Curse

NoChance · Jan 26, 2007, 07:40 PM // 19:40

With Anet's current model of adding new chapters and new skills every six months, we are soon going to have a situation where balancing skills will be impossible. The more available skills there are, the more chance any new ones you add will cause unbalance with overpowered combinations.

Right now, there are a large number of skills, but balancing seems to be manageable. However, there will definitely be a time in the future where there are just too many skills to properly balance the game.

The only solution is to remove skills from the game. But the question is how to do it in a smooth way that's not too shocking, that doesn't remove too many skills at one time.

This is a problem of the future, but I think there is a reasonable solution which, ideally, should be implemented as soon as possible.

"My" solution is to copy what the card game Magic: The Gathering does.
Their model is with yearly cycles -- one major "chapter" each year, and "expansions" during the year.

The major "chapter" comes with a set of "core" skills, which are selected skills from the past, and which give the basic skills needed for gameplay.

The major chapter also includes a set of new skills. The expansions are merely sets of new skills.

Now one type of gameplay (I believe called Type II) is where players may only use cards (skills) which are from the latest three sets (the last major chapter, plus two expansions). This automatically makes balancing easier because the number of playable skills is fixed at a more or less constant number.

I believe Guild Wars should follow a similar model... following their current model, the cycle would be two years in length. Every two years, there would be a Prophecies-like chapter with a new set of core skills (again, selected from old skills), plus some new skills. Then every six months there would be new chapters (Factions and Nightfall), each with new skills.

In terms of gameplay, whatever chapter your character is playing in (say, Factions II), he/she would be allowed to use skills from the last three chapters (Factions II, Prophecies II, and Nightfall I).

This way balancing would be "easy". Of course, there will a many skills that will be phased out (each skill could be used a minimum of one cycle -- two years), but the idea is that the core skills could include skills from any chapter -- so favorite skills could potentially stay in the game indefinitely, as core skills.

Ideally, this type of solution needs to be implemented soon (within the next few chapters), because when it is implemented, skills will become unavailable for gameplay (people are upset enough already if their favorite skills are nerfed!). If this is implemented soon, the number of skills lost at one time will be minimized.

For example if implemented for Prophecies II (Ch 4), players could still use all Factions and Nightfall skills -- only the Prophecies-exclusive skills could potentially disappear.. and many of the favorites could still appear in the new core set of Prophecies II.

This slow fading away of skills is less shocking to players. But a really important feature is that it keeps the game fresh. People wouldn't be able to sit on the same build forever, making the game stale.

I admit it would be a pain to have to use new different sets of skills when you play older chapters, but with the new ability to save builds, it's not too terrible.

It works for Magic, which has been around for years and years, and I think it would be great for Guild Wars.

thanks for reading, comments welcome!

lightblade · Jan 26, 2007, 08:01 PM // 20:01

OMG!!!

You still think skill balancing is actually balancing the skills?!

WRONG!!!

The changing of skill numbers is only to give you a fresh appeal to the game. It never was about "balancing".

Skill "balancing" doesn't exist. "nerfing" popular skill, and "buffing" unpopular skills does exist.

NoChance · Jan 26, 2007, 09:40 PM // 21:40

The idea is that without removing skills, the number of skills will eventually become too big. And balancing would be impossible -- leading to more and more nerfs -- which everyone hates.

Emerikol · Jan 26, 2007, 10:06 PM // 22:06

I dont think Anet should create anymore skills or professions. They should stop making whole campaigns if you ask me. It would be wise of them to just start making expansions for the 3 campaigns they have made, to breathe a bit of life into the older chapters. They should also work to tie the games together better, and start investing time into giving players what they want so people dont get bored or frustrated and stop playing.

They have created 3 great games, but they could all use quite a bit of improvement. After a few years and a couple expansions for each campaign, the player base will be mostly dropped off and Anet should start working on a new game trilogy with a different setting.

Like you said, at the current rate, the game will just be bloated and unbalancable within 2 years.

