Jan. 26th 2016 Patch Feedback and Suggestions:
I. Enhanced Squad UI
Overall very positive change. The squad markers are great for doing both Pug and Organized group activities. Something that you could consider is make the markers visible even when commander leaves. Similar to the army, Lieutenants don’t get demoted just because the General steps down. Overall grade for this change 9/10.
II. Gliding in Central Tyria
This was a very welcome change. You guys have given many players who enjoy exploration another dimension to work with. My suggestion regarding adding systems such as this is to not forget about them after just doing one update. Expand on it a little by adding new explorable content within lesser visited maps; even if only for cosmetics. Overall grade for this change 10/10.
III. Lunar New Year
Copy pasted event. I really don’t have anything constructive to add. I’m lukewarm to “updates” such as this. I don’t mind having them in, I just don’t care for them. Festival themed decorations are great. Overall grade for this event 5/10.
IV. Eldvin Monastery Brew of the Month Club
What can I say? Seems like a desperate attempt to make people log in once a month. I am all for gold sinks, as they prevent inflation. However, I am very unsure as to the purpose of this. Overall grade for this update 2/10.
BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
V. World Polish , General changes, Fractals
All good changes, especially with the contribution on healing/ support. That one is a huge one for me and very good attention to detail on your end. Overall grade for this update 8/10.
VI. Raids
Great decision adding more magnetite rewards. On that note, I would like to congratulate your Raid team for successfully producing high quality content. Expecting more of similar content in the future. Over grade 9/10
VII. Profession Skills
General:
“Finish Them” Finishers: The stomping effect will no longer be time-scaled through effects like quickness and slow.
• This change was very unusual. I feel like this was supposed to add more skill to gameplay. Over simplifying mechanics such as this could also hurt. I get that you are trying to make it less confusing for the new players, however, as a now veteran, I used to be a new player, and had not big complaints about mechanics such as this. In fact I feel these types of physics SHOULD EXIST in a game to add depth to combat/gameplay.
Class Balance: This is where it gets good.
Elementalist:
• First of all let’s start with the diamond skin change. While I agree that the old diamond skin was too strong, I feel the new one has lost its place due to the fact that you need to get hit in order for it to proc. In my opinion this is poor design due to the fact that elementalist lost some sustain that was made available by celestial stats. With the insane high damage coming from thieves right now, it is impossible for elementalists to stay above 75% health, without taking the Stone Heart trait. A possible iteration of this trait may be make it so you are immune to boon corruption. While above 75% health. With necromancers now being walking boon stripping, I feel that ele is just rendered powerless.
• Scepter changes feel very underwhelming. Auto attack needs to be reworked.
• Loss of celestial trinket: I agree with the removal of this stat from PvP, as it gave the most amount of stats mathematically, but what is wrong? Elementalists, a class who arguably was designed around this stat set, lost a lot of survivability. My suggestion would be to increase base health and increase base healing of abilities such as cone of cold and cleansing wave. I know this is not easy to do as it will affect non PvP game modes, but that is exactly why separate balance is needed.
• Shameless plug – I was thinking of maybe adding a trait to Ele. Something like Elemental Understanding, where one gains immunity to a certain condition based on current attunement. For example when in fire, you are immune to burning.
Engineer – not much to say.
Guardian
• I feel like trap damage did not need a nerf. It was the CC spam that made the class very obnoxious to play against. CC spam is a whole different discussion to be had, but not today.
• Shield buffs are nice. I could see it seeing some play in mid to high level solo queue, but its yet to be seen. Once again necro makes guardian look unappealing.
Mesmer
• Alacrity nerf from 66% to 33%. This was definitely the highest point of discussion across all forums and even in-game. Why? Because of the fact that an entire specialization line was literally built around this one mechanic. The general consensus is to change shared alacrity to 33% while keeping self at 66% intact.
• Scepter buffs? I guess? Well scepter is probably going to see more play now that so many builds have become extremely unviable.
• Well of precognition. This one was also a kicker. It seems like this was targeted at PvE, specifically raids. Now here we have another example of why there needs to be a separation between PvE and PvP balance. While I understand the reasoning from a PvE standpoint, it had already settled into a fine place in PvP. With the removal of sentinel stats, mercy and durability runes, the popular rezmer would have just died on its own.
Necromancer
• The most confusing buffs ever. First off, corrupt boon buff. This was not a smart change at all. Granted, right now there is an overabundance of boons, doesn’t mean we needed more corruption. Mind you, it was already unblockable. Make it so it is blockable and maybe put it on a 25s cooldown.
• Scepter auto corruption. To reiterate, I feel boon corruption should be done skillfully and not just mindlessly spamming skills, in this case an auto attack.
