Curse

Radiant Dawnstar · Jun 06, 2007, 08:56 PM // 20:56

Everyone knows Izzy sucks at game balance, and everyone knows that Guild Wars is imbalanced. Of course everyone asks for nerfs. We all know Anet isn't going to listen to us, but ah well, we're doing it anyway. But why ask for nerfs, when you can ask for buffs?

Example. Game A has two severely broken Warriors builds. These builds are much more efficient than all other Warriors builds, thus rendering every other Warrior build ineffective. Say three quarters of all Warrior builds are either of these two builds. Obviously, this is not balanced. This is imbalanced, boring, and annoying because you'll have to fight them over and over again. It doesn't allow variety and everyone will cry for nerfs.

But Game B on the other hand has ten broken Warriors builds. These builds are so extremely broken that every other Warrior build is considered Wammo material and laughed at. At first glance you would think that this situation is even worse, but it is the exact opposite. I will explain.

Guild Wars is a lot like Game A. Now the obvious solution will be to nerf these two builds to oblivion, or just nerf them until they are perfectly balanced. After a long time of QQing by the Guild Wars community, Anet will be forced to nerf these two builds. So they nerf them. Everyone lives in peace. But... after a short while, someone discovers a whole new broken build! And we're back to square one.

Now what if Guild Wars was Game B. The game would have five times as many broken builds. This would seem a lot worse, but it isn't. As there are so many broken builds, nobody will notice and unknowingly they will replace the word 'broken' by the word 'balanced'. Now there is good balance and good variety because there are a lot of good builds and you will face a different build every time.

Take a look at the Monk. Don't take me wrong, I think the Monk has a lot of variety. Protection and Healing both offer a lot of good skill combinations. So let's leave this class alone, it's fine as it is, right? Wrong again. Why not make this class much more versatile?

Signet of Removal. Potentially a great skill, but the Enchantment prerequisite screws up the whole skill. Why not remove this? This would make for a much more versatile Blessed Light, as it can be used on high health allies aswell. Of course the recharge would need a little nerf then, but it would become a skill to consider taking.

Signet of Removal
1 Cast, 8 Recharge
Remove one Hex and one Condition from target (other) Ally.

Boon Signet. Another skill which doesn't do what it must do, and again because it requires Enchantments on your target to be useful. The Energy Management is minimal (even with an Enchantment on your target) and the Healing is just lame. So... Why not make this skill the following:

Boon Signet
1/4 Cast, 2 or 5 Recharge
Heal target Ally for x...30-40 Health. You gain 2 Energy.

Just a few examples of how this game could be improved a lot. There are a lot of underpowered skills, and making underpowered skills good is the best way to 'nerf' overpowered skills, and at the same time it makes the game much more versatile and much more fun. So, what's your opinion on this?

moriz · Jun 06, 2007, 09:17 PM // 21:17

no

reason: power creep

Dzan · Jun 06, 2007, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Not only power creep, but its more work to buff than it is to nerf. If three hexes are too good, rather than buffing 12 removal spells its faster to nerf the three hexes. Izzy only has so much playtest time, let him spend it dealing with as many problems as he can.

FoxBat · Jun 06, 2007, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Go play WoW. Grind until you have practically max equipment, get a team of 5 and head into the arenas. With that experience in mind, come back and discuss why this is a horrible idea.

P.S. Monk is a bad example, nothing they have right now is overpowered except maybe Aegis.

Trevor · Jun 06, 2007, 10:24 PM // 22:24

On paper it would work. In practice everyone would be running Y build on X guild hall. Plus, it'd be a lot easier just to drop some nerfs.

lacasner · Jun 06, 2007, 10:27 PM // 22:27

Quote:

P.S. Monk is a bad example, nothing they have right now is overpowered except maybe Aegis.

LMAO, this is a great example why cookie cutter builds rule supreme in gw. With this mentality, and instead of mentality that OP has, people will just play same builds over and over again doing same things, bringing 0 creativity into the game.

I Brother Bloood I · Jun 06, 2007, 11:51 PM // 23:51

There are some things in need of buff. Like dwarven battle stance a few other shitty war skills rangers and some shitty sin skills but you dont even have to buff them cuz the game would be balanced enough just nerfing.

Thom Bangalter · Jun 07, 2007, 12:08 AM // 00:08

They already added a bunch of skills to the game that were rediculously overpowered (see: nightfall, factions), I'd rather see them toned down then things bumped up.

FoxBat · Jun 07, 2007, 12:54 AM // 00:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by lacasner

With this mentality, and instead of mentality that OP has, people will just play same builds over and over again doing same things

Your post might make sense if you hadn't quoted mine.

If he wants "buffs *instead* of nerfs" then he should point at a class people actually want nerfed, like say paragons, ritualists, or necromancers, and skills that counter them. Not buffing crappy monk elites which people aren't going to disagree with because it sidesteps the point entirely.

Zuranthium · Jun 07, 2007, 03:28 AM // 03:28

I'm in the process of writing up how I believe every single skill/class in the game should be changed. 90% of that is going to be buffs, because there really is so much crap out there and I greatly dislike having to look at poor skills and ideas. I've got 7/10 classes done (ugh, it really is time consuming going through all this too, you have no idea)...look for the article in the next couple days!

~Z

Riotgear · Jun 07, 2007, 03:41 AM // 03:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

They already added a bunch of skills to the game that were rediculously overpowered (see: nightfall, factions), I'd rather see them toned down then things bumped up.

Factions wasn't particularly bad except for defensive spirit spam and maybe triple-smite. Nightfall and the post-NF buffs to crappy Factions were was much worse.

