Curse

paK0 · May 17, 2009, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

Personally I think that's an poor mantra because, if we look at it, one of the fundamental archetypes of play is splitting.

maybe not all think this is good, splitting is strange anyways

i played chess, 2 rts and a lot of other mmorpgs(i did active pvp in 2 of them) and i always thought splitting sucks

look at it like this, its 7v7(not counting the flaggys)and you decide to do a 3 man split

you trade the opportunity for some easy kills in the enemys base for an obvious loss on the main team.

did you ever play ta, probably
did you imagine to play against two ta teams at once? probably not, because its riduculous. i personally think it would be really strange to be able to hold a 4v7. jusz looking from the math side , you cant expect to get 3 man to clear the enemys base and STILL wanna hold the mainteam

Wish Swiftdeath · May 17, 2009, 04:20 AM // 04:20

You're not meant to slug it out with the enemy when splitting. You're just meant to hold them as long as possible so your team can gain the advantage.

paK0 · May 17, 2009, 09:39 AM // 09:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wish Swiftdeath

You're not meant to slug it out with the enemy when splitting. You're just meant to hold them as long as possible so your team can gain the advantage.

any your opponent is supposed to kick your ass, the better they are, the faster they do it

balanced is strong because everyone has offensive and defensice qualitis

warriors can put out dmg or lineback, rangers/mesmers can interrupt offensive or defesive spells, necros have lc for offense and foul feast and fainheartedness for defense

most people assume that just leaving the monks in the main team will keep them alive, thats just the point they miss

by removing one piece of the team the weaken their defense as well as their offense, this is the point where the opposing team has to react

either they do a split on their own or they collapse your main team

you have to decide on one, and the skills help you to do so, at a time where you have powerful skills that dish out a lot of dmg, collapsing is by far the better plan, and this is the situation we have right now

RotteN · May 17, 2009, 10:13 AM // 10:13

Movement is part of your defensive abilities. Your main team should be able to hold out long enough for your split to create an advantage.

Splitting is about creating temporary advantages for yourself while minimizing the disadvantages for yourself.

It is by far a harder playstyle than defensive 321-ing, and doing it correctly requires experience and a brain, as well as decent communication and overview of the whole field.

In your example: if a team does refuse to fall back to handle the split, it will most likely turn into a lord race. Chances are very high the split team will win that race, since they are already on the way, and facing a lot less defense to shut down. One flagger will explode quite fast, a defensive main team will be able to handle the beating a lot longer.

paK0 · May 17, 2009, 11:47 AM // 11:47

that depensd on the skills, like i said, in a meta with as much damage as there it is now it is possible to collapse the defensive team and still win the race and at this point you can send someone back to help your flaggyto gain advantage on both points

if there wouldnt be that much power maybe splitting would be better but it is a matter of personal preference if you want a meta with more mindgames or more action

IMMORTAlMITCH · May 17, 2009, 12:09 PM // 12:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by paK0

balanced is strong because everyone has offensive and defensice qualitis..

..necros have lc for offense and foul feast and fainheartedness for defense

I'm curious as to when Necros became a part of 'balanced'.

paK0 · May 17, 2009, 01:55 PM // 13:55

there is not just THE ONE balanced, i hope you are aware of that

a lot of guilds play a lot of variations, some play with two rangers, some bs eles, fc snarers or necros, ive even seen some paragons (but that was a while ago i guess)

the midline offers a lot of room for variations, and lately you cant deny there were a lot of necros

FoxBat · May 17, 2009, 02:15 PM // 14:15

No, "balanced" is:

Shockaxe
Hammer
Ranger
BSurge
Dom (not VoR)
Heal
Prot
Flag

Anything else has no Honour, therefore good players shouldn't even consider it.

