Curse

Ensign · Jul 04, 2005, 06:54 PM // 18:54

Well, to answer the basic question, a player with access to expansion skills will be more powerful than a player with only the skills from the basic game. Options = power, and those without the options will get left behind. Unfortunate, but there's little that can be done about this.

Adding skills in an expension will not unbalance the original game. There will be an imbalance between expansion enabled characters and those without the expansion, but you're likely going to hear nothing but rhetoric about this.

They shouldn't have to nerf or buff skills from the original game to fit the expansion. Hell, they don't have to nerf or buff skills at all, and things will still sort themselves out. Only so many skills can be the cream, better balance just blurs the line.

But I'd expect balance changes to come with the expansion anyway. One of my biggest disappointments so far has been the lack of balance changes (besides 'bug fixes') that we've seen in retail, despite there being some skills that are clearly overpowered (Healing Seed) and others that are so bad that we make jokes about them (Searing Heat). I can understand them not wanting to tweak the skills in the middle too much, but why haven't they addressed the obvious cases?

Peace,
-CxE

Mister Pie · Jul 04, 2005, 07:54 PM // 19:54

It seems like it'd make more sense to me to have expansion arenas, etc. You get to use expansion skills in the expansion arenas, otherwise you're limited to the original skill set. I think it would really hamper the possibilities for the new skills if they had to balance all of them against the original ones.

Morganas · Jul 04, 2005, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Well, I'm guessing that if they added new skills, those skills would be available in the new areas they added. There'd be no reason to bar them from use in the old areas, as PVE chars won't even get them until they get to the new areas, and PvP players shouldn't be denied the ability to use their build (which isn't more powerful then an original skills build, just different) in the old pvp arenas (I doubt they'd add new pvp arenas with new expansions unless they were entirely new game types, i.e. king of the hill version of droks).

Seeing the new skills in action in pvp would be good motivation to buy an expansion, it wouldn't be a good idea on arenanets part to stifle that.

Epinephrine · Jul 04, 2005, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mister Pie

It seems like it'd make more sense to me to have expansion arenas, etc. You get to use expansion skills in the expansion arenas, otherwise you're limited to the original skill set. I think it would really hamper the possibilities for the new skills if they had to balance all of them against the original ones.

But if you want to increase sales you want people buying the expansion - you can compete without it, true, and possibly very well - but if you want to full range of skills you'll need to have the expansion. I am hoping that the expansions will be no more powerful, but MtG went with more powerful as the way to keep people buying, and I wonder how ANet will do it.

Look at MtG - back in "Legends" they introduced a creature with a two colour cost, legendary, with power 5, toughness 5 - it was a hair better than a common creature, was legendary and required 2 types of mana. In a modern set you have cards at lower cost with the same stats and special abilities (trample and two protections) tied to them. The game has been evolving, and increasing the power of the cards is one good way to keep the game selling.

Draken · Jul 04, 2005, 08:30 PM // 20:30

What i see is that when they do rebalance or rearrange the game they will reset the ladder and the competition will start all over again keeping the game fresh and interesting. similar to the huge nerfs diablo II had on certain character types every so often when they became cliché. As for expansions.. yes their will probably be some issues about competition between non-expansion characters and expansion characters but that’s economics my friend we don't pay monthly fees anyway

. I mean im not being cynical there has to be a number of reasons for us to want to buy expansions being competitive will probably be one.

Phades · Jul 04, 2005, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Well, to answer the basic question, a player with access to expansion skills will be more powerful than a player with only the skills from the basic game. Options = power, and those without the options will get left behind. Unfortunate, but there's little that can be done about this.

Adding skills in an expension will not unbalance the original game. There will be an imbalance between expansion enabled characters and those without the expansion, but you're likely going to hear nothing but rhetoric about this.

They shouldn't have to nerf or buff skills from the original game to fit the expansion. Hell, they don't have to nerf or buff skills at all, and things will still sort themselves out. Only so many skills can be the cream, better balance just blurs the line.

But I'd expect balance changes to come with the expansion anyway. One of my biggest disappointments so far has been the lack of balance changes (besides 'bug fixes') that we've seen in retail, despite there being some skills that are clearly overpowered (Healing Seed) and others that are so bad that we make jokes about them (Searing Heat). I can understand them not wanting to tweak the skills in the middle too much, but why haven't they addressed the obvious cases?

Peace,
-CxE

Woot circular logic.

