Curse

Verene · Nov 21, 2009, 07:58 PM // 19:58

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You change one skill's description to "nerf" or adjust it, and it suddenly has this crazy synergy with another skill and becomes the new meta or FotM. It's a vicious cycle, and the only way to stop it is to balance very few skills at a time, looking at that skill and any skills that potentially have synergy with it, and making adjustments accordingly. If you can't do that, leave the skills alone.

I really, seriously, honestly do not think people really understand that concept, or are even aware of it. Everyone talks about creating builds with skills that synergize (is that even a word? Well, it is now) with each other, but I don't think they really realize how just one tweak to one skill can have a huge effect on everything else.

I think it's pretty clear that they want to nerf SF in such a way that it's no longer god-mode, but it's still viable for some farms. Hence it's not nearly as simple as taking a bat to the skill and utterly destroying it. They not only have to look at the changes made to it, but also the changes made to the other skills that work with it.

snaek · Nov 21, 2009, 08:21 PM // 20:21

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Originally Posted by rahja the thief

there are too many skills in Guild Wars to effectively balance all of them on a skill to skill synergy level (READ THAT AGAIN IF YOU DON'T GET IT!!). Once you understand that, it is only a short step to a full understanding of why there are no more Guild Wars 1 chapters, and Guild Wars 2 is on its way. You change one skill's description to "nerf" or adjust it, and it suddenly has this crazy synergy with another skill and becomes the new meta or FotM. It's a vicious cycle, and the only way to stop it is to balance very few skills at a time, looking at that skill and any skills that potentially have synergy with it, and making adjustments accordingly. If you can't do that, leave the skills alone.

exactly...
so tell me why they changed it to bi-monthly updates, which even that schedule they can not seem to follow? it simply takes time, and by the looks of it they are not putting in much if any at all. anet is obviously out of the loop in terms of skill balance, and unless they get back in there and stay there, its unlikely we will see a quality skill balance.

look how long its taking them to balance sf. if they were to actually monitor skill balance daily, they could have prevented the situation from being blown out of proportion. however, that is not what anet does--they do a skill balance, go away for an extended period of time until the community informs anet about the state of gw, at which point anet thinks its suitable enough for them to do a quick cleanup and call it a day.

skill balance requires maintenance. any person with common sense will tell you that it should be done regularly. the more time you spend on it, the more you will notice the subtleties--and careful balance is all about the subtle details.

Hooded Doom · Nov 21, 2009, 09:09 PM // 21:09

hurray SF nerf.....

now i get to quit the game, gg anet.

horde your ectos guys because their gonna be worth an assload.

qvtkc · Nov 21, 2009, 09:09 PM // 21:09

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Originally Posted by Joe Fierce

I've got an idea guys, let's all cry about problems we created!!! That's right, you, yeah you, the community, you created this problem, it's not a matter of imbalance, it's a matter of the willingness and free thought to put together something more effective or alluring to other play styles, your laziness and willingness to complain about imbalance is the failing point, had you begun to come up with new ways to do uw/elites months ago then sf would have something to contend with when it comes to groups forming in in toa.

Not really, there is no other magic way to do it. SF is the best way - period. Not only that, it's so much better than anything else that it's not as if a really good team playing something - anything - else would be faster or even more sure of success than an average team using SF.

EDIT: I was just on a balanced UW clear btw, with a PUG, we reached Dhuum and then we died because no one knew what to do lol. So after two and a half hours (yeah slow) of playing we fail, a disappointment but Dhuum looks so awesome that that made up for it, at least partly. The funny thing though? Even with a balanced setup, our team consisted of a warrior, two eles, a spirit spammer, a necro, two monks... and a SF sin. Without him we likely wouldn't have made it at all.

EDIT2: Even funnier is of course that while we struggled on for that long, a mobway group would be able to clear UW three times over.

Yawgmoth · Nov 21, 2009, 10:11 PM // 22:11

Yay! After another couple of months waiting we got another confirmation that they're looking into finally fixing SF. An instantly obvious fix that should have been done 18 months ago is too hard? I understand that a bigger project rebalancing other imba skills and practically creating completely new PvE meta has to take a lot of time, but this one SF fix is plain obvious and should be done as soon as possible.

