Guild Wars 2

PVP basic game design: TTK (time to kill).

TTK (time to kill).

TTK is one of the most basic concepts of pvp design.
TTK is the time it takes to kill a target with everything taken into account and when played perfectly with zero mistakes. For gw2 that would be with perfect dodge, defensive skills, combinations, cc, heals, gap closing/creating etc. everything done perfect on both sides (every skill used at the perfect timew).

It is the most essential and basic in pvp game design when it comes to balance (also some of the first you will run into in any course if you actually educated yourself, which any serious dev should have done if they want a job or want to keep a job within the industry).

So to go into it deeper:
The design is to insure balanced pvp across classes and roles.
It acknowledge any skill/difference and advantage a player might have and balance out the numbers.

As an example:
if a class can kill you in 10 seconds when he uses every manoeuvre perfectly and you use every defensive manoeuvre perfectly, your dodge, defensive skills, gapcloser/creater, heals, etc perfectly.
Then you should be able to kill that class in 10 seconds as well when he uses his skills perfectly and you uses yours perfectly.

In such a manner you can insure 100% balance across all classes.
Equal skill wise you look at individual skills and insure that the TTK difference of changing to that skill stays in place.
Meaning if you change a skill which effectively slows your TTK with 10%, then that skill needs to slow the enemies TTK by 10%.

It is actually an INSANELY simple concept of pvp gamedesign and extremely important to get right.
(which there really is no excuse because you can just make an algorithm which calcs the exact needed numbers for the TTK to match overall for all roles/classes/skills)

Now my complain is that in GW2 the TTK is off by so much it is laughably bad, meta builds will completely and utterly destroy full dps builds (as an example).
Only VERY few build setups is valid and you can EASILY make builds, which is 100% impossible to win with (which completely proofs that the TTK of skills/classes haven’t been done correctly).

Now there is only one suggestion to this issue which will properly never happened but I will state it anyway:
“Hire a competent balance designer which is Actually Educated within game design (meaning he actually took the education or at least followed up his old education with the courses of this decade)”
Moreover, get all classes, skills, etc. into a spreadsheet and fix it up OR get a mathematician/programmer to make an algorithm to do it for you.

Since you are a multi hundred million dollars company so you not having such basic concept locked 100% down is not ok.
Especially in a game you “pride yourself” on being a pvp “gem” and wanting an esport.

From your language it’s obvious that you like to talk in the extremes and state things as simple, incredibly, easy, obvious, extremely laughably ridicolous facts.

PVP basic game design: TTK (time to kill).
…
TTK is one of the most basic concepts of pvp design.
…
It is the most essential and basic in pvp game design when it comes to balance (also some of the first you will run into in any course if you actually educated yourself, which any serious dev should have done if they want a job or want to keep a job within the industry).
…
It is actually an INSANELY simple concept of pvp gamedesign and extremely important to get right.
(which there really is no excuse because you can just make an algorithm which calcs the exact needed numbers for the TTK to match overall for all roles/classes/skills)
…
Now my complain is that in GW2 the TTK is off by so much it is laughably bad, meta builds will completely and utterly destroy full dps builds (as an example).
Only VERY few build setups is valid and you can EASILY make builds, which is 100% impossible to win with (which completely proofs that the TTK of skills/classes haven’t been done correctly).
…
“Hire a competent balance designer which is Actually Educated within game design (meaning he actually took the education or at least followed up his old education with the courses of this decade)”
Moreover, get all classes, skills, etc. into a spreadsheet and fix it up OR get a mathematician/programmer to make an algorithm to do it for you.

Since you are a multi hundred million dollars company so you not having such basic concept locked 100% down is not ok.
Especially in a game you “pride yourself” on being a pvp “gem” and wanting an esport.

Perhaps you read this on a introductury course for table top games. While that is probably true for a turn based game or a MOBA, or something like that.
I do not think solving outcome of absolutely perfectly played duel is as simple for a interactive combat like MMO. Or solving what even happens in a perfectly played fight anyway. There would be incredible amount of variables in such a problem, what skills you dodge, what do you blind? Do you blind, dodge, stunbreak, absorb and condi transfer? First minute both players are perfectly kiteing and avoiding every single attack? This is such a huge problem and full of questions.

I’m referring to your claim that TTK is such a incredibly easy thing to apply for a game like GW2. It is not.

And secondly, what sense would such make anyway. People don’t play perfectly, would I balance um say S/D thief based on perfect gameplay that it can avoid every single attack attempted by the enemy, while this doesn’t reflect reality. Or that Fresh Air with full deck of arcanes will instantly kill anyone – perfect gameplay is based on reacting right.

Thirdly why base balancing of a teamgame on a 1v1 model.

While GW2 balance obviously isn’t perfect and I’m not trying to defend that. But your post is quite simplistic and bold in it’s claims and narrow in it’s ideas…

Sabull.5670:

From your language it’s obvious that you like to talk in the extremes and state things as simple, incredibly, easy, obvious, extremely laughably ridicolous facts.

PVP basic game design: TTK (time to kill).
…
TTK is one of the most basic concepts of pvp design.
…
It is the most essential and basic in pvp game design when it comes to balance (also some of the first you will run into in any course if you actually educated yourself, which any serious dev should have done if they want a job or want to keep a job within the industry).
…
It is actually an INSANELY simple concept of pvp gamedesign and extremely important to get right.
(which there really is no excuse because you can just make an algorithm which calcs the exact needed numbers for the TTK to match overall for all roles/classes/skills)
…
Now my complain is that in GW2 the TTK is off by so much it is laughably bad, meta builds will completely and utterly destroy full dps builds (as an example).
Only VERY few build setups is valid and you can EASILY make builds, which is 100% impossible to win with (which completely proofs that the TTK of skills/classes haven’t been done correctly).
…
“Hire a competent balance designer which is Actually Educated within game design (meaning he actually took the education or at least followed up his old education with the courses of this decade)”
Moreover, get all classes, skills, etc. into a spreadsheet and fix it up OR get a mathematician/programmer to make an algorithm to do it for you.

Since you are a multi hundred million dollars company so you not having such basic concept locked 100% down is not ok.
Especially in a game you “pride yourself” on being a pvp “gem” and wanting an esport.

Perhaps you read this on a introductury course for table top games. While that is probably true for a turn based game or a MOBA, or something like that.
I do not think solving outcome of absolutely perfectly played duel is as simple for a interactive combat like MMO. Or solving what even happens in a perfectly played fight anyway. There would be incredible amount of variables in such a problem, what skills you dodge, what do you blind? Do you blind, dodge, stunbreak, absorb and condi transfer? First minute both players are perfectly kiteing and avoiding every single attack? This is such a huge problem and full of questions.

I’m referring to your claim that TTK is such a incredibly easy thing to apply for a game like GW2. It is not.

And secondly, what sense would such make anyway. People don’t play perfectly, would I balance um say S/D thief based on perfect gameplay that it can avoid every single attack attempted by the enemy, while this doesn’t reflect reality. Or that Fresh Air with full deck of arcanes will instantly kill anyone – perfect gameplay is based on reacting right.

Thirdly why base balancing of a teamgame on a 1v1 model.

While GW2 balance obviously isn’t perfect and I’m not trying to defend that. But your post is quite simplistic and bold in it’s claims and narrow in it’s ideas…

Everything is relative
When I am saying it as it being “easy” as you interpret it. It is seen from a person which specialty, job, education and work is within the subject.

If we are talking someone with no knowledge within game design, balance, mathematics and programming, then YES it will be extremely complex to the point of impossible.
However, I think we can all agree if you are such a person you shouldn’t have a job as a “lead balance designer” on a game that cost 100million + to develop. That is just crazy to assume that.
If you have the credentials to get such a job, we must assume that you have a vast knowledge and/or are educated within pvp game design, mathematical statistics, or/and programming of such algorithms.
With THAT in mind, this is quite simple/basic. No one, which is educated within the last 10+- years within game design, should be clueless to TTK and pvp balancing.
———————————-

Good pvp design core concepts apply to ALL genres.
Whether you are going with a TTK for group vs group or 1v1 is not relevant for the core concepts of the design.
The TTK will still have the same issue’s if 1v1 TTK is off (unless you got a VERY heavy trinity setup where capability of negating damage for team members and healing them is in such high focus, that the TTK overall equals out in diversed group builds played perfectly, targeting perfectly vs. any other team setup.
Which is not the case in gw2)

Actually it is “that simple”
(well as mentioned if you are not highly educated within the subject it isn’t, but neither is coding the system itself. It takes experts within the fields for it to be “easy/within reason”, but as mentioned for a product of this scale there is really no excuse for not having such people leading the pvp balance design)

In addition, no there isn’t much variation in how to do it perfectly from both sides. It is pure number crunching and you can make an algorithm to check which patterns/solutions gives the best results.
(we have chess computers at 3200 ratings, you don’t think we can make an algorithm to do a little mathematics for number crunching skills in an mmo?)

