The lack of communication is bad for the game

The lack of communication is bad for the game

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Posted by: Daharahj.1325

Daharahj.1325

Let’s look at the most successful game in world, they need to balance not only 9 classes, but over 100 champions, yet they’re always, always clear with their reasoning behind every change they make, they write extensive blog posts to help player understand what makes a healthy balance and never sugarcoat it. They even tell players about future changes loooong beforehand so everyone knows what to expect and can adjust to the idea.

They’re not perfect of course, nobody is, but ANet has a lot to learn from them, the way they deliver controversial changes and stay active within the community is vital to prevent this war between the devs and playerbase, to prevent this doubt within the community that they can manage their own game and know very well what the heck they’re doing and why they know better than us.

Take for example the ranger forum, ranger players have been begging, screaming and kicking for answers since day one, from pet changes, to ability buffs and nerfs, they’re begging for context, and they’re lucky if the devs in charge of the changes ever say a word, when the whole WHaO fiasco went down, the ranger community created a thread with over 20 pages long, and it took them a 20 page long thread to come in and say “yeah sure, we’ll look into it”. I don’t know much about other classes’ subforums, I hope it’s not the same.

Then they removed Ministrel amulet, this is a huge shake for the meta, it affects literally everyone that plays pvp, and this is their reasoning behind the change “Several PvP build components have been removed in order to promote healthy gameplay”. What IS healthy gameplay? Why is Ministrel a bigger offender than Celestial? are they going to give bunker builds a more viable alternative? DO YOU want bunker builds to be gone because they’re not healthy for the game? WHY are they not healthy? etc.

“We’re busy with HoT and don’t have time to answer to EVERY complaint from PvE content to every single class balance” Sorry, that’s no excuse, get a bigger staff, if you’re willing to dump half a million on a tournament you’re not in a problematic economic position, and this is more important than you give it credit for.

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Posted by: BlackBunny.3681

BlackBunny.3681

Im super surprised. Isnt there a community dev that discusses whats happening and what changes are coming? Like, right now is a super important time where everybody is playing everything is new and alot of changes are being in place…… There communication on the mordem invasion on the forums was larger than there communication 3 days out of launch…. really looking foward to some patch notes or some Dev sketch up on plans.

Actually reminds me of the wow forum. Ever since blizzard merged with activision its taken on this (dont talk to consumer) feel. Whenever they do actually communicate you can tell its all HR and dribble. Anet seem like a good group of devs i would say they are having a bit of a break after those busy couple days of launch.

(edited by BlackBunny.3681)

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Posted by: Wolfs Shadow.7234

Wolfs Shadow.7234

In ANETs defense, this is how they’ve always done it. Even in GW1 update notes they were very vague on to why and how these balances were made. However ANET needs to learn to adapt. GW2 classes are much more complex then GW1 classes were. In GW2 a majority of of the skills affect another, and a skill rotation means life or death.

In addition gaming communities are not as forgiving as they once were and are now used to transparency, something ANET has is not very good at. Even HoT we were being fed bits and pieces.

A general request to ANET is to explain why each nerf or buff is made and how you’ve reached that conclusion.

Honestly, sometimes, I am shocked when one of the classes I play get a buff. Where did that come from (mindset)

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Posted by: Tao.5096

Tao.5096

Profession Balance forum has been removed for a reason.

Anet doesn’t need our opinion on balance matter.
They know better what we want and what doesn’t work.

Plus, Gw2 is F2P.
You’re free to play it or not.

Did I ever tell you, the definition, of Insanity?

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Posted by: Daharahj.1325

Daharahj.1325

Profession Balance forum has been removed for a reason.

Anet doesn’t need our opinion on balance matter.
They know better what we want and what doesn’t work.

Plus, Gw2 is F2P.
You’re free to play it or not.

This mindset is terrible.

How do you know they’re better than us? Where do I get that certainty? From my perspective all the recent changes were very panicky and reactionary.

Irrelevant, the game I brought up as an example is F2P as well. And F2P doesn’t neccesarily mean it has to be mediocre.

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Posted by: Morwath.9817

Morwath.9817

Profession Balance forum has been removed for a reason.

Anet doesn’t need our opinion on balance matter.
They know better what we want and what doesn’t work.

Plus, Gw2 is F2P.
You’re free to play it or not.

It isn’t F2P, I’ve bought two boxes and I demand quality as customer.