StManTiS · May 17, 2009, 02:35 PM // 14:35

I typically play a monk or some other healer and the only thing i find to be IMBA are the quarter knockers. Everything else has some sort of a balance to it, however when a warrior goes up to me and keeps me in perma-KD while doing enough damage to slug through most of my 620 HP while having the highest survivability in game, i find that to be a bit off. What im saying is that the warrior KD skills shouldn't do so much damage, because at this point they do as much damage as a sin but have way more HP/Armor.

Jeydra · May 17, 2009, 02:48 PM // 14:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by paK0

did you imagine to play against two ta teams at once? probably not, because its riduculous. i personally think it would be really strange to be able to hold a 4v7. jusz looking from the math side , you cant expect to get 3 man to clear the enemys base and STILL wanna hold the mainteam

You've got NPCs ... look at it this way: a single turtled Monk can usually hold two damage characters. Last time someone mentioned this to me I didn't believe it and we tested it. Eventually managed to best him running a Dual Attunements bar with Aura of Resto, high damage nukes, blind and weakness (without which the Knights would've slaughtered us, unfortunately) + Gale as well as a pre-nerf WE Axe Warrior, but it took well over 6 minutes to achieve anything significant. Two turtled Monks + the defensive midliner can hold for quite a while and let the split achieve something.

@the idea of balanced - I'm glad 'balanced' isn't the only viable build. As in, really glad.

paK0 · May 17, 2009, 03:45 PM // 15:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

No, "balanced" is:

Shockaxe
Hammer
Ranger
BSurge
Dom (not VoR)
Heal
Prot
Flag

Anything else has no Honour, therefore good players shouldn't even consider it.

that is pretty much the base build, however changes were constantly implied with the changing metagame

balanced just is a word, and there are a lot of builds to fulfill that obligation
just look at the ranger, if you play him with melshot(before the nerf) or burning arrow he would have a lot of spike dmg, while running him with magehunters will give him more control ability (not sure though weahter mageshot is played right now)

the thing that im getting at: most players have a clear build in mind when they think of balanced but the truth is this builds vary depending on player preferences, the metagame and the current consistency of skills

ive seen quite some good guilds add a necro to their lineup, y, the build changed but the build is still "balanced" even if it doesnt refer directly to the original one anymore

and i think the thing about honor is bullshit, there isn't something as a hounor rating in gw, most players refuse to play some build (for me it is the stuff that you just have to press 1-7 and then pray) but in the end it doesn't matter when your lord is down. skill is not just playing your bar, skill is building a good bar to play with and then execute it the way it is supposed to work

and i really wanna see that monk, i think you approched it the wrong way, if you can't overwhelm it than work around that, 1 ps sin and a mesmer (pblock might work well) will solve it imo

but even if you didn't notice you said the same thing as i do, if you put up a lot of pressure the monk will collapse eventually, the question is just how fast he will do that (and the current builds arent just pressure, there were always rangers to provide some sort of shutdown, but that ads up to the pressure ofc)

Vanquisher · May 17, 2009, 05:54 PM // 17:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by paK0

maybe not all think this is good, splitting is strange anyways

i played chess, 2 rts and a lot of other mmorpgs(i did active pvp in 2 of them) and i always thought splitting sucks

look at it like this, its 7v7(not counting the flaggys)and you decide to do a 3 man split

you trade the opportunity for some easy kills in the enemys base for an obvious loss on the main team.

did you ever play ta, probably
did you imagine to play against two ta teams at once? probably not, because its riduculous. i personally think it would be really strange to be able to hold a 4v7. jusz looking from the math side , you cant expect to get 3 man to clear the enemys base and STILL wanna hold the mainteam

Splitting, and the ability to do so, is one of the scenarios which best rewards tactical play in this game. This is my opinion, obviously, but mobility should be a huge factor when proper investment in field control and such is made. Incorporation of more tactics should be rewarded, whether it's flag pushing, dual/triple running, timer kills, or splitting for NPC advantage. Only now the NPC advantage doesn't exist, and splitting instead grants access to Guild Lords and the ability to put on some Lord damage for the tiebreaker (or killing it before the game gets to that). Rewarding tactical play turns the game away from an 8/8 slugfest to a much more fine-tuned game. It rewards the various subtleties and nuances that players make, and is far more likely to result in mistakes being punished.

