Guild Wars 2

Necromonger.4970:

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.

1) That’s a matter of opinion, and actually just sounds like you don’t like tanks. It’s hard to balance around one person’s opinion. I don’t think stealth is fun (or rather, I think it’s very one-sided fun), but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist, because other people obviously do enjoy it.
2) Conquest is not the focus of WoW PvP. GW2 is also, obviously, a different game, and most importantly neither is balanced around TTK, at all.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Necromonger.4970:

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.

1) That’s a matter of opinion, and actually just sounds like you don’t like tanks. It’s hard to balance around one person’s opinion. I don’t think stealth is fun (or rather, I think it’s very one-sided fun), but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist, because other people obviously do enjoy it.
2) Conquest is not the focus of WoW PvP. GW2 is also, obviously, a different game, and most importantly neither is balanced around TTK, at all.

I guess a lot of people share my opinion and find this snoozefest boring. otherwise the spvp would have been much more popular.

This thread is such a farce. Its promoters don’t really understand what they’re talking about. For example, chess is easy to solve conceptually, but its decision tree quickly becomes immense and takes too long to realistically process. We have multiple models for weather, especially if you look at hurricane path prediction. If they’re so great at what they do, why do we still run multiple different ones which come up with different results? The result is that models aren’t perfect. And grandmaster chess computers and meteorological models are run on supercomputers. Much more than what a game developer would have.

When you talk about an MMORPG, there are many more variables and possible decisions than in chess. And because it’s real-time – not turn-based – timing of each decision becomes a further variable. It becomes so ridiculously complex that you can’t realistically solve it. You can try and model it, but models aren’t trivial to do and aren’t perfect. But you can only model what normally happens. If someone puts together an unexpected combination of abilities or traits which wasn’t in the model, what then? Do you put every possible permutation in it and make it even more unwieldy, uncertain, and require immensely more time to run? If it didn’t turn out well, you need to tweak some numbers and do it again.

The best you can realistically do is make a lot of assumptions and look at subsets of encounters in a vacuum. Developers do this a lot and come up with “good enough” balance. It can never be perfect because you’ve made so many assumptions and limited the scope. But maybe once you actually go play it, it may turn out differently. So you go back and tweak it again. Now consider you have a myriad of match-ups and skill interactions which vary. In order to realistically examine that, you make further assumptions about a generic enemy. But that can’t always account for details. For example, slower attacks are more susceptible to blind and block. A defender may end up with an advantage against those.

Worst of all, the OP’s original assumption is that ANet hasn’t balanced TTK. Maybe they have, but your assumption of the value of TTK is incorrect and ANet uses once which is much higher. Maybe they actually balance DPS vs bunker and it’s working how they want it to?

Exedore.6320:

This thread is such a farce. Its promoters don’t really understand what they’re talking about. For example, chess is easy to solve conceptually, but its decision tree quickly becomes immense and takes too long to realistically process. We have multiple models for weather, especially if you look at hurricane path prediction. If they’re so great at what they do, why do we still run multiple different ones which come up with different results? The result is that models aren’t perfect. And grandmaster chess computers and meteorological models are run on supercomputers. Much more than what a game developer would have.

When you talk about an MMORPG, there are many more variables and possible decisions than in chess. And because it’s real-time – not turn-based – timing of each decision becomes a further variable. It becomes so ridiculously complex that you can’t realistically solve it. You can try and model it, but models aren’t trivial to do and aren’t perfect. But you can only model what normally happens. If someone puts together an unexpected combination of abilities or traits which wasn’t in the model, what then? Do you put every possible permutation in it and make it even more unwieldy, uncertain, and require immensely more time to run? If it didn’t turn out well, you need to tweak some numbers and do it again.

The best you can realistically do is make a lot of assumptions and look at subsets of encounters in a vacuum. Developers do this a lot and come up with “good enough” balance. It can never be perfect because you’ve made so many assumptions and limited the scope. But maybe once you actually go play it, it may turn out differently. So you go back and tweak it again. Now consider you have a myriad of match-ups and skill interactions which vary. In order to realistically examine that, you make further assumptions about a generic enemy. But that can’t always account for details. For example, slower attacks are more susceptible to blind and block. A defender may end up with an advantage against those.

Worst of all, the OP’s original assumption is that ANet hasn’t balanced TTK. Maybe they have, but your assumption of the value of TTK is incorrect and ANet uses once which is much higher. Maybe they actually balance DPS vs bunker and it’s working how they want it to?

/thread

Technically speaking all they need is, some kind of a Do-ers. Hired someone? but they already has one, as someone claim all they need is to look at their data. Fine money is cool but gift is way more cooler.

As for TTK, as long its existence is based on Team coordination which include Timing (Cc), Animation Telegraph(to give opponent reaction time) and the most important part must be compose two or more to burst someone down either point defender or attacker, I can live with that.
Dont get me wrong, I am all for innovative pvp experience a year or two from now.

Exedore.6320:

This thread is such a farce. Its promoters don’t really understand what they’re talking about. For example, chess is easy to solve conceptually, but its decision tree quickly becomes immense and takes too long to realistically process. We have multiple models for weather, especially if you look at hurricane path prediction. If they’re so great at what they do, why do we still run multiple different ones which come up with different results? The result is that models aren’t perfect. And grandmaster chess computers and meteorological models are run on supercomputers. Much more than what a game developer would have.

When you talk about an MMORPG, there are many more variables and possible decisions than in chess. And because it’s real-time – not turn-based – timing of each decision becomes a further variable. It becomes so ridiculously complex that you can’t realistically solve it. You can try and model it, but models aren’t trivial to do and aren’t perfect. But you can only model what normally happens. If someone puts together an unexpected combination of abilities or traits which wasn’t in the model, what then? Do you put every possible permutation in it and make it even more unwieldy, uncertain, and require immensely more time to run? If it didn’t turn out well, you need to tweak some numbers and do it again.

The best you can realistically do is make a lot of assumptions and look at subsets of encounters in a vacuum. Developers do this a lot and come up with “good enough” balance. It can never be perfect because you’ve made so many assumptions and limited the scope. But maybe once you actually go play it, it may turn out differently. So you go back and tweak it again. Now consider you have a myriad of match-ups and skill interactions which vary. In order to realistically examine that, you make further assumptions about a generic enemy. But that can’t always account for details. For example, slower attacks are more susceptible to blind and block. A defender may end up with an advantage against those.

Worst of all, the OP’s original assumption is that ANet hasn’t balanced TTK. Maybe they have, but your assumption of the value of TTK is incorrect and ANet uses once which is much higher. Maybe they actually balance DPS vs bunker and it’s working how they want it to?

