Guild Wars 2

ANET: You really need to give an update soon on your upcoming balance changes. It has been 2 months since the last patch, and nothing. Balance is currently terrible, and a number of suggestions have been made on the forums.

Please start to take this seriously. This game is bleeding players to other games, and for those of us still left, we’d like to see it make a comeback. That cannot happen if you continue on the current path. Of course, if you just want all of us to play other NCSOFT games, tell us that as well.

Balance has never been in a good state, not since day 1, but at least they used to care about it and had much more regular updates.

Now that updates are slowing down it appears that any goals for a desirable meta balance have died, the team are happy to give each class a minimum of 1 cheese spec which is some degree of viable in pvp and call it a job well done. Warriors have been around for a year now in an absolutely disgusting iteration of passive facerolling/Godmode but lets face facts; that’s where most of the viable specs are heading.

It wouldn’t shock me if there are no more significant balance updates ever tbh, maybe if they rebrand/relaunch as GW2 2015/2016 or something, but the sad truth is that nobody cares, the pvp population is now filled with people who view it as a minigame and aren’t really concerned with balance [especially not when you can just reroll to any fotm spec instantly].

GW2 could have easily easily been the best pvp in any MMO ever, the engine was there, the combat is immense and engaging, at it’s core very skill based…. but what the kitten are they doing with updates like healingsignet/stance, dumbfire, nature spirit – just…WHAT!? They ignored the stuff that made the combat cool and paved over it with passive gameplay, faceroll mechanics and general trashiness.

How, seriously, how do you take gold and turn it into crud, it’s beyond me.

EDIT: my point about the topic is that balance just isn’t a priority. It seems to me that from the beginning there was no long-term vision of where they wanted balance to be and that has meant patches that are 2 steps forward 1 step back – and now that we are quite far into the lifecycle of this MMO the resources available to look at things like balance are dwindling. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they left things as they are, particularly since the PVE crowd that are now the lifeblood of pvp are less likely to care.

As previous poster said … no balance patch can help if the decisions are wrong …. Proffesions are to spammy/too much dmg on 1. skill/autoattack/too much condi unload/condi cleanse/cc(chainfear/stunlock)/might spam …. + passive play with stances/minions/diamondskin/big dmg on proc… First they should fix that than do balance, since everything they do now will get only worse.

style.6173:

ANET: You really need to give an update soon on your upcoming balance changes. It has been 2 months since the last patch, and nothing. Balance is currently terrible, and a number of suggestions have been made on the forums.

Please start to take this seriously. This game is bleeding players to other games, and for those of us still left, we’d like to see it make a comeback. That cannot happen if you continue on the current path. Of course, if you just want all of us to play other NCSOFT games, tell us that as well.

lol, haven’t you got the hint yet? They even gave up pretending that they are going to add “cool things” to the game. They rinsed everyone to release in china and make money. Their staff is constantly changing because they pay so badly. This has led to a massive lack of continuity and is the reason the game is just dead.

azuzephyr.7280:

Balance has never been in a good state, not since day 1, but at least they used to care about it and had much more regular updates.

Now that updates are slowing down it appears that any goals for a desirable meta balance have died, the team are happy to give each class a minimum of 1 cheese spec which is some degree of viable in pvp and call it a job well done. Warriors have been around for a year now in an absolutely disgusting iteration of passive facerolling/Godmode but lets face facts; that’s where most of the viable specs are heading.

It wouldn’t shock me if there are no more significant balance updates ever tbh, maybe if they rebrand/relaunch as GW2 2015/2016 or something, but the sad truth is that nobody cares, the pvp population is now filled with people who view it as a minigame and aren’t really concerned with balance [especially not when you can just reroll to any fotm spec instantly].

GW2 could have easily easily been the best pvp in any MMO ever, the engine was there, the combat is immense and engaging, at it’s core very skill based…. but what the kitten are they doing with updates like healingsignet/stance, dumbfire, nature spirit – just…WHAT!? They ignored the stuff that made the combat cool and paved over it with passive gameplay, faceroll mechanics and general trashiness.

How, seriously, how do you take gold and turn it into crud, it’s beyond me.