However I think you're overlooking something. When splitting, the 4/7 scenario you commented on is somewhat less likely than a 5/7 scenario. While I am not a fan of dedicated splits, instead favouring builds to be more rounded and have all forms of play open to them, a dedicated split should have the same leverage in terms of play as a dedicated spike, or dedicated pressure build. This simply isn't the case, and has ceased to be following an incredibly number of skill balances that have, albeit marginally in some cases, changed the dynamics of the game.

Should a 5 man team be able to hold up against a 7 man team? Well, no. And they won't. They'll lose field position, they won't have a discernable means of pressure or spike output (if they do it's a terrible balance issue), and teams that play defensive should (note here should) be beaten by teams playing aggressively, to an extent. The same holds true with 8/8. If a team is playing defensively, they should be getting beaten by a team playing more aggressively. The drain on resources should, over time, get to a stage where the defensive play simply cannot keep up with the aggressive nature of the other team. What I'm incredibly anti at the moment however, is the time frame in which this happens.

The goal of splitting is very much to give yourself control of the match. If a team sends back a Monk, while running a 2 Monk backline, the main team (if considering 6 men as the main team) should be able to power through the lack of defence (as it will be 6/6, taking into account Flagger/Monk being back). If no additional defence is sent back, the split should be able to power through the defence that is back (most commonly a flagger) in a pretty short space of time. However, while playing at a numerical disadvantage, you should be losing on that side (positioning wise and, as previously mentioned, resources in terms of health/energy wise). However, to keep this form of play somewhat balanced, it should be noted that 2 people should NEVER be able to kill a Guild Lord and Lord room in a sufficiently quick amount of time as the likes of Mind Blast Eles in particular can do so. Without the split being something with the healing power of a Monk (which should still not allow for the full wiping of a Lord room with very little downtime) to heal through a Guild Lords damage, if the above can happen there are serious problems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pak0

balanced is strong because everyone has offensive and defensice qualitis

warriors can put out dmg or lineback, rangers/mesmers can interrupt offensive or defesive spells, necros have lc for offense and foul feast and fainheartedness for defense

most people assume that just leaving the monks in the main team will keep them alive, thats just the point they miss

by removing one piece of the team the weaken their defense as well as their offense, this is the point where the opposing team has to react

either they do a split on their own or they collapse your main team

you have to decide on one, and the skills help you to do so, at a time where you have powerful skills that dish out a lot of dmg, collapsing is by far the better plan, and this is the situation we have right now

Firstly it would be best to get this notion of balanced away from discussion concerning skill balance. Balanced is often a wasteland where ideas get drowned out and lost, and everyone seems to have different ideas when it comes to the discussion. My simple inclination is that split, spike, and pressure should all have equal power in terms of winning games when playing dedicated builds.

It would perhaps be easiest to think of it in these terms; When playing a build that relies on one of the archetypes, a build that contains all three and is played at a sufficient level, should be able to exploit the weaknesses in the single-geared build with its propensity to play in different styles. For instance, vs. a pure spike build, the main weakness it should suffer from is a lack of mobility. Thus, splitting would be the best way to go about beating it in usual circumstances. Likewise with pressure, though pressure should be more inclined towards splitting than spike, and certain balance issues addressing the ability of spike to pressure and vice versa would have to be addressed.

The qualities you mentioned are very different from those defining balance. While you are correct in your assertion that Necros, to use your example, have LC for offensive duties and tools like Faint for defensive ones, there is the failure to mention that as single-mechanic skills there is a balance issue. In this case, Necros are not really viewed as balanced because they can only be played in one way. This is a failing with the Necro class more than anything, and their tendancy to either be far too strong or far too weak in regards to their skills effects/the meta.

