Guild Wars 2

HoT brought along the elephant that has been in the room for quite some time. People complained about this before, but it hold no real big difference in PvE since most of the content were pretty easy to begin with, but now that have raids and somewhat the new maps, it is clearly evidenced that the balance will affect PvE stronger than ever.

The total split is necessary, the devs have to stop holding to that bleak belief that pvp is too confusing if the numbers were largely changed. Do whatever is needed even if it means putting out obnoxious pop ups or a long kitten tutorial about how each skill is different to make new players feel comfortable.

I’m not asking for a whackmole balance, but with a total split, there would be more leanway of making both modes at least very healthy. This game have much less skills than gw1 had and i don’t understand why that game could have split balance but this one can’t.

Just look at this whole situation: hammer 2 from revenants breaks wvw but it is useless in the other modes, if it is nerfed, then the other modes suffer. Necro condition is somewhat weak in PvE, but if dhuumfire was buffed or they had more condis, SPvP would be a total mess. It is impossible to fix something to be a good balance between all the 3 modes, if after 3 years wasn’t already clear as water to be case. So many builds and classes having to resort to elites to be useful in PvE while every other line or weapon types keeps rotting away forever. Warriors will never mainhand maces in PvE or use axe offhand.

Splitting gotta happen, or else balance will be an exercise of bashing your head against a wall. The current situation is doing more harm than good, no one is happy, absolutely no one. One mode will always be held back by the other.

3 years after gw1 release they split certain skills into pve and pvp. i dont think it was all of them. just the abused ones. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates/20080522
I know the engine and code is different now. But surely they had this in mind when making gw2. I mean gw1 pvp was popular. I loved it. Now is the time anet. I like this idea very much. And it has to make things easier on you in the long run right?

Splitting balance makes balance easier but it doesn’t make it a good decision. The problem with split balance is that it is extremely hard on new players, which isn’t good if you are trying to grow your playerbase.

The reason it’s hard on new players is that it’s a rule change. A new player gets used to abilities in PvE, if then then go into PvP and all of a sudden their class is working completely differently it tends to make the game feel completely arbitrary, which quickly leads to a /quit.
One of the big rules of game design is never change how the rules work. If X ability does Y thing in most of the game it shouldn’t just change to doing Z thing for some other part of a game.

Also this game’s balance isn’t perfect but it’s well within the scope of reasonable, especially by mmorpg standards. Players need to realize that balanced games still have metas and bad builds. Metas will always exist for any game with asynchronous class design.

I loved the change in gw1 when they did it. I didn’t find it difficult to adjust to at all. It would be no harder to learn than say…. the new mastery system. I don’t think anyone else was either. I don’t recall many complaints from the players that actually focus on PvP. There are ways to make it easier to see. And most people are just copy pasting builds anyway. Lets be honest.

Death Aggro.9602:

I loved the change in gw1 when they did it. I didn’t find it difficult to adjust to at all. It would be no harder to learn than say…. the new mastery system. I don’t think anyone else was either. I don’t recall many complaints from the players that actually focus on PvP. There are ways to make it easier to see. And most people are just copy pasting builds anyway. Lets be honest.

For players that keep up with developments, and research things, it’s a easy transition. For the vast majority of the playerbase that just cares about logging in and enjoying themselves, it’s a crap system that will come off as arbitrary.

What makes games playable in the first place is the ability for a player to count on something always working a same way. Having spots in the game where otherwise dependable mechanics suddenly change functionality is bad design.

Crinn.7864:

Splitting balance makes balance easier but it doesn’t make it a good decision. The problem with split balance is that it is extremely hard on new players, which isn’t good if you are trying to grow your playerbase.

The reason it’s hard on new players is that it’s a rule change. A new player gets used to abilities in PvE, if then then go into PvP and all of a sudden their class is working completely differently it tends to make the game feel completely arbitrary, which quickly leads to a /quit..

lol and you think the current situation won’t make new players quit? If they are quitting over something so simple as that, they obviously never intended to stay in the first place. Ofc they have to adapt and learn, because they are completely different modes.You don’t go play conquest mode expecting to use that pve build, do you? Or should anet start balancing pvp to use pve builds now?