The sense of it is “balancing the game”
Pretty obvious when you think of it.
And no humans don’t play perfectly, but the TTK insures that the person who plays “BETTER” will always win.
(or almost always, there could be some edge cases due to critical chance’s etc. which is only relevant when we are talking two players that are very close to each other’s RL skill lvl).

I would assume that for PVP’ers that the preferred state of the game would be such a balance where their own RL skills was the primary factor of whether or not they win, and the build is a preferred playstyle more than a determining factor of success.

The problem with balance is PURELY a number tweaking; it is actually extremely simple to do balance if you just have the knowledge of how to do it….
Which is why 100mill+ products shouldn’t be suffering from a large issue with simple stuff like TTK, which is also why I am posting this on the forum to bring light to an issue which should be basic knowledge.
It is definitely fixable by the devs if they just hire someone, which is educated within the subject, or have educated themselves within it

I am curious what MMO had TTK that was equal among classes and roles.

Schurge.5194:

I am curious what MMO had TTK that was equal among classes and roles.

talking pvp balance:

Two that pops to mind which is heavily influenced by a TTK is Aion and B&S when talking 1v1 as well as group.
When talking group vs group you got something like lol, smite and other moba’s which are building their systems GvG focused TTK.
nwo based their design as well on TTK.

Actually, TTK is something which almost every pvp orientated game has in their design because it is 100% essential for Good competitive pvp gameplay

i assume this is also the reason most games does trinity, because if you want TTK to only be group orientated (or want some diversity/counter class setup types), you need Clear role defined and number caps to insure that the group environment keeps the TTK balanced.

I also assume that GW2 was planning a system based around group combat.
When looking at high-ranged dps builds, their support for the group is quite good, which would make their TTK GvG good if they had proper Trinity setup, meaning that you had the ability to truly shield and protected the dps’s from getting nuked down in seconds.

if you look at aion as an example due to the dps burst from more tanky classes, if there was no support that could stop Templars+clerics from rolfstomping dps classes, the best pvp would always be temp+cleric because their TTK is vastly superior to pure dps classes in GvG. (assuming no hardcounter support was present)
However, because of stuff like Bodygaurd, pull, burst heals, shields, etc. it is very valid to include the dps focused classes as well. Since true if they aren’t hard protected, healed, etc. they would simply just die in such group environment. But because it is GvG and they do get protected the GvG TTK equals out.
(due to defensive classes taking of lowering their dps by focusing on protecting, healers needing to focus more on the healing/protecting, and the dps having much higher dps making up for the loss in TTK that is suffered by the healers+tanks not focusing on dps’ing)
Since more diverse teams opens up for more tactics and better/different ways to deal with other teams the more diverse teams are often more sort after.

In GW2 you have no such trinity setup to make up for the LARGE difference in TTK for 1v1. Which means in GvG it isn’t much different, there isn’t much a team can do in the Setups of sPVP(or organised fair pvp enviroments) to protect some builds and more of “the advantage of having such builds that Really need protecting is in no way Worth the trade-off, that the other roles/builds will have to do, to try and do so. Especially since the protective power is vastly more amplified by keeping to the most efficient TTK 1v1 builds compared to diversifying.
Which then comes to the issue of GvG TTK being extremely off when working with most, if not all, diverse build setups vs. meta setups.

No thanks, i roleplay.

Chapell.1346:

No thanks, i roleplay.

you are either trolling or you will need to explain what that have to do with the subject

So many good points made here.
Especially your opening post Nyx! Kudos for that.

Just as a short introduction of my background:
I myself own a MSc in Computer Science and work in the field of “safety critical systems” basically the total opposite of game designing as for us everything is about crunching the numbers so that the Boeing/Airbus/car/highspeed train/nuclear powerplant does not go boom.

The ranting part:
There is virtually no evening when I am logged into this game where it does not scream into my face that the class developers/designers of GW2 are not only no mathematicians but most likely not even programmers (as indicated to me by the absolute lack of understanding of basic principles of programming – I might be wrong though) but game designers.

Back to topic:
I totally agree with you, Nyx that crunching the numbers is the only way to get pvp right at this point and that there is most likely no one at Arenanet who has the mental capacity/skillset to do that (perhaps the trading post experts, as they seem to have at lease a firm knowledge of statistics).
I also fear that no one will be hired for this, unfortunately because some of the basic concepts of GW2 pvp are very, very promising I think.

Just one question about your stance Nyx:
What I am not sure of is the following:
You say that TTK should be equal over all classes. How is your stance to offsetting this equilibrium by e. g. saying: “It is okay if it takes 20 seconds to kill class A if Class A needs also 20 seconds to kill everyone else.” and (using your 10 second example).
Is this something you find acceptable or would it already, in your opinion, corrupt the principle of using TTK as a balancing axiom?

For me this is actually important in order to promote the bunker, dd, bruiser playstyle which I like in its versatility.

Neverthelsee your basic idea that there needs to be a basis of numbers that give a metric of the tradeoff one makes if deciding to play a bunker setup instead of a dd setup is exactly what I feel is needed.

Your entire premise falls short on one fundamental false hood.

You’re assuming TTK has a direct correlation with winning. In PvP this is not the case, you win by holding points that generate score. You can have teams with massively skewed TTK but ultimately one can out rotate the other ensuring they have more points ticking for them while keeping the capture points decapped for the enemy. In this case mobility has to be taken into account not just TTK.

Case in point, watch magic toker in the last WTS. You could theoretically win a game by not even fighting which then makes TTK as a form of balance completely wrong.

I do not agree with you apharma on several points:

1. Just because one playstyle of one class decides to/has to avoid fighting, the basic principle in itself is not wrong.
2. This is a purely personal reason (and therefore can be ignored if you wish): I myself main thief (but have every class to 80 apart from engi/hunter and play them in pvp) and feel that the “no fight”-playstyle of Magic Toker was only because he HAD to play in this way precisely because there is no balancing of the game as proposed by Nyx and because TCG failed at rotating in this match.
3. You are correct in my opinion though that the pvp game mode of GW2 is not purely about fighting but about capturing and holding points. This is however a different discussion from what Nyx started:

• Nyx says (as far as i understand) that balancing (implicitely combat pvp balancing) should be around number crunshing and he/she proposes as a basis of this to use the TTK approach.
• If there are different dimensions core to the pvp gameplay (and please keep in mind that stronghold is coming) these need to also be balanced but on a different scale, perhaps the “time to target”-approach would be feasible for that.
• In conclusion: Just because the TTK approach does not cover the whole of GW2 pvp concepts does not make it wrong just not complete. And just using the TTK approach would in my opinion greatly enhance GW2’s pvp even without taking in consideration the other aspects of balancing.

Nyx.6532:

Now my complain is that in GW2 the TTK is off by so much it is laughably bad, meta builds will completely and utterly destroy full dps builds (as an example).
Only VERY few build setups is valid and you can EASILY make builds, which is 100% impossible to win with (which completely proofs that the TTK of skills/classes haven’t been done correctly).

You seem to ignore that:

- MOBAS, which are the pvp flavor of the moment, have completely different ttk for each hero from the start of the game and it keeps changing during all the game.

- PVP in this game is a 5vs5 man thing. Your glass cannon can get his kitten handed to him in a 1on1, but in a team fight it can burst down even the tankiest builds. (sometimes i get wrecked with my ele in 1 second, if the enemy team knows how to pull it out)

- Of course there will be builds that are crap. If you take traits that don’t synergize at all, it is the equivalent of not performing perfectly, not dodgning, not healing, not cleaning condis. You cannot be blaming the devs for the possibility to make a bad build.

I find the OP to be incredibly arrogant and self indulgent in it’s tone. Some of the responses as well. You obviously have no idea how the game is coded underneath the covers and the real programming has more to do with managing how the game plays over a WAN while keeping everything in sync.

