Guild Wars 2

I agree, though 2 weeks would be better instead of 1 week except for hotfixes which are most beneficial when done shortly after, e.g. 1-2 days.
However, it is still necessary to split balance, there is no way around it, and 2 weeks would give them more necessary time.
Also, players have asked for for a long time to have an open PTR.
Log in with one’s own account and directly give feedback, maybe have even matches recorded with a reason stated, done through a feedback-menu.

I would buy the followings in a heartbeat (been saving gems without anything interesting to buy):

• Announcer sound packs
• Funny emotes
• Item that makes all the enemy displayed as Humans
• Icons next to my name so I can display my pvp achievements to other pve players.

PvP can be profitable. Their product managers just couldn’t figure that out. It is the same mistake they made with the balance: they don’t ask players what the players want; they assume they know what the players want. When they started asking, it was late, and they wasted a year of development.

Since a developer rarely truly understand what the customers want, it’s the faster iteration process that can save them. They will also appear to be more responsive, which is a bonus point.

While I agree with the OP that the balance cycles are too long, the proposal of one week is far too rapid.

First, balance isn’t black and white. You have to analyze and re-analyze lots of data and viewpoints at multiple skill levels to even determine if an ability needs changed. Then you have to figure out how and to what extent it needs changed, while trying to not break or overpower other builds. And the initial change that was designed and coded may not accomplish the desired result, so the process repeats. And this needs done for many abilities of many professions.

Second, one week is reacting far too soon for proper balance in most cases. You need to give players time to adjust to a change. When a new character build comes along or a previous one is weakened, players don’t immediately adjust. They need to have time to find counters or alternatives or simply adjust how they play against it. That process can take weeks for top players and even longer for more casual players. Until those options have been exhausted, you can’t really comment on whether a particular build is truly imbalanced or to what extent.

Third, players dislike rapid change as much as they hate overly sluggish change. When various abilities on one’s character do something different each week, it’s extremely frustrating. There needs to be time for them to remain in a comfort zone.

A 1-2 month time frame is best. 3-4 weeks is enough time to have a reasonably good idea if a build is too strong a decent idea of what the particular strengths are. Another month is a reasonable time to formulate changes, share them with the community for feedback, and test them.

Sunshine.5014:

they don’t ask players what the players want; they assume they know what the players want. When they started asking, it was late, and they wasted a year of development.

Except that players usually don’t know what they want either. Players often think they want something, but when it comes along, it turns out they didn’t want it. They just thought they did. Or maybe only a vocal minority wanted it. You can’t just take player feedback at face value; developers have to think on their own too.

Exedore.6320:

Sunshine.5014:

they don’t ask players what the players want; they assume they know what the players want. When they started asking, it was late, and they wasted a year of development.

Except that players usually don’t know what they want either. Players often think they want something, but when it comes along, it turns out they didn’t want it. They just thought they did. Or maybe only a vocal minority wanted it. You can’t just take player feedback at face value; developers have to think on their own too.

You just said it. Since even the players don’t know what they want either, the developers should give them the new version to test! If the majority of the players complain loudly about something, then give out a number tweak patch, and let the players see if that’s really what they want. If they don’t want it, they can complain, and the developers can change the patch back. That leaves a paper trail that later the developers can use to say “here, we did that, and that didn’t work.” or “yah, we did that, and it seems that you guys love it, so we keep it there”

Right now, with the long iteration, the developers can only get the blame.

About the “we must give the players time to adjust to the new meta.” The sad truth is it was a lie. Players are pretty smart. Let’s talk about the recent addition of healing skills. People had predicted rightly that the Mesmer’s signet would get a lot of use, even before the patch was live. They could just look at the number from the leaked notes on Reddit and figured out. If ANet could balance it to the point that it takes the players a long while to figure out what is OP, then ANet could be considered succeeded in balancing the game. Right now, immediately after each patch is a serie of same complains. It doesn’t take people long to see that Warriors are still OP, or Spirit Rangers’ ultimate is still too strong. Saying that “the players need time to adjust” is just an excuse. It is the reason why GW2 PvP is in this sorry state.