• Generally Reaper needs to be toned down with regards to the amount of chill they output. Or maybe take another look at chill itself as a condition. It is not healthy for the game to have a spammable condition that reduces recharge time by 66%. I say reduce that number to 33%, and maybe still keep the slow on the movement numbers intact. This is a horribly unbalanced condition right now, and deserved major nerfs, but was somehow disregarded.
Ranger
• I feel like the change to ancestral grace not being able to be used mid air was uncalled for. I am well aware of the exploit in WvW, however, removing a healthy mechanic from the game because of one thing is very bad decision making. This change affects skills like Ride the lightning for elementalists as well. Very poor design. Maybe changing some of the physics of the skill would have been more appropriate, instead of completely reworking an otherwise healthy mechanic.
Revenant
• The nerf to the auto was definitely warranted, although now unrelenting assault has become extremely buggy, which I hope will be fixed soon. I feel like a 10% reduction across the whole auto chain would of sufficed.
• The real issue with revenant, and well, all the professions really, is there is a very limited number of viable options. A rework of the less used traits and abilities needs to be put into high consideration. Reworking, retooling things that already work just doubles the amount of work that needs to be done and even haults actual balancing. Dwarf and Centaur stance really need to be reworked to be competitive with the other lines/legends.
• You guys failed to address the main issue with CoR, which was the ability to 1 shot back line players in WvW. A reduction in base damage on max range hit would do wonders for QoL vs this ability.
Thief – My main. This is going to be juicy.
• Going to start with a positive here. Sword auto changes are lovely. Feels very rewarding and smooth right now. Still needs ~10% damage buff if you want it to compete with dagger and staff. However compared to other classes dps, I think it is in a fine place.
• Dagger auto is kind of ridiculous right now. I don’t really follow your logic on this one. While I agree that dagger auto may have been a bit underwhelming in the past, it was not as bad as it was made out to be. Now giving it a 42% boost just promotes unkilled play. I think buffing damage through this means was a bad decision. If you wanted to buff damage while simultaneously making it easier on the initiative, you could of changed some of the initiative costs. Maybe decrease the cost on cloak and dagger and maybe increase damage on it to increase burst potential. Increase backstab damage by 15%. With the amount of mobility, block, CC, invulns, damage mitigation available right now, this should not make such a largely oppressive impact that it would be broken, plus it promotes skillful positioning. Skillful gameplay is what draws COMPETITIVE players. Increasing numbers with casuals does not make a healthy, competitive esport game.
• Please change cooldowns on under used utilities.
• Acrobatics change was a step in the right direction however still inferior to lines such as Deadly Arts and Trickery.
• Increase on staff dps was uncalled for. Why does this weapon need to stay competitive with dagger dps? Speed up animations for staff 2 and staff 5 by 25 -30% so they don’t feel clunky. Enable mid air cast of steal/shadowstep while performing a staff 5 leap. I honestly don’t know how this is not a thing.
• Make larcenous strike steal 2 boons instead of 1(over abundance of boons).
Warrior
• The core PvP issues for warrior were not addressed. The current problem with warior is lack of sustain, defensive cooldowns, and good residual AoE damage. Its gotten so bad that even a berserker guardian is better in PvP.
• Need add more reliable CC, and compact hammer skill animations.
• Make banner be able to rez defeated players. This might be good, so more warriors can find their place in WvW again.
Overall profession balance score 4/10.
VIII. World vs. World (will not touch on SPvP as the profession changes already touched on sever SPvP aspects)
If I were to be completely frank, WvW still does not feel like a top priority. I can’t tell if it’s a resource issue, a man power issue, or maybe even a talent issue that the devs are having, but something is not working within WvW. PPK was a nice addition, however the broken mechanic that is 24/7 PPT is still not addressed, and not even mentioned anywhere. I am well aware of what Collin said about changes to population, but what I am looking for is something tangible. Evidence and confidence in the general direction this game mode is being taken.
Overall the Jan. 26th changes feel like baby steps in a full marathon. A lot more work needs to be done, and quite honestly more communication between devs and community is NECESSARY. I remember a project called Adopt-a-dev, where devs participated in WvW guild activities during season 2 of the WvW tournament. This might be something worth looking into. Do something like undercover boss. Do it discreetly and REALLY get into the minds of real WvW players playing the game mode.The one thing that really discourages us WvW players is the fact that we never see devs in WvW, while we always see them in PvE or HoTM.
This concludes my feedback summary of the January 26th patch. Overall ok patch, but not anything to write home about. I really wanted to write because I did not want to wait 3 months and still feel like the Devs lack direction. Take advice from balance teams from other games and get some insight on what balancing should be. DO NOT just keep tweaking numbers all the time. Playing with numbers is a never ending and painful process. Separating balance within the game modes would be a great building block to solve all the issues surrounding PVE, PVP balance. Even new players will appreciate that you go the extra mile to deliver high quality content. Happy players = longevity of the game.