Its not like you can start by :

• Implementing an 1vs1 game mode
• Implement a whole history rating system (more accurate than elo + its 1v1)
• Crunch some data and build an heuristic…

Exedore.6320:

When you talk about an MMORPG, there are many more variables and possible decisions than in chess. And because it’s real-time – not turn-based – timing of each decision becomes a further variable. It becomes so ridiculously complex that you can’t realistically solve it. You can try and model it, but models aren’t trivial to do and aren’t perfect. But you can only model what normally happens.

Actually, Chess has 20 possible opening moves, which is more than GW2 has, and I’m not counting surrendering or asking for a draw. Chess modeling also has to take into consideratin the zone of control that a piece will have when moved, which will affect the opponents options or even set up a move later on.

As for when to do an action, NOT ACTING is an action and can be accounted for, so can moving to optimum range (kiting/closing).

Movement to a point and distance between points are also things that can be put in the decision matrix of the program.

You don’t have to model realisitcally, just by crunching the possible combinations you can judge the level of player skill needed to achieve a certain level of a build’s TTK.

no.

15charrrrrrr/

Swamurabi.7890:

Actually, Chess has 20 possible opening moves, which is more than GW2 has, and I’m not counting surrendering or asking for a draw. Chess modeling also has to take into consideratin the zone of control that a piece will have when moved, which will affect the opponents options or even set up a move later on.

As for when to do an action, NOT ACTING is an action and can be accounted for, so can moving to optimum range (kiting/closing).

Movement to a point and distance between points are also things that can be put in the decision matrix of the program.

You don’t have to model realisitcally, just by crunching the possible combinations you can judge the level of player skill needed to achieve a certain level of a build’s TTK.

What do you consider an opening move? Elementalist has 20 skills from just their weapon that they can open with and that is just 1 class….

ebslike.1852:

Swamurabi.7890:

Actually, Chess has 20 possible opening moves, which is more than GW2 has, and I’m not counting surrendering or asking for a draw. Chess modeling also has to take into consideratin the zone of control that a piece will have when moved, which will affect the opponents options or even set up a move later on.

As for when to do an action, NOT ACTING is an action and can be accounted for, so can moving to optimum range (kiting/closing).

Movement to a point and distance between points are also things that can be put in the decision matrix of the program.

You don’t have to model realisitcally, just by crunching the possible combinations you can judge the level of player skill needed to achieve a certain level of a build’s TTK.

What do you consider an opening move? Elementalist has 20 skills from just their weapon that they can open with and that is just 1 class….

To take it further, you could wait 1 frame, 2 frames… etc before and between excecuting skills, making them different actions. Add in ability to move in any direction at any point (relevant when judging skill ranges) and you already have thousands of options per skill per second of game time passed.

Targuil.3741:

ebslike.1852:

Swamurabi.7890:

Actually, Chess has 20 possible opening moves, which is more than GW2 has, and I’m not counting surrendering or asking for a draw. Chess modeling also has to take into consideratin the zone of control that a piece will have when moved, which will affect the opponents options or even set up a move later on.

As for when to do an action, NOT ACTING is an action and can be accounted for, so can moving to optimum range (kiting/closing).

Movement to a point and distance between points are also things that can be put in the decision matrix of the program.

You don’t have to model realisitcally, just by crunching the possible combinations you can judge the level of player skill needed to achieve a certain level of a build’s TTK.

What do you consider an opening move? Elementalist has 20 skills from just their weapon that they can open with and that is just 1 class….

To take it further, you could wait 1 frame, 2 frames… etc before and between excecuting skills, making them different actions. Add in ability to move in any direction at any point (relevant when judging skill ranges) and you already have thousands of options per skill per second of game time passed.

So let’s say eles have 30 moves, others have less than 20, there’s still a finite number of actions a player can take. Since it’s a finite number, you can come up with a model that looks at all the possible actions of one player against another and combines them in the best outcome, for both sides.

You can simplify movement as move towards, move away and strafe.

Self driving cars have more possibilities than GW2 combat.

TTK sounds like something to be aware of in balancing pvp, but I’m skeptical about the ability of a simple metric to balance a pvp game which is actually interesting and enjoyable to play.

The first point is that GW2 is about capping and holding points, not just killing the enemy. So already TTK is limited (though still relevant) in how it can help us balance GW2 pvp.

On a basic level TTK seems better suited to a 1v1 game than a team game, where you want interesting abiltities to interact with each other. I also think that the difficulty of execution is an important factor – if one class is much easier to play perfectly, and the other is nearly impossible, then I would not say they are balanced although they may have the same TTK under your assumptions.

TTK also does not seem to take into account the value of support abilities like healing and control. Now maybe you want to build a more complex model that can do this on a per-group basis. Maybe with healing you can do it since it is pretty linear, but what about abilities where their timing is important, eg control abilities like stun and immobalise, how do you assign them a rating? These are abilities that might have no TTK impact if you do them at the wrong time, but very high TTK impact if you do them at the right time. To factor these in requires some subjective judgement I think, which means were are not just relying on maths anymore.

In this regard I don’t think you can model a fluid and dynamically interactive game like gw2 on a computer, where timing is so important to the result and there are so many possible permutations. Due to the interactivity of the various elements, the analogy here would be with quantum states rather than classical physical states. It does not take many qubits to make a quantum state unsolvable for the most powerful computers.

You can see these issues more clearly in a game like lol, which has more defined roles and abilities. A lot of champions are valued because their abilities enable a particular strategy or are useful in a particular context. For examples, a team might want a champ with a good initiation, or a good peel, or maybe a global map presence. How can you balance those around TTK? I’d say you can’t because they don’t have anything to do with TTK. They are about allowing a team to implement a particular strategy or get an advantage in particular circumstances which the team will then try to produce during the game (eg this team comp is bad in team fights but good at split pushing, so we need to avoid team fights and split push to take their towers). I think that if you wanted to expand the TTK concept to address those abilities you are diluting it to the point were if ceases to be a mathmatical model and instead becomes a format for ordinary stragetic judgment.

Now you might way, well GW2 does not have these kind of defined roles, so TTK is more applicable here. That is a fair comment, but it brings me to my final criticism. Is TTK the best way to design a team game which is interesting and enjoyable to play? I think GW2 PVP would be be better if it had more of the kind of strategic depth and variety that did not lend itself to TTK modelling.

Exedore.6320:

This thread is such a farce. Its promoters don’t really understand what they’re talking about. For example, chess is easy to solve conceptually, but its decision tree quickly becomes immense and takes too long to realistically process. We have multiple models for weather, especially if you look at hurricane path prediction. If they’re so great at what they do, why do we still run multiple different ones which come up with different results? The result is that models aren’t perfect. And grandmaster chess computers and meteorological models are run on supercomputers. Much more than what a game developer would have.