Your conceptualization of how to balance is skewed as well. The “simple” mathematics you describe are not simple in any way. How do you account for the effects of combo fields and finishers? Boons? AoE effects on a group vs. single target effects. It’s only simple to you because you, obviously, don’t understand what you are talking about.

And, I am fairly certain the most complex part is designing the game so that it will work on a variety of hardware and the clients will be able to communicate over the network. The game you are playing is a very small part of what the developers work on. The code that makes it work (at all) is the hard part, for sure.

Eleandra.4859:

So many good points made here.
Especially your opening post Nyx! Kudos for that.

Just as a short introduction of my background:
I myself own a MSc in Computer Science and work in the field of “safety critical systems” basically the total opposite of game designing as for us everything is about crunching the numbers so that the Boeing/Airbus/car/highspeed train/nuclear powerplant does not go boom.

The ranting part:
There is virtually no evening when I am logged into this game where it does not scream into my face that the class developers/designers of GW2 are not only no mathematicians but most likely not even programmers (as indicated to me by the absolute lack of understanding of basic principles of programming – I might be wrong though) but game designers.

Back to topic:
I totally agree with you, Nyx that crunching the numbers is the only way to get pvp right at this point and that there is most likely no one at Arenanet who has the mental capacity/skillset to do that (perhaps the trading post experts, as they seem to have at lease a firm knowledge of statistics).
I also fear that no one will be hired for this, unfortunately because some of the basic concepts of GW2 pvp are very, very promising I think.

Just one question about your stance Nyx:
What I am not sure of is the following:
You say that TTK should be equal over all classes. How is your stance to offsetting this equilibrium by e. g. saying: “It is okay if it takes 20 seconds to kill class A if Class A needs also 20 seconds to kill everyone else.” and (using your 10 second example).
Is this something you find acceptable or would it already, in your opinion, corrupt the principle of using TTK as a balancing axiom?

For me this is actually important in order to promote the bunker, dd, bruiser playstyle which I like in its versatility.

Neverthelsee your basic idea that there needs to be a basis of numbers that give a metric of the tradeoff one makes if deciding to play a bunker setup instead of a dd setup is exactly what I feel is needed.

Hi eleandra.

First of thanks for the very nice words.

I am quite tired right now but would like to answer before I go to sleep. So I apologise if my wording is not the best in this answer

As I can hear we are very much in the same mind-set when it comes to the view and look of the development (it would do GW2 so much good to hire someone with expertise within game balance design, or just a mathematician or computer science with expertise in algorithm who could help them solve these formula problems.).
Anyway will jump directly to the question now

As I understand your question, it is “if the actual amount of seconds for TTK is important for the design”, meaning if 10 sec is the upper limit, 20 as you mention or 120 seconds for that matter. Correct me if I misunderstood

The time itself is not important, weather it is 2 seconds or 2.000 seconds. As long as the balance is equal so the class which takes x seconds to kill you, you can kill in x seconds.
As an example if we look at Aion the TTK between a Templar and an Assassin is infinity, the Templar will never be able to kill the assassin and the assassin will never be able to kill the Templar if both are played perfectly in an fair environment for both.
As such, the TTK principle is still in effect.

Most devs have acknowledged that players enjoy different type of playstyles and TTK timer.
To accommodate this they have made a “role system” so different roles have different TTK and playstyles.
Meaning Tanks usually have a very high TTK timer, so it always takes them a long time to kill but equally it takes a long time to kill them.
Equally dps classes will kill very fast but also get killed very fast.
Lastly, we got the “immortal class” type, healers which can’t normally kill anyone but neither can they be killed. Often to balance out GvG some classes gets the ability to equalize their TTK with another class, meaning they use their time to die or time to kill to enhance another role TTK which in return diminish their own effective TTK. (this would in game design translate to healing others instead of yourself, or protecting others with your skills, etc.)

But essentially as long as you insure that the TTK is equalized and always in balance you could design any kind of class/role setup and it would still work.

@Archon:

I have to admit, that I feel aggression comes mainly from the first paragraph of your post not so much from others but aside from that:

You are right that most likely the focus is on the backend side of things where high fidelity server responses to the client packages for thousands of users are concerned and I do not argue that this part of the software is neither negligible nor even from a complexity point of view comes behind balancing in any way. Also Arenanet is doing quite a good job at this.

I also understand Nyx, if he refuses to see this game as a huge high performance/availability database with added frontend, because even though it is perhaps the most expensive part of the whole game, it is not the game by itself.

Also no one in this thread even talked about this, the discussion was about an approach to balancing the game combat-wise not about what is the most complex part of programming the distributed software that is Guild Wars 2.

In the great scheme of the parts comprising this game such as, but not limited to, database management, response times, 3D engine, trading post, etc. the class balancing is something that takes up its place in the list of things to be handled by someone who has the right education for this job (education here used in terms of “knows how to achieve it”).
I feel that balancing is something that is not handled properly at the moment, successivley getting worse over the last months. I am also pretty sure that some changes which have been done during that time were done in preparation to HoT which does not make it better.

I also agree with Nyx in sofar that a wholistic mathematical approach is not only better but the only way to handle this complex topic. Apart from this there are still questions I at least need to understand concerning his idea.

The mathematics are surely not “simple” but they can be handled, mathematical/statisitcal models can be constructed with reasonable effort I believe and they are, at least in my opinion, the better approach. Even if they are not 100% correct, as models are seldom, they can give you a suitable approximation of reality to base your decisions on.

(at the borders of this discussion at least I have vented a little bit my frustration about some of the issues plaguing this game in pvp and pve. If you feel offended by this, please just ignore it or view it as the combination of professional pride in combination with a passion for this game)

Archon.6480:

I find the OP to be incredibly arrogant and self indulgent in it’s tone. Some of the responses as well. You obviously have no idea how the game is coded underneath the covers and the real programming has more to do with managing how the game plays over a WAN while keeping everything in sync.

Your conceptualization of how to balance is skewed as well. The “simple” mathematics you describe are not simple in any way. How do you account for the effects of combo fields and finishers? Boons? AoE effects on a group vs. single target effects. It’s only simple to you because you, obviously, don’t understand what you are talking about.

And, I am fairly certain the most complex part is designing the game so that it will work on a variety of hardware and the clients will be able to communicate over the network. The game you are playing is a very small part of what the developers work on. The code that makes it work (at all) is the hard part, for sure.

I am sorry if i sounded arrogant.
I must admit when I wrote my OP I was a bit too annoyed of the “lack of competence” I felt the devs have shown on this area and it properly shows through my tone

The coding beneath is irrelevant for the TTK system. Since the TTK is just tweaking the already existing attributes value, in other words it is just changing the numbers. It got no relevance how any of the design structure etc. is made when doing this ^^

The mathematics on this area is actually very simple in comparison to other systems.
As I mentioned the chess computers, which reaches 3200 ratings (the max humans have reached is around 2800 for comparison) have vastly higher amounts of possibilities that the system will need to evaluate to make the best move.
The TTK system is essentially a Static system, which means the algorithms to figure out the perfect TTK numbers would be much simpler and easier to make. Do not forget that such a program would not be part of the actual gw2 game code itself. It would simply be used as a fast way to find the perfect balance of the TTK while making it easy to adjust parameters if needed.

Of couse as I mentioned before everything is relative. For someone who is not educated or haven’t worked within the field before, making such program and finding the right algorithm could be a big challenge.
However, I would assume if you are a company creating a game for 100mill + that you do have the funds to hire someone, which actually have the fully developed skills, knowledge and experience for the task. Especially since such a task could be done by people of various expertise areas, since it is essentially “just” number crunching. In addition, while number crunching can be extremely challenging, there is several fields where expertise within this area is a must.
(Mathematics, algorithm optimization, statistics, and game balance designers should have the knowledge needed. Just to mention a few of the top of my head, that should be more then capable of such task)

Hi Nyx,
thank you for this clarification.

My question was actually not if the amount of time used in your example was important but more in the direction of your third paragraph – which directly made it clear for me.

One could have been of the opinion that each and every class has to have the same TTK in comparison to all other classes and by this eliminating different playstyles. This would be the easiest model to construct and would basically represent a one class system, where different classes mainly are represented by different animations etc. but survivability (or sustain as it is called here) and damage output would be equal globally (1).

