Curse

arcanemacabre · Mar 07, 2008, 08:46 AM // 08:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by N1ghtstalker

i think i'll play necro some more in PvP
[skill]wail of doom[/skill] here i come!

I know! Necro is the new Mesmer

xDusT II · Mar 07, 2008, 08:47 AM // 08:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by RhanoctJocosa

That, and I heard cover hexes own? (couldn't be bothered to find the original person)

Lots of changes but as usual only a few actually matter. Recharge on Guardian makes me sad

As well as removing the wrong hexes as they land etc.

ManMadeGod · Mar 07, 2008, 09:10 AM // 09:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mickey

All I can say is, Arcane Echo + Wail of Doom, goodbye Duncan.

Duncan has natural resistance.
Wail of Doom lasts 4 seconds at 16 Soul Reaping, so 2 seconds on Duncan only. Not worthy at all. Spoil Victor + SoS is better.

Iuris · Mar 07, 2008, 09:23 AM // 09:23

PLEASE don't fix the Monster skill bug, just for a little little while! PLEASE!

I just want to give some of those /#$%(& a taste of their won medicine. Just this once! Pyroclastic shot, Corrupted dragon scale, Wurm bile, Crystal hibernation, Wave of torment...

Doesn't have to work well, just... payback.

I just wish I could use Twisting jaws on a dinosaur...

Scary · Mar 07, 2008, 09:51 AM // 09:51

Again skill nerving... Positive/negative doesnt matter.
The only thing they can think of is how can we spend more time in nerving
skills.
Je...sssss They are like bunch civil servant always doin things you dont ask for.

Hyaon · Mar 07, 2008, 10:37 AM // 10:37

Psychic Instability: this skill has been moved to the Fast Casting attribute; decreased casting time to .25 seconds; functionality changed to: "Interrupt target foe's action. If that action was a spell that foe is knocked down. (50% failure chance with Fast Casting 4 or less.)"

Well that's pretty much wrecked my kd build for aspen. Not happy at all, that's bringing up bad memories of SWG when the devs outright removed things from the game instead of merely adjusting. Thumbs down from me on that extreme change..

Shakkara · Mar 07, 2008, 10:40 AM // 10:40

Dammit, they REALLY want to kill the motivation paragon eh?

Redfeather1975 · Mar 07, 2008, 11:00 AM // 11:00

There isn't one person balancing skills Longasc.
It's a group of people!
And if they stopped doing it, GW population is going to drop.
More people will quit from stale, unchanging gameplay than people who refuse to keep experimenting when things change.

Cacheelma · Mar 07, 2008, 11:27 AM // 11:27

Dynamic gameplay isn't equal to keep changing skills back and fourth.

Longasc: I wonder the exact same thing when I saw this week's Heal Party change. There's no new skills to worry about now. How long will it take for them to get it "right"?

How exactly do they balance skills? Shouldn't they set a standard "power level" for normal skills and another standard for elite skills and keep all skills at the standard level? This way, when a new skill come out, they just make sure the skill doesn't go too much below or above (at the standard would be the perfect place but...) the standard level and that's it. There'd be no need for them to keep changing old skills around when they're at the standard level already; the newer skills should be the "unbalanced" ones, not all of them.

That's how they do it in Magic the Gathering research & development (nowadays). Is it so much harder to do that GW's dev don't do it that way?

MtG's R&D team has like less than a year to playtest & balance a set of 150 cards+. Of course they make mistakes and let some overpowered cards slip out, but that happens like, once a year (if ever) and only in a set or two (out of 3-4 set of like 800 cards total) and only just a few cards.

It has been, what, nearly 3 years now for Prophecies, nearly 2 for Factions, more than 1 for Nightfall AND nearly 1 for EoTN (which has a lot less skills in it that it shouldn't matter much to begin with), yet they still haven't got it right. Are they really THAT incompetent?

zwei2stein · Mar 07, 2008, 11:47 AM // 11:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cacheelma

Dynamic gameplay isn't equal to keep changing skills back and fourth.

Longasc: I wonder the exact same thing when I saw this week's Heal Party change. There's no new skills to worry about now. How long will it take for them to get it "right"?

How exactly do they balance skills? Shouldn't they set a standard "power level" for normal skills and another standard for elite skills and keep all skills at the standard level? This way, when a new skill come out, they just make sure the skill doesn't go too much below or above (at the standard would be the perfect place but...) the standard level and that's it. There'd be no need for them to keep changing old skills around when they're at the standard level already; the newer skills should be the "unbalanced" ones, not all of them.

That's how they do it in Magic the Gathering research & development (nowadays). Is it so much harder to do that GW's dev don't do it that way?

MtG's R&D team has like less than a year to playtest & balance a set of 150 cards+. Of course they make mistakes and let some overpowered cards slip out, but that happens like, once a year (if ever) and only in a set or two (out of 3-4 set of like 800 cards total) and only just a few cards.

It has been, what, nearly 3 years now for Prophecies, nearly 2 for Factions, more than 1 for Nightfall AND nearly 1 for EoTN (which has a lot less skills in it that it shouldn't matter much to begin with), yet they still haven't got it right. Are they really THAT incompetent?

There is huge problem in comboability: All skills can be equally powerful alone, but make certain combination and its imba. (That is reason why, i.e. 100b is elite skill. )

So you have to examine impact of every skill to all other skills. Thats kinda hard.

If you have lots of crap skills, you dont need to worry about them that much. You just nerf imba skill and KNOW people have only 2-3 options on replacing it. Hell, you can provide those options yourself.

It is like having sealed deck of ~150 skills total. You remove skill from deck by overnerf, you return it there by buff. And you only ever have to worry about 150 skills, not 1500. Its easy.