Tactical-Dillusions · Jan 27, 2007, 02:50 AM // 02:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emerikol

I dont think Anet should create anymore skills or professions. They should stop making whole campaigns if you ask me. It would be wise of them to just start making expansions for the 3 campaigns they have made, to breathe a bit of life into the older chapters. They should also work to tie the games together better, and start investing time into giving players what they want so people dont get bored or frustrated and stop playing.

They have created 3 great games, but they could all use quite a bit of improvement. After a few years and a couple expansions for each campaign, the player base will be mostly dropped off and Anet should start working on a new game trilogy with a different setting.

Like you said, at the current rate, the game will just be bloated and unbalancable within 2 years.

QFT. I'd be happy with that.

New quests throughout the three chapters - hundreds of them.

Help to merge the chapters by making all items inscribable. Add new drops to all the monsters in all campaigns.
Add new zones onto the old areas, and make use of areas of the world that are just blank. Time to start filling in the gaps, like south of maguuma/ascalon.

Remove that big rock from Sardalec and recreate the Catacombs! Perhaps put Gwen in there. That girl needs to stop being a myth and become reality again.

Tie up all the unfinished quests so we have a use for the unknown quest items.

Make use of the blank islands that litter the continents.

Add new events that come on a regular basis, not just once per year. Carnivals, travelling salesmen, competitions, a boxing ring in LA - player vs Little Thom.

People complain (myself included sometimes) that there is a lack of something in the end game that PvP doesn't satisfy.
Is it hobbies/crafts/trades? For me it is. Like i said before, i'd throw money at Anet so that i can make stuff and dig up minerals, so long as it's done right.
Guild wars can still be guild wars even if it adopts things from the regular MMORPG world, it won't change a thing.

New PvP content, expanded storage, more armour/better skins for weapons (perhaps through crafting).

There is so much potential to give Guild Wars a much deeper feeling, instead of making clone expansions.

To clarify possibilities:

PvP - new arenas, perhaps PvP or PvP/PvE explorable zones.
Hobbies - mining, skinning, fishing, cooking, herbalism, alchemy.
Extra quests/zones - filling in the blanks on the maps, catacombs, islands.
Character advancement - storage, renaming, changing of character features.

Bah anyway, don't bash, just some ideas. I'd love to be a fly-on-the-wall at Anet. Guess we'll just have to see what they have in store.

Teger · Jan 27, 2007, 03:15 AM // 03:15

Well, we all know (or I hope we do), that introduceing 75 new skills per proff per chapter is an unmanageable amount for a game that relys so much on ballenced skills like GW does...so while this is one way to solve that, I vote we let anet decide.

Antheus · Jan 27, 2007, 03:27 AM // 03:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoChance

The idea is that without removing skills, the number of skills will eventually become too big. And balancing would be impossible -- leading to more and more nerfs -- which everyone hates.

Have you ever wondered why there are some weird numbers on skills?

- 5, 10, 15, 25 energy. No 20 though.
- Hexes lasting 17 seconds
- Armor bonus that is typically +24
- Monk heals that are of specific ammount (don't know exactly, but 89 for example)

There is some math behind all of this, one which sets templates of how skills look. These numbers have been balanced one way or another with respect to characters, their energy pools and energy regen. And every new skill is build out of these templates.

This allows for skills to always be balanced with respect to mechanics of GW.

Of course, in the land of the blind, one-eyed man is the king.

Since there's intristic balance between these skills, various other aspects, such as timings, rounding and surprising synergy make certain builds slightly more practical - and these get abused.

Most notorious builds exploit this. From spirit bond, protective bond, spiritual pain, even the old ones like IWAY.

None of the builds that existed has ever been overpowered. But some builds proved to be practical - from standpoints of skill accessibility, simplicity of gameplay, but most notably, meta-game. Touch rangers were "overpowered" because boon prot (95% of all monks back then) couldn't outheal them. Spiritual pain is another powerful skill. Much of it's effects can be negated with positioning, anticipation, or even pressure, shutdown, anything really. The most important thing here is, that powerful doesn't equal overpowered, and that the most powerful skills that exist are really quite trivial, but accessible and simple to use.

But there's no problem with skills. Sure, some are better, some are worse. But inevitably, they are balanced.

