Guild Wars 2

Ninski.5680:

Pvp is balanced well enough at high levels

Yes, it’s balanced when everyone plays one of the same 6 builds. When most games are mirror matches, you can call that balanced.

But it’s not fun in the least. And it alienates people who don’t enjoy those builds. Further, many of those builds require little skill to play well.

SlayerSixx.5763:

OK, first things first. Stop mentioning riot. Riot has been absolutely nuts over champion “identity” since the latest season began. They’ve been so enthralled to the point where they’ve created some monstrosities T.T (man-with-shotgun-who-shall-not-be-named).

The difference between riot’s balancing and anet’s is night and day. That does not means that riot doesn’t makes mistakes, but they’re so much better at it.

With League of Legends, we are seeing old champions being revamped or improved to be up to standards, with kits that offer more opportunities for outplays and counterplays. Their strengths and weaknesses are getting better defined, and there’s a lot more visual communication that makes it easier to understand what is happening, both for streamers and for normal players that are learning their and their opponent’s champions.

In GW2, we mostly see number tweaks in balance patches, with little to no regard to how ineffective old mechanics are at contributing to an healthier game. Playing gw2’s original profession kits is like playing old and outdated champions in League of Legends.

Just as the OP said:

“the balance cycle of gw2 is equal to a doctor giving pain killers to kill the pain, only to ignore what is causing it. If you want to stop the pain, you cure the problem, not conceal it”

Players have been saying this to Anet for years, but 3 years after the game is out, we’re still getting balance patches like the last one. What hope is there for us players?

DeceiverX.8361:

Game programmers do not do design at all. I assure you of this. Game designers and active game developers, however, must know some code in order to make simple scripts to interface with things like animations and frameworks designed by the programmers.

Of This i am aware, as i mentioned, I am a designer (now).

DeceiverX.8361:

ANet uses metrics. Actually, I believe the lack of balance is because of overuse of analytical data, and too little mathematical application use for simulation for basis for development.

That is very likely not the situation, as if they were balancing for that they’d have reduced the massive instabilities that are in class variations of various types of output. For example, Guardians not healing as well as druid/ele or tanking as well as ele, or necros and dh’s doing massive amounts of damage. These causes of this is probably likely due to a simple fact that they dont make class changes frequently enough, and havent had time to do a pass on the elite specs yet. I’d be willing to bet this is the reason for this.

DeceiverX.8361:

OP keeps referencing design which favors trinity-style play under the guise of concept-invalidation. Too much power creep and bad design ideology of letting the same builds get everything (tempest, rev, scrapper, condi reaper) through fixed-bonus effects and instead not modifiers to amplify builds creates these environments, not the capacity for each class to deviate.

Not true. I am advocating that each class has options in terms of roles. Some classes (like guardian) should be oriented toward healing and tanking, where other classes (like Elementalist) Should be healing and damage. In the case of healing, i believe damage-healing hybrids should be the role style (as per example). I am in no way advocating for trinity, as i believe the no trinity position is actually interesting and meriting a lot more investigation and use in the industry.

DeceiverX.8361:

The game isn’t balanced because of a multitude of reworks which holistically removed the skill ceiling from the game via passive effects, as well as disregard for stat integrity through sweeping changes made to stats and the math behind balance not being constantly verified with each adjustment.

A full rework of the system needs to be done, not just some changes. Its merited at this point after 3 years in wow, there was a full rework. A few years after (About the same time) a second was done.

Dave.6819:

i still think when it comes to PvP and WvW complexity should be top1 priority. that’s what makes PvPers thrive and motivates them to play. in other words – veteran population is more likely to stay for a long period of time. while casual and not really hardcore players are more open to leaving the game even if game is catering for them. besides even casual players might get some kind of drive to start exploring PvP when they would bump into complex systems. the depth of a game (or in this case depth of PvP system) is what keeps players logging in. thats why we got this situation now.. many vets and hardcore players are leaving. vets are the kind of players who are very patient BUT every1 has their breaking point. and i dunno but to me it seems that when you stop catering to competetive side of players population drops are very huge.

No, complexity is not what keeps people, gameplay depth is what keeps people. Complexity is just a really cheap (and inferior) way to emulate depth.

Also there are negative ramifications of high complexity and this game is a posterboy for those negative ramifications.
The problem with high complexity is that any complexity that is above the skill level of a player becomes either a) worthless or b) makes it arbitrary

Combo fields are a good example. Most players can use their own fields, but few players are skilled enough to look for and take advantage of other people’s fields. But those fields are still in play, which means any combo procs are for all intents and purpose “random” which makes the game feel arbitrary rather than skill based for those players.

A good example of high depth/skill for low complexity are FPS games. Shooters have enormous levels of strategy and skill requirements. However Shooters are also very easy for new players to pick up. A new FPS player can still easily watch a pro FPS player and understand what is happening, because FPS’s at their core are simple.

I agree with Crinn, complexity without depth has a negative impact on enjoyment, and depth can be achieved with simplicity and elegance. MOBAs are also a good example of that.

Complexity creep is a real problem with GW2’s combat. There’s always too much information being delivered at the same time during combat. Too many hidden passive effects, too many (and tiny) boon and condition icons coming and going on your UI, too many skills being used without some some sort of window where nothing happens, too many variables.

Because we are human beings and not robots, we can’t interpret so much information at a given time. This means that your average player will kill or get killed without fully understand why or how it happened. This means that, in order to be a good player, you need to have a lot of knowledge about the meta builds and what they can churn out every second. It also means that any viewer will not understand what is happening during streams.

In other words, GW2’s combat is really poor at communicating to the player what the hell is going on, and complexity creep is one big factor for that. Without heavy knowledge of existing builds and of what effect is attributed to each abstract skill animations, a player’s success is automatically crippled. This also makes the barrier to entry huge in GW2’s pvp.

The funny thing is, GW2’s combat was designed to prevent all that. During the transition between GW1 and GW2, anet simplified plenty of mechanics (hexes and enchants into boons and condis), and attempted to make combat more visceral through animations. This attempt, however, didn’t go as far as it could have (many animations are still way too abstract and poor at communicating what they’re meant to do), and was then crippled by new mistakes (the over reliance on passive traits, the lack of energy bars or other mechanics to control the pace of the game).

DiogoSilva.7089:

Because we are human beings and not robots, we can’t interpret so much information at a given time. This means that your average player will kill or get killed without fully understand why or how it happened. This means that, in order to be a good player, you need to have a lot of knowledge about the meta builds and what they can churn out every second. It also means that any viewer will not understand what is happening during streams.

In other words, GW2’s combat is really poor at communicating to the player what the hell is going on, and complexity creep is one big factor for that. Without heavy knowledge of existing builds and of what effect is attributed to each abstract skill animations, a player’s success is automatically is crippled. This also makes the barrier to entry huge in GW2’s pvp.

