Curse

Master Fuhon · Feb 17, 2009, 06:17 AM // 06:17

Since this is supposed to be a competitive game, the least that could be done is someone with a different playstyle have their build buffed to a level to be competitive with the predominant build that wins tournaments. Or the winning builds be nerfed to a level of being equal with others. Only reason I suggest this is because the game was changed so far from original design.

Or at the very least, if there is some anomally between the best guilds involving both preparation and skill, that guild would be able to prove there is at least a second build that can be equally competitive with the first, and have an equal reason to switch builds. If you think I'm picking on you with this subject, I have major complaints about what has been done with the PvE game, and the predominance of a single winning strategy used throughout the game. The PvP equivalent to clearing every zone and difficulty is winning over a long time with the same playstyle. I'm not surprised this game design issue has carried over to PvP though.

Question answers:
1) More than one should be championship viable (turtling flagstand is strong, put localized area effects, miasma, ice there if you have to on a few maps, if 8v8 happens closer to either base, there would be a better opportunity to allow more agressive playstyles)
2) More than one (I would accept a single character build drastically changed as a step in the right direction, characters that are interchangeable yet play slightly different if need be, examples. axe->derv, hammer->sin, mes->ranger, rit->elem or necro, mo->rit etc.)
3) Many can be popular, more than one should be winning (obvious niche needs adjustments is snare mesmer, caretaker rit is too easy to spec as full healing and would be a nicer design for flag runner spike assist, ranger elites + hunters too much spike for a char with interrupts, anything with 2-3 damage skills and all utility is too strong a build, if game was perfect everything would be niche, I think wars/monks will make that impossible, and a ranger lacks competition for attacking bases)

If you really need more specifics, take guilds that have consistently shown up and performed well in tournaments, and make their builds as viable as the one that wins tournaments (draw names out of a hat if need be). Whether one guild is of tremendous skill at playing a single build matters not. People should have an equally viable second option if they have skill.

I usually do not like to sit by and criticize something for being unfair or imbalanced without offering a concrete alternative suggestion. But on this subject, tons of alternative suggestions have already been given. Either the skill balancing is going on according to a view I disagree with (which is why I referenced PvE balance design also), or it's being done randomly.

The front/mid/back/runner subdivision was a good start, as long as people are being honest about what's viable. People run what they think is good in crucial matches, that's the only thing that can be relied on for viability.

frojack · Feb 17, 2009, 07:44 AM // 07:44

MY main gripes at the moment with the game are the rit Caretaker's/A rage spikes like have already been pointed out (defensive characters shouldn't have such an effective spike, it's build compression gone mad).
Primal Rage also. It gives warriors more options but it makes the warrior generally the fastest character on any given map. I really don't like this at all and can't see how anyone can think this is a good thing. It allows bad positioning to be rectified and partially nullifies attempts to manoeuvre teams around for stuff like splits.
If the enemy front-line can get back to the base in the blink of an eye with the runners it limits the kind of free-form gank teams you can make and allows them to come back from being out-manoeuvred quite easily.
Hidden Caltrops. Rit's shouldn't have access to such omega-snares on a super-defensive character. Again it's bar-compression gone mad. If strong snares are required from the runner, sacrifices should have to be made (Rt/E or even running a weaker ele runner, or simply more assistance from the ranger).
Pew Pews. I really dislike this template. It does far too much damage and the results of a typical skirmish with one if these things means you need healing or thing dies to quickly on splits. Before killing something with simply a crip shot took time, or with enough snaring the front-line could be called back to come and kill it. This gave both teams time to tactically re-evaluate.
Basically fast standard warriors, easy omega snares, and pew pew rangers really limits what teams can do away from a straight 8v8 imo. I don't have the experience of some of you guys but that's how I see it when I play...

IMMORTAlMITCH · Feb 17, 2009, 08:15 AM // 08:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

the problem with guildwars game balance is not all about the skills, but because there's a complete lack of built-in counters.

No.

Quote:

what guild wars needs, is a UNIVERSAL counter of sorts that's available to everyone, but with limits on how much it can be used. i personally believe that there should be a way to swap a skill once certain objectives are fulfilled. this is somewhat similar to the "side deck" in magic:the gathering. since gvgs are not determined by best of threes, this side deck has to be accessed in battle once certain objectives are fulfilled (player kills, morale boosts, etc).

