Guild Wars 2

I’m all for splitting skills between different game modes, but only when it comes to adjusting effect numbers.
Ex: a skill dealing 1000 damage in PvE but only 900 damage in PvP.

But when skill splitting changes how skills are fundamentally played, forcing players to relearn their own profession inbetween modes, like the PvP-only change to Revenant’s energy upkeeps, things only start to become confusing and messy.

Splitting game balance is a good idea tho, so o/

The rev example is pretty strange. You upkeep entirely different facets and use totally different rotations in pvp and pve… Why cant energy costs be different? You basically relearn the rotations and upkeeps. Nothing abt the skill is fundamentally changed except how you rotate it in, which is already different between game modes

I dont really wvw so im not sure abt that.

No, its not a bad idea.

If the skills have to function differently to compensate for the differences between the modes i am all for it. The major problem is these little….they dont listen…at all. They spend time making making useless buffs and irritating nerfs instead of solving build diversity and utility issues on classes that have it

It’s the only thing that could rescue this game. It is simply impossible to balance classes amongst 3 gamemodes, raids, 5v5 conquest (+stronghold should you take it serious), roaming and 70v70 zerg play without seperation.

Krysard.1364:

Splitting game balance is a good idea tho, so o/

My point is that I’d rather they split game balance without splitting game mechanics. Or else, it’s going to create the same issue that they had with GW1 and tried so desperately to avoid.

i like that they added WvW also..

Normally they split pvp/pve (where pve is WvW also)

Now its pvp/wvw/pve

Thats very good! i like it

Agreed with op. Shaving off a few percentage points of damage or healing from certain skills is all that is generally needed to balance between game modes. Having different cool-downs on the other hand is simply annoying. It completely messes with your rhythm and timing when you expect a skill to be off cd because you have played with it so much in a different game mode but now it isn’t because of a split. It is never fun to always be watching your skill bar because you play different game modes. Kind of like how thieves hate that there is 4 sec reveal in pvp and 3 seconds everywhere else. The problem is even worse when skill functionality is completely changed.

For example if a skill has a blast finisher or evade frame in one game mode but not others You try to utilize that extra utility instinctively only to find it fail. Fortunately the devs have thus far opted against splitting skills this way so far. Balance patches change functionality and cool downs all the time which is fine since you have time to readjust in these cases. With skill splitting you need to always keep track of the differences in the back of your mind if you play multiple modes which is simply unnecessary punishment to people who play all modes regularly.

Question for anyone who thinks splitting class mechanics in game types is a good idea: Do you agree with the idea of a thief’s weapon skills costing different amounts of intiative in different game modes? Apply this concept to all classes.

Damage numbers and such are alright, class mechanics are not to be changed between game modes. It’s a stupid idea.

Entenkommando.5208:

It’s the only thing that could rescue this game. It is simply impossible to balance classes amongst 3 gamemodes, raids, 5v5 conquest (+stronghold should you take it serious), roaming and 70v70 zerg play without seperation.

Disagree,

They could easily balance the game around PvP. Making lets just say cantrips a 1 vs 1 ele build with shorter cool downs and shouts being the team fighting and conjure weapons being a all around build.

Then they simply change the DPS and health bars of bosses in PvE, Raids, Fractals to fit accordingly.

WvW is dead because they straight ignored it, they have a reward track that gives rare weapons. To make them exotics you need WvW tickets from the WvW tournaments. (stares at sun)

They are balancing around raids which is why mesmer does 20k damage from the sword 2 skill but not in PvP because they are kind of trying to separate it.

So my main reason for saying splitting the game mechanics is bad since i went off in a another direction is because they havent balanced anything since HOT release.

Raids right before the patch were getting down in 3 man, 5 man 7, man groups and they were ignoring mechanics. So they nerf/buff certain things so they can be viable in raids.

So eventually they will balance raids, that doesnt help PvP,WvW, PvE, Fractals who they said has no control over balancing. We have been in HOT for over a year now and none of the HOT metas have been decent compared to the meta right before the D/D meta.’

