August Monthly Prediction Thread

[Snow Bunny]

So uh....considering I haven't been playing...

is this worse than teleporting WE warriors or slightly better?

I mean, it certainly sounds bad, but the PvP (thinking gvg here) community does have a slight tendency to label every bad meta as "the worst we've had".

Certainly getting that vibe now.

[Master Fuhon]

I think I'm in the same situation, having only read about and not seen any of the MAT action.

Did anyone try anything interesting like Mirrored Stance/Return, or has everything been exhausted already?

Edited: Guessing Armor of Sanctity was on monks, but to rephrase the question, looking for interesting things that were tried on off-monks (seeking to save my own time, if matches are all the same). My guess is the rangers could rack up a good deal of pressure on everyone else, and then switch to the monks after they were bottomed out. Ranger is a tougher class to lineback in the first place.

[Yue]

As much as we all loved instagib dervspike in dR and wanted to delay its death, I don't think we're ignorant enough to say that it's not OP and people just need time to deal with it.

While that's true, dR did insist on Weeping Stone being in every rotation against the near universal disagreement of everyone else, similar to Polly not listing Frozen Isle in his rotation suggestions. Let's not forget dR's insistence that the 3 hammer warrior, foul feast necro, cripshot, balth pendulum smiter was supposed to be a heavy pressure build until it was proven nearly beyond a shadow of a doubt to be incredibly defensive. And how long did it take for foul feast to be nerfed?

There are some instances where skill suggestions made don't need to really be tested thoroughly tested for brokenness because they're blatantly flawed from the drawing board (ie: lightning orb giving cracked armor, 5e bsurge, etc). When you've either played the game for so long or been balancing the game for an extended period of time, you should be able to pick up on those. Theorycrafting isn't always the best evidence of something being overpowered, but when there's a universal agreement that something is broken in contrast to one team or person thinking it's not, it's usually more likely the case that the minority is either pushing their own agenda, or simply being ignorant. Otherwise, there's typically a pretty well balanced collection of opinions towards the balance of skills.

[urania]

Originally Posted by Asplode

You give us too much credit; we aren't nearly smart enough to do anything like that.
Truth of the matter is: we didn't even realize R/A's were good until the day of the monthly, and by then we're like "oh... oh snap we better use this."

aaw come on, we both know that is a fat lie (;
on the very first day when the updates were introduced, jatt already knew exactly how strong the build would be. so unless he's a sneaky little man who keeps such matters hidden from his guildies...
kekeke

[v for Valkier]

Originally Posted by Div

rawr has a great say in determining skill balances, but I don't think it's fair to completely blame them for the lack of good balance (even though they may contribute to that). But who can blame them? They found a build, and it's human nature that they don't want that build nerfed (especially before they were able to abuse it). Comparing DF to other guilds, they were a lot more in favor of LoD. Similarly, people in dR would be more biased towards tele-dervspike skills.

It's basically a paradox, because the best balancing is achieved by a group without selfish motives or high degrees of bias (or a large enough group that the bias cancels out to some extent, like before). However, to get the most updated and relevant opinions, it is best achieved through people that play in the top tiers of PvP or PvE. I think one thing to control is the degree of bias. As much as we all loved instagib dervspike in dR and wanted to delay its death, I don't think we're ignorant enough to say that it's not OP and people just need time to deal with it. That's what we need today to create "good balance" again.

Originally Posted by awowa

think i speak for most of the rawr members when I say playing tournaments is about increasing your chances of winning. the satisfaction comes from the victories. if the gameplay is boring, well - that is a problem with the game mechanic - and something the players don't have control over.

You know the Guild Wars balancing system is corrupt when an individual guild which has some of the highest amount of influence on game balance is clearly more concerned about winning than actual game balance. For a guild that is easily one of the best at discovering flawed game mechanics in addition to open access to the Balance Forums, Rebel Rising tends to suggest little in order to make the game any better. Instead, they take these broken mechanics and run it into the ground.

Hopefully, Linsey can learn from Isiah's past mistakes and push this game in the direction where we can have an enjoyable experience playing Guild Wars again.

[urania]

oh yeah, and boy, is she a fast learner or what. *points at TA and HB deletion plans*
...

[Asplode]

Originally Posted by v for Valkier

an individual guild which has some of the highest amount of influence on game balance

Please legitimize this statement

[Silent Treason]

Originally Posted by Asplode

Please legitimize this statement

The fact that your entire guild has access to the balance forums, and the fact that when Izzy balanced the game you frequently had discussions with him on your vent doesn't legitimize it?