I’m not asking to completely redesign a skill too, only to be more aggressive on the changes. Ramping up scepter auto condi of mesmers to high heavens on PvE would break PvP, but it would make far more useful on PvE while keeping the same design. Make sure to players that the skill had numbers changed and it is balanced with the health of both the mode in mind. There is no need to change functionality.

Crinn.7864:

Death Aggro.9602:

I loved the change in gw1 when they did it. I didn’t find it difficult to adjust to at all. It would be no harder to learn than say…. the new mastery system. I don’t think anyone else was either. I don’t recall many complaints from the players that actually focus on PvP. There are ways to make it easier to see. And most people are just copy pasting builds anyway. Lets be honest.

For players that keep up with developments, and research things, it’s a easy transition. For the vast majority of the playerbase that just cares about logging in and enjoying themselves, it’s a crap system that will come off as arbitrary.

What makes games playable in the first place is the ability for a player to count on something always working a same way. Having spots in the game where otherwise dependable mechanics suddenly change functionality is bad design.

For me they are separate games altogether. When i go to PvE i have to look at wikis etc to figure out whats what. When i first came to tpvp i had to read wikis and look at builds etc. What is the difference. Im not understanding your argument. Your never coming into any game knowing everything. And on most occasions anything. You use skills in PvP you never use in PvE. And vice versa. If you don’t know you cant use a PvE build in SPvP you shouldn’t be there lol. So learning that a skill is different from its PvE counterpart isn’t difficult! Its just not. And if you didn’t look it up you’d figure it out after the first match you’d think. I honestly just don’t understand how that’s a bother at all for anyone. Why would you go into a competitive game type blind. Its just odd to me.

Death Aggro.9602:

Crinn.7864:

Death Aggro.9602:

I loved the change in gw1 when they did it. I didn’t find it difficult to adjust to at all. It would be no harder to learn than say…. the new mastery system. I don’t think anyone else was either. I don’t recall many complaints from the players that actually focus on PvP. There are ways to make it easier to see. And most people are just copy pasting builds anyway. Lets be honest.

For players that keep up with developments, and research things, it’s a easy transition. For the vast majority of the playerbase that just cares about logging in and enjoying themselves, it’s a crap system that will come off as arbitrary.

What makes games playable in the first place is the ability for a player to count on something always working a same way. Having spots in the game where otherwise dependable mechanics suddenly change functionality is bad design.

For me they are separate games altogether. When i go to PvE i have to look at wikis etc to figure out whats what. When i first came to tpvp i had to read wikis and look at builds etc. What is the difference. Im not understanding your argument. Your never coming into any game knowing everything. And on most occasions anything. You use skills in PvP you never use in PvE. And vice versa. If you don’t know you cant use a PvE build in SPvP you shouldn’t be there lol. So learning that a skill is different from its PvE counterpart isn’t difficult! Its just not. And if you didn’t look it up you’d figure it out after the first match you’d think. I honestly just don’t understand how that’s a bother at all for anyone. Why would you go into a competitive game type blind. Its just odd to me.

Yes, i rather that Anet admitted they are too lazy or don’t have enough drive to want to balance the game that use this kitten poor excuse. Saying casuals would quit the game because the skill is different is just completely asinine. And if they do, they will quit in the first moment a dragon player stomps them when try to keyboard turn or LoS others to kill them in a corner

Guild Wars is one of the only mmorpg where the balance devs do not need to manage a power increase (a changing scale) at every release due to gear level or player level increase. Here, the player level (80) and gear level (exotic/ascended) has stayed the same for 3 years now (the scale stays the same). Knowing this, we should have far better balance than we currently have (and have experienced for years). Since we do not, it shows clearly how incompetent the balance devs are.