So many developers think they’re soooo smart, but really people (as an information free collective) can find nash eq pretty quickly. Sunshine, I would approve if the size of players who actually spvp was larger than it is, but I don’t know if it’s sufficiently large enough for nash eq to be found out as rapidly as 1 week. As others have said, maybe kick your idea back a bit.

Remember: CC came out of left field when they started using a Warrior in their line-up – at least to NA.

There should be small number tweak hotfixes whenever its necessary, then leave the class mechanic changes to patches.

All is vain
#Message Body length must at least be 15.

Sunshine.5014:

Players are pretty smart. Let’s talk about the recent addition of healing skills. People had predicted rightly that the Mesmer’s signet would get a lot of use, even before the patch was live.

Except that people grossly overestimated the strength of the mesmer signet pre-patch, even Helseth thought it was better than it actually turned out to be. The only time the signet heal is worth using is in some phantasm builds and some tanky PU builds, even then its debatable whether its worthwhile.

That being said, I don’t necessarily disagree with you, i just wanted to point out that your example was incorrect.

Can we all please give this +1? I remember this being a problem with WoW – players had to stick to a kittenty meta and deal with MONSTROUS classes. And it would last months. This isn’t the way to go about balancing, because you won’t ever achieve it. Especially since there is no PTR.

I agree.

The philosophy of “shaving” and 3+ months balance patches is a recipe for disaster.

The condi + hambow meta has taken way too long to fix.

A long balance cycle is acceptable, but only years after the game is released and the classes are deemed stable. For the period in time GW2 is currently in the long balance cycles are a huge detriment to the game.

Look at Dota and LoL. Both had very short balance cycles during their first years, even with dozens of heroes with multiple skills and items each. The short balance cycles were a big part of why those games succeeded while many copies failed.

GW2 should have a 1 month balance cycle at most for where it is right now. The lack of quick balance fixes has alienated a vast part of the community from PvP, which is where most balance changes actually come from. If this process continues the game will bleed users when TESO and Wildstar are released, not because those games are better but because players have become embittered towards the development team.

The root problem is that the devs don’t care about the pvp at all. You think we’d have chain immobilize if they cared? Hambows? Condi spam? Chain stealth? PU mesmers? Skyhammer? 3-4 months between patches? Asuras in pvp? Completely overblown graphical effects? Hundreds of bugs which have been ignored since release or earlier?

The list of problems this game has could go on for pages, and what are the devs doing about it? Nothing. They’re sitting around waiting for another 3-4 months to go by so they can release a small patch with a few number changes that doesn’t change anything.

Anet puts profits ahead of the game and the players 100% of the time. Every time keeping their word has ended up being financially inconvenient, they’ve gone back on it and told people to deal with it. Any time a mode has been deemed unprofitable, it has been abandoned.

There’s no point telling the devs what they need to do to fix pvp because it isn’t hard to figure out. The hard part is getting devs that actually care about pvp, and unfortunately the anet devs do not.

dreztina.4820:

The root problem is that the devs don’t care about the pvp at all. You think we’d have chain immobilize if they cared? Hambows? Condi spam? Chain stealth? PU mesmers? Skyhammer? 3-4 months between patches? Asuras in pvp? Completely overblown graphical effects? Hundreds of bugs which have been ignored since release or earlier?

The list of problems this game has could go on for pages, and what are the devs doing about it? Nothing. They’re sitting around waiting for another 3-4 months to go by so they can release a small patch with a few number changes that doesn’t change anything.

Anet puts profits ahead of the game and the players 100% of the time. Every time keeping their word has ended up being financially inconvenient, they’ve gone back on it and told people to deal with it. Any time a mode has been deemed unprofitable, it has been abandoned.

There’s no point telling the devs what they need to do to fix pvp because it isn’t hard to figure out. The hard part is getting devs that actually care about pvp, and unfortunately the anet devs do not.

sir,you forgot “all is vain”, +1 anyway.
i don’t know why they made the profession balance section in the forum if they don’t ask/tell/answer/take ideas from the topics made.
healing signet will still be always op with the omfg nerf of 8% and are you increasing the active of the signet?are you mad?
why nerf necro’s dhuumfire and not nerf incendiary powder from engies?
balance or remove the ai? can’t be done for mysterious causes?
body-blocking?
perma-evade thiefs?
combowarriorccopstun,why a decent nerf to the damage/sustain/allyouwant?
silly immobilize stacking?
and so on.

why don’t you hire helseth?i think he could simply balance the game in a week when a “balance team” couldn’t have done it for 16 long months.

come on balance team,wake up please,the whole pvp community is hoping for the rights things from you and you are doing kitten like every pvp balance patchs?please come on.

ps : all is vain.

