Curse

Rent · Jul 30, 2006, 04:08 AM // 04:08

I'm going to take heavy inspiration from this article (which, by the way, is a must read for anyone interested in game design things like this) and do what I can to apply it to Guild Wars, since the concepts are very much the same in a lot of ways. Granted, you could just read that article and replace every instance of "card" with "skill" and it would be pretty apt, but I'll convert it as best I can.

Cards in Magic are very similar to skills in the game which we all know and love. Creating an 8-person build is almost identical to creating a deck. What do you want this build to do? Do you want it to be the absolute best build it could possibly be and take HA/GvG by storm? Do you want to find some sort of obscure combo and win in a difficult, but neat way? Or do you just want to have fun and smash face and hopefully win in the process?

When you're creating a build, when you have your idea, you look at the skills and you decide which ones work, and which ones don't, since you have a limited number of slots. Not counting Dervishes or Paragons, nor the new skills the core classes will get in Nightfall, you have 780 (782 if you're counting Ressurection Signet and Signet of Capture) skills at your disposal, but you only have 64 slots in a build.

Now you're looking through your skills, and you see several skills that fit the role you need them to play--for example, let's say you're looking for a Monk non-elite hex removal skill. The choices you have open to you are Withdraw Hexes, Convert Hexes, Reverse Hex, Smite Hex, Deny Hexes, Holy Veil, Purge Signet, and Remove Hex. Some of these skills are blatantly better than others--Deny Hexes seems to be ridiculously underpowered compared to the rest, as is Purge Signet, while Holy Veil stands out as a shining example of what hex removal should be. It isn't often you'd take any of the above over Holy Veil, though some do have their place in specialized builds.

So why not buff the rest to be equal? Why not just make them all good skills, make them all equal power level? Because you can't. Because, as far as power level goes, you cannot make things all different AND equal AND interesting. Some skills are simply going to be inherently weaker than the others. But why?

Perhaps this skill isn't designed for you or this particular environment. Maybe it's not designed to be played in an HA environment, or maybe not in PvE at all. Look at Thunderclap; the skill is fantastic in Random Arena as a fun build, but in a highly-competitive GvG you will never see it played because it's simply not up to the power level seen there.

Or maybe it's designed to purposely look strong, but not actually BE strong, so that newer players can learn to sort between what looks good on paper and what actually is effective in practice. Healing Breeze is an excellent example--+9 Health regen? Sign me up! Look how fast that red bar is rising! Wait, why do I still need to heal them afterward? Why is their health still going down?

Or maybe a skill actually is incredibly effective, but only under very specific circumstances, and no one yet has simply discovered those circumstances.

And then there are simply the bad skills. I'm sorry, Seeping Wounds, but Anet is only human--they're bound to make some mistakes sometimes.

Bad skills exist because they have to exist. No, they all can't be buffed to be completely equal, that would destroy the fun--you could just pick any eight skills and whoever has the best reflexes win.

dargon · Jul 30, 2006, 04:23 AM // 04:23

I'd just like to say, Seeping Wound is not a bad skill, works quite nicely in a poison/degen build for an assassin (or ranger), especially if you need a hexed opponent.

azunder · Jul 30, 2006, 06:19 AM // 06:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by dargon

I'd just like to say, Seeping Wound is not a bad skill, works quite nicely in a poison/degen build for an assassin (or ranger), especially if you need a hexed opponent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rent

Or maybe it's designed to purposely look strong, but not actually BE strong, so that newer players can learn to sort between what looks good on paper

Seeping wound is a bad skill. You want to spend your elite on 3 degen?

Mercury Angel · Jul 30, 2006, 06:19 AM // 06:19

Just a semi-related note, that specific article has been posted on these boards at least thrice before <_<

Magic the Gathering articles are an invaluable tool for learning game design theory, and GW is often compared to Magic, so we get intertwined threads occasionally.

There was an interesting thread in riverside a while back regarding game balance, but it eventually died out.

Anyway, while WotC doesn't like Power Level Errata, the key difference between Magic and GW is that we can have updates streamed seamlessly to fix not-so-good skills (And nerf, rather than ban/restrict overpowered skills and combos).

One thing I will readily dissent over -
Even taking diversity into account, there is no real justification for strictly worse skills, particularly within the context of a single profession.

dargon · Jul 30, 2006, 08:56 AM // 08:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by azunder

Seeping wound is a bad skill. You want to spend your elite on 3 degen?

It really depends on the build now doesn't it? If my build requires that a target have a hex on them but I'm not using any deadly arts, Seeping Wound is useful as it's Critical Strikes, which most assassins have. Furthermore, at 5 energy, 10 recharge, the only other hex that cheap is Siphon Speed (which is in Deadly Arts), so for 5 energy, and assassin can take bleeding and tack 3 or 4 more degen on top of it (4 with CS 13 and above). With a bleeding attack, you've just negated a Wammo's mending, hell you've probably overwhelmed it so they are still degening.

strcpy · Jul 30, 2006, 08:56 AM // 08:56

Pretty much anyone who has been involved with heavy R&D will know this. I worked in the High Performance Computing division at Oak Ridge National Labs for a few years - we fought the same thing. It's pretty far from skill blancing or card balancing in general, yet we had the same issues and even the same posts (one could replace "useless cards" with "useless functions" even though some small groups 100% depended on that "useless" function).