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Posted by: Deimos Tel Arin.7391

Deimos Tel Arin.7391

all our complains will be in vain.

it is play their way, not ours.

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Posted by: Tao.5096

Tao.5096

Profession Balance forum has been removed for a reason.

Anet doesn’t need our opinion on balance matter.
They know better what we want and what doesn’t work.

Plus, Gw2 is F2P.
You’re free to play it or not.

This mindset is terrible.

How do you know they’re better than us? Where do I get that certainty? From my perspective all the recent changes were very panicky and reactionary.

Irrelevant, the game I brought up as an example is F2P as well. And F2P doesn’t neccesarily mean it has to be mediocre.

F2P is an indicator where Publisher(Anet/NCSoft) doesn’t have to treat customer opinion as something relevant. It’s true that F2P should be a Free Gameplay with available microtransactions which purpose is to maintain costs for employment, hardware and further development.

Doesn’t change the fact that F2P by overall 90% if not more cases, show that customer’s opinion is the last thing which is cared about.

Sure, Riot did succeed by having good communication with customers – and I don’t even count eSport in this matter but whole game and it’s issues.

We had Profession Balance forum which was answered frequently by developers.
I personally liked it very much – candy for an eye and results were shown in game as well.
Of course I won’t deny that it wasn’t perfect or on the level to please majority.
And obviously it had it’s own issues.
But overall PvP even as Ranked was much better – it was fun, and despite some upsides and downs, the diversity in builds was great and you could not only see but feel that there is more for example to Engineer than P/S rabid or ZerkRifle.
Same was with MediGuard, or even Ele, where Staff or S/F was a frequent sight.

Right now, not only PvP is shaved to 1 spec – lucky 2 – per class, but also toxicity is increasing more and more – and that was before F2P release.

By that, it’s somehow sad the state PvP is in.
After removal of Profession Balance and lack of dev communication with playerbase, the balances were really jumpy – and it started to be annoying after last year’s SoloQ and TeamQ merge patch.

Either certain specs receive a massive boost or massive nerf.
Explanations such as – Reducing Locust Swarm(Necro) skill cast time from 1 second to 1/2 second for mobility increase.

And so on and so on.

Despite Anet’s hype over eSport, they don’t want to accept the fact that without proper communication and build/skill testings along with community, without proper ingame and outside of the game advertising – eSport in Gw2 is like internal playground which won’t pretty much live long I suspect.

For example, just like there were rage threads with 4x ele + thief as meta.
I honestly don’t care if a team has 5 thieves, 5 eles, 3 necros, 4 guardians etc.
People should play what they like and how they like, and match outcomes should be decided by personal skill and knowledge of the game.

But here we had a problem not with personal skill but – I’ll use that word which isn’t totally correct – abusement of the game mechanics.

And I’m sure, that if community had a hand in balancing the classes and certain specs, such outcome would be nearly impossible.

Even such a game like D3, despite being PvE all the way, repetitive like hell with grind purpose, there are Test Realms where people nail gamebreaking bugs before it goes live. Of course there are those who come after and get fixed as well, but like now with HoT, instead of 10 patches with class fixes – we could have 3, which would rather be really unexpected and rare to come by?

It isn’t F2P, I’ve bought two boxes and I demand quality as customer.

NCSoft taught me that F2P means F2P.
If you play or not is your business.
If you paid for something then you get it, if not, then refund or whatever.
So far, you got the game, you got the content.

PvP and WvW content regardless of Expansion purchase is granted to both pre-f2p Core game owners, HoT owners or F2P account owners.

Like it or not – for me, Anet since 2015 is behaving more and more like NCSoft.
Candy words → toilet paper in the face

Did I ever tell you, the definition, of Insanity?

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Posted by: Morwath.9817

Morwath.9817

B2P and F2P are completly different models.

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Posted by: brannigan.9831

brannigan.9831

Profession Balance forum has been removed for a reason.

Anet doesn’t need our opinion on balance matter.
They know better what we want and what doesn’t work.

Plus, Gw2 is F2P.
You’re free to play it or not.

That’s the dumbest thing Ive ever read. You ever hear of the wisdom of the crowd and markets? No a small group of people do not generally know better then the consensus opinion of many people. Especially when the many play the actual product GW2 pvp way more then these developers do. I await your brain dead response. I don’t know who you think these developers are they are all like 25 year old kids outside of programming I don’t know why you would think they know more about what makes good game play then any other gamer. I know they are charged with making the game so that gives them final say but if they wanted a good game they should be listening to consensus opinions more. They seem arrogant to me.