No, it just needs to be balanced properly, GW isn't M:TG and even in M:TG you can't use your side deck DURING a game (some rare instances aside) so how would this be good for Guild Wars? It would just mean that in a BO3 type of tournament a universally strong build is better (if you only get to change a handful of skills between every game).

Quote:

by giving everyone universal counters, powerful skills like mark of insecurity, primal rage, etc can exist, simply because there will always be counters available.

I can hardly say that by buffing hexes to insane levels and buffing PnH to an insane level the game has become better, make it harder to deal damage and harder to prevent/heal it.

A game where skill effects are less important is a game where player skill and decisions are more important.

And as for the match against sO, I was playing monk and I haven't seriously played it in about a year so...

Greedy Gus · Feb 17, 2009, 11:07 AM // 11:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by pah01

I really wish I could say to customers my job is not to cook your food properly its just to surprise you and mix shit up.

This. The difference between the two is that one actually warrants being paid a salary. No one should be paid as a game balancer if they (or their management) sees their job as just "mixing shit up". I specify management because we already saw quotes in 05/06 from the founders of Anet saying that's what game balance means to them (possibly not izzy's fault, their scrub philosophy carried over).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Fuhon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_balance

In a suitably balanced game, players would make such choices based on their personal preference, strengths, and playing style, rather than on an inherent advantage in one option.

Would have been nice in GW.

urania · Feb 17, 2009, 11:56 AM // 11:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

what guild wars needs, is a UNIVERSAL counter of sorts that's available to everyone, but with limits on how much it can be used. i personally believe that there should be a way to swap a skill once certain objectives are fulfilled. this is somewhat similar to the "side deck" in magic:the gathering. since gvgs are not determined by best of threes, this side deck has to be accessed in battle once certain objectives are fulfilled (player kills, morale boosts, etc).

by giving everyone universal counters, powerful skills like mark of insecurity, primal rage, etc can exist, simply because there will always be counters available.

skills like diversion and blackout can easily be considered universal counter or shutdown, but the fact virtually no one (afaik) runs them anymore speaks for itself.

Master Fuhon · Feb 18, 2009, 04:35 AM // 04:35

What I specifically meant by my last post was that when players ask for the game to be balanced, they mean more balanced, not truly balanced. They mean that the imbalances are invading the enjoyment of the game. There can be a clear objective direction to head towards making a game more balanced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asplode

what build should beat what other build, ideally?

I rewrote an explanation based on question 1, only because I'm assuming that's the major point people are seeing as subjective. Just so it's clear what part of the definition I'm using for balance: these games by nature usually have some hidden mechanics of rock/paper/scissors placed in them to make up for what players fail to be able to achieve with tactics (sometimes the games do not support tactics either). The biggest difference in the other definition (which is based on fighting games) is that you can balance classes perfectly when there is no healing, because someone is going to be dead by the end or have less health.

The first problem with this type of game, is that when the imbalances are glaringly obvious all the players find them and use them, and all other options die off. Power creep caused this to happen. Balance issues are not permanently 'fixed' they are reduced until they are better disguised. Power creep amplifies everything to a higher magnitude, allowing everyone to find out the differences between different mechanics. Is +33% run speed better than +40dmg? It's harder for anyone to tell when it's +10% speed and +15dmg.

In a balanced game, first of all, nothing would die when a set amount of offensive and defensive characters are present. This might sound bad, but that's where pvp design can do it's job by allowing the players the chance to isolate and force matchups on their own. There's one place I advocate purposefully introducing a rock/paper/scissors mechanic: team defending. Not single character defending. The tactics teams are using combined to prevent the other team to complete the pvp objective are a problem. This relates to the whole mini-game of flag runners, NPC defense, running characters back to the base, and the old tactic of nuking NPCs to remove the advantage the other team earned through the fight. I would prefer to reorient the battles around Guild Lord killing to not have the community expose the skill design flaws after every future rebalance. Only change skills if you can't nerf tactics.

