Guild Wars 2

Thanks to Sviel and Chaba for good posts with talking points.

I see where Sviel is comming from and I get that it is hard for us to conclude any outcomes without details of any such would-be system. We can only really deal in broad, sweeping hypotheticals. However, I would like to reply, that we approach what you call “negative to scaling combat sizes” from two different perspectives. The definitions can be up-ended. In my world “smaller size benefits” is more prone to create exclusivity, but I also get that Sviel is perhaps talking more about “more smaller size content” (to encourage a behaviour rather than direct benefit or advantage).

I don’t envision a system that provides benefits to underpopulated maps but rather one that lessens the drawback of it – a system that makes you “lose slower” in such scenarios and not a system that in any way allow you to draw advantages from telling people not to fill up the map. It also assumes applying the design to the map- rather than the team “tables” to make sure it affects all contenders equally at once. If that makes any sense? Ie., if you choose to see it as a “debuff” it’s a debuff to a map, thus all teams on it, and not any one team on it. I’ll leave it at that, we’re already down in too much detail (and de-rail) for what this thread aims to discuss.

As far as Chaba’s post goes, it’s just really hard to find a map-design that can balance a spread of population imbalances since it would need to take grading into account. Designing concrete content (such as design- and art integrations) around shifting needs is just incredibly difficult (whereas designing balance or sheer numbers around it is not).

I’m not really opposed to either of your approaches I just don’t see them as effective- or design-effective enough. They would leave the developers to re-develop alot of map content to find balance in a shifting environment. That is better done on less design-intensive- and less binary mechanics. I like maps being adressed in some ways that both of you mention, but I don’t see that dealing with the balance issues effectively. It has other benefits in terms of content: letting other aspects of the larger content issue indirectly deal with the balance issue whereas I want to let the balance issue indirectly deal with the larger content issue. The goal for all of us is better content but I find the balance issue more important (or more of a hinderance) than you two do.

We’re sort of back at square one where MT started off: I listed the scoring-, population-, and coverage issues as hinders that I don’t believe you can work around to solve the larger WvW content issue. Map stuff is fun to talk about but I don’t see it as a work-around to the balance issues or effective enough to be a work-around for the larger content issue.

Devils Toy.9205:

You think the player base is going to reset balance themselves? LMAO, the player base is the reason there is so much imbalance. By reducing or eliminating transfer costs you are only going to make it that much worse.

I suggest that you try to make it to point two before hitting the reply button next time. ~This is why [these forums] can’t have nice things.

Truth be told, I wouldn’t change that much. The original conception of WvW still works to a degree, it has just been grossly underdeveloped, malbalanced and left to rot for too long – so long that the developers seem to have lost perspective on the concept.

What I would do comes in a couple of very simple steps. Steps that are visionally simple at least but where implementation may not be as simple.

I would:

1) Get rid of- or greatly reduce the transfer costs to allow the playerbase to reset balance themselves. Overall, GW2 has managed their business model very well. The one exception is WvW, Worlds and transfer costs that leave the WvW community, and only the WvW community, to (no matter how indirect) pay for content. Some players transfer to win others transfer to find an environment that maximizes their particular preference of content and so forth. What they all have in common is that they transfer for reasons tied to content (favourable content, matching content), the system encourages it and that is a deplorable business practise where players essentially pay for the game several times over just to re-access their preferred content.

2) I’m on record here saying that I believe that most of the common issues we rehash and harp on about on this forum (nightcapping, scoring, population imbalance) are all related. This time I am not going to go into detail on how it could be adressed but to solve the problem the developers need to come up with a scoring model that encourages people to spread out (and a business model that allow them to do so).

I am under the impression that creating such a system would solve both A] population imbalance and B] nightcapping (since nightcapping is essentially just a night-time population-imbalance issue – and not an issue were servers to have more compatible off-hour populace that could compete there and thus not make night score slant day score). Furthermore, I believe a balanced scoring system with more equally populated servers and even matchups would lead to more open field fights even if the scoring factor was still primarily tied to siege content (I say that as more of an open field / roaming / guild-level player myself).

3) This would allow for a balanced and self-resetting system that would allow the developers to focus more of their time on easily-implemented content design such as improving the Guild Halls (for guild-level content), rotating more maps (like certain Tank-games) and rewards more in line with the wealth of other game modes (ascended items, unique skins etc.). Rewards that wouldn’t be an issue in a better balanced system.

The current system is not conceptually bad, it is just balanced very badly and managed with poor vision and dubious practise.

The more interesting question here is what kind of conclusions you seek to derive from the answers to your question.

Is it possible to hit for 15k with Arc dividers even on targets with 3.3k AR? Yes, of course. You don’t even have to go that deep into the math of it, you can simply take any higher-base-damage skill (like your own Gravedigger), optimize your base stats and assume that there are more offensive modifiers than defensive modifiers to gauge its possibility or reliability. It’s fairly simple to see whether you can stack more offensive modifiers than the DR% derived from your AR value.

What’s important is context and what you aim to use the whatever data (general or detailed) for. Can Warriors hit like that? Sure, most classes can.

The Warrior as a class has always been built around the ability to maximize offensive stats around passives, that’s why you still see so many fullzerk Warriors in a meta where it is no longer norm. Sometimes that design point has been overtuned and sometimes it has not. Is it now? Maybe, but you can’t really derive that from the possibility of hitting upward 30k unmitigated hits with Arcs.

You can only really surmise that after indepth discussion among authority figures within whatever mode and scale (context) you wish to discuss it and, sadly, these forums do not really provide that kind of discussion regardless of if we talk about WvW on a solo-, small- or larger scale. We could hold those discussions but it is not really being done, or encouraged. Instead we get alot of question- or opinion threads (no offense meant).

Hey MO,

I just want to commend you on the continued communication with the community. This is exactly how an MMO-developer should interact with its playerbase: Letting us know in advance where you are headed, what you can do and can not do, giving us a reasonable timeframe to look forward to and allowing us to warn you of potential missteps.

I am very pleased to see that updates like these, and in this format, are still comming out.

Swamurabi.7890:

borgs.6103:

I think you guys should use your corrupts and conversions at the source or have a dedicated gank team for their dedicated share team.

And exactly how would you do that before the boons are applied and copied when they’re out of range?

He’s talking about targeting dispenser classes rather than the driver or commander.

If this is about pre-stacking all you need is a one-time sweep. Pre-stacking groups tend to be the easiest boon-trains to beat whereas good groups who are used to fight groups decent enough to apply some rips tend not to pre-stack and rather rely on reapplication timing (to win the back-and-forth rather than a spam war).

That brings us to the next thing to adress: Rips don’t have to match the boon-spam, they just have to be applied with timing and at intervals to make the offensive effects count. That is another thing that was true the first few years of the game that are true in this retro-environment too.

You need to think about these things in terms of norm and exception. The norm is to run with free control of your own character and the exception is getting controlled by someone else (much of why the pirate meta was terrible was that it up-ended that logic and people spent far too little time in control of their own characters). All rips have to do to make an impact is to be timed with control effects to make those take effect in however short the window. The limitation boon-trains have (especially on weaker groups) is that they tend to be reliant upon the boons and snapping that lynchpin creates cascading effects. They don’t have to be without any boon at all times, they just have to be without boons the are reliant upon at appropriate times.

Look, stupid people, there already is a counter to resistance (and boons in general): It is called boon-rip. Learn to use it.

This thread is turning out to be like the old stability non-discussion (which has already been errenously referenced here) where some uninitiated players take to superlatives when there is no underlying issue and, if successful, create an actual issue instead.

The game mode never “died” at the time of the old stability, it almost died some time after the removal of the old stability when crowd-control was overabundant and nobody wanted to lead a frontline assault anymore. People did not want to lead, guilds did not want to fight bigger groups, so there was no content. We don’t want that pirate-standoff back. That is when the game lost content, not in the heyday of the old stability trains.

The counter then, as now, was boon-rip and it can be done in far more ways than just dropping wells or glamours.

Please, let’s not be the tyrannical majority, envious of smaller groups in tight compositions being able to beat superior numbers. We need that for overall content, to breed new commanders who actually wants to tag up and create content. It may not serve your interests directly, as a grunt in a pickup group, but it does serve your interests in as far that it ensures that there will be commanders for you to follow.

All of this sounds like a very clunky way of going about things.

Several of us have already suggested a rather sleek system in past threads:

1. You already have the tech for overflows.
2. When a map reaches the cap, people hit flow instead of queue.
3. Flow scores reflect the percentage of hostile population on map.
4. Adjust map cap based on a population median to encourage positive transfer.

It would

A) Automatically deal with “off hour” capping, since that is only an issue when the servers have incompatible populations. I have no quarrel with 10 players impacting score as much as 100 players as long as those players have 10 opponents to every 100 opponents seen in prime time. Maintaining 1:1 is what is important.

The problem with “night capping” is it’s propensity for hitting a 1:0 balance, where some servers have off-hour presence, while other servers have no presence there of note. Then, a week is decided per default and people will not play. The scoring system needs that kind of redundancy, not a discussion about whether specific hours or scales of combat should be inherently more valuable. When it is balanced it should valuable. Period.