Back on topic, I do not think the PvE/PvP split is good. It further separates the PvE game from the PvP game and may make player crossover less likely. I played through the PvE/PvP split in Gw1 and I do not think it improved the game at all. PvP did not feel any better (as I recall the first years of the game were closer to ‘e-sports’ than the years after this split), and PvE ended up running away with power creep. Initially, Guild Wars 1 PvE (in my opinion) was balanced around PvP. This is what I think should be sought after. Isn’t PvE more challenging when mobs behave like players (better AI)? And it better prepares players for the crossover into PvP, and vice-versa.

At the moment though, I am not convinced that any attempts have been made to balance the game in either mode for quite some time.

Take your pink glasses off! During the golden age of GW1, people were complaining a lot about balance as well.
Ok now more people use forums and over exaggeration has become a way of life but it is not really different.
Honestly when they started to split everything it was just the lazy way to either kill something in PvP (not balance, simply kill) or to give OP skills in PvE so that some carebears would be sure that they never have to learn to play because there was always a brain-dead solution. In term of design it was a way to create the easiest slope in every situation.
If they must split thing I hope it won’t be a skill to skill thing because the game will loose a lot of interest in term of challenge and build diversity.
General rules like retaliation or condi numbers (previously confusion) should be enough.

Celtus.8456:

I played through the PvE/PvP split in Gw1 and I do not think it improved the game at all. PvP did not feel any better (as I recall the first years of the game were closer to ‘e-sports’ than the years after this split), and PvE ended up running away with power creep. Initially, Guild Wars 1 PvE (in my opinion) was balanced around PvP. This is what I think should be sought after. Isn’t PvE more challenging when mobs behave like players (better AI)? And it better prepares players for the crossover into PvP, and vice-versa.

At the moment though, I am not convinced that any attempts have been made to balance the game in either mode for quite some time.

As gw1 PvP player it helped immensely. And you are wrong on one point here. PvP was Balanced around PvE. Hence the split. Not the other way around. In my 7000 hours on gw1 i crossed over into PvE all the time. Even though i came to gw1 for the PvP. I found the underworld and fow farming solo quite engaging. You’ll never get a PvE game where enemies act like players. Thats not going to happen no matter what you do to the skills. Lets be honest here. Thats just an AI issue. But your right. Thier idea of balance is just to make something else broken so you stop complaining about the previous broken meta/mechanic/insert answer here.

Nebilim.5127:

Yes, i rather that Anet admitted they are too lazy or don’t have enough drive to want to balance the game that use this kitten poor excuse. Saying casuals would quit the game because the skill is different is just completely asinine.

I can provide a example. I used to play TOR back when it actually had good pvp, in that game taunts in PvE force the target to attack the user, but in PvP they reduce the targets damage dealt by 30% while target is not attacking the user. In teamfights taunts should be used almost on CD. However unless your doing ranked, you don’t see taunts being used often. Why? Because the players where trained by PvE that only tanks should taunt, and thus never even think to use a taunt in PvP, despite the difference being clearly stated on the tooptip.

Also expecting players to go read wikis is insipid. You shouldn’t need third party websites to play a game, unless you are the type of person that is obsessed with optimizing everything. (which is fine, but it’s not something the majority of the playerbase does.)

And if they do, they will quit in the first moment a dragon player stomps them when try to keyboard turn or LoS others to kill them in a corner

No because any sane person expects that engaging in combat in a game may result in your toon dying. What sane people don’t expect is for otherwise dependable game mechanics to change.
Like seriously, it’s like growing up in a country where you drive on the right side of the road, and then going and trying drive in a country with left-side driving. It’s a totally unsettling and definitively negative experience.

Splitting skills between PVE/PVP won’t do a thing.

What makes you think that there will be MORE balancing if the skills are split. They don’t do any balancing NOW. How would doubling their workload make it better?