At least not all hope is lost and we may expect some balance before GW2 is released in 2011.

But can we hope they'll handle it right? Shadow Form was a fantastic and Very powerful skill WITHOUT the ability to maintain it, and it had PLENTY of uses (incl. boss assassinations - farming greens, a number of other farms for specific targets hard to reach without it, running through dangerous areas, chestrunning, ...) it was fun to use when you had to watch it ending and get away of aggro before it did. It was still overpowered and allowed doing things no other skill or build could. But I lack words to describe how absurridicullus was the Update that made it easy to maintain it permanently... it was SOOO much over-the-top. Buffing something already borderline imba into the sky. Any competent person who understands this game's mechanics knew how imba it was mere days or even hours after the update, shame that no such person works on GW.
The only good thing they could have done was a quick nerf and apologizing for making a mistake. Letting it run for soooo long was just as horrible as creating it, it's the Ursan problem all over again, with huge player masses simply accepting it as a normal part of the game, not a terrible mistake.

Lord Sojar · Nov 21, 2009, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

Yay! After another couple of months waiting we got another confirmation that they're looking into finally fixing SF. An instantly obvious fix that should have been done 18 months ago is too hard? I understand that a bigger project rebalancing other imba skills and practically creating completely new PvE meta has to take a lot of time, but this one SF fix is plain obvious and should be done as soon as possible.

At least not all hope is lost and we may expect some balance before GW2 is released in 2011.

But can we hope they'll handle it right? Shadow Form was a fantastic and Very powerful skill WITHOUT the ability to maintain it, and it had PLENTY of uses (incl. boss assassinations - farming greens, a number of other farms for specific targets hard to reach without it, running through dangerous areas, chestrunning, ...) it was fun to use when you had to watch it ending and get away of aggro before it did. It was still overpowered and allowed doing things no other skill or build could. But I lack words to describe how absurridicullus was the Update that made it easy to maintain it permanently... it was SOOO much over-the-top. Buffing something already borderline imba into the sky. Any competent person who understands this game's mechanics knew how imba it was mere days or even hours after the update, shame that no such person works on GW.
The only good thing they could have done was a quick nerf and apologizing for making a mistake. Letting it run for soooo long was just as horrible as creating it, it's the Ursan problem all over again, with huge player masses simply accepting it as a normal part of the game, not a terrible mistake.

It's PvE... I mean really now.... balance? LOL

I understand people's complaints that they can't find a group that is non SF for UW, but that doesn't mean I agree. You can do a guild run using a balanced build that uses other classes, and probably clear UW just as fast if not faster considering Dhuum is now present.

Yawgmoth · Nov 21, 2009, 11:26 PM // 23:26

And you got to the test krewe without understanding what balance is and how important it is. Level of hope -1.

So having one degenerate gimmick completely dominating is acceptable because everyone can make his own guild and play something else? Good luck with that. Lol, seriously, lol.

Mr. Undisclosed · Nov 22, 2009, 12:04 AM // 00:04

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Originally Posted by Targren

You're delusional... There's never been, and never will be, effective "balanced" parties for elite areas. Before UWSC was Cryway, etc.., going all the way back to Holy Trinity.

"Elite" areas are about coordination in play AND builds. Going with what works BEST. If you want to play with "good enough", stick with EotN dungeons. Whatever replaces SF/UWSC, it will not be "balanced", mark me.

No I'm definitely not, since fow and urgoz have been and still are easily accomplished in a short amount of time running balanced builds. Coordination? Ah yes I'm sure all those pugs that always did uwsc were very coordinated, what a joke. You should have to be coordinated and shouldn't be limited to one build. Like I said I play balanced because its fun, same reason I play this game. SF is not fun, games are meant to be challenging that is why they are games.

pumpkin pie · Nov 22, 2009, 03:43 AM // 03:43

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Originally Posted by Tenebrae

Instead ill ask you another thing , where did i say that you are a farmer ? or that you farm ? I asked "IF" you like bla bla, dont make mistakes , i wasnt guessing nothing.