B) Encourage positive transfer: Where people transfer for content rather than to win. It would encourage players on all servers to spread evenly.

C) It would affect all players the same. Players on generally overpopulated servers and players on servers with disproportionate timezone presence would be equally encouraged to find both similarily-sized opponents and greater impact on score (as they are now one and the same). I love that we have AU-TZ or east-russian TZ players, but they should be encouraged to spread even as everyone else because content is king, content requires opponents and my opponents play in my timezone, even if some populations are smaller.

That is a far superior system to the old gold-bronze league divides based on server populations. Have the system reflect timezone populations instead and immidiately respond to disparities, making things like morale-breaks or commander shifts less prone to cascade as well (while I can understand if some players may disagree with that).

D) Outside of what is automated/redundant: Give Anet a simple way to manage WvW balance relative total population – making the system less vulnurable to large influxes or drops in the playerbase. If a poke is needed it allows for a simple poke (manually adjust caps) and the system will adapt.

Style (play):

If you go full conditions you essentially get a different build. The entire point of hybrid builds is to utilize the fact that they are hybrid and to draw on advantages in the context rather than in the stats. Alot of people seem to overlook that a 2k+ power build still packs quite a punch even without ferocity and that a hybrid build aims to build specifically around that – using a power base augmented by conditions rather than big crits – and specific mesmer mechanics like the phantasms that draw from base stats.

Stats (options):

That said, in order to close the stat gap from mercenary’s gear in PvP, WvW has access to things like stack sigils so I would strongly consider that, along with stronger runes (like nightmare). If you want clean stats the best combination is probably dire armor with soldier accessories. Like your build, that will net you slightly higher defensive stats than mercenary’s at slightly lower power/condi, but will keep you closer to the 2k/1.3k mark.

If you want to top up your stats I would consider giving up the dire (or di-rabid-) combinations and go soldier together with more offensive sets of weapons and armor, like sinister or viper. That will peak your offensive stats to about 2.2k/1.3k after stacks but also tweak up some condition duration goodies. Your defensive end will drop to 2.4k/21k but that is very similar to the mercenary’s stats.

Specifics (mode):

With all that said, the quad-hybrid chrono builds are among the better options for Mesmers at the moment (even in a WvW context, with all the elite specs’ big skills) but it still kind of lacks a role in WvW. The quad-hybrid is very specific to sPvP. For WvW you can roam with it and you can roam with a full defensive condi build too, but I would not recommend dropping too much power if you aim to run havoc with some friends etc. Then, a weak full power build or a highly powered hybrid still pulls the best role out of the context (the environment or meta).

Ed. I just read that you are looking for cheap and easily obtainable gear and while that is fair I think it is also fair to underline that the stat-difference is substantial and that was sort of the point of my comment here. It is possible to recreate Merc stats and to draw on some differences in the game mode to make an equally powerful build and later tweak it to adapt to the mode itself. However, true, that is not possible on an immidiate budget.

I’m sure there will be as many answers as there are people. Some have learnt to love CS and others still don’t like it. I wouldn’t mind seeing it take some slaps because it feels like a gimmick used either to double up on elites or to double up on shatters. One is very circumstantial and I’m not sure if it is good for the game to have any class dependent on frontloaded elite plays. The second is tied to overcomming the many adjustments (nerfs) to the basic gameplay of the class.

It is also very context dependent since what is skillful timing for some players and some modes makes it a small envelope for other players and other modes (add a bit of lag and many quick plays that involve artsy use of CS become completely ineffective and not just slightly diminished). That is troublesome from a design-perspective: It may be fun to use, but only in ideal situations. If a class’ basic gameplay hinges on that the entire class becomes very situational and that is arguably what has happened to Mesmers after HoT.

Tertially, CS has become the staple mechanic of the specialisation whereas things like alacrity, slow and their interplay with wells and phantasms feel far more conceptually interesting. There is very little we can do with those things now, while they harbour alot of untapped potential (combining existing effects to create effects actually reminiscent of the manipulation of time [which is sort of the backstory]). As it stands we have a function that enable certain plays in sPvP or certain context-sensitive burst combinations.

That isn’t very exciting and the class doesn’t do much more at the moment. So, yes…

Thanks for sharing.

I enjoyed it.

FogLeg.9354:

Isn’t that what the open beta testing is for? Everyone can try and see what it is about? There is little point to try explain every detail before the actual beta because most people misunderstand everything and start some stupid campaign against changes.

Wait for it to go live. Try it. Then decide if it’s good or bad.

I think you need to google the definitions. What the OP is suggesting is not unreasonable. Any programming is usually preceded by design and design is usually divided into concept and figures. Allowing the community to comment on concepts can save a developer alot of time and effort. In fact, taking feedback from a community is best done there before resources have been allocated and further effort has been spent. A beta is a question of play-testing, usually with a broad test spread to test things like performance issues and spotting issues that appear under stress or can be easily edged out before going live. It is something you do on what is essentially a finished product, with all components connected. Programmers tend to know implementation better and designers know figures better while a community tend to have valuable perspectives on conceptual design, because they play it and can later be used to play it in tests for figure adjustments.

In fact, most of the issues we have in WvW stem from concept design not being revealed and (negative-) feedback from testing and initial live play-through being concept-oriented. That was the issue with both EotM and the DBL. The issues with population balance are a bit different (the scoring component simply stems from lack of iteration or attention whereas the gameplay component stems from only superficially evaluating playerbase concerns), but it is still a fair argument from the OP to suggest such a process for the re-design of what has essentially become a phenomenon now: population balance.

They really should tell us now, before they throw away another year of work because we don’t like a swisscheesed almost completed product when revealed for playtesting where everyone can spot the holes and no one actually tests the integrity of a good concept.

I’ve read a couple of the recent stability/balance threads but haven’t had time to weigh in. However, Dawdler has been right in most of them.

What other people seem to have trouble getting into the thickness of their heed is that it’s a question of mechanics first and foremost. We can always nudge at balance by adjusting figures, but the old stab was a superior and inherently more balanced mechanic.

It had a better action-reaction balance, it had a cross-scale balance and it created a far more entertaining environment where the rip and the control were two different mechanics that had to be combined to be effective, not just dumped into one place. You had to rip to control and control to land effective damage. That made for a much more dynamic gameplay with a greater variety of outcomes. Never mind that it was better balanced at different scales and between differently sized groups.

That’s the motive behind any roll-back. No one is suggesting it was perfect, but it has a better chance of being tweaked into improvement with less effort (bagage or debt) from a design perspective. It’s the same as with the Alpine map, it’s likely outcome and effort.

lujate.5432:

Some people claim the Mesmer boon bots are OP (like Venoms). Personally I didn’t find boon sharing that powerful, but maybe I didn’t have a good build.

I’d say that boonshare is really just a compound issue of the times. It allows stacking of effects that are not meant to work as cover, to, well, work as cover. However it is only really effective if you have the other balance issues on your side. Facing a larger group or running few numbers overall you can’t really maintain a boon cover against the control effects anyway. So, in the end, boonshare is mostly seen on the type of guilds who run 30 vs. 15 anyway to counter groups who attempt to circumvent the hard-cc disadvantage (of playing 15 vs. 30) by stacking soft cc.

As for the rest of the topic, the go-to builds for 15-20 man guild groups have always been power builds for havoc parties. Granted, they are not as competetive to other classes these days and hybrid condi shatters first came about when people began experimenting with dropping their GS after all the power nerfs last summer, but it’s still the starting point for understanding basic group play as Mesmer, I’d say.

Start out playing havoc and taking regroups from thieves (while understanding that you may not be their ideal companion anymore), learn how to provide MI-saves and over time learn how to setup targets for them. From there you can experiment with more modern builds that combines a shotcall role with escape pressure from some condi. Nothing is ideal though, the class has taken a step back overall and it is the most blantant in WvW and organized WvW group-play. However, what I’ve suggested is still arguably the best way to fill a role in a WvW group.

There may be specialist support builds and whatnot out there but they are either lesser alternatives, may not fit into groups, require specific situations or conditions where other things than just the class decides the outcome. So veils are mostly a thing of the past (esp. at 15-20) while things like ranged support or well-play is more for the realm of zerging or guild-busting with zergs or zergy guilds where builds are not as decisive as other issues.

Jana.6831:

That’s a bit unfair.
They brought a lot of what a lot of people wanted on these forums (I know not everybody is here or stays the same) into that map. Mainly chokes. And I don’t remember whether or not someone complained about other stuff but the main complaint on these forums was that there’s too many zergs.
Also: The maps I find the most beautiful in this game are Orr – weird, huh? My favourite stuffed animal is a unicorn though.

That’s a fallacy because you base it on a misconception. The same people who complained about zergs or whatever could also have told you that chokes are not counters to larger groups. Especially not in a ranged meta or when stability mechanics work the way they do at the moment – then chokes will aid larger ranged groups with more control cover (who can both close off- and push through the choke more easily).