EDIT: my point about the topic is that balance just isn’t a priority. It seems to me that from the beginning there was no long-term vision of where they wanted balance to be and that has meant patches that are 2 steps forward 1 step back – and now that we are quite far into the lifecycle of this MMO the resources available to look at things like balance are dwindling. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they left things as they are, particularly since the PVE crowd that are now the lifeblood of pvp are less likely to care.

This a billion times over.

I know people hated on MW2, but the reason for that I think was in some ways it was the perfect concept for a fast paced shooting game, but some choices in design ruined it, but you could see the potential in their for something grand.

Same with this game, my girlfriend was playing WoW as she always does, I used to play, and I had a little bash on the new panda monk thing and the combat felt like junk. I have gotten used to GW2 and its kitten near perfect combat system. Its so fluid like, its so awesome. And then you look at the balance, and the design choices for the maps (talking pvp here, pve is fine) and you just sort of sigh.

Thats the single most annoying thing about pvp, is it has/had the potential to be truly amazing, and its sort of just died on us.

I say I hate it, mostly when I am on skyfart, but a little part of me just hopes that it will be turned around. Its like Rocky, I keep thinking the champ is down but not out, he will make a come back, the music will play, Rocky will rise and the PVP will be amazing…..EYE OF THE TIGER!

EDIT: I cannot understand why it has censored the word also used for a large construction that holds back water. Thats a swear word from about 400 years ago that is tame now, its not even on the movie ratings board or anything!

i think they’ve given up tbh,
this isn’t the same Anet that made GW1 such a great and balanced game.
only one noticeable balance update in the past 8 months…ridiculous.

0 communication from them now too, they’ve given up completely.

I think the combat abilities are just too complex to ever balance.

Everything must be balanced (and tested??!!) against every possible combination of classes (in each of their trait lines), in every combination of classes in a battle, to make sure that each situation is totally balanced.

Perhaps they should have started with much “simpler” classes, and slowly worked up adding possibilities for a class, balancing as they went.

Anyone who says you can balanced the complex class mechanics they have now does not really understand how you would go about it, and how much time it would take.

First of all perfect balance isn’t possible and it shouldn’t even be pursued.

That’s why we talk about “meta”: if everything was perfectly balanced there would be no meta, everything would be stale, and the game would soon become boring.
I’m fine with not having a perfect balance, but at the same time I’d like to see the meta changing at least once every 2 months.

The game is already perfectly balanced. The devs just want people to realize that as soon as we all roll warriors, all balance problems are nonexistent.

Liewec.2896:

i think they’ve given up tbh,
this isn’t the same Anet that made GW1 such a great and balanced game.
only one noticeable balance update in the past 8 months…ridiculous.

0 communication from them now too, they’ve given up completely.

I don’t think GW1 was actually balanced because ArenaNet went and delicately balanced each and every skill, but it was balanced for the very reason that it was so chaotic. When you give players enough tools to work with, and the game is complex and deep enough to make possibilities happen, the game balances itself.

TSW is another example. The game only had 2 balance patches in its lifetime, yet its PvP (although that scene isn’t exactly popular…) is one of the most balanced I’ve seen in a MMO. Why? 525 skills and passives, 50 odd auxiliary skills to lay on top of that, then 50 odd or so more augments to tune your skills with, and this isn’t accounting for item effects and all that jazz. It’s complete chaos, and because of that, there’s a ton of build diversity and anything you could come up with has a counter by another build.

In summary, give us more skills, more traits more utilities. If you give enough, the players will balance the game for you.

Silentshoes.1805:

I think the combat abilities are just too complex to ever balance.

Everything must be balanced (and tested??!!) against every possible combination of classes (in each of their trait lines), in every combination of classes in a battle, to make sure that each situation is totally balanced.

Perhaps they should have started with much “simpler” classes, and slowly worked up adding possibilities for a class, balancing as they went.

