Curse

Corporeal Ghost · Jun 04, 2010, 04:24 AM // 04:24

I've had to repeat this so many times that either people aren't thinking about it or they just don't understand it, so I thought it probably deserved a thread.

Guild Wars' developer time is the limiting factor in every single change we see now. In the past, this was not necessarily true, and there were other factors that kept the game from becoming what we wanted to see. But now time is our most precious resource. This suggests, more than ever, that we need to prioritize what is important.

And yet I keep seeing suggestions for subtle and almost meaningless updates. Updates need to be used like a sledgehammer now. If it's not breaking the game, it really needs to be put on the back-burner until the stuff that is breaking the game has been dealt with. The things that are currently known to be breaking the game are:

Dead hours/lack of players
Damage/Healing/Armor level disparity
(GvG tiebreaker)
(random HA stuff that I'm not going to comment on)

There are three or four other things that I'd put on the list that a lot of people might disagree with, so let's stick to those for now. Basically, if something does not fit into fixing one of those items, it really doesn't need to be eating developer time. These things are just more important, in the grand scheme of the game, that any pet project anyone has right now.

RA and Codex obviously have some issues, but the random factors involved make them largely self-balancing. Codex's other problem can really be reduced to a lack of people. The same is true for all of the Factions maps.

The same is arguably true for HA, but that's a can of worms that I don't really want to open, so we'll leave it for now and simply grant a concession on my itemized list.

I put the latter two in parenthesis because I honestly believe they won't be anywhere near as bad if ANet can fix the first two. The first is partially unfixable, and partially contingent on the second. The real problem is that ANet needs either to take balance in a dramatically different direction, or to start a series of broad-reaching, but necessarily precise nerfs that not only must be executed in the right sequence, but also the right combination in order to keep the game playable in the interim. There is some self-correction factor involved if they get the ratios of damage and mitigation wrong in the middle due to the nature of making builds, but it's going to drive away players in droves.

Lastly, there are a number of ways to undo the mess the game has become. Not all of them are related to unraveling the web of power creep, but those that involve the least amount of experimentation (and therefore, likely the least amount of driving players away) are. A related problem is that a lot of players have some vague notion of what they want the finished product to look like, but no idea what needs to happen for...that to happen. In general, the best example is probably that of finesse classes/bars/skills. They become more powerful as other skills become weaker or as they become stronger. They also become less about finesse as they become stronger, so the well-understood and obvious solution is to make everything else weaker, though there are more convoluted roads to get the desired effect.

But for the most part, I'm just tired of repeating myself when people ask "Why can't ANet do X?" It's because X really isn't that important. Wouldn't you rather have a healthy, fun metagame? Even for something as seemingly trivial as re-implementing content that is already coded, there is a time factor involved. I'm not pretending I know exactly what it takes for ANet to make adjustments to the game. I do know, however, that it took 5 months to go from "we're working on it" to a Glass Arrows/Anthem of Envy band-aid solution that involved maybe 15 changes to numbers on skills.

Reverend Dr · Jun 04, 2010, 06:19 AM // 06:19

I generally agree with the above, but this is what is really killing the game for me right now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporeal Ghost

Dead hours/lack of players

I've always spent long times idling in the guild hall and I know I'm not alone. I'd easily expect half of my 'play time' to be idle time. But lately it feels as if half of the time I spend actually playing is spent waiting on matches.

Sirius Bsns · Jun 04, 2010, 06:45 AM // 06:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

I generally agree with the above, but this is what is really killing the game for me right now.

I've always spent long times idling in the guild hall and I know I'm not alone. I'd easily expect half of my 'play time' to be idle time. But lately it feels as if half of the time I spend actually playing is spent waiting on matches.

No. Dead hours/lack of players is only the result, or effect. This is a product of both player and developer's ill will and causations; their inputs [or lack thereof] cause games to wither. examples: botters, rank-discriminators, lack of updates and/or new content, etc...

Elnino · Jun 04, 2010, 07:15 AM // 07:15

I really believe that the bug fixes to Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry should also be on that list. Anet has already expressed their intentions in doing this but has not gotten round to actually doing it. The problems in these formats have been around for way too long, it's getting pretty ridiculous.

urania · Jun 04, 2010, 08:48 AM // 08:48

since when have you become an advocate of Anet, corporeal?

Anet's style and manner of balancing was never quite what it should have been, so the present state of the game is not and should not be surprising. Their detachment from the community, the humongous amount of bureaucracy involved in making a skill update as well as the amazing inability to admit and revert bad skill update choices have been a continuous part of their balancing "strategy" for years and have as such inevitably lead the game to its current state.

I'll repeat myself and tell you to tell Anet to take lessons from HoN balancers.

On a side note, it's rather ironic how convinced you are that players alone suggest useless skill updates that would take away "precious developer's time", when at the same time Anet apparently does take some of their "precious developer's time" to implement a rather redundant feature like zaishen menagerie.