Eh, I decided long ago that my barrier to entry into game software developement was pretty high. This issue was to strong - I had no interest of being involved in it. Being involved with R&D has colored my opinion on many posts - it's interesting to see what people think should happen. The vast vast majority would be heavily surprised to work that actual job, though some complaints are still valid. Having worked that position it is almost immediatly obvious who has and who has not had experience in it (many also forgive errors that are sheer incompetance).

pork soldier · Jul 30, 2006, 09:31 AM // 09:31

Bad skills exist so that the skill designers continue to have a job.

Avarre · Jul 30, 2006, 09:43 AM // 09:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by dargon

With a bleeding attack, you've just negated a Wammo's mending, hell you've probably overwhelmed it so they are still degening.

With a NORMAL attack, you can negate a Wammo's mending simply because it heals pathetically low amounts. Yes, seeping works. This does not make it a good skill.

Arkantos · Jul 30, 2006, 01:25 PM // 13:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by azunder

Seeping wound is a bad skill. You want to spend your elite on 3 degen?

Have you ever thought about the people who dont have any other elites? Seeping Wound is what, the 3rd elite an assassin can cap in the game? If I was an assassin, I'd rather have Seeping Wound as my elite other then having no elite at all.

The truth itself · Jul 30, 2006, 01:41 PM // 13:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arkantos

Have you ever thought about the people who dont have any other elites? Seeping Wound is what, the 3rd elite an assassin can cap in the game? If I was an assassin, I'd rather have Seeping Wound as my elite other then having no elite at all.

TBH, i rather have a useful non-elite rather than Sleeping Wound.

IMO, Guild Wars has unbelievable many "bad" skills, ANet could use the buffstick instead of the nerf stick always.

glountz · Jul 30, 2006, 02:07 PM // 14:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by dargon

It really depends on the build now doesn't it? If my build requires that a target have a hex on them but I'm not using any deadly arts, Seeping Wound is useful as it's Critical Strikes, which most assassins have. Furthermore, at 5 energy, 10 recharge, the only other hex that cheap is Siphon Speed (which is in Deadly Arts), so for 5 energy, and assassin can take bleeding and tack 3 or 4 more degen on top of it (4 with CS 13 and above). With a bleeding attack, you've just negated a Wammo's mending, hell you've probably overwhelmed it so they are still degening.

Ya know, to decide whether a skill is good or not, just compare it to other skills with the same effect in the game.
Just compare Seeping Wound with Life Siphon.
It does approximatively the same degen, but Life Siphon:
- Recharges in 2 sec against 10 sec
- Is completely unconditionnal
- Not only it degens the opponent but it heals you
- Is non elite

You could say that Life siphon cost 5 more energy and 1 additional second to cast, but, still...
I don't even find Life siphon to be a good skill. Decent, but definetively not good.
Seeping wound is crap.
It doesn't deserve to be an elite. It doesn't even deserve to be left like this if it was a non-elite skill.

Rieselle · Jul 30, 2006, 02:37 PM // 14:37

I've read the article before, and frankly I think GW and M:tG, whilst superficially similar, have a few key differences that make them COMPLETELY different games.

M:tG is a card collecting game. So, regardless of any stated reasons for bad cards, there's an underlying need to increase the number of card packs people need to buy to get a decent collection. GW does not have that reason.

Also, in M:tG, because cards are drawn randomly, and gameplay revolves a lot around what cards you draw and when, a large element of "skill" in that game revolves around being able to differentiate between good cards and bad cards, and choosing the right ones.

In M:tG, you are limited to whatever random cards you purchased, so it's not always possible to have an "optimal" deck, assuming limited cash. In GW, that's not true. As soon as a good build is discovered, it can immediately be copied by everyone else in the game. Thus, for variety's sake, we need a large pool of viable skills.

GW is a real time, team-based, computer game, where there is plenty of opportunities for skill outside of skill choices. Already people are complaining that build choices can outweigh the actions that you perform during a match, so its clear that at least there is an expectation that "what you do" should be more important than "what you bring".

In MtG, the main business of the company is the production and sale of the cards. In GW, there are so many other things ANet needs to do, keeping the servers running, new areas, graphics, sounds, armours, etc. I dont think its a good idea for them to "waste" development effort (coding, graphics, sound, etc) on deliberately bad skills (skills that are bad by design.) Why bother putting things in that are intended to be ignored?

Oh, and a BIG difference : in MtG, once they publish and release a card, its out there, and cant be changed, short of banning the card or something. GW is an online game, so things can always be tweaked, fixed, etc.

So yeah, in GW, there shouldnt be -any- useless skills. I'm especially against skills with simple mechanics (direct damage spells, direct heals, etc) that are obviously numerically inferior to all others.

And, regardless of any reasoning, I think the fact of the matter is, most people would agree that the good skill / bad skill ratio in GW is currently not that great. We'd all be happier if there were a greater number of skills that were viable to play competitively.

