Curse

Zelc · Aug 14, 2005, 03:56 AM // 03:56

By the way, here's another very nice article. It talks about a possible rubric to use to determine when a skill is overpowered. That rubric is found at the very bottom. For those who are not interested in the Magic The Gathering history (replace "deck" with "build" and "card" with "skill", also note that "restriction" means only 1 copy of that card in a deck instead of the normal 4 copies):

Quote:

I propose a weighted multi-factor test that I believe should be adopted by Wizards [company that makes M:tG]:

To begin, the first criteria for whether a card should be restricted is whether it is the key element of a deck that is excessively tournament dominant in diverse geographical areas for a period of at least one month. This is the most important criteria. Usually, this card will be a mana [a resource kind of like adrenaline that slowly builds up over time unless accelerated. Most cards require mana] accelerant or a card advantage [people usually draw 1 card per turn in M:tG. Gaining more cards per turn can be a huge boon, and having more cards than your opponent is called card advantage] generator. Common sense application of the rule should be the norm. The card should be chosen so that it affects as few decks as possible. Sometimes, more than one card might need to be restricted because the restriction of one key element may not stop the deck from being dominant.

The second criteria is whether a card is the key element of a deck that is excessively metagame distorting in diverse geographical areas for a period of at least one month.

The phrasing of the second criteria is broad enough to encompass cards like Strip Mine and Black Vise [cards that have been very good historically. Black Vise punishes players for having too many cards, and Strip Mine destroys the opponent's mana, making it hard for the opponent to get cards out of his hand], whose unrestriction may not lead to a single degenerate deck, but would be sufficiently metagame-distorting to warrant restriction. Generally, you won't need multiple restrictions for cards for decks that have cards that meet this criterion.

In the final months of Gush's existence there was an issue of whether Gro-A-Tog [a deck's name] was truly dominant. In the Netherlands, there were decks that were running rampant which claimed that they never lost to Gro-A-Tog. A glance at the June Eindhoven is a great example of this. In America, similar claims were made as well... And they might have been true. But this simple situation raises two issues: Those issues are whether a deck need be unbeatable, and whether the card/deck need prove its dominance everywhere (or mostly everywhere).

Addressing the first issue, it should be obvious that deck need not be unbeatable in order for an element of it to be restricted. In the first place, most decks always have a flaw. To say that deck must be unbeatable ignores the point that it can still be distorting. In the case of mono blue, the answer was Suicide Black [a deck's name]. Those who played against Mono Blue [a deck's name] had to run Suicide Black in order to have a good shot against it. If they were unlucky enough to have to face another deck first, say some Neo-Academy [a deck's name] build, then they were out of luck, and Mono Blue would go all the way to the top. That is a distorted environment.

The third criterion asks whether the card is sufficiently objectively over-powered without reference to specific card interaction. This criterion should be given much less weight than the first, and there is a heavy burden on the part of the card to show that it is sufficiently objectively broken. This criterion excludes the question of whether a card is objectively over powered in combination with some other card, but asks if it is objectively overpowered in light of known principles and general knowledge. The perfect example of this type of card is Mind's Desire [a card that rewarded players for using a lot of cards in a turn. It was so powerful it was restricted before it actually became legal to use]. The storm mechanic is particularly abusive in a format with zero-casting-cost mana accelerants. This criterion is generally in place so that a card may be restricted before it enters the environment and makes things unpleasant for the next three months.

The fourth criteria asks whether there is a card that either distorts or dominants the Type 1.5 [a different format with almost the same card set as Type 1, but all Type 1 restricted cards were banned in Type 1.5, and vice versa] environment, and whose restriction would not significantly affecting Type One. Presumably, this follows the pattern of Entomb and Earthcraft.

The fourth criterion would only apply after new chapters are released, thus introducing a need to balance both the Chapter 1 and the Chapter 1+2 skillsets.

Also note that one huge problem right now is we have very limited knowledge of the metagame due to the lack of public tournaments where the results are published down to the individual skills and attribute points used by the players. This could be rectified to a certain degree by more tournaments being run and Observer Mode, but player skill plays a larger role in GW than in M:tG, which complicates things a bit (was it the build or the player that's so good?).

Aug 14, 2005, 04:38 AM // 04:38

that article you just quoted is very excellent, and is a precursor to some of the things I wanted to outline in the next major post. Good good stuff. Let me know if you have some more interesting ones. First post will be updated.

Phades · Aug 14, 2005, 11:25 AM // 11:25

Meh, and here i would have thought wizards of the coast would have learned their lesson with spam use, 0 mana, and refresh hand ideas by now. That is like sooo alpha/beta (might as well say first 5 sets)esque.