[IMMORTAlMITCH]

Originally Posted by Asplode

Please legitimize this statement

The amount of time it took for Rend to get nerfed when everyone not in rawr supported it and only rawr defended it valiently.

The same more or less applies to Ancestor's Rage.

Aegis getting nerfed because only people from rawr complained about it (most of everyone else were against this nerf).

Lingering Curse avoiding nerfs for a long time, because rawr build could deal with it, who cares that it screwed up the rest of the meta.

Mantra of Resolve still not being nerfed even though people not from rawr pretty much unanimously agreed on it being a problem (even some rawrians agreed to this, not the important ones though).

I'm sure there's more but these are the most important ones I could remember atm.

[Asplode]

Honestly, rend only got nerfed because you cried about it in every single thread regardless of whether it had anything to do with skill balance. Izzy still likes the skill for what it is, he really just couldn't stand the crying any longer.

Originally Posted by Isaiah Cartwright

I'll nerf rend when Mitch posts "I suck at this game so bad I can't interrupt rend, will you please nerf it so I can interrupt it"

Secondly, every time he got on vent to talk about skill balance (back in early 2008), SO many people were invited, including you, Mitch, including all of dR.
Thirdly, for Less, when the forum was made, me and Jatt weren't even in rawr
One terrible oversight of yours is that you really really want to clump everyone in rawr together as holding the same opinion, which is just flat out wrong.
The only person to hold a firm stance against mantra of resolve nerf was Polly. Go ahead and look.

This smear campaign you've decided to embark on really just seems like an attempt to obfuscate the fact that you have the most posts BY FAR on this forum, where the next person even close to you has a little over half of your volume.
In other words: find a new hobby

Finally, and this is the most important bit: ANet really doesn't give a crap what 'rawr' people think. Lindsey Murdock doesn't even know which people even belong to 'rawr', which is great since she'll actually weigh individual opinions by their merit and level of bias and factual foundations.
Perhaps you're frustrated that your passionate and baseless rants are being (thankfully) ignored, and want a scapegoat for your issues, I don't really know what drives and motivates you.

In either case, we're totally not the people you want to blame for losing while running the same amount of Ranger-Assassins as us :P

[I Angra I]

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

So uh....considering I haven't been playing...

is this worse than teleporting WE warriors or slightly better?

I mean, it certainly sounds bad, but the PvP (thinking gvg here) community does have a slight tendency to label every bad meta as "the worst we've had".

Certainly getting that vibe now.

I guess you could say it's slightly less bad than 1 war tele spike, but it's still pretty mind-numbing.




Also wat @ izzy saying a skill is balanced because you can interrupt it lol.

[Fux]

Originally Posted by Asplode

Finally, and this is the most important bit: ANet really doesn't give a crap what 'rawr' people think. Lindsey Murdock doesn't even know which people even belong to 'rawr', which is great since she'll actually weigh individual opinions by their merit and level of bias and factual foundations.

How that part about Lindsey can be any argument? she made 1 (ONE) nerf/update so far. I dont really care about that rawr - rest war here, but try to use arguments that actually make any sense please.

Originally Posted by Asplode

In either case, we're totally not the people you want to blame for losing while running the same amount of Ranger-Assassins as us :P

Are you sure you wanted to say "running" r/a here? Would be fine if only you tried to 'run' instead of tanking your base for 28 minutes. lol

[IMMORTAlMITCH]

Originally Posted by Asplode

Honestly, rend only got nerfed because you cried about it in every single thread regardless of whether it had anything to do with skill balance. Izzy still likes the skill for what it is, he really just couldn't stand the crying any longer.

I'd value Izzy's opinion on what is balanced more if he'd actually play the game. Funny how Rend apparently was balanced because it could be interrupted (it was also 5e and as such could be faked easily and multiple times) whereas Aegis needed to be nerfed according to rawr, despite it being about 10 times easier to interrupt.

Rend probably did get nerfed because I complained so much about it, the difference between the Rend and Aegis changes however was that in the case of Rend most people agreed with me on Rend being overpowered whereas in the case of Aegis EVERYONE not in rawr said Aegis wasn't a problem and most people were even directly against nerfing it.

Secondly, every time he got on vent to talk about skill balance (back in early 2008), SO many people were invited, including you, Mitch, including all of dR.