So you can literally say that this game hasnt cared about PvP balance for almost 3 years. Separating the different game modes doesnt change the fact they dont have actual teams looking to fix each one.

kdaddy.5431:

Entenkommando.5208:

It’s the only thing that could rescue this game. It is simply impossible to balance classes amongst 3 gamemodes, raids, 5v5 conquest (+stronghold should you take it serious), roaming and 70v70 zerg play without seperation.

Disagree,

They could easily balance the game around PvP. Making lets just say cantrips a 1 vs 1 ele build with shorter cool downs and shouts being the team fighting and conjure weapons being a all around build.

Then they simply change the DPS and health bars of bosses in PvE, Raids, Fractals to fit accordingly.

WvW is dead because they straight ignored it, they have a reward track that gives rare weapons. To make them exotics you need WvW tickets from the WvW tournaments. (stares at sun)

They are balancing around raids which is why mesmer does 20k damage from the sword 2 skill but not in PvP because they are kind of trying to separate it.

So my main reason for saying splitting the game mechanics is bad since i went off in a another direction is because they havent balanced anything since HOT release.

Raids right before the patch were getting down in 3 man, 5 man 7, man groups and they were ignoring mechanics. So they nerf/buff certain things so they can be viable in raids.

So eventually they will balance raids, that doesnt help PvP,WvW, PvE, Fractals who they said has no control over balancing. We have been in HOT for over a year now and none of the HOT metas have been decent compared to the meta right before the D/D meta.’

So you can literally say that this game hasnt cared about PvP balance for almost 3 years. Separating the different game modes doesnt change the fact they dont have actual teams looking to fix each one.

Pretty much. It’s a good thing not a bad thing in the least bit.

I think some people are missing the point.

This thread is not about being against skill splitting in general, but specifically against large functionality changes. Splitting the values for damage, heal and durations for boons, conditions, cc, etc, are all fair, because they keep the functionality, but when more mechanical changes are done, especially to energy costs, cooldowns, casting times, aftercasts, etc, they break up the internal rhythm set by players and change the “feeling” of using said skills.

It’s very clumsy when things get that far.

The changes for Blurred Frenzy, for example, are perfectly fine to me. But imagine if they suddenly removed its blur effect for one of the game modes. It would suddenly become a different skill!

I agree with the op to an extent. Don’t split the cooldowns or change the skill functionality, just split the effective numbers of the trait or the skill. This way, people can still play the same builds but it’s just going to be either more powerful or less powerful between each game mode.

Skill splitting is fine but I tend to agree with OP that the diff shouldn’t be too crazy. Should be more like CD changes, damage changes, heal coefficients , boon durations etc.

I like also that some changes are ported into WvW as well.

This mindset is why skill balance in this game is so bad right now. Anet caters to people like you who don’t want it to be “hard” to learn small differences between game modes. Look where that has gotten us every balance patch….

OneKlicKill.4285:

This mindset is why skill balance in this game is so bad right now. Anet caters to people like you who don’t want it to be “hard” to learn small differences between game modes. Look where that has gotten us every balance patch….

Anet has almost never splitted skills in the history of GW2, and I’m heavily in favor of skill splitting, so how exactly did my mindset affect in any way the game’s balance?

But I’m just too “lazy” to appreciate the fine beauty of clumsy changes, apparently.

DiogoSilva.7089:

OneKlicKill.4285:

This mindset is why skill balance in this game is so bad right now. Anet caters to people like you who don’t want it to be “hard” to learn small differences between game modes. Look where that has gotten us every balance patch….

Anet has almost never splitted skills in the history of GW2, and I’m heavily in favor of skill splitting, so how exactly did my mindset affect in any way the game’s balance?

But I’m just too “lazy” to appreciate the fine beauty of clumsy changes, apparently.

They didn’t split stuff because the simply could not. They just didn’t build the system like that in the first place.
For the wide range of things to be splittable, like skills, traits, runes, sigils a dev had to sacrifice his free time in order to build the system required for it because it was not a priority for them.
That shows you how much thought anet payed to skill balance when they designed the game.

Spartacus.3192:

Skill splitting is fine but I tend to agree with OP that the diff shouldn’t be too crazy. Should be more like CD changes, damage changes, heal coefficients , boon durations etc.

I like also that some changes are ported into WvW as well.

Cooldowns should not be changed. IMO, only damage/heals and coefficients should be changed. Balance numbers without screwing up the feel of the class.