Guild Wars 2

Let me preface this by saying that balance is very, VERY SUBJECTIVE.

I’m only hoping to develop the balance dialogue beyond that “class x is OP because of mai totarri objectiveness. I am bestest player and still ’sploded.”

Profession and build becoming similar to “identity.”
The absolute biggest problem with profession balance to date is by and far the lack of willingness to learn and experience new things. There is nothing wrong with playing one profession, people have a tendency towards familiar things. There IS something wrong with calling something “overpowered” without properly understanding it. In the first place what is it overpowered compared to?
Whether it be in this game or otherwise, it will almost always be worth learning to walk in another person’s shoes “for more than one meta-build.”

Utilitarianism balancing versus balancing for “high-end” play.
Yush. Big word.
This is the balancing of the game in an attempt to create the biggest lump sum of happiness for the community versus balancing the game as the strongest/fastest/smartest see it.
While there is the need for the game to remain in a state of “perfect imbalance” in order to nurture the people that keep believing in this game’s potential for competition there is the inherent belief that everyone that plays should be able to enjoy themselves doing whatever they enjoy doing. Building on this there should be profession builds that should be accessible to everyone including the mobility impaired. Builds such as the current berserker longbow ranger and the previously adrenaline refunding, healing signet + stances warrior are a necessary for this game to remain inclusive.
As many a sylvari NPC will say “All things have a right to grow.”
Even so, there needs to be SOME sort of moral dessert yum (deserving) behind any type of game play balance.

Improving the player versus improving the profession.
Often, people have an inherent belief that the person that works the hardest, that expends their utmost effort should earn what is equal to their just desserts. This is hardly the case, whether in the game’s economy or elsewhere. Nevertheless it is an attitude in game balance that is the most likely to yield an environment where respect for others can develop. Whether it be Dodging/interrupting/otherwise countering an opponents key cooldowns/attacks or understanding your opponents builds better than they understand it themselves, or animation canceling into a five hit combo or counting all of your opponents cooldowns these should be expected of people that wish to play to their best. There need to be options that are high skill-cap if the game wishes to grow. For example animation canceling lightning whip was something that would’ve excluded many less endowed players but was something worth leaving in to allow elementalist players the chance to grow. (This could’ve been balanced around.)

tl:dr
- Walk a mile in something other than someone else’s “meta-build” before judging
- There is a need to remain an inclusive game while balancing.
- Let there be high skill-cap builds! Raise the performance that is expected of players, NOT of builds.

My biases:
Main:

• No static discharge, berserker explosive combo engineer since 2012 beta weekend 2 (It threw ONE GRENADE PER THROW back in the day folks.)
• Late 2013 Champion Hunter with a berserker longbow build + spirit ranger in 2014 when i got annoyed
• I can name every skill I’ve ever gotten rekt by on seeing it (just about every one)
• I like counting your dodges + stunbreak(s) (I hardly survive long enough in a fight for this nowadays)
• I played/won/lost many SC1 Lost Temple ladder duels before succumbing to the joys of Cat vs Mouse

edit* grammar

Very interesting writing.

I was preparing a flame reply even before I read but you… I like you!
This is so true, I need to start into looking at guardian and profession because I’m always rupting the wrong skill and end up against invuln or block.
I can’t name every skill, but I mostly know what to expect from the stance the player adopt.

There is no balance because they had to turn the dps way up to make the new changes feel more optimized. Gaining specialization huggers that will now defend the new system. Once they turn it down and fix the bugs, you will see all we are left with is less choices.

Balancing for All Skill Levels
This isn’t as hard as it seems. At high skill levels, it’s aspects of the build/profession that are just too strong. This assumes a player is at or near the skill cap for that build.

At medium and low skill levels it’s often that pulling something off doesn’t require much effort or thought; the barrier to entry is too low. This usually manifests as very passive abilities which give a huge benefit (medi guard healing) or a simple to use combo (ranger longbow 4 into 2) which has high potential damage.

Improving as a Player vs. Balancing
There are two things here. First, is game design with procs, usually unavoidable ones, and inconsistent or unpredictable mechanics. Sigil procs from weapons and many from traits are effectively unavoidable and are a large contribution to burst damage or total damage. You can’t outplay them. You also have inconsistent mechanics (boon strip / condi clear being random) and unpredictable ones (defensive CC procs or CC being ignored and not knowing it will happen).

Second, a lot of conquest and even stronghold relies on team coordination and playing the map. Even though a team may be better individually, the team with the better coordination and map awareness wins. This isn’t obvious to many players and is heavily overlooked, especially with the rampant “solo queue” mentality.

eureeka.5368:

There is no balance because they had to turn the dps way up to make the new changes feel more optimized. Gaining specialization huggers that will now defend the new system. Once they turn it down and fix the bugs, you will see all we are left with is less choices.