SlimChance.6593:

Splitting skills between PVE/PVP won’t do a thing.

What makes you think that there will be MORE balancing if the skills are split. They don’t do any balancing NOW. How would doubling their workload make it better?

It isn’t doubling their workload, it will actually make far far easier, because they can ramp up everything on pve to be useful without caring for pvp. PvP is the delicate mode here, not PvE. Mobs and minions won’t complain if suddenly necros start having burn on the scepter auto :P

It is harder for them now, because they gotta keep in mind every mode and every usage before making a change which might not even address the issues.

Been asking for skill splits since the beginning. The notion that people can’t figure it out is a sham. People that are good enough players to know they can handle playing WvW/PvE/PvP should be all about skill splits. More so after the elite spec debacle took any creativity out of making builds.

I would love to be able to run totally different specs for the same profession in different formats. At least then there would be build diversity.

They say they want to be esports and then make all the elite specs HoT purchase specs. If they really wanted esports, core specs would be just as viable in pvp as HoT specs.

I agree. Skill splits have needed to happen for years. With the tiny size of the skill balance team though, it won’t happen. It won’t happen unless ArenaNet realize they need to loosen the purse strings and bring more people on board to fix some of the glaring issues.

So many skills and profession mechanics are just straight up busted.

+1 A balance split between game-modes definitely has to happen eventually.

With more and more specs presumably being released in the future it will get progressively harder for the devs to maintain decent class balance across PvE, PvP and maybe WvW (I have no idea if that mode even is supposed to balanced at all tbh).

In my opinion, mainly balancing around just one game-mode and “kinda” shoehorning in a bit of extra balancing for another mode that plays totally different simply won’t cut it in the long run.

Crinn.7864:

Splitting balance makes balance easier but it doesn’t make it a good decision. The problem with split balance is that it is extremely hard on new players, which isn’t good if you are trying to grow your playerbase.

The reason it’s hard on new players is that it’s a rule change. A new player gets used to abilities in PvE, if then then go into PvP and all of a sudden their class is working completely differently it tends to make the game feel completely arbitrary, which quickly leads to a /quit.
One of the big rules of game design is never change how the rules work. If X ability does Y thing in most of the game it shouldn’t just change to doing Z thing for some other part of a game.

Also this game’s balance isn’t perfect but it’s well within the scope of reasonable, especially by mmorpg standards. Players need to realize that balanced games still have metas and bad builds. Metas will always exist for any game with asynchronous class design.

You wouldn’t be changing anything on a basic level though, just cooldown times and how long CC abilities last. If a knockdown is on a 20 second cooldown and lasts 4 seconds in PvE then it could be on a 15 second cooldown and last 1.5 seconds in PvP. Since players have lower health than elite or even vet mobs this split makes sense.

Skoigoth.9238:

+1 A balance split between game-modes definitely has to happen eventually.

With more and more specs presumably being released in the future it will get progressively harder for the devs to maintain decent class balance across PvE, PvP and maybe WvW (I have no idea if that mode even is supposed to balanced at all tbh).

In my opinion, mainly balancing around just one game-mode and “kinda” shoehorning in a bit of extra balancing for another mode that plays totally different simply won’t cut it in the long run.

They are lazy as kittennn !! :/

Crinn.7864:

Splitting balance makes balance easier but it doesn’t make it a good decision. The problem with split balance is that it is extremely hard on new players, which isn’t good if you are trying to grow your playerbase.

The reason it’s hard on new players is that it’s a rule change. A new player gets used to abilities in PvE, if then then go into PvP and all of a sudden their class is working completely differently it tends to make the game feel completely arbitrary, which quickly leads to a /quit.
One of the big rules of game design is never change how the rules work. If X ability does Y thing in most of the game it shouldn’t just change to doing Z thing for some other part of a game.

Also this game’s balance isn’t perfect but it’s well within the scope of reasonable, especially by mmorpg standards. Players need to realize that balanced games still have metas and bad builds. Metas will always exist for any game with asynchronous class design.