You do have some valid points here, but what i think needs to happen is that a list be gathered up of all the less useful skills (i will survive anyone?) and underpowered skills, when observing cross class comparisons and have them removed or changed to be useful. There is no point in wasting database space for things that dont work. In the same stance, there are quite a few spell lines (not just spells) that are too optimised for the pve and need to get trimmed back for pvp. Protective spirit->mark of protection->divine intervention anyone or perhaps dual bonds setups? Granted they can be removed, but it is rather annoying (i think i might have the order a little incorrect, just working off memory here). Along the same lines of thought would be the total and utter lack of counter for wards.

I have no beef with the bugfixes. Bugfixes are nice, but id prefer if they were weeded out in beta instead of post release. Balance should have been fine in the design phase, while beta crushed the bugs, but i guess too much time was spent in the arena by the testers. Alot of the bugfixes ive seen have been for the PvE side so far. Although, i have been trapped inside world geometry just like the npc henchmen and id would expect something like that have been fixed/removed in beta as well. I can tolerate, to a point, getting stuck on the world geometry if i try to move through more rough terrain akwardly, but i see no reason for a character to perform a skill that causes the animation to pull the character into a wall for any reason.

Just a random question here to round out my thoughts. Who here has seen npcs of the same type, same name, always in the area in the same spot, that randomly begins to fight each other? The same monsters also randomly just move along the pathing given to them instead of attacking player characters. They also break off from fighting player characters to move along the path and do nothing once they reach a home point. I have also seen a different type monster, in the same area, that will refuse to attack a single character if 2 of the same type of monster is already attacking that character and will just stand and watch until one od the already attacking monsters die. If the one that doesnt fight is engaged first, then it will just try to run away and not defend its self. Both of these exist in the same area post searing, but are pre-ascention.

On a sidenote, i think its kinda sad that the npc henchment/pets have worse AI logic than the npc monsters. If they have the same logic, then they arent optimised at all. NPC monster healers > henchmen healers, while imps seem to be > all henchmen moving out of AOE damage areas and target switching and focusing fire ect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Epinephrine

But if you want to increase sales you want people buying the expansion - you can compete without it, true, and possibly very well - but if you want to full range of skills you'll need to have the expansion. I am hoping that the expansions will be no more powerful, but MtG went with more powerful as the way to keep people buying, and I wonder how ANet will do it.

Look at MtG - back in "Legends" they introduced a creature with a two colour cost, legendary, with power 5, toughness 5 - it was a hair better than a common creature, was legendary and required 2 types of mana. In a modern set you have cards at lower cost with the same stats and special abilities (trample and two protections) tied to them. The game has been evolving, and increasing the power of the cards is one good way to keep the game selling.

Course some of the most powerful cards to come out happened in the first 4 sets. The dark was complete and utter junk though for the most part and the following expansion (forgotton empires?) was even worse. They also had a major distribution problem combined with a rarity problem early in the game, this caused some things to become exclusive content and unavailable to many players only to be left behind in power down the road. Going the route of "collectable" is a very very bad concept for balance. I believe this also applies to GW for both runes and weapon fittings.

Makkert · Jul 04, 2005, 09:11 PM // 21:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by theclam

Since skills can be balanced on the fly, this will be less of a problem than in Magic.

*DING*
.
we have a winner!

Beta Ray Bill · Jul 04, 2005, 10:34 PM // 22:34

Keep in mind, all, that ANet has vowed not to "force" anyone into buying *any* expansion just to keep competitive. I plan to buy Chapter 2 simply because I enjoy the PvE role-play aspect of the game. I just can't see where they would find justification to renege on their promise to never charge additional fees for those who don't wish to pay for them.

It will be a challenge for them, I realize, and this is where my original question comes from. How will they keep the cost per player limited to chapter purchases and still allow for the best competition over the course of 3 or 4 chapter releases?

Also, how many expansions do they really have in them? If they can successfully mix in 3 chapters with skills and explorable areas similar in size and/or content to Chapter 1, game balance will be *very* tight and tedious to achieve. We originally heard about new chapter releases roughly every six months or so. The latest news is that Chapter 2 will be release approximately Spring '06. That's a full year from original release. Is this a sign that skill balance is particularly difficult, and, if so, how long will it take to successfully balance in Chapter 3 with not only the original game, but with Chapter 2 as well?

