Curse

Bryant Again · Apr 13, 2007, 01:31 AM // 01:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by VitisVinifera

When I read the title of this thread, I thought it would be another immature bashing of Anet. Boy, was I wrong. What a great initial post: reasoned, thought-out, articulate, and above all, totally true.

Agreed to the up-tinth powah.

I thought it was just gonna be a snobby and immature whine thread. Quite the opposite. I agree with pretty much everything the Cap'n has said.

Personette · Apr 13, 2007, 01:32 AM // 01:32

I thought the OP was really smart.

One thing a lot of detractors seem to miss is the distinction being made between intention and execution. I didn't see the OP, or any post after that, suggest that the devs of GW don't intend to balance the game, or that they aren't talented. It is a given that the devs want to balance the game and that they are talented; on that count, their intentions are clear and understood by all.

The criticism was about the way the devs are trying to achieve this goal.

There were two things about the post that impressed me a great deal.

1) the emphasis on time - giving players the time to adjust as new classes are introduced, or fad builds come to the fore. Seeing direct intervention, be it by buffing or nerfing, as a last resort.

2) the dangers of falling into a permanently reactionary mode - people who have become reactionary have lost control; they try to regain the power they once had, or feel they should have, in increasingly desperate ways. And it almost never works. If the devs want to balance the game, they can't do it while beating an inglorious retreat from the unintended consequences of their own decisions.

ensoriki · Apr 13, 2007, 01:49 AM // 01:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragonious

Was skimming and I read that. I didn't read anymore. You are obviously a PvE only type person because paragons probably have the highest DPS out of any class. I can't be sure of that because warriors can dish out a lot, but warriors have more counters against them such as wards and snares. Paragons are STILL the most overpowered class PvP-wise. F.Y.I.

No there not, in a group there Formidable and damn right outrageous.

There affected by almost all melee counters -_-.

An assassin can outmatch a paragons DPS, and with there now lower recharges for some skill its staying like that.

4 second recharge skills, 1-2 second recharge skills max attack skill is about 20 seconds recharge.
Warriors weapons are rather strong and there skills are stronger aswell.
A ritualist spirits give out great DPS with painful bond its even greater.
MM's give out far better DPS
Mesmer....have the potential... if they use signet of illusion.

Honestly if theres just 1 paragon in a group there not that big a deal I'd be far more worried if a ritualist spammed a bunch of attack and defensive spirits and we didnt pack a counter than a paragon.

seut · Apr 13, 2007, 03:05 AM // 03:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamWind

Until I hear somebody make a thread about overpowered skills in PvE that should be nerfed, I don't listen to these people.

PvE in itself is an imbalanced environment and most of the times you are facing lvl24+ enemies with respectively higher armor and health. In the context of that environment most skills actually aren't overpowered.
During the "Hero weekend" i played the Dajkah Inlet challenge mission with a few chars and was pretty surprised how many criticals i was getting against mainly lvl20 enemies.

Mr Emu · Apr 13, 2007, 03:31 AM // 03:31

um... /signed : )

Captain Robo · Apr 13, 2007, 09:09 AM // 09:09

Thank you for your kind words and comments. Some very good discussions have come out of this thread, and I'd like to comment more on them right now, but I am incredibly sleep deprived, so I will delay this until later tomorrow.

Cass · Apr 13, 2007, 09:37 AM // 09:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

But regular balances are shit. Having almost the same build in both of the party is shit and is making the game stale. Having a single dominating meta is shit. I don't want Guild Wars to be played like chess or like boxing or like scrabble, where only "skill" (LOL - maybe experience yep) matters . I want it to be like Ultimate Fighting Championships wherein different martial arts are showcased and are used by different people to combat other people. A creative arena is where you see different builds being played. A creative arena is Build Wars where in the skill is defined as finding counters or way to win even when you're handicapped or the build you use is meant to lose against the other team's.

LOL at this coming from someone with your play history. You truly take trolling to the next level, my hat's off to you.