The system that I would like to see, and that you proposed I now understand, is a system where different TTKs are allowed for different classes but a shorter TTK for the class is offset by its ability to kill opponent classes faster.

FOOTNOTES:
(1): I oversimplyfy, eben in a system as described defensive and offensive mechanics could differ between classes but if reduced to the numbers I think it could be seen in the way described.

Nyx.6532:

Schurge.5194:

I am curious what MMO had TTK that was equal among classes and roles.

talking pvp balance:

Two that pops to mind which is heavily influenced by a TTK is Aion and B&S when talking 1v1 as well as group.
When talking group vs group you got something like lol, smite and other moba’s which are building their systems GvG focused TTK.
nwo based their design as well on TTK.

Actually, TTK is something which almost every pvp orientated game has in their design because it is 100% essential for Good competitive pvp gameplay

---

i assume this is also the reason most games does trinity, because if you want TTK to only be group orientated (or want some diversity/counter class setup types), you need Clear role defined and number caps to insure that the group environment keeps the TTK balanced.

I also assume that GW2 was planning a system based around group combat.
When looking at high-ranged dps builds, their support for the group is quite good, which would make their TTK GvG good if they had proper Trinity setup, meaning that you had the ability to truly shield and protected the dps’s from getting nuked down in seconds.

if you look at aion as an example due to the dps burst from more tanky classes, if there was no support that could stop Templars+clerics from rolfstomping dps classes, the best pvp would always be temp+cleric because their TTK is vastly superior to pure dps classes in GvG. (assuming no hardcounter support was present)
However, because of stuff like Bodygaurd, pull, burst heals, shields, etc. it is very valid to include the dps focused classes as well. Since true if they aren’t hard protected, healed, etc. they would simply just die in such group environment. But because it is GvG and they do get protected the GvG TTK equals out.
(due to defensive classes taking of lowering their dps by focusing on protecting, healers needing to focus more on the healing/protecting, and the dps having much higher dps making up for the loss in TTK that is suffered by the healers+tanks not focusing on dps’ing)
Since more diverse teams opens up for more tactics and better/different ways to deal with other teams the more diverse teams are often more sort after.

In GW2 you have no such trinity setup to make up for the LARGE difference in TTK for 1v1. Which means in GvG it isn’t much different, there isn’t much a team can do in the Setups of sPVP(or organised fair pvp enviroments) to protect some builds and more of “the advantage of having such builds that Really need protecting is in no way Worth the trade-off, that the other roles/builds will have to do, to try and do so. Especially since the protective power is vastly more amplified by keeping to the most efficient TTK 1v1 builds compared to diversifying.
Which then comes to the issue of GvG TTK being extremely off when working with most, if not all, diverse build setups vs. meta setups.

I think Aion and I would assume B&S (as it is in the same vein) are pretty kitten-poor examples to base your PvP on… I would look at Warhammer Online and to a lesser extent Dark Age of Camelot for good examples of class balance across multiple PvP situations. Those games were PvP games… Aion and Guild Wars 2 are not.

I think it is a fatal mistake to assume in even 1v1 PvP classes can’t be balanced and still have different TTKs as classes with higher TTK tend to have ways to prolong fights – and win – against classes that have very short TTK. You don’t need the Trinity for this and as you point out elsewhere balls to the walls does not equal faster TTK in all or even most instances. There are so many other variables to take advantage of.

There is such a thing as asymmetrical balance… Guild Wars 2 is not the best example of asymmetrical balance but I don’t believe the (lack of) TTK emphasis has much to do with it… or at least it gets lost in the entire host of other things that make PvP in this game – while fun – wildly hard to balance…

Nyx.6532:

PVP basic game design: TTK (time to kill).

TTK (time to kill).

TTK is one of the most basic concepts of pvp design.
TTK is the time it takes to kill a target with everything taken into account and when played perfectly with zero mistakes. For gw2 that would be with perfect dodge, defensive skills, combinations, cc, heals, gap closing/creating etc. everything done perfect on both sides (every skill used at the perfect timew).

It is the most essential and basic in pvp game design when it comes to balance (also some of the first you will run into in any course if you actually educated yourself, which any serious dev should have done if they want a job or want to keep a job within the industry).

So to go into it deeper:
The design is to insure balanced pvp across classes and roles.
It acknowledge any skill/difference and advantage a player might have and balance out the numbers.

As an example:
if a class can kill you in 10 seconds when he uses every manoeuvre perfectly and you use every defensive manoeuvre perfectly, your dodge, defensive skills, gapcloser/creater, heals, etc perfectly.
Then you should be able to kill that class in 10 seconds as well when he uses his skills perfectly and you uses yours perfectly.

In such a manner you can insure 100% balance across all classes.
Equal skill wise you look at individual skills and insure that the TTK difference of changing to that skill stays in place.
Meaning if you change a skill which effectively slows your TTK with 10%, then that skill needs to slow the enemies TTK by 10%.

It is actually an INSANELY simple concept of pvp gamedesign and extremely important to get right.
(which there really is no excuse because you can just make an algorithm which calcs the exact needed numbers for the TTK to match overall for all roles/classes/skills)

Now my complain is that in GW2 the TTK is off by so much it is laughably bad, meta builds will completely and utterly destroy full dps builds (as an example).
Only VERY few build setups is valid and you can EASILY make builds, which is 100% impossible to win with (which completely proofs that the TTK of skills/classes haven’t been done correctly).

Now there is only one suggestion to this issue which will properly never happened but I will state it anyway:
“Hire a competent balance designer which is Actually Educated within game design (meaning he actually took the education or at least followed up his old education with the courses of this decade)”
Moreover, get all classes, skills, etc. into a spreadsheet and fix it up OR get a mathematician/programmer to make an algorithm to do it for you.

Since you are a multi hundred million dollars company so you not having such basic concept locked 100% down is not ok.
Especially in a game you “pride yourself” on being a pvp “gem” and wanting an esport.

I am getting a BS, majoring in video game programming, so I’m going to say this, your whole argument is terrible. There are far too many variables and combinations for what you want to be feasible, not only that but there is never going to be some type of miracle patch that fixes all balance problems. Do u think developers read a forum post like this and think “hmmmm, lets take advice from some random guy, and restructure our entire game”? because you would be VERY naive if that’s what you think.

You came to this forum simply to make a crybaby, ranty post with no real answers, no real problems, nothing. Also, if you’re going to talk kitten about developers who have dedicated years to this game, what great tame are you lead designer of? What mmo have you personally balanced perfectly using ur “TTK” strategy? I don’t even expect you to respond to this, and you shouldn’t.

Charting average TTK among weapons in serious, competitive FPS has been productive in many cases, so I don’t see why you couldn’t do the same along profession or build lines in this game. It would have be impossible in GW1 due to the skill variety, granted, but GW2 is a considerably more… constrained game on a design level.

And make no mistake, the TTK with competitive SPvP builds is kind of absurd right now.

D/D thief with scholar runes, zerker amulet and 2+ signets can kill things in 1 second. Does that make that build OP?

The point of TTK is not to pick out weird, gimmicky edge cases but to figure out both what the average TTK is, and what it SHOULD be. Given that the build you listed is non-viable in SPvP, it’s not really relevant to what we’re talking about.

Now, a D/D Ele or Medi Guard’s TTK, on the other hand… that sort of thing is relevant.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

D/D thief with scholar runes, zerker amulet and 2+ signets can kill things in 1 second. Does that make that build OP?

Not if the opponent plays perfectly defensively

Nyx.6532:

if a class can kill you in 10 seconds when he uses every manoeuvre perfectly and you use every defensive manoeuvre perfectly, your dodge, defensive skills, gapcloser/creater, heals, etc perfectly.
Then you should be able to kill that class in 10 seconds as well when he uses his skills perfectly and you uses yours perfectly.

This is the stupidest thing ever, this is an MMORPG not a FPS. The class rock/paper/scissors mean that teams have to actively think about who they are sending where depending on where the enemy has their classes. One of the reasons why Abjured did so well in WTS was because they would send their necro to 1v1 the enemy ele and force him off the point, not send a thief or engi. If all classes have the same chance at killing each other within the same time, you are dumbing down this game massively.