Longasc · Mar 07, 2008, 11:51 AM // 11:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Redfeather1975

And if they stopped doing it, GW population is going to drop. More people will quit from stale, unchanging gameplay than people who refuse to keep experimenting when things change.

Gameplay does not become better or worse, more exciting or makes one come back to play GW because skills get changed over and over.

I am not really in the mood to play GW anymore, as the PvE gameplay just became the standard usual grind exercise of most MMOs.

And PvP does not become more appealing or interesting because Izzy shuffled the cards for high-end GvG again.

I still hate the fact that he balances after the meta of the few 1% freaks that still like to PvP and really play in higher level pvp, they better improve the PvE game instead of fiddling around with skills based on the woes and gripes of a minority.

Splitisoda · Mar 07, 2008, 11:59 AM // 11:59

Mind Blast and Rodjorts nerfed? RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO YEAH SEAKING!!

Cacheelma · Mar 07, 2008, 12:40 PM // 12:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

There is huge problem in comboability: All skills can be equally powerful alone, but make certain combination and its imba. (That is reason why, i.e. 100b is elite skill. )

So you have to examine impact of every skill to all other skills. Thats kinda hard.

If you have lots of crap skills, you dont need to worry about them that much. You just nerf imba skill and KNOW people have only 2-3 options on replacing it. Hell, you can provide those options yourself.

It is like having sealed deck of ~150 skills total. You remove skill from deck by overnerf, you return it there by buff. And you only ever have to worry about 150 skills, not 1500. Its easy.

Magic the Gathering cards are also played with combinations (combo) in mind. Who plays with a single card, really?

And when MtG's R&D balance cards in each set, they have to think of limited play (seal deck in your example, and something else), Current T2 play (2 latest block + core set), AND also (but not limited to) Vintage format (all cards in MtG history. Hint: more than 1,500). They use banned & restricted rules for past mistakes (read: early MtG years). I don't think that's easy.

Did I mention they NEVER change cards' functionality (intentionally)? Some cards may change their functions, but that's due to rule changes. And that only happen like twice or so in the entire MtG 10+ years history.

I don't know if I've missed your point. But what were you trying to say when you say "it's easy"? That balancing GW's skills should be easy because there're not as many skills when compare with MtG's cards? If that's the case then I'd agree (which was also the point of my previous post).

zwei2stein · Mar 07, 2008, 12:55 PM // 12:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cacheelma

I don't know if I've missed your point. But what were you trying to say when you say "it's easy"? That balancing GW's skills should be easy because there're not as many skills when compare with MtG's cards? If that's the case then I'd agree (which was also the point of my previous post).

Now, point is that by overnerfing and by having inherently bad skills total amount of skills which need to be considered when balancing can drastically change - by order of magnitude. And that makes it easy.

You see, as far as game balance is concerned, there are not 35 warrior elite skills. There are about 6. As far as balance is concerned most energy attacks on warrior do not exist ... And you never need to consider effects of Warriors cunning either ...

That simplifies process greatly.

Pandora's box · Mar 07, 2008, 12:56 PM // 12:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longasc

This might be attributed to the fact that their skill balancer has nothing else to do but to permanently balance skills. If he would stop doing it, he would be unemployed. He is usually best when he does nothing and does not show up for extended periods of time.

Lol, yes! I had exactly the same thoughts. Looks like Anet has too many employer's at the moment so they need to keep them busy until their contract ends. What other reason can their be to keep balancing old skills?

*Balance*; halve of the community will like it, the other halve will complain.
*do nothing*; halve of the community will complain, the other halve won't have a problem

Conclusion?

Abedeus · Mar 07, 2008, 01:02 PM // 13:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taurucis

Look, Paragons got nerfed... well, I pretty much expected that. I think the Mending Refrain nerf was due to Ursan Roar, however.

Are you Ursan haters happy now?

I'm sure MR was nerfed because of idiots that refuse to use GodMode with their paragons and rather choose mediocre healing through chants.

RhanoctJocosa · Mar 07, 2008, 01:24 PM // 13:24

Mending Refrain nerf was due to Ursan Roar? Hahahaha.

I haven't played yet, but these updates look pretty good. Wail of Doom is OP like hell though.

Cacheelma · Mar 07, 2008, 01:35 PM // 13:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

Now, point is that by overnerfing and by having inherently bad skills total amount of skills which need to be considered when balancing can drastically change - by order of magnitude. And that makes it easy.

You see, as far as game balance is concerned, there are not 35 warrior elite skills. There are about 6. As far as balance is concerned most energy attacks on warrior do not exist ... And you never need to consider effects of Warriors cunning either ...

That simplifies process greatly.

Yet we still have all these back-and-fourth changes in skills, why? When will they get it "right"?

Magikarp · Mar 07, 2008, 01:39 PM // 13:39

these are 90% typical trash updates making little to no effect on the real issues. paras, nerfed again,warriors get some junk buffs, and like always, you overpowered necros get yet another great buff..... sigh

Trub · Mar 07, 2008, 01:42 PM // 13:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cacheelma

Yet we still have all these back-and-fourth changes in skills, why? When will they get it "right"?

Hmmm..How to put this without starting a PvE vs. PvE thread...

The balancing 'back and forth' mostly comes from the need in PvP:
You get (cookie cutter as everyone seems to be calling it) builds exploding within the winners circles, and gameplay gets stale.
To shake things up a bit, and make game play more challenging, skills are nerfed, or buffed depending on the experimentation going on.
Many will complain, because a certain skill bar they were using since the dawn of time got 'nerfed', and many will celebrate, because they can see synergies in different skill/team combos.
So don't look at skill balancing as a bad thing...it's a wake up call to your brain to try something different..