When you talk about an MMORPG, there are many more variables and possible decisions than in chess. And because it’s real-time – not turn-based – timing of each decision becomes a further variable. It becomes so ridiculously complex that you can’t realistically solve it. You can try and model it, but models aren’t trivial to do and aren’t perfect. But you can only model what normally happens. If someone puts together an unexpected combination of abilities or traits which wasn’t in the model, what then? Do you put every possible permutation in it and make it even more unwieldy, uncertain, and require immensely more time to run? If it didn’t turn out well, you need to tweak some numbers and do it again.

The best you can realistically do is make a lot of assumptions and look at subsets of encounters in a vacuum. Developers do this a lot and come up with “good enough” balance. It can never be perfect because you’ve made so many assumptions and limited the scope. But maybe once you actually go play it, it may turn out differently. So you go back and tweak it again. Now consider you have a myriad of match-ups and skill interactions which vary. In order to realistically examine that, you make further assumptions about a generic enemy. But that can’t always account for details. For example, slower attacks are more susceptible to blind and block. A defender may end up with an advantage against those.

Worst of all, the OP’s original assumption is that ANet hasn’t balanced TTK. Maybe they have, but your assumption of the value of TTK is incorrect and ANet uses once which is much higher. Maybe they actually balance DPS vs bunker and it’s working how they want it to?

Whoa, looks like someone has actually studied mathematics, scientific modeling, and some Chaos theory. Too bad the same cannot be said for the OP.

/thread

Exedore.6320:

This thread is such a farce. Its promoters don’t really understand what they’re talking about. For example, chess is easy to solve conceptually, but its decision tree quickly becomes immense and takes too long to realistically process. We have multiple models for weather, especially if you look at hurricane path prediction. If they’re so great at what they do, why do we still run multiple different ones which come up with different results? The result is that models aren’t perfect. And grandmaster chess computers and meteorological models are run on supercomputers. Much more than what a game developer would have.

When you talk about an MMORPG, there are many more variables and possible decisions than in chess. And because it’s real-time – not turn-based – timing of each decision becomes a further variable. It becomes so ridiculously complex that you can’t realistically solve it. You can try and model it, but models aren’t trivial to do and aren’t perfect. But you can only model what normally happens. If someone puts together an unexpected combination of abilities or traits which wasn’t in the model, what then? Do you put every possible permutation in it and make it even more unwieldy, uncertain, and require immensely more time to run? If it didn’t turn out well, you need to tweak some numbers and do it again.

The best you can realistically do is make a lot of assumptions and look at subsets of encounters in a vacuum. Developers do this a lot and come up with “good enough” balance. It can never be perfect because you’ve made so many assumptions and limited the scope. But maybe once you actually go play it, it may turn out differently. So you go back and tweak it again. Now consider you have a myriad of match-ups and skill interactions which vary. In order to realistically examine that, you make further assumptions about a generic enemy. But that can’t always account for details. For example, slower attacks are more susceptible to blind and block. A defender may end up with an advantage against those.

Worst of all, the OP’s original assumption is that ANet hasn’t balanced TTK. Maybe they have, but your assumption of the value of TTK is incorrect and ANet uses once which is much higher. Maybe they actually balance DPS vs bunker and it’s working how they want it to?

Dear sir/miss.

Due to your post content i decided to dedicate a post only to answer you.
I apologise that I didn’t answer you sooner but I’ve been busy and to be honest your post made me very angry because not only is it a personal attack, but it is also filled with misinformation which are directly wrong.

I will go through it one stop at a time so everyone can follow

1:
first of I never mentioned anything about meteorological models eleandra did, I assume it was him you attacked here since you write the thread.
However he is not wrong.
First of one of the commenly used meteorological models is MM5 which easily run on an i7. You do not need a supercomputer to run these models.

Now your complain then comes up to “why are they not always 100% correct” well this is quite obvious but I will go into it anyway for the sake of people wondering about this.
This is actually a problem with our understanding of the phenomenon more than the models. If we don’t know exactly what is happening and why it is happening making a model for it will be guess work.
Now this issue is something that happens IRL only because we do not have the algorithms in front of us to see what exactly is going on and why.
however, in a computer program you know exactly what is going on, there is ZERO parameters that cannot be fully understood by the programmer looking at it. Therefore you wouldn’t need any guesswork to come up with a precise model to solve the mathematical problem (you might however use statistical estimates to insure simpler algorithms etc.)

I think that should cover your first “farce” issue.
——-

2:
You are saying that grandmaster chess programs are run on supercomputers, again this is not true.
An i7 can do over 100.000.000 operations a second, which is more then enough for anything a chess grandmaster program needs and can do. You can actually reach grandmaster on a mobile devices capability.
Just to give some basic info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93computer_chess_matches
(Ow yes I know how wrong it is of me to link wiki, but seriously this is common knowledge so lazy research is completely accepted, for people within the field it is like asking if humans can breathe without help in space.)

This should pretty much clear up your misconception about chess programs and what is needed (you could have done this with a 1min google search, even using wiki would have solved this issue. You should really do this before calling others out next time, since it is bad behaviour to do as you did).

Next part:
3:
This part is again going on the assumption that you will need a supercomputer to do the calcs needed.
Now this is at a worse spot then the chess argument you had let me explain you why.
First of with the chess computer or with any “AI realtime system” where the computer have a low timelimit to act the operation needed per second is obviously extremely important because the system only have x seconds to act.
However in a model simulation it doesn’t matter if it takes 0,1 second or 10min for the system to do the operations, since it is a model simulator and realtime doesn’t apply since you are working with raw numbers and all you need as output for success is a number, not a bot playing.
Therefore even if we assumed that the dataflow of the system was to big to do in realtime it wouldn’t matter because the simulation of a 20min fight could be run over 20-40-60-100 hours if needed still give us the data we need and therefore be a success.
(you could easily do the operations in bulks doing 1 hours at a time as an example).

Now that this is said. The believe that the data variants on perfect play for GW2 at a mathematical level for gw2 is too large to do with 100.000.000 operations per second within a reasonable timeframe is just absurd and shows a complete lack of any understanding of the subject. As I have said before in this, thread and as I have just said, again it is an absurd notion to believe so.
You can run grandmaster level chess programs on a mobile phone, which variants of moves is higher than anything you will ever see in gw2. The believe that an i7 couldn’t run a simulation of the gw2 mathematical model for TTK is completely wacked and the only reason anyone would believe such a thing is a complete lack of knowledge on computer science or/and math.
Just for you math nerds (if there is any) here is a fun little thread about the mathematics of it
http://www.chess.com/chessopedia/view/mathematics-and-chess

4:
My assumption is built on what is seen on the pvp front, it is more than clear that the GW2 system is not built over a TTK system or with a TTK system in mind. You don’t need to make more than a handful of builds designed to test this theory to notice that the TTK versus each other could never add up with current balance.
————————————————
Now I think I answered and cleared up all your misunderstandings/misinformation.
If there is anything more please do ask, but I urge you to do so in a better manner and do your basic research beforehand.