As far as the topic goes, yes, it is a nicely polished dookie.

For me it’s very simple: It is population balance.

In risk of sounding like a broken record: It is also population balance in the understanding that “population balance” = scoring system + stability mechanic.

Rolling the stability back would not only balance range to melee again. It would most importantly balance larger servers to smaller servers (and eliminating one of the largest reasons that players move to overpopulated servers). It would secondarily, but almost as importantly, balance guild groups to server groups again, making sure people joined guilds to diversify tactics. It would also recreate the added dimension of the ripping-to-control mechanics over just control-spam again, which, to me, had much more appeal in how it enouraged smart team play on a good offense-defense balance (making rip, control, damage a three-stage process) over just mindless spamming all in one place.

A better scoring system would bridge the divide of “PPT servers” and “fight servers” that has existed since the prelude to the first season. It would give everyone a reason to compete on the same premises for the same goals. The divide has only ever existed because the system has been inherently imbalanced and has split servers accordingly.

There is alot to gain in resulting behaviour from those two rather small changes.

LionChain.7694:

Fay, have you ever fought a mantra PU burst mesmer in WvW roaming before? It is pretty cheese b/c PU is OP.

We all have – and it is completely unimpressive in the current environment.

It is worse than it was a year ago before we even got the full tree trait model.

It has been nerfed multiple times since the summer.

The expansion has brought in a number of new builds that does better.

That has brought in a new meta where players run at least some basic survival buffer.

Add to that, that Mesmers have always been fairly predictable to an experienced player and that their burst has a moderate to low reapplication time or pressure (without condi or condi hybrid stats) and you will not be able to convince anyone here on the Mesmer forums about how you have trouble with a backtied, outdated, gimmicky and unfit assassination build.

I’m not saying you can’t burst with a full assassination build, you can, but it is very odd to see you come here to complain about such a build in a world of CoR, gunflame, longbows, traps and buffed thieves. Not to mention certain broken condi- and hybrid builds (of which the Mesmer has its best builds currently too, and has had since last june).

messiah.1908:

again its not mesmer meta rather moa and portal meta. without portal and or moa mesmer would not have been chosen.

Well, both yes and no. The new meta build has something else going for it too – the new amulet is perfect for the build – but that isn’t either really tied to the class as much as that it is tied to those stats and the runes. People have been attempting builds similar to that one since HoT launched but it hasn’t really been viable until january when those stats became available (and only in sPvP).

So to a degree it’s a moa-portal meta and before people picked up on mercenary’s it was certainly nothing but a moa-portal meta but the build can handle itself a bit better now and add things to the team with some sustain and fair pressure. So now it’s more of a moa-portal-mercenary-condirune meta, on top of the new class stacking rules, but you’re kind of right in how it’s still not really about the class (as demonstrated by the class outside of the specific meta in the build’s specific mode where those isolated rules apply).

I can appreciate that you are trying to give commanders more tools to help other players, but you downplay the possible misappropriation of such tools. It is antisocial behaviour wherever it is displayed and it goes against the spirit of this game. We don’t need more of that here and there are other ways for commanders or servers to evaluate and improve organisation of their groups.

Almost every class with stealth can stealth like that now.

Try to be a bit more constructive and provide some context when you create a thread.

Step, I wonder if you didn’t answer your own question when you made that list.

The sum of recent changes (including the introduction of CS) has put the class into a position of more gimmicks and less redundancy. The class has always been a rather gimmicky class and those of us who play it has kind of accepted that. The way CS stresses big plays and how the class has lost out in other aspects has just sorted of tilted over that feeling into what many players (going by the surmise of this thread) look upon negatively – both Mesmers themselves and players who meet them.

It is interesting to note that recent trends are a bit of a throw-back to the very first months of the game when skills like mimic, mirror images and signet of illusions saw more use. The time since then has, arguably, been more entertaining even if there have been other onedimensional builds.

I’m not too fuzzed about it, but given the choice, I would probably prefer to see a rework of the elite with a treatment similar to other classes who had their f-skills replaced with a new theme. There is alot you could do replacing existing shatters with time-oriented effects instead (slow, alacrity, cs etc.) – that would make the build less prone to just window spam of long cooldowns and shatters that quickly gets boring or hated upon.

The most pressing issue with chrono is probably to do something about wells since people generally just use the elite well in the cc spam. A rework of the f-skills could work in tandem with that – providing effects that synergizes with wells without forcing someone who picked chrono up to use wells. As noted, any such change really requires wells to be changed first though since they are a prenerfed and mismatched mess now.

That is a simple way out anyway and in line with what you said about limiting the effect even further to certain abilities. It would obviously be even better to make a full overhaul of something far more user friendly and QoL-retaining that doesn’t shoehorn the class into either gimmicks or builds for playability, but that is hard to comment on or put in concrete words for now.

The logical result of being outnumbered lie in point generation and thus it should be tied to scoring. Not just the PPK aspect (PPK has more to do with the stability issue) but by making the objectives tied to the outnumbered side considerably less valuable. In fact, the buff should be tiered, display figures and gradually devalue objectives on the side of the defensive positions on a map.

That will encourage equally matched servers to fight each other more in a matchup and encourage an outnumbering server to maintain its own side plus few offensive objectives in a onesided matchup. It won’t stop a dominant side (at a given time) from scoring and extending a lead, but it will stop their score from rushing away in off-hours and after various demoralization pushes (ie., commander sniping, with a commander tagging down and leaving a map outnumbered).

Ultimately, it should be tied to the idea of dynamic map/overflow generation too, so we don’t get boring queues or unecessary alliance/multiserver systems. All we need is a proper scoring- and map generation system to encourage players of any and all timezones to spread even and thin.

It surprises me that it has not been talked about more yet, since it is a reasonably easily implemented change and would solve many high-priority issues like nightcapping, bandwagon transfers, queues and depopulated tiers/leagues (population imbalance).

Peterson.8345:

3. vote or data evaluation = to see what folks want the most, and also to point out controversial topics

While I agree with the general surmise of your post, I have to comment on this.

Computer games are art, thus they belong to the field of arts and sciences where there is objective truth. Voting and popular demand has been popular in the industry in recent years. It has been good for business but very bad for games as products (quality/legacy).

Point three should be data evaluation: discourse, qualitative analysis within the community and where professionalism comes in from the developer’s side in terms of communication, elaboration with attention to implementation and executive choices.

Windwalker.7421:

Now with F5, Moa is bound to get nerfed, then people will whine about TW and/or GW, both of which area nearly as strong as Moa overall. (Far more reliable, and very impactful in team fights.) So what then, these get nerfed too before Anet finally gets it right and nerfs CS, and then leaves the now neutered Elites as they are?

I found this quote quite telling as it sums up alot of the plights that plague the class at the moment.

First burst damage was nerfed in several takes and then the game changed around it (shatterlock, anguish, mirror, powerblock/mantras – the figures are just very milky, especially compared to new specs) with tankier builds, healers and more passives.

Then stealth was first (corespec) modelled on other classses and nerfed before the game changed around it (elite spec), ie., nerfed in a very temporary summer environment and then more stealth was given to other classes and more reveals added without review.

Rip-play, the game has changed around it through mechanics (the class had among the best rips in the game and it worked in tandem with having a decent access to interrupts – ripping boons to land interrupts, now it can’t keep up with the spam).

Lock-play, the game has changed around it through boon overflow and mechanics (there’s just so much stun and stability spam now that the old specialized lock-setups are fairly pointless to play between access, counters and accuracy).

Counter-play, the game has changed around it through overflow and mechanics (so much unblockable stuff being stacked in now and Mesmers always had a unique relation to evadable unblockables and counter-attacks before).

The HoT stuff, nerfed before it even had time to settle because of sPvP bunkering (alacrity, wells [blur] and slows could have added so many new ways to play the game but are just poorly pieced together and prenerfed as it stands).

There are just so few unique things left to build the class (or its builds) around now – luckily the portal is still here to crutch the class in some situations.

What the class needs the most is surely some unique things to build around that isn’t the portal. Something to use the class for. It’s like the class was balanced for corespecs during corespecs and now trail an expansion and a few patches behind, waiting for some temporary fixes to be reviewed that have lingered for six months when new ways to play the class began to be explored (ie., replacements to shatter-rip, shatter-lock and condi-clone mechanics and norms that are over a year- and multiple balance passes old).

I mean, condi shatter has been here since june ‘15 and the only larger change we’ve seen from chrono is giving up DE for the ability to slot perplex. It got old, quickly.

The warrior elite is pretty dull and largely unused too but at least it improved upon existing builds and didn’t sell worse versions of the old builds back to them (gunflame being an evolution of killshot rather than a degeneration of it, which alacrity-shatter (to rip and lock) and condi-shatter arguably are. While active condi-shatter certainly is more fun to play – for everyone involved – than condi-clone, it is not necessarily better.

I still see alot of potential in the class with slow+chill and haste+alacrity being able to create interesting new “time” effects with wells and balance passes could revive unique aspects like rips, blurs and lock/counter bursts, but they have to be allowed some effect.