I didn't bring up the vent thing, but I assumed Less meant talking on vent with people from rawr 'privately' without having a 'balance forums vent meeting', I have no idea of this actually happened or not, it wouldn't surprise me if it did though.

Thirdly, for Less, when the forum was made, me and Jatt weren't even in rawr

This is true, it doesn't change the fact that rawr has what, 8-9 forum accounts whereas most guilds have 2-3 and some even less than that.

One terrible oversight of yours is that you really really want to clump everyone in rawr together as holding the same opinion, which is just flat out wrong.

On a lot of issues this seems to be the case, Rend and Aegis especially, other than that the only rawrians who actually seem to have different pov's than overlord Polly and apprentice Jatt are Jaden and Snuff.

The only person to hold a firm stance against mantra of resolve nerf was Polly. Go ahead and look.

Polly's stance was a lot firmer than most of the others, however multiple people from rawr on multiple occassions stated they thought MoR wasn't a problem and that it shouldn't get nerfed.

Yet rawr ran hexes very often over the last couple of months despite not winning mATs with it until the last one.

Finally, and this is the most important bit: ANet really doesn't give a crap what 'rawr' people think. Lindsey Murdock doesn't even know which people even belong to 'rawr', which is great since she'll actually weigh individual opinions by their merit and level of bias and factual foundations.
Perhaps you're frustrated that your passionate and baseless rants are being (thankfully) ignored, and want a scapegoat for your issues, I don't really know what drives and motivates you.

As far as Linsey not knowing who's in rawr this could actually work in your advantage as about half the active forum posters are in rawr.

Honestly, I don't give a flying RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO about rawr, I just want this game to be fun again and rawr's definition of fun just so happens to be pretty much the complete opposite of most other people's.

[Chocobo1]

I do find it very sad that a guild can influence the Balance. I understand that there needs to be a professional opinion from people who play the game at a high level, but obviously this shows incredible bias.

This thread has got me so depressed, it's opened my eyes to the dark side of Guild Wars.

[ChopChop]

Originally Posted by Chocobo1

This thread has got me so depressed, it's opened my eyes to the dark side of Guild Wars.

Just as long as you realize that the 'dark side' you are referring to is this reason smear campaign ran my Mitch.

Anet collects player input, anet has always collected player input, from forum posters, from MSN conversations with active players, from playing the game.
This is what any game company whose games are worth playing does.
Blizzard is probably the game company that collects the most input from competitive players and make that much better games because of it.

Did you know that before rawr was even formed Anet people would have a private (alpha) forum to talk to players, as well as talk to many people on MSN daily/weekly, as well as play the game with actual guilds?
Back in the 'golden days' of Guildwars Anet would collect much higher quantities of player feedback than now.


In fact what has really happened over the last 18 months is that the amount of time that Anet employees have available to collect player input has drastically been reduced.
Thus they are trying to improve the process to require less time investment from their end, but still give them the same volume of input.


Mitch posts are simply a misguided smear campaign from a guy who doesn't know anything about the gaming industry or how good game companies operate.
Imagine putting a random guy from RA in charge of balance? thats what it would be if Anet did not collect any player input.
Fact: Mitch guild can't beat us in GvG so he tries to beat us on forums by posting more than any of us on *every single GW forum*.

Be happy that Anet takes the task of providing PvP updates so seriously, they could easily just stop changing any skills years ago. (which would be what most companies do).
Some people (Mitch) just do not realize how good we have it in GW, how much support we are actually getting to a incredibly small player base that does not even pay a monthly fee.
Fact: Most games would have been left alone by this time, when so few people are left playing it. (talking only about GvG)

And if people really care: I have made hundreds of statements about the game, when talking about R/A's I said 'they have been seen in the game for 3 days, maybe we shouldn't just make a knee-jerk reaction to them but actually see how it plays out'.
I'm sorry that I am not like Mitch, I do not cry to mommy Anet when I lose a GvG, I figure out how to win and do, it is Mitch who desperately needs Anets help to stay competitive.
I have repeatedly stated and will again, I have no care for what the balance of the individual skills actually are, I provide my view on situations and thats it.
Oh an do you know who mad over twice as many posts as the 2. player on that forum? mr. Mitch himself.



But if Mitch thinks that we wouldn't win if certain skills got nerfed then I would like to challenge him to a best of five GvG match, Mitch make a list of skills that cannot be used, and the stakes will be 8000 keys?
Or was it all talk no substance?