FengShuiBundi · Aug 14, 2005, 03:56 PM // 15:56

Uh, Charles, I hope you weren't addressing all that anger towards me. It's not as if I am new to GW or joined after release. I know that even during the betas people have complained about the lack of strong enchant removal. I thought it was obvious then too. While I did not have access to the alpha boards and could not see much of the intelligent GW discussions going on at TGH (Still can't find too many of these over there) I did agree with those who said there needed to be a more effective form of enchant removal.

Yes, I know it's frustrating to make your point after the game is released. I know that it's hard to try and change something, and not have anything to show for that until much later, but you have to understand that unlike the beta and alpha players, the majority of the people playing GW are just now waking up to it's flaws and problems.

Elitism... well that always happens, but don't vent frustration on me

Keep this thread alive... we need more intelligent discussion!

Ensign · Aug 14, 2005, 07:11 PM // 19:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by FengShuiBundi

Uh, Charles, I hope you weren't addressing all that anger towards me.

No, I wasn't directing it towards you, you just brought up the subject and the way you did so struck a nerve and put me into rant mode.

Particularly, if intelligent people in the community were saying it, and it was so obvious, why didn't it get fixed during the months and months of testing they did?

Quote:

Originally Posted by FengShuiBundi

the majority of the people playing GW are just now waking up to it's flaws and problems.

Sure, and that they're waking up to the flaws is a good thing. People learning these things makes for a better game in the long run. On some level I should just be happy that people did come around to the 'enchantment removal is weak' point of view. At the same time, I'm a bit let down by how these things are just treated as common knowledge after there were pages and pages of arguments made on both sides months ago. I guess I just missed the whole process in between. =)

Peace,
-CxE

Rieselle · Aug 14, 2005, 10:21 PM // 22:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zelc

Also note that one huge problem right now is we have very limited knowledge of the metagame due to the lack of public tournaments where the results are published down to the individual skills and attribute points used by the players. This could be rectified to a certain degree by more tournaments being run and Observer Mode, but player skill plays a larger role in GW than in M:tG, which complicates things a bit (was it the build or the player that's so good?).

Sounds to me like, even if the auto-balancing system is too crazy to be contemplated, there's a strong argument for the data-gathering component of such a system

It would be nice to know (or nice to know the developers know) which builds are popular/dominant, etc. Since it's a online game, it's not strictly necessary for these things to be discovered by human observation - the stats can be data-mined in the servers automatically.

To Silmor: Sounds like we're just coming from two different perpectives based on personal preference. I couldnt find anything to respond to in your last post, so I'll just agree to disagree and continue to try to contribute to this topic, from my own take on it.

Aug 14, 2005, 11:05 PM // 23:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

Energy denial is imo a pretty big issue. When concerning shutdown, you have a couple of choices: hexes like guilt/shame (screwed somewhat by NR), interrupts like power leak, and energy denial like edrain. But I honestly don't see that these are balanced at all. Energy Drain, Debilitating Shot, and Fear me! are the top 3 energy denial skills and can be tailored to make edenial far stronger than normal shutdown. With interrupts you have to be skilled and react fast. Doesn't leave much room for errors without something like arcane connundrum on. Hexes are vulnerable to removal. A big part of that is that like Blackace said, energy management skills are mostly elite and those that aren't elite (like attunements) are not the greatest thing. And the best way to shutdown an elite is with signet of humility.

I don't believe there are any counters, besides ranger interrupts/cof/leech sig to sig humility, and nothing you can do once it's up. It's free, and normally you can disable someone's elite slightly less than 3/4 of the time. Now, with stuff like edrain/offering that requires precise timing or otherwise it's affect is little. On the other hand, with QZ (screws up balance greatly imo, since many things are balanced by recharge times) you can keep their elite permanently disabled. With proper sig humility use, you can keep any good energy management methods shut out completely, and there's really no other counter to strong edenial builds incorporating debilitating shot+echo, edrain+arcane echo, fear me+echo, and signet of weariness besides using it yourself. It seems to be stronger than normal shutdown, and that's where a balance issue may lie. I would like to see others thoughts on this.

I'll go into detail on what "type" of overpowerdness(it makes no sense at the moment, bear with me) Energy Denial is later, but I just have to bring something up at the moment. These skills are so powerful, both fundamentally due to essentially causing a player stop acting, and mathematically due to the values on some of those skills whether it being energy loss, cast time, recharge time, or in other cases area of effect. Energy denial in general is so good that skills that were once incredibly broken(Power leak which used to make you lose iirc up to 36 energy) and Malaise(sent to the dust heap) are now sub-par because the other options just out eclipsed them. To put it in simplest form, options that were once borderline broken but are very good like Power Leak are not being seen much use due to the other options just being that good.

