The biggest non-theoretical argument for more stat customization is the elementalist. As an elementalist, If you run a berserker’s amulet, you can drop people quickly, but there’s no way you can live against focus fire, even with active defense. The best you can hope is to run away until all your cooldowns reset. If you run a valkyrie or soldier amulet, even with a berserker jewel, you have more than enough survivability, but not enough damage to be a significant threat. The new celestial amulet has a balance of stats, but you end up lacking significiantly in power. So you’re still lacking damage. What they’re really looking for is something like 70% berserker / 30% soldier or 50% valkyrie / 50% barbarian or some similar combination. The current Amulet/Jewel is 86/14%.

Similarly, players using a Berserker amulet may want to trade some stats for a few hundred toughness so that they don’t fall over so fast in combat.

If you don’t allow stat customization to add a little defense to offensive builds, you end up with the current warrior or thief scenario. They have so much defense from traits and abilities that they can ignore defensive stats and focus everything else on damage and CC. In order to balance with only extremes in amulets, other professions will gain similar defenses. Do you really want more of that?

Justin ODell.9517:

I can’t speak for the designers, but I see this change (and the runes change) as one with the goal of streamline builds. Removing unneeded complexity benefits the game by making it easier for new players to pickup, while also making it easier balance the game as a whole.

Sure more options mean more possible builds, and more ability to tailor to your exact play style, but it doesn’t necessarily mean better builds or a better game.

I know at first, when doing the mental math, it felt like a bit of a contradiction to add more complexity in one area (traits) while removing it from another (amulets). Again, not presuming to speak for the designers, but I think it makes sense when you consider the impact each area has. Amulets are raw stats so they have a much bigger impact on balance because they affect everything. Why wouldn’t they want to lock down the most highly variable aspect of balance? Having greater impact means the cost of complexity grows exponentially.

At the same time, I could see the change also giving the designers more flexibility to do even more with amulets because math. 10 amulets with 10 jewels is 100 possible combinations, right? Now they only have to worry about just 12 amulets… which means they have 88 more amulets to go before they reach the same level complexity.

I know some people will think the difference between ‘streamlining’ and ‘dumbing down’ is only semantic, but I think intent is very important when trying to project where the game is heading in the future. This is part of the reason I’m very optimistic about where we’re going, and I think you should be too.

What are your arguments for the fine-tuning approach that jewels give? What exactly did it open up? What is now going to disappear? I’m genuinely interested in both sides of this one.

Jewels provided what little customizability (apart from runes) that existed for builds within pvp. Then you have pve which provides an abundance of customizability through armour pieces, jewellery, jewels, runes and sigils. If the next step is to limit attribute flexibility within pve, I can only see negativity coming from the end result.

In the end, the mostly QoL patch that will occur this 15th of April won’t fix the issue that exists with the current living story idea and lack of a true, competitive, esport based game mode. Many are already planning to leave for ESO or wilderstar. That is only two mmos that are nearing release.

Makes you wonder how gw2 will compete with that or how gw2 will be able to retain most of the players planning to leave that haven’t left already.

I somewhat agree with the jewel removal because it does make balancing easier for Pvp, however, the jewel stats are obviously much less significant than amulet stats but it does help in offering that small diversity for builds. But, i think we will have to see how it really is once the patch hits.

I don’t even want to imagine how long it has to take to try to balance the stat combos in Pve…