Curse

cormac ap dunn · Jan 15, 2012, 10:17 PM // 22:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by IrishX

1. It does pretty much make melee useless. The AoE on Stone Sheath is absolutely retarded (It can very easily cover earshot range), and combined with the huge armor buff on top of everyone already stacking as much armor as possible, you just do not do damage. Also, 12s recharge.

2. Assassins are probably the least impacted by Stone Sheath, since dagger damage is already so low, and most of their damage comes from spamming attack skills.

3. The risk vs. reward ratio is way out of whack. For 5e and 1.75s, you force AT LEAST 10e and 2s on condi removal (assuming 2 frontline), and force target swaps. You can strip the ele, but it still has glowstone. You can also interrupt it, but at a 1s cast, you basically have to camp the ele, and due to it being a 5e cast, it can be faked indefinitely until it is FC'd.

4. Nobody likes playing elespike.

While I understand the reasoning behind the worry, this happens with every skill rebalance. Soon there will be a shift in the meta game, what was once uncommon is now the gold standard. As far as the assassin comment I was generalizing. Suggesting that people have no counter to stoneshealth is silly, true it doesn't fit with the metagame, but the standard will shift. Th idea that a speedy spike is the only good strategy is exactly why skill repolishing is needed. Variety is the spice of life. If the meta game is allowed to spiral the same way pvp will die completely. Now people are forced to try new builds, the game will move on, and hopefully what is considered normal shifts with it.

Martin Alvito · Jan 15, 2012, 11:51 PM // 23:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by cormac ap dunn

Suggesting that people have no counter to stoneshealth is silly, true it doesn't fit with the metagame, but the standard will shift.

This assumes the existence of a counter. The meta has been dominated in past cycles by single skills which no one was able to find a reliable counter for. Feast of Corruption, the original Ritualist spirits, Aegis and that awful Jagged -> Fox Fangs -> Death Blossom update spring immediately to mind. All of them had to be nerfed.

This situation is no different. There's good theoretical reason to expect Stone Sheath to be a problem. Unsurprisingly, it is. And there's good reason to expect that it won't go away in the absence of developer intervention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cormac ap dunn

Th idea that a speedy spike is the only good strategy is exactly why skill repolishing is needed. Variety is the spice of life.

This "rebalance" is going to lead to a massive surge in the prevalence of spike builds once the current flux ends. An Obsidian Flame spike ignores armor and can easily maintain Stone Sheath everywhere. Care to guess what people will be playing and why?

*lemming* · Jan 16, 2012, 02:55 AM // 02:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mouse at Large

I'm still not completely understanding the Stone Sheath hate from a PvP perspective. It introduces a new dynamic and shakes up the meta - as did the mesmer and derv updates. Instead of QQ, why not try to adapt???

GW has actually had a very good example of why this line of reasoning is flawed. For the one morning when Signet of Might existed, the metagame did indeed "adapt" to the presence of a skill that instantly wins you the game - all teams shifted their builds to accommodate for the only remaining goals - getting a Signet of Might cast off on the opposing guild lord and preventing the opposing team from doing so.

Of course, I'm sure that someone out there would have argued that that metagame was more "fun." However, whether or not a metagame has become degenerate is kind of an objective thing to evaluate.

Kaida the Heartless · Jan 16, 2012, 07:16 AM // 07:16

I think some people might be missing the fact that stagnant gameplay can be balanced, but still be detrimental to the overall experience. In Guildwars, offense has always needed to overpower defense, otherwise every match goes to VoD and it's generally a very boring experience.

Stone Sheath does too much for too little in a way that is very hard to actively counter, actively prevent, or reactively remove.

Shield of Deflection (blocking exchanged for crit immunity) + Enfeebling Blood (with extended range) + Energy Surge (less 20 damage with no Energy Removal) = Stone Sheath for a single person, so multiply the situation x 2. That's basically 4 Elites, 34% HP sacrifice, and 32 Energy for 2-3 Energy on a much faster cooldown.

It. Does. Too. Much.

