Guild Wars 2

JonathanSharp.7094:

The 3 different game types and splitting skills. Splitting skills between all 3 of our game types (PvE, PvP, WvW) is very costly – it takes more time to split the skills, and then upkeep the split skills.

It takes more time than what? Predicting the consequences of a (batch of) change(s) across all 3 balance areas? In the long run, hardly. The initial split takes a lot (?) of resources, but after that the work of the balance team would be a piece of cake (compared to the entangled cluster-puppy it is now).

JonathanSharp.7094:

Instead of upkeeping 1 version of a skill, whenever you make future changes, you now have to make sure all 3 are appropriately balanced for their respective game types.

So you’re saying when changing a skill it’s easier to find the sweet spot across all 3 areas (with the same number/coefficient/effect/whatever) than being able to tune the skill for each balance area individually? That seems like flawed logic to me. It’s less tech and QA work as it is right now, true. But the games balance would only benefit from the total split, because the 3 balance areas would no longer interfere with each other (what seems to be a problem, otherwise we wouldn’t have this discussion, right?)

JonathanSharp.7094:

This is very powerful, and something we did in GW1 when we felt we needed it. We just need to be careful not to do it too much, or it means the balance team is literally balancing 3 entire games.

I think it’s time to realize that this is exactly what you’re trying to do all along. (Player vs AI; large group vs large group; small group vs small group)

JonathanSharp.7094:

As Freamon (from “The Wire”, btw if you haven’t seen “The Wire”, stop whatever it is you’re doing and go watch it. Unless you’re giving birth. In that case…wait until you’re done, then watch it immediately afterwards. Oh, and get your new son/daughter to watch it when they’re old enough.) usually reminded the other members of the cast, “All the pieces matter.” The different pieces of GW2 all impact the other pieces, and it’s something we must always bear in mind.

And exactly this impact causes the troubles. The last time I checked the saying went something like ‘divide and conquer!’ rather than ‘monolithicy (that’s a word!) for the win!’

If you want me to take your efforts for balancing the game serious then be serious about it and convince the suite people upstairs that splitting the skills is the only serious long term decision.

misda.2859:

It is notoriously difficult to make builds equal in 1v1. Even if that was attained, it means that they would very likely not be balanced in groups.

Given a hypothetical perfect 1v1 balance, how could XvX be unbalanced? Please provide some kind of example, because i dont see how.

The implementation of core sPvP/tPvP features should obviously have priority over interface customization. That being said, i’d like to take the opportunity to gain some insight in how this feature priority cost/payoff evaluation is performed.

Evan Lesh.3295:

…
We start getting player feedback that some aspect of the game can be improved (…) .

How / By what?

Evan Lesh.3295:

Get enough feedback that we determine a significant amount of the player base is affected negatively.

What percentage is significant?

Evan Lesh.3295:

…
Option 1 … Satisfies 98% of the player base
…

1. How can you say that without using some kind of survey?
2. I hope you guys are aware that being satisfied with and having learned to live with something isn’t the same thing.

Evan Lesh.3295:

… if we come to the ultimate conclusion that we have to give an option for it, we will.

Why does it sound like you would rather not give the players options to customize the games interface/appearance to their liking?

I seem to experience the same issue, except the occurance of the audio stuttering freezes the computer and I have to reboot. I have this issue with twitch.tv streams running in the background.