This. Although really given the complexity of the game Anet did do a really good job with information communication, however there are some inconsistencies.

1) Audio cues, Audio cues are horribly inconsistent and underutilized in this game. If anet used Audio cues more they could cut down on the visual effects and have less noise while still conveying the information.

2) Cues aren’t prioritized by importance. Currently how visually/audio obnoxious a ability is, is completely unrelated to how important it is. This needs to change.

Something I think Anet should do is make certain telegraphs only show to people who need to see them.
I’ll use retaliation as a example. As a player I don’t need a audio or visual cue for when I get retal as I can easily check my boons, and besides having retaliation isn’t really going to effect how I play. However the enemy team does need to know when I have retaliation.
So a better telegraph system would only have the audio and visual cues for retaliation appear to enemy players and not friends. This cuts down on clutter.

Take two teams;
1) team 1 is made up of aphex meta builds.
2) team is made of quirky non meta builds.

Which team wins?

The one that has the most nodes uncontested throughout the match.

Builds and balance will always come second place to superior positioning and rotational play.

It doesn’t matter how good the builds are in your team, if your doing nothing..AFK’ing home, not assisting and they are rotating like clock work, you’re gonna lose..no matter how many 1 vs 1 you win.

It is that simple mind set of a traps dragon hunter standing on home all match and winning a few 1 vs 1 and then being stomped by the condi reaper. At the end of the match when they lose, they blame the reaper for being OP and ignore that they had their beast stolen twice, never successfully held mid for any duration of time and a thief that roamed in odd places doing odd things.

That’s the irony…even with perfect balance, if that mindset doesn’t change, they’re are still gonna lose.

As the post say that complexity make the balance hard to do.A-net could ship another expansion as standalone PVP game and trash current profession spec entirely. And use Hero format as another MOBA outthere. So they can do away with complexity.

And focus on making Hero (in the old word build) that interesting to play at higher pace instead of quarterly balance patch

To make incentive for people to play the standalone expansion they could put a tie in AP to the main game similar to Hall of Monuments from GW1 or even use main game currency to purchase hero with reward to main game as fashion equipment or even old BL skins.

The problem is not necessarily the complexity but the tool you have to read it.

In other games, when you see a character (hero or specific class) you know what are his tools to work and you can expect the player to have a specific task on the game (healer will heal, jungler will gank…).
In GW2, when you log in a game, you see the core class of you teammates. That is the moment when I like the forced unbalance since when you see the icon of the guy, there is like 90 % chance that this character is built following Metabattle.
It means, you know how many support there is, how many dps… but even here you don’t really know what the guy will do.
At high level, people use the first 1 min 30 to discuss build (stats…) but SoloQ is full of people who jump in the game and don’t even say hi, and at least where they go.
Having complexity sorted by the forced Meta is maybe a cheap solution to readability of the game but in the structure of the game right now, there is not so many more solutions.
Besides that, non Metabattle teams have their chance, it lies here in rotation. You can compare Gw2 to Moba as much as you want, but this game does not start with a mirrored game where you farm gold (and try to deny gold to the enemy) and when the characters are stong enough you have team fights.
Here there is no " each one must play is lane correctly" but the entire team must react altogether. If you want to compare Gw2 to something else, well the closest is GW1 GvG. In both game you have to secure your home, try to force the enemy to defend his base while you have a team fight in the middle where you try to contest and hold the point (pulsing point or until morale boost occurs).
The big difference is that Gw1 GvG couldn’t be randomly joined, but you had to set up your team beforehand…

GW2 will never be balanced because it’s not intended to be.

There are multiple incidents of devs saying that they change things to “keep the meta moving” or similar statements. Classes and styles (condi, power, cc ) are made deliberately OP because that keeps people grinding/buying new gear.

Personally, I think this is very bad policy.. but it is born out in the way classes rotate to the top of the heap. I suspect Warrior is next in line. Perhaps we’ll see a return of the Hambow meta.

Ithilwen.1529:

GW2 will never be balanced because it’s not intended to be.

There are multiple incidents of devs saying that they change things to “keep the meta moving” or similar statements. Classes and styles (condi, power, cc ) are made deliberately OP because that keeps people grinding/buying new gear.

Personally, I think this is very bad policy.. but it is born out in the way classes rotate to the top of the heap. I suspect Warrior is next in line. Perhaps we’ll see a return of the Hambow meta.

Its a horrid policy.

Cyclical Design would do this naturally if hey would balance it. The player should be doing this (like in league) Not the developers.

I am really sick of the other professionals in my industry. Coders thinking they know better about a game, while i sit and watch company after company die.

I am certain this will help with this game, a mass exodus will take place. I Believe it wont take long either, because i’m already hearing from many people in my guild
“i just play now and then, i’m really tired of the pvp unbalance of gw2, and the pve is garbage” or similar statements like that.

Anet is badly in need of a designer that knows their stuff. Good luck finding one, i know 4 of them exist in the industry, and i’m one of them.

Ah it is more clear now : you are looking for a job and try to get attention.
Small advice : don’t start your discussions by saying the employer you want to work for is bad, it raises your chances.
And since you’re a good designer, can you unveil which game you designed in the past? Must be an awesome one

Anari.2137:

Ithilwen.1529:

GW2 will never be balanced because it’s not intended to be.

There are multiple incidents of devs saying that they change things to “keep the meta moving” or similar statements. Classes and styles (condi, power, cc ) are made deliberately OP because that keeps people grinding/buying new gear.

Personally, I think this is very bad policy.. but it is born out in the way classes rotate to the top of the heap. I suspect Warrior is next in line. Perhaps we’ll see a return of the Hambow meta.

Its a horrid policy.

Cyclical Design would do this naturally if hey would balance it. The player should be doing this (like in league) Not the developers.

I am really sick of the other professionals in my industry. Coders thinking they know better about a game, while i sit and watch company after company die.

I am certain this will help with this game, a mass exodus will take place. I Believe it wont take long either, because i’m already hearing from many people in my guild
“i just play now and then, i’m really tired of the pvp unbalance of gw2, and the pve is garbage” or similar statements like that.

Anet is badly in need of a designer that knows their stuff. Good luck finding one, i know 4 of them exist in the industry, and i’m one of them.

You’re one of them eh? According to your "proposed changes " in your other threads, you have shown nothing to prove such a statement.

Ranael.6423:

Ah it is more clear now : you are looking for a job and try to get attention.
Small advice : don’t start your discussions by saying the employer you want to work for is bad, it raises your chances.
And since you’re a good designer, can you unveil which game you designed in the past? Must be an awesome one

I don’t want a job, I run my own studio already.
What i want is developers (coders) to stop claiming they are designers, and then forcing upon the industry insane positions thinking they are for the good of the game.

Like “forced” Class play.

Do you understand how hypocritical it is for a studio to design a game saying “play any class” and then saying “By the way, you have to play this one spec to be competitive”.