Mouse at Large · Jan 16, 2012, 10:34 AM // 10:34

Still puzzled. If earth eles running stone sheath and obs flame spike is so OP, then why am I not seeing earth ele-heavy teams steamrolling all versions of PvP?

At most, I'm seeing (in obs mode) a single earth ele in PvP teams and in general, no more than 2 eles in total. I've yet to see a team with 2 or more stone sheath earth eles.

Theorycrafting aside, my observations would indicate that stone sheath is not anything like as OP/game breaking as feared.

Kiki Go Boom · Jan 16, 2012, 10:41 AM // 10:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mouse at Large

Still puzzled. If earth eles running stone sheath and obs flame spike is so OP, then why am I not seeing earth ele-heavy teams steamrolling all versions of PvP?

Because of this. Watch out for them next month

zwei2stein · Jan 16, 2012, 12:29 PM // 12:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiki Go Boom

Because of this. Watch out for them next month

I kinda wish this flux was slightly nerfed (1s disable) and kept forever...

Swingline · Jan 16, 2012, 12:57 PM // 12:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

I kinda wish this flux was slightly nerfed (1s disable) and kept forever...

All the flux's should be nerfed into oblivion. They are the worst implementation of balance I have seen in a video game.

drkn · Jan 16, 2012, 01:40 PM // 13:40

Quote:

All the flux's should be nerfed into oblivion. They are the worst implementation of balance I have seen in a video game.

Balance? I thought they were meant to be new, additional, somehow fun and unpredictable mechanics, slightly changing the meta every month; not an attempt at any form of balancing the game.

@down: i thought, again, that the flux was ANet's 'lazy attempt' to bring a constant 'update', as in a change to the meta, not necessarily balancing it in the process; just altering, so it's not stagnant.

Swingline · Jan 16, 2012, 01:55 PM // 13:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

Balance? I thought they were meant to be new, additional, somehow fun and unpredictable mechanics, slightly changing the meta every month; not an attempt at any form of balancing the game.

Anet implemented flux in an attempt to help balance meta builds. Flux being fun was nothing more than an after thought and a reason to feed to the players. Every single flux has been irritating to say the least, especially this months. Watch out for Mesmers in JQ sneaking up on you and using WW/WD.

Quote:

Last Halloween, the Lunatic Court followed through on an ill-conceived plot to free Mad King Thorn from his realm. Seals were broken, bizarre acts were performed, terrible jokes were deciphered, and it seemed at the time that all the fuss had been for nothing.

But since then, instability has begun to seep into the world, gathering in the places where the influence of the Mists is felt most strongly. The instability has resulted in fluctuations – changes that alter the experience of playing in our competitive venues. Fluctuations seem to come and go, bringing new effects with them every month.

The introduction of Flux is a compelling tool to help us keep our competitive formats dynamic, while allowing us to further balance the game. Because slight shifts in the meta are expected from Flux to Flux, it allows us to better target overly problematic builds. If powerful builds can thrive in environments that are not suited to them, we can review the skills to bring them more into line. We want to encourage gameplay where the team that wins does so because they've played more skillfully.

The Flux system is the precursor to several improvements that will be coming in a PvP-specific update. We'll be taking a look at improving some titles, the incentives to play, the rewards for various formats, and more. Look forward to it!

— Developer updates

As you can see it was meant to be a balancing tool.

Missing HB · Jan 16, 2012, 04:27 PM // 16:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

Balance? I thought they were meant to be new, additional, somehow fun and unpredictable mechanics, slightly changing the meta every month; not an attempt at any form of balancing the game.

@down: i thought, again, that the flux was ANet's 'lazy attempt' to bring a constant 'update', as in a change to the meta, not necessarily balancing it in the process; just altering, so it's not stagnant.

Indeed, i thought that flux were about making "auto-balances" in the game and making things fun too, but well :
- Codex was as well supposed to have a tournament system
- Heroes Ascent was supposed to have a rework, including especially new map
- That 2009 henchman contest was supposed to reward originality and creativity
- Turtle Bug is supposed to be fixed for months

Except 1 flux( which was the one making people move faster), i didn't see any single fun or game - balancing flux... but well, it was quite predictable

Vincent Evan · Jan 16, 2012, 04:49 PM // 16:49

The flux was meant to "spice" up the PvP in this game. Although, and I think it is fair to say, all the flux is doing is shaking a lifeless corpse.