@OP: I agree wholeheartedly that updates should occur more frequently with regards to balance. Balance is all about iteration – sure, time should pass to allow the meta to settle, but ultimately, more frequent iteration means that you achieve a more balanced result faster.

I think a lot of the problems with GW2’s balance, bugfixing and polish could simply have been bypassed or iterated past if instead of there being 4(? I think it was said there were 4 or so teams) Living Story teams there were instead 2 teams committed full time to fixing bugs, addressing class issues and brainstorming and iterating on balance.

It’s one thing to provide content to keep players playing, but it’s another thing to say, write more code or rewrite code to improve long standing class issues and bugs. I would say that a lot of the superficial polish and low-hanging fruit has now been all but spent for most professions – the real test is now for developers to really flex their muscles and fix deep seated profession problems like the fact that entire categories of certain utilities of most professions are pretty useless, or addressing build diversity by iterating useless traits instead of simply tweaking numbers every few months.

Having 2 “Balance Living Story” teams would also abnegate the calls for a PTR and the utter fiasco that the Dhuumfire patch brought. Simply put, there is no way for any developer no matter how thorough their testing, to catch all the potential balance implications of a change. It was clear in Arenanet’s response and subsequent patches that they simply did not anticipate the results of their changes. Having 2 teams would not only have allowed one team to check the changes of the other – but also have allowed Arenanet to push out rapid hotfixes, like the Sigil of Paralysation bug that allowed Fear and Stuns to gain a full extra second yet was not addressed for several patches.

Speaking of which, it also seems that Bug Fixing – if it potentially pertains to balance, is also coupled to the large feature patches. Sigil of Paralysation was one such famous example. The most recent one, the Ranger Spirit of Nature healing more than intended, is another. If the Ready Up show is any indication, it will only be fixed in March.

This is absolutely the wrong thing to do. If a bug is reported and confirmed, you fix it in the next update. Reporting a bug in the official channels of communication like Ready Up then sitting on it for months is not only stupid, it leads to the perception of paralysis – that the Balance team is not only ineffectual at balancing the game, but also inept at handling errors with their hands tied by some higher authority.

Bug fixes must be decoupled from feature patches even if they pertain to balance. Especially if they pertain to balance. It’s lunacy to do so otherwise, and yet I’ve just listed two examples.

So, after the news that they “will fix” the Healing Signet in May, I think this suggestion is even more agreeable. They must decouple balance fixes from big features patches.

Could not +1 this enough, but it should be an interval of 2 weeks instead of 1.

In an ideal setting I’d say a 2 week cycle for balance and bug fixes would be optimal and realistic. However given Anet’s propensity for adding hard counters and overpowered mechanics to a single build in order to fix a class wide issue and then nerfing everything else around those new traits and abilities, a 2 week cycle would probably only escalate things for the worse. If the problem was just the speed of changes, then yeah a 2 week cycle would be great, but it’s also about how tone deaf and poorly thought out the actual changes we’ve been getting have been and I don’t really know how you fix that.

The root of the problem is that the game isn’t split between PVE/WvW and PVP, so we got 2 diferent playstyles to cater, the casual ones of PVE/WvW and the “Hardcore” of PVP that is supossed to be more then spamming 1,2,3,4,5 switch, repeat….

PVE/WvW brings money, PVP doesn’t so that is the real root of the problem

Who cares about skill balances.

The PvP in this game is not defined by the skills players use or classes they play, it is defined by disconnects and games that start even though the teams don’t have 5 players.

Sunshine.5014:

TL;DR: The current balance approach is broken because the interval is too long. I suggest decoupling number tweaks from big changes, and that comes with many benefits.