A similar case can be made for Warriors and Mesmers, though Warriors tend to have more movement capabilities and can thus be employed in terms of splitting. Rangers likewise, though in an ideal world their damage would be negligable owing to their success as a control and utility character (they should still be able to kill solo, but not as quickly as Mel Shot, for instance, would allow).

Quote:

Originally Posted by pak0

that depensd on the skills, like i said, in a meta with as much damage as there it is now it is possible to collapse the defensive team and still win the race and at this point you can send someone back to help your flaggyto gain advantage on both points

if there wouldnt be that much power maybe splitting would be better but it is a matter of personal preference if you want a meta with more mindgames or more action

I want a game where all approaches are equal in terms of power. I don't want one build to just beat everything else, though I want the most balanced form of play/build to be able to have as much of a chance in beating as losing to a single-geared build if both builds are played well. It is important to realise however, that by design some builds will have favourable times to win matches. For instance, pressure is looking to win fast, with split being more of a long term strategy, and spike being more of the middle ground but constrained by its immobility.

paK0 · May 17, 2009, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

Splitting, and the ability to do so, is one of the scenarios which best rewards tactical play in this game. This is my opinion, obviously, but mobility should be a huge factor when proper investment in field control and such is made. Incorporation of more tactics should be rewarded, whether it's flag pushing, dual/triple running, timer kills, or splitting for NPC advantage. Only now the NPC advantage doesn't exist, and splitting instead grants access to Guild Lords and the ability to put on some Lord damage for the tiebreaker (or killing it before the game gets to that). Rewarding tactical play turns the game away from an 8/8 slugfest to a much more fine-tuned game. It rewards the various subtleties and nuances that players make, and is far more likely to result in mistakes being punished.

However I think you're overlooking something. When splitting, the 4/7 scenario you commented on is somewhat less likely than a 5/7 scenario. While I am not a fan of dedicated splits, instead favouring builds to be more rounded and have all forms of play open to them, a dedicated split should have the same leverage in terms of play as a dedicated spike, or dedicated pressure build. This simply isn't the case, and has ceased to be following an incredibly number of skill balances that have, albeit marginally in some cases, changed the dynamics of the game.

Should a 5 man team be able to hold up against a 7 man team? Well, no. And they won't. They'll lose field position, they won't have a discernable means of pressure or spike output (if they do it's a terrible balance issue), and teams that play defensive should (note here should) be beaten by teams playing aggressively, to an extent. The same holds true with 8/8. If a team is playing defensively, they should be getting beaten by a team playing more aggressively. The drain on resources should, over time, get to a stage where the defensive play simply cannot keep up with the aggressive nature of the other team. What I'm incredibly anti at the moment however, is the time frame in which this happens.

The goal of splitting is very much to give yourself control of the match. If a team sends back a Monk, while running a 2 Monk backline, the main team (if considering 6 men as the main team) should be able to power through the lack of defence (as it will be 6/6, taking into account Flagger/Monk being back). If no additional defence is sent back, the split should be able to power through the defence that is back (most commonly a flagger) in a pretty short space of time. However, while playing at a numerical disadvantage, you should be losing on that side (positioning wise and, as previously mentioned, resources in terms of health/energy wise). However, to keep this form of play somewhat balanced, it should be noted that 2 people should NEVER be able to kill a Guild Lord and Lord room in a sufficiently quick amount of time as the likes of Mind Blast Eles in particular can do so. Without the split being something with the healing power of a Monk (which should still not allow for the full wiping of a Lord room with very little downtime) to heal through a Guild Lords damage, if the above can happen there are serious problems.