Best regards
Nyx

:::
to every one else, i am sorry i haven’t addressed your post yet i will do so soonish.
It takes a bit of time and effort to address the different concerns/post in a goodm constructive and nice manner.
especially since a good deal of it have been addressed/explained and need to be explained in a better/different way
therefore it is something i will do when i have the time/energy to give you the proper respect you deserve, by using that time and energy on answering the good post that have been made in the best way i can

editing:
typos etc

Nyx just a word of advice, if you want to discuss things in a civil manner on a gaming forum don’t use passive aggressive emoticons or randomly capitalize words.

ebslike.1852:

Nyx just a word of advice, if you want to discuss things in a civil manner on a gaming forum don’t use passive aggressive emoticons or randomly capitalize words.

capitalized words is true, those can be considered provoking or negative in their nature, i will remove those
i don’t see any passive aggressive smilies?

@Nyx

I have noticed you keep saying things like “it’s simple” and “you don’t understand it” and I want to go into the parts where I believe you are misunderstanding it.

First, it’s not about whether it could run on an i7 or not. That is really pretty negligible at this point without having an algorithm to run. What is missing is an algorithm and that is where this problem gets hairy.

Can you make the algorithm for it?

This isn’t a thing about doing it for free or not. If you can just submit it as your application to get a job at ANet. They’re hiring. If you can do a better job then by all means apply and take the dev’s job and make the game, in your eyes, perfect.

But let me guess, you can’t because you don’t know how.

If you don’t know how to make the algorithm then in truth you don’t know how simple or easy it is. Even for a mathematician. If making these types of models was easy they wouldn’t get paid so much for coming up with them. Insisting that it is easy doesn’t make it so and you have no idea how hard or easy it is because you don’t even know how to begin to make a model mathematically for even one 1v1 duel much less every game on every map. So please stop insisting that this is easy and people don’t understand it because without at least a firm understanding of Differential Equations and Combinatorics you yourself don’t understand the subject either.

Also, stop comparing this to chess.

This again highlights your lack of understanding on this subject.

Chess is, as difficult as it is to master, is really a very simple game compared to GW2. GW2 is a far more dynamic game than chess. First, chess is turn-based and GW2 isn’t which puts them into different leagues when it comes to possible games and positions. Chess can also only move one piece per turn and each of those pieces has only a small possible amount of moves. Even the queen at any one given time has less than 1000 possible moves and when discussing possibilities that makes that number very very very small. GW2 has 10 players moving at all times at the same time with far more possible moves. And it’s not as easy as understanding the computer program to make the model because the program is not the model, the human brain is. The reason I enjoy PvP so much is that it is a creative human mind behind the other object on the screen instead of a machine running an AI algorithm to determine it’s next move.

How easy is human creativity to model?

So chess with it’s inherent limitations makes it far easier to model than a more dynamic game like GW2 when considering the human factor. Take the article you posted about the chess thing, it has the total possible logical positions was guesstimated at about 140 million and this seems like a really big number, but it isn’t. It seems big compared to things like the number of dollars in your bank account but compared to the number of events in the universe it’s really very small. Then that is just different positions. The number of logical games only game in at about 4 million. Again, compared to possible events in the universe that number is tiny.

Now before you go into saying that you didn’t bring up possible events in the universe let me just state that the comparison is there to highlight just how small a number of things that is being calculated here compared to the infinite possible numbers we could compare it to and how that is the determination of how large or small a number is. It is based on what you compare it to. Looking at it this way the chess problem is not hard to solve and is probably why it was the first functioning AI created that can now run on your smart phone.

How many possible positions are there for one game of Kyhlo over a 15 minute period? Keeping in mind that those positions for the chess question overlap geographically and are based on turns ie. time for GW2 so simply saying all of the possible locations to stand in x10 will not solve that problem. Especially when considering time as a 4th dimension in your model along with acceleration ( as considered by the scientific definition for a change in the velocity vector) due to changes in direction, conditions like chilled, crippled and slow and boons like swiftness and quickness.

So consider an answer for that. How easy is it to come up with that? Because that would be just one step in determining a model for this.

@Shadow,
I would like to point to a few things :
1) Having equal TTK between A and B means TTK is defined by statistics.
2) One dose not have to compute an extact TTK because “perfect play” may not be achievable by humans leaving the number some people would like to compute with “brute force” meaningless.

Once you see this TTK “seems” easy to compute really. It doesn’t mean anyone can do it though. You would need a dedicated team to for some time to pull it off fast enough.

Shadow.1345:

@Nyx

I have noticed you keep saying things like “it’s simple” and “you don’t understand it” and I want to go into the parts where I believe you are misunderstanding it.

First, it’s not about whether it could run on an i7 or not. That is really pretty negligible at this point without having an algorithm to run. What is missing is an algorithm and that is where this problem gets hairy.

Can you make the algorithm for it?

This isn’t a thing about doing it for free or not. If you can just submit it as your application to get a job at ANet. They’re hiring. If you can do a better job then by all means apply and take the dev’s job and make the game, in your eyes, perfect.

But let me guess, you can’t because you don’t know how.

If you don’t know how to make the algorithm then in truth you don’t know how simple or easy it is. Even for a mathematician. If making these types of models was easy they wouldn’t get paid so much for coming up with them. Insisting that it is easy doesn’t make it so and you have no idea how hard or easy it is because you don’t even know how to begin to make a model mathematically for even one 1v1 duel much less every game on every map. So please stop insisting that this is easy and people don’t understand it because without at least a firm understanding of Differential Equations and Combinatorics you yourself don’t understand the subject either.

Also, stop comparing this to chess.

This again highlights your lack of understanding on this subject.

Chess is, as difficult as it is to master, is really a very simple game compared to GW2. GW2 is a far more dynamic game than chess. First, chess is turn-based and GW2 isn’t which puts them into different leagues when it comes to possible games and positions. Chess can also only move one piece per turn and each of those pieces has only a small possible amount of moves. Even the queen at any one given time has less than 1000 possible moves and when discussing possibilities that makes that number very very very small. GW2 has 10 players moving at all times at the same time with far more possible moves. And it’s not as easy as understanding the computer program to make the model because the program is not the model, the human brain is. The reason I enjoy PvP so much is that it is a creative human mind behind the other object on the screen instead of a machine running an AI algorithm to determine it’s next move.

How easy is human creativity to model?