See? thats where you are wrong. Im not a farmer and i dont care , im leaving this game in about 2 months so care = -7 . I just see the bigger picture, see skill bars, see what is going on in the game right now ..... and if you do those things and cant see SF is broken, you must be blind.

Its a matter of balance, is not like it affects me or not , not like my life is at risk or whatever , its simple perspective. Please, dont be mistaken, you speak like all ppl that agrees with a SF nerf is a cryer and thats not true.

Ignoring a problem doesnt solve it; the fact that this problem doesnt bother you or affect you doesnt mean it dont exist or that it dont matter. Like Dr House said "Doing things change things .... doing nothing changes nothing" ( or smthing like that ).

Anyway , check reginas post , enough said

First of all I did not mention you accusing me of anything. I merely stated I do not farm* (read notes for clarification

)

Perspective is subjective.

From your perspective, how is SF a "problem" to the game as a whole? other then creating QQers or in your words cryer? Does SF make sales of Guild Wars Drop? Does SF make numbers of Guild Wars' players drop? Does 10 players using SF makes your gold disappear, or your armour disappear? or that 100 players using SF makes your farm drop rate drops? If a skill does not affect you, as much as it does not affect me, how is it broken? What about 55 monks/Necros, Earth Ele that could kill Shiro in 5 seconds (Imperial Sanctum Mission), 600 Smite Monks and many more.

I saw what she posted regarding nerfing SF, and frankly I do not care, because it doesn't bother me and definitely NOT a problem for me weather SF is maintain or nerf, lol, to me ArenaNet doing something about SF, its just a form of ArenaNet saying: "we care about our playerbase, therefore we are addressing the "matter" that has the most QQ." nothing more.

I don't watch House. but heres a "house" quote for ya:

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Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

It's PvE... I mean really now.... balance? LOL

Lastly: If ArenaNet Care about their playerbase, do something about hackers and cheaters.

Notes:
farm: sure i farm for holiday stuffs, because that is part of playing the game, where there's a particular holiday I pre farm orr emblems. i think thats about it.

why I posted: apparently or on the surface, me posting here to counter the SF QQ might seems like I care about it being nerf. But the only reason I am here is because I am bored! If there are more GW2 news and I am not using my MAC I'd be playing Guild Wars without using SF and could care less if players QQ about SF or not.

Bryant Again · Nov 22, 2009, 04:01 AM // 04:01

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Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

If any of you players are long standing enough to remember, ecto were at one time, 20k+ each. Do you really want that to happen again? I certainly don't, considering my ranger's FoW armor cost me like 5 million gold back then... no thanks.

I actually prefered it back then. FoW armor used to be a pain in the butt to get, but that was the point of it. With such an accessible gear cap and with higher end gear and items bearing no difference besides being rare and expensive, I personally find it good when vanity takes a while to reach.

@Pumpkin: it's not that players using it is the problem, rather that such an idea exists. A game that encourages class diversity is a good game.

Burst Cancel · Nov 22, 2009, 04:07 AM // 04:07

It's interesting that the rage around CoD:MW2 didn't give people some perspective. I'll spell it out for you: the opinions of any small group, no matter how hardcore, knowledgeable, etc., are financially irrelevant, and therefore completely irrelevant in the only way that actually matters to game companies. IW took a huge dump on the vocal minority and got away with it, and there's pretty much no reason why every other developer shouldn't do the same. If you don't command a significant share of hard dollars, there's absolutely no reason why anyone should give a flying **** what you think.

Discussion of whether SF is "degenerate" or PvE is "balanced" misses the point completely.

IlikeGW · Nov 22, 2009, 04:37 AM // 04:37

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Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

If you don't command a significant share of hard dollars, there's absolutely no reason why anyone should give a flying **** what you think.

So... nobody can change the world but Bill Gates? What are you on about. Anet is MASSIVELY effected by the community. They've done about a jillion things to the game in response to issues raised. We're not irrelevant, more so that they're not staffed by enough people to do the jillion more things we want them to do.

