Curse

Avarre · Jun 10, 2008, 12:58 PM // 12:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

But what makes you believe that there is more money to be made by trashing Ursan?

Ursan isn't even the issue. Bad development is, and reverting one part of it won't make a difference because the trend is long-set, and I will bet anything ANet will do something to annoy the established playerbase again.

To quote Kestrel from WoC, 'Stop finding new ways to piss us off. Seriously!'

I can't believe I even quoted that.

Yichi · Jun 10, 2008, 01:02 PM // 13:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Ursan isn't even the issue. Bad development is, and reverting one part of it won't make a difference because the trend is long-set, and I will bet anything ANet will do something to annoy the established playerbase again.

To quote Kestrel from WoC, 'Stop finding new ways to piss us off. Seriously!'

I can't believe I even quoted that.

Scary, I was listening to that WoC and that line came up at almost the same time I was reading this...

/hides

JR · Jun 10, 2008, 01:03 PM // 13:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

Define that state! A collection of simple rules that will enable EVERYONE to understand what changes would be needed for a skill that is currently "unbalanced" to become "balanced".

In a strict and purely technical sense perfect balance would result in all skills being equally desired, equally common and equally powerful. It's impossible to reach that point, so there are grey areas. PvE is more forgiving in nature than PvP therefore the grey areas are larger.

For example, mesmers not being popular/effective in PvE indicates a class imbalance. This could probably be remedied by spawning more complex/balanced style mobs (mirroring PvP builds, for example), where the kind of shutdown a Mesmer offers would be more valuable.

Such a fix would improve the game, and is just an example why balance is important globally.

Avarre · Jun 10, 2008, 01:07 PM // 13:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yichi

Scary, I was listening to that WoC and that line came up at almost the same time I was reading this...

/hides

I listened to most of them over again with nothing else to do, and I couldn't help but imagine the core-skill rant over PvE skills now. Or even a lot of the other complaints. PvE skills = WTF.

I don't know who is doing this. They don't play the game, I'll tell you that much. 'Leave the devs alone, they're doing what's good for the game', that's bullshit, because this is not good for the game. We play for three years in a somewhat balanced setup with skills and game design, and they say 'nonono, we're going to give you skills that are ten times stronger so that you can have infinite success even if you're bad.' I love the guys who are bad and new to the game, but you are not supposed to have success until you develop as a player. That's what challenge and difficulty are for. I don't think you change a game for the newcomers, that's ridiculous. If you're hurting that bad for new people, market better, and fix the game.

PvE design is not being done by anybody with a clue. This is evident from the constant 'fixes' that don't do anything, and the development that spawns one problem after another. I know a lot of players who are considered veterans, most of them who don't play much but occasionally look back in, and most of them were horribly shocked, or laughing hysterically at how retarded these things are. There's a reason a lot of the old players quit, and PvE design has a lot to do with it. Jerrypants never bought Nightfall because 'he didn't want another boring single-player game'. This is coming from a guild leader in an extremely skilled PvE guild. He saw pretty clearly that Guild Wars didn't need teams, or even reward them; most of the game was coming down to repetitive crap.

Ultimately, this comes down to the fact ArenaNet has no clue as to what they're doing. Who was in the room when this suggestion was thrown out and thought this was a good idea? Who was in this room that allowed this to happen? Do you listen when people speak, at all?

And how are we supposed to have faith in a company that does this kind of thing, over and over, in every aspect of their game?

Lopezus · Jun 10, 2008, 01:35 PM // 13:35

Quote:

PvE design is not being done by anybody with a clue. This is evident from the constant 'fixes' that don't do anything, and the development that spawns one problem after another. I know a lot of players who are considered veterans, most of them who don't play much but occasionally look back in, and most of them were horribly shocked, or laughing hysterically at how retarded these things are. There's a reason a lot of the old players quit, and PvE design has a lot to do with it. Jerrypants never bought Nightfall because 'he didn't want another boring single-player game'. This is coming from a guild leader in an extremely skilled PvE guild. He saw pretty clearly that Guild Wars didn't need teams, or even reward them; most of the game was coming down to repetitive crap.