So chess with it’s inherent limitations makes it far easier to model than a more dynamic game like GW2 when considering the human factor. Take the article you posted about the chess thing, it has the total possible logical positions was guesstimated at about 140 million and this seems like a really big number, but it isn’t. It seems big compared to things like the number of dollars in your bank account but compared to the number of events in the universe it’s really very small. Then that is just different positions. The number of logical games only game in at about 4 million. Again, compared to possible events in the universe that number is tiny.

Now before you go into saying that you didn’t bring up possible events in the universe let me just state that the comparison is there to highlight just how small a number of things that is being calculated here compared to the infinite possible numbers we could compare it to and how that is the determination of how large or small a number is. It is based on what you compare it to. Looking at it this way the chess problem is not hard to solve and is probably why it was the first functioning AI created that can now run on your smart phone.

How many possible positions are there for one game of Kyhlo over a 15 minute period? Keeping in mind that those positions for the chess question overlap geographically and are based on turns ie. time for GW2 so simply saying all of the possible locations to stand in x10 will not solve that problem. Especially when considering time as a 4th dimension in your model along with acceleration ( as considered by the scientific definition for a change in the velocity vector) due to changes in direction, conditions like chilled, crippled and slow and boons like swiftness and quickness.

So consider an answer for that. How easy is it to come up with that? Because that would be just one step in determining a model for this.

Ok I am a bit confused over your argumentation.
My whole thread involving performance was simply answer the people who said the issue with making such a system would be a performance issue and showing them why they are/were wrong.
I do know that the issue is not a performance issue, which I have been more than clear about, so trying to attack me with that is just silly.

As for the algorithm needed, this is what you need to make. That is kind of the entire assignment, which is the main meat of solving the problem. Which I also already made clear in the thread.
Now this is the second time someone is trying to argue the “if it is simple or easy, proof it by doing it”. I already answered this argument and it makes me a bit annoyed to have to defend myself against it once more.
As I said last time, it being easy or simple is relative to the person doing it and it does not mean that it is fast or quick to do.
I already explained all this in detail so I suggest you go read that instead of repeating an invalid argument.

As for your twist on it “why don’t you just do it and use it as a job application”.
There could be tons of reason why someone wouldn’t do this and using it as an argument is again very silly.
Just to mention to most obvious:
Not currently interested in a job at Anet. Most properly course:
1. Already got a job you like.
2. Not interested in doing the type of work they are hiring for.
3. Expertise in another area of coding.
4. Salary is low, compared to other industry sectors.
Take your pick/picks.

Even if someone where interested in getting hired, it is highly unlikely someone would do so much work for free, before even applying for the job.
As said easy doesn’t mean fast. On top of that without access to the algorithm currently used in the system making, it wouldn’t be a precise model.
On top of that when did you last hear of someone applying for a job and already having done the assignment of which they were applying for a job to do?

For me personally I am not currently interested in a job at Anet, and I do not have the extra time to do a TTK system for Anet (and even if I had the time, I definitely would not do it for free and would need the data to built it from).

My lack of understanding on the subject?
No actually, it perfectly shows my understanding on the subject.

Weather it is real-time or turn based really doesn’t matter much for the mathematical model of a TTK system. Neither does the real time pose a problem for it.
Your logical possible moves for perfect play are not changed due to it being realtime or turnbased. There is a specific time-lapse which is the minimum required for any valid move you could do when doing perfect play. This time-lapse would also determine movement distance possible within the timeframe, as well as possible counter move and if none, possible counters.
Depending on the choices of output you can do and the counters opponents can do, there will be 1 best suited move and best suited counter for that move.
Due to the limited counter and output you need to look at in GW2 you would have a much lower amount of logical moves per “time-lapse”.

as an example if you are stunned, by the only stun ability the enemy got, you using your stunbreak is the only logical move: contrary to chess where logical move is upwards to 10.000.000 per move.
Due to counters being pretty specific and situations being “easy” to determine what course of action would be the best to take, it is easier for the system to determine the best move compared to something like chess.
Which should be obvious, because in chess you got time to think for much longer per move, and it is entirely about this aspect.
In GW2 you are expected to make choices in less than a second max a few seconds.
So expecting the game to require more logical deduction and thinking in a vastly smallest amount of time, would just be silly.

However, a system for calculating TTK wouldn’t be restrained by having to do its operations in split seconds, since timeframe is just a concept and it doesn’t matter if 1 seconds realtime is taking 10min for the system to analyse.
This is what seems to be what the people with the argument “realtime makes it much harder” don’t seem to understand.

As an example to simplify it to the point where most can follow.
Take the example of the most basic of a realtime game. Each player can move and have 1 attack, now even though you can argue that there is an unlimited amount of possibilities due to a character being able to move anywhere he wish and choice to attack or not attack there is only ONE logical move for perfect play, and that is “attack”, the character that chooses not to attack or will lose, doing anything else while attacking, aka moving makes zero difference in this situation, so you are not even looking at whether or not a character is moving, you are just looking at the attack.

This is the extremely simple version all can understand. If you throw in a counter skill, if the only skill it counters is the attack, then using it as much as it can is the only logical move at perfect play.
If you got 2 skills it counters and by countering skill A it negates x dmg, and counter skill B negates y damage then it is simply a matter of which is biggest x or y, and it will be used to counter the skill which makes it negate the highest dmg.

As said these are extremely simple example’s done so most can understand and follow them.
Now making it extremely complex doesn’t make it very hard to do if you got the knowledge to understand it and to create the model for it. However, it does make it take considerable more time to make…
You can say it is like counting for people that can do basic math, if you can do basic math counting to 2.000 is no more difficult than counting to 100. However, it does take considerable longer time to do.
————————————————

Now the believe you in anyway need or benefit from making a model to consider human creativity is wrong.
It got nothing to do with the system. You can be as creative as you will not and it won’t change the rules of mathematics.
No matter how you twist and turn it, you can only make the skills do what they do by the design of the algorithm. The interaction of different skills is in the algorithm.
It is not a question of creativity. It is pure mathematics and your creativity will change nothing to the TTK system.

I assume this question comes from the notion of “what when someone comes up with a built which the system didn’t foresee”.
Well you didn’t, because that is not possible. Unless the creator of the program left out some skills, forgot something in the algorithms or did another screw-up, then it wouldn’t be possible to come up with a built which wasn’t already considered by the system.
Skill x,y,z vs. skill a,b,c will always only have 1 most efficient way of using them when played perfectly. Trying to use them in any other way then that will get you are worse output result.

It is like saying you got 2 numbers number A and B. whichever number is the highest is the winner, now each number is build up of 3 numbers: 1, 2 and 3. You can only add two of them together and subtract the last number from the result.
Meaning:
2+3-1=4 will always be the largest number possible.
Trying to combine them in any other way will always give you a lower number.