Apart from that, I'd like to add that this 'creativity' you advocate in the form of Build Wars is something that is incredibly boring as it boils down to an elaborate version of rock-paper-scissors, with the only thrill at the start of the match when you get to see whether the opposing team is paper or not. The joy of playing is in the 'skill', or 'experience'. Build design adds variety to this in a huge way, else it would be an FPS, but it should never mean that a build makes you lose because the opponent has an unbeatable counterbuild.

moriz · Apr 13, 2007, 02:53 PM // 14:53

i'd like to comment on the notion of nerfing and countering.

there's been many people who cry foul after their favourite build get nerfed. many of them will say that: "if this build is so overpowered, why doesn't everyone bring skill X to counter!" case in point, someone mentioned that: "if paragons were so overpowered, why doesn't everyone bring vocal minority?" the problem should be quite clear if you think about it: paragons were regarded as overpowered because it took a very specific counter to negate them. on the example of vocal minority, it's not enough to just bring it and hope it can shut down paragons. you need to bring a dedicated hex team build if you want it to stick for longer than 3 seconds. that severely limits build creativity: if you want a hard shutdown of a paragon, you must run hexes.

another problem with such counters is that they are extremely inflexible. let's say you bring divert hexes and purge sig to help you against hex stack builds. you go in, and you don't meet hexes. well, your monk is suddenly running with no elite and only 6 skills, because divert hexes and purge sig are useless against anything other than massive hex stacks. if you meet hexes, great. if you don't, you're screwed. the game will turn into a big game of rock-paper-scissors: overpowered skills with overpowered counters. if you brought the right counters, you win. if you didn't, you lose. the term "build wars" describes this situation exactly, and i'm quite sure nobody wants that to happen.

that's where nerfing comes in. the main purpose for nerfing skills/professions is to reduce it to a level where it doesn't take a very specific counter to manage it. anet's track record with this isn't really spectacular, but their recent update to hexes and hex removal is a step in the right direction. the combo of sig of devotion and deny hexes is a prime example. used in a combo and they are effective against hex teams. not as effective as the hard inflexible counters, but the recent adjustment will make staying up against hex stacks much more manageable. individually, sig of devo and deny hexes are still effective if you don't meet a hex team. that is a step in the right direction: skill interactions that are viable on their own, and effective flexible counters when needed.

a healthy metagame is where you can into a match with any number of builds and still be viable. when you complain why your favourite build got nerfed, think about this: does it need an inflexible hard counter to negate? if so, then the nerf was justified.

ensoriki · Apr 13, 2007, 03:59 PM // 15:59

SO what your saying is you like the FOTM becauses its so Stale.

You like knowing what your opponents going to have because you never have to think about a different build other than FOTM?

In a diverse game you can technically win even at an disadvantage.
It's kinda boring to go into a match and Both sides have the Exact same build so that it turns into

1) who messed up first
2) Who messed up again.

Its not rock paper scissors when theres more than 3 choices if there were 10 viable builds for each class so that it wasn't all predictable but counters all worked, there wouldn't be as big a deal.

Oh the sin may bring this but I have blind and it WILL work on Warrior, Dervish,ranger and paragon aswell

Sin/ele is a spell caster Ill bring backfire/daze.

You know there are Universal counters like Blind and daze, weakness is pretty good now aswell.

GloryFox · Apr 13, 2007, 04:08 PM // 16:08

I would like to refocus on the Ritualist a bit

Quote:

1. The Case of The Ritualist
Ritualists, since their inception, have been a misunderstood class. They can heal, but not as well as a monk; they can deal damage, but not as well as an elementalist; and generally only excel at very specific niche roles. However, when the Ritualist was released, the potency of the class' defensive spirits was incredible, to the point of being overpowered. God-forbid players actually learn how to counter spirit spamming Ritualists in GvG or HA, Anet swoops in, brandishing the banhammer, and completely annihilates the one thing the class was good at: spirits. In one move, Ritualist spirit effectiveness, energy management, and usefulness went straight down the tubes. Spawning Power, while not very good in general, has now become an essentially defunct attribute, as it provides a useless buff to skills that Ritualists no longer use. Sure, you might see a spirit spammer here or there, but the vast majority (the few there are), of modern ritualists specialize in Weapon Spells. Their primary attribute is a waste, their energy management is shit, and their general strategy is nonexistent. An overall wasted class.