I’m not going to delve into a swath of negativity here, but I do want to leave a word of caution. This thread, out of all the feedback provided, being noticed and highlighted by Gaile worries me because it is quite possibly the worst form of feedback provided on this forum.

It is mostly just a bunch of oppinions and holds very little argumentation and discussion. People who prioritize things like autoloot are unable to connect autoloot to loot and loot to content providing them loot (commanders that enable loot-generation or a balance that reliably generate loot). Data sampled from threads like this say alot about what people want unreflectedly and short-sightedly but very little about what they need or want once they have been provided context and have negotiated an understanding.

I fear that a majority wishlist will create more community backlash, long term. The quantity approach is very likely to yield new “you do not understand us” remarks as there is very little understanding to be derived from mere metrics. There are only whats, no whys or hows. If we want understanding we can not just collect piecemeal data.

With that said (worried that this thread is being prioritized…),

1. Get the old stability back, it worked (= fix population imbalance)
2. Dynamic scoring system: score/map/players (=fix population imbalance)
3. Progression in the game mode (=skins, finishers, ascended etc.)
4. Old maps (= roll back and iterate on solid ground, Alpine + small changes)
5. Balance, balance and balance (=get the fluff out and work on classes/specs)

Lord of Rings.5371:

Another idea is to increase rewards for WvW to boost WvW population.

We need to set down some definitions. The population imbalance is something different from the overall dwindling population. In fact, looking at alot of todays post-AMA comments, it is obvious that alot of people commentating are confusing how the different things relate to oneanother.

The population imbalance is one factor that contributes to the dwindling population. Not the other way around. That also means that separate issues, like the maps or the rewards are factors that affect the population, do not affect the population imbalance, only the overarching game mode popularity question. The population imbalance is all about direct gameplay (eg., stability-) and scoring (eg., off-hour cap and tick-) issues.

Keep the discussions separate and structured to reduce clutter and improve clarity.

Lord of Rings.5371:

The Matched Entry system for WvW was an idea discussed a while back. This would bring a simple mechanism for balanced matches but players might be queued.

The matched entry system could work very well with a relative-number scoring system. Instead of locking people out of maps they could move people to new overflows that either begin at lower scores (being given a value reflective of the smallest server’s population on the map – so if the player spread is 10:80:80 the map’s value is 10) or directly reflects the relative (so a 20:40:40 map would be as valuable as a 40:80:80 map).

That would also mean that an overpopulated server would queue their players into an empty overflow that allow players to roam that map (say, 0:0:10) but that the map would have no tick value at all, just personal rewards for the captures, until opponents arrive.

Another upside of such a system is that they could introduce a form of megaserver system without removing servers and server communities. They could easily have one server face different opponents on different overflows as they fill up maps. Furthermore, it could even be used to effectively combat lag and large server population disparities since they could tone down map caps without causing more queues or otherwise affecting server populations adversely. They could even automate it with triggers on server hardware health splitting maps, though that is more a possibility than a necessity.

Veles.1405:

I am certain this post will draw out the trolls in the community (the same ones who take to the forums and Reddit to attack devs), but someone needs to speak up for the part of the WvW community who support what has been announced today through the AMA and other sources. I am all for trolling (Maguuman WvW player since beta) but many of the comments I have seen today were simply disrespectful and unnecessary. Today we had a chance to provide valuable feedback but it got drowned out in a flood of people venting.

While I agree with the spirit of your post Veles, do not forget that they still haven’t told us anything.

Stating that there is a population imbalance that needs to be adressed is as overt as stating that water is wet or sunshine makes you warm.

We need to be told early how they intend to adress it so we can help out before more resources are sunk into something they have to roll back again, when we react to it.

With all that lengthy jabbering said: I’ve noted before and I’ll say it again – that the biggest issue the Mesmer has as a class is that they have lost a vision. The class launched with the idea of combining transportation utility with a rip-counter-burst role. The Mesmer was in many regards similar to the Necromancer. Since then larger vision- and mechanical changes have sort of stepped onto and obscured the Mesmer’s role. Ripping has been replaced by control-spam (and the Necromancer have seen quite drastic improvement to its corruption counterparts) and other classes have been given more stealth/transportation, control and burst. The Mesmer had some potential appeal in more group-utility and control/counter-control with the Chronomancer but it sort of came pre-nerfed or got axed very quickly because of bunkering. The old roles (and the variety between them) is gone and the new potential roles got smothered in their infancy. That sort of leaves us with portals and some burst, a meager and not undisputable role.

Looking briefly at the years since launch (ignoring condi) you would have shatter and lockdown builds evolve into double-range shatter and shatter-rip, then into shatter-CI and shatter-lock until corespecs brought the condi-shatter and hybrid-shatter builds.

In most of those steps it was very easy to see what you would use a Mesmer for. Today it is becomming increasingly difficult to see what you would use a Mesmer for (and it is not because “the class is bad at everything” but rather because the class lacks some sort of defining vision). The answer quickly just boils down to portals and while portals are fun and often underutilized that does not say very much about the class as a whole.

messiah.1908:

so what has changed?

- Shatterlock (anguish+halting) nerfed
- Anguish itself nerfed
- Mantras nerfed (fixed)
- Stability trends (affects daze)
- Stealth-management nerfed

- Bunkers (although only in sPvP) nerfed
- Alacrity nerfed (HoT unique)
- Wells nerfed (HoT unique)

Alright, I’ll confess, I’m just putting it like that to be a tad cheeky but there is some speck of truth to it as well. The (hybrid-) condi shatter builds have been around since corespecs and they largely replaced shatterlock builds then (after the initial figures on anguish had been adjusted) and pure power builds saw an overall damage decrease in trade-off with more stealth and utility skills (which later got toned down too). The new-old hybrid build is essentially played just like shatterlock but includes blind-condition conversion instead of daze-damage conversion (and domi for illu ofc).

Overall that also says quite alot about the class since almost every change since has been adjusted in some way, leaving the class both weaker and more streamlined than before corespecs hit (ie., worse than about five balance passes ago when we still placed points).

We have started to see some builds come up that utilize the chrono tree, but they usually don’t really utilize the chrono tree – they mainly just use it for either the runspeed minor so they can have proper runes or for illusion-generation as an option to evasion.

In many ways those builds are not necessarily better than the corespec-hybrid (illu-duel-chaos) as that build still has alot of synergy, but since that build is very dependent on traveler runes many players see the option to trade chaos for chrono+condi runes and optionally trade duel for inspi (going chrono+inspi for clone generation and getting some cleanses/heals). While the builds differ alot in terms of traits they are still geared and played the same ways. So while there are some trait options the defining difference remains corespec+traveler or chrono+perplex/torment/nightmare for hybrid-shatter.

There have been people playing shatter and the chrono tree does flirt with ways to play double-range shatter with alacrity cycling for sPvP big-plays (portals etc.) ontop of phantasm-retention traits (making better use of phantasms in your illusion-generation).

However, like bunkering that is mostly just an organized sPvP thing and those builds took a hit with the alacrity nerfs. Furthermore, as far as I’m concerned they were already less interesting than old power-shatter builds. There have been people putting out nice shatter videos since (Jazz had a nice clip out a few weeks ago for example) but it is also very evident when looking at those that it is the player carrying the build rather than any form of opposite or synergy – they do alright in spite of the build, not because of the build and as much as the videos highlight the ability of the player they also highlight the shortcomming of the build and disparity in player choices (ie., I’m not saying the author only does well because the opponents are bad, I’m saying that the author generally does better than the opponents and the nerve comes from the build holding the author back).

With all that covered, yes, I believe you answered your own question already in the first post. Condi-shatter (or hybrid-shatter) exist because pure power-shatter has taken much larger hits from a variety of recent changes – both direct, indirect, combinatory & relative.

There is no need trying mend one imbalance with another.

AoE is prevalent because of CC and CC is spammed because the mechanics were changed to amount (rather than timing).

As always, the solution to the ranged AoE and CC spam is to revert stability back to a system of coverage and rips instead of boon-spam to condi-spam to cleanses.

I don’t believe the issue lie in tweaks as much as in vision, mechanics and environment. The result is that the Mesmer is being pushed out of several roles but the reasons to play a certain way are still there. For example, the addition of chrono traits still play into the way eg., Helseth traditionally has played Mesmer in spvp (with portal rotations and double-range shatter) it is just that there is still a large disconnect between some of the new specs and the other in terms of base damage. Once a proper balance pass is made it is likely that we will see a returning appeal for such builds – with a normalization of weapon damage and possible changes to stat-weight trends as a result – as they rest on burst logic.

The other issues mostly lie in class mechanics where there are alot of things that could work but does not work. All the changes to Well mechanics is a good recent example of that since dealing with the issues attributed to them has sort of gutted the vision of what a Chrono was supposed to be, for now. Wells are not the only mechanics where vision is lopsided though and comming up with new roles for the class probably has to involve some sort of broad utility overhaul along with other unreliable effects and bugged functions. It applies to things like Mantras, interrupts and other class-iconic mechanics as much as it does to Wells. They can work, but for now they’ve just been “quick-fixed”, to not.