This is essentially all GW2 is, a bunch of numbers interacting with each other. Your job if you made a TTK system would be to see how with the rules for each skill combo or skill, you could create the best output number vs. other skill combo’s or skills.
Which should be pretty clear would take quite a lot of time to set up all the rules for movability and range, then for each skill, then set up rules for combination of skills, then for effects, then for priority (skill danger basically, to be able to decide which skills would be prioritized when negating skills).
Then figure out the algorithms to bring it all together.

As said time consuming

As for the number of possible events in the universe: it is silly to even use such an example because no human can even comprehend such amounts ^^
Just thought I would add that hehe :P

But GW2 as explained in details above does not have endless perfect play possibilities.
It actually got very few. As explained if your opponent does X and you can do y to negate it, and y is not more useful vs. something else he got. Then you only got 1 logical move, do y. (again simplified explanation)

Now you moved the discussion of TTK system to a “balance of map” system which it is not made to do.
For balance of maps you would need another system which built on the data which it is made for.
You can always make a map that is badly balanced. Believing a TTK system automatically fix a map problem which essentially have nothing to do with the TTK system is silly.
However if you got proper balanced TTK it is much easier to balance maps since you know what the movement time from a to b is for a built and you will know with such a built your TTK would be x.
Meaning you could much easier balance the map setups due to the exact knowledge of how long someone could hold a point, while being able to move to another point in x timeframe.
As well as knowing how much TTK support a person that could move between point in x time could bring and how much TTK GvG x people would then need for it to be balanced compared to the gained points/second scale.

edit:
sorry for typos ^^

also to add on, the more precise you want the TTK to be the longer it will take to make, but even a approximately TTK system could do wonders for balancing and would take considerably less time to make

btw:
chess was actually choosen as the system because it was seen as a test of intellect and if we could make an actual “thinking” machine.
it was diffinately not because it was “simple” which is also anything but true, it is not an easy game to become good at (even when just considering understanding why x is a good move opposed to y).

Hi Nyx,
I applaud your effort to explain yourself but I have to admit that it feels as if no one interested in constructive on-topic discussion is making contributions to this thread.
All the answers boil down to off-topic attacks against your skill level, person or intentions – this is why I have stopped talking to thos people and instead decided to only recognize those posts who are constructively talking about what you proposed.

As a message to those who attack the basic idea of this thread:

• Please be aware that it is completely okay to disagree with the basic concept or the doability of the TTK or the idea of creating a mathematical model but then there is nothing you contribute to the discussion so please accept that there are people who are of the opinion that such an approach is feasible.
• The idea that Nyx for example should simply do it is easily dismissed because you would have to have access to the sourcecode of the game in order to re-engineer the combat system already present.
• To those who attack the idea of using a mathematical approach by simply stating that perhaps there already is one and it just does not work as we would expect it to because we do not know all the parameters. This is certainly a possibility but take a look at burn damage scaling and especially Elementalist balancing at the moment:
  The same day ArenaNet published the formulas for condition damage as of 26.6. an outcry arose incuding examples that this would lead to a massively imbalanced game. Something that would have been easily avoided by using not even a wholistic mathematical model but by simply checking how many burn stacks a single class could achieve in what time and using one’s own formula to see what that meant. The fact that ArenaNet nerved burn damage only days after releasing the patch is a strong indication that they in fact did not even do that. Now after a few weeks of the system running rampant Arenanet even posted in a thread about the state of Elementalist in pvp indicating that still they feel that either the class or burn damage is too strong. This means – for me – that they created a formula which clearly they did not fully understand (which is quite sad actually as it is something you could give a six grader and he would possibly be able to solve it (1)), further indicated by a nerf that did not correct the issue that many random people from the internet saw before Arenanet did.

@ Nyx and everyone who is interested in a on-topic discussion on the things that are worth dicussing like:

• Is the TTK approach alone viable or do we need a more complex approach splitting travel speed/mobility and other mechanics from it?
• How can one put numbers on hard to quantify skills?
• etc.

I would be happy to go into further dicussions bout this.

(1): No disrespect meant to Arenanet personel. I am aware that they are most likely very much able to solve the formula it just seems that they either did not put in the effort or were not able to because of their workload, then this would be a clear management problem. On tpoic: If they had created a mathematical model it would have taken them no time to see what effects those formula would have on the equilibrium of the system.

A lot of TL;DR items here but from what i’ve read thus far, Nyx is getting his butt handed to him in this debate

Trying to politically correct some one in terms of “No, you don’t need a super computer, a lesser cpu will suffice”, is mute. That’s completely irrelevant to the point.

To Eleandra above,
This game has always been a management issue. That’s been seen through the poor developmental decisions of the PvP infastructure. These decisions also extends to the mechanical build work of certain traits/abilities/classes.

• AI based utilities/turret engi/etc
• DS trait (makes no sense)
• Celestial amulet prepatch – currently, it’s 3x better with the exception of 1 class.
• The very mechanic nature of Mesmers.. When game released, everyone who wasn’t a Mesmer hated the class. They couldn’t wrap their head around it and many newer players still can’t.

This game used to have good TTK infastructure. Lets take bunker classes as an example. These classes not only had a much needed support and sustainable role but they could also 1v1 effectively at times. That’s great TTK. Far better than other Tank classes in other MMOs.

The reason GW2 has been the most balanced PvP MMO on market is because of its unique combat structure. The dodges, downed state, and everything in between, gave the game a more balanced window. It was, and still is, more forgiving in terms of game balances.

Lately, this balance threshold window has been diminishing. This started on April of last year. That said, the most recent nerfs and balance updates have made it better.

Lastly, GW2’s Conquest PvP + Meta game is so complexed that it took nearly a year and a half for the community to catch on. Absolutely no one understood PvP Conquest Fundamentals and haven’t learned every classes builds/traits/skills. Every single aspect was, apparently, OP to bad players.

For the record, no, you DON’T need the Tank, DPS, Healer trinity, or a gear grinding system for an MMO to work.

@Eleandra

About your third point about the state of elementalist and burn damage. It is possible that it actually is balanced according to how they do balancing. They could have worked out all the possible counters and it actually being balanced. It however doesn’t mean that:

1) Players are using said counters. Example cele signet necro counters ele hard.
2) The patch is still figuratively new and people haven’t figured out exactly how viable the counters are.
3) The counters are easy to learn or figure out.

That’s just off the top of my head. In these cases it could in fact be balanced and it’s a player skill problem or even a player intolerance to adapt.

I personally and others also do not have any problem with burn, I know it, I know the attacks that apply it, I know how to avoid it and when to cleanse. It could be balanced but it also doesn’t mean everyone can or will see it the same.