[Reverend Dr]

I don't think you understood the point I was trying to make.

Originally Posted by v for Valkier

access to the Balance Forums.

Balance Forums do anything besides host shitty threads?

[keli]

Mitch always wants to adjust the game balance in his/his guild favor. Whats new in this thread then?

[pah01]

LOL

Sometimes it seems to me that a great deal of the community do not understand what made guildwars a fun and interesting game at high levels.

That isn't spamming mind blast on recharge nor is it spamming 2 energy dagger attacks on recharge.

-----

A short history of Guildwars skill balance.

Episode 1: Prophecies.

Welcome to Airspike, Spirit Spam, Ether renewal powered smiting, Gale + exhaustion bug, Stacking orders OoV + OoP [probs in iway and rspike], Edge of extinction, Iway stacking with tigers fury, Bspike etc....

Spend 6-7 months fixing the released version of the game.

GvG is really really enjoyable at this time - 3 months or so before the release of factions. IWAY and Bspike infests tombs [With a blip for ranger spike 2 months-ish ] because Anet don't realize that a fun and balanced HA might be a good idea

What are the things a smart person learns about Guildwars Balance?

Must read thread - Or ensigns posts in it anyway - "Why Nuking Sucks". In this one learns that warriors are the threat and you make a build with them or it will suck (outside of a gimmick).

To summarise towards the release of factions the game revolves around balanced builds in general. A mind-game has developed between prot, melee damage output, blinding flash and dom effects is making the game a lot of fun. This is when people have started to use the term active play versus passive play.

Aegis was 15 energy and monks didn't have the energy to carry it despite its strong effect, it was carried on flaggers mostly who had a max of 10 in their prot attribute.

Episode 2: Factions.

Izzy said that the strategy that they employed with the skills in factions was to try and have them lower in power than prophecies in general and then to buff when necessary. This wasn't a stupid idea and if you look over the update notes you will find that there weren't too many stupid skills needing nerfing.

However there were some ridiculously stupid stuff released. Aura of displacement assassins were broken and a few ritualist spirits were way too good despite displacement being broken.

In a game where it has just been said that there is a great mind game going on between melee and prot monks - its clearly retarded to release teleports into competitive play. Not to mention the effect that long range ones did have on play.

Secondly in a game where active play is being developed it is also a great idea to release a lot of passive defence ie; shelter and union into play. Or it isn't.

Despite factions not introducing that many broken skills to be fair the evidence that Anet haven't understood why their game is good and how to keep it that way is developing rapidly.

Also the fact that soul reaping still isn't fixed......

Episode 3: Nightfall.

Izzy said that they released nightfall intending that the skills would be released at a stronger level in opposition to what they had done at factions release.

Ok so this is where Guildwars breaks badly.

A short list of stupid stuff introduced at nightfall.

• Energising Finale - clearly really really really broken yet not fixed for ages.
• Rampage as one - Anet never learned why IAS + IMS in one skill is bad.
• Paragons in general
• Dervishes in general
• Shadow Prism
• 5 energy Blinding surge

There is more but why list every broken thing.

Ok so what is the evidence that Anet don't understand the game on release at all. A number of serious issues have been uncovered.

1. Shadowstepping and IMS/IAS skills break the game and Anet don't get it.
2. Skills that are really retarded are not understood to be retarded by Arenanet at all. Energizing Finale is the proof of that.
3. The old Avatar of Grenth = Avatar of lol @ Prot and Avatar of Melandru = Avatar of lol @ Active defence. Regardless of the fact that these no longer see play these ideas are just terrible.

So in short Nightfall was RIP balanced guildwars.

Now what should a smart guy have done? The wise course would have been to try and preserve the games integrity by reducing the power level of ALL of the broken stuff so that the game becomes fun again.

What actually happened was Arenanet did nothing and offered no competitive incentive and the top end of the game just disappeared.

Episode 4: Lol @ Arenanet

Being quick because everyone should know these ones.

So there was some fun stuff that Arenanet did after that.

February 2007 - ritspike including lamentation at 1/4 sec cast that did 100 odd damage ;;; = lol at anet.

GWEN release - angorodons gaze, smiters boon, old dstrike, old foul feast lol.

Lets make Lightning orb add cracked armor.

Lets buff a load of elites, warriors endurance, peace and harmony, lingering curse, primal rage. This is all stuff that a monkey wouldn't suggest.