Completely agree, thank you for posting this! I argued the same thing in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Please-decouple-Balance-from-Feature-patches/first#post3569290 but you said it much more coherently.

I have to say though, 1 week might be too brief a time for the dust to settle, so to speak. I think minor balance patches every 2 weeks (on weeks alternating with living story patches).

I agree with OP. Something needs to be done. The wait for something to happen, just to realize that nothing actually will, is disheartening.

I’m glad that people agree the balance patches should be decoupled from the big features patches. I listened to the feedback and adjusted the suggested time frame to 2 weeks.

Please help this thread get ANet’s attention!

+1
2-3 weeks would be epic (depends on the size ofchanges).
+ it would be also nice if they would from time to time hear the community (like saying: “we heard players that they do not want ai/pve wars, so we are thinking ways how to improve that” or “we saw that necros dont want dhummfire, so we will remove it and balance/improve necros without that and give them also something fun instead”).
Beside i dont think the problem with wars is healing signet, but the adrenalineheal trait + stances.

Except that you don’t balance a game based on forums reactions:p :p :p

Anet would be horrible designers if they complied to every single vocal minority.

They probably have accurate metrics with reference value on some key indicators: dps by distance, burst damage within secs, amount of damage negated by sec, health gained by sec… That’s the basis on which hey should balance the game.

The real issue is when the theoretical value doesn’t match the reality of the gameplay. For example there was a time where wars were very ok but no one played them. So the devs listened to the community and came up with silly boosts.

To prevent this from happening and to have a much healthier game, the best solution is to smoothen the learning curve and bring up the general level of skill. That way, the gap between theoretical power, how the class feel and how it is actually played narrows down and makes balancing much more relevant.

Gw2 pvp never had its chance to be honest. Only a handful of people actually understand the game and how it’s played but they were turned off by the lack of competitive infrastructure. But next to them you have house de of players who have no clue as to what to do/dodge.

Have fun balancing anything, let alone the complexity of having three games modes, PvE, WvW and pvp so different!

this thread has nailed it perfectly!

Also, so much this

Sunshine.5014:

I would buy the followings in a heartbeat (been saving gems without anything interesting to buy):

• Announcer sound packs
• Funny emotes
• Item that makes all the enemy displayed as Humans
• Icons next to my name so I can display my pvp achievements to other pve players.

PvP can be profitable. Their product managers just couldn’t figure that out. It is the same mistake they made with the balance: they don’t ask players what the players want; they assume they know what the players want. When they started asking, it was late, and they wasted a year of development.

Since a developer rarely truly understand what the customers want, it’s the faster iteration process that can save them. They will also appear to be more responsive, which is a bonus point.

100% agreed. Some changes definitely do not need 2-3 months of testing to implement. Would also be much easier to do like you said, minor fixes here & there and bigger changes every 2-3 months. Totally agreed.

Pretty much covers my main gripes about balance. Example: They KNOW that healing signet is too strong as is, and they are ALREADY planning to bring it down, so why WAIT? Why bundle it with a bunch of other tweaks that could potentially lead to other imbalances in the next patch, while leaving the current patch to suffer the current imbalances, as opposed to bringing something in line for the current patch and introducing new features (stuff like evade frames on ele thing) etc. when they are ready to be introduced, and adjusted as need be.

The “small” shaving over large time lapses is one of the largest gripes I have with the balance in this game. It’s like —- every other balance patch actually does something. The first one, is too weak, the second changes the game into some other annoying meta.

Let me be clear, I don’t mind the “shaving” approach. I much prefer that to what balancing looked like in GW1, where if a skill was deemed too strong it was nerfed utterly to the ground. Ask anyone who played elementalists in GW1 about Ether Renewal and I guarantee they’ll start spewing invective about Izzy! :p
My problem is wiht the huge time lag between patches. I mean if you’re gonna do some MAJOR rebalancing/reworking that’s gonna throw the metagame on its head then fine, but minor 5% tweaks in effectiveness? They don’t need 2 months gap between them!

Hypothetically great suggestions, you’re just forgetting that no matter which way you go about it people are going to complain.

aussieheals.6843:

Hypothetically great suggestions, you’re just forgetting that no matter which way you go about it people are going to complain.