Now that are some points i understand and even i can relate to them to a degree. Still i think even if you are right about that PvE Gw has gone in very bad direction i don't really see that there was whole world of choices for devs
to make "everyday challanging pve in content limited no monthly fee mmorpg".
They made a series of bad choices, that could be but something tells me that it wasn't vary many good choices to be made.

tmakinen · Jun 10, 2008, 01:45 PM // 13:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

Most 'hardcore' MMO players do so in order to show off, they play for the prestige and recognition, and don't really care about the methods used to obtain it.

To keep a happy and active player base you need rewards and visual recognition that is meaningful. Goals to aim for, both short term and long term. When something like Ursan devalues rewards in the game so drasticly it has a major negative impact, even when it doesn't effect a player such as yourself.

You know what, this is the single most persuasive argument that I have seen in this thread so far. I don't see things that way myself but I believe it when you say that many do, and agree with you that it is important. In fact several opinions start to make sense from that point of view. I think that we are at the crux of the issue here, and I'll try to describe it with another analogy, so bear with me

Company A created a climbing resort on a mountain. It had several alternative routes to the peak with varying levels of difficulty to accommodate climbers of different amounts of expertise, including a beginner path for tourists. The idea was that the steeper path you took, the faster you reached the peak. Tourists never had what it takes to even get halfway up so company A installed a funicular.

One group of climbers which we could call 'goal oriented' were annoyed because for them the whole point of climbing is to reach the peak and the funicular made that achievement null and void. And they were right, from their point of view.

Another group of climbers which we could call 'process oriented' were indifferent because for them the whole point of climbing is climbing itself, and they pointed out that people can choose not to use the funicular. And they were also right, from their point of view.

The two groups started to argue with each other and it didn't go well because it so happened to be that both of them were right for their respective standings.

Meanwhile, tourists went: "A funicular? Coooooool ..."

Cacheelma · Jun 10, 2008, 01:56 PM // 13:56

Let me ask, according to your analogy, the tourists want to get up to the peak, why?

What's there for them?

The climbers (of any kind) want to get to the peak of the mountain because of the challenge of the task, not because they want to see the view. No need to imagine things. Why do you think people want to get to the peak of the Everest Mountain? If you can simply take this "funicular" up to the peak without any effort, do you think ANYONE would care about the peak of Everest Mountain to begin with?

I doubt it.

DreamWind · Jun 10, 2008, 01:59 PM // 13:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

This means that we can NOT say Ursan IS a problem. The players themselves do not have the power to state that something is a problem that would demand fixing.

Yes, the players can and should. And the devs can and should listen. Somebody earlier gave a perfect Blizzard example. High level players were complaining about Brood War when it first came out, and Blizzard fixed all their complaints. Now we have the epic it is today. Anet has not followed this at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

BECAUSE THERE IS NO PROBLEM.

Do you have evidence of this statement?

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

So IF a problem existed - why couldn't the players that have the desire to do so just solve the problem themselves FOR themselves?

Because the players cannot solve the problem for themselves. It has to be solved by the devs with input from the players.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

If something is unbalanced in PvE - that means that there MUST be a state of balance.
Define that state!

If we are talking from a PvE standpoint, I would say the ideal situation would be all skills being equally desirable based on players ability to use the skills (with elites being a little more desirable) and all classes being equally desirable in groups. Also the flow of the game would be easier to harder...IE: first level easier second level harder etc etc.

Instead we have a mish mash of elites being bad, normal skills being broken overpowered, some classes never desired, others overdesired, the game being easy all the way through, and no balance in difficulty whatsoever with the hard areas simply enemies dealing huge numbers with little AI to speak of. The elite missions meant for elite players are now farmable (with Ursan), the quests are repetitive, and the game is now a single player title/item grind meant for fill your Hall of Monuments for Guild Wars 2, instead of being an epic multi player skill over time competitive challenge game that it was always meant to be and marketed as.