(edited by brannigan.9831)

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Posted by: Tao.5096

Tao.5096

Profession Balance forum has been removed for a reason.

Anet doesn’t need our opinion on balance matter.
They know better what we want and what doesn’t work.

Plus, Gw2 is F2P.
You’re free to play it or not.

That’s the dumbest thing Ive ever read. You ever hear of the wisdom of the crowd and markets? No a small group of people do not generally know better then the consensus opinion of many people. Especially when the many play the actual product GW2 pvp way more then these developers do. I await your brain dead response. I don’t know who you think these developers are they are all like 25 year old kids outside of programming I don’t know why you would think they know more about what makes good game play then any other gamer. I know they are charged with making the game so that gives them final say but if they wanted a good game they should be listening to consensus opinions more. They seem arrogant to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

Just for you.

Did I ever tell you, the definition, of Insanity?

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Posted by: kdaddy.5431

kdaddy.5431

Let’s look at the most successful game in world, they need to balance not only 9 classes, but over 100 champions, yet they’re always, always clear with their reasoning behind every change they make, they write extensive blog posts to help player understand what makes a healthy balance and never sugarcoat it. They even tell players about future changes loooong beforehand so everyone knows what to expect and can adjust to the idea.

They’re not perfect of course, nobody is, but ANet has a lot to learn from them, the way they deliver controversial changes and stay active within the community is vital to prevent this war between the devs and playerbase, to prevent this doubt within the community that they can manage their own game and know very well what the heck they’re doing and why they know better than us.

Take for example the ranger forum, ranger players have been begging, screaming and kicking for answers since day one, from pet changes, to ability buffs and nerfs, they’re begging for context, and they’re lucky if the devs in charge of the changes ever say a word, when the whole WHaO fiasco went down, the ranger community created a thread with over 20 pages long, and it took them a 20 page long thread to come in and say “yeah sure, we’ll look into it”. I don’t know much about other classes’ subforums, I hope it’s not the same.

Then they removed Ministrel amulet, this is a huge shake for the meta, it affects literally everyone that plays pvp, and this is their reasoning behind the change “Several PvP build components have been removed in order to promote healthy gameplay”. What IS healthy gameplay? Why is Ministrel a bigger offender than Celestial? are they going to give bunker builds a more viable alternative? DO YOU want bunker builds to be gone because they’re not healthy for the game? WHY are they not healthy? etc.

“We’re busy with HoT and don’t have time to answer to EVERY complaint from PvE content to every single class balance” Sorry, that’s no excuse, get a bigger staff, if you’re willing to dump half a million on a tournament you’re not in a problematic economic position, and this is more important than you give it credit for.

Your ammy argument falls flat. There was serious problems with that ammy. I personally know people who ran the amulet with a staff druid and a scepter focus ele and they would not die 1 vs 3. Depending on the comp sometimes they could go 1 vs 4 and not die.

The s/f build was minstrel ammy with rune of the soilder. Earth/water/tempest.

I dont know the druid build but please saying stuff like ohhh the bunker blah blah is not a argument when you have unkillable builds out there.

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Posted by: kdaddy.5431

kdaddy.5431

Profession Balance forum has been removed for a reason.

Anet doesn’t need our opinion on balance matter.
They know better what we want and what doesn’t work.

Plus, Gw2 is F2P.
You’re free to play it or not.

That’s the dumbest thing Ive ever read. You ever hear of the wisdom of the crowd and markets? No a small group of people do not generally know better then the consensus opinion of many people. Especially when the many play the actual product GW2 pvp way more then these developers do. I await your brain dead response. I don’t know who you think these developers are they are all like 25 year old kids outside of programming I don’t know why you would think they know more about what makes good game play then any other gamer. I know they are charged with making the game so that gives them final say but if they wanted a good game they should be listening to consensus opinions more. They seem arrogant to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

Just for you.

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

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Posted by: Daharahj.1325

Daharahj.1325

Let’s look at the most successful game in world, they need to balance not only 9 classes, but over 100 champions, yet they’re always, always clear with their reasoning behind every change they make, they write extensive blog posts to help player understand what makes a healthy balance and never sugarcoat it. They even tell players about future changes loooong beforehand so everyone knows what to expect and can adjust to the idea.