That is ineviatable. Still, there are a few things a competitive game has to have:

• More frequent changes: The more frequent updates/changes are, the more challenged players are in adapting to slightly or heavily different enviroments. It is an additional challenge where a player’s success can vary due to their learning speed. Skill peaks are independant of it however.
  It also brings more variety to the game in smaller time intervals.
  Even if possible balance changes are independently from PvE and WvW and thus making things more complex, it brings further challenge and new things to learn.

• Risk vs Reward: A competitive game should have options available for various levels of risks and rewards. What should not happen is a low risk high reward build which basically allows for easy results. A more skillful player should be able to pull off more difficult stuff while also getting more rewarded for it. (Builds with passives, AI, full focus on AoE should rather be like said Grenade Launcher here (from a different game))

• Information flow: An issue I see with such a low frequency of changes is that a build stays strong or is used by players for a long time. A temporary skill ceiling can easier be reached in a stale meta.

• Transparency and Open Communication: While I have seen some changes in the past about transparency and open communication, it is not enough, especially with marginal changes and ones I cannot understand. 8 % Nerf on Healing Signet while it has a flawed design (constant healing and no requirements) ? Invulnerability on Burning Speed while other things are an issue ?
  It is the same with the July Patch last year, changes which were not asked by the competitive community and which just work maybe as a band-aid fix.

So what I personally really want to see is more support for players which mainly enjoy the gameplay and mechanics. These are the main demographic group for sPvP and many have left, some still stick around.
If they still want to make this game highly competitive, there has to be more open communication with the competitive playerbase and an independant focus on sPvP.

Now that they are trying to find a way , so we can <<change maps>>

Would you prefer if they <<sucrifice>> a map (getting even more hateful that skyhammer) and acted as Open Beta ?
A Ncp that sells every Utilitie + Trait (nered-buffed or new traits) + Weapon (nerfed-buffed +new ) , while your character is stipped from everything ?

And if dont fancy to participated , you Vote for somthing else ?

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Now that they are trying to find a way , so we can <<change maps>>

Would you prefer if they <<sucrifice>> a map (getting even more hateful that skyhammer) and acted as Open Beta ?
A Ncp that sells every Utilitie + Trait (nered-buffed or new traits) + Weapon (nerfed-buffed +new ) , while your character is stipped from everything ?

And if dont fancy to participated , you Vote for somthing else ?

A step-by-step or much more restricted enviroment is good for a test server, on live servers it would mean suicide for the game.
But there are still very frequent updates on the current test server if nothing has changed. Issue is though, only selected few from PvE, WvW and sPvP are on there and I think most do not play (example: 2 gw1 player posts on reddit, more than a year if not 1.5-2 years ago). There is only small feedback if any.

aussieheals.6843:

Hypothetically great suggestions, you’re just forgetting that no matter which way you go about it people are going to complain.

Yes but one way will promote the game, the other will not.
Which way have we been going for the last 16 months?

Can we get a reply from ANet here?

I think a lot of us agree that it benefits GW2 greatly to have a shorter balancing cycle.

manveruppd.7601:

Let me be clear, I don’t mind the “shaving” approach. I much prefer that to what balancing looked like in GW1, where if a skill was deemed too strong it was nerfed utterly to the ground. Ask anyone who played elementalists in GW1 about Ether Renewal and I guarantee they’ll start spewing invective about Izzy! :p
My problem is wiht the huge time lag between patches. I mean if you’re gonna do some MAJOR rebalancing/reworking that’s gonna throw the metagame on its head then fine, but minor 5% tweaks in effectiveness? They don’t need 2 months gap between them!

That is not how balancing (always) looked like in GW1 though; it was simply a lazy man’s approach to balancing,. A myriad skills were adjusted (very) well to stop their abuse in certain builds, it’s a pity that instances like the smiter boon sledge hammer nerf and ether renewal appear to overshadow them.

Many skills were designed/redesigned well until later on when Anet started focusing on GW2 and let GW1 balance turn to a pile of feces, or just balanced it using the GW2 approach (/horror).

After a year, I think this suggestion is still pretty applicable. The number balance patch needs to arrive more frequently.

