Curse

snaek · Mar 16, 2009, 05:23 PM // 17:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by immortalmitch

Not really, underpowered skills are irrelevant because they don't see play anyway.

Overpowered skills set the metagame.

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Except underpowered skills don't break the game.

they don't break the game because they are not a part of the gameplay? if they are truly irrelevant and don't exist in actual gameplay, why should they exist in the game at all? it sounds like your solution to fix imbalance is to just completely remove all underpowered skills, so we are only left with meta skills?

the people you were quoting were referring to balance in terms of the "whole" game, not just the game you can "see".
nerfing overpowered skills reduces playtime of those skills, which will go towards other overpowered skills.
buffing underpowered skills increases playtime of those skills, which will take away from previous overpowered skills.

so they are quite relevant.

moriz · Mar 16, 2009, 06:20 PM // 18:20

why do bad Magic cards exist? to sell cards, obviously. why do bad GW skills exist? for the same reason: to sell the games. after all, it sounds a lot more impressive when anet can say "this campaign adds 200 skills" instead of "this campaign adds 50 skills".

Still Number One · Mar 16, 2009, 07:11 PM // 19:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by snaek

they don't break the game because they are not a part of the gameplay? if they are truly irrelevant and don't exist in actual gameplay, why should they exist in the game at all? it sounds like your solution to fix imbalance is to just completely remove all underpowered skills, so we are only left with meta skills?

the people you were quoting were referring to balance in terms of the "whole" game, not just the game you can "see".
nerfing overpowered skills reduces playtime of those skills, which will go towards other overpowered skills.
buffing underpowered skills increases playtime of those skills, which will take away from previous overpowered skills.

so they are quite relevant.

If you buff underpowered skills and they recieve playtime over skills that are deemed overpowered now, then that means the buff caused those underpowered skills to become even more broken and overpowered then the current broken skills. People are going to use the most broken and effective skills because they make it easier to win games.

Nerfing the overpowered skills to be on a level with skills deemed "balanced" brings the game more toward who has the better strategy, movement, and who is better at making in-game adjustments to deal with their opponent, rather than who is running the more broken build. Having a bunch of "weaker" skills means you must rely on things other than that skill, or more accurately combination of overpowered skills, to score some vital kills.

By saying nerf these skills no one, at least I dont think so, is suggesting nerf them into oblivion so they never see play time ever again, but nerf them so that you need to do other things besides click and forget while using them. Rather than mindlessly spamming your skills and having them be effective because they are so overpowering, some players would like it if you had to actually think about when this skill could be used to its full potential and get the best possible result in hurting your opponent from it.

snaek · Mar 16, 2009, 09:31 PM // 21:31

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Originally Posted by still number one

then that means the buff caused those underpowered skills to become even more broken and overpowered then the current broken skills

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By saying nerf these skills no one, at least I dont think so, is suggesting nerf them into oblivion so they never see play time ever again

and who suggested to buff the skill into '[whatever the opposite of oblivion is] so they see always see playtime way beyond the current broken skills?'

Still Number One · Mar 16, 2009, 11:46 PM // 23:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by snaek

and who suggested to buff the skill into '[whatever the opposite of oblivion is] so they see always see playtime way beyond the current broken skills?'

Quote:

Originally Posted by snaek

buffing underpowered skills increases playtime of those skills, which will take away from previous overpowered skills.

You may not have been implying that you wanted this to happen but I was simply stating why buffing the underpowered skills to the point they take playtime away from the overpowered ones is a bad thing. You won't get more build variety, just everyone using the newly overpowered skills, which just makes the game even more broken than it currently is now. And if you are saying make the underpowered skills equal to the overpowered ones now, you are just being silly. Nothing is equal, something is always better. Maybe the buffing of bad skills will allow people to try different builds out temporarily, but eventually people will see what works the best at countering anything somebody may throw at them and they will run that.

It's why everyone runs whatever rawr won the last mAT with. They view it as the best solution since rawr won with it, and dont bother looking at all the other options available to them. What wins is deemed as the strongest and is therefore always played way more than anything else, regardless of how equal you may think skills are.