Damage dealing players need the ability to escape from healers. They want as few as possible on the battlefield because they want there to be open spaces to kill stuff. When every team fits in approximately 4 healers to stay alive the situation needs adjustment to free up open map space where healers cannot be. The less healers there are, the more vulnerable each one is to shutdown. Damage dealers need a better ratio, at least around 5-3 to kill things. When a healer is present, an individual character can make the mistakes that otherwise would have got him killed hundreds of times without one.

However, since damage levels went up and characters gained a greater ability to kill (instead of just forcing someone to run), people have justification to be more afraid than ever to go somewhere without a pocket healer. Aggressiveness levels plummet when people are afraid (helpful to know that in some cases, but competition thrives on aggressiveness, someone has to attack and mistakes have to be made for someone to win). The high damage capabilities make characters more dependent on healers to survive. A fully independent character would probably be imbalanced, but interdependent characters would be able to function alone or with a group. Dependent characters are just crippling: an example would be if you have to dedicate offensive characters to linebacking something because that character is so vital to the build's success. The builds left in this game have an extreme dependence structure that makes people aware that things will quickly blow up if anything fails, so the first thing they do is sure up those weak spots.

Second issue is that snares and speed boosts are being used more often to defend the base. Obvious reason why, the flag runner is a healer. The snares and NPC healing keep the offensive character quagmired into a forced mismatch where he is likely to die because the other team can bring back an offensive character. Just trying to think of a crude fix for this, holding the flag could increase the recharges on activating skills (and be like the sceptor of orr, have a radius when dropped on this effect). What this does, is make any flag holder a gimped version of whatever he is supposed to be, to hopefully make players have to strategically decide between losing greater flag progress and winning a fight. Skills or snares can be combat effective, but not so effective for defending. Also, should the build be reliant on that character to do something at the stand, a flag left unattended could present an aggressive opportunity. I was almost going to advocate bringing back the guild thief with some anti-NPC abilities for helping get through the base, helping to boost the chances at victory against an 8v8 that covers the base easily.

Just to offer more specifics on the subject, I do not prefer it when game skill effects are superior to the tactical approaches the players need to be using to win. I don't really like the rock/paper/scissors balance changes that not so secretly give the player an advantage against a specific build. I would rather see the arenas and objectives reshaped around offering players more opportunities to at least be able to use tactics to compete with someone who has a better build.

I see the current state of being forced into 8v8 as the prime justification for all complaints about balance, because no one is aware of any usable tactic that takes the emphasis off skill balancing. I'd rather see the problem fixed than it change forms to complaints about needing cheap tactics (early guild lord ganking or whatever else might come).

Jeydra · Feb 18, 2009, 11:18 AM // 11:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTALMITCH

Keep my own playstyle? It's not viable at the moment, what is there to keep? I prefer a balance between pressure builds, spike builds and split builds, currently spike builds are heavily favored, followed by tiebreaker split builds (not the type of splitting I'd ideally envision, but mostly a result of the defensive spike builds that are quite prevalent) and far far behind there's pressure builds.

I'm not asking to eliminate spike as a playstyle, I'm asking to put it more in line with other playstyles.

That's good, but I don't see how the changes you propose bring spike builds 'more in line with other playstyles'.

Spike builds have a fundamental problem - they need to deal enough damage to kill. If they can't deal enough damage to kill then the entire strategy dies. That's why the earlier versions of bloodspike died, wasn't it? If you're nerfing spike damage output then you risk removing spike from play entirely. Can you exhibit a spike build that still works after the nerfs you mentioned?

The current spike builds may be strong, but against them you still have plenty of time to do something before they spike you out. Consider after all, are they spiking you out too fast for you to do anything, or do you simply not have the tools to dismantle the defense? If the latter, why are you nerfing Pain of Disenchantment, Mirror of Ice, etc then?

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTALMITCH

And Kappaspike, Airspike, FoC spike and bloodspike aren't? And if you want to see hex and condition pressure builds to be viable, spike builds will have to see some nerfs as they're the reason builds like these stopped being viable in the first place.

Kappaspike, Airspike, FoC spike, bloodspike etc aren't identical, but they're similar. Kind of like your 2 War / 1 Ranger / 1 Dom Mes / 1 BSurge vs. 2 War / 1 Ranger / 1 Dom Mes / 1 Snare Mesmer. Not identical, but similar.