You are absolutely correct here with ANET not allowing the Metagame to create counters. As it is there is and was many good counters to the original Spirit Lord build that was the focus to much debate. However you will never see the counters blossom because the meta game was never allowed to prosper. Then when Nightfall was released there were suddenly an influx of counters that became obsolete because they were originally designed as the meta game counters for the original Spirit Lord build of skills. Plus the Spirit Lord builds were never put back into their original cost and design even though the build was no longer overpowering for PvP because of the influx of Nighfall counters.

The over nerfs to the Communing and Spawning attribute have forced players to use Restoration or Channeling more and more ignoring the fact that Restoration and Channeling are really compliment attributes to the main attributes of Spawning and Communing as was intended but there was still hope for the Communing line of skills with the Spawning of three low cost attacking spirits Pain, Shadow Song, and Blood Song.

Then when Blood Song was moved to Channeling instead of Anguished was Lingwah (because of PvP complaints and the lack of counters to many Spirit Spamming builds) that was the breaking point for the communing line. The move did not stop Spirit Spammers as was intended but strengthened it by forcing a Communing Channeling build, but at the cost of injuring the Spawning and Communing attributes even more. The many Ritualist communities responded and made it clear to ANET that the Blood Song move did not work or make sense (no reason for it outside of some PvP player complaints) and that Anguished was Lingwah was the better choice and the community (PvP and PvE) was as a whole, ignored.

Now you have several problems with the Ritualist class because of not allowing a meta game to develop.
1) They are no longer defined by role and primary attribute.
2) The skills within the Ritualist attributes are mixed up and misplaced because of NOT following attribute definitions. (Offering of Spirit is but one example and there are skills in the Channeling line that should be in Spawning and skills in Communing that should be in Channeling and skills in Spawning that should be in Communing etc. etc. this is not merely opinion but an observation defined by attribute definitions)
3) Area’s of magic they can do effectively, can be utilized as or more effectively by other classes thus dissolving their place in the world. For example Restoration vs. Healing Monks and Channeling Spikes vs. well any Elementalist Spike build and Weapon skill builds vs. the Ranger.

The Ritualist has a multi level problem and I don’t see a solution or a willingness to create a solution in the near or far future by ANET.

I do not have the time or energy to go into Paragons and Mesmers but I agree with you there as well.

Blame the Monks · Apr 13, 2007, 04:30 PM // 16:30

The ritualist meta DID develop -- it just sucked. Spirits could be placed so defensively and still work they could effective gunk up the game at will. No one liked playing against it or as it. And what's worse, you couldn't stop it without making a serious build compromise just to stop the chance that they had a spirit spammer. The problem wasn't that the meta didn't have time to adjust, the problem was that the meta could not adjust to beat rits without seriously weakning the build to everything else.

This is the problem with so many specialized overload gimmicks. Balanced teams can simply no longer fit the counters they need to beat all of the active gimmicks by skill. You need a shields up chain for paraway, some way to stop caster spikes inside wards with mantra, enough enchant removal to stop signet of mighty crap, mass hex removal and a way to stop sbri, mass condition removal as well as antidaze, mass antiphysical including ways to stop ass instagibs, ways to deal with infinite movement sins, ways to deal with vod teams... And that is just the start.

In the old days, a good balanced team with standard counters (dshot, shock, diversion, a few hex/condi/chant removes) could counter most gimmicks by skill. Now there are so many gimmicks that are so difficult to stop, it is very hard to win with balanced. This is why mid/low level gvg and tombs is exclusively build wars -- the average palyer running a balanced build cannot reasonably counter the majority of gimmicks. And what's worse, many builds have such a huge build advantage over others even good players lose to poor ones. Thus, they are forced to run a gimmick themselves, and the game gets worse and worse.