Originally Posted by Arenanet

In May, Aegis was redesigned as an anti-spike skill. Heroes' Ascent players realized, however, that its duration and ability to stop targeted spells was perfectly suited to keep Ghostly Heroes from being interrupted while using the Claim Resource skill. This has been detracting from the basic strategies in many of the HA maps and made Aegis a required skill. Now restricted to targeting party members, it can no longer be used in this way.

Jesus how can you not know that aegis would be used on the ghostly. Rank 3s could have told you that.

FAIL.

Last Update introduced Ranger/sins that won a monthly.

FAIL.

Last but not least, the most recent skill update still hasn't fixed Mindblast.

Originally Posted by Linsey Murdock

GvG Tiebreaker - We've been watching and discussing the Mind Blast ele build for some time now. We could just nerf Mind Blast to get rid of it, but the Ranger or Paragon alternatives would then step into its place and nothing will actually be fixed. The tiebreaker mechanic is the heart of this problem. We’ll continue to work on adjustments to the tiebreaker so that these solo-plinkers won't be so powerful.

FAIL. Mindblast is actually still broken you incredibly clever successor to Izzy.

Joe

p.s I haven't mentioned half the bad stuff. I do not know a single person who things that the company is good at balancing the game. From this thread I do not think that the top players advising izzy have much either.

[ChopChop]

Originally Posted by keli

Mitch always wants to adjust the game balance in his/his guild favor. Whats new in this thread then?

Whats new is that I wasn't aware of how poorly he understands 'what would help his guild'.
Basically all he got left is crazy attacks on other players and guilds, ultimately only harming himself.

And also an open challenge to put up or shut up

Originally Posted by silly guy

FAIL. Mindblast is actually still broken you incredibly clever successor to Izzy.

You are aware that Lindsey's post is about the upcoming, as in *not implemented yet* patch?

Fact is Lindsey has actually put in an incredible amount of time working on pvp content and balance, much more than I would or could be expected from any Anet employee.

While she obviously lacks the finer understanding of high level play and has no pvp community recognizing, she has put in huge amount of her own time attempting to learn and get up to speed.
For a person with no prior GvG experience Anet could not have a picked a better person for the job she is doing.

I really wish everyone would praise her more for the time and work she puts in, bringing us good stuff like ZQuests and sealed deck, things that in 4 years no other Anet person got us.

[Still Number One]

Originally Posted by keli

Mitch always wants to adjust the game balance in his/his guild favor. Whats new in this thread then?

It is not so much Mitch wanting to give his guild a competitive advantage as much as it is that he believes the game should focus more on individual skill and micro than it currently does. Polly on the other hand, weighs team-play and tactics as much more important than individual skill and micro, and this is where the arguments come in.

I don't think either of them will tell you that one of those is bad and the other one should be the only factor in the game, they both would probably agree that both aspects are of key importance to deciding who the victor should be. They just have different opinions on how significant those effects should be.

As much as I don't like the way rawr plays the game and would prefer Mitch's theory of balancing over Polly's because I find it more fun for me personally, I still respect Polly and rawr's viewpoints on which direction they believe the game should be played and how they do whatever it takes to win. They take the pieces that are given to them and they make the best of them. After all, that is what competition is all about. It is unfortunate that some of us have to sacrifice fun in order to win, but you either deal with it or quit the game (I chose to quit because I wasn't having fun anymore).

I could be bitter toward rawr and say they are the reason I quit the game, but I'd be lying to myself. rawr is simply doing now what iQ introduced to the Guild Wars world in the GWFC. They are coming up with strategies in order to give themselves the best chance to win while mitigating their opponents ability to.

Sure rawr may have more representation then any other guild on the balance forums, but in the end it is the dev's who implement those skill changes, not Polly or rawr. Polly isn't holding a gun to anyone's head saying you have to do this and you can't do that. He is simply giving his opinion, whether biased or not. If we don't like his opinion but it gets put in anyway, then it is the dev's fault for listening to him, not his fault for speaking it. If you really think it is a problem then maybe we should propose to the balance committee to have a maximum number of representatives from a certain guild be allowed in the forums and then rawr and any guild with a number above that would have to have some members give up their right to participate on the forum. I highly doubt that would change anything though, which goes back to me believing that the number of players rawr has on the forum not being the main problem, and the dev's just not knowing enough about GvG being the real cause.