By the way I was under the impression that some (most, even) pressure and hex builds stopped being viable because their key skills got nerfed, eg. Glyph of Concentration, Reckless Haste, etc. And even though I wasn't really into PvP when those nerfs happened, I can pretty much guess why. Jaden wrote why in another thread. If there's a build that outpressures standard balanced, or outspikes it, that build has to be overpowered ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTALMITCH

If you kill with a spike, that's great, if you dont, you sit around and use defensive skills till your spike skills are recharged and try again. If you run a pressure build and get some pressure going, as soon as you take a death or even miss an interrupt on a party heal or something, all of your progress can be gone.

Exactly. Take Shockwave spike for example. If you kill with a spike, good. If you don't, you sit around and wait 30 seconds for the teleport to recharge, after which you try another spike.

Now 30 seconds is a long time, more than enough time to decide a RA match for example when neither team has healing. So why can't you break through? Do teams lose to Shockwave because the spike is too powerful and too fast, or do they lose because they can't pressure enough to kill the Elementalists? If the latter, would you suggest nerfing Shockwave and the skills that make the spike work? Will the result of that be the entire Shockwave build dying because their spikes no longer deal enough damage to kill, or will the result be that Shockwave builds end up 'more in line' with other builds?

Honest answer please, and I'm not convinced that nerfing Pain of Disenchantment / Steam / Mirror of Ice etc is a good thing.ause they can't pressure enough to kill the Elementalists? If the latter, would you suggest nerfing Shockwave and the skills that make the spike work? Will the result of that be the entire Shockwave build dying because their spikes no longer deal enough damage to kill, or will the result be that Shockwave builds end up 'more in line' with other builds?

Honest answer please, and I'm not convinced that nerfing Pain of Disenchantment / Steam / Mirror of Ice etc is a good thing.

@Asp - build variety is really rather small right now. Your list is inflated with things that don't work. lutz's list is a lot closer to reality. Note that:

Sword and Axe Warriors both use Primal Rage
All Sins use Palm Strike
Dervishes and Paragons are completely extinct
All Elementalists use Blinding Surge (and also Mind Shock, which lutz didn't include)

And so on and so forth. Right now if you see a A/W, you can tell almost at once what his build will be. Not all the skills maybe but like 6/8 of his skill bar. Same goes for W/E's and W/Rt's once you know the weapon he's using, Me/E's, Rt/N's, R/W's, etc. You don't even need to see the skills he's using; you can tell what he's going to have just by seeing his class. Compare this to RA, where build variety is definitely a lot higher. Now not all A/W's have Palm Strike, some might have Wastrel's Collapse for example. Not all Elementalists have BSurge, some might have Double Dragon, Shockwave, Ride The Lightning, even some using Daggers. Not all Channeling Rits run Caretaker's, some have Destructive Was Glaive, Clamor of Souls, etc.

That's build variety. GvG right now has a lot less build variety than ideal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asplode

Let me attempt to see Guild Wars from your perspective, if you'll accommodate me.

How many builds should be viable, and what build should beat what other build, ideally?
What is the build that you envision to be winning mATs, in a balanced game?
What kind of character templates deserve to be popular, and what should be relegated to niche-build positions?

Ideally all builds should be viable, and all builds should be able to beat all other builds.
All builds should be capable of winning mATs, in a balanced game.
All kinds of character templates deserve to be popular.

soulraiden · Feb 18, 2009, 11:27 AM // 11:27

GvG :
Victory type:
- kill lord ... done
--- let the player can run faster to attack or defend the base ... done
- bring all enemy players at 60% dp ... done

How to kill:
- kill faster then the enemy had possibility to save ... done
- stop the enemy heal or protection ... done
- let the enemy have no energy for heal or protection ... done

I think that all of us can analyze the game in depth and find that our request to simplify what we need to play, split, spike and pressure is done. The problem now, for me, is that there aren't a skill bar that work only in split or spike or pressure, but there are some skill bar that work well in every circumstance and work great in one. Like the PR/war that is a bit less powerfull of a War/shock but work great to make pressure and can split well to.
When a new patch come out, the skill bar that replace the old one are always in serching to cover all of the roles possible. If arenanet and their skill balancer want to shake gw and make a better game, they need to understand that is impossibile to change in better if there are skill bar that can cover ALL the task gw ask. And me too.