Also we've got to be realistic at this point. Yes Dhuum is a letdown and doesn't make the UW a great elite area or revive the game. Yes, nobody outside of Sin and Monk UW runners is going to even see him. But realistically, you would have to redesign all of UW (which was a hot mess to begin with just dumping overpowered stuff on the players) monsters, quest fights, to make it in line with the skill set of 10 classes and PVE skills and consumables. Let's face it, that's mission impossible. It's not ever happening. SF will get nerfed. UW will continue to be for ecto farming. *Some* kind of group will emerge to do clearing, and maybe it will be fast again, but whatever the case it will again not be casual gaming friendly or carefree. You'll have to train up hard in the new methods for sure to use them. And most people won't find it worth it to do these things anymore, but that's the breaks. The game is over, and has been for some time.

MisterT69 · Nov 22, 2009, 04:45 AM // 04:45

Well as it stands now it looks as if UW takes just as long as a DoA run so I think I know where I'll be for the new few weeks until A-net nerfs SF

All this "balancing" A-net is trying to do is just making people go do different things. "Oh UW takes too long? mmmmmk, imma go FoW or DoA." What A-net is doing now is just pushing people from area to area. After the ursan nerf, people flocked to UW to make the quick cash, and once cryway became the bees knees, people flocked back to DoA. A-net's updates never fix the problem, they just move the problem to another area where people exploit it, usually for months on end, and once they fix that problem, the people flock to another area. Eventually this will take people over the edge, and out of the elite areas indefinitely. The "old-school" people say they love the sense of nostalgia and all this blah-blah, but as I see it, you can only do so many balanced UW HM runs before you realize it's not worth doing UW for 2 hours for 1-2 ecto and MAYBE a good chest drop. Eventually people will stop caring about the crap drops, and UW will turn into the new tombs (aka nothin but tumbleweed)

joshuarodger · Nov 22, 2009, 04:48 AM // 04:48

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Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

very small percentage of the GW community actually bother with forums such as GWG)

i don't know about this statement any more. 5 million-ish copies of GW sold. this number includes prophecies, factions, nightfall, and possibly EotN all listed seperately. this means people that bought all campaigns get counted 3 times and possibly 4 times if EotN is listed seperately. not to mention that a lot of people have multiple accts. i would bet that there are about 2 million people in total playing this game.

GWG has 202,000 members. that's 10% of my estimated number and that doesn't count the people that check guru but don't set up an account. even if you take out about 50,000 people for alternate Guru accounts and ad spammers, that's still 8%. that is a significant portion of the community no matter how you look at it.

of course, the 2,000,000 players is just my guesstimation and it could be more players but it could also be fewer, depending on how they count EotN and various other factors. i wonder how many different accounts there actually are for this game, and if there's a way to find out. and of course 150,000 GWG users also includes inactive and banned(?) accts so that could be wrong.

no matter how you see it, though, there's a reason regina, gaile, and martin post on GWG. that's because this fansite is a significant part of the GW world and they know that they're most loyal and hardcore fans (the ones that will buy other products from their company) come here to be heard.

Lord Sojar · Nov 22, 2009, 05:18 AM // 05:18

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Originally Posted by joshuarodger

i don't know about this statement any more. 5 million-ish copies of GW sold. this number includes prophecies, factions, nightfall, and possibly EotN all listed seperately. this means people that bought all campaigns get counted 3 times and possibly 4 times if EotN is listed seperately. not to mention that a lot of people have multiple accts. i would bet that there are about 2 million people in total playing this game.

GWG has 202,000 members. that's 10% of my estimated number and that doesn't count the people that check guru but don't set up an account. even if you take out about 50,000 people for alternate Guru accounts and ad spammers, that's still 8%. that is a significant portion of the community no matter how you look at it.

of course, the 2,000,000 players is just my guesstimation and it could be more players but it could also be fewer, depending on how they count EotN and various other factors. i wonder how many different accounts there actually are for this game, and if there's a way to find out. and of course 150,000 GWG users also includes inactive and banned(?) accts so that could be wrong.

no matter how you see it, though, there's a reason regina, gaile, and martin post on GWG. that's because this fansite is a significant part of the GW world and they know that they're most loyal and hardcore fans (the ones that will buy other products from their company) come here to be heard.

Inde should post active users within the last 2 months numbers. There are probably only around 3-4k active Guru users these days. It represents very little of the community; I stand by that comment.