BahamutKaiser · Jan 27, 2007, 03:37 AM // 03:37

I don't know where people come up with this nonsense. Really, on what grounds is it going to be impossible to balance the skill combinations if there are exponetially more skill combinations?

First of all Lightblade is right, there never really was a balance of skills, they just try to limit overly effective skills and their combinations, and improve underpowered skills. Assuming that nerfs are the answer to rebalancing is also premature, it always has been obvious that improving the norm is better than nerfing the enjoyable. It is all of the unattractive and ineffective skills that are a problem, not the "overpowered" ones. Nerfing is always the weaker solution, improvement and redevelopement of the ineffective skills and builds in the game makes the rest happy wile leaving the already pleased players alone.

Personally, I believe that Anet has more resources and manpower to dedicate to build balancing and function than they did to begin with. They are redeveloping the same game with the same engine that they started with, which means they are not spending a fraction of the time creating the engine that runs the game as they did when they developed the first chapter. The games program is already made, their developers are now only developing levels, features, and "content" for the game. The task will become more difficult, but comparing the margin of effort required to actually create the game to begin with, against simply designing, testing and balancing new skills is more than significantly less.

I believe the reason so much underestimation is applied to Anet is because of your own inability to understand and develope conclusions. You apply your own weakness and misunderstanding to Anet, in the assumption that because you think it doesn't work, or more correctly, you can't come up with a way for it to work, well than obviously Anet can't. Recognizing your own weakness and Anets capabilities and potential is the first step to overcoming your misunderstanding.

No, not all skills are balanced, even worse, alot of functions in the game are not very effective or appealing. Obviously they can do better, perhaps they woln't. The task at hand is readily achievable if the effort and developement neccessary is dedicated to its success. Perhaps Anet will fail, perhaps they will not make new chapters, perhaps they will instead make expansions. They are all possibilities, but there is more than enough potential to succeed, and assuming that it is neccesary to stop growth and develope sideways from here or a limitation in the near future is nieve, an assumption based on nothing. A highly acclaimed and successful Game can provide the resources neccessary to expand and develope upwards, whether you recognize it or not, as good a game as this may be, it vastly simpler and less complex than most halmark MMOs, it is far from reaching a cap in potential (and don't twist my words, this is not a generic MMO).

Beside that, last time I read an article about the Tournament, they said that Nightfall tournament play would consist of only core (Prophecies) and Nightfall skills, excluding Faction skills. If Tournament play continues to involve only core and recent chapter skills, than the tournament will always have a fresh new pallet of competition to draw from. Wile regular play can consist of all the options available throught the game. The whole idea of Recycling skills is a solution to a problem you have fabricated. Anet can balance the skills effectively if they choose to do so, and they will succeed or fail based on the effort they apply, not fabricated limitations.

Emerikol · Jan 27, 2007, 05:18 AM // 05:18

Your whole arguement there is contradictory. They would never bother to raise and lower skills powers unless it was to balance out the skill system. Otherwise they would'nt bother. The fact that you do not understand that concept shows a problem in your thinking.

If a fat kid and a skinny kid are trying to play on a teeter-totter, it would not work too well. Put the big guy on a diet, feed the skinny guy, and give them both plenty of excercise and what do ya have? BALANCE. Now put 1,000 kids in the mix and see how much harder it becomes for a team of guys to fix the situation. Quite a simple concept.

There ya go...now run off and become a rocket scientist with your new-found knowledge of the way things work.

I personally don't care what they do to the skills, I just don't want even more to choose from.

MegaMouse · Jan 28, 2007, 02:09 AM // 02:09

Instead of puting in a new post I decided just to put my rant here. What is the problem with the skills we have now? Why do players always complain when another player is kicking their butt? The skills don't need to be balanced. This game was concieved on how skillfully we can use the skills we are given, not how balanced the skills are. They have pretty much nerfe several proffesions into the dark ages and I for one am tired of it. NO MORE NERFING>

Mega Mouse

divinechancellor · Jan 28, 2007, 08:44 AM // 08:44

lol well you can start with the duplicates (zojun's haste and dodge) but that would hamper my ranger's ability to run. oh no