--> It's ok for a skill to be weaker than another similar skill, provided that skill has the potential to be better under specific conditions.

--> It's ok for a skill to be better if it is harder to use properly. The weaker skill is still useful if you need something more convenient. (which is why mending deserves its place

--> It's ok for a skill to be designed to only be useful in a certain play mode (ie pve/pvp).

--> It's ok for a skill to be crap because the designers screwed up. Preferably the skill should be fixed, but sometimes its not possible without completely changing the skill, something they might not want to do.

--> It's ok for a skill to be worse than a similar skill due to the existence of the other skill. (Eg. Lightning Hammer vs. Lightning Orb. Orb is generally better than Hammer, so people may ask, "what is the point of hammer?" However, hammer might have a need to be slightly worse, so that taking them both wont be overpowered.)

---> it's NOT ok for a skill to be deliberately bad, something the article suggests. I dont think GW should have such skills.

So in summary, skills in GW should have varying power levels based on various tradeoffs (convenience/difficulty of use, generalness/specificness, etc) and varying power in different places/game modes.

But other than that, skills which have no use should be buffed or modified until they have one.

end of my opinion, have a nice day :P

Curse You · Jul 30, 2006, 03:08 PM // 15:08

Some of these skills may seem bad (falling spiders NEEDS a knockdown) but if put to good use can be highly effective. You just need to asess all other skills (in all professions). You may notice it works well with them.

But yes, some skills are comletely pointless because another skill does the exact same thing and some. It is possible that many of these skills were originally good, but were made bad by; changes to the game mechanics, addition of new skills, or changes to other skills.

I have ALL necromancer skills. There are some I look at and think "well that's not very good." But after I say that I see either people in PvP/GvG using that skill to good effect, or find some monsters that wipe my team out with the skill.
I have looked at all my necromancer's skills, and for each one I can think of a practical use (even Plague Signet).

This game is about making builds and effectively using them. Some of you seem to be stuck in the "cookie-cutter" universe where there are only 2 builds for every profession. I don't care if you want to stick to your 16 necro skills, but I'll be having fun with my necromancer's 82 skills and 26 elites.

Venice Queen · Jul 30, 2006, 03:21 PM // 15:21

Any skill can be fit into any build. Skills are onlh bad if you don't know how to use them correctly.

Sir Mad · Jul 30, 2006, 03:55 PM // 15:55

Sorry, but Black Bears' build sucks. Yup, Brutal Mauling is definitely a bad skill.

EDIT - Typo.

Rent · Jul 30, 2006, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rieselle

GW is a real time, team-based, computer game, where there is plenty of opportunities for skill outside of skill choices. Already people are complaining that build choices can outweigh the actions that you perform during a match, so its clear that at least there is an expectation that "what you do" should be more important than "what you bring".

What you do is incredibly important in M:tG. If you think that winning in Magic is just making a good deck then you have obviously never ever played Magic.

Quote:

Oh, and a BIG difference : in MtG, once they publish and release a card, its out there, and cant be changed, short of banning the card or something. GW is an online game, so things can always be tweaked, fixed, etc.

Errata.

Quote:

---> it's NOT ok for a skill to be deliberately bad, something the article suggests. I dont think GW should have such skills.

No skills or cards are literally designed to be bad. They are, however, designed to be not quite as good as others.

Edit: What the hell I'm a Frost Gate Guardian

Therlun · Jul 30, 2006, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Quote:

What you do is incredibly important in M:tG. If you think that winning in Magic is just making a good deck then you have obviously never ever played Magic.

From the article:

Quote:

A good portion of the decks were able to win on turn one or two.

In MtG the Deck is 95% of the game...
And rightly so, as its a trading card game.

Mysterial · Jul 30, 2006, 06:31 PM // 18:31

This whole issue comes up every now and then, and it annoys me because it's like saying "The world isn't perfect". Wow, really? It isn't?

Does that mean we shouldn't continue to strive for the ideal anyway? Does that mean Arenanet should just ignore all the bad skills and not buff them because "there will always be bad skills"? That's ridiculous.

Rent · Jul 30, 2006, 08:38 PM // 20:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Therlun

From the article:

In MtG the Deck is 95% of the game...
And rightly so, as its a trading card game.

If you'll read the context more closely, that quote refers to a specific period (Urza's Saga block) where many of the decks could indeed win so quickly, because the power level of that specific block was ridiculously high compared to any other time. Skill is nearly everything in Magic; the rest is luck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

This whole issue comes up every now and then, and it annoys me because it's like saying "The world isn't perfect". Wow, really? It isn't?

Does that mean we shouldn't continue to strive for the ideal anyway? Does that mean Arenanet should just ignore all the bad skills and not buff them because "there will always be bad skills"? That's ridiculous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rent

So why not buff the rest to be equal? Why not just make them all good skills, make them all equal power level? Because you can't. Because, as far as power level goes, you cannot make things all different AND equal AND interesting. Some skills are simply going to be inherently weaker than the others.

Mysterial · Jul 30, 2006, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Yes, I read the argument. It's still idiotic. Just because you can't attain a perfect balance doesn't mean you shouldn't continously try to get closer.