So, it’s not really an issue of damage, cooldowns or tweaks as much as it is an issue of scrapped visions and roles for the class to play (outside of sPvP too – people often overlook my preferred game mode, which is WvW, where many of the changes due to bunkering also hit the class hard in a game mode where there is no bunkering – taking utility away).

There are many things that could work but they are either extremely user-unfriendly right now or they are bugged, does not scale as intended (over modes) or are implemented as envisioned. It is a gum-and-duct tape job that still has potential if properly revisited, soon.

It is funny that you mention it since there are underlying reasons for it. If one is to get technical, communities tend to develop over aesthethic appeal and broad appeal. Classes that have the first tend to attract alot of players and the players committed to the class tend to get their voices drenched out. Classes that have the second tend to be very volatile with large swings between happiness and unhappiness along with rather extreme ideas on how to get from one to the other.

The Mesmer has never really had any broad aesthetic appeal (it’s an aquired taste) or any broad ingame roles, so the community is likely to be rather small with lower expectations where reasonable and committed players make up a relative large portion of those who post here. Then everyone can get frustrated, disappointed and unhappy from time to time.

So yes, it makes sense.

Why do people come up with these suggestions to homecooked problems?

Class balance in WvW, the same as all game modes, worked perfectly alright for two years. I’m not going to say it was all gold and green meadows but it worked reasonably well as for any game. Very few people had any cross-mode complaints and the issues that did exist in WvW was mostly tied to undecisive class design (eg., Rangers not really being decided if they should be range, melee or havoc oriented – being a bit of everything and ending up becoming committed to nothing). Alot of the initial balance (such as stability mechanics) had different scales and game modes in mind. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked quite alright.

That brings us to the second issue you bring up. The infamous “population imbalance” is as simple as scoring system + stability mechanics redesign. That’s all there is to it. Before april 2014 the only issue people had with population imbalance was in the scoring part, not in the day-to-day gameplay part and even though it affected any long-term goals in the game mode, the community dealt with it alright in terms of gameplay (servers mostly ending up grouped based on culture and ideas, given how scoring worked). It wasn’t ideal, it needed long-term appeal and iteration, but it had no pressing issues as far content was concerned.

Instead, the big issue we see now with migration, dropping participation and completely onesided matchups is mostly due to the stability change making smaller servers (groups) much weaker against larger servers (groups) in direct gameplay. It is not fun to already be at a disadvantage only to be put in a situation where you don’t get to push your buttons and the buttons you push hardly affect opponents: only because they have more players.

That’s why players move to tier one and that’s the population imbalance.

I’m not sure if gunflame is such an isolated issue, but this thread is a good testament to the severity of the issues that plagues WvW.

First, the big systemic issues needs to be solved. The maps and events, the scoring system and the server-server (or group-group) balance that comes with stability and the ranged CC spam.

Then, when all of those things are done, Anet will have a long backlog of issues with massive power disparity between old specs and new specs. Like I said, gunflame isn’t really an isolated issue, it’s the same as with CoR, new thieves that chew through 20k+ HP and 3k+ AR before a heal goes off internal channel or the insane base damages of abilities on builds like Scrappers and Reapers. It’s just twice as high with little to no motivation.

While alot of those abilities (gunflame included) are intended to be “big attacks” there is a gross imbalance between them and old “big attacks” in both figures, counters and difficulty of application (or accuracy). I like that there are big attacks like gunflame, gravedigger or whatever else but it becomes ridiculous when their base damages are higher, cooldowns shorter, cost lower and application easier – so a single button pressed does more damage than a full Mesmer shatter rotation or more damage from a simple application mechanic than an Eles notoriously difficult-to-land dragon’s tooth. The latter is a good example of how big attacks can work. The new specs didn’t take that into consideration, at all it seems.

I didn’t find this thread until now. I’ve been playing the same concept lately and have play-tested it a fair bit, so here are a few notes:

On the Chrono tree:

Like Dondagora I’ve been looking at ways to better intergrate the Chrono tree with useful builds (beyond using it to play bunker or use the clonespeed and phantasm respawns to play double-range shatter again). The new builds felt uninteresting, rehashing old concepts and I had been growing tired of the shatter-blind hybrid that has been popular since late summer. I wanted something similar that better intergrated Chrono (so you didn’t just get Chrono for the QoL of runspeed etc.).

Very short on build-evolution:

That’s how I prefer it too, played like the oldest lockdown builds or some shatter-lock builds before shatter-blind builds took over: sword-sword and scepter-shield. Allowing block-counter buttons on every weapon along with double interrupts (GW2skills are updating atm. so I can’t see what Dondagora plays).

On Sigil of Draining:

The second reason was that I came across the new Sigil in TD. Sigil of Draining which should combine with the old halting effect of power block and make Lockdown concepts more interesting again. The general idea of it, along with overall balance in the game (with pew-Rangers and recently buffed Thieves) obviously guides you towards using Mistrust along with the interrupt mechanic on perplexity, especially now that Mistrust has been buffed from two stacks to four stacks. So far so good.

Ed.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Superior-Sigil-of-Draining

This seems to be true for PvE whereas in WvW or the Arena the effect does not seem to trigger at all (either the damage or the heal component). That would also explain my confusion while attempting to test it, as it does seem to work on NPC’s even if it isn’t logged. On players it doesn’t seem to work at all (at least in the Arena + unlikely in WvW).

On play-testing:

Sigil of draining is bugged however. It felt like it was working a few days back, when farming for a second one in pvE, even though it never showed up in the combat log, but I’ve done extensive testing in WvW and the Arena the past two days and it doesn’t work, period. I intended to test its ICD but it is completely bugged for now. If they fix it, it becomes very useful for this build and could push it to trend a bit.

Another interesting tidbit is that Mistrust has a /target ICD (of about the 5s standard) so it can ping multiple stacks (ie., interrupting two targets with eg., riposte will spread eight stacks to both) but you can not stack consecutive interrupts in short time-frames.

Finally, Confounding suggestions is also subject to ICD, so it may be worth noting that you can overwrite the stun-effect with a new daze, breaking stunned foes out of the movement impairment component (though keeping the skill-lock) if you attempt to interrupt-bomb or force interrupts through a cover (blocks, stability etc.).

On Mantras and stat-variation:

Ontop of that, it is good to remember that they have “fixed” mantras (so now they have channel + ICD + full CD) making them very unforgiving to use again. The interrupt mantra is obviously crucial to the build and the way you use the interrupts the issue only amounts to small irritation. However, the build can be played without hybrid stats and mistrust (using evasion or mantra traits) but that is severely limited by this new-old mechanical issue of mantras. The heal in particular is hardly worth using now as you have so many use-limitations on it that you often end up out of combat before you get to re-use it (never mind issues of getting interrupted or bursted inbetween ICD’s).

On utility-variation:

Instead, since we’re going Domi, I’ve experimented with signets as alternatives to the mirror-decoy-blink standard. It isn’t necessarily better but it does have some decent synergy for a hybrid-build. The blur is nice but a tad use-restricted too, given how the blur appears halfway through the short channel. The ability to cleanse through two-three signets is rather nice though as you give up both Torch and the transfer manipulation compared to other builds.

On condi and hybrids:

Going hybrid (or picking up any condi) I prefer to go very offensive not to exploit the issues with tanking or kiting behind condi pressure. That’s a personal choice though and nothing I point fingers about (I have no qualms about condi alone and I really do enjoy most hybrid builds – It just feels better to go full damage hybrid when picking up condi). However, with signets it might be an idea to pick up at least some tank so you can make the blur-time work better between weapon-counters, for a better weighted build. The same applies if you go full power: This isn’t necessarily a build that does best on complete zerk, unless you prefer to play that way for personal reasons.

On Chrono in-tree variation

I’ve also looked at intergrating either slows or hastes too, but overall I find the clone traits far more useful when we give up evasion for mistrust. The resummons often appear on last impact too, making the clones ready for quick reshatters. The slow might add a decent cleanse-cover but has little appeal beyond that as it tends to be up when daze is up too. Haste does have some appeal, since you can stack it over both shatters and interrupts, but for now the extra illusions are too useful to give up. Having mostly played shatter, I would miss evasion clones too much without the double resummon traits.

Verdict:
This is a really fun build with interesting and different synergies that could work very well, but it is currently plagued by both mechanical limitations, internal-balance issues of different traits and skills on the Mesmer as well as outright bugs. Talking about its balance to other classes feels pointless, for now. It can still be played, but it doesn’t really play as intended. If some of the bugs and glaring holes are adressed there is alot of potential in the build to utilize the new Chrono-tree outside of sPvP bunkering and range-shattering.

That would be a welcome addition in WvW at least, where Mesmers have lost alot of ground, has little post-HoT appeal or entertainment value and were hit very hard in terms of role or post-HoT meta-appeal by the blur-well nerf (which could have been a compensation for the class getting pushed out of some of its traditional roles). Hopefully, the bugs and other mechanical issues gain some attention rather sooner than later.