N.B. Some time ago only che ranger can split AND make pressure, now the runner can split, spike, pressure and heal. It is too much for a flag runner.

Ec]-[oMaN · Feb 18, 2009, 05:38 PM // 17:38

Going back to the very first post in this thread. When Rangers get tweaked to be on par with previous casters we'd have more build variety again. The latest tweak to hexes and sig hum pretty much made pressure through hexes much weaker again. On top of high powered monk Elite such as RC/WOH and now PnH sig hum needs to be viable on non mesmer skill bars. Funny part is, I saw this update happening before it even came. I just knew based on previous incompetence from other balances Izzy and Co. would nerf pressure and leave rangers+high defensive spikes alone.

Tweak these things again to get back to where we were a month ago, and continue to tweak a few Elites here and there. How did last month's balance stir shit up at all? We just went back a few months again with a few buffs to pnh, pr, palm strike...simply boring...

Master Fuhon · Feb 19, 2009, 10:37 PM // 22:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

Spike builds have a fundamental problem - they need to deal enough damage to kill. If they can't deal enough damage to kill then the entire strategy dies. That's why the earlier versions of bloodspike died, wasn't it? If you're nerfing spike damage output then you risk removing spike from play entirely. Can you exhibit a spike build that still works after the nerfs you mentioned?

Every viable spike build is a counter to the defensive tactics used in the current meta whether a player is aware of it or not (any overload concept is interchangeable with spike in what I write here, high pressure, extreme e-denial, extreme split). The players who put the skills together pick them to give themselves a tactical advantage against what they expect their opponent’s defenses to look like. The meta will typically be run around similar types of builds and use the defenses that allow them to deal with as many difficult offensive builds as they can. While some general use disruption skills might help, a typical spike build will be a meta counter or a specific counter to what a certain team usually runs.

So, what you are defining as a 'spike player' is actually a 'build wars' player who otherwise needs to adjust build every meta to counter the defenses within it. A certain spike build needs a stagnant defensive meta to survive indefinitely (blood spike relies on weaknesses in meta healing, physical spikes are based on ease of defense stripping). Defenses should be able to build anti-spike to give themselves the same tactical advantages that the spike build is aiming for to prevent this from happening. But doing so should make them vulnerable to other stuff, which the original spike build should be forced to run if you want to counter those builds. Spike any time you want, just understand it’s the same rules of fairness in place when the other team counter-builds you. If you play build wars to win, you deserve to have build wars beat you. The competitive stage itself needs a reorientation away from tactical advantages gained pre-match and towards the tactics employed during the match; i.e. reduce the capabilities of build wars.

In the past, it wasn’t so vital to have the better build to win (or it may have been, too hard to assume those were the best builds just because they won). Splits were ideal, but they needed to be able to run flags and survive a confrontation with the NPCs and the other team. Spike and split do not coexist on the same battleground fairly, they get designed as a counter for the other. The fairest way to fit both styles is to have split maps and 8v8 maps. This was probably the original design that kept the build wars players in HA and the tactics and strategy in the GvG scene. I think it’s fair to say that GvG teams had always been doing something more tactically brilliant so as to deserve the better rewards, until it made its way towards VoD farming and becoming another 8v8. The fundamentals of this type of game design make 8v8 a big rock/paper/scissors fight. You could otherwise counter something by putting defensive skills somewhere to produce an advantage in a smaller matchup.

Counter-builds and overload concepts cannot be balanced within the meta. They have to be left outside of the meta; usable to grant specific advantages against a certain opponent, but having specific disadvantages against another opponent. Any build that grants an advantage against a build that does a little of everything is supposed to be placed at a disadvantage against other specialized builds. But you can’t look at offenses to do this; you have to look at what an offense does to a defense. In doing so, you have to reshape overload concepts like spike to be at a generic defensive disadvantage over a non-overload concept.