Amante.8109:

Charting average TTK among weapons in serious, competitive FPS has been productive in many cases, so I don’t see why you couldn’t do the same along profession or build lines in this game. It would have be impossible in GW1 due to the skill variety, granted, but GW2 is a considerably more… constrained game on a design level.

And make no mistake, the TTK with competitive SPvP builds is kind of absurd right now.

See, the problem there is that in an FPS, there is only one real class, with vastly less variation than any RPG-type game.
You can’t be a bunker or support role, for the most part. There are no invulns or pure stalling skills, there’s no stealth (at least not true stealth), dashes/teleports, or combo fields, much less any real CC or anything approaching it.

@OP, TTK is a whole lot more complicated than you think, especially in a game where everyone can self-heal.
Bunker/bruiser specs in pretty much any game can require more than one person to kill, regardless of skill level, especially sustain-based ones, not to mention the whole fact that many attacks may or may not hit, depending on the surroundings, LoS, etc.
On top of all of that, this is not a 1v1-based game in any mode. You can’t ask for 1v1 balance in this type of a game, nor can you ask for full 5v5 balance because it isn’t deathmatch. It’s a game about having your team sit in as many small circles as possible for as long as possible, while preventing the enemy team from doing so.

Your concept of balance is all wrong, first off -

You cannot perfectly balance numbers in a system where chance can happen.
Secondly you must consider the role of the piece, just because the Queen is the most powerful chess piece doesn’t mean the game must be designed around her capabilities. Thus your concept of TTK is flawed. That isn’t staying there needs to be some number tweaking in Guild Wars 2.

The ideal thing to do it pick a role and balance it to the same roles. Support to support, damage to damage, tank to tank, CC to CC and so on.

So give everyone just ten health and one attack that can do one point of damage a second to make everything even and keep your TTK the same across the board…

Pretty sure that would be the most boring MMORPG ever.

While your opinions might be suitable for an FPS game, I think your approach would absolutely ruin the class identity, fun, and artistic value of an MMORPG like Guild Wars 2.

You sound like one of those people who use spread sheets and calculators and reduce your character to just a bunch of meaningless numbers and statistics rather than try to enjoy an adventure and have some fun. Your approach just sounds way to soulless to me to be applied to such an artistic game like Guild Wars 2.

While I cannot speak for everyone, I know I would much rather keep some class identity and diversity even if it means that the TTK is not exactly even across the board rather than be reduced to a bunch of numbers and spread sheets and statistics. I rather like the variety of defenses, dodges, and attacks we have now across the various classes and would hate to see them reduced to being all the same just for the sake of some arbitrary statistic.

Thanks.

I heavily disagree, because at that point damage ceases to matter and it suddenly becomes a match of which classes bring the most support. Some weapons and options are good, not because of time to kill, but because it brings something unique to the table. Said something unique might not assist in winning fights, but it can definitely help you out. For instance: mobility. It’s not crucial to winning a fight, but it’s very important for winning a match. You shouldn’t be able to have that without giving up anything.

That’s not to say the power of some classes isn’t off. The game is imbalanced and some things need a buff, whereas others need nerfs. But this idea is flawed.

There is certainly an X factor that is not that easy to quantify. Having said that there is also very much so quantifiable factor Y which limits how much that X factor can weight on the game.

Eleandra, from my experience as a programer my self, i have to agree with You, from the UI to the Glacial times of balance patches, in something that is little more than tweeking constants in a program, Literally no different than opening a word documante changing it and saving it again, to the fact that instant skills fail to connect (like blinking strike, goes of and blinks but does not strike, guadian sword 2), to the art which is for the most part clearly asian in design.

This game reaks of outsourcing to Ncsofts “partners” as opposed to in house development. When you do this, there is always a cost attached to it, and in GW2 shows.

+1

This is more or less what I’ve wanted GW2’s direction to go since year 1 but never had the way to word or emphasize.

I feel this here is exactly the reason why GW2 has not become a proper esport.

I don’t know why people are against games that are fair and evenly balanced. You can still have proper balance and a team focused game.

I don’t think they are doing a good job with balance but the original post is pretty bad.

Game design and development is not nearly this black and white, it goes beyond simple math as you have to quantify things like CC, mobility, buffs, objectives etc. There are plenty of other things like range and risk versus reward as well.

TTK is a good discussion to have as far as whether or not it is healthy for the game, both on a casual and competitive level. Trying to perfect TTK precisely between classes is not.

Some examples from other competitive games as it is late…

If I’m using LoL as an example, how do you factor something like a character’s ULT? It goes well beyond TTK. You could argue that in GW2 things are unbalanced like plague versus tornado but this is not a TTK issue.

Most FPS games are well balanced. There are websites delving deep into the math not just on bullet damage but spread, recoil, reload, effective range etc. If it can mostly be agreed these weapons are balanced TTK between two weapons is a silly discussion to have as they function in very different roles. You can’t compare a sniper rifle to a shotgun.

So TTK is bad design but regardless of meta we ALWAYS end up with one apex predator build or another that usually has very little risk involved, as well as minimal to moderate skill floor to be effective where the ceiling is Godlike, and often has disproportionately inflated reward. All while (sometimes) having hard counter matchups off meta. Then waiting 6 months before it’s adjusted, just to have a new build take the old ones place?

I don’t see why people care so much that it is used in FPS balancing, when devs apparently think card game mechanics are ok in any game that requires some level of APM. “Cuz randomness is fun”….? Maybe we should have mad bomber in starcraft >>

Most points are flat with little to use for LoS. Some have exploitable higher ground (but not all) with few builds that actually utilize it. What other factors are there beyond LoS and the Z axis if it’s a 1v1 on a flat?

Just because the game would be balanced does not mean it is no longer a team based game, it just means the objectively better player wins when 1v1s occur. Also I don’t see why you can’t calculate LoS and effectively forcing your opponent to whiff can’t also be considered in the “Perfect play” scenario.

Only thing that would be a big issue is traits, runes, and sigils, that have % chance procs. But with proper design it can be balanced around it, or perhaps worst case removed and altered to a different design for PvP.

Am I missing something? I don’t see how OP’s suggestion this would be bad, can I get an example?

The current TTK in 1vs1s is fine for the meta builds when the players are of equal skill. Even in like the worst realistic situation (3vs1 opening from stealth), you can survive on all classes for a decent amount of time or disengage. 1vs1 TTK times are great for all builds that bring a decent amount of defense. The only time you’ll ever die too quickly is when you are buildcrafting or playing a pve build. That’s probably okay, and while there are certainly weapons, utilities, mechanics, and traits that need work most of the meta builds are well balanced.

Game design is as much of an art as it is a science. It will remain that way until we can create AI which perfectly replicates human behavior and will exhaust all possible permutations of events.

Here’s an article the OP and people agreeing with him should read:
http://www.eldergame.com/2010/11/how-to-balance-an-mmo-and-how-to-stop/
And it only goes over a simple scenario. You can see how quickly complexity creeps in.

Nyx.6532:

PVP basic game design: TTK (time to kill).

TTK (time to kill).

TTK is one of the most basic concepts of pvp design.
TTK is the time it takes to kill a target with everything taken into account and when played perfectly with zero mistakes. For gw2 that would be with perfect dodge, defensive skills, combinations, cc, heals, gap closing/creating etc. everything done perfect on both sides (every skill used at the perfect timew).

It is the most essential and basic in pvp game design when it comes to balance (also some of the first you will run into in any course if you actually educated yourself, which any serious dev should have done if they want a job or want to keep a job within the industry).

So to go into it deeper:
The design is to insure balanced pvp across classes and roles.
It acknowledge any skill/difference and advantage a player might have and balance out the numbers.

As an example:
if a class can kill you in 10 seconds when he uses every manoeuvre perfectly and you use every defensive manoeuvre perfectly, your dodge, defensive skills, gapcloser/creater, heals, etc perfectly.
Then you should be able to kill that class in 10 seconds as well when he uses his skills perfectly and you uses yours perfectly.

In such a manner you can insure 100% balance across all classes.
Equal skill wise you look at individual skills and insure that the TTK difference of changing to that skill stays in place.
Meaning if you change a skill which effectively slows your TTK with 10%, then that skill needs to slow the enemies TTK by 10%.