Cantos · Jun 04, 2010, 08:55 AM // 08:55

My suggestion is to delete all PvP modes that aren't GvG or RA, then make RA random 8 player teams and play them on GvG maps with GvG rules. Consolidation of game modes handily addresses point 1, and sensibly rectifies point 4.

Benderama · Jun 04, 2010, 10:26 AM // 10:26

well since the live team are only a few people tehres a limit to what they can do. and they can't throw stuff into the game willy nilly, letting things fall out of balance. the obvious excuse is GW2, this is it. they're making a completely new game, while still adding free content update to GW. though it may be limited.
The lack of players aren't really being drawn back with the additional content, but most are just waiting until GW2. it happens with every game but the live team can't do much more to attract people back to GW.

Eragon Zarroc · Jun 04, 2010, 12:22 PM // 12:22

Meh, the slow death a pvp is more a result of just age than it is of poor skill balancing if you ask me. There will always be skills that aren't exactly perfect and there will always be areas that you can take advantages. However, a complex and extensive overhaul of anything isn't going to bring players to pvp in droves.

As pvp ages, certain groups of people gain skill and experience while those that cannot play very well lose to these players and gain relatively little experience. Over time (years), the gap between inexperienced and experienced players starts to broaden greatly with mid-range players becoming scarce. Then the lower experience people quit in frustration and entry barriers for new people to learn become so high that you only have very little income of new blood. What you are left with is all the highly experienced players enjoying the fierce competition amongst one another. No reason to complain yet.

But, once again, with time, the various high end players start to die off whether it be from boredom of the game or finding something new to play. But there still remains enough high-end players to ward of new people from wanting to even try pvp, but not enough to generate constant healthy competition amongst one-another. The point we are at now. *commence complaints*

It has nothing to do with people boycotting pvp because of this skill and that skill be overpowered or under powered. If anything, people don't want to play because too much time and input is required to become successful and remain that way. This is especially true for newer players who have to try and compete with players that have years more of experience. Guild Wars is 5 years old! It has become nothing more than a casual game for most players and team based pvp isn't exactly a casual e-sport if you want the enjoyment of winning.

So the point is, yes, the problem is dead hours from lack of players. But, you are not gonna fix this through any changes of dmg/healing/armor changes. To draw players back to pvp, you would have to make it more rewarding, require less time input, and be more enjoyable to a broader range audience. How to do this without destroying the fierce competitiveness that more serious players enjoy? I have no idea if it would even be possible, much less worth the time and effort when attempting to do such a thing could easily backfire. (e.g. codex)

urania · Jun 04, 2010, 12:48 PM // 12:48

power creep, lack of a genuine contact and communication between the community and the devs, the inability to admit bad skill changes and the likes greatly accelerate the dying process.
its true that nothing lasts forever, but GW had so much potential, yet most of it has been wasted.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eragon Zarroc

To draw players back to pvp, you would have to make it more rewarding, require less time input, and be more enjoyable to a broader range audience. How to do this without destroying the fierce competitiveness that more serious players enjoy? I have no idea if it would even be possible, much less worth the time and effort when attempting to do such a thing could easily backfire. (e.g. codex)

dw, thats how GW2 pvp will be like.
a fest for the masses! (:

Ariena Najea · Jun 04, 2010, 06:06 PM // 18:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eragon Zarroc

To draw players back to pvp, you would have to make it more rewarding, require less time input, and be more enjoyable to a broader range audience. How to do this without destroying the fierce competitiveness that more serious players enjoy?

This is the root of contemporary PvP problems as I see things. More skilled players are leaving the game than entering (and learning), so things become dumbed down. The PvE community is immense, and the initial support for Codex (before it was obvious things were broken) from the PvE sided was unprecedented. Many PvE players would like to get into PvP, but either don't want to spend time on something that will often be unsuccessful, or fail in the entry level formats because they have gotten so competitive. RA is srs bsns now, and is no longer a good place to start learning PvP. JQ and FA are marginally better in terms of being forgiving, but these formats are not similar to any more competitive format. AB is really the only useful entry-level format left (assuming you don't fight syncs...) and it can be frustrating to get into a group. If you don't have Guildies/friends free, you need to PuG which of course usually ends horribly, with one player always off by himself, Defy Pain Warriors, and Ele "cappers" that use their AoE skills almost exclusively on players. With all this said, there isn't much motivation to get into PvP.