On a similar note, people seem to have alot of misconceptions when it comes to meta too. Meta is something that develops as creative groups adapt to changes and establishes when other groups start to copy them. There is a delay before it settles.

Things like rip-bombs, havoc-parties and assist-bombs became norm after the stability mechanics changes but they existed before the changes and developed in response pre-existing norms. Good groups never played full hammer train, they used rips and havoc (among other things) to dismantle and stomp hammer trains. The meta would have developed in that direction even without the change. The change did not drive that meta, instead the change drove the meta we see now. The creative groups warned about this situation (2016) already back then (2014) and have long since left the game.

The biggest problem people have with rollbacks is that they don’t understand their nature. It is a question of creating the shortest route to- and best platform for a position to build from. No one is suggesting that there are rollbacks of maps or stability to just leave them there for sentimental reasons. There are suggestions for rollbacks because it is easier to build up from a stable ground than to sift down from an unstable ground. Nevermind the short-term gains of playing in a less-broken balance until easier-implemented changes are implemented.

Tongku gives us nice examples of that in this thread. I may not entirely agree with his perspective on eg., rips (I found them to be working a tad better than he describes), but I think we can agree on that it is much easier to roll back and make small adjustments (improvements) to rips than it is to make large exhaustive adjustments to stability or throw in ad-hoc, less stable stability mechanics (like shoehorning in break bars or adding strip cooldowns to existing balance). Rolling back and improving rips is both more stable, easier to do and more likely to yield immidiate results that can be to improved upon.

Patching things up is usually something you do to postpone larger reinventions and it tends to both have worse short- and medium-term constructive results, because they require an ingenious invention rather than something functional that you can build on.

The old system wasn’t perfect, but we could revert to build on its imperfections.

The existing system is patchwork that will spring new leaks for every band-aid.

I’d say you’re pretty spot on and I’ll just add to it: Alot of people tend to sum up that the DBL’s are similar to EOTM, or built on the same ideals, and has as such inherited many of the same issues even though they are clearly different maps. The reasons for the comparisons are similar to those Mizhas already listed:

1. Objectives: In the betas someone posted a very well put map overview and forecast of content where the objectives were laid out as a circle. It was a good example of how the map is more akin to cap wars, rotations and objective races than map control where lines (and thus content) is pushed forward or backward.

2. Fluff: There is alot of fluff in the overall design that has little long-term tactical appeal. It feels more like it was temporarily put in to be cool than to be fun or good. It doesn’t really add to the overall vision of the game mode, regardless of scale. It adds to interrupt more fights than it adds to enhance them and even superior positioned defenders can find their own defenses annoying and disruptive of content.

3. Verticality and bottlenecks: I can see the idea behind them, the problem is that the idea was not properly investigated and missed its mark. Some verticality adds variety to fights (the areas aroun old Bay and it’s camps, with drops and bridges etc.) but too much of it just becomes tedious obstacles that hinder fights. It is good as an exception, not as a norm. The idea of alot of bottlenecks was probably to help guerilla style defenses against larger groups, but miscalculated how bottlenecks in a range-meta tend to reinforce it and mostly ends up helping larger groups keep smaller groups pinned and/or crush through and box in smaller groups’ attempts to not be overwhelmed. It has had the opposite effect, at least in existing balance of size, movement and control.

4. Size: The obstacles, size and rotating pace of the map combines to create an issue that makes finding both friends and enemies difficult. The idea may have been to break up unified groups and regroups, but making finding players more difficult is generally a bad way to incentivize splitting groups apart – especially not when it is coupled with worse micro content and small-large balance. The map design could be interpreted as encouraging small groups setting up ambushes but the large structures and cap-race oriented objectives certainly does not encourage small groups to snub micro-content.

The end result is largely negative.

Like Mizhas, I’ve also suggested looking at other games for how to handle map development. The examples I’ve used mostly come from World of Tanks, where they have been really good at map-rotation development: Where only small changes in texture, objective positions and verticality or obstacles are used to freshen up recognizable maps, to be churned out at steady pace on low development effort. They’ve done that very well.

Or they could, you know, roll it back to the way it used to work – which worked and worked on a logic – before the game’s collective CoR spammers decided to campaign against “them elitist guilds” and instated this environment that no one wants to command in, leaving us all for worse over time.

It is rather pointless to build an exhaustive list of work-arounds for a rather simple fix. Then again, considering how Anet adressed combat-ressing and other related issues, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them take you up on your duct-tape approach .

Brick, there is no need to be ostentatious. After 15-20 years of MMO development it is fairly well known that the production process of cooperative development goes through a number of phases, where each has a certain relationship to player feedback.

The genre implies continuous development and as such community management is also an ongoing process. It is called management for a reason. If the forums were managed John would not have to have made the kind of post he did.

Don’t get me wrong, we appreciate his effort but it is also a reflection of poor overall communication and management, where he (as a designer) has gathered data that should be a weekly report. That is the only feedback gathered so far and it is little more than a one-time reparation of communication flaws.

Past that, game designers tend to sit down and outline theoretical systems. Systems or schemes where player feedback is usually very important because they allow the designers to nip issues in the bud, before they’ve commited development resources to the goal and risk wasting development time on rollbacks.

Once that is done you tend to involve developers (artists, programmers etc.) and flesh out the outlined systems to look at how they can be implemented (technical limitations) before you go into the final production and implementation phases. Player feedback becomes less important there, but also not inconsequential until we reach production.

With that said, ArenaNet generally does not engage in cooperative development (few companies do in the ongoing pseudo-democratic development era of cash-shop games). The community managers and game designers do not operate like in the early days of the decade-old games (like World of Warcraft or EVE Online). When it comes to WvW however, it would very likely be a good idea for ArenaNet to do so, as WvW is this game’s most sandboxy mode where the community creates the content and the old design principles still apply. In WvW, balance can not be replaced by rewards (or distractions).

AmphibianX.7042:

during the first fight starting at 1:17 the guy recording was never with out Stability for more than 3 seconds. through out that whole battle which lasted a good 2 minutes. the guy was never knocked down, feared, stunt, pulled, pushed, etc, etc.
meaning that all the CC skills on that “100 man blob” failed.

Which is probably explained by that the “blob” did not coordinate any attempts to rip their stability. In fact, the players there probably didn’t even give up potential damage sources or personal utility to slot skills that could rip.

I’m old enough to have fought RG and they (or if it was an early incarnation of TA) were among the guilds who would use coordinated rip-bombs to punish groups who had no redundancy in their coverage. RG on the other hand, if you listen to coms with SacrX, has redundancy in their stability rotations: a tell that they are expecting to get ripped and respond to it.

Thanks for making my point, I guess.

zinkz.7045:

The only strawman is your permastab nonsense, the reality was even with just two guards in a party (let’s pretend melee blobs didn’t exist or commanders never stacked their party with guards) you had stab pretty much whenever you actually needed it.

Now, how is that for comical effect?

“There is no one complaining about permastab but stab was always there when needed”.

Also, are you suggesting that Guardians are still not the staple of a command party, a commander’s preferred class or one of the most widely used and important classes even in boring normative pirateship tactics? They are. The only thing that has changed is that several melee builds have become nigh redundant while common tactics today does not really do a better job at inviting off-meta approaches when squads are evenly matched. Unconventional builds only tend to be appreciated when you can be effective with them and ineffective builds are only really successful when you outnumber an opponent. Whatever success one has then comes from that imbalance rather than a healthier tactical climate. If a balanced melee-range bomb spread, with slight issues of availability for focus classes, was “imbalanced faceroll”, then having only ranged bombs hardly sounds like an improvement. Seeding stability in your squads is arguably more important now.

zinkz.7045:

As for the laughable boon rip, half the skills that rip boons in this game are unusable in large scale PvP (thief sword, mesmer rip on shatter, etc), the “main” AOE boon rip skill used (well of corruption) was a joke, because stability was last in order to be boon stripped, when most melee were going around with 4-7 boons permanently on them to cover stab, and between at least two guards and a warrior could reapply new cover boons so often it was ridiculous.

Stability was first to be ripped on focus skills and last to be ripped on AoE skills. That was a conscious design decision. It worked as intended and it worked well.

It allowed for havoc groups to quickly snap stability but not for it to be punitive on a broad scale. Instead, broad use implied to take stability from opponents when, as you said, they actually needed it. One was focused, one was broad. Focused more applicable and broad sparse. Stating that focus rip is ineffective in large scale is like stating that focus damage is ineffective in large scale and I presume most havoc groups would disagree with you, then as much as now. For someone who dislikes “facerolling” you seem to find many rather active roles laughable.

Similarily, saying that rip wells didn’t work then is like saying damage wells do not work now because the first tick of a single well does not instantly kill a player, but has to tick through the hitpoints or be timed well enough to stack or combine with other skills.

A well-timed combination of multiple wells along with rip-burst combos from an assist-bomb was usually very effective at taking stability away from players when they needed it the most and as such producing successful bomb-control from the group that managed their cooldowns the best, rather than having the most to spend.