Right now, the meta is a 4 offense and 4 defensive characters. Looking at the offenses, they are highly tailored to countering the anti-physical spike defenses in the meta, either by taking block ignoring skills or interrupting blocking defenses or removing anti-physical shutdown. Looking at the defenses, they are tailored towards anti-spike (infuse/WoH and a mid-line defender that can help out), either anti-condition or hex pressure (RC or PnH/Expel and party heals), less susceptible to e-denial or shutdown (multiple healers and 8v8 fighting), and more able to send back characters to handle splits (multiple healers). Defenses are in a more extreme position than offenses right now, they aren’t just able to deal with things, they are able to hard counter them. In other words, because of minimalist offenses with bar compression defenses have been built to have a strategic tactical advantage. I don't consider common meta builds balanced, because they have the 4/4 split in a game where defense is designed as stronger than offense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

If they can't deal enough damage to kill then the entire strategy dies.

If no one finishes reading any of that: I’ll emphasize a response to this line.

A spike lives on because an alternate defensive strategy has died. Spiking isn’t done for fun, it’s done for purpose or function. Otherwise, you could line up 8 offensive characters at any time and get wiped while having fun. When we talk about function, we can be objective and purposefully remove imbalanced builds from being effective. If someone needs broken mechanics to have fun, their version of PvP fun is going to come at the expense of other people. It doesn’t matter that people think winning is fun, everyone can’t win all the time in PvP. People have to have fun while losing to stay around. Heroes Ascent can be for easy winning, GvG can be for fair competition.

However to be fair, when all overload builds are removed from the game, I don't think builds would be theoretically capable of killing anything at that point if they were played at equal skill.

zling · Feb 20, 2009, 01:38 PM // 13:38

since you guys mentioned games like MTG quite often in this thread I'll continue with MTG analogies.
MTG as well as most tactical games(GW is also supposed to be 1 of those) have a balance system revolving around 3 setups: aggro, combo and control. aggro is a basically a rush, kill before you get killed. combo is to be able to hold until you get your window of opportunity than finish off your opponement. control is to dismantle any threat the opponement throws at you until he's ran dry and than you finish him off.
in GW GvG here is how I view these terms should be seen:

Aggro- aggressive builds, at least 2, melee characters, 3 being better and an offensive midline. this sort of build should put constant pressure on the enemy team and cause their backline to collapse from it. aggressive splitting is a strong option for this type of build.

Combo- various spike builds. basically have enough defenses to survive until you pull off the spike, than spike and go back to defending until next spike. the infamous RAWR build fits into this category.

Control- shutdown, shutdown and more shutdown. there are plenty of ways to shutdown in GW, be it Dom Mesmers, Hammer Warriors, Interrupt Rangers, Blind spammers(Bsurge, Inepitude, etc come to mind), etc. this build also wins with pressure, just like the aggro build, however this pressure is very drawn out. you let the enemy team burn their resources(mainly energy but also health, skills, res sigs, etc) than when they're dry you finish them off.

using this analogy the current problem that everyone is pointing at here is that combo builds are too dominant because they're unbeatable by the other 2 types. to fix this problem we need more aggro and control oriented skills to be powerful enough(but not too powerful) to be able to keep up with the various spikes, both defensively and offensively. now I'll get into 1 of the most popular skills. both this skill and its class are the topic of endless discussions, both in this thread and other threads.

Distracting Shot, yes the all popular Ranger elite skill in disguise! the skill itself has been discussed to death, along with the entire Ranger class, from the "good old days" of Ranger Spike to the current Turret Ranger, it has always been a hot topic.

so... the skill itself is fine, no need to cry nerf here! however there still is a problem, Ranger bars that use this rather control skill in a combo template(be it Ranger spike, the current Turret Ranger or whatever else). the solution is not to weaken this skill, because it's fine, but to either limit the Ranger class to control type builds(reducing its versatility which is a pretty bad thing in many people's minds) or limiting the skill itself to not work in non control builds. for example make the duration of the extra recharge scale with Wilderness Survival or something. scaling it with Expertise of Marksmanship wont solve the problem unfortunatly, and Wilderness Survival already has plenty of control type skills so it fits fine in there. this is just an example of a constructive possible solution, by no means the only one nor the best, just what I came up with that *might* actually work.