My problem with sig of humility isn't even the values of the skill, it's the fact that it exists. ArenaNet is pretty much milking the elite mechanic for all it's worth. Put in a skill that stops the elite mechanic from being used. Great. Sure the skill can be stopped by constant disruption through CoF or Leech Sig+cooldown management, but if you put this skill in the game expect to see abuse if your training people to worship the Elite Mechanic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleazeh

From my perspective, alot of the allure of competing and developing my skills, game knowledge, and experience so as to give myself and my team the greatest propsensity for success is hampered by both the metagame knowledge that myself and so many others possess as well as a "mis-balance" of a few skills and their corresponding team builds. Although I am by no means a regular in the Hall of Heroes, I know that my and my team's success will be determined by our ability to execute - by rote - one or the other of a set of teambuilds that currently have no effective counter.

This is another point I wanted to get into later but I'll talk a bit about at the moment. It's not necessarily a build, or set of builds that really dominate PvP. The reasons for that are: metagame knowledge, PvP information, and the age of the game. Right now what dominates PvP are "foundations" of builds that get incorporated into other builds. Pretty much, there are many ways to run a Nature's Renewal build and an Energy Denial build. However, both of those end up not being builds themselves and just parts of something else to achieve a larger effect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleazeh

Victory seems to be, more often than not, defined as the team that either executes the same routine more efficiently or flawlessly than the other team's ability to execute the very same routine, or else the team that has better access to metagame information.

Well no matter what game you play, near flawless execution is always going to be a trait of the better teams. The same goes to access to metagame information. Of the two, ArenaNet has the ability to manipulate one of them and due to them being negligible, or in one case downright ignorant to the intelligence of their playerbase, we have the current situations of PvP play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleazeh

It's complete foolishness, from the point of view of being competitive in PvP, to enter a team that does not run one of a few certain builds. Quite simply, any "success" you may achieve will be shortlived. Understandably, most/all teams that wish to be competitive run those builds, which rely on an individual's ability to perform - again, by rote - the same limited and specific role within the greater context better or quicker than your counterpart on the opposing side.

Yes and no. It's foolish to not run something strong, something you know that is going to bring an advantage. The build is second hand. There are many variations of an archetype build that accomplish the same basic task but on different levels. If you want to win, you incorporate an archetype into a build and abuse it as best you can. the game doesn't come down to "these are the 5 builds that you can run and thats it". More accurately, there are only so many archetypes you can play, and all of them are not equally good. Earlier in this post I responded to Zeru about how I consider Energy Denial's "overpowerdness". It's an archetype. So is Condition Stacking, Hex Stacking, Enchantment Overloading, AoE Manipulation, Mass Disruption,Spike Damage, Battles of Attrition and some other concepts. Essentially the game has evolved to the point where most of these current archetypes were once one-trick pony builds. However they've evolved into pieces of builds to the point where you can have a good 2 or 3 types into a single team build and be effective.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleazeh

Certainly this situation does not foster growth, experimentation, or longevity, as it's essentially a closed system. There is a learning curve to aquire the neccessary skill to execute in a competitive format, the gameplay experience plateaus rapidly, which in turn fosters ennui and departure, leaving room for new players who have completed the learning curve to step into the vacated role.

Well it will foster growth up to a certain point. But as players find out what parts are good and bad then the game does become a closed system of "play this or else". This kind of environment comes about with lax balancing of skills or just a playbase that can't advance past the current level. I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone except ArenaNet and fanboys that people have indeed, left the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleazeh

It may sound corny, but I kinda yearn for there to be a place for the creative, quick reflex and quick minded, experienced player at the victory podium that isn't a function of their ability to slot into a pre-given position on a pre-given team composition. What makes a really good air spiker, or spirit ranger, or smiting elmo? Or even worse, 105 monk in PvE? Success, within certain contexts, are their province based not on the intangibles referred to above by rather by virtue of metagame knowledge of the situational application of each build.

Metagame knowledge and actually creating a build are *so* important to actually having skill in this game I'm surprised how underrated it is. Bringing a good build into a tournament ensures some degree of success, and that you'll be playing to win. Bringing a bad build just puts you at a disadvantage from the start, and good players usually will not do that to themselves because even subconsciously they know to a degree what they are doing. This is just akin to getting your foot in the door and being on an even level with everyone else.