Cirian · Mar 17, 2009, 02:12 AM // 02:12

It's a natural state of affairs for "bad skills" to exist, simply because "good" and "bad" are relative to one another. A game designer might tweak or rework a skill at their discretion, but there will always be a top of the pile and a bottom of the pile - it's not a state of affairs that is ever possible to fix, nor is it something to worry about.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Mar 17, 2009, 08:01 AM // 08:01

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Originally Posted by Killed u man

IMS + IAS are SEVERLY overrated...

Imo, WE has ALWAYS been the better build. Yeah, hit one time less every 3-4 seconds because of no IMS (Bull Strike and Shock say hi), but get +30 attack on every second hit, it pretty much evens out...

Stop posting, seriously..

Quote:

Originally Posted by snaek

it sounds like your solution to fix imbalance is to just completely remove all underpowered skills, so we are only left with meta skills?

I could care less if people want to run skills that are completely terrible, it doesn't matter wether or not you leave them in the game. Underpowered skills aren't problematic, overpowered skills are, if you can't understand this you're retarded.

Quote:

the people you were quoting were referring to balance in terms of the "whole" game, not just the game you can "see".
nerfing overpowered skills reduces playtime of those skills, which will go towards other overpowered skills.
buffing underpowered skills increases playtime of those skills, which will take away from previous overpowered skills.

This is exactly what Izzy has been doing the last 6 months or so (excluding this one), First warrior elites were quite balanced with Eviscerate, Dev Hammer, Magehunter's Smash and Cripslash all being run and all being strong but not too strong (except arguably Magehunter's Smash).

Then Izzy buffs Warrior's Endurance and this for a big part takes over from Eviscerate warriors, it's arguably broken and definitely mindless. Then a few months later Izzy buffs Primal Rage and every single sword or axe warrior uses this skill, it completely replaced Eviscerate warriors and even Warrior's Endurance warriors and even the odd Cripslash warrior that still saw play.

Buffing skills to make them stronger than the skills that are currently seeing play is a very bad concept to follow as it dumbs down the game and takes away from the actual player skill needed.

It seems from the last patch that Izzy finally realized this so I'm a bit more hopeful for the future.

It does however worry me that he failed to adress skills such as Lingering Curse, PnH and Warrior's Endurance.

Divinus Stella · Mar 17, 2009, 09:37 AM // 09:37

Izzy has to take into consideration the level of crying he will get from pve players when hes making these updates, even if the changes apply to pvp skills only.

For example if he nerfs too many paragon skills no matter how obscure, the official paragon pve crying squad will step in and take strike action flooding forums with useless crap, same goes for necros and especially assassins.

He needs to keep the cry meter low to prevent invoking carebear unions that exist to pretect the casual players braindead bars (palm strike, warriors endurance, ff necro with lingering), so he just makes changes in small chunks and adds random broken changes to other skills to make people happy.

Hundbert · Mar 17, 2009, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Quote:

they don't break the game because they are not a part of the gameplay? if they are truly irrelevant and don't exist in actual gameplay, why should they exist in the game at all? it sounds like your solution to fix imbalance is to just completely remove all underpowered skills, so we are only left with meta skills?

I thought izzy said it on several occasions. But since some of you people posting here probably haven't been around for long; Some skills were only intended for use by mobs in pve.
Skills like that are quite irrelevant and shouldn't really see play in organized pvp (as some of you said already)

Snow Bunny · Mar 17, 2009, 05:58 PM // 17:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

IMS + IAS are SEVERLY overrated...

Imo, WE has ALWAYS been the better build.

Regardless, if IMS + IAS is REALLY THAT GODLY, people would still be using R/W [Rampage as One]

People used RaO for over a year. They had to nerf it so far into the ground that it's touching Hitler's coffin.

You don't know at all what you're talking about. WE means you can spam bigger attacks.

PR meant you could COMPLETELY disregard kiting, because you crit vs. kiting targets, and you didn't need to have good placement.

Honestly, you have no clue what you're talking about.

Seraphim of Chaos · Mar 17, 2009, 09:25 PM // 21:25

are there even enough players left to be worrying about carebears anymore?

Rhamia Darigaz · Mar 17, 2009, 11:54 PM // 23:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hundbert

Some skills were only intended for use by mobs in pve.

yes, these are called monster skills and, since they are only intended for use by mobs in pve, they are only usable by mobs in pve.