The new players that are born to be PvE type, they won’t be concerned since they won’t play much of PvP if not at all.

The PvP type, players will appreciate that they split up the two modes and it will give them a feeling of a game taken seriously by the dev team. And they won’t be confused… I mean come on, unless they are dumb as kitten…

Like the OP already told, make a tutorial or find a way to let them know that some skills maybe different and that it’s advised they test them on Golems, before doing a PvP game.

Splitting is important. The way I would do it is one fo two simple ways:

A. Have it so that effect tooltips list the PvE effects, then under those, in a different color, it would list exactly what changes in the PvP version, like “this skill does 10% less damage in PvP” or “This skill only hits one target in PvP.”

B. Same as the above when viewing it in PvE, but when viewing it in the Mists it shifts so that the PvP stats are the default, and PvE stats are the second alternate list. The colors should remain consistent though, so whether top or bottom you can tell at a glance which is PvE and which is PvP in either mode.

Crinn.7864:

Splitting balance makes balance easier but it doesn’t make it a good decision. The problem with split balance is that it is extremely hard on new players, which isn’t good if you are trying to grow your playerbase.
.

All new player do is get a build from meta battle anyways. I doubt many of them will even realize a pve pvp split.

I’m actually going to say that splitting is a bad thing. Splitting helps in the case where PvP and PvE are vastly different gametypes. In the past this has been true, but with HoT Anet have shown that they want to make enemies more like players-some have armour, some don’t, some have different attack behaviours and evasiveness.
As far as I am aware, and certainly personally, this has been more fun than the previous “block of unarmoured HP” strategy for PvE content.
This has started moving PvE content away from the Berserker stat meta. It’s still a long way to go, but at least condi builds are starting to shine in certain parts of PvE.
Yes, splitting balance means that PvP changes do not affect PvE changes (which is normally the balancing priority), but if something is bad in one and good in the other, I’d prefer Anet to address the reason that a skill functions at such a different level, rather than splitting balance.

SolarDragon.7063:

I’m actually going to say that splitting is a bad thing. Splitting helps in the case where PvP and PvE are vastly different gametypes. In the past this has been true, but with HoT Anet have shown that they want to make enemies more like players-some have armour, some don’t, some have different attack behaviours and evasiveness.
As far as I am aware, and certainly personally, this has been more fun than the previous “block of unarmoured HP” strategy for PvE content.
This has started moving PvE content away from the Berserker stat meta. It’s still a long way to go, but at least condi builds are starting to shine in certain parts of PvE.
Yes, splitting balance means that PvP changes do not affect PvE changes (which is normally the balancing priority), but if something is bad in one and good in the other, I’d prefer Anet to address the reason that a skill functions at such a different level, rather than splitting balance.

Guy, you must send your application for a dev post to Anet, I’m sure they’ll gladly take you! Brilliant idea !

No.. seriously?

What’s your argument? You are starting to have fun in PvE so the PvP guys shouldn’t have fun without affecting your fun? …

There’s plenty ways of changing the skill tools. They could add little effects or remove some; but just simpler => play with the numbers. Maybe that will not ask too much effort from them.

"""Splitting helps in the case where PvP and PvE are vastly different gametypes. """"

they are completely different gametypes. I can’t stand 5min in PvE map. Even in Lion’s Arch. And because they are different, they must balance according to the game mode.

If you keep fusion-ed those two, the balancing will become more and more difficult to do.

I don’t want some classes to stay unfixed in PvP just because of PvE where they might be doing well …

Eventually a split has to happen. Pve players are frustrated because game is more and more balanced around pvp, while some skills can’t be changed because they would be extremely broken in PvP and useless in pve (or the other way round). But more essential are constant hotfixes. A net said multiple times that there will be no split in pve-/pvp due to complication and workload. But if you refuse to split, then already start with hotfixes to hinder “toxic” builds to be around for months.