And Yawgmoth, I complete and totally understand balance. However, PvE is never going to be balanced in any game, no matter which way you look at it. There will always be some builds/classes that are just worthless to play, and other that are far better, so they are played most often and thus preferred in a group setting.

This is a simple and unified fact of MMOs as a whole, not just Guild Wars.

This argument will never end though, considering most Guild Wars players are either too stupid to realize that a skills functionality is broken, or they are content with it being broken for profit reasons.

Unfortunately, PvE in Guild Wars never reached the dynamics that PvP held, so it couldn't inherently be balanced in such a manner. Could you imagine what would happen if they balanced mobs to be PvP centered with AI to fit that? Some areas would be next to impossible to manage...

UnChosen · Nov 22, 2009, 06:46 AM // 06:46

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Originally Posted by MisterT69

Well as it stands now it looks as if UW takes just as long as a DoA run so I think I know where I'll be for the new few weeks until A-net nerfs SF

All this "balancing" A-net is trying to do is just making people go do different things. "Oh UW takes too long? mmmmmk, imma go FoW or DoA." What A-net is doing now is just pushing people from area to area. After the ursan nerf, people flocked to UW to make the quick cash, and once cryway became the bees knees, people flocked back to DoA. A-net's updates never fix the problem, they just move the problem to another area where people exploit it, usually for months on end, and once they fix that problem, the people flock to another area. Eventually this will take people over the edge, and out of the elite areas indefinitely. The "old-school" people say they love the sense of nostalgia and all this blah-blah, but as I see it, you can only do so many balanced UW HM runs before you realize it's not worth doing UW for 2 hours for 1-2 ecto and MAYBE a good chest drop. Eventually people will stop caring about the crap drops, and UW will turn into the new tombs (aka nothin but tumbleweed)

Finally someone gets the core of the problem. I've been saying this for quite a while, but you summarized it far better than I did so...nothing to add.

Bryant Again · Nov 22, 2009, 10:28 AM // 10:28

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Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

And Yawgmoth, I complete and totally understand balance. However, PvE is never going to be balanced in any game, no matter which way you look at it. There will always be some builds/classes that are just worthless to play, and other that are far better, so they are played most often and thus preferred in a group setting.

This is a simple and unified fact of MMOs as a whole, not just Guild Wars.

Games in general are rarely fully balanced, but they can still be amazingly well balanced. It should always be something to strive for.

However, I do not agree with your general message of PvE: that it has gone way too far down the wrong path.

ANet substituted fixing the game's lackluster AI with higher levels and gimmicky, unbalanced enemy mobs. Then instead of addressing that they gave the players devastating tools - PvE skills, consets, EOTN titles - that put players *on-par* with the poorly balanced enemies. Factor in the tremendous amount of skills and you have a game that can only be balanced by deleting content.

This doesn't mean ANet should give up, though. If they only balanced a fraction of those skills I'd be happy, and putting a nerf to some of the most horrendously powerful skills wouldn't be too difficult.

A nerf to consets in general would also be keen: change them from something that decreases the difficulty of the instance to something that decreases the difficulty of the encounter. Would be cool to see something like Summoning Sickness applied to them as well.

In regards to farming: Some may say I'm incredibly biased against it, but the day PvE is made to be a whole lot more enjoyable is the day that 1 character cannot eliminate mobs in an area designed for 8.

Overall I still say it's still quite possible to have a PvE game with a whole lot more variety and replayability.

Fril Estelin · Nov 22, 2009, 10:53 AM // 10:53

From Anet's viewpoint, Bryant, why would you do such a thing? So that a few thousand players come back to play the game? To kick out of the game the several dozen thousands farmers? To send a message to everyone?

(practically, you underestimate the complexity of such a balance in terms of examining all the mobs/missions/quests and QA... it'd only be doable over a very long period of time)

Bryant Again · Nov 22, 2009, 11:09 AM // 11:09

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Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

From Anet's viewpoint, Bryant, why would you do such a thing?

Why not have a better game?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

(practically, you underestimate the complexity of such a balance in terms of examining all the mobs/missions/quests and QA... it'd only be doable over a very long period of time)

I fully and completely understand that.

Tenebrae · Nov 22, 2009, 11:26 AM // 11:26

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