The actual twitch based gameplay, timing and mental reflex gaming are part of the game, usually the higher levels of PvP or what little of it is left. It may not be explicitly showcased as in FPS games but it's there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makkert

As for Spike-Johnny-Timmy: yeah, they certainly are here. Altough i must add here that Timmy is NOT equal to noob. This is a common misunderstanding. Just to clarify.

I agree-in a way. I think Timmy isn't the default noob. There are good players that will play inefficient skills because sometimes even inefficient skills can have a devestating effect. Look at Maelstrom. An ungodly burden on even an Elementalist with high energy storage, with nothing except Glyph of Energy making it too good. But you'll find good player happily making a Mes/Ele with 0 point in fast casting willing to pay the 25 energy, 4 second cast time, recharge+exhaustion not for the damage but for the control. It's a Timmy skills for sure, but Spike will happily use it and in a sense is pulling a Timmy.

Now, even though Timmy isn't the default noob, I think it's safe to say that many noobs have Timmy characteristics. You can search the forums, and look how many guys praise Searing Heat, any Rodgort spell, Meteor Shower, or any skill with high numbers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diomedes

It would seem to me, that Anet with elites has engaged in what Sirlin would call, "The Capcom Principle." As far as how people feel about gold borders and rareness and such, I feel that's beside the point (if the discussion is balance, then people's perceptions are a separate issue). If I understand your argument correctly (and please speak up if I don't), you're claim that adding another level of balance is a problem. In some of TGH posts, the argument seemed to be that making a skill "elite" was a poor method of employing balance, and that it lead to degenerate game play (yes, glib summaries I know).

I was touching on this before, but now is a good time to make it concrete. I also think Anet is engaging in the Capcom Principle. Put a bunch of broken things into the game and let the playerbase sort them out. Things are so broken that they counter each other in a self-correcting environment. I dont think the principle applies to the Elite Skills though. Some of them are broken, and many of them are sub-par. The Capcon Principle imo, applies to those archetypes I described above. Energy Denial is completely broken. Enchantment stacking was completely broken, but killed by a broken skill. It's to the point where the metagame area of Condition Stacking vs Condition Removal which is somewhat fine, is just Martyr and friends with Restore Condition being left out. It's not just one skill here and there in most cases, it's a subset of skills that behave in such a way that you run them or another subset of things too good to pass up. If you dont you just lose or hope for a swing in the metagame.

My argument isn't that adding another level of balance is bad for the game, it's how it was implemented. Pretty much we exist in a community that when something is too good, the response is make it an Elite Skill. The reason this is bad is that not all Elite Skills are created equal, so when you have to balance them vs each other and the other skills it can be ugly. Look at it like this, skills are elite do to having a unique effect(Tainedted Flesh,ThunderClap), altering gameplay environments(Greater Conflag,Martyr), or just being very good mathetically over other options(EDrain,Eviscerate). Then there isn't a rule that says these 3 characteristics have to be exclusive to a skill, so you can end up with a skill that changes the evironment and be very good vs other options like Lingering Curse, which says it will take off any enchantment and the environment for healing this character effectively is now destroyed as long as I am here. Now imagine if a skill with characteristics like that romes around as a normal skill, and you can see how ugly it can get when Anet gets lazy on balancing and starts throwing everything into the Elite Skills pile. Sometimes, they may have no choice because the mechanic of that skill is so good that it will probably be used anyway,case in point Blood is Power which through all the nerfs it has gotten(directly and indirectly) it still sees considerable play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FengShuiBundi

I do look forward to your ideas about WW and MW. I remember the 10+ page thread over at TGH about the same thing. It was a very convincing arguement then and still is now.

That thread was unfortunately very ugly due to a few people who couldn't explain what they were talking about, kept making things up and for the most part were blindly devoted to claims by members of one of the top guilds at the moment even when there was a video out that disproved a lot of what was said by some MW supporters. Hopefully this time fallacies can be avoided

Quote:

Originally Posted by FengShuiBundi

As already mentioned, enchants vs enchant removal shows the obvious flaws of the enchant removal system. Low Cost, Fast Recharge v. High Cost, High Recharge, Situational spells. The disparity is quite obvious and must be addressed. Had it not been for the NR mess we would still be talking about enchant removal problems.