Im regretting putting money in this game, im tempted to do a charge back.

Anari.2137:

What i want is developers (coders) to stop claiming they are designers, and then forcing upon the industry insane positions thinking they are for the good of the game.

I don’t think you’ve ever actually had any real experience with the industry. Coders have little power as far as design is concerned, and they sure as hell have nothing to do with the class balance.

What actually happens is class balance is done a team usually consisting of mathematicians, statiscians, and some general designers. They work within the parameters set by the core design documents. (which typically aren’t super detailed)

The team in charge of balance will send their designs to the coders to be implemented. The coders aren’t really consulted on the matter.

Anari.2137:

Do you understand how hypocritical it is for a studio to design a game saying “play any class” and then saying “By the way, you have to play this one spec to be competitive”.

Yeah, and now I know you don’t have any real experience.

It’s literally impossible to make everything balanced. Anytime you have multiple different ways to do something, one of those ways will be better than the others.

Anet marketed GW2 has a game that gives you a huge amount of choice in your build, and the game does exactly that. That doesn’t mean that every choice is competitive.

Crinn.7864:

I don’t think you’ve ever actually had any real experience with the industry.

When you can provide evidence for that let me know. I

Crinn.7864:

What actually happens is class balance is done a team usually consisting of mathematicians, statiscians, and some general designers. They work within the parameters set by the core design documents. (which typically aren’t super detailed)

Actually, that’s on true. I’ve worked for 3 major companies, 1 indy team, and i currently run a studio (with 23 developers). Out of all of those examples, The only time iv seen this applied was by EA (though i know blizzard does it).

In all other cases it is 2-3 people capitulating idea’s of where they think the damage / game play should go.

Crinn.7864:

Yeah, and now I know you don’t have any real experience.

It’s literally impossible to make everything balanced. Anytime you have multiple different ways to do something, one of those ways will be better than the others.

Anet marketed GW2 has a game that gives you a huge amount of choice in your build, and the game does exactly that. That doesn’t mean that every choice is competitive.

Broken Record much?

No one is advocating for perfect balance. You don’t want perfect balance. You want “Competitive” Game play, which means plus or minus 10% variance in class / spec performance. Though if you had any real experience in the industry you’d know that.

Anari.2137:

Crinn.7864:

I don’t think you’ve ever actually had any real experience with the industry.

When you can provide evidence for that let me know.

Anari.2137, you’re the one who keeps bringing it up as a reason we should accept your ridiculous ideas. The burden of proof therefore falls to you.

Exedore.6320:

Anari.2137:

Crinn.7864:

I don’t think you’ve ever actually had any real experience with the industry.

When you can provide evidence for that let me know.

Anari.2137, you’re the one who keeps bringing it up as a reason we should accept your ridiculous ideas. The burden of proof therefore falls to you.

I am not required to prove anything to you, you imply that your opinion matters to me and it does not. So you can take it at face value, or you don’t. Either way, I really don’t care if you believe me or not

Its not my objective in life to get the opinion of random people in the internet. Even if you were developers for this game, to be frank i really would not care.

So unless you offering my some better prospects then running my own studio and turning it in to a AAA Game Studio, with the money that comes with that, i really could careless if you approach of me as an individual or not.

Lastly

This forum is not about me. If you cannot come up with an argument beyond character attacks stop posting. I did not come to guild wars 2 forums to argue about if some random people on the interwebz approve of me or not.

Anari.2137:

This forum is not about me. If you cannot come up with an argument beyond character attacks stop posting. I did not come to guild wars 2 forums to argue about if some random people on the interwebz approve of me or not.

We did. You ignored them and kept going.

Exedore.6320:

Anari.2137:

This forum is not about me. If you cannot come up with an argument beyond character attacks stop posting. I did not come to guild wars 2 forums to argue about if some random people on the interwebz approve of me or not.

We did. You ignored them and kept going.

Can quote the post that “refuted” my statements?

GW2 will never be perceived balanced because players aren’t equal. There is imbalance between the skills of players. One player’s skill level is superior to the others. Any guesses as to which player between them perceives imbalance in the game and skill sets?

It’s like this Anari. You jumped into our game with a blindfold on talking up a storm about how great and experienced you are, then proceeded to propose absurd changes in multiple threads that suggest you have no knowledge of this game. Then you proceed to talk down to anyone that disagrees with you (had to report a couple of your posts and have them removed) or just plain ignore them. Now here you are telling us that we should provide evidence concerning your lack of experience.

I say no good sir, you done that job for us by plastering it all over our forums. You want people to take you seriously, you’re gonna have to prove to us that you can actually do what you claim to do, cause so far all we’ve seen is nonsense.

Of course, you’re always more than welcome to keep trying to make crazy balance changes, just don’t expect the community’s attitude toward your ideas to change when you can’t even be bothered to meet these people halfway.

P.S. – Most people refuse to provide proof of their experience when it either a) doesn’t exist or b) doesn’t live up to what they’ve claimed it to be. Not a personal attack or insult, just a general observation buddy.

Anari.2137:

Actually, that’s on true. I’ve worked for 3 major companies, 1 indy team, and i currently run a studio (with 23 developers). Out of all of those examples, The only time iv seen this applied was by EA (though i know blizzard does it).

In all other cases it is 2-3 people capitulating idea’s of where they think the damage / game play should go.

The amount of people working on balance depends wildly on how complex the game combat system is.

A generic FPS probably doesn’t even have a dedicated balance team outside of the metrics guys since FPS are mechanically fairly simple.
A MMORPG with dozens of interlocking traits and abilities that have to be balanced across multiple game modes however requires a dedicated and often specialized team.

Also you’re moving the goalposts since my post was responding to the fact that you where implying that the “coders” where the ones doing the balance, which is something that really doesn’t happen outside of games with really small dev crews.

Broken Record much?

No one is advocating for perfect balance. You don’t want perfect balance. You want “Competitive” Game play, which means plus or minus 10% variance in class / spec performance. Though if you had any real experience in the industry you’d know that.

10% variance from what?

Tell me how do you define a spec in this game? If I run the standard metabattle scrapper build but then use a different rune and change the elite does that count as a different “spec?”
Or what if I run identical abilities to metabattle but then pick different traits? Is that a different “spec?”
Take generic p/p condi engi. If all I do is swap the offhand pistol out for a shield I end up radically changing both the DPS and the survivability. Yet that was just one simple change.

The problem with saying “10% class/spec variance” is that what defines a build is very ambiguous. This isn’t WoW or SW:TOR where your spec is almost completely locked in.

Shaogin.2679:

It’s like this Anari. You jumped into our game

Do you have a mouse in your pocket, or are you implying your one of the anet staff members?

Shaogin.2679:

with a blindfold on talking up a storm about how great and experienced you are, then proceeded to propose absurd changes in multiple threads that suggest you have no knowledge of this game. Then you proceed to talk down to anyone that disagrees with you (had to report a couple of your posts and have them removed) or just plain ignore them. Now here you are telling us that we should provide evidence concerning your lack of experience.