They’re not perfect of course, nobody is, but ANet has a lot to learn from them, the way they deliver controversial changes and stay active within the community is vital to prevent this war between the devs and playerbase, to prevent this doubt within the community that they can manage their own game and know very well what the heck they’re doing and why they know better than us.

Take for example the ranger forum, ranger players have been begging, screaming and kicking for answers since day one, from pet changes, to ability buffs and nerfs, they’re begging for context, and they’re lucky if the devs in charge of the changes ever say a word, when the whole WHaO fiasco went down, the ranger community created a thread with over 20 pages long, and it took them a 20 page long thread to come in and say “yeah sure, we’ll look into it”. I don’t know much about other classes’ subforums, I hope it’s not the same.

Then they removed Ministrel amulet, this is a huge shake for the meta, it affects literally everyone that plays pvp, and this is their reasoning behind the change “Several PvP build components have been removed in order to promote healthy gameplay”. What IS healthy gameplay? Why is Ministrel a bigger offender than Celestial? are they going to give bunker builds a more viable alternative? DO YOU want bunker builds to be gone because they’re not healthy for the game? WHY are they not healthy? etc.

“We’re busy with HoT and don’t have time to answer to EVERY complaint from PvE content to every single class balance” Sorry, that’s no excuse, get a bigger staff, if you’re willing to dump half a million on a tournament you’re not in a problematic economic position, and this is more important than you give it credit for.

Your ammy argument falls flat. There was serious problems with that ammy. I personally know people who ran the amulet with a staff druid and a scepter focus ele and they would not die 1 vs 3. Depending on the comp sometimes they could go 1 vs 4 and not die.

The s/f build was minstrel ammy with rune of the soilder. Earth/water/tempest.

I dont know the druid build but please saying stuff like ohhh the bunker blah blah is not a argument when you have unkillable builds out there.

This might be obvious to you, but not to everyone who plays the game, or pvp for that matter. And what about the future? Do they want to remove bunkering altogether or maybe they’re planning to leave them be and introduce a counter? Sharing stuff like that is something that would answer many questions, and it would show they’re capable of balancing their own game.

(edited by Daharahj.1325)

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Posted by: Snorcha.7586

Snorcha.7586

I think how long they left turret engineers was a pretty good example of this company’s mindset, they dgaf.

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Posted by: Daharahj.1325

Daharahj.1325

I think how long they left turret engineers was a pretty good example of this company’s mindset, they dgaf.

I’m exhausting every possibility before beliving this, but i’m getting there :/

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Posted by: Javi.4359

Javi.4359

I think how long they left turret engineers was a pretty good example of this company’s mindset, they dgaf.

I’m exhausting every possibility before beliving this, but i’m getting there :/

I’ve pretty much got to the point where I believe this wholeheartedly.

Good work, Anet. You used to be cool.

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Posted by: kdaddy.5431

kdaddy.5431

Let’s look at the most successful game in world, they need to balance not only 9 classes, but over 100 champions, yet they’re always, always clear with their reasoning behind every change they make, they write extensive blog posts to help player understand what makes a healthy balance and never sugarcoat it. They even tell players about future changes loooong beforehand so everyone knows what to expect and can adjust to the idea.

They’re not perfect of course, nobody is, but ANet has a lot to learn from them, the way they deliver controversial changes and stay active within the community is vital to prevent this war between the devs and playerbase, to prevent this doubt within the community that they can manage their own game and know very well what the heck they’re doing and why they know better than us.

Take for example the ranger forum, ranger players have been begging, screaming and kicking for answers since day one, from pet changes, to ability buffs and nerfs, they’re begging for context, and they’re lucky if the devs in charge of the changes ever say a word, when the whole WHaO fiasco went down, the ranger community created a thread with over 20 pages long, and it took them a 20 page long thread to come in and say “yeah sure, we’ll look into it”. I don’t know much about other classes’ subforums, I hope it’s not the same.

Then they removed Ministrel amulet, this is a huge shake for the meta, it affects literally everyone that plays pvp, and this is their reasoning behind the change “Several PvP build components have been removed in order to promote healthy gameplay”. What IS healthy gameplay? Why is Ministrel a bigger offender than Celestial? are they going to give bunker builds a more viable alternative? DO YOU want bunker builds to be gone because they’re not healthy for the game? WHY are they not healthy? etc.