No doubt, and I'm sure if I was still part of the alpha ArenaNet devs would stil l be telling me to "prove it or shutup" when iQ is holding the hall for hours and the devs themselves are getting crushed by it. I'm not saying that the situation is a downright "duh" fix, but the wont even acknowledge the issue and look at the mess right now. Instead of the class with the most options for dealing with enchantments being used, everyone takes a Ranger, the class farthest from the enchantment spectrum next to warriors to deal with them. GG class balance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zelc

There's a corollary to the "There must be bad cards/skills" rule: there must be good cards/skills. Some of those skills will be better than others, and a certain skillset will almost be inevitably be better or worse than another skillset.

This is a basic idea that I tried to convey to Mind Wrack supporters, and even new players who post about builds that more seasoned players wouldn't touch with Michael Jackson's white glove. Some skills are just going to suck. They have to. You can only play at maximum 64 skills on a team build and a skill that does nothing until a guy is pretty much out of the picture just doesnt help. Maybe the skill will become useful in some odd metagame twise, but so far its been incredibly bad, along with it's little brother Wastrels Worry.I actually read the article a couple of years ago, and along with common sense thats one of the places where I reinforced the idea of "trash skills".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rieselle

In every competitive game, there's the strange group of people who will do anything to win, especially playing in a repetitive fashion, abusing imbalances as much as possible. I guess these are "Spikes-gone-bad". To me, the best games are those which are built such that "Spike" gameplay behaviour is indistinguishable from "Timmy" or "Johnny" gameplay behaviour. In other words, make What Wins = What Looks Cool = What Is Creative And Unexpected.

Doing anything to win is not the same as playing in a repetitive fashion. Abusing imbalances is also not wrong. If your playing to win, there is no hard rule that says you have to play this, or you cant play that. Good players play the best cards, whether imbalanced or not, and just go on about their business.

To me, the best games have a way to reward all 3 of those types of games also-but the foundations must be built on Spikes terms or else you have WoW Battlegrounds, or even worse, Roleplayers bringing their characters to PvP and complaining when they get smashed and it's all because they didnt do their homework.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rieselle

What about some sort of auto-balancing system that gradually downgrades skills that are popular and upgrades skills that aren't? It wont fix NR, because part of what makes it broken is that it has very little numeric qualities, and those it does have can be partially sidestepped by Oath Shot. But it will change the quality of skills which are currently good or bad based on some combination of their damage/cost/time. NR and skills which are useless because they do nothing will still need to be fixed directly.

The simplest answer as to why it wont work is that whats popular doesnt automatically mean whats good. Air spike was hella popular, but to most good teams it was old, way old and just something the new players caught on to. So then the autobalancing system nerfs Lightning Orb and you put the wrong hole into Air builds.

The other side of the equation also exists. No matter what you do, some skills mechanically just cant be played seriously. Does anyone sane of mind have a use for Blood Renewal or Dwarven Battle Stance?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rieselle

The way I see it, a lot of grief comes when developers try to actively balance things. People who were abusing it complain.People who cared about things that didnt change complain. People who didnt get the change they wanted complain. Having a built-in mechanism that does things addresses this a little, since it becomes "part of the game".

If you're trying to balance a game, there is only one set of people developers should ever take seriously: the top level of players looking to balance the game. The players that complain about nerfs in most cases cant see past "Omg my Ranger was nerfed" and are usually best left to be ignored.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rieselle

Also, I prefer to have "skill" in making builds be more of a "ability to think on the move and adapt to changing conditions" rather than "ability to look up the forums to see what is good". In other words, I'd rather hit a moving target :P

Looking in forums doesnt tell you whats best all the time. i'm sure there are things guilds have hidden from public view that they know are good enough to have pubbies drooling. I've already addressed the skill argument in depth, and needless to say I dont agree with what you've said. I think Silmor covered most of what I'd like to say pretty well though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makkert

This is why I had mixed feelings of ANet introducing their cycle of 'balancereviews'. Also a 3 month cycle. If they goof up on just one of these moments, the game will suffer tremendously. Because it will be another 3 months before issues at hand will be fixed...

Possibly. I'd have been more comfortable with a 1.5-2 month period of letting things go wild. 3 months scares me with Anet track record for lack of paying attention or listening to the downright obvious. They have the tools to balance dynamically but are scared because of what happened with KOR in the NC Soft tourney. Oh well, sometimes a game has to be balanced but NC Soft screwed Anet indirectly, thats life. If they truly learned anything from the past it's that creating an environment where people expect changes even though they will take a while is much better than sending out a scapegoat that says "were fixing it" even though it's been about...9 months for enchantment removal, and about 2 for NR.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzan

The solution is to look down the road and make multiple changes at the same time. If they nerf NR without touching ER, then they will have not done their homework.