This shift in focus is a HUGE problem for people who bought the game as advertised and expected the game to deliver as advertised. How the hell do you expect those players to buy Guild Wars 2 with the tragedy of changes made by Anet to Guild Wars 1? This thread on EP and PvE balance is just a small part of that shift in focus that has expanded into a larger discussion that is this thread.

I am shocked by anybody who thinks there is no problem, particularly when it comes to balance, which is something PvP players have been dealing with for 3 years and PvE players are now a part of.

And as usual, Avarre's last post was of epic proportions.

zwei2stein · Jun 10, 2008, 02:11 PM // 14:11

If there was no problem, this wouldn't be thread of 30+ pages.

Lopezus · Jun 10, 2008, 02:27 PM // 14:27

Quote:

If we are talking from a PvE standpoint, I would say the ideal situation would be all skills being equally desirable based on players ability to use the skills (with elites being a little more desirable) and all classes being equally desirable in groups. Also the flow of the game would be easier to harder...IE: first level easier second level harder etc etc.

But how to achive such balance ? Devs were forced to made some changes the very nature of the game : they had to made pve game fun, challanging and rewarding for as large as possible group of players, keeping them playing for years knowing that content they offer for players will be limited. Not an easy task imo. For example: heroes - i really think that it has sth to do with realizing that players will be then scattered through 3 campagins really playing with henchies as the only option, so maybe heroes kills some of the team play and ease the game but also bring some fun in finding and tweaking builds for them and for a team.

Quote:

High level players were complaining about Brood War when it first came out, and Blizzard fixed all their complaints. Now we have the epic it is today.

I don't quite understand, Blizzard balanced Brood War campagain ? or we are talking about Starcraft pvp which is not an issue as discussion is about pve balance.

JR · Jun 10, 2008, 02:32 PM // 14:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

I'll try to describe it with another analogy, so bear with me...

In your example the two different groups of people have different motivation and gain different rewards from reaching the summit. In the Guild Wars scenario it is two different groups of people with the same motivation going for the same rewards, just taking different paths.

Cacheelma · Jun 10, 2008, 02:42 PM // 14:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lopezus

But how to achive such balance ? Devs were forced to made some changes the very nature of the game : they had to made pve game fun, challanging and rewarding for as large as possible group of players, keeping them playing for years knowing that content they offer for players will be limited. Not an easy task imo. For example: heroes - i really think that it has sth to do with realizing that players will be then scattered through 3 campagins really playing with henchies as the only option, so maybe heroes kills some of the team play and ease the game but also bring some fun in finding and tweaking builds for them and for a team.

I don't quite understand, Blizzard balanced Brood War campagain ? or we are talking about Starcraft pvp which is not an issue as discussion is about pve balance.

I suggest you try playing some other games with better class balance. Something like WoW, or maybe Lineage2 (to some extent).

How it works in WoW? There're 9 classes in WoW. Each class can fulfill at least 1 role in a team (like Guild Wars, you need tank, healer, and nuker in a team). A priest, for example, can either heal or nuke. Nuking (DPS, as it's called in WoW) ability of the priest can be lacking when compared with pure nuking classes like Warlock or Mage, but as a priest you're still needed for teams at least as a healer.

Druid, paladin, and shaman can also be a healer. And unlike non-monk healing classes in GW, these non-priest healing classes in WoW can be a healer as good as, if not better than, a priest.

Same goes for tanking and nuking classes.

Granted, it's still far from perfect even in WoW. But it's still a lot better than the "monk or warrior or elementalist or busted" mentality that is in GW (before Ursan of course).

As for StarCraft. The fixes were both for singleplayer mode and multiplayer mode. The imbalancedness in unit ability would ruin the game; if you're playing the race with an overpowered unit, you'd win easily. If you're playing something else against such race, you'd have no chance to win. Please tell me you think such thing is "ok".

Clarissa F · Jun 10, 2008, 03:03 PM // 15:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

If there was no problem, this wouldn't be thread of 30+ pages.

QFT

Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

abedeus, you might not be old enough to have heard the play on the sound.

Denial....De-nial....de-nile....the Nile.