As far as rewards go, there isn't too much that can be done, apart from giving some PvE incentive such as "PvP" weapons for heroes from B Faction. Requiring less time input is also tricky, since dumbing down the formats for newer players is a terrible idea. Older players will remember the pre-built templates you picked from in PvP character creation, these need to return and be selectable from the skills window by some means. Have the Test Krewe update these for initial use, and after each update as needed. Lastly, RA, JQ, and FA need fixing. Most PvE players are most enthused to play these formats, and get turned away when facing sync teams, having a Juggernaut/Turtle sit in your base (you know the bug), and stalling FA Siege Turtles with tanking builds to almost ensure a Kurzick victory. If these formats are fixed properly, more PvErs will get their feet wet, and some will go on to HA and GvG where the population needs help.

Greedy Gus · Jun 04, 2010, 06:23 PM // 18:23

There's literally no good reason why you have to accept that it takes 5 months to change some numbers on a few skills, so you shouldn't. It's just a false premise that players can only hope to suggest quick, simple sledgehammer changes just so the gw1 developer team can keep playing solitaire most of their day (or at least altitude). Take a dump on them on forums if they're continuing to be inept at their jobs and maybe they'll finally get shitcanned.

These people have the cushiest job ever where they decided that game balance means changing stuff up every 3-5 months, which means they're getting paid to dig holes and then fill them back in while screwing around most of the day. Now they have the test crew which apparently is there as a volunteer force that has to 'test' everything and pleads against the worst changes that these devs come up with to hopefully blunt the worst of it.

FoxBat · Jun 04, 2010, 08:15 PM // 20:15

GW skill updates haven't even attempted to be about PvP since Izzy left. The updates are now proportional to their userbase. 90% get random buffs to kill mobs with, 10% get said buffs not screwing PvP up too badly. Do you really think it's smart for Anet to invest in modes no-one plays? Even if they became balanced, active and skill-rewarding overnight, it's not like enough would care. ANY bone thrown our way has to be about increasing numbers, and massive skill balance overhaul misses the point.

Corporeal Ghost · Jun 05, 2010, 07:50 AM // 07:50

In no particular order, tried to address most of this:

A better balance philosophy will increase the number of players, both new and returning.

A better balance philosophy is possible without actually increasing the workload of the developers; it simply has to be refocused. This seems more viable to me than getting them to "work more", as it were.

Posts on the fora may or may not have any effect on what the developers spend their time on. If there is an effect, it stands to reason we should make it positive instead of having a low signal-to-noise ratio. If there is no effect, I guess it really doesn't matter what we're whining about, but proposing trivial updates is pretty irritating in the face of everything wrong with the game.

I don't think I'm a particularly strong advocate of ANet. I used to be. I thought they were a fantastic company in Beta, pretty good pre-Factions, decent up until Nightfall, and sometime in that six month period afterward, I lost most of my respect for them.

I understand the scope of making the game even a shadow of what it was again. I know how unrealistic it is. That just doesn't seem like a reason to throw our hands in the air and stop trying in favor of producing meaningless updates just for the sake of having updates. And even with the relative certainty that none of what we post here, even if we're all in agreement, will have any bearing on the game, I find that some of these suggestions that just completely ignore everything wrong with the game with the intent of changing what can only be construed as meaningless aspects infuriating in and of themselves. Maybe no one shares this particular pet peeve of mine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elnino

I really believe that the bug fixes to Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry should also be on that list.

This is exactly what I was referring to in my opening post. Whether or not you view these two formats as important to the game, these bugs are too specific to really be relevant. If you're treating this at a level other than the disparity between damage and mitigation, you're really just treating symptoms and not the problem. So if you fix the broken turtles in Aspenwood, you've fixed...only the broken turtles in Aspenwood. If you fix the fact that Monks can indefinitely keep a team up with scattered "oops" kills, every format improves.

It is mind-boggling to me that you can even make this suggestion after (presumably) reading my post.

Greedy Gus · Jun 06, 2010, 01:30 AM // 01:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporeal Ghost

It is mind-boggling to me that you can even make this suggestion after (presumably) reading my post.

It might help some people get a better sense of the big picture issue if you expand on the balance philosophy problem a bit instead of leaving it for granted. Your OP has one huge issue muddled in with 3 other bullet points that don't come nearly as close in practicality with no instant distinction (kind of the problem you're trying to address strangely). It reads as a bit rambling where the thoughts evolve as the post goes on, instead of providing a crisp coherent point. Copying your last QQ post to here would be a strong start.

I Jonas I · Jun 06, 2010, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cantos

My suggestion is to delete all PvP modes that aren't GvG or RA

you'll have to wait until GW 2 =)

Corporeal Ghost · Jun 07, 2010, 01:28 AM // 01:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

It might help some people get a better sense of the big picture issue if you expand on the balance philosophy problem a bit instead of leaving it for granted. Your OP has one huge issue muddled in with 3 other bullet points that don't come nearly as close in practicality with no instant distinction (kind of the problem you're trying to address strangely). It reads as a bit rambling where the thoughts evolve as the post goes on, instead of providing a crisp coherent point. Copying your last QQ post to here would be a strong start.