Some of you may like Build wars and think the innovation is fun. I like skill based games and think gimmickry needs to always be a weaker strategy. The average player running an average balanced build should be able to beat a gimmick by skill.

tomcruisejr · Apr 13, 2007, 04:45 PM // 16:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cass

LOL at this coming from someone with your play history. You truly take trolling to the next level, my hat's off to you.

Apart from that, I'd like to add that this 'creativity' you advocate in the form of Build Wars is something that is incredibly boring as it boils down to an elaborate version of rock-paper-scissors, with the only thrill at the start of the match when you get to see whether the opposing team is paper or not. The joy of playing is in the 'skill', or 'experience'. Build design adds variety to this in a huge way, else it would be an FPS, but it should never mean that a build makes you lose because the opponent has an unbeatable counterbuild.

Yep, I played IWAY. I also noticed that people were reluctant to put melee counters and just blindly relied on the current acceptable balanced meta or ranger spike (lol) even they were expecting 8 IWAY matches out of 10. Very few teams used anti melee hexes (and won) and those who didn't and lost to IWAY just ran away, hoping for an A.Net intervention. So who is to blame? The lazy IWAYers or the dumb / nerf dependent player base?

Yep, creativity and skill via Build Wars. Please watch War Machine vs Lum (and give me a summary of that). I also heard eF owned iQ who ran sb/ri spirit build in jade map. I think A.Net should maintain the inherent build advantages and just add map mechanics (we have one atm: ability to split and hopefully theyll add more) that will make matches balanced.

crimsonfilms · Apr 13, 2007, 04:49 PM // 16:49

To OP

(I don't have the time or energy...)

In short
"Leaving it to the players' is not working. I think you overestimate people's tolerance for uneven game play.

And I find it ironic that some of the PvErs screaming about the nerfs and telling people to adjust are the same people complaining about the SR nerf that is how old?

Bottom line is PvP and PvErs dont have the patience when there is no monthly and gaming landscape is very competetive.

tomcruisejr · Apr 13, 2007, 05:03 PM // 17:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by crimsonfilms

And I find it ironic that some of the PvErs screaming about the nerfs and telling people to adjust are the same people complaining about the SR nerf that is how old?

Some aren't complaining about the nerf. They just find people saying things are overpowered in PvE (e.g. SR) ridiculously funny.

crimsonfilms · Apr 13, 2007, 05:07 PM // 17:07

Quote:

Some aren't complaining about the nerf. They just find people saying things are overpowered in PvE (e.g. SR) ridiculously funny.

Some are and some are not. And those find it funny is probably because overpowered is the soup de jour in PvE.

Darksun · Apr 13, 2007, 05:07 PM // 17:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Robo

However, if Anet is so open to statistical data, observing players, and reading forums, why have they turned a deaf ear to the large outcry over the Soul Reaping Nerf?

I think the point is that all the moaning & groaning is NOT backed up by the statistical data. People complain no matter what. Heck, they complained BEFORE the nerf was even put in. But the point is, based on their research & numbers, they may be able to show that it's NOT making a significant difference.

Mr.Pickle · Apr 13, 2007, 05:44 PM // 17:44

this is just my opionion but as i see it ten characters and 3 chapters has made things just alittle complicated to balance out. everygame that comes out seems to to recreate the wheel and players opinions are a mixed bag of empty air or creative sparks. Anet can't trust the mob for good ideas so where does that lead them? adjust to a gamers perspective meaning play the game and read the posts and in the end figure out their solutions among themselves. hopefully inviting a positive exploit now and again.

GloryFox · Apr 13, 2007, 07:35 PM // 19:35

Quote:

posted by Blame the Monks
The ritualist meta DID develop

No it did not.