Abedeus · Jun 10, 2008, 03:27 PM // 15:27

Yeah, there were like 2 movies called Denial. But there is no river called Denial.

Look up Denial at wiki.

Quote:

Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.

Yeah. But some people live in ignorance instead of denial.

Lopezus · Jun 10, 2008, 03:29 PM // 15:29

Quote:

How it works in WoW? There're 9 classes in WoW. Each class can fulfill at least 1 role in a team (like Guild Wars, you need tank, healer, and nuker in a team). A priest, for example, can either heal or nuke. Nuking (DPS, as it's called in WoW) ability of the priest can be lacking when compared with pure nuking classes like Warlock or Mage, but as a priest you're still needed for teams at least as a healer.

Druid, paladin, and shaman can also be a healer. And unlike non-monk healing classes in GW, these non-priest healing classes in WoW can be a healer as good as, if not better than, a priest.

Same goes for tanking and nuking classes.

Granted, it's still far from perfect even in WoW. But it's still a lot better than the "monk or warrior or elementalist or busted" mentality that is in GW (before Ursan of course).

i dont wan't to go into Gw vs WoW but there are people(me inculded) that consider wow classes/skilles[even if balanced(though if you have 9 classes to play 3 roles of tank ,nuker,healer is far from balance imo)] system inferior to gw system. So one might think why not to merge what is the best in these games and made a perfect game, maybe devs are retards and have no clue what they are doing or maybe such things are often impossible to achive.

upier · Jun 10, 2008, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Yes, the players can and should. And the devs can and should listen. Somebody earlier gave a perfect Blizzard example. High level players were complaining about Brood War when it first came out, and Blizzard fixed all their complaints. Now we have the epic it is today. Anet has not followed this at all.

I am not talking about a perfect game.
I am talking about GW.
A.Net has the supreme right to do whatever the hell they want to do.
And that is why that the players "can" NOT!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Do you have evidence of this statement?

Did A.net state that Ursan IS a problem?
If they didn't - we can NOT say it is a problem.
(Plus - if it were - it would had probably gotten fixed. It's just too high profile to NOT get!)

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Because the players cannot solve the problem for themselves. It has to be solved by the devs with input from the players.

In PvP.
Like I said - in PvE sometimes different rules apply (IF the "problem" isn't a bug!).
The players are able to shape the game to their liking.
The game isn't balanced on overpowered skills (=so that one could only complete a certain area when using a certain skill!).
When it comes to a PvE only skill that ONLY players can bring - then the players have the ability to balance themselves.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

If we are talking from a PvE standpoint, I would say the ideal situation would be all skills being equally desirable based on players ability to use the skills (with elites being a little more desirable) and all classes being equally desirable in groups. Also the flow of the game would be easier to harder...IE: first level easier second level harder etc etc.

Instead we have a mish mash of elites being bad, normal skills being broken overpowered, some classes never desired, others overdesired, the game being easy all the way through, and no balance in difficulty whatsoever with the hard areas simply enemies dealing huge numbers with little AI to speak of. The elite missions meant for elite players are now farmable (with Ursan), the quests are repetitive, and the game is now a single player title/item grind meant for fill your Hall of Monuments for Guild Wars 2, instead of being an epic multi player skill over time competitive challenge game that it was always meant to be and marketed as.

Balance was sacrificed for an easier game design.
And it's because of that - that "unbalanced" doesn't mean anything!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

This shift in focus is a HUGE problem for people who bought the game as advertised and expected the game to deliver as advertised. How the hell do you expect those players to buy Guild Wars 2 with the tragedy of changes made by Anet to Guild Wars 1? This thread on EP and PvE balance is just a small part of that shift in focus that has expanded into a larger discussion that is this thread.

I am shocked by anybody who thinks there is no problem, particularly when it comes to balance, which is something PvP players have been dealing with for 3 years and PvE players are now a part of.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

And how are we supposed to have faith in a company that does this kind of thing, over and over, in every aspect of their game?