The argument still rests on the principle that free movement should be the norm and restricted movement an exception. It is not meant to be easy to apply fight-decisive control as fights are supposed to be won in alternative ways too: through havoc, pushing backlines or surprising free-moving players. I’m not saying the old climate couldn’t be improved upon, I’m saying that the current climate is worse.

The problem with the stability discourse, as well as many other discussions regarding WvW lately, is that it is obscured by the misconceptions of stupid people. People who are completely unable to either look at the very simple mechanics behind the change and tally up the numbers or look into the context of how the stability change is the driving fault behind the “population imbalance” and general discouragement of content-enablers (like commanders, roamers, scouts etc). I have no better description for people who refuses to argue the points at hand or harp on about incontextual or peripheral issues.

There never was a “permastab” norm before the change. That is the misconception of stupid people who never understood how rips worked and simply wanted their spammable go-to buttons to be the end-all solution to some elitist guild, all-melee, permastab strawman. The changes to stability, making it part of a tit-for-tat cooldown trade, is in direct correlation to superiority of control effects, given how the game has more control effects on shorter cooldowns. It is an imbalance. That is the simple math.

By the same premise, it is in direct correlation to larger groups outperforming smaller groups [with fewer cooldowns to burn] (making transfering to higher populated servers more appealing) and pickup zone-blobs outperforming well-composed diverse groups (that tend to provide said pickup groups with commanders or other forms of leaders and content-enablers). They do not have sufficient counters to cover all the control or the uptime to match the reapplication of control effects. They simply run out of cooldowns.

That used to work well, with more control than counters but higher applied covers that had to be ripped from their players to impose control upon them. The current balance makes pinballing the norm and that is what makes range-to-range combat the norm. We had rips to boons, boons to conditions and conditions to cleanses rather than the breakbar-spam nonsense promoted in PvE now to create a simplistic version of that mechanical context. Tangent: Even in PvE it would probably had been more fun with bosses that corrupted boons to cleanse and reapply or stole boons to rip, steal or corrupt back.

All of this has created a transfer circus where players transfer to win, overpopulating already highly populated servers, followers transfering to find leaders, draining lower populated servers to the point where players have to transfer to even find players to fight and to participate in the basic premise of game mode – to have open world fights – and a dependence of more players upon fewer players, where old established commanders are expected to guide more, less experienced players. That is a terrible environment to command in, causing burn-out, limited tactics at one’s disposal and a general disinterest in the game mode, from the decreasing amount of players that an increasing amount of players depend upon. That’s the context.

Stability is at the heart of everything, from the personal enjoyment of getting to control your own character to the melee-range balance, finding fun friends to follow and exciting frenemies to fight. A game (mode) where restricted movement is the norm is simply garbage and completely counter-intuitively wasteful to the fantastic movement- and combat engine this game promises underneath the WvW scrapheap. That’s why many of us are so passionate about it too, because the WvW mode has so much potential in GW2. It stands to be the open-world market leader. The same can not be said for good stories, raids or esports, with cross-genre competition where our MMO is but a small contender.

Interesting thread Jayne.

I don’t think it is a social phenomenon as much as it is a strategic change within the industry. For the forums it is a reflection of changes to community management, but it goes beyond that to encompass the whole game or all games that a studio produces.

It came with what you can consider the third generation of MMO, as games moved away from the subscription model and a focus on product quality to free monetization and micro-transaction models, their developers also began paying less attention to the traditional roles of their community management. The cooperative development popular among first- and second generation games, where players and developers interacted over forums, have lost ground in favour of other social media focused more on poplularity than quality of discourse (like Reddit where commentators say less but vote more).

The developers themselves favour communication metrics and interpreting their results quantitatively, for a quantity-oriented development direction and business model, and have done so since about 2008. It’s about majority, opinion or popularity, rather than quality of ideas, presentation and discussion. The goal is catering to players more than making good games.

The cooperative development of old has swung in a direction of pseudo-democratic development for short-term profit (culminating with the next generation crowdsourced games), but often on the back of building a house of cards where players eventually will have trouble trying to play the game and create content together.

If you look at some of the fore-runners, especially among the more purist sandbox game developers, like CCP games, they have already felt the backlash of such development and have at least to some degree adjusted their direction in the past year or two. So far it has been alot of talk and little action, but they have begun lightly treading from words to action so there is a directional shift even though they seem to have trouble finding their heading and staying on course.

There is a very interesting correlation between broad and deep approaches, or casual and invested players, when it comes to immersion and furthering the product by telling stories and creating content. The WvW mode in GW2 is a very typical example of it, where changes being made to cater to a perceived majority could be argued to have a negative impact on players enabling content the majority play in (eg., commanders, where commanders are often guild-born even if they lead pickups, so changes that favours pickups over guilds can be detrimental to the birth cycle of new commanders and as such impact pickups themselves and overall content creation).

It is a very keen topic for both developers, server communities, guilds and players alike.

First off, thumbs up for the update, after several months of silence.

Secondly, it is surprising to see the amount of positive feedback these proposals are getting. I am going to be more reserved. Most of the problems seen in the game mode today are the results of haphazard changes implemented by you. The proposed changes raises concerns that you may be repeating the same mistakes. Most of these proposed changes do not adress the issues you have already identified.

If you read John Corpening’s last update you can identify a couple of pressing issues:

• Migration to highly populated servers
• Malbalance of distances and control
• Importance of off-timezone coverage for score
• Little to no rewards or progression

Since then we can add at least two pressing matters:

• Concerns about the size, layout and effects of the new map
• General pressing balance issues (as are to be expected)

That brings us to important short-term solutions

• Roll back the stability nerf
  This gameplay or balance change is what is driving players to migrate to overpopulated servers. The change imbalanced differently sized groups and players are transfering in order to win. It made having more players better. Concerns about overabundant control and range fights leading to stand-offs can be attributed to this as well, but they are secondary concerns, compounded by facing a larger group from a higher populated server with more control, break-cover and ranged classes.

• Roll back to the Alpine Borderlands
  New maps are not a problem. We do not dislike new maps, we dislike the new map. Re-do and do-right. You need to learn how to iterate upon what you have and expanding upon the game mode, rather than completely changing the entire premise of the map and the game mode. Learn from the two mistakes (EoTM and Deserted). Roll back to the Alpine maps, iterate upon them and release new different but similar maps when available.

• Introduce some sort of reward system
  If you can create a system involving both resources and cosmetics (skins, finshers, titles) for sPvP you can do it for WvW too. The concerns about players farming the game mode for rewards are rather misplaced as you can farm any other game mode as easily and it is not impossible to find a reward system for WvW that is balanced to the other two.

• Find a simple way to adress score and timezone coverage before you dabble in killpoints
  A simple short-term solution would be to base tick values off of hostile players on map. Making it fully dynamic to active players. That will give you sufficient leeway to work and properly playtest a more complex (map-access and-) scoring system.

Do not try to reinvent the wheel, that goes for players and developers alike.

Thumbs up for an interesting topic. The topic, however, is in dire need of coherent terminology and to define some sort of structure.

People need to see and clarify what something like a Megaserver solution does and what it doesn’t.

Guilds, Servers and Megaservers
Whether we talk about preserving servers, combining servers or breaking up servers in favour of guild-driven constellations, the two latter only adds weekly variation and ways to pair different player-communities together. They do not deal with the discrepancies or disparities of populations and weekly pairings directly. They provide a greater variety in how we could pair things, they do not say anything about how we pair the matchups.

Moving towards Megaservers does, as such, not directly solve the population issues and neither are other solutions (that involve preserving servers or rotating guilds) disqualified from solving the population issues. Megaservers and mega-guilds provide a framework for greater weekly variation, that’s all they do.

The population issue itself is solved by direct gameplay balance (ie., it began to profile and become a problem after the stability nerf), by more accurate and timely updates on population statistics and by letting population factor into the pairing of opponents in relation to tallied scores.

So Megaservers does not solve or ruin anything by itself, it’s an option to discuss in order to determine how friends and enemies should relate to oneanother. To solve the population issues we need to look at those three other things: How size disparity should balance in gameplay, more effectively factor into weekly matchups and/or whether (relative-) population itself should be a direct factor in the draw for matchups, map access, score and tally of scores.

The maps
I would favour rollback to Alpine, a lesson learnt for Anet, a future where Anet look at how Wargaming (the industry leaders of map rotations) handle map diversity and rotation (by keeping recognizable templates but repurposing details, such as simply moving obstacles and objectives while preserving the general lay of the land) and an implementation of some kind of rotation.

If handled well, this can lead to a better variation and available diversity to rotate over for a future system that is built to maintain some dynamics and rotations.

New maps are good, the map we got with HoT is bad because of it’s inability to put opposing groups together (size, routes, superfluous effects, terrain). A dislike of the Deserted borderlands does not equate a dislike of new maps. We can critize the new map but still be in favour of new maps.

