Lost? Confused? [TCS] – A guild for every state of body and mind
Balancing and Communication
Lost? Confused? [TCS] – A guild for every state of body and mind
Yes! You wanted to hate on something because it killed you, but someone else did this already! This means you are totally right about the problem, because there are so many complaints!
People like to join the masses. Beating knowledge with people numbers is also not uncommon, complain long and hard enough with a ton of people about the same subject, and you might see it change.
Though if you read the paragraph “The problem of a problem”, you will know by now that people have the tendacy to ignore the real problem, and complain about an effect rather than the problem… A good example was given in this post by Galandil. I will quote the important aspect for our discussion:
If you’re an old enough player of the game, you should remember that for quite a while thieves could melt most people down playing S/P with Haste (and with melting I mean it, quickness would last even during the stomping). Thieves pointed out that the problem was not in PW in itself, but in quickness, and that that effect should have been nerfed.
Guess what: first, Anet nerfed by 15% the dmg of PW, leaving quickness as it was. Months later, they proceeded to nerf quickness from 100% to 50% speed, never reverting the changes in PW.
I remember this and I was not even part of the competitive scene long enough to know the true effect – but everything he said is right; People complained in masses about PW, and thus the skill got nerfed, while in reality, the skill was not the culprit, the utility was… Now, PW thieves are so scarce, simply because it is not efficient enough as compared to other thief builds…
Bandwagonning makes you part of the problem of a problem. By just saying “Everyone is saying it is OP and so it needs to be nerfed” you are guilty of not only doing no research to pinpoint the actual problem, but also balancing mistakes in the near future. If only the large demographic of people had listened to the Thief Community, who were very much aware of their own issue, PW would’ve never been as overnerfed as it is now…
And do you think this is exclusive to thieves? Well, think again;
- Warrior Adrenaline changes – more specifically decay
- Necromancer’s Dhuumfire – this resulted in a year of nerfs before the actual culprit was reworked
- Mesmer’s Prismatic Understanding – resulting in many defense nerfs for Mesmers
- Elementalist’s Sustain – they were out of the Meta well over a year(!)
etc.
Now you know these sad facts, quite honestly, do not hope to see it disappear soon… However, if you read this, came as far to this, acknowledge that you were part of the problem and want to it to change, then make sure to do the following;
- Examine the problem; Why are you truly mad? Was it the problem, or an effect of the actual problem?
- Why does this problem exist; or, what was the thought behind it? What is the effect of removing it?
- Think of a solution; How would you change it? What would you do differently?
If we all started to start to tackle problems in a way that we both as players and as developers get more information, the less likely we will get classes nerfed to oblivion
Lost? Confused? [TCS] – A guild for every state of body and mind
We, the community, need communication.
Yes, this is actually asking for the impossible, since you have to literally prepare yourself for a waterfal of complaints, searching hours and hours for someone who can explain the problem and work from there – without people getting angry…
However, you, the developers, have stated you did not want to have “Whack a mole” Balancing, while this is just the thing that is happening now! Changes are either so major that they are making classes and builds nearly unviable, or so minimal that nothing changes – resulting in people getting mad over either the same old stuff, or over new things that they cannot adjust to.
I, as a player, do have a general idea for this to improve though;
- Formats; Formats to feedback on balancing, give us threads in which we, as players, can have a good setup to give feedback on changes and balancing. This will result in a more clear overview of problems and how they can be reworked, as you can “ignore” those not following the format, and let the playerbase discuss amongst themselves to “help” each other on pinpointing problems when they are faced with them
- One developer per class; A representative, a face, voice or simply letters on the screen to communicate with. This is important for all classes so that they will not feel neglected. Maybe it is asking for much, but if we say implement a good system for us players to express concerns within the classes, we can immediately get feedback on it
- Update your philosophy on classes; I mean it is quite the joke that Necromancer’s are meant to be an attrition class , yet within the current implementation in the game, you will find them either to be “Condition Burst” or “Power Burst” and trust me, neither fit “attrition” at all. Let us know why you want to make certain changes, what is in your heads, and what does this mean for the classes. We need to know…. Really, we do
Basically, get in touch, and let us be in touch. I am not asking the playerbase to become part of the balancing team, because this would only end in utter chaos, but let us know what you are working on – because now we can’t see it…
In closing, I hope we can do this, as a community, and for the company. Right now things are seemingly without a direction… let us change this…
Lost? Confused? [TCS] – A guild for every state of body and mind
(edited by GoogleBrandon.5073)
I love this thread. It brings more detail to the solution half of the equation.
(proofread and edit it and it’ll be golden bro ;D)
EDIT: Also thank’s for using my thread! I am glad you like it! X3
“Please stop complaining about stuff you don’t even know about.” ~Nocta
Agreed pretty much across the board, though with the one exception that I feel first we need some general philosophy of where they want to go with classes.
It’s fairly obvious that for a class-based game, you cannot balance for perceived equality and actual equality at the same time once multiplied by the game modes. And before the devs start communicating about “balance” or the philosophy of their balanced class design, I’d like to define balance for the context of GW2. What is balance?
Sad thing is, with Celestial rising more and more in popularity, you will get more and more classes doing roughly the same – outlasting fights due to heavy sustain, while getting stronger thank to might-stacking…
This roughly results in a lot of classes and builds fitting a same role and niche, while at the same time other classes cannot compete with the sustain and power these builds have, thus being stuck within a niche that does them no good…
This is pretty much what is killing role-diversity to some extend in PvP, creating more and more selfish DPS builds, and less “need” for support, thus leaving classes and builds completely out of it…
Lost? Confused? [TCS] – A guild for every state of body and mind