Wrong. It was not mentioned until either today or yesterday. I’ve been on these forums for some time now.

The Changes i purpose are absurd? You mean actually bringing a Guardian to 1 million healing a game, when it has 3 specs dedicated (or partially) to healing, yet does not heal a 4th of what the other classes do; to a Rate which is competitive to the others, and that is Absurd?

If it is absurd to bring “balance” to the classes, you sir need to leave this industry, because you clearly dont know what you are doing.

Shaogin.2679:

I say no good sir, you done that job for us by plastering it all over our forums. You want people to take you seriously, you’re gonna have to prove to us that you can actually do what you claim to do, cause so far all we’ve seen is nonsense.

Lets be real here. Your opinion means nothing to me, and the likelyhood that this studio or any other one will listen even if i provide my credentials is nonexistent. So i’ll make a deal with you.

Go Write up a legal document granting my creative rights over GW2, and have the CEO, Board members sign it and present it to me and ill give you my credentials.
Until you do this, I’m not interested in providing you with any form of information.

Shaogin.2679:

Of course, you’re always more than welcome to keep trying to make crazy balance changes, just don’t expect the community’s attitude toward your ideas to change when you can’t even be bothered to meet these people halfway.

P.S. – Most people refuse to provide proof of their experience when it either a) doesn’t exist or b) doesn’t live up to what they’ve claimed it to be. Not a personal attack or insult, just a general observation buddy.

I guess “i dont care about your opinions” is not clear to you. I think you dont understand my position and reason on these forums. So let me explain.

1 – My primary objective is to try to reason with the development team (which are generally hiding on alt forum accounts, as you know from your practice of this method)

2 – I mentioned i had 5 years invested in studying games, but did i mention anywhere i stopped?

3 – Interaction the forums helps me understand people. One of the big points of our game when it comes out will be a completely new forum concept. In fact, iv actually considered making this a big thing for our IT off company, to develop a forum concept that does not really require mods to read posts, or have to deal with multiple posts on the same topic.

Discussion with people on forums helps me understand the management system of a forum, and that gives me something to study for this new software technology we are working on.

Crinn.7864:

Anari.2137:

Actually, that’s on true. I’ve worked for 3 major companies, 1 indy team, and i currently run a studio (with 23 developers). Out of all of those examples, The only time iv seen this applied was by EA (though i know blizzard does it).

In all other cases it is 2-3 people capitulating idea’s of where they think the damage / game play should go.

The amount of people working on balance depends wildly on how complex the game combat system is.

A generic FPS probably doesn’t even have a dedicated balance team outside of the metrics guys since FPS are mechanically fairly simple.
A MMORPG with dozens of interlocking traits and abilities that have to be balanced across multiple game modes however requires a dedicated and often specialized team.

Also you’re moving the goalposts since my post was responding to the fact that you where implying that the “coders” where the ones doing the balance, which is something that really doesn’t happen outside of games with really small dev crews.

Broken Record much?

No one is advocating for perfect balance. You don’t want perfect balance. You want “Competitive” Game play, which means plus or minus 10% variance in class / spec performance. Though if you had any real experience in the industry you’d know that.

10% variance from what?

Tell me how do you define a spec in this game? If I run the standard metabattle scrapper build but then use a different rune and change the elite does that count as a different “spec?”
Or what if I run identical abilities to metabattle but then pick different traits? Is that a different “spec?”
Take generic p/p condi engi. If all I do is swap the offhand pistol out for a shield I end up radically changing both the DPS and the survivability. Yet that was just one simple change.

The problem with saying “10% class/spec variance” is that what defines a build is very ambiguous. This isn’t WoW or SW:TOR where your spec is almost completely locked in.

MMORPGS consist way more “values” then FPS does, thats why its easier to balance.

Im not moving anything, you claim that every team has dedicated specialists for this task of balance, which is really only the case with very large companies (and even then its questionable).

In regards to power creep, my position on it is condition based.

- Starting Players will be competitive to senior players
- Its dangerous, so avoid it unless its needed
- my experience across multiple games is that there is a “golden ratio” For balance, that ratio is also what blizzard uses (because of metric data). That value is around 13%.
In general my experience has been 8-9% Variances are the key/target area for balance.

This means if a ability does 100 Damage, the top end of it should be 108-110 Damage.
Of if a player is doing 1,000,000 Condition damage a game, the lower end players should be around 800,00-900,000.

When we look at GW2 we see a lot of 100-300k’s, a few 500-600ks, and 2 800-900ks. This means by my standards

- Players are not being competitive with specific builds
- Some builds are massively under tuned, or over tuned
- Someone is bad at paying attention to server metrics or understanding them correctly.

A “Spec” is a build. In general, I use this to refer to “meta-builds” or “cookie Cutter Builds” But it may apply to any “spec”.

If the development team was following principles of logic we’d see things like

- No skill having + Weapon bonuses (instead lower the cool downs) as 20% reduction in a cool downs is a significant upgrade to damage, and forcing people to pick that over other options, when the already need that weapon for that build concept totally invalidates the purpose of the other three abilities with out naturally making the different options valid.

- All Builds having a target Damage output, that equates to a targeted life expectancy in time rates (20-30seconds is prime from my experience of faster moba like gameplay)

- A few other examples can be provided, but thats not the point, the point is you should already be working off these sorts of principles and when you have people dying in 5 seconds, there is an issue with power creep.

Hopefully you get the point.

Anari.2137:

MMORPGS consist way more “values” then FPS does, thats why its easier to balance.

Im not moving anything, you claim that every team has dedicated specialists for this task of balance, which is really only the case with very large companies (and even then its questionable).

Anet would be considered a large studio. And for the record we already have dev comments that have confirmed the existence of a dedicated class balance/design team.

Also FPS are so much easier to balance. Weapon balance in a FPS can be done with a simple TTK equation with respect to ease of use. That doesn’t fly in a MMORPG.

- my experience across multiple games is that there is a “golden ratio” For balance, that ratio is also what blizzard uses (because of metric data). That value is around 13%.
In general my experience has been 8-9% Variances are the key/target area for balance.

When we look at GW2 we see a lot of 100-300k’s, a few 500-600ks, and 2 800-900ks. This means by my standards

Wait are you seriously looking at raw damage dealt as your metric?
Do you not realize how insane the variance in DPS is from situation to situation? A build can do 900k one match and barely hit 200k the next. DPS varies wildly based on a slew of factors from enemy comp, to map, to role, to enemy skill.

A “Spec” is a build. In general, I use this to refer to “meta-builds” or “cookie Cutter Builds” But it may apply to any “spec”.