I sometimes cannot remember what I posted on QQ and what I posted here. It probably doesn't help that I often write these in more than one sitting and non-linearly. I'm also fairly certain I've discussed this issue here in multiple threads, so I was a little hesitant to go into detail on some of it, but apparently it's necessary.

In the interest of brevity, which I know I'm already sorely lacking, here's a link to the post I believe Gus is talking about:

http://www.teamquitter.com/phpBB2/vi...19768&start=91

And here's a modified version that is hopefully less stream-of-consciousness.

The game is arguably in a state of balance right now. The problem is that most people don't realize they don't actually want a state of balance. What we actually want is a game state in which the most powerful skills are those that are the best designed in terms of input/output ratio and versatility. The poster children for these kinds of skills are essentially those that the metagame revolved around shortly before Factions' release; Frenzy, Holy Veil, Gale, Blackout, Guardian, Healing Signet, ESurge and friends, Crippling Shot, etc etc.

Anyway, ANet's business model is essentially postulated on power creep. Power creep isn't necessarily a universal bad as most people would have us believe. The problem is simply that ANet has implemented it in perhaps the worst possible way. All of their best design jobs on individual skills happened in the first campaign. Design basically got progressively worse as the game went on; the simple skills that had no delta in their effect based on player input or game situation were buffed to be the most powerful, and the good stuff pretty much fell by the wayside. There were other factors involved, but this was really the heart of the issue.

This ultimately culminated in exactly what you would think it would; if every skill is extremely linear, and to win the game you need to kill either the opposing team or the guild lord, damage becomes the most important facet of the game. So the game now revolves almost exclusively around the most efficient damage skills, the most efficient damage mitigation skills, and a select few long-term shutdown skills to use on the mitigation.

That's where we are right now, in a metagame full of point-and-click skills where decision-making has been replaced with reflexes and micro. If you put those decisions back in the game by balancing such that versatile and double-edged skills are the most powerful, player decisions are more plentiful and more meaningful. Examples:

Best
Should I use this skill at all, even if my energy is full and it's recharged? (Frenzy, Blackout, Gale, prots, Bull's Strike, long-recharge snares)

Good
When should I use this skill for maximum efficiency, as I cannot use it on recharge? (Blinding Flash, Power Attack, most 10e monk skills, many snares)

Bad
Now that my skill is recharged, who should I use it on? (many modern ele skills, many 5e healing prayers skills, overpowered snares)

Worst
This skill has zero versatility or decision-making involved. (Shell Shock, Ebon Dust Aura, Keen Arrow, Watch Yourself, Go for the Eyes)

Note that the availability of too many energy skills, anti-interruption, and some other relatively obnoxious game features moves many skills from "good" to "bad". It's also probably worth noting that although many skills associated with spiking fit into "worst", that doesn't necessarily mean that either spiking or this subset of skills don't belong in the game. It simply means that these skills should be less powerful than their counterparts further up the list.

A reasonable example is to compare Bull's Strike to Hammer Bash. Bull's Strike has the same effect, but has a ton of damage stapled to it and does not cause adrenaline loss. Though both of these are considered highly playable skills, Bull's Strike is allowed to be much more powerful on the numbers side because it has a conditional on it that is not only relatively difficult to meet, but promotes good play on both the part of the warrior and the target.

Basically, the skills in "Best" heavily influence the decisions of both teams. Those in "good" require good decision-making on the part of the user. Those in "bad" require fewer/less important decisions, and those in "worst" require none.

Armor levels are related, but in a sort of odd way. Presumably, armor levels were originally buffed because damage was growing to such absurd levels. They can't really drop until the game's focus on damage becomes less exclusive, but it's pretty hard to change this focus because armor levels are so high that an 8 man team demands a certain level of burst DPS simply to score kills through both insane armor levels and overpowered healing.

Ultimately, this leads us to the reason I made this thread: not only does everything aside from arguably the lack of players pale in comparison to fixing these issues, but pretty much everything will start self-correcting if these issues are resolved. I guarantee some players will come back. I know the GvG tiebreaker will be a good deal less important if wipes are possible again. TA would be re-implementable without an overhaul. Etc, etc.

Neo-LD · Jun 11, 2010, 05:02 AM // 05:02

There is little hope for GW1. There are so many things that require simultaneous patching and so few resources being devoted at ANet to patching them, it is likely that all that will happen from now until the end of GW1 are the systemic nerfs to popular skills and buffs to random underused ones that we have come to expect over the past few years.

Still, I appreciate someone else taking up the reward player skill cause. Thank you, Corporeal Ghost.

Shadow Sin · Jun 12, 2010, 07:44 AM // 07:44

ily Corp, your walls of text are informative, brilliant, and make me cry blood-stained tears of happiness that someone actually understands the game in a way that the developers of the game do not.