So here’s a thought.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/16561637/603-hotfixes-january-21-1-21-2015

WoW has had hotfixes for balance purposes a total of 9 times with 8 of those times having changes to certain classes to tune numbers for damage, etc.

GW2 could be so much better if they just did small changes more often than waiting so long to do anything. I really don’t understand the wait. It just makes the game feel stale and unloved to me.

GW2 should NEVER follow WOWs way of balancing pvp. WOW pvp was, is, and will be broken. If GW2 goes to WOW steps, iam sure gonna quit. I find GW2 kind of balanced atm, just some minor tweaks are needed. People just need to l2p and stop whinning, this only forces the game to get worse.

And reading now the original post, the aproach happy players=more money is a good as a dead game. This is how wow got started to get corrupted, when blizzard started to give in to people whines and gave easier epics etc etc. That’s when game started to die, because people were happy but wanted more soon after and got bored and eventually, quited.

Slyverine.7081:

GW2 should NEVER follow WOWs way of balancing pvp. WOW pvp was, is, and will be broken. If GW2 goes to WOW steps, iam sure gonna quit. I find GW2 kind of balanced atm, just some minor tweaks are needed. People just need to l2p and stop whinning, this only forces the game to get worse.

And reading now the original post, the aproach happy players=more money is a good as a dead game. This is how wow got started to get corrupted, when blizzard started to give in to people whines and gave easier epics etc etc. That’s when game started to die, because people were happy but wanted more soon after and got bored and eventually, quited.

Oh I totally agree that WoW PvP is super cray, but I was only commenting on how they actually make changes in a timely fashion. Mind you, these changes are thoroughly tested in the public test realm a LOT before they’re shipped out. Something I don’t see this game doing for whatever reason. Who even tests their changes? Do they have a dedicated testing team? It’d be nice to be able to test out new things in a public test realm before they decide to let things go live.

Either way, it’d be nice to see needed changes done sooner rather than later, hence my link of WoW’s hotifxes for January.

It took people 6 weeks to realise rangers weren’t op…sorry 1-2 weeks is ridiculous.

You put far to much faith in the player base.

I play f.f 14, wow, tera, bS, Archeage, Rift and beta; bless online and black desert. They all have Sunshine:OP balance patch interval suggestion for gw2. 2 weeks-4 weeks; they release balance patch. Game company keep communication with player base about what wrong with game and they make adjustment. Communication with company and player base help improve game and keep good relation with company.

When i am new to game and find problem already; i read past note/forum/posts and see if problem was there before. I read guild wars 2 past forum/posts and find problem never fix- Example; https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/The-thief-and-its-gameplay-Your-feedback-Merged/first
Yes i have problem with thief and that why i look in past to see if problem was already there and fix or not; I find problem still not fix and still is present. Present for 2 years? What is going on for each 6 month balance patch?

I read new balance patch https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/preview-of-upcoming-balance-changes/ and still no adjustment or fix for old problem?

If arena net do not want to make adjustment of fix old problem, why not tell player why ? Is game company job for give some answer to player base problem. Not giving answer and waiting too long is bad relation with company with player.

If player base wait this long 6 month for balance patch; the player base expect huge adjustment and huge fix from company; arena net; not tiny adjustment and tiny fix and hurt relation with player base and game.

I read past balance patch and Surprise see only have 1page- 2 page = tiny patch. 6 month balance patch should have 4 page-10 page= huge patch.

That is why i like and agree with Sunshine;OP suggestion to make easier for arena net for not wait 6 month but 2 weeks. It will help arena net relation with player base and game for guild wars 2 present-future for work together to fix problem and adjust problem and make guild wars 2 better

Sube Dai.8496:

It took people 6 weeks to realize rangers weren’t op…sorry 1-2 weeks is ridiculous.

You put far too much faith in the player base.

I think this is the best example of the root problem we have.

Is something really op or do the players just need time to adjust?

Power Ranger is still too strong,, but since most power rangers you encounter are just not experienced enough / not good enough, you could too easily come to the wrong solution, that power ranger is fine as he is.

In the end: I’d prefer small adjustment asap. Better overnerfing something too early than leaving it unintended for month.