- All Builds having a target Damage output, that equates to a targeted life expectancy in time rates (20-30seconds is prime from my experience of faster moba like gameplay)

And this is the problem.
GW2 doesn’t use a spec balancing, GW2 uses what I would call “Toolkit design” where the developers give each class a wide variety of tools that players can combine to solve whatever problem is presented. In this case winning PvP matches.

This is a game of learning how to take the vast array of skills available and combining them into a something. And because of that the entire traditional notion of simply balancing spec output goes out the window.

Take Epidemic on a necro. If you have two necros with Epidemic and you have a situation where you have 1 or more targets in close proximity, those two necros can do a epi bounce and effectively double the condis on the target while also dealing a insane condi nuke to everything else in the vicinity.
But if you don’t have 2 epi necros, or your target stands alone, epidemic has little value.

And really that’s how most of GW2 works. Most abilities can be either total gamechangers or complete crap depending on what the situation is.

Heck Metabattle builds aren’t even optimized builds, Metabattle builds are rather all-rounder builds that are usually built around adaptability rather than being optimal.

Anari.2137:

Shaogin.2679:

It’s like this Anari. You jumped into our game

Do you have a mouse in your pocket, or are you implying your one of the anet staff members?

Shaogin.2679:

with a blindfold on talking up a storm about how great and experienced you are, then proceeded to propose absurd changes in multiple threads that suggest you have no knowledge of this game. Then you proceed to talk down to anyone that disagrees with you (had to report a couple of your posts and have them removed) or just plain ignore them. Now here you are telling us that we should provide evidence concerning your lack of experience.

Wrong. It was not mentioned until either today or yesterday. I’ve been on these forums for some time now.

The Changes i purpose are absurd? You mean actually bringing a Guardian to 1 million healing a game, when it has 3 specs dedicated (or partially) to healing, yet does not heal a 4th of what the other classes do; to a Rate which is competitive to the others, and that is Absurd?

If it is absurd to bring “balance” to the classes, you sir need to leave this industry, because you clearly dont know what you are doing.

Shaogin.2679:

I say no good sir, you done that job for us by plastering it all over our forums. You want people to take you seriously, you’re gonna have to prove to us that you can actually do what you claim to do, cause so far all we’ve seen is nonsense.

Lets be real here. Your opinion means nothing to me, and the likelyhood that this studio or any other one will listen even if i provide my credentials is nonexistent. So i’ll make a deal with you.

Go Write up a legal document granting my creative rights over GW2, and have the CEO, Board members sign it and present it to me and ill give you my credentials.
Until you do this, I’m not interested in providing you with any form of information.

Shaogin.2679:

Of course, you’re always more than welcome to keep trying to make crazy balance changes, just don’t expect the community’s attitude toward your ideas to change when you can’t even be bothered to meet these people halfway.

P.S. – Most people refuse to provide proof of their experience when it either a) doesn’t exist or b) doesn’t live up to what they’ve claimed it to be. Not a personal attack or insult, just a general observation buddy.

I guess “i dont care about your opinions” is not clear to you. I think you dont understand my position and reason on these forums. So let me explain.

1 – My primary objective is to try to reason with the development team (which are generally hiding on alt forum accounts, as you know from your practice of this method)

2 – I mentioned i had 5 years invested in studying games, but did i mention anywhere i stopped?

3 – Interaction the forums helps me understand people. One of the big points of our game when it comes out will be a completely new forum concept. In fact, iv actually considered making this a big thing for our IT off company, to develop a forum concept that does not really require mods to read posts, or have to deal with multiple posts on the same topic.

Discussion with people on forums helps me understand the management system of a forum, and that gives me something to study for this new software technology we are working on.

“Our game” as in the game we were playing and you were not. Twist it however you want though.

Yes, if we’re going to drop technicalities on this thing you didn’t immediately mention your experience when you came to the these forums a month ago, that was just when when you started spouting absurd balance changes. And yes, they are absurd. You have no concept of “balance” in this game, sorry.

And lets be real here, I could care less what you think of my opinions. Was simply trying to explain to you how you are coming off to others, cause you really seem to have a hard time properly interacting with others.

In fact at this point I’m pretty sure you’re just an elaborate troll, in which case kudos to you, very well done. But now the proper thing to do is just wait until your silly posts inevitably fall off the front page of the forums. ^.^

Shaogin.2679:

Anari.2137:

Shaogin.2679:

It’s like this Anari. You jumped into our game

Do you have a mouse in your pocket, or are you implying your one of the anet staff members?

Shaogin.2679:

with a blindfold on talking up a storm about how great and experienced you are, then proceeded to propose absurd changes in multiple threads that suggest you have no knowledge of this game. Then you proceed to talk down to anyone that disagrees with you (had to report a couple of your posts and have them removed) or just plain ignore them. Now here you are telling us that we should provide evidence concerning your lack of experience.

Wrong. It was not mentioned until either today or yesterday. I’ve been on these forums for some time now.

The Changes i purpose are absurd? You mean actually bringing a Guardian to 1 million healing a game, when it has 3 specs dedicated (or partially) to healing, yet does not heal a 4th of what the other classes do; to a Rate which is competitive to the others, and that is Absurd?

If it is absurd to bring “balance” to the classes, you sir need to leave this industry, because you clearly dont know what you are doing.

Shaogin.2679:

I say no good sir, you done that job for us by plastering it all over our forums. You want people to take you seriously, you’re gonna have to prove to us that you can actually do what you claim to do, cause so far all we’ve seen is nonsense.

Lets be real here. Your opinion means nothing to me, and the likelyhood that this studio or any other one will listen even if i provide my credentials is nonexistent. So i’ll make a deal with you.

Go Write up a legal document granting my creative rights over GW2, and have the CEO, Board members sign it and present it to me and ill give you my credentials.
Until you do this, I’m not interested in providing you with any form of information.

Shaogin.2679:

Of course, you’re always more than welcome to keep trying to make crazy balance changes, just don’t expect the community’s attitude toward your ideas to change when you can’t even be bothered to meet these people halfway.

P.S. – Most people refuse to provide proof of their experience when it either a) doesn’t exist or b) doesn’t live up to what they’ve claimed it to be. Not a personal attack or insult, just a general observation buddy.

I guess “i dont care about your opinions” is not clear to you. I think you dont understand my position and reason on these forums. So let me explain.

1 – My primary objective is to try to reason with the development team (which are generally hiding on alt forum accounts, as you know from your practice of this method)

2 – I mentioned i had 5 years invested in studying games, but did i mention anywhere i stopped?

3 – Interaction the forums helps me understand people. One of the big points of our game when it comes out will be a completely new forum concept. In fact, iv actually considered making this a big thing for our IT off company, to develop a forum concept that does not really require mods to read posts, or have to deal with multiple posts on the same topic.

Discussion with people on forums helps me understand the management system of a forum, and that gives me something to study for this new software technology we are working on.

“Our game” as in the game we were playing and you were not. Twist it however you want though.