I would say that without a red post detailing how the game is balanced this entire thread is completely pointless and is boiling down to ego stroking. For all we know it could be balanced on a more sophisticated or advanced form of TTK, it might not but GW2 is certainly a game trying to do things differently so it stands to reason it may be balanced differently.

Saiyan.1704:

A lot of TL;DR items here but from what i’ve read thus far, Nyx is getting his butt handed to him in this debate

Trying to politically correct some one in terms of “No, you don’t need a super computer, a lesser cpu will suffice”, is mute. That’s completely irrelevant to the point.

+

i am very interested in hearing how you deducted this?
i have answered all concerns, and i have disproofed any claims that it wouldn’t be possible to do due to processor power. which is what you are saying that i haven’t.

please do elaborate on this since i would be interested in hearing where you have found my statement to be wrong?
if you can’t find such a place i would ask you to keep your mouth closed because frankly i find it offensive that you attack me like this if you have absolutely no reason to do so, or if it is build on a lack of intellect, understanding or patience to read what have been said.

best regards.
nyx.

Saiyan.1704:

The reason GW2 has been the most balanced PvP MMO on market is because of its unique combat structure. The dodges, downed state, and everything in between, gave the game a more balanced window. It was, and still is, more forgiving in terms of game balances.

btw: gw2 is one of the worst balanced mmo’s on the market. despite its many good features, and despite the enormous amount of effort anet put into promoting it as a pvp game, esport, etc. it’s pvp scene is laughebly weak in comparison to almost every pvp focused mmo game on the market. (especially if you take developement pricetag into consideration)
on top of that the concensus from the vast majority of it’s community is that it is hopelessly unbalanced, and even amongst the people liking it and speaking well of it, it is well known that only a select few builts have any place in competitive pvp…
all this together should make it more then clear to anyone not in complete deniel that GW2 pvp balance is in a horrific state, and doesn’t qualify at all as "most balanced mmo on the market as you claim
—————————————

@Eleandra.
again ty for your kind words.
you are right that it is getting increasingly hard to continually defend myself against attacks which seems to be grounded in nothing but lack of knowledge, intellect or patiance to read what has already been sad.
i most admit that i am about my limit and will stop answering in the discussion soon if it keeps up like this.
:)

i did come to the forum to contributed with a design method that is very commonly used, taught and proofed for balancing pvp.
models and names varie for the method but in short it is about insuring a fair playing fields for pvp’ers which is more likely to lead to a fun experience.

i would have expected the vast majority of the pvp community to want such a system introduced and maybe with a little luck put some pressure on Anet to actually do, what i consider the job of a lead balance designer, the effort to insure that such a system was used to the extend which was needed to bring balance to the game.

true there is a lot of other balance methods which could be used. but due to the complexity due to the variaty of builds possible to make, most systems will work poorly at best because changing individual skills/aspects/mechanics have a huge impact on most systems or/and require a very much higher amount ressources to mentain when changing area’s that have effect on more then one class: like the burn change as example.

anyway. i would expect Anet have seen the post by now and either found the idea enlightening and something they will look into or as yet another idea they don’t care for since “what they are doing is working so well, and people like it”

now as for the suggestion and your follow up on it

i believe a TTK system would be the best way to balance out skills, roles, and group combat.

i believe that the issue with movability vs. fighterbility is a map issue and should be solved on a map basis.
meaning that you would design maps to have area’s where one is prefered over the other for certain points, so that it would enable more diversity in which builds was required as a team.

as an example from the top of my head:
having points reletively close to each other, with high area’s above some of them for good long range damage, and very strong map buffs at a good lond distance from the points(could be high up where you need to run a lot to get up to the top for the buff, so not to take up too much map space):

which would need “tankish” to hold points, dps ranged which could be in relative safety supporting the points, or tankish ranged to counter the support.
fast moving builts to insure you could get the buffs and get back to help points fast.

in this manner you would created room for all roles, all with very importent area’s to help, and all with good amount of playtime.

but this is just a suggestion of the top of my head ^^

i firmly believe that if the combat is very balanced and fun, where you feel every engagement is very much skill based and the better player/players win, and actual fighting time is reasonable on both sides.
then whatever the scenario is, and even if whoever wins the match isn’t “fair win of match”, people will still enjoy the fighting more then enough to keep people going.

comming from aion before any pvp scenario’s ever where introduced; i recall people dualling for Many hours a day, for no other reason then it was fun to fight.
looking at successfull pvp games those i know of seems to all be driven by it being fun to fight each other, more then any objective that is there.

objectives should be secondary for you to have fun. if it is not fun without the objective i think there is something fundamentally wrong with the pvp.
by that i am not saying objective can’t add a good reason to fight which can be importent, but it should be fun enough for you to do without getting rewarded with shiny stuff.
IMO at least ^^

edited: due to misquote ^^

apharma.3741:

@Eleandra

About your third point about the state of elementalist and burn damage. It is possible that it actually is balanced according to how they do balancing. They could have worked out all the possible counters and it actually being balanced. It however doesn’t mean that:

1) Players are using said counters. Example cele signet necro counters ele hard.
2) The patch is still figuratively new and people haven’t figured out exactly how viable the counters are.
3) The counters are easy to learn or figure out.

That’s just off the top of my head. In these cases it could in fact be balanced and it’s a player skill problem or even a player intolerance to adapt.

I personally and others also do not have any problem with burn, I know it, I know the attacks that apply it, I know how to avoid it and when to cleanse. It could be balanced but it also doesn’t mean everyone can or will see it the same.

I would say that without a red post detailing how the game is balanced this entire thread is completely pointless and is boiling down to ego stroking. For all we know it could be balanced on a more sophisticated or advanced form of TTK, it might not but GW2 is certainly a game trying to do things differently so it stands to reason it may be balanced differently.

Hi apharma
Ty for joining in ^^

It is definitely possible that this is the balance they are going for, and that they have the mind-set of “either you do this build or you lose”.
But if this is the case I am still very much against the way they do balance.

Most of the pvp is built over you not knowing which built the enemy team is using, or even who you are going to face.
It becomes more of a gamble then a skillfull decision at that point which I personally don’t find positive.
To add to that if you do hard a “A>B _ B>C _ C>A” (also known as rock/paper/scissor: hard meaning it is almost if not impossible to beat a rock as a scissor) balance on a 1v1 class/role individual level, you will find many situations where you just feel at an extremely unfair disadvantage, which is very rarely fun for anyone.

Now what I would like to see and the reason to use a TTK system is balanced and fair encounters. (weather it is GvG or 1v1)
Meaning no fight is predetermined (or close too) before it has started, and people feel like their loss was due to lack of skills much more then stuff they couldn’t control as the fight was going on (built, gear, etc.).