Anyone who says you can balanced the complex class mechanics they have now does not really understand how you would go about it, and how much time it would take.

in GW1 you could choose to merge 2 classes together and pick any skill and attributes from each, there were soooooo many more combinations than in GW2 and yet Anet managed to make it one of the most balanced MMOs i’ve ever played.

so when you talk about the 3-4 weapons that each class can wield and say “well its complex, they’ll never be able to balance it!” i just have to say BS.
we all know what is OP and we all know what needs buffing,
all we need to decide is on the numbers, but anet aren’t even trying.

also @Xae i think you might have a point there, there are so many skills and combinations that you could always come up with a counter to the meta.

I dont get it, what’s wrong with balance right now?

Kody.3289:

I dont get it, what’s wrong with balance right now?

play a ranger and fight an engi or warrior, come back with your results

Liewec.2896:

Kody.3289:

I dont get it, what’s wrong with balance right now?

play a ranger and fight an engi or warrior, come back with your results

play an engi and fight a necro ..
play a warrior and fight an ele or thief
play a thief and fight a medi guard
play a medi guard and fight an engi

everything has its counter ok

Kody.3289:

I dont get it, what’s wrong with balance right now?

Don’t demand too much from these forums. People are here only to express their unsatisfaction.
The fact that there is a difference between them being right or not is just another story.

Also, i play ranger, what problems should i have against engis and wars?

Paponzi.1637:

Kody.3289:

I dont get it, what’s wrong with balance right now?

Don’t demand too much from these forums. People are here only to express their unsatisfaction.
The fact that there is a difference between them being right or not is just another story.

Also, i play ranger, what problems should i have against engis and wars?

Actually, we are people who want to see ANET change course and not destroy this game. Look how many people have left to play a certain other game. What have PvP players gotten in the last year? I’ll summarize:

1. Skyhammer
2. Broken OP specs that that forever to tone down
3. Removal of glory boosters without any compensation
4. A rank cap of 80 which eliminated any sense of progression for the hardcore
5. PvE track rewards
6. A tdm map that is only accessible if someone buys an arena
7. A broken matchmaking system

Seriously, I am struggling to see how ANET has improved PvP at all.

Back to the original thread though…certain specs are OP or UP and most players know about those. How long did we complain about decap engi, spirit ranger, mm necro, hambow, s/p thief and others before they finally made the change?

ANET just needs to have more frequent balance patches.

A lack of build diversity is the reason people view gw2 as unbalanced. How many weapon sets of each class are viable in a meta? How many trait lines of each class are viable in each meta?

You’ll see very few weapon set combos viable and very few trait spreads simultaneously viable in a meta.

Additionally, Two of the biggest most obvious balance faults of this game in conquest are 1) that AoE is so strong that single target focused builds often aren’t viable in team fights 2) passive play is so strong that it can neutralize perfectly played active builds.

The above exist in the meta to a significant degree. Battle sigils on ele’s and warriors for example, turrets on engineers, spammable condi skills. All not fun.

Since ANet wants passive play to be so strong and for there to be so much passive play, I would rather they take away my option to play active builds so that when I lose or win I feel like it’s only because the other person was on a heavily passive build.

Then at least players would be on a similar playing field with the viable plays available to them.

the only problem with passive play is turret engis. and that even has a counter. hi staff ele.

Kody.3289:

the only problem with passive play is turret engis. and that even has a counter. hi staff ele.

blinking at a staff ele says hi.

silvermember.8941:

Kody.3289:

the only problem with passive play is turret engis. and that even has a counter. hi staff ele.

blinking at a staff ele says hi.

Hey doesn’t have to be glass he could have defensive type of ammy or cele as long as he has strength runes on he can quite easily do enough dmg to take out the turrets.

Kody.3289:

the only problem with passive play is turret engis. and that even has a counter. hi staff ele.

Yup very true though I only really seen this counter use it high level tourey. Also I seen Wars and guards activate stab and just hulk smash there way through turrets aswell. Good turret engi will usually set em up in a triangle and spread em out but heavies can generally atlest take out two b4 stab runs out.

Liewec.2896:

i think they’ve given up tbh,
this isn’t the same Anet that made GW1 such a great and balanced game.
only one noticeable balance update in the past 8 months…ridiculous.

0 communication from them now too, they’ve given up completely.

My thoughts exactly.