Yes, if we’re going to drop technicalities on this thing you didn’t immediately mention your experience when you came to the these forums a month ago, that was just when when you started spouting absurd balance changes. And yes, they are absurd. You have no concept of “balance” in this game, sorry.

And lets be real here, I could care less what you think of my opinions. Was simply trying to explain to you how you are coming off to others, cause you really seem to have a hard time properly interacting with others.

In fact at this point I’m pretty sure you’re just an elaborate troll, in which case kudos to you, very well done. But now the proper thing to do is just wait until your silly posts inevitably fall off the front page of the forums. ^.^

Where did you get the metrics for me playing the game?
Because i play 5-6 hours a day (minimum)

Well, aside from the fact that you’ve proven yourself to be abrasive, stubborn, and you attempt to make yourself out to be of a higher standing and have more weight than everyone else here, while refusing to give any evidence of the standing which you are trying so desperately to cling to, you have also repeatedly referenced World of Warcraft in your arguments for how things should be, so in my eyes you generally also lose all credibility; Not only is World of Warcraft a completely different game, and therefore should not be applied to the scope of Guild Wars 2, but it is also a game which, in recent years, has completely fallen from the graces it once knew long in the past, therefore making it a debunked foundation for how a game should be handled.

Zero Solstice.9754:

Well, aside from the fact that you’ve proven yourself to be abrasive, stubborn, and you attempt to make yourself out to be of a higher standing and have more weight than everyone else here, while refusing to give any evidence of the standing which you are trying so desperately to cling to, you have also repeatedly referenced World of Warcraft in your arguments for how things should be, so in my eyes you generally also lose all credibility; Not only is World of Warcraft a completely different game, and therefore should not be applied to the scope of Guild Wars 2, but it is also a game which, in recent years, has completely fallen from the graces it once knew long in the past, therefore making it a debunked foundation for how a game should be handled.

And if I may, the OP also said, fps games are harder to balance than MMO, that’s where I dropped the ball.

Personally I would not doubt your knowledge of the industry, since a lot of what you say is mathematically reasonable and makes sense from a professional point of view.
But now here is the problem: You seem to have little knowledge of gw2 as a game, especially pvp. Your first ‘review’ came ~1 month ago. I will suppose this is about the time where you started playing it. Even with 5-6 hours a day that is not much. Next to nothing actually. Add the poor knowlegde of the more uncommon game mechanics (referring to piercing debate for example) and the mentioned low amount of Ap you are likely a relatively inexperienced player.
You second topic proved you know what you are doing as a designer and have knowledge some other contributors might lack.
Your first topic however proves you were not yet in the position to balance the game. ‘Trap stacking=op’? (its the most dumb thing a guard can do) The lifeforce bar should be removed cause it ‘is a balance issue’? (its the only thing preventing necros from getting melted on sight)
Now we generally disagree on several aspects of the balance approach (power creep vs nerf hammer) (competitive vs casual), but that would be alright, different opinions are important.
What im concerned with is your look at the game itself. If im remembering what I thought to be op just a few months ago…

So, from a professional perspective you are certainly capable of setting up a game balance, but a lot of your threads have proven your personal experience with guild wars 2 is insuffiecient.
That would be fine unless you seem to not take feedback from more experienced players and dont listen to reason as much as you should.
Just because you have a theoretically greater knowledge, doesnt mean youre right.
Actually I would dare to ask you for a couple of duels. Not for a ‘1v1 me noob’ reason, I would just like to get the chance to find out, whether im maybe just biased towards your ideas because they are too ‘cheesy’ and underestimate the positive impact they could have.
Maybe you actually know what you are talking about and I just cant see it. However if it should turn out you are in fact only suffering from ‘l2p’ issues as some here suggested, it might help you to take some time and understand the game before you make another approach on its balance.

Fivedawgs.4267:

Zero Solstice.9754:

Well, aside from the fact that you’ve proven yourself to be abrasive, stubborn, and you attempt to make yourself out to be of a higher standing and have more weight than everyone else here, while refusing to give any evidence of the standing which you are trying so desperately to cling to, you have also repeatedly referenced World of Warcraft in your arguments for how things should be, so in my eyes you generally also lose all credibility; Not only is World of Warcraft a completely different game, and therefore should not be applied to the scope of Guild Wars 2, but it is also a game which, in recent years, has completely fallen from the graces it once knew long in the past, therefore making it a debunked foundation for how a game should be handled.

And if I may, the OP also said, fps games are harder to balance than MMO, that’s where I dropped the ball.

I Said they are easier to balance because they dont have as many values in it to track.
1 class has more things to balance then the entire fps game. Please pay attention.

Zero Solstice.9754:

Well, aside from the fact that you’ve proven yourself to be abrasive, stubborn, and you attempt to make yourself out to be of a higher standing and have more weight than everyone else here, while refusing to give any evidence of the standing which you are trying so desperately to cling to, you have also repeatedly referenced World of Warcraft in your arguments for how things should be, so in my eyes you generally also lose all credibility; Not only is World of Warcraft a completely different game, and therefore should not be applied to the scope of Guild Wars 2, but it is also a game which, in recent years, has completely fallen from the graces it once knew long in the past, therefore making it a debunked foundation for how a game should be handled.

So your telling me, Wow and Gw2 are not MMORPGS? That do not have raiding in them, pvp, ranked pvp, etc?

Your kidding right.

While we are on this topic, who told you that you have to be exactly the same to have anything to do with balance? I cant Even because to understand how in the world you came to such an enlightening position. Please, Tell the rest of how exactly wow and gw2 are nothing alike, and how its impossible for wow (and other games) to be examples of balance when the balance is based on math and psychology in the first place (not the genre or type of game).

Asrat.2645:

Personally I would not doubt your knowledge of the industry, since a lot of what you say is mathematically reasonable and makes sense from a professional point of view.
But now here is the problem: You seem to have little knowledge of gw2 as a game, especially pvp. Your first ‘review’ came ~1 month ago. I will suppose this is about the time where you started playing it. Even with 5-6 hours a day that is not much. Next to nothing actually. Add the poor knowlegde of the more uncommon game mechanics (referring to piercing debate for example) and the mentioned low amount of Ap you are likely a relatively inexperienced player.
You second topic proved you know what you are doing as a designer and have knowledge some other contributors might lack.
Your first topic however proves you were not yet in the position to balance the game. ‘Trap stacking=op’? (its the most dumb thing a guard can do) The lifeforce bar should be removed cause it ‘is a balance issue’? (its the only thing preventing necros from getting melted on sight)
Now we generally disagree on several aspects of the balance approach (power creep vs nerf hammer) (competitive vs casual), but that would be alright, different opinions are important.
What im concerned with is your look at the game itself. If im remembering what I thought to be op just a few months ago…

So, from a professional perspective you are certainly capable of setting up a game balance, but a lot of your threads have proven your personal experience with guild wars 2 is insuffiecient.
That would be fine unless you seem to not take feedback from more experienced players and dont listen to reason as much as you should.
Just because you have a theoretically greater knowledge, doesnt mean youre right.
Actually I would dare to ask you for a couple of duels. Not for a ‘1v1 me noob’ reason, I would just like to get the chance to find out, whether im maybe just biased towards your ideas because they are too ‘cheesy’ and underestimate the positive impact they could have.
Maybe you actually know what you are talking about and I just cant see it. However if it should turn out you are in fact only suffering from ‘l2p’ issues as some here suggested, it might help you to take some time and understand the game before you make another approach on its balance.