while this is true i can only agree to some extend what a split should accomplish

you describe a situation where the split forces the other team to react, i, however consider collapsing as an answear

its is darn true that you have to balance the times right but who do you want to favour?
if both teams have equal chances to win the race then there is hardly any point to split, as i would not prefer to have a match end in gambling who will deliver the last blow a second earlier (a bit exaggerated, but i think you get the point)

if you want to favour the splitting team then you force a reaction. if it isnt possible to collapse and go for the kill themselves the other team will NEED to send someone back to not loose the game

if you favour the team that is not doing the split then nobody would split anyways since this would be rather stupid

the only way to imply splitting youd be to give a slight advantage to the team executing the split, a situation that you seem to favour. i can see what brings you to that point and i also see why tacticans would favour such a situation, but i have to say that i dont like it

while the 8v8 mashups are nothing to aim for i do not want to see matches that are won by simply positioning until one makes a mistake and then go for the kill, that seems tactical but truly boring to watch and strange to play

id love to see tactical actions that help you to win but only in improving your battle situation not things like:
i split, either you split too, or you loose

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

Firstly it would be best to get this notion of balanced away from discussion concerning skill balance. Balanced is often a wasteland where ideas get drowned out and lost, and everyone seems to have different ideas when it comes to the discussion. My simple inclination is that split, spike, and pressure should all have equal power in terms of winning games when playing dedicated builds.

It would perhaps be easiest to think of it in these terms; When playing a build that relies on one of the archetypes, a build that contains all three and is played at a sufficient level, should be able to exploit the weaknesses in the single-geared build with its propensity to play in different styles. For instance, vs. a pure spike build, the main weakness it should suffer from is a lack of mobility. Thus, splitting would be the best way to go about beating it in usual circumstances. Likewise with pressure, though pressure should be more inclined towards splitting than spike, and certain balance issues addressing the ability of spike to pressure and vice versa would have to be addressed.

The qualities you mentioned are very different from those defining balance. While you are correct in your assertion that Necros, to use your example, have LC for offensive duties and tools like Faint for defensive ones, there is the failure to mention that as single-mechanic skills there is a balance issue. In this case, Necros are not really viewed as balanced because they can only be played in one way. This is a failing with the Necro class more than anything, and their tendancy to either be far too strong or far too weak in regards to their skills effects/the meta.

A similar case can be made for Warriors and Mesmers, though Warriors tend to have more movement capabilities and can thus be employed in terms of splitting. Rangers likewise, though in an ideal world their damage would be negligable owing to their success as a control and utility character (they should still be able to kill solo, but not as quickly as Mel Shot, for instance, would allow).

first i wanna com clear about the necros =)

im not here too long, but have been kinda semi-active in other forums, i have an own definition of balanced. i'll gladly take over your split/spike/pressure definition if it is considered the definition here

it is true that necros are limited in the ways the played, but i do not think of it as an issue, since they support the team in various situations

lc helps to build and keep pressure, faint helps as an anti-split skill and rend can be used as spike support

rangers can support every part depending on what they aim their interrupts at. it is true that a necro cannot adjust himself to situations that easily, he has, however skills that are stronger than the rangers, but more situational. while he fails to fit in a playstile depending on a situation, the current necro tries to have a skill that fits a special situation. i think that is perfectly fine, a skill that requieres a special situation to be effective should be considerably stronger than a skill that is always useful

--------------

let us take the given situation of spike vs balanced:

it is not true that the team playing balanced can split to win, it is more like they HAVE to do it to win (or they have to take the pressure way)

you said before that you want the team forcing the action to win, or at least gain an advantage, so the spiking team has an advantage from the beginning, they force the balanced team to make a limited decision

limited because they have no longer the choice of going down the spike road. so the balanced team is actually forced to choose their playstyle

and i think this is the way to go

it is said that a good balanced can beat everyhing, which shouldnt be the matter. you said youself you want a balanced that can beat everything but not one build to beat everything

i agree that there should not be one surpirior build

i agree that a build inheriting more than one playstyle should be cometetive

but i cannot say that i like the idea that it is possible to make a build that can just adapt to the style of their opponents and then win

the thing i want to see is are balanced builds focussing on certain aspects, like:
we want to win through spikes, but if the opponent has a build tuned more for spikes we can split as a backup plan

i dont wanna see builds that are just made of counters for everything

if they spike we split
if they preassure we snare their frontline
if they split we collapse them
.......