Many of the Nightfall skills were specifically developed to counter the Ritual Lord and other Spirits from Banishing Strike to Mesmer Signets to new Earth based AoE's none of these great skills had a chance to develop into a proper meta game counter to the Ritualist Lord builds. The Ritual Lord died a horrible death prior to these great counters to take effect. The main issue that hit the PvP community was the inability to Improvise Adapt and Overcome or to have patience for a meta game to be created. I don't have the time to list them all but so far I have counted over 30 counters in game just from Rangers and Mesmers for a Spirit spammer and that does not include AoE spells from Elementalists.

They (mostly PvP guilds) refused to give up IWAY and many other popular builds for a solid counter. (Dammit they had their Guild build that took them over a year to develop and would be dammed if they had to change.) Also many in the PvP community did want to compromise their guild builds in fear of losing status to people who through creativity came up with some great build idea's like the Ritual Lord builds and Paragonway builds. Even skills like Avatar of Grenth were not overpowered IMO however the fear of it took hold of many guilds who feared of loosing because they did not allow a counter to come about. They did not allow the game to evolve.

Yes some buffs were needed like the buffs to Assassins over time. BUT not all nerfs were needed to develop the metagame.

Paragonway and the Ritual Lord should have had their chance to dominate if even for a few more months if only to allow for skill and build counters to come about in next chapters or to allow them to go head to head.

What is scarier the original Ritual Lord with Vow of Silence in a balanced build party or 4 Paragon Motivators, 2 Paragon Commanders mixed with 2 Earth Eles? We will never know the outcome of that match because the Ritual Lord and the Motivation Paragon was killed before the meta game could fully develop. That is why I agree with many people here the Ritual Lord Meta never developed.

ANET nerfs and nerfs and nerfs and never goes back to what made the class or skills work in the first place, even after a counter comes about though build or new skills introduced. They have to take a build and nerf every singly skill in the build so that it never surfaces again. Now we have class lead attributes (Spawning, Leadership, Inspiration) with ½ of the skills becoming useless in PvP and in PvE from Communing Ritualist, Motivation Paragons, to the Inspired Mesmer.

What happed to going back to the purpose and functionality of the class and the class primary attribute as its sole advantage over other classes?

ensoriki · Apr 13, 2007, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Yes, Nightfall brought alot of counter skills, but those skills arent even useful as they Nerfed what there supposed to counter. Making them just Outdated skills.

Of course somethings are necessary to nerf
Paraway was ...a nuisance, a paragon shout effecting other paragons Tweak would've worked but no.

And besides nerfs some things aren't even buffed when they need it until after 1+ years (otugah's cry). Or buffed in the wrong way.

Blame the Monks · Apr 13, 2007, 07:58 PM // 19:58

Sorry, Glory, but you just don't know what you are talking about.

Mesmer signets and the like were tried and discarded because they were too narrow. A team with 64 slots cannot justify devoting multiple slots to counter one narrow gimmick when there are dozens out there. See original post. It wasn't impossible to counter rits, it was just impractical to counter rits given the other gimmicks you were forced to counter and the other things you were forced to do.

If you think the community didn't improvise and test every possible combination, you are a fool. The skills put in to counter rits were unworkable, ineffective, or too narrow. They were discarded because they didn't work while letting the team beat other gimmicks as well, not because people couldn't think to use them. In this sense, the "meta" developed very quickly...as soon as people tried all the alternatives and realized none of them were acceptable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GloryFox

The main issue that hit the PvP community was the inability to Improvise Adapt and Overcome

Its wasy to whine about adapting. But think of it this way -- prove to me you can adapt and overcome these game flaws. Run a build that counters the meta and still wins against all the other gimmicks. If its so easy to do, do it and I will copy you. Show me that the flaws of the game are a result of failure to adapt by giving me proof of you adapting and winning.

Of course, the fact no one was able to do this over a 9 month period despite thousands of attempts and significant cash on the line is pretty good evidence it couldn't be done, but hey, you could be the superstar who proves us all wrong. Or you could be just another scrub who doesn't understand the game.

Let's see the proof.