Apok Omen · Mar 18, 2009, 12:10 AM // 00:10

Yes, but many people believe we have more than enough useful skills. Hell, most can argue that we have too much variety. Mitch is right, though; fixing overpowered skills should be at the top of the list, not buffing unused skills.

Anyway, I thought this was a discussion on [primal rage]. Now, for those who think it was nerfed too hard, check out obs. People still run it with great success, and they are only decent. I, personally, wholeheartedly believe that [primal rage] was nerfed into a balanced state. Putting the recharge to 12s may do something, may not. As long as it isn't below 12s, then it's fine.

Killed u man · Mar 18, 2009, 12:41 AM // 00:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

People used RaO for over a year. They had to nerf it so far into the ground that it's touching Hitler's coffin.

You don't know at all what you're talking about. WE means you can spam bigger attacks.

PR meant you could COMPLETELY disregard kiting, because you crit vs. kiting targets, and you didn't need to have good placement.

Honestly, you have no clue what you're talking about.

That's why people still bring bull's right, because there's nothing better than a moving KD'ed target...

As I said, IMS + IAS is nice, and always better than just one of the 2, but spamming + damage attack skills is simply better...

3/10 seconds, your opponents should be KD'ed anyways, so that's already 30% efficiency down the drain for [Primal Rage]...

Just because you FEEL like godmode, doesn't mean you are in godmode... Dismember + powerattack +prot strike is the true godmode.

Once again, if IMS + IAS were as OP as you clearly hold them up to be, people would have been running "balanced" builds with RaO's... (Not smiteways/heroways, but actual top 10 guilds running R/W's)

The matter of fact is KD's (So the NOT moving and hitting) is still better than the Auto-Crit on moving foes...

Reverend Dr · Mar 18, 2009, 12:50 AM // 00:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divinus Stella

Izzy has to take into consideration the level of crying he will get from pve players when hes making these updates, even if the changes apply to pvp skills only.

Izzy needs to learn that the tears of the masses are the sweetest candy in the world.

moriz · Mar 18, 2009, 01:23 AM // 01:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Once again, if IMS + IAS were as OP as you clearly hold them up to be, people would have been running "balanced" builds with RaO's... (Not smiteways/heroways, but actual top 10 guilds running R/W's)

PR is like RaO, except....
-RaO is in an otherwise useless attribute, PR is not
-RaO forces a pet and the skillslots needed to keep it around, PR just need rush as a cancel
-RaO costs 25 energy (14 after expertise), PR costs 5
-RaO means R/W, which means bad bull's strike; PR means W/any, which means good bull's strike

seriously, stop trying to compare RaO with PR. thats like comparing a mending wammo to a shock axe.

and BTW, PR IS godmode. it makes warriors so fast that they become almost impossible to catch, and the IAS still makes them dangerous even if they have to run around in circles. if the damage almost never makes it to them, they won't die.

Still Number One · Mar 18, 2009, 01:30 AM // 01:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

PR is like RaO, except....
-RaO is in an otherwise useless attribute, PR is not
-RaO forces a pet and the skillslots needed to keep it around, PR just need rush as a cancel
-RaO costs 25 energy (14 after expertise), PR costs 5
-RaO means R/W, which means bad bull's strike; PR means W/any, which means good bull's strike

seriously, stop trying to compare RaO with PR. thats like comparing a mending wammo to a shock axe.

and BTW, PR IS godmode. it makes warriors so fast that they become almost impossible to catch, and the IAS still makes them dangerous even if they have to run around in circles. if the damage almost never makes it to them, they won't die.

you left out the lack of stonefist as well.

isildorbiafra · Mar 18, 2009, 01:34 AM // 01:34

IMO skill balance is all a matter of perception!

Seraphim of Chaos · Mar 18, 2009, 01:40 AM // 01:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

PR is like RaO, except....
-RaO is in an otherwise useless attribute, PR is not

since when was strength useful?

moriz · Mar 18, 2009, 01:44 AM // 01:44

useful because it powers:
-bull's strike
-PR
-WE
-rush
-sprint
-flail
-body blow
-power attack
-protector's strike

there's probably other stuff i'm forgetting, but hopefully you get the idea.