Did you guys stop to wonder why i said Piercing, but then mentioned unblockables?

The whole conversation went something like this

“you and i both know there is piercing attacks that go through the shields, so it wont be open”
“omgzomglol Pierce dont go through”

If you guys want to misunderstand what i want then play “semantics” around that knock yourself out, but the point still rests, You can go through those protection bubbles, call it piercing, Unblockables or other wise.

the real discussion, not personal attacks

Trap Stacking is not op? Are you kidding me? I sit in games killing 4-5 people at a time. It’s all about paying attention to rolls.

I will break it down in a simple way to understand, by defining what “op” is to me.

OP (overpowered) abilities are ones that defy the aspect of the target livability rates of a class. If all classes are targeted to have between 20-30 seconds in battle before death, then any class (or abilities) killing faster then that is to strong, and anyone killing lower then that is to fast.

Balance of the game does not rest in the soul opinions of players, but in the collective outcry of the player base specifically the casual players.

The way you know pvp is broken in your game is because of the effects that come from match’s.

- Excessive amounts of toxic game play
- Very unstable matching (meaning you destroy in one game, and utterly fail in another)
- games should all be about equal, a very close match When they are not its a sign something is off.

Anari.2137:

Did you guys stop to wonder why i said Piercing, but then mentioned unblockables?

The whole conversation went something like this

“you and i both know there is piercing attacks that go through the shields, so it wont be open”
“omgzomglol Pierce dont go through”

If you guys want to misunderstand what i want then play “semantics” around that knock yourself out, but the point still rests, You can go through those protection bubbles, call it piercing, Unblockables or other wise.

the real discussion, not personal attacks

Trap Stacking is not op? Are you kidding me? I sit in games killing 4-5 people at a time. It’s all about paying attention to rolls.

I will break it down in a simple way to understand, by defining what “op” is to me.

OP (overpowered) abilities are ones that defy the aspect of the target livability rates of a class. If all classes are targeted to have between 20-30 seconds in battle before death, then any class (or abilities) killing faster then that is to strong, and anyone killing lower then that is to fast.

Balance of the game does not rest in the soul opinions of players, but in the collective outcry of the player base specifically the casual players.

The way you know pvp is broken in your game is because of the effects that come from match’s.

- Excessive amounts of toxic game play
- Very unstable matching (meaning you destroy in one game, and utterly fail in another)
- games should all be about equal, a very close match When they are not its a sign something is off.

I really dont want to get into that stupid piercing deabte. That has nothing to do with me. But your inital claim was unrightful because you had insufficient understanding of a game mechanic.

Anyways: back to the issue of trap stacking. Putting all your traps at one point is literally the worst thing you can do with them. If anyone gets killed by them it truly is their own fault.

Im not interested in you as a person. But as soon as you make suggestions about changes, these suggestions are heavily related to the qualifications you may or may not have. If you make very questionable suggestions that most people disagree on your personal qualification is the only thing that can back those suggestions up.
If you make a claim that is obviously the truth it should not relate to you as a person. But if you make a ridiculous claim you have to back it up to prove its the truth.
The only way to prove whether your view is biased or anybody else’s is, is by proving you, as a person, know what you are talking about.

I guess that means no?

Sorry, I guess I misread you above. Interesting thread indeed, besides your shortfalls, you seems to know what you are talking about.

Anari.2137:

OP (overpowered) abilities are ones that defy the aspect of the target livability rates of a class. If all classes are targeted to have between 20-30 seconds in battle before death, then any class (or abilities) killing faster then that is to strong, and anyone killing lower then that is to fast.

Static TTK targets doesn’t work with this game. Even if they did 20-30 second TTK would make conquest unplayable at higher levels of play because it would be impossible to get caps because you couldn’t clear a point faster than the respawn comes in. And the only way fix that would be to increase the respawn time, but increased respawn times creates a more negative experience for all players.

Again this isn’t WoW/SWTOR where builds have locked in output.
GW2 simply gives players a bunch of tools and traits to solve problems with. Obviously some combinations of those tools will be better than others at certain things, which I what drives the meta.

Balance of the game does not rest in the soul opinions of players, but in the collective outcry of the player base specifically the casual players.

It’s not that black and white. However powerful class are vary wildly depending on what skill level you’re playing in. And the amount of skill required to not get farmed by Trap guardians isn’t all that high.

This is a whopper of a thread, that’s for sure.

So first op claims blizzard and WoW to be the epitome of MMO balance. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t WoW spend close to half a decade trying and failing to break into the eSports scene due to awful balance and gameplay issues?

Then OP changes tactics and now claims to be one of 4 competent developers in the industry, and we should take everything they say as the unadulterated truth because of that.
…
…
…
Ok. In other news, I’m definitely an astronaut. You can believe me because I’ve said so on an online games forum.

Anari.2137:

OP (overpowered) abilities are ones that defy the aspect of the target livability rates of a class. If all classes are targeted to have between 20-30 seconds in battle before death, then any class (or abilities) killing faster then that is to strong, and anyone killing lower then that is to fast.

There are “target livability rates” in GW2 now?

In the GW2 game I play, two skilled people can duel for 5 minutes and both walk away because no one is going to win that fight. Any time-to-kill argument break down due to the way the dodge combat system is designed so I fail to see the point.

first post here is decent. the rest is just drama about randoms poking an angry random.

Anari.2137:

I am not required to prove anything to you, you imply that your opinion matters to me and it does not. So you can take it at face value, or you don’t. Either way, I really don’t care if you believe me or not

THEN WHY ARE YOU JUMPING ON ANYONE DOUBTING WHAT YOU CLAIM. Either react with reasonable arguments or just kitten. You are just making yourself look stupid.

jesus. use you overleveled ‘psychological’ skills and give less kitten about ppl.

huh..now..calmdown…
to stay constructive about “Why-Gw2-Will-Never-Be-Balanced”:
i see this in a customer POW. and by no means am i a professional game developper. but i gonna give my 5 cents.