They should first consider how A, B and C interact now, and why people don't use D. Then, when they cripple B, see how A, C and D interact, and/or what E's new role is. The worst case senario is if by removing C they make D just as powerful as C was in the first place. The ideal is obviously an enivironment where A,B, and C are equally good and equally viable, but not so dominating that a guy playing D can't come in from time to time and steal a win creatively.

You've summed up the situation that many have tried throwing at ArenaNet time and time again. Once NR is fixed, it'll be back to buff stacking, bonds, high energy engines and relying on spike damage to break through. The only difference I can see now is that where D would have been Condition based strategy in that metagame, it also goes down the hole.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zelc

Also note that one huge problem right now is we have very limited knowledge of the metagame due to the lack of public tournaments where the results are published down to the individual skills and attribute points used by the players. This could be rectified to a certain degree by more tournaments being run and Observer Mode, but player skill plays a larger role in GW than in M:tG, which complicates things a bit (was it the build or the player that's so good?).

Very true. ArenaNet doesn't...breathe life into PvP. Even without tournaments, lack of information flow in general, bad skill descriptions, skills not working as intended and then not letting the playerbase know since they dont put any updates in-game publically is just horrible. There are many ways ArenaNet can fix it, but Observer Mode wont do it alone.

Tuon · Aug 15, 2005, 02:58 AM // 02:58

Coming from a wc3/sc background I'm proud to say I understand only about 60% of this stuff

Rieselle · Aug 15, 2005, 03:08 AM // 03:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

Doing anything to win is not the same as playing in a repetitive fashion. Abusing imbalances is also not wrong. If your playing to win, there is no hard rule that says you have to play this, or you cant play that. Good players play the best cards, whether imbalanced or not, and just go on about their business.

That's actually my point, which I might not have articulated fully. There's nothing wrong with doing anything to win, or abusing imbalances. However, a good game is one which causes such behaviour to result in gameplay which is fun, relatively balanced, flashy, and has variety. Bad games cause such behaviour to result in repetitive, overpowered, boring gameplay.

Thus, my statement that good games make Spike players play like Timmy/Johnnys.

Also, there's a point I want to bring up about Timmys... M:tG, being a card game, has nothing but big numbers to be "cool". However, video games have flashy graphics, sound and what not. So assuming that a video game "Timmy" mostly cares about spell effects and stuff rather than just the large numbers, I'm probably mostly a Timmy - most of my enjoyment comes from the experience of watching/feeling the things that I do rather than winning or losing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

The simplest answer as to why it wont work is that whats popular doesnt automatically mean whats good. Air spike was hella popular, but to most good teams it was old, way old and just something the new players caught on to. So then the autobalancing system nerfs Lightning Orb and you put the wrong hole into Air builds.

The other side of the equation also exists. No matter what you do, some skills mechanically just cant be played seriously. Does anyone sane of mind have a use for Blood Renewal or Dwarven Battle Stance?

In my reply to Silmor, I mentioned I was less interested in "balance" more than "variety". And, with the right numbers, cant those two skills be somewhat useful? I know blood renewal is very good for beginning pve, but it becomes irrelevant very quickly. (probably due to the fact that regen becomes less useful when health numbers get bigger, but the life sacrifice stays constant in relative cost.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

If you're trying to balance a game, there is only one set of people developers should ever take seriously: the top level of players looking to balance the game. The players that complain about nerfs in most cases cant see past "Omg my Ranger was nerfed" and are usually best left to be ignored.

That's probably true for balance. But hardcore competitive players tend to have a pretty extreme perspective on what is fun/good and what isnt. So in a general sense of "improving the game" or "priorities for updates", I'm not sure that hardcore competitive players should be the only or most important group listened to.

Arg, gotta go back to work. It seems like I'm coming from a much different perspective than the others here. Given that this is a general topic, I hope that it means I have a valuable, different viewpoint, rather than just being irrelevant :P

Dzan · Aug 15, 2005, 03:20 AM // 03:20

Am I the only one that thinks a lot of problems could be solved with these two changes...

1. Nerf NR and FS.

2. Make Rend Enchantments have a 2 second casting time and a 10 second recharge.

Rend Enchantments should be, in my opinion, the best anti-enchantment spell in the game. Right now its casting time means only Mes/Ne can really use it, and its recharge means you will probably use it once before the issue is settled. It think there is a magic balance you can strike where Rend is good enough that if you bring 3 guys with Rend you will give Enchantment based teams a fit, but where Enchantments are still worth bringing.