“We’re busy with HoT and don’t have time to answer to EVERY complaint from PvE content to every single class balance” Sorry, that’s no excuse, get a bigger staff, if you’re willing to dump half a million on a tournament you’re not in a problematic economic position, and this is more important than you give it credit for.

Your ammy argument falls flat. There was serious problems with that ammy. I personally know people who ran the amulet with a staff druid and a scepter focus ele and they would not die 1 vs 3. Depending on the comp sometimes they could go 1 vs 4 and not die.

The s/f build was minstrel ammy with rune of the soilder. Earth/water/tempest.

I dont know the druid build but please saying stuff like ohhh the bunker blah blah is not a argument when you have unkillable builds out there.

This might be obvious to you, but not to everyone who plays the game, or pvp for that matter. And what about the future? Do they want to remove bunkering altogether or maybe they’re planning to leave them be and introduce a counter? Sharing stuff like that is something that would answer many questions, and it would show they’re capable of balancing their own game.

Anet has some what killed the solo bunker build but bunker/support classes are very much needed. Also you can still create solo bunker builds its just you cant sustain a whole game 1 vs 2 which is how it should be.

As part of the sharing aspect its hard for me to pick a side. As you can see from many of the posts alot of people how no clue what the actual problems are and are not sure how to attack different situations so taking the forum warriors suggestions can be hard.

Another thing is they have to make classes work at a ESL level and not necessarily at the pug/casual games level. For instance turret engy was a huge problem in solo groups since many people struggle to time team burst/combos. At the AG and ESL level turret engy wasnt a real problem so anet left it alone.

Overall i like them not saying anything. The mobas you spoke of with hundreds of champions all have there certain role/dynamic they are given to be competitive where as GW2 is suppose to be a more skill based game based on acting-reacting-rotating and team comp. I would like them to post hey we are trying our best to balance the issues at hand especially when we are left in the dark for months at a time.

Lastly, the forum is all over the place every other week. Burns were first op then d/d ele and then the expansion came out and now its all about the classes that are not at the same level. 1/2 the peopel screaming one class is OP and the other crying whats not. I myself do this aswell so if they came out with weekly comments they would get weekly complaints is all im saying.

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Posted by: Snorcha.7586

Snorcha.7586

To be honest it’s actually arrogance with Anet, intentional or not. I like GW2, but I’m a programmer myself and if I didn’t document / explain changes to my customers, I would find myself swiftly unemployed, I’m not sure why we as customers don’t demand the same.

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Posted by: grahf.7540

grahf.7540

I 100% agree that Anet having poor patch notes and communication.

The last year I played a lot of Heroes of the Storm. Initially, Blizzard was very closed off with their communication, similar to Anet. But now, accompanying the patch notes is tons of explanation! It’s incredibly detailed and goes into their thinking for the balance changes and what they are hoping to promote/remove.

Check out what I mean.
http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/19893628/heroes-of-the-storm-patch-notes-october-6-2015-10-6-2015

Look at that, and scroll down to the hero section. Most of them have ‘Developer Comments’, which goes in-depth on the changes.

Frankly this is very much needed by Anet, especially if they are serious about GW2 PVP esports…

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Posted by: Lordrosicky.5813

Lordrosicky.5813

Celestial like 50-80% of every game for 18 months? No problem according to anet.
A couple of minstrel players in the odd game? Insta remove amulet according to anet.
The logic is flawless

Character: Henry rank million/Duke Henry
Necromancer/Casual Warrior
[Team] Best WvW guild of all time. EASILY.

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Posted by: Lordrosicky.5813

Lordrosicky.5813

Im super surprised. Isnt there a community dev that discusses whats happening and what changes are coming? Like, right now is a super important time where everybody is playing everything is new and alot of changes are being in place…… There communication on the mordem invasion on the forums was larger than there communication 3 days out of launch…. really looking foward to some patch notes or some Dev sketch up on plans.

Actually reminds me of the wow forum. Ever since blizzard merged with activision its taken on this (dont talk to consumer) feel. Whenever they do actually communicate you can tell its all HR and dribble. Anet seem like a good group of devs i would say they are having a bit of a break after those busy couple days of launch.

They communicate behind closed doors. They have a general disdain for their player and base and especially their forum users. They view everyone here as scrubs. Trust me.

Character: Henry rank million/Duke Henry
Necromancer/Casual Warrior
[Team] Best WvW guild of all time. EASILY.