And that's the core of the issue.
Maybe the crowd you are speaking for (the "we" in your post) - isn't big enough to matter? Or - as seen previously - the "we" will continue to support them even if they pull off such crap?

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

In a strict and purely technical sense perfect balance would result in all skills being equally desired, equally common and equally powerful. It's impossible to reach that point, so there are grey areas. PvE is more forgiving in nature than PvP therefore the grey areas are larger.

Forgive Ursan then.
PvE isn't about balance. It never was.
So why remove the skills that are IN FAVOUR of the player?
Especially since PvE ISN'T competitive!

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

For example, mesmers not being popular/effective in PvE indicates a class imbalance. This could probably be remedied by spawning more complex/balanced style mobs (mirroring PvP builds, for example), where the kind of shutdown a Mesmer offers would be more valuable.

Such a fix would improve the game, and is just an example why balance is important globally.

And A.Net's answer was to give us Ursan.
We need to accept the fact that they will NEVER create a balanced PvE game.
And then we need to ask ourselves - what is better for the biggest crowd possible:
1. destroying Ursan-like skills which will trash the game for a HUGE number of players who aren't as hardcore as we are (and let's get this straight - the game WILL be trashed, because it will still be as unbalanced as it ALWAYS was, the only thing changed will be the removal of the crutch!)
2. or the fact that the better players balance themselves (if they want to!)

Personally, I can choose NOT to use Ursan (because I don't shapeshift into a bear and I don't like it! (And I kid you not!)) - and let the poor suckers who aren't good enough at this game to have their fun! I don't need to play with them - so it doesn't matter how badly they suck!

JR · Jun 10, 2008, 03:45 PM // 15:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

...

I struggle to argue the intricacies of game design with someone who clearly knows nothing of the topic.

Anet has targetted updates at balancing aspects of PvE in the past, which pretty much makes your entire point redundant.

tmakinen · Jun 10, 2008, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

In your example the two different groups of people have different motivation and gain different rewards from reaching the summit. In the Guild Wars scenario it is two different groups of people with the same motivation going for the same rewards, just taking different paths.

Quite honestly, I was expecting a bit more effort from you. Let's talk about something in the game, like a title.

You are clearly a goal oriented player. For you the title is the reward, and game breaking skills spoil the reward regardless of whether you use them or not because others use those skills and thus devalue the reward.

I am a process oriented player. For me the reward is the process of getting the title, not the title itself. Game breaking skills don't spoil my reward because I can choose not to use those skills. Whether other players get the same title and by which means doesn't have any relevance to my reward.

See how all the previous arguments in this thread make sense if you take into account this fundamental difference? We are all right from our respective points of view. If we can agree that we are expecting different things from the same game, and that both expectations are equally valid because they are rooted in personality, then we are one step closer to a solution, which should be found by asking "what can be done to make both types of gamers happy?" These expectations don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Abedeus · Jun 10, 2008, 04:12 PM // 16:12

Quote:

Personally, I can choose NOT to use Ursan (because I don't shapeshift into a bear and I don't like it! (And I kid you not!)) - and let the poor suckers who aren't good enough at this game to have their fun! I don't need to play with them - so it doesn't matter how badly they suck!

Okay, give me a skill that makes me invincible for 3600 seconds (1 hour), recharge 1 second, 1 energy cost and make it a Skill with 0 cast time. And make it give me 50 energy every time something tries to hit me or cast a spell or do anything, even move. And I want instant-recharge of all skills every time I look at the screen. And 200 ecto stacks from each mob.

DarkNecrid · Jun 10, 2008, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abedeus

Okay, give me a skill that makes me invincible for 3600 seconds (1 hour), recharge 1 second, 1 energy cost and make it a Skill with 0 cast time. And make it give me 50 energy every time something tries to hit me or cast a spell or do anything, even move. And I want instant-recharge of all skills every time I look at the screen. And 200 ecto stacks from each mob.

They already have this!

It's called [Glyph of Swiftness][Shadow Form][Deadly Paradox] while under every consumable effect in the game and Chimera of Intensity.

Monsters are so scared, they shit ectos.