There are plenty of maps, in eg., WoT, where they have only moved the score zones around and shifted the season of the map to another theme. That would be akin to a variation of EB where SM is removed and replaced with an additional tower each at each entrance. That’s what we players referred to when we asked about new maps, we never asked for multi-leveled, supersized, event-stocked, bouncing, pushing, stealthing, shielding, dinosaur-guarded orbital-striking and tactivated effects.

An example of yet another system
Dynamic overflows are not bad, just because OS was labelled an overflow it never has served as. Perhaps a system with lower caps that rotate new maps in dynamically and let their value and score reflect their populations – eg., the more players a server have on a map relative the others at any given time the less valuable the map becomes. That would go a long way to deal with both timezone issues and population issues – without necessarily hamfisting timezone restrictions and rather softly encouraging off-timezone communities (like the communities on AU-heavy US servers or CAN-heavy EU servers) to spread thin for content and value.

That would at least present them with an option and a dynamic – rather than a volatile situation where they are either too important or not important enough – a dynamic that is the same for every timezone: If you outnumber at any time and get added to a flow with no opposition, your contribution will be less important for the score.

That’s the best suggestion I can come up with, off the top of my head.

- Lower cap, to ensure most servers have coverage, that also helps performance issues.
- Create dynamic generation of each available map (eg., several EBG’s) over the cap.
- Either preserve or remove the EB / border norm or slim it down (4->4->4 or 1->1->1).
- Add a map rotation to the dynamically generated flows, or not (EB1->BL1->BL2).
- Keep the traditional servers, or add a mega-server/mega-guild rotation if you want.
- Roll back the stability nerf: mobility should be norm and immobility an exception.
- The stability nerf has only aided larger groups and execerbated the population issue.

MadRabbit.3179:

I consider auras to be a gimmick since it hinges on auras and a few very specific trait choices.

Indeed, which makes pigeon-holing you into specific builds just to play with them bad because then those builds become gimmicks. Auras are not a gimmick: they are an effect, nothing else. When it comes to other non-boon effects (fears, stuns, stealths etc.), you very rarely see their traits spread out over all trees or have their basic components split over multiple trees – since that would cause gimmick builds rather than intergrating the effect to the basic playstyle of the class or the archetypical builds. I don’t have to wander around sniping in trees to make those things work on other classes’ utilities and weapons.

It feels odd having to repeat myself but if you go back and look at those suggestions I have made that you set out to draw conclusions from, I am suggesting spreading the effect around because the horn and the scepter have less auras than the daggers – not because I want the warhorn to just be an aura-dispenser – but to escape the feeling where I am compelled to pick daggers over scepters or horns, for their auras rather than other appeal.

It’s pretty simple really, a gimmick is a gimmick because it either does too few things well (fresh-air cannons) or too many things not well enough (auramancers). You go on about overloads as if they were the problem. They’re not. The problem is with the warhorn, the shouts and the style of gameplay they inescapably put you into. Everything else is just a question of synergy in traits.

The issue I have is that, even when picking up Tempest traits, I keep reverting back to staff or daggers and utilities on common stat weights because they are simply better – for everything – even if I build to support horn and shouts with some dedication. That’s the problem. While you keep finger pointing about gimmicks, I’m starting to believe that you are the one who are too hung up on the content you want to use the build in or what for.

That also seems to be the misconception or confusion of the traits. I’m not arguing for a build that just pop auras, I’m arguing against the kind of temp-water-earth aura-builds that only tanks and heals because they have no role outside of bunkering.

That’s the same issue the scepter and certain other utilities have had in the past too – and moving powerful auras to another tree becomes important once we consider that it not only collides with the heals and cleanses, but also with the cantrips and their effects too.

@ MadRabbit

I’m not sure if it is me you are replying too, but yes, that is essentially what I’m saying. You could certainly say that it does follow the history of the scepter . I’m using the word fragmented to point to it, not necessarily to imply that it’s broken but to point to how its collection of skills (as you put it) is all over the place. It is gimmicky and that’s the problem with the Tempest.

Being acceptable:

As far as everything else goes, being supportive is not necessarily too specific. Support can involve both heals, control, boons, damage and other effects. That the specialization is supportive can be seen in how it caters to auras, boons and ground effects with the overloads, warhorn and shouts. That is supportive by nature. While the warhorn (and the scepter) having issues competing with staves and daggers to achieve that adds to the gimmick and leads to the situation where – looking broadly at the game – it seems far more appealing to just add overloads, bastion and better protection to common staff- and dagger builds.

A plethora of builds:

As far as builds go, it’s trickier since the meta has to settle, they tend to differ depending on game-mode and traits tend to provide options that may not necessarily change the playstyle as much as weapons or stats do. I’d say there are some options but those options, again, also add to the gimmicky feel of picking the elite spec or the warhorn.

You are locked into Tempest. Water provides the aura share, but is little more than a crutch besides that (you can add some healing/cleansing traits and reasons to keep a cantrip or two) so it kind of highlights the gimmick issue. You essentially pick an entire tree just for a single trait. There are other traits that are nice but none that enhances the style, they rather contradict it, giving you reasons not to pick shouts or warhorn.

Lightning has the fresh-air overload synergy you spoke of and together with some options in the minors it’s not bad. It also serves as a good example of what I spoke of initially: It’s an attempt to make an existing gimmick (scepter, fresh-air builds) less of a gimmick, while falling short of the goal, because scepter-warhorn does not synergize well enough or compare to other options.

Earth has additions to protection and tanking in general, there are some powerful traits here but nothing you can’t live without. I’ll leave it at that for now. It’s not a bad couple as far as trees go, I just don’t have much to say about it.

Arcane may seem as an odd tree but it does have auras on res and boon additions that go in line with how supportive Ele builds used to be played (old splash and mercy builds), so the synergy is high with some tree-combinations but the effect is low. It’s kind of opposite to earth in that regard, but similarily, there isn’t much more to say about it.

Finally, Fire may also seem like an odd pick but once you factor in maintaining a style from a defensive build (with eg., Cele gear or the new boon/condi duration stats) then there are some things in Fire that become very valuable, including might-stacking. Fire is the tree I’m having the most trouble letting go off, because If I don’t play glassy and pick up a warhorn, I feel like I really need those damage additions to maintain some output.

Back to the argument:

In fact, most other trees have something to offer and that is fine. The problem is that Water has the least to offer, with the least synergy and most interference from the Tempest traits, yet Water has the all-important aura-share if you want to go the auramancing route. Hence water is problematic because it essentially locks you into two trees and leave you in a situation where you almost end up as a healer instead: a role we know by experience to be quite limited by the game and only one aspect of playing supportive with auras (and not any less gimmicky than old mercy/auramancing builds).

All in all, I’m not sure if we disagree about the availability of builds either. I just wanted to point to a few more trait synergies that exist – beside fresh-air/overload – and highlight why Water is the problem. There is obviously a difference between a presumed intention, potential and what is practical. That’s sort of the main piece of my argument: I love the intention, I see some potential but it isn’t practical and that’s why only fragments (overloads, bastion, protection) is being picked up by builds and play styles that are practical. I would love to use the warhorn and go somewhat tanky, but outside of bunkering, it’s just far more practical to stay on staff or daggers and just use those fragments to enhance what you already do.

The issues are quite easily solved though by simply moving powerful auras, to essentially any other tree (even though it would probably best fit into arcane if it is to remain a grandmaster trait), and adding more auras to the warhorn than the dagger. In an ideal world Anet would capitalize on the opportunity to do something about the scepter, possibly adding auras to compete with the dagger there too, that fits into a tempest and warhorn playstyle.

I absolutely loved the idea of the Tempest when it came out, however, it shares the same problem as many other elite specializations: there isn’t a fully synergetic theme to it. The theme is fragmented and players are more likely to take bits and pieces and add them to already existing builds – which for the Tempest is particularily problematic because even though Elementalists as a class have always been very well-rounded when it comes to meeting content or comparing to other classes, it has never had much internal harmony.

It’s very abstract putting it like that, so let me explain it. The Tempest promised two-three things when it was first unveiled: auramancing, an alternative to stance-dancing with overloads and a short-med AoE-support playstyle with the Warhorn.

Auramancing and support-builds have always been around but they have also always been niche builds and the Tempest felt like an attempt at making the underplayed niches of the class more competetive. The problem is that the build attempts to do too many things at once and never really does anything well enough.

Instead, popular existing builds – using daggers and staves – look to incorporate the Tempest line the best by just adding overloads to existing attacks or because a setup like D/D already perform better than any options that attempt a more supportive approach. Staff fields and abilities are supportive in their own right. There are more auras on the daggers, the baseline-stack relative of healing power is still questionable which becomes very appearant with bastion, and the self-supportive goodies lost on both weapons and traits do not justify switching up weapons or builds.

That’s the gist of it. That’s also why we see most of the use involve using the new traits and functions to cover glassy dagger and staff builds – the already most popular builds.

Ed. With the exception of the sPvP bunker builds of course, but surviving duels to force rotations isn’t much of a class role in that sense. It requires a specific game mode and a specific situation – where you play only in one way, your team mates understand what you do, and the pace of the game allow you to be effective – on top of that. Outside of that context that build does not really exist.