Which goes to show the "buffs instead of nerfs" mentality can seriously blow. Buff channelling.... And everyone runs Ritspike! Buff Spoil Victor... and hexway rocks HA because monks self-destruct! Buff Discord.... and people farm the ladder with Heroway.

Of course, the mentality is flawed anyway. If warriors were given an elite called "Chuck Norris Kick" that hit someone for 500 damage for 10 adrenaline, that's be pretty broken. So instead of nerfing Chuck Norris Kick, let's buff all block skills by 25%, and buff Wail of Doom to 10/0.25/10. That'll fix it!

More buffs would be welcome, but the first question that should always be asked when buffing some obscure thing is "what will happen if someone tries to build a team around this?"

Apok Omen · Jun 07, 2007, 04:12 AM // 04:12

Simple solution: Buff utility and DO NOT BUFF Spike-potential skills. Also, read the June Nerf Wishlist by Ensign. (too lazy to copy and paste link)

Skye Marin · Jun 07, 2007, 04:30 AM // 04:30

Nerfs need to happen. The best we can hope for is that the specific skills get changed in such a way that all degenerative elements no longer exist, but the skills themselves are changed to be interesting and skillful to use.

Crazy example:

Rework chants so that any new chants obtained from different ally paragons remove all previous chants on you, without triggering any applicable echos.

Once this is in place, tons of chants and echos could be re-buffed to reasonable levels. Song of Restoration could be halfway to LoD, Zealous chants could get a slight buff, and unused skills like Anthem of Envy could be buffed (to the next three attack skills, for example).

Div · Jun 07, 2007, 04:44 AM // 04:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

I'm in the process of writing up how I believe every single skill/class in the game should be changed. 90% of that is going to be buffs, because there really is so much crap out there and I greatly dislike having to look at poor skills and ideas. I've got 7/10 classes done (ugh, it really is time consuming going through all this too, you have no idea)...look for the article in the next couple days!

~Z

Anet has so much time they could actually pull something off like this. But they won't, so the best we're hoping for are minor nerfs to a couple skills :P

Radiant Dawnstar · Jun 07, 2007, 06:12 AM // 06:12

Quote:

no

reason: power creep

Power Creep is all relative. If there are a lot of good Elementalist spells and a lot of good Mesmer counter spells at the same time, they pretty much cancel each other out.

Now some skills with great potential:

Chaos Storm
15E / 1...3C / 30R
Create a Chaos Storm at target foe's location. For 2...5 seconds, foes adjacent to this location cannot cast spells.

"The Power is Yours!" [E]
15...25E / 20...30R
You lose all energy. All party members within earshot gain 1...7 Energy.

And why not change the Ritualist and Paragon mechanics aswell? First of all, make Chants like Weapon spells. Weapon spells are used a lot, even though you can only have one on you at any given time. Now apply the same to Chants. As most Chants only last till you perform a certain action, they will be gone quickly. Of course they would need a little buff, but it would be a lot better. Any team with Ritualists (and Rangers) should be limited to only placing a certain amount of spirits. Maybe 5 or 10. Of course this would require a little buff too, as many spells rely on spirits.

Riotgear · Jun 07, 2007, 06:59 AM // 06:59

I'm not sure I ever want to see "The Power is Yours!" become viable. GTFE+WY spam already makes Paragonway generate ridiculous amounts of energy, I hardly want to imagine what would happen if they had even more fuel.

Lord Natural · Jun 07, 2007, 07:21 AM // 07:21

When it was just proph and things were balanced a little better, I didn't mind updates which buffed some skills occassionally to keep the metagame from getting too stale. However, at this point when the game is imbalanced, I think it's too much to approach an update with that mindset. Balance what we have, let it play out, then maybe look into tweaking some bad skills into ok skills. Balance should have priority, not buffing other skills to compensate for broken ones.

Patrograd · Jun 07, 2007, 08:11 AM // 08:11

I think I want to see more games which feel like chess, and less which feel like "OMFG 1337 PWNZORS!!"

As has been pointed out already, the Nightfall power creep had a devestating effect on PVP, I'm not sure that more power creep is really what is needed. The more stuff gets buffed, the more open to abuse the whole system is, Nightfall proved this beyond any reasonable level of argument

tunabreath · Jun 07, 2007, 10:05 AM // 10:05

um, nerfing abused / overused skills essentially has the same effect as buffing underused / underpowered skills. it's all relative.

there are a few reasons why nerfing is generally safer than buffing, but just from a purely logistical point of view, if there are say 10 OP'd skills and 250 underpowered skills (for pvp), it's going to be a lot quicker and safer to nerf 10 than buff 250....

OP phails

Thomas.knbk · Jun 07, 2007, 10:42 AM // 10:42

In theory this solution is just as good as nerfing overpowered skills, but in reality it's not.
buffing underpowered skills to the level of the overpowered skills will, obviously, increase the overall effectiveness of all skills. Now ask yourself what this means for this game.
Ofcourse, a game in which people run around with 500 health, have skills that deal 50 damage and skills that heal for 100 is the exact same game as a game in which people run around with 5000 health, have skills that deal 500 damage and skills that heal for 1000, or a game where those numbers are 50, 5 and 10 or anything as long as the proportions are kept the same.
This is ofcourse a simplified view of the game and in reality it will bring some problems.
Most importantly, people's health is not going to go much higher than it is now. 600ish is pretty much the limit without sacrificing some really valuable attribute points n stuff like that. This means that if you buff skills to deal more damage people die faster. This means you have less time to heal/prot them. This means the game will, especially for monks, turn in to a matchup of reaction times. (AKA a 'spike heavy meta'), which most people will agree is not as fun as the game can be.
So, simply put, if you buff skills instead of nerf them the game turns into a spike feast which sucks balls. Nerfing skills is the way to go.