It is actually an INSANELY simple concept of pvp gamedesign and extremely important to get right.
(which there really is no excuse because you can just make an algorithm which calcs the exact needed numbers for the TTK to match overall for all roles/classes/skills)

Now my complain is that in GW2 the TTK is off by so much it is laughably bad, meta builds will completely and utterly destroy full dps builds (as an example).
Only VERY few build setups is valid and you can EASILY make builds, which is 100% impossible to win with (which completely proofs that the TTK of skills/classes haven’t been done correctly).

Now there is only one suggestion to this issue which will properly never happened but I will state it anyway:
“Hire a competent balance designer which is Actually Educated within game design (meaning he actually took the education or at least followed up his old education with the courses of this decade)”
Moreover, get all classes, skills, etc. into a spreadsheet and fix it up OR get a mathematician/programmer to make an algorithm to do it for you.

Since you are a multi hundred million dollars company so you not having such basic concept locked 100% down is not ok.
Especially in a game you “pride yourself” on being a pvp “gem” and wanting an esport.

That is incorrect. in your assesment you are missing 2 more key parts of balance. What you post is a base fraction of it, but then you have continue and make changes to actually get away from that.

The 1st thing you are missing is that game balance is not a 100% vs 100% style but rock / paper / scissors style. The concept throughout industry is known as “hard counter builds”. This alters the TTK and in some cases makes it entirely not applicable.

The 2nd thing you are missing is team balance not 1 vs 1 balance. As has been pointed out, 1v1 is applicable to FPS and some MOBA games, but not here. Here you can have situations where correctly balanced team comps, which are normally sub-par in 1 vs 1, become very powerful where 2-3 player teams can easily defeat an incorrectly assembled 4-5 man team even if every member of that 5 man can and will win 1v1. Again, this alters TTK dramatically and in some cases, also makes it not applicable.

Apply those 2 on top of what you posted.

Then take it outside of the small scale arena style and add to that WvWvW where again, the team comp gets radically multiplied and see the results. There are plenty of builds here in SPVP which are considered “meta” but which do not even function there or retain only a fraction of their functionality.

Chapell.1346:

No thanks, i roleplay.

Aenesthesia.1697:

You seem to ignore that:

- MOBAS, which are the pvp flavor of the moment, have completely different ttk for each hero from the start of the game and it keeps changing during all the game.

MOBA games have well defined roles, that’s the difference.

zapv.8051:

The current TTK in 1vs1s is fine for the meta builds when the players are of equal skill. Even in like the worst realistic situation (3vs1 opening from stealth), you can survive on all classes for a decent amount of time or disengage. 1vs1 TTK times are great for all builds that bring a decent amount of defense. The only time you’ll ever die too quickly is when you are buildcrafting or playing a pve build. That’s probably okay, and while there are certainly weapons, utilities, mechanics, and traits that need work most of the meta builds are well balanced.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ele

I really feel there are a lot af valuable arguments here.

One of them being: Art vs. Math.

Art vs. Math:
Nevertheless I disagree with this argument. Not only video game programming is an art but programming in its entirety.
I understand the “math vs. art” part as the art of creating an immersive game, not the art-WORK (cg, animation, sound, etc.) in the context of this discussion, please read the following taking this premise into consideration.

As I have posted before just giving everyone one attack doing 1 dmg and 10 health is clearly not leading to an entertaining game and it is certainly also the most basic concept there is.
Think of it as the “Hello World!” of TTK balancing. this makes it ALSO a good starting point.
Going from there you can add different attacks, heals, defensive moves subsequently adding depth to the combat system and also add to your mathematical model of the combat system.
This is not an art vs. math problem because there is no “versus” in this, it is a hand-in-hand approach between two disciplines: A discipline of art and one of science.

Also, the combat system in Guild Wars 2 CAN be reduced to logic and math because this is the nature of a computer programm. If it were not so a “turing machine” (which is what all our computers are), would not be able to run the programm at all. It HAS to be a deterministic logical-mathematical model (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine).

If you have a sound mathematical model you can create a system were killtimes and damage output over the classes are not identical but TTK (as a binomial relation between two classes) is still even. This allows the designers to dreate an attack, a skill, a move that can be incorporated into the mathematical model and the numbers can then be tweaked by looking at the output the model creates.

As a last point: The model needs not be 100% correct but it would GREATLY increase the quality and speed of the balancing process (just look at the different power levels of the elite specialisations which are to be released in less than 60 days). Again a good example btw.: There is power levels (where a mathematical model would be very helpfull) and the ergonomics/flow/whatever you want to call it where the mathematical model will not be helpfull.

It is just too complex
Nothing much to say to people being of this opinion actually.
I assume it is an opinion at least. I am no statistical mathematician but as a counter example to your “it is just not possible” argument I would like to point at global climatic models, high-frequency trade models and the mathematical model of the LHC which is used to tune the experiments executed there in therory before doing it using the physical system which are all much more complex than everything GW2 brings to the table.
(The software model of the LHC is actually a very good example of what is discussed here, it serves exactly the same purpose of veryfying somethin in theory before letting it run wild in the world)
Also, I would (from my professional background) assume that most (if not all) of the mathematics involved in GW2 is linear which is in itself very simple to compute in comparison to the non-linear models created for the models above.
I understand if you answer: “Okay but these models all cost billions of dollars, took decades to create and implement and need super computers.” That is true but complexity wise this is all NOT true for a model of the GW2 combat system which, again, needs not be perfect but a reasonably good approximation of reality to base balancing decisions on in contrast to the “try and error” approach that seems to be used in GW2.

Disclaimer: I do not want to slight anyone of this opinion, the idea to use a mathematical model for balancing and that it is possible to do so is also just an opinion until someone dispoves it mathematically.
I have however strong examples on my side (see above) and no one has brought a proof of the impossibility of creating such a model. This is, I admit much harder though.

The TTK is not a good approach
THIS is an argument I can understand and i think it to be very constructive.
I feel that people who make this argument generally agree with the need of a sound mathematical basis for a combat system but do not agree with it being based on TTK.
If I understand this correctly, I would like to say that I can understand this. I think TTK is a simple axiom that can be used but surely there are different systems.
I myself proposed to use different TTX systems like the:
Time to Kill
Time to Goal
etc.
in parallel in order to be able to cover the different facets of this game 8high mobility, high combat prowess, high group sustain etc)

Please make your own propositions for systems to balance Guild Wars 2 on.

So i have read all the comments (up to a few hours ago, reading the rest now) and most of them are saying the same things

From what I can see there is 2 issue points people that highly disagree seems to have from when I read the comments, I will try to address them one at a time.
Let us first establish what perfect BALANCE is.
Prefect balance is two equally good players win/lose 50% of the time. I hope no one can disagree on this point at least

First one, which is sadly the worst one to try to explain it for, is:

1: some people lack some understanding of the mathematics (no offense meant).
I see people arguing that balance can be achieved having different TTK’s fighting each other, by this it means that class A got TTK x versus class B, but class B got TTK y versus class A.
To put numbers and names on it to make it easier to understand:
Class A called “tank”, class B called “dps”, TTK x lets say that is 20, TTK y lets say that is 10.

Therefore, the statement is:
Pvp balance can be reached even when; Tanks can kill dps’s in 20 seconds, and dps can kill tanks in 10 seconds, when both are played perfectly in all aspects.
Now if tanks die in 10 seconds and dps dies in 20 seconds that means tanks will ALWAYS lose the fight.
Because 10 is less than 20.

Now the next follow up is “stone/paper/scissor” balance.
Now the problem with the “stone/paper/scissor” is that it is inherently “unbalanced” that is the whole point of the “stone/paper/scissor”.
Stone wins 100% of the time over scissor, paper loses 100% of the time to scissor etc. which is not balanced pvp, since balanced pvp is 50% win when facing equally good players.

Anyway to address the complaint about the TTK not working when talking “stone/paper/scissor” I will explain how it is used, again this is simple mathematics.
You simply determines what the win % should be for stone to beat scissor.
Do you want stone to win 60%? 80%? 100%? Or whichever % you want the stone to win when facing a scissor, and you use the TTK to determining this.
Meaning if you want stone to be at a 20% advantage facing a scissor, you simply make the scissors TTK 20% longer than the TTK of a stone facing a sciccor.
Meaning is stone TTK is 10 sec vs. a scissor, then scissors TTK is 12 seconds when facing a stone.

In this manner, you can VERY precisely control the advantage a role/class shall have in a “stone/paper/scissor” setup.