Martin Alvito · Jan 16, 2012, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

All the flux's should be nerfed into oblivion. They are the worst implementation of balance I have seen in a video game.

They're actually a great concept in theory, but their implementation has been deeply flawed.

The basic problem is that PvP balance in this game is such a knife-edge condition. Make it too easy to kill things and it becomes Twitch Wars; make it too hard and you get stalemate. Add in the arbitrary conditions that top players have come to prefer over the years (no spike metas, no hexway metas, etc.), and you have a nearly intractable problem.

Coming up with twelve global conditions that will meaningfully alter such a fragile balance without kicking it into Twitch Wars or stalemate isn't a trivial task. The Live Team has neither the theory to propose good candidate solutions from the outset, nor the resources to find good solutions through iterative testing. The result is predictable: a large number of conservative, relatively meaningless fluxes. I commend the Live Team for finally taking a chance with this one.

With testing and a smaller skill base, the flux system could work quite well. Unfortunately, what I'm seeing with the skill combo system suggests that ANet hasn't learned anything about sticking to a manageable number of variables to balance.

Swingline · Jan 16, 2012, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

They're actually a great concept in theory, but their implementation has been deeply flawed.

The basic problem is that PvP balance in this game is such a knife-edge condition. Make it too easy to kill things and it becomes Twitch Wars; make it too hard and you get stalemate. Add in the arbitrary conditions that top players have come to prefer over the years (no spike metas, no hexway metas, etc.), and you have a nearly intractable problem.

Coming up with twelve global conditions that will meaningfully alter such a fragile balance without kicking it into Twitch Wars or stalemate isn't a trivial task. The Live Team has neither the theory to propose good candidate solutions from the outset, nor the resources to find good solutions through iterative testing. The result is predictable: a large number of conservative, relatively meaningless fluxes. I commend the Live Team for finally taking a chance with this one.

With testing and a smaller skill base, the flux system could work quite well. Unfortunately, what I'm seeing with the skill combo system suggests that ANet hasn't learned anything about sticking to a manageable number of variables to balance.

If circumstances were better such as the ones you stated then yes, flux could indeed work but the fact is it does nothing but irritate people. Flux just shows Anets unwillingness to give PvP the attention it so rightly deserves. Especially with zero testing. Why on earth they don't have a PTS(Public Test Server) for PvP is beyond me.

Martin Alvito · Jan 16, 2012, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

Flux just shows Anets unwillingness to give PvP the attention it so rightly deserves.

From a purely business perspective, marginalizing PvP makes a great deal of sense given the business model. It is expensive to maintain. It demands significant human resources to come up with and implement ideas to keep it fresh. PvP also requires a greater commitment to server costs than PvE due to the need for stable connections. Finally, serious PvP players spend a lot more time actively playing the game than the average PvE player.

So what you have is a format which is more costly to maintain, but doesn't provide any additional revenues due to the business model. It's not surprising that ANet backed off from its early strategy of aggressive, expensive promotion of PvP when it failed to take off as a serious e-sport. Chasing the larger PvE market segment, which is cheaper to pursue, is the right call unless you can find some way to segment PvP players and charge them more.

Fluffy Kittens · Jan 16, 2012, 10:29 PM // 22:29

Flux wasn't supposed to balance the game, it was supposed to change the meta, which is fine and completely unrelated to balance.
There is no way to make the game perfectly balanced (or anything close to that) but what is possible is to have the balance as we had years ago.
For example: sway (raos and n/rt backline), it may be was "degenerate" and some even called it imbalanced build, but it did require more than just randomly mashing your head on the keyboard.
The biggest problems started with the dervish update, you would press couple buttons and stuff would die. Similar case is with the ele update, only difference is that you have one type of eles where you randomly push buttons and people die and another set of eles where you randomly push buttons and keep people alive (stone sheath).
I think the main problem is that most (if not all) Anet admins stopped pvping, so there's no way they can know what's going on. All they know is what random people from test krewe tell them, which is kinda sad and has to be fixed.