i really want to see these tactics,but not in one build, rather have builds focussed on 2 (or maybe sometimes 3) different aspects of the game, this will provide us with a lot of different builds and a lot of interesting plays and counterplays

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

I want a game where all approaches are equal in terms of power. I don't want one build to just beat everything else, though I want the most balanced form of play/build to be able to have as much of a chance in beating as losing to a single-geared build if both builds are played well. It is important to realise however, that by design some builds will have favourable times to win matches. For instance, pressure is looking to win fast, with split being more of a long term strategy, and spike being more of the middle ground but constrained by its immobility.

see above

and there will always be a metagame. a lot of guilds/people are not too bad at playing but suck at making their own builds, which you cannot blame them for, so these guilds will always copy stuff from the top guilds, because they can be rather sure they are effective to some extend

this happens everywhere and is a part of the game which cannot be changed

comeing to guru was a good idea i rly enjoy discussing stuff =)

Rhamia Darigaz · May 18, 2009, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsielschott

I do not agree with this thread because this is the game and obviously they are doing something right because YOU still play, and many more are starting up everyday.
(thats a success in my eyes)

not everyone who comments on the state of the game still plays, people still playing a game doesn't mean it hasn't gotten worse, and the "many more" starting up every day are probably playing pve (or RA if they're MEGA HARDCORE PVP GOSU).

Sun Fired Blank · May 18, 2009, 03:13 AM // 03:13

The problem is that OP builds have severely oversimplified GvG tactics. If they split any volume of damage, you just send your high output defense back, and squish them with your high output offense; a high output offense that probably has a fair amount of midline defense. You essentially turn the game into a lord race, and if they collapse you, then you just turn the collapse around by having your damage fall out of their base and your healing follow their damage out of your base.

If that sounded insultingly simplistic and moronic, that's because it is. Modern GvG is so tactically lacking that everyone might as well be playing in Underworld.

Tamuril elansar · May 18, 2009, 08:07 AM // 08:07

balance could also contain a me/e over the bsurge.

JR · May 18, 2009, 12:32 PM // 12:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Fired Blank

If that sounded insultingly simplistic and moronic, that's because it is. Modern GvG is so tactically lacking that everyone might as well be playing in Underworld.

To be fair, GvG has always been tactically lacking, just most people didn't realize it until iQ made it so obvious.

The thing that worries me is that 3 years later and GvG, mechanically, is no better than it was to begin with. It's just different. What exactly do they have in mind for GW2?

scruffy · May 18, 2009, 01:56 PM // 13:56

i think they should just constantly work on new maps for GW2 to keep the game fresh

DreamWind · May 18, 2009, 08:29 PM // 20:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

To be fair, GvG has always been tactically lacking, just most people didn't realize it until iQ made it so obvious.

This is probably true. I'd say that Evil iQ game 3 was probably the exact moment this game jumped the shark.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR

The thing that worries me is that 3 years later and GvG, mechanically, is no better than it was to begin with. It's just different. What exactly do they have in mind for GW2?

Not only that, it is arguably mechanically worse. It amazes me that people think the competitive aspects of GW2 will be better, when Anet clearly hasn't learned much from GW1.

lord of all tyria · May 18, 2009, 08:35 PM // 20:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

No, "balanced" is:

Shockaxe
Hammer
Ranger
BSurge
Dom (not VoR)
Heal
Prot
Flag

Anything else has no Honour, therefore good players shouldn't even consider it.

B surge is not honourable. Cruel spear paragon!