As with any change made to the game (or to anything for that matter), there are people that support it and people that do not support the changes.
In there being less build diversity in the game the game becomes easier to balance but in there being more build diversity it better allows the players to “express” themselves as build is often the means or a large factor in which the players affect the game world. This is what i mean when I say that build and profession are becoming similar to “identity.” There is a tendency to remain comfortable in your chosen “identity” or “category.”

In defense of lowered build diversity, “identity” in the first place is something that is superficial. Of the ~3.5 million that originally bought this game (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-the-first-year/)
how unique can your build or “identity” actually be?

I would argue for a different notion of “identity” one that isn’t as categorical as the build or profession that you chose to play but in the “conversation” that happens between players whenever there is any interaction. This “conversation” is most notable in a 1v1 duel but exists in all forms of the game. It is difficult as to how to concretely describe what this “conversation” is but it is the reason that people can skillshot or guess what their opponent will do, all the while the opponent will juke about and move in funny squiggly patterns to avoid attacks.

Exedore.6320:

Balancing for All Skill Levels
This isn’t as hard as it seems. At high skill levels, it’s aspects of the build/profession that are just too strong. This assumes a player is at or near the skill cap for that build.

At medium and low skill levels it’s often that pulling something off doesn’t require much effort or thought; the barrier to entry is too low. This usually manifests as very passive abilities which give a huge benefit (medi guard healing) or a simple to use combo (ranger longbow 4 into 2) which has high potential damage.

Improving as a Player vs. Balancing
There are two things here. First, is game design with procs, usually unavoidable ones, and inconsistent or unpredictable mechanics. Sigil procs from weapons and many from traits are effectively unavoidable and are a large contribution to burst damage or total damage. You can’t outplay them. You also have inconsistent mechanics (boon strip / condi clear being random) and unpredictable ones (defensive CC procs or CC being ignored and not knowing it will happen).

Second, a lot of conquest and even stronghold relies on team coordination and playing the map. Even though a team may be better individually, the team with the better coordination and map awareness wins. This isn’t obvious to many players and is heavily overlooked, especially with the rampant “solo queue” mentality.

I don’t believe that balancing for all skill levels is as simple as you say. The reason for this being that the question ultimately becomes “Who morally deserves to succeed?” and “How would you quantify deserving?”

Would it be the power ranger that used pbs into rapid fire but had his entangle random dodged even though he was in stealth? Or would it be the medi-guard that only landed one intervention into whirling wrath but trusted their instincts and knowing the ranger hunter’s shot stealth duration “random dodged” the entangle? (I actually really, really despise both of these builds after having played them both before and after they were made “viable.”) Not minding who actually wins, but who deserves to win? This is what I think balancing for all skill levels means.

As for the effects based on the “randy numbar gen gen” they probably are too strong for what they are, but a small dash of RNG on top of combat usually makes it more interesting provided it isn’t game changing.

tl:dr
- Reducing build diversity may not necessarily be a bad thing
- It is not easy to balance for all skill levels when you think of it as “Who deserves to win?”

edit* tl:dr

While I agree with all of this, there seems to be very little internal dedication/focus to specifically balancing professions (mostly from a pvp aspect for me). It seems they have to tackle “other” problems before any consistent and or well designed balance can be done.

Exedore.6320:

Balancing for All Skill Levels
This isn’t as hard as it seems. At high skill levels, it’s aspects of the build/profession that are just too strong. This assumes a player is at or near the skill cap for that build.

At medium and low skill levels it’s often that pulling something off doesn’t require much effort or thought; the barrier to entry is too low. This usually manifests as very passive abilities which give a huge benefit (medi guard healing) or a simple to use combo (ranger longbow 4 into 2) which has high potential damage.

Any competitive game balances for the highest level of competition only. What good games also do is include characters, builds or strategy which let entry level players experience success to transition to a mediocre player level. At this point they are going to start struggling with their entry level X as it can be countered by more experienced and better players and they will need to experiment and continue to learn on their own to transition (if at all) to the high level play. By far the majority won’t make this transition and instead will be okay with just emulating what better players are doing and plateau in their play.

GW2 is all about the passive procs, relatively low cds encouraging spam over skill shots, loads of aoe vs targeted, invisible mechanics, no tells, instant casts with no counter play, mechanics without counter play such as stealth. And yet at the highest level players are still having close matches which are entertaining (to me at least) to watch. Its the mid level and lower players that drown these forums in tears and not constructive feedback. Dev’s have it right to listen to and even work with top tier players (applies to all games with a competitive player vs player aspect, not just GW), and for the most part ignore the vocal minority that is new and mediocre players.

Frost.5017:

Any competitive game balances for the highest level of competition only.

False.

Good games balance for all skill levels. However, they don’t try to perfect it except at the top level. For lower levels, there’s a “good enough” threshold.

Also balancing should be considered from outside of meta. I see the external manipulation of meta by developers unnecessary an uninteresting. Players can themselves change the meta at will but they refuse often to do this.

Balancing meta is like calibrating steering mechanism of a car while it is being driven on a race track.