Xenomortis · Jan 16, 2012, 10:31 PM // 22:31

A metagame that evolves without intervention is indicative of a balanced and healthy game. The meta is most definitely not independent of balance.

Swingline · Jan 16, 2012, 10:34 PM // 22:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

From a purely business perspective, marginalizing PvP makes a great deal of sense given the business model. It is expensive to maintain. It demands significant human resources to come up with and implement ideas to keep it fresh. PvP also requires a greater commitment to server costs than PvE due to the need for stable connections. Finally, serious PvP players spend a lot more time actively playing the game than the average PvE player.

So what you have is a format which is more costly to maintain, but doesn't provide any additional revenues due to the business model. It's not surprising that ANet backed off from its early strategy of aggressive, expensive promotion of PvP when it failed to take off as a serious e-sport. Chasing the larger PvE market segment, which is cheaper to pursue, is the right call unless you can find some way to segment PvP players and charge them more.

Guild Wars PvE was never meant to be and kind of long term satisfaction. That's why at the end of the game people play for monetary superiority. By the time they chose to make the decision of focusing on PvE the PvE part of the game was hardwired and too hard to work with without adding grind. Abandoning PvP may have been their worst mistake because money can be made from it. League of Legends comes to mind.

Guild Wars PvP does have items in the store such as skill and weapon packs. As I have said countless times before, the problem with Guild Wars PvP is the massive skill base, then there's skill splits. It's too much for new players. TBH I would like to see PvP become like LoL and by that I mean you choose a character(henchmen) and you have to play that henchmans build. PvP would be so much easier to balance and it could give room for growth in other areas. As you stated earlier it could work with flux with the limited skill base. You can also sell outfits for those henchmen

.

Essence Snow · Jan 16, 2012, 10:37 PM // 22:37

It wouldnt really matter what anet did...ppl wouldn't be happy with anything. Anet is damned if they do damned if they don't when it comes to pvp. Ppl rage that they want change...yet when things change they rage. I don't blame them for treating pvp like a "red headed step child"...nothing they could do would ever be enough to quell the relentless storm. Flux is great imo...it remedies some of the stagnant nature that pvp meta brings with minimal effort.

Martin Alvito · Jan 16, 2012, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

A metagame that evolves without intervention is indicative of a balanced and healthy game. The meta is most definitely not independent of balance.

Any meta would be stagnant after this many years in release. You can't pin that on the devs. Between improvements in communication technology and computers, the information age has been hard on strategy gaming in general.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rezz Anna Nicole

Flux wasn't supposed to balance the game, it was supposed to change the meta, which is fine and completely unrelated to balance.

Not entirely. For a flux to be effective, it has to change the meta without throwing the game out of balance. Since balance is such a difficult condition to achieve and the consequences of accidentally destroying it are dire, the Live Team predictably erred on the side of preserving balance, rather than changing the meta.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

Abandoning PvP may have been their worst mistake because money can be made from it. League of Legends comes to mind.

Right, but not without a radical redesign. If you want to make money by selling people convenience, you have to inconvenience them. Skill unlocks in GW are a one-time problem and aren't all that difficult even for a PvP player, so they don't provide a quality source of revenue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

Guild Wars PvP does have items in the store such as skill and weapon packs. As I have said countless times before, the problem with Guild Wars PvP is the massive skill base, then there's skill splits. It's too much for new players.

The problem has never been the skill base. The nuances of PvP were too much for most prospective players to grasp before Factions ever hit. Success in PvP demands a lot of scarce attributes: dedication to improvement, time commitment, quality connection, reaction time, the ability to anticipate, and the ability to work as an effective team member. What made GW PvP great is also its Achilles heel: it's deep and unique, but it's also not for most gamers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Ppl rage that they want change...yet when things change they rage.

Any changes to GW PvP have distributional consequences: they make some players better off at the expense of others. The result is that there will always be aggressive lobbying for both change and the status quo.

It's the developer's responsibility to find the signal in all that noise, though you may have an argument that the rational response is to just tune out the noise and do whatever you want.