Aug 15, 2005, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Actually your viewpoint is very valid, dont worry

Rend has gotten nerfed twice if I remember, and it was still being used as a last resort. I think they'd have to rebalance it and buff it(very slightly) in the event that other enchantment removal gets buffed so that people continue to use it. The chances of them buffing ER? practically 0

Tuon · Aug 15, 2005, 03:32 AM // 03:32

Someone explain to me why enchantment removal should not be bad in general. I thought it was like healing vs dmg where healing is much more powerful as it should be.

Kaylee Ann · Aug 15, 2005, 03:42 AM // 03:42

The problem is that in this game, like many others, that proper enchantment stacking can make a team almost invinceable to the average group.

My favorite example of this is a game I played for several years, Shadowbane. In this game, you could literally stack so many buffs on an entire group, making your defense so incredibly high, that the average 'balanced' group did not have a chance. It is one of those things that crushes 90% of other groups right off the bat because they aren't specifically designed to take it out. Sure you can design a group to take it out (ie a counter), but if you aren't designed that way it is gg.

Basically the end game goal, in a perfect world, is to come to that perfect balance between healing/damage and buffs/debuffs, so that no combination of skills/classes just completely wrecks everything in its path before the match even started, and true skill in group design and playability can shine.

Zeru · Aug 15, 2005, 03:56 AM // 03:56

Quote:

That's probably true for balance. But hardcore competitive players tend to have a pretty extreme perspective on what is fun/good and what isnt. So in a general sense of "improving the game" or "priorities for updates", I'm not sure that hardcore competitive players should be the only or most important group listened to.

Competitive players are the ones least likely to hide balance abuses because they're using them. The newbies, who read about something imbalanced online or see it used on them, and then use it themselves, will want the imbalance kept so they can keep winning with it since they aren't able to figure out other good ways if it was nerfed. Competitive players don't like complete blowouts simply because of imbalances, no matter which side they're on.

If anet listened to the pvp scrubs of guild wars, you'd see warriors unable to heal themselves because it's overpowered, a max of 3 eles per group so they can't spike, etc.

Starcraft got balanced closer than anything else in it's class, and it's not because blizzard (the old, cool blizzard) listened to the money mappers. Mmm...starcraft seems more attractive than guild wars, despite many years of playing and only 4~ months and some odd days playing guild wars. Pgt is coming up soon it seems, which is good cause I don't feel like playing on gamei. Just what is anet doing?

Quote:

I'll go into detail on what "type" of overpowerdness(it makes no sense at the moment, bear with me) Energy Denial is later, but I just have to bring something up at the moment.

It'll be interesting to see what you think. My view is that edenial numbers, coupled with signet of humility, are totally out of proportion both since it's easy, unlike interrupting, and the only way to counter is to use it yourself. There are ways to counter everything in the game, except energy denial. As an example, Natures Renewal can be 'countered' by not running enchants/hexes that either cast long, need to be maintained, or need to last long to be good. Energy denial counters everything, except maybe mass warriors (but even they won't live long without their monks). You can make a super defensive build that will be able to withstand sometimes even two teams at once, even with 5 offensive players each. You can make a holding build that will withstand any 'normal' team 1v1 long enough to hold the hall.

Heavy energy denial will crack it though where nothing else would. Those 8 monk teams with heal areas and seeds? Fear me spam and multiple copies of signet of weariness and edrain will make them look like they had the normal 3 monks after a couple minutes. The effect is not immediate, since the enemy has to get to low energy for it to matter, but when they are locked at <5, there's really nothing they can do especially if their energy regen skills are shutdown by signet of humility.

Guild Wars pvp is defensive based, but energy denial breaks this (as it is inherently an offensive move). Other than toning down the skills, or doing something about elites and signet of humility, I really don't know what could be done. Anti-energy denial? Pfft.

Ensign · Aug 15, 2005, 08:09 AM // 08:09

There are always going to be best strategies. This is natural and fine. You have the top build or a small set of top builds, slight variations upon them, and a host of other strategies that pray upon these top strategies. Nothing wrong with any of that.

Something is degenerately bad not when it's the best strategy (because there's always a best strategy given environmental constraints), but when the best counter to a strategy is to run that strategy yourself. Hence why Air Spike, despite its time as top dog, was inherently ok (there were lots of predatory strategies, Fertile Season chief amongst them), while Nature's Renewal spam is not ok (as teams that don't lose to Nature's Renewal are conspicuously similar to Nature's Renewal builds even if they don't run the skill themselves).

Putrid Explosion fails the same test as well.

Peace,
-CxE

FengShuiBundi · Aug 15, 2005, 03:30 PM // 15:30

Couple things here. First, BUMP this thread, better for people to see this than "OH NOES I GOT SCAMMED!"