Now to get back to the inherent problem of a “stone/paper/scissor” setup, it is NOT balanced in its core design.
However, this can be adjusted by focusing on GvG opposed to 1v1.
But by doing so you are again bringing in the TTK to the GvG, so instead of calling it “class A” it would be “group A”, and instead of calling it “class B” it would be “group B”, and the same rules applies.
TTK of group A against group B should be the same as group B against group A.

Now it will be a bit more complicated to explain the issue is when going up to groups.
Because ONLY looking at TTK will insure that it is balanced, but it will not insure that it is equally FUN for all members of the group.

Let us assume that in a group, you need one class X, if you do not have that class X you lost the fight (if not no one would ever bring class X in a group), but class X will die in the first 10 seconds of the fight when attacked and the fight will then last for 2minutes.
Now who do you think will have the most fun, class x which is dead after 10 seconds then have to wait for 110 seconds before the fight is over? Or the other classes which gets to play and engage in the game for over 10 times as long?
Now this is not really a question, more a statement

So how does games normally fix this?
Two ways are often used together:
1: by allowing equalizing of TTK amongst the team itself, meaning that the team stays alive together and all die together with very little time span between, equalizing their TTK.
This is usually done by having a trinity setup.
2: switching importance of targets, making targets have abilities that forces them to be priority targets but once that ability is used makes them low priority targets, forcing target switch (or losing the fight).
A good example of this is the spirit master from aion, which have an ability called fear shriek (insanely powerfull CC in pvp) which means it is primary focus, but if it gets off the ability it is very low priority for the next 60 seconds (cd). Thereby making the dps needed to kill it much more important to be used on a high priority target.

Lots of around explaining for something simple, yes I know :P hehe
But all in all and in short.
Without the TTK equal between 1v1, you will have an issue which needs to fixed in GvG, if you don’t use equalizing in GvG you will severely impact the amount difference on game time each player of the group gets, thereby impact the amount of fun a player gets out of the game.
True you can do Balance in GvG in such order, but the fun factor for each player will be wildly different, which is bad pvp design and definitely won’t get you an e-sport scene
(not to mention you also eliminate the 1v1 and XvX scene for any other setup then the one GvG you balanced it around. which severely hurt players thinking other XvX then the one you made is fun to do… 1v1 is always a Huge fun factor for top pvp’ers and oftend a way to measure personal skills, so i personally think it is bad to exclude it)

When that is said it is pretty clear that 5 meta builds will ALWAYS win over 5 people having very diverse builds (let’s say 2full dps, 2 full tank, 1 healer setups).
So the TTK for GvG is not good either because the group build (lets call it a build since it is a single entity as a group when we are talking balance. Same as individuals are a single balance entity when talking 1v1) is still very locked down and the TTK of other builds is in no way balanced when facing the meta builds setups

So in short it isn’t balanced.

Ok that was the First part hehe…
Pretty crazy :P

Now next part:
“The complexity of such an algorithm would be too big to be practically possible.”

Now for anyone that follows research within physics, AI, AGI, Algorithm optimization, or just general computer science, it will be clear that this statement is woefully wrong.
The complexity of doing calculations on black holes or AGI cognitive architecture, software architecture, environment task, neuro structure, mind philosophy, or even within narrow AI doing stuff like chess computers which uses machine AI is all using algorithms and systems that are Extremely complex compared to anything that would be required to do the TTK system in GW2.

The TTK could basically be done in a spreadsheet by a mathematician. True when done by a human in a spreadsheet it would properly take a bit longer and be considerably less accurate due to tweaking parameters would be much harder to do, but it would be durable.

Therefore, the notion that doing a TTK system on GW2 would be “impossible” due to the complexity of the various parameters involved is just an absurd notion, which have no hold in reality

Now as a last point TTK is a TOOL, and like any other tool it is meant to be used in the way which gives you the result you wish to archieve.
If your goal is to have an extremely “stone/paper/scissor” focused setup which is 100% focused on GvG then that is what you will use it for.
But currently it should be no discussion that builds for each roles in GW2 is woefully broken, and that many classes cannot build effective specific roles and are stuck in a very few meta builds to be effective.
If the TTK was used even to created the before mentioned “stone/paper/scissor” focused setup which is 100% focused on GvG system you would see ALL classes be able to do extremely effective in the designated roles build, and all Roles available be usefull and effective in the GvG setups. Which isn’t the case right now.

When that is said I will add that I PERSONALLY think it is a bad design choice if you want to go with a system that is so narrow as to only want “stone/paper/scissor” focused setup which is 100% focused on GvG pvp, instead of balancing it from 1v1 and up to XvX, allowing all sizes of pvp to be balanced and fun in all roles.
I doubt such a narrow system as mentioned before even when done perfectly using TTK and other balance tools, would ever stand a chance to get a large Esport following due to it being so narrow in scope.
Again, i will say that GW2 is in no way balanced even for that narrow of a scope, and even if they wish nothing else then that scope they should still take into consideration how to balance this out, i would suggest using a TTK system since it is simple to make and use and give very good balance compared to ressources used on it.

hope that cleared some points up and gave some info to people

I think I can speak for a great many here when I say this Nyx.

If it is so easy as you claim, do it.

Again though you and no-one else has addressed my point of TTK does not correlate directly with winning. Examples of such are in oRNG games where they lost due to not holding caps but nearly always won the fights. In your entire TTK premise you do not factor in a characters ability to disengage from an unfavourable fight to find a more favourable fight or a more favourable circumstance to win.

Example: Thief/ele/mesmer choosing to leave a team fight putting his team at a TTK disadvantage but decapping the 2 points held by the opposing team.

In this case if you balanced TTK completely but left out factoring in mobility around a map, both horizontally and vertically, you would end up with only classes and builds with teleports/movement skills. This is due to the ability of classes with superior movement to be able to rotate around the slower classes and be able to win in engagements.

May the Trebuchet in Khylo and the Ion Cannon in Skyhammer enlightened you, as well as other Secondary objectives in every Spvp map.

So in this alternate reality where TKK is perfectly balanced, I guess every class also has the same attack-range? The same mobility? Every PvP match is played on Courtyard (as opposed to maps where killing the other team does not mean an automatic win)?

Since balancing videogames is so easy, could you provide 1 example of a perfectly balanced multiplayer videogame? I can’t think of any, which would mean the people making these videogames are all idiots (since it’s so easy to balance). Hell even MarioKart has a best kart setup and there are waaaaaay less variables then in an MMO like Guild Wars 2.

apharma.3741:

I think I can speak for a great many here when I say this Nyx.

If it is so easy as you claim, do it.

Again though you and no-one else has addressed my point of TTK does not correlate directly with winning. Examples of such are in oRNG games where they lost due to not holding caps but nearly always won the fights. In your entire TTK premise you do not factor in a characters ability to disengage from an unfavourable fight to find a more favourable fight or a more favourable circumstance to win.

Example: Thief/ele/mesmer choosing to leave a team fight putting his team at a TTK disadvantage but decapping the 2 points held by the opposing team.

In this case if you balanced TTK completely but left out factoring in mobility around a map, both horizontally and vertically, you would end up with only classes and builds with teleports/movement skills. This is due to the ability of classes with superior movement to be able to rotate around the slower classes and be able to win in engagements.

The notion that some ones suggestion is wrong because they don’t work for free and do the job which they are suggesting for free, is quite weird too me.
It is not that it would be HARD to do, it would take TIME and EFFORT to do.
Which both is something people are paid a lot of money for. If GW2 had interest in hiring someone for this, I am sure they would be searching for the person right now.
Thinking that a software developer, preferably one with expertise within the area, should just do it for free because it isn’t “hard for them to do” is just absurd and I frankly don’t know how to address that point in any other way then I have here.

Eleandra addressed your point quite well earlier in this post, he also came with some different purposals

I will however address it as well as your example is not correct.
TTK is calculated on ALL your abilities in a fight, if you use movement abilities in a fight you effectively change your TTK compared to using other abilities.

Depending on how the movement ability works, what the focus of it is, and how strong it is, would determine how it is used best in a combat situation (perfect play).
Also depending on the design of is it TTK designed in a 1v1 or XvX or both? Would determine which impact it would have.