I also firmly believe that giving people the option of diversity, playing the playstyle they enjoy is exceedingly important to give people a fun and good gameplay experience, which I think is hard to do if you predetermined a few builds which are the only working pvp builds, and which all are +- the same role (for high lvl play).
Again something the TTK system can help solve, which you will have an exceedingly hard time doing with any other balance system I know of (granted there is guaranteed some I do not know).
—————————————

If we assume it was balanced in a better way. Wouldn’t it be quite weird for the devs not to enlighten anyone when their community explodes? Furthermore would they then make such huge blunder on the balance side that they need to do fixes in the manner that they do?
Not to mention that this would mean the vast majority of the pvp community would be clueless about pvp mechanics since they apparently don’t get the “magnificent and very well balanced pvp setup” so they can enlighten their community with the understanding of it?

In my experience a community is often much smarter than a few individuals behind the scenes.
If those few have found/made the “magic cube of insight” then the community would know of it too within very short time ^^

Which is one more reason I don’t believe the devs have a good system to balance the numbers from.
From what I can see, it seems like they are just “winging it”.
Meaning they are properly doing something like looking at individual skills and judging each skill individually for what it should/could do, and then apply it without consideration for the combination of all the other skills in the game or the stats of different builds. or they could just be looking at it thinking “this seems a bit weak/strong, lets try to just give it a little nerf/buff and see how that works out”

I hope that they at least have some spreadsheets somewhere which acts as their meters for balancing in some way, but again I am a bit doubtful considering the very large difference on the numbers that some setup puts out oppose to others hehe

last bump i guess ^^

Swamurabi.7890:

Targuil.3741:

ebslike.1852:

Swamurabi.7890:

Actually, Chess has 20 possible opening moves, which is more than GW2 has, and I’m not counting surrendering or asking for a draw. Chess modeling also has to take into consideratin the zone of control that a piece will have when moved, which will affect the opponents options or even set up a move later on.

As for when to do an action, NOT ACTING is an action and can be accounted for, so can moving to optimum range (kiting/closing).

Movement to a point and distance between points are also things that can be put in the decision matrix of the program.

You don’t have to model realisitcally, just by crunching the possible combinations you can judge the level of player skill needed to achieve a certain level of a build’s TTK.

What do you consider an opening move? Elementalist has 20 skills from just their weapon that they can open with and that is just 1 class….

To take it further, you could wait 1 frame, 2 frames… etc before and between excecuting skills, making them different actions. Add in ability to move in any direction at any point (relevant when judging skill ranges) and you already have thousands of options per skill per second of game time passed.

So let’s say eles have 30 moves, others have less than 20, there’s still a finite number of actions a player can take. Since it’s a finite number, you can come up with a model that looks at all the possible actions of one player against another and combines them in the best outcome, for both sides.

You can simplify movement as move towards, move away and strafe.

Self driving cars have more possibilities than GW2 combat.

And what is the point of this post?

Nyx.6532:

Saiyan.1704:

A lot of TL;DR items here but from what i’ve read thus far, Nyx is getting his butt handed to him in this debate

Trying to politically correct some one in terms of “No, you don’t need a super computer, a lesser cpu will suffice”, is mute. That’s completely irrelevant to the point.

+

i am very interested in hearing how you deducted this?
i have answered all concerns, and i have disproofed any claims that it wouldn’t be possible to do due to processor power. which is what you are saying that i haven’t.

please do elaborate on this since i would be interested in hearing where you have found my statement to be wrong?

Again, being politically correct, like yout cpu power reply, wasn’t the point of Exedore’s post. It absolutely does not matter.

“This thread is such a farce. Its promoters don’t really understand what they’re talking about. For example, chess is easy to solve conceptually, but its decision tree quickly becomes immense and takes too long to realistically process. We have multiple models for weather, especially if you look at hurricane path prediction. If they’re so great at what they do, why do we still run multiple different ones which come up with different results? The result is that models aren’t perfect.”

When you talk about an MMORPG, there are many more variables and possible decisions than in chess. And because it’s real-time – not turn-based – timing of each decision becomes a further variable. *It becomes so ridiculously complex that you can’t realistically solve it._

^ That was the point. Who cares about Exedore.6320 not being politically correct about his example metaphor? I’ve partly read your replies, this is one of the reasons why you have less +1 points in this debate than the others. You’re not a masterdebator /austinpowers /sarcasm

Nyx.6532:

Saiyan.1704:

The reason GW2 has been the most balanced PvP MMO on market is because of its unique combat structure. The dodges, downed state, and everything in between, gave the game a more balanced window. It was, and still is, more forgiving in terms of game balances.

btw: gw2 is one of the worst balanced mmo’s on the market. despite its many good features, and despite the enormous amount of effort anet put into promoting it as a pvp game, esport, etc. it’s pvp scene is laughebly weak in comparison to almost every pvp focused mmo game on the market. (especially if you take developement pricetag into consideration)
on top of that the concensus from the vast majority of it’s community is that it is hopelessly unbalanced, and even amongst the people liking it and speaking well of it, it is well known that only a select few builts have any place in competitive pvp…
all this together should make it more then clear to anyone not in complete deniel that GW2 pvp balance is in a horrific state, and doesn’t qualify at all as "most balanced mmo on the market as you claim

There’s a huge difference between great PvP experience/infrastructure and PvP game balances.

That Which Shall Not Be Named has world dueling, 2v2/3v3/5v5 arenas, battlegrounds, CTF and Siege type gamemodes. In fact, most MMO’s have these great PvP items in the game…. but these games are not exactly balanced. I left That Which Shall Not Be Named for GW2 about 2.5 years ago. Throughout the months, GW2 became incredibly more balanced than that “king of mmo’s” game. There was no contest. Even now people are saying that the game’s PvP structure is crap – the great veteran players left after certain expansions.

To strengthen the above, look up “best pvp mmo” and you’ll be surprised about what makes the list and what doesn’t. ESO and Planetside makes the top of the list, but.. Planetside is a FPS so it doesn’t really count. BF4 is better in that genre, considering it’s not p2w.
After these two titles, it’s every other game. There’s still a few 2015 posts that says GW2 is best PvP MMO but the game can get incredibly boring after X amount of time invested. That has to do with the lack of PvP elements like 2v2, 3v3 tdm, lack of pvp endgame, etc. These lack of items have to do with a low game budget but as a whole, the game is still well balanced (prepatch, not including all these crazy updates!)

Again, developer price tag has nothing to do with whether or not a game is balanced.

Perfectly equal ttk values across the board is impossible given the different situations and mechanics available in GW2. There is more to a fight than damage and damage mitigation.

The type of balancing you’really presenting would only work in games that are turn based or in games using the hard trinity like WoW.

Hmm ttk would be great for thief Anet basicly forces me to do every move perfectly if i dont want to die as thief, it would be nice if every class had to be as aware of game mechanics as thief players…