Second, I'm glad we got that straightened out Ensign, good to know.

Blackace is once again correct in stating that class balance has been thrown out of the window with the advent of NR spamming Rangers. And as he has already mentioned, Arena Net is not willing to admit any error on their behalf, so what we are left with is having to sort out this mess ourselves.

When an entire skill line is pretty much unplayable in competetive PvP, there is something horribly wrong. What I'm talking about is the Protection Prayers line for monks. Almost all skills in that line are enchants. An entire line, made almost unplayable except under exceedingly favorable conditions. And mesmer and necro hexes as well.

NR has single handedly destroyed the balance of class and role in the game. Many teams are forgoing the utility builds of Necros and Mesmers, they are opting out of using edenial or disruption. Instead they just go with the spirit spamming smiter nonsense. Sure there are always new builds, but they don't mean a thing if they can't win due to some horribly broken and game ruining skill. There is a lack of diversity in the game as it is right now. Class balance is gone. No more Necros or Mesmers. And rarely does one see an elementalist that isn't Air in Tombs.
(Sad really, Earth and Water are so much more promising. One can make a team stand up to smites and eles without sweating, while the other effectively shuts down all healing ball and smite combos)

But don't forget, Arena Net does nothing wrong. They are always correct and their decisions are the best and are meant to ensure that the players enjoy the game. We love Arena Net.

Diomedes · Aug 15, 2005, 04:03 PM // 16:03

EDIT: never mind I think I'll just bow out of this topic for now, suffice is to say, I enjoy discussions about skill balance on skill balance threads and I think the flames should go.

Dan Mega · Aug 15, 2005, 05:06 PM // 17:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Something is degenerately bad not when it's the best strategy (because there's always a best strategy given environmental constraints), but when the best counter to a strategy is to run that strategy yourself. Hence why Air Spike, despite its time as top dog, was inherently ok (there were lots of predatory strategies, Fertile Season chief amongst them), while Nature's Renewal spam is not ok (as teams that don't lose to Nature's Renewal are conspicuously similar to Nature's Renewal builds even if they don't run the skill themselves).

I'll give my own take on it. Something is degenerately wrong with the players, not the game, that can't beat a certain build. They're not good enough yet won't ever, ever admit it.

And I'll say again (as I've said 10 dozen times now) I am on a Spirit STRATEGY (NR) team, and we have been beaten by other teams that did not use the same strategy or build as we have.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

Competitive players are the ones least likely to hide balance abuses because they're using them. The newbies, who read about something imbalanced online or see it used on them, and then use it themselves, will want the imbalance kept so they can keep winning with it since they aren't able to figure out other good ways if it was nerfed. Competitive players don't like complete blowouts simply because of imbalances, no matter which side they're on.

The opposite is true. Competitive players will use whatever strategy it takes to win. Its not only ignorant and stupid, but also an insult to label us that use this build to win as "newbies" that won't be able to use another build if this one gets nerfed. Just because you aren't truely good enough at PvP to beat certain builds doesn't make everyone else a newbie.

Zelc · Aug 15, 2005, 05:52 PM // 17:52

Quote:

I'll give my own take on it. Something is degenerately wrong with the players, not the game, that can't beat a certain build. They're not good enough yet won't ever, ever admit it.

And I'll say again (as I've said 10 dozen times now) I am on a Spirit STRATEGY (NR) team, and we have been beaten by other teams that did not use the same strategy or build as we have.

1) Just because a build can be beaten does not mean it's not broken (overpowered). Read the excerpt I quoted from the article on M:tG deck balance. For one thing, the ratio between wins and losses does not have to be anywhere close to infinity (X wins/0 losses) for a build to be broken. Additionally, builds may have counterbuilds that are so focused that they're unviable against the rest of the field, which effectively means those counterbuilds will not succeed.

2) I don't mean to demean you or your team (my team certainly doesn't rank amongst the best, and I'm at best mediocre at PvP), but perhaps your build was not fully optimized? That could be a possible reason for your losses.

3) Coming from an M:tG background, I have played and played against many decks that were just better than anything else out there. This is not due to player error (player skill usually doesn't have as large an effect in M:tG games as it does in Guild Wars games, and some of the best players skillwise were playing other decks) or lack of innovation, but because the cards that deck uses are just too good to be countered by a different viable deck.

Linkie · Aug 15, 2005, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Mega

And I'll say again (as I've said 10 dozen times now) I am on a Spirit STRATEGY (NR) team, and we have been beaten by other teams that did not use the same strategy or build as we have.

How many and which enchantments was that team running?