Exedore.6320:

At medium and low skill levels it’s often that pulling something off doesn’t require much effort or thought; the barrier to entry is too low. This usually manifests as very passive abilities which give a huge benefit (medi guard healing) or a simple to use combo (ranger longbow 4 into 2) which has high potential damage.

Medi Guard’s healing is more reactive than passive. Warriors, Eles, even Rangers heal effects are 2x more passive than the Medi Guard. Just wanted to make that clear.

This thread has a point on class balances that i’m willing to admit to:

• Cele is a better 1v1 amulet than Marauders for Elementalists. Ele usually wins this area.
• Guardians finds Cele Ele OP but will Always push the Ele off point due to being a better team fighter.
• Cele Ele can’t dish out as much AoE damage in comparison, but will always outsustain the Guardian due to mobility alone.

Ele may find Guardians overpowered in team fights. Guardian finds Ele overpowering through resiliency, resulting in an overall prowess in 1v1 fights. The overpowerness of these two classes are apparent and subjective from each other. That is the point of this thread I ultimately agree with. It makes for a huge example in regards to game balances via imbalances that the community has yet to comprehend completely. It’s why everything is overpowered and nothing is.

except there are always 2 elementalists on each high level team. Not overpowered? Nice try.

Chokolata.1870:

except there are always 2 elementalists on each high level team. Not overpowered? Nice try.

Did you watch yesterday NA/EU ESL? Teams with double eles lost in the end in both case and to double guardian teams; the victor always depends on the player behind the profession…as it has always been.

With the cele-ele and medi-guard in mind (as well as various previous builds including evade ranger, GS/Axe-Shield warrior, dhuumfire necro, condition engineer and my own explosives-engineer) I think that profession balance may be quantified by two things: utility per action and set-up.

Utility per Action: This is the usefulness that each key stroke can bring to the player, whether it be for mitigating damage(healing or invulnerability) or dealing it. If put into terms of “resources” or cool-down times this could also be seen as utility over time. However this would also differ between each match-up: for example the (passive) utility of having high toughness when compared against condition and power focused builds.

Set-Up: This is the preparation needed to mitigate damage or deal it. Rev-up time would be just as appropriate.

My guess: The act of build crafting is one of improving certain aspects of the UPA (oopa?) of a profession while minimizing the set-up or down times. For example, the GS/Axe-Shield warrior which was so popular around launch had high offensive utility in control and damage but could have high set-up times in reducing the opponents defensive utilities (stunbreaks-dodges-invulnerabilities-relocation) If the corresponding defenses of the opponent were not available (and sometimes even if they were) the warrior could manage large spikes of damage by “simply pressing buttons” despite the possible set-up that the warrior may or may not be thinking of.

On the other hand, the beast mastery evade ranger had a sizable amount of “spike” defensive utility in the form of weapon skill evades, regular dodges and vigor while having a moderate amount of passive offensive utility in the form of the pet.

Condition focused builds had constant pressure that were able to “sneak” past the high spikes of defensive utility offered by evade rangers despite the existence of emphatic bond. Chill, weakness and cripple offered substantial utility in decreasing the offensive and defensive capabilities of any opponent once weakness began to affect critical strikes.

…

Too much utility for too little action and too much utility for too little set-up are the culprits (YOOUUU ARE THE TRUUUE CULPRIT!) of inbalance. This builds on the idea that game balance is “Who morally deserves to win?” and “How do you quantify deserving?”

High action builds and high set-up builds (builds that can be respected by others) need to be nurtured despite flying the face of build crafting to achieve “perfect imbalance” as the basis for any competitive community is exclusivity (I’m shinier than you) and the will to improve.

tl:dr
If the will to improve cannot be nurtured, all people will play for is the feeling of being shinier.

Lycoris Virens.6801:

There need to be options that are high skill-cap if the game wishes to grow. For example animation canceling lightning whip was something that would’ve excluded many less endowed players but was something worth leaving in to allow elementalist players the chance to grow. (This could’ve been balanced around.)

No thanks. Stow weapon just needs to be fixed so things like the lightning whip exploit don’t happen. Lightning whip wouldn’t have been changed if they just fixed the root of the problem, which is stow weapon.

The biggest issue with PvP balance is the maps have no structure and little objectives.

Unranked queue is 10 minutes, Ranked Queue is LOL DON’T EVEN TRY long because of a of people are not using those modes. The only game mode is holding nodes. Practice Mode doesn’t even qualify as practice. All the while the developer is letting people play toxic builds like Warrior stancebots knowing full well that play style does not carry to high level play. I swear to God if I get another rampage hugging warrior on my team I’m quitting PvP. Rewarding using your elite on recharge, without any plan just because it’s very powerful is TOXIC ArenaNet. How hard is it to comprehend that?

_

ArenaNet really needs to put back Stronghold, I don’t care how beta it was. It was a heavenly God send to what this PvP really needs. Full proof that having a nicely mixed and balanced builds was superior than going full glass and 1 bunker.

Watch the next ‘balance’ take 6 months and ArenaNet not keeping their word.