Phades · Jul 04, 2005, 10:45 PM // 22:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beta Ray Bill

Keep in mind, all, that ANet has vowed not to "force" anyone into buying *any* expansion just to keep competitive. I plan to buy Chapter 2 simply because I enjoy the PvE role-play aspect of the game. I just can't see where they would find justification to renege on their promise to never charge additional fees for those who don't wish to pay for them.

It will be a challenge for them, I realize, and this is where my original question comes from. How will they keep the cost per player limited to chapter purchases and still allow for the best competition over the course of 3 or 4 chapter releases?

Also, how many expansions do they really have in them? If they can successfully mix in 3 chapters with skills and explorable areas similar in size and/or content to Chapter 1, game balance will be *very* tight and tedious to achieve. We originally heard about new chapter releases roughly every six months or so. The latest news is that Chapter 2 will be release approximately Spring '06. That's a full year from original release. Is this a sign that skill balance is particularly difficult, and, if so, how long will it take to successfully balance in Chapter 3 with not only the original game, but with Chapter 2 as well?

I dont mean to be as much of a raincloud as i end up being, but i pose these questions to you. How many people will be interested in grinding towards new skills, items, and abilities, if none of them are better or different than the existing ones? Do you believe areanet will think that people will buy new content based solely on new explorable PvE and possible PvP mission styles?

As seen from experience with things like X-box live (blah i know, but i didnt throw money at it), exclusive release new "content" only segments the community splitting the haves from the have nots in many instaces, causing a greater difficulty to get into a game or continue playing in some instances. In other games like planetside, it didnt have as much of an impact, because of the nature of the expansion, but in other pve only games the content becomes a must if you desire to do anything different. Looking at guildwars for what it is, i do not believe that they truly intended for the game to be veiwed as a strong pve environment, but having elements in the pve that make it different from other pve environments.

Jul 05, 2005, 12:14 AM // 00:14

They cant rebalance all the "useless" skills and buff them, they'd just turn the game into a junkfest. Every skill cant be good because with over 450 of them alot of them have to take a backseat to even some skills that are just slightly better. Then again with things like Energy Drain and Power Leak sitting around Mind Wrack and Ether Lord just go to the garbage no matter how you try to fix them.

Phades · Jul 05, 2005, 01:26 AM // 01:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackace

They cant rebalance all the "useless" skills and buff them, they'd just turn the game into a junkfest. Every skill cant be good because with over 450 of them alot of them have to take a backseat to even some skills that are just slightly better. Then again with things like Energy Drain and Power Leak sitting around Mind Wrack and Ether Lord just go to the garbage no matter how you try to fix them.

Ether lord would be better with a longer duration, as it is multi-purpose, but mana regen is signifigantly slower than health, so i see your point. Mind wrack just seems like another one of those low cost, time bomb esce cover hexes that the mesmer class is riddled with.

To be honest the skills with a theme behind them, whether they are agressive, passive or counter in nature, the "weaker" ones could easily become useful if combined with another "weaker" one of the same class or complimentary class. Some of this exists within the eliete skill choices, but many of those eliete skills arent neccarially better overal, when compared to other eliete and normal skills, in addition to the sometimes greater cooldowns and higher energy/adrenalin costs.

For example you have 2 skills from different skill sets that do very similar things, however one is better than the other. In the instance of "i will survive" versus melandru's resiliance. One is eliete, but they both occupy the same space on the skill bar. One is clearly better than the other, because it has more functions. The undesirable part of both lie in the fact that it is better to remove the hexes or conditions and there are ways to do that, usually within the same class. Both of these skills could easily have a "removes all effects" upon experiation of the skill's duration and they would become very useful to their respective classes. The character would become free from the effects, IF they survive long enough for the non-cancelable skill to expire over time. This would be one way of making something less than useful more useful.

For other skills like rush, there really is no reason for it to exist, as there are other skills that arent as situational and others that do the same thing, but have other effects. Those kinds of skills should be removed, as quality of choices over quantity of choices is always a better design move. Should mesmers have a 5th skill tree and have part of all of their good skills move to it and then overly filled with useless crap? I dont think so, but that kind of streamlining should exist for every job and skill.

Part of the reason why im hesitant about any of the proposed pay for content expansions is that if they are unwilling to fix, balance, or remove the current skills i will have little to no faith that new balanced skills will be introduced. They will either be stronger in nature, to keep the cycle of search and grind, in order to keep the player's interest; or conversly they could be mediocre re-hashed garbage, to either be not used seriously or as a novelty in order to retain balance between the content enabled and the non-content enabled.