1. lets start everything by reviewing the game’s combat system. There are 2major aspects that make this game feel so fluid and these 2 things should be the root of any further development on game mechanics. These are Endurance based evasion and being able to cast and hit while moveing. These 2facts make things behave really different from other games. Example: Running after a moveing target and hitting it does not develop distance between the two players, nether does shooting atsomeone while kiteing. In exchange people get an opportunity to evade attacks as a reaction every x seconds (depending on traits vigor, etc…).
2. how does the first point give a direction in game designing? it is simple, the whole base concept supports the visible unique animations counterable by reastions -type of gameplay and the main focus scould be maintaining this.
3. what is breaking the rules? Stuff that is unavoidable or not player controlled. Instant cast abilitys, passively activated high impact effects or just powerhouse abilitys on laughably low cooldown. These are meenageable to a certain degree, but too much leads to spamfest and passive defenses-offenses that play certain builds instead of the player. (just look at retribution man…. icry)
4. handling boons. The healthy state would be if you would consider to invest points, traits utilitys or a rune for having resonable uptime from ONE boon and it would matter when you use cooldowns that provide it/them. To a certain point we had this. The dev team decided to move away from this mentality. Classes got infinite uptime of at least half the Boons, eles keeping up perma protection on party. etc…
5. HORRIBLY SLOW and bad decision making. The dev team who are working on class balance (grouch claimed there is a team only for that) are slow paced even if there are clear decisions to make (example: last years DD-ele horror). I cannot really accept the they are busy with pve arguments or anything like that couse pve got almost as big bullfly going on as pvp (ATM biggest dps rotation for thief is autohitting+bound every few seconds). Either there should be pvp specialists helping them to fix issues faster or enchance the motivation of the balance team.
   example: remember shoutbow times? there where obvious problems with the metaspec’s endurance regeneration. Example->DD-ele, Soldier Engi having permanent vigor not to mention Call to Arms’s vigor share from shoutbow. Please notive that these are the classes who are able to abuse the weapon swap sigils to the maximum. This means that the absurd amount of vigor was paired with the energy sigil’s endurance regen. Instead of investigating the problem and making proper sollution vigor’s regen was cut in half, but energy sigil left the same. This crippled builds that relied on theyr medium vigor uptime but had less access to energy procks. this decision just enlarged the gap in effectivity. It was an easy faceroll decision without testing the resoults.
6. knowing ANet’s balancing them’s capability scrapping the game is almost inposible now with the damage they made to the principles of the combat system’s base with juni patch and HoT. Splitting trait and ability effects between the 3 game modes and investing more into this crucial region till the “balance” is stabilized would be a good start.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Take two teams;
1) team 1 is made up of aphex meta builds.
2) team is made of quirky non meta builds.

Which team wins?

The one that has the most nodes uncontested throughout the match.

Builds and balance will always come second place to superior positioning and rotational play.

It doesn’t matter how good the builds are in your team, if your doing nothing..AFK’ing home, not assisting and they are rotating like clock work, you’re gonna lose..no matter how many 1 vs 1 you win.

It is that simple mind set of a traps dragon hunter standing on home all match and winning a few 1 vs 1 and then being stomped by the condi reaper. At the end of the match when they lose, they blame the reaper for being OP and ignore that they had their beast stolen twice, never successfully held mid for any duration of time and a thief that roamed in odd places doing odd things.

That’s the irony…even with perfect balance, if that mindset doesn’t change, they’re are still gonna lose.

I find it hard to see the value in balancing all professions to be within 8% variance of each other and obtaining perfect balance. When perfect balance is achieved, where does the game go from there? There is no reason to change a game anymore if it is perfectly balanced.

As stated above, when the end goal of winning is based around capturing points, it highlights that rotations and placement is the biggest factor in winning.

To give a real world example from a game match I played recently in unranked.
Unranked you get whatever players you get.
Both teams had average players with typical mindsets. After each team had captured their respective home nodes a long, drawn out battle for mid ensued. It was obvious to me from the start that rotation will decide how this goes. After rotating far and capturing, and supporting home when needed I was decimating players all over the show. I was in essence undefeatable and my team was edging further and further ahead. At this point one of their team who was highly skilled began shadowing me. Not only were they very skilled, they also were running a build that could handle whatever i threw at it and were keenly skilled at knowing exactly when to burst me. They were a player who were good, had a strong build and was well aware of what other professions can do and had accurately estimated my play style quickly. From this point on I couldn’t get a finger hold on this person at all. Everywhere i went, there they were and there I was getting stomped again..and again..

Was this a balance issue that their build hard countered mine?..was this simply you could give them any build and they could own me because they are that good? Was this I made myself very predictable?..or was this their team made the smart decision that i was causing too many problems and they assigned the best person on the team to shut me down by rotating them to wherever i went and freeing up players to challenge more suitable opponents for their skill level?

Despite this player owning me consistently, they couldn’t stop me from map pinging where my team should go, or drawing arrows about what directions to take. Instead of doing the smart thing and not engaging them and getting owned once more, I knew they would follow me. So i took the kicking knowing as long as other players in my team make use of the info I am giving them, the lead we had established would see us through. Their team did make a come back, but it wasn’t enough to erode the lead we had established early.

I just don’t see how if my build and my nemesis build were set at a maximum 8% variance how this could have changed things. All that would have happened is it would have taken a tad longer to down me, or I would have been able to hold them out for slightly longer periods..but ultimately there rotations of shutting down me as their biggest problem,..and our rotations of making movements knowing they have dedicated a person to controlling me was the decider..not balance.

This means if a ability does 100 Damage, the top end of it should be 108-110 Damage.
Of if a player is doing 1,000,000 Condition damage a game, the lower end players should be around 800,00-900,000.

When we look at GW2 we see a lot of 100-300k’s, a few 500-600ks, and 2 800-900ks. This means by my standards

- Players are not being competitive with specific builds
- Some builds are massively under tuned, or over tuned
- Someone is bad at paying attention to server metrics or understanding them correctly.

A “Spec” is a build. In general, I use this to refer to “meta-builds” or “cookie Cutter Builds” But it may apply to any “spec”.

If the development team was following principles of logic we’d see things like

- No skill having + Weapon bonuses (instead lower the cool downs) as 20% reduction in a cool downs is a significant upgrade to damage, and forcing people to pick that over other options, when the already need that weapon for that build concept totally invalidates the purpose of the other three abilities with out naturally making the different options valid.

- All Builds having a target Damage output, that equates to a targeted life expectancy in time rates (20-30seconds is prime from my experience of faster moba like gameplay)

You talk a lot about life expectancy, metrics, game damage/healing…. but the real metrics you never mention (because you have no access to it) is : how much is your contribution to team score
Your comparison with other games can’t hold if you don’t take the goal of the game into account. This game is not about duel/arena. I know it does not suit your liking and want the game to be different but it is not going to happen.
You can do a kill in a game in 10 seconds but if you don’t cap the point you just granted 5 points to your team (1% of victory) which translates in holding a point for 5 seconds.
You can’t just account the contribution of one profession based on its dps or healing. Resistance, mobility … are others parameters which have to be taken into account, and maybe with a greater factor. You applied strict concepts from other games but never cared that the rule of the game are different.