If the ability makes you “immortal” to an enemy.
Meaning it is a “get out of jail free card” where the opponent can’t stop you from disengaging completely when played perfectly (everything stated is when played perfectly), then when using this ability you shouldn’t be able to kill the opponent either.
I gave the example of the assassin vs. Templar earlier, which is actually such a case.
The assassin can ALWAYS disengage effectively making it 100% impossible for the Templar to ever kill the assassin (again everything is assumed when played perfectly from both sides), therefore according to the principle of TTK the Templar can’t be killed by an assassin when played perfectly. It will be a stalemate forever, the assassin can always reengage and 100% controls when the engagement happens, but if the Templar plays perfectly he can’t kill the Templar. But neither can the Templar kill him.

That is an example of movability/disengage being so strong that it essentially makes you immortal vs a specific class/role.
Which is there because it follows the TTK principle ^^
(BTW played wrongly both classes can kill each other in a handful of seconds, I around 5-10 seconds+- depending on how much the opponent screws up: engagement can also easily take 30-120 seconds if both plays extremely well but not perfect.. so the time wearies a lot: remember TTK is the calc of Perfect play)

There is one aspect that TTK does not take into account though which is another aspect you would need another formula to look at.
It is “difficulty of execution”. Meaning not playstyles are equally difficult to pull off.
In Aion as an example, playing a Templar perfectly is WORLDS easier than playing an sorcerer perfectly.
So the problem which can occur with the TTK system is that if some abilities are harder to do correctly compared to others, the RL skill needed for one playstyle will be higher then another.

Now this is only really an issue in:
1: badly designed games (where reaching skill ceiling is impossible).
2: on lower RL skill level play/players (when looking at players not yet masters at the game).

For this difficulty it is not an issue of the TTK system, more an issue of insuring that all classes/roles got both “hard to master” and “easy to learn” setups.
Which would negate the issue while not punishing the top-level play

Of couse there will always be some issues when talking balance on ALL rl skill levels due to people being at different skill levels and most of us thinking we are really better then we actually are
It is nearly impossible to truly SEE the skill level on anything then top players
(although it is “easy” to calculate with a system what skill level would be needed to pull something off).

Hope that cleared up my view a bit
and do keep in mind that other tools would be good to combine with a tool like TTK if one needs even creator/better balance.
the TTK is just a tool which overall garantees a very good balance baseline in a relatively easy and fast manner (and cheap, compared to so many other ways you could try and do it)

ebslike.1852:

Since balancing videogames is so easy, could you provide 1 example of a perfectly balanced multiplayer videogame? .

They are not even trying to balance, most of the patches are just bug fixes.

Also, this is an MMORPG with 3 different modes and anet is like the rest of the mmo developers – they’re neglecting the pvp, because only a tiny fraction of the playerbase is actually playing it.

ebslike.1852:

So in this alternate reality where TKK is perfectly balanced, I guess every class also has the same attack-range? The same mobility? Every PvP match is played on Courtyard (as opposed to maps where killing the other team does not mean an automatic win)?

Since balancing videogames is so easy, could you provide 1 example of a perfectly balanced multiplayer videogame? I can’t think of any, which would mean the people making these videogames are all idiots (since it’s so easy to balance). Hell even MarioKart has a best kart setup and there are waaaaaay less variables then in an MMO like Guild Wars 2.

you haven’t read the discussion i can see
please do and ask again if there is anything you are in doubt off and i will address it as well as i can.

just to answer you shortly on your concern. TTK takes into account any difference on players advantage; ranged vs. melee, speed, etc.

Nothing to contribute to what Nyx said, I just wanted to strongly state that this is one of the most civilized and fruiful discussions I ever wittnessed on a MMO board

Great posts btw. Nyx and thank you for acknowledging my post.

Nyx.6532:

ebslike.1852:

So in this alternate reality where TKK is perfectly balanced, I guess every class also has the same attack-range? The same mobility? Every PvP match is played on Courtyard (as opposed to maps where killing the other team does not mean an automatic win)?

Since balancing videogames is so easy, could you provide 1 example of a perfectly balanced multiplayer videogame? I can’t think of any, which would mean the people making these videogames are all idiots (since it’s so easy to balance). Hell even MarioKart has a best kart setup and there are waaaaaay less variables then in an MMO like Guild Wars 2.

you haven’t read the discussion i can see
please do and ask again if there is anything you are in doubt off and i will address it as well as i can.

just to answer you shortly on your concern. TTK takes into account any difference on players advantage; ranged vs. melee, speed, etc.

The point people keep making, and the one you keep dodging, is that sPvP is not about killing, and especially not about 1v1s.
You can’t take into account long cooldowns, because since sPvP lasts a while they won’t be up for every fight.
You can’t take into account the ability to just try to bunker vs multiple opponents.
Mobility is extremely important beyond combat usefulness, as are skills that exist purely to stall a fight.
None of these things can be balanced around TTK, at all.
Making every class 1v1 viable in different ways would probably make conquest worse in terms of balance, because then you would have thieves with the huge out-of-combat advantage of mobilty, who are also able to 1v1 anyone, and you would remove every bunker spec from viability, because the whole point of those is to stay on point as long as possible without dying.

You cherrypick one question and you answer it with: TKK is basically everything (you switched out game balance for a new term TTK I guess?).

• What are some games that are perfectly balanced? In 15 years of playing MMOs and multiplayergames in general I have never seen a game that was in perfect balance. You claim it is easy, so asking for 3 examples does not seem so steep.
• TTK accounts for mobility on the map? Since PvP in Guild Wars 2 is not a death match (with the exception of Courtyard) things that influence the outcome of a match. but are outside the scope of combat, must also be considered. Even in Courtyard I would consider mobility a factor because it allows you to return to fighting faster. What about ressurection speed on some classes versus others? If this is included in the TTK-model you might as well call it game balance.

You do realize we are talking about thousands of variables that all interact with eachother in an environment where input follows up from 10 different sources (players) within mili-seconds? Making a small change to only a handful of these variables is going to impact thousands of scenario’s that can happen within a single PvP match.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

The point people keep making, and the one you keep dodging, is that sPvP is not about killing, and especially not about 1v1s.
You can’t take into account long cooldowns, because since sPvP lasts a while they won’t be up for every fight.
You can’t take into account the ability to just try to bunker vs multiple opponents.
Mobility is extremely important beyond combat usefulness, as are skills that exist purely to stall a fight.
None of these things can be balanced around TTK, at all.
Making every class 1v1 viable in different ways would probably make conquest worse in terms of balance, because then you would have thieves with the huge out-of-combat advantage of mobilty, who are also able to 1v1 anyone, and you would remove every bunker spec from viability, because the whole point of those is to stay on point as long as possible without dying.

Killing people is fun, bunkering is not.
WoW has conquest maps as well, for example Arathi Basin, but capping a point is very difficult without actually killing the defenders/attackers.

I see what you’re saying and yes mobility as you describe can be factored into fighting and TTK.

However you don’t (technically) have to fight to win the game in PvP, you only have to keep the control nodes in a favourable state for the majority of the time. In such a case TTK would in fact skew balance dramatically.

This is where I feel your Aion comparisons are not a great example. I don’t play Aion but from what I saw its PvP is entirely kill orientated and is balanced around that. TTK is the best for it but this game the goal isn’t to kill, it’s to hold the points. Obviously killing has a favourable outcome but it is not exclusive to winning.

You also seem to be under the impression that all skills and all abilities should have a perfect balance and that it should be impossible to make builds that cannot be killed by another. I personally do not share this view and view that as a player skill issue.

Time to goal as Eleandra said is a better idea but TTK doesn’t have to be perfect in this either. This would also have very very horrible balance in PvE but we’re getting new harder content designed very differently for this so we’ll see on that.

As for my comment on you working it out. If you can’t show some form of a perfect balance or even a glimpse at it then I can’t trust your original statement onTTK being so far off as you’re not offering a comparison.

Additionally ANet do gather a lot of data about a lot of things. We only have information on this from a few red posts over the years but it is clear they are correlating data on what skills are being used, where, by who, against what. I don’t know if they have a mathematical model or not and I don’t think anything but a red post could tell you.

However if you created the perfect balance algorithm for the game you could see how off it was and prove otherwise. That is why I asked you to do it. I wouldn’t pay you though as I am actually happy with the game as is and the balancing for the most part, even if I don’t agree with all decisions.

In other words, I’m asking you to prove mathematically how off from “perfect” the balance is in your original claim.