Curse

Winstar · Jun 17, 2008, 06:09 PM // 18:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

Ya, it's a gem made out of crap, but at least it's a gem, right?

Honestly, all Izzy has to do is accept the meta is shit and completely push a huge skill balance for once. Rework a ton of shit, buff a lot of shit that should be buffed, nerf all the stupid gimmicky shit (HELLOSHADOWSTEPS) and fix the power creep (hellot WoH). Shake things up.

The length of these skill balances and the detail in them is so minute. Jesus dude, I think one of the WoW classes had a "balance" (I use that word, very very lightly) update that was bigger than the entire skill balance last week. This few skills a month crap is dumb and isn't working. Like I said, I'd still play probably (nothing better to play), but I'd stop caring (almost there now, since I doubt so much izzy will even bother.)

I'm probably going to attach a well thought out thing to his wiki in discussion, and maybe link it here and maybe get support.

There is no doubt the game has taken wrong turns - and at this point the game is not going to get the kind of attention it once did as is reflected in the update. But having experienced other games the attention given to balance over time in gw was in retrospect impressive. I'm not saying people shouldn't want to improve things where it is needed, I'm just saying have some perspective. You might think the skills aren't what they should be and they might not be - but to think the game was lackluster in this regard is misguided. If you're looking for greener pastures- well the grass is always greener on the other side...

DarkNecrid · Jun 17, 2008, 06:14 PM // 18:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winstar

There is no doubt the game has taken wrong turns - and at this point the game is not going to get the kind of attention it once did as is reflected in the update. But having experienced other games the attention given to balance over time in gw was in retrospect impressive. I'm not saying people shouldn't want to improve things where it is needed, I'm just saying have some perspective. You might think the skills aren't what they should be and they might not be - but to think the game was lackluster in this regard is misguided. If you're looking for greener pastures- well the grass is always greener on the other side...

I've seen the other side (and currently play the other side as well), thanks. I know GW is better, but to not try to strive for even better is dumb.

EDIT:
OK I posted it on his discussion page, please be nice if you're going to comment tho!

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...ease_read_this.

Winstar · Jun 17, 2008, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winstar

I'm not saying people shouldn't want to improve things where it is needed, I'm just saying have some perspective.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

I know GW is better, but to not try to strive for even better is dumb.

Anyway...again my point is that people rabid rage about guildwars a bit too much.

Master Fuhon · Jun 17, 2008, 07:16 PM // 19:16

I'm going to try to go into reasoning on why a massive skill balance can't happen (and really shouldn't). Yes, I understand this is going to be off-topic biased WoW bashing, but I'm limited at this point on other games I've played to be able to give another perspective.

The massive skill balance came after a huge backlog of unanswered player requests. There were months upon months of complaints about class balance, with people giving opinions and others providing math calculations as feedback. In most cases, a huge rebalancing would utterly destroy a game's balance, because its impossible to predict the problems all these changes would introduce. But when you ignore years of complaints, and then drop a solution all in one patch, maybe everyone feels like it's a holiday and this is the greatest thing to happen.

My basic complaints are if you are going to make a game and make no gestures towards rebalancing endgame, then you can't expect me to put in all this effort solving the problems for you by rerolling. The hard realities of the situation was in WoW, the endgame needed healers and hybrids who buffed groups, and it takes forever to level a new one up, gear it, and become proficient. So I quit my common DPS mage rather than take on the burden of solving the game problems myself. Don't kid yourself, everyone who succeeded was already rerolling classes/professions all the time.

Didn't want to go off-topic, but wanted to provide some reasoning why its better to have smaller balance changes, and not either crappy alternative of massive patches followed by tiny bug fixes. Anyone else would be in a better position to discuss if they feel guild wars is in a similar situation with skill balances. Obviously, there would still be a backlog of problems introduced by expansions, whether they are solvable or not (shadowstepping).

DarkNecrid · Jun 17, 2008, 07:21 PM // 19:21

Guild Wars doesn't have the whole rerolling problem though. And WoW is mainly, and always will be (no matter what they say to make PvPers feel good) a PvE game. PvP was tacked on. And GW can balance towards both.

The game needs a big update dude. Maybe not an update on every skill, but say, more than 10 skills would be nice. Especially when 8 of those did nothing for the meta. (ie: worthless unless if he shakes stuff up)

I mean, its not going to be perfect on the first day, but at least it'll be more fun than this current p.o.s.

Ec]-[oMaN · Jun 17, 2008, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

The game needs a big update dude. Maybe not an update on every skill, but say, more than 10 skills would be nice. Especially when 8 of those did nothing for the meta. (ie: worthless unless if he shakes stuff up)

I mean, its not going to be perfect on the first day, but at least it'll be more fun than this current p.o.s.

The update doesn't even need to be that big, too bad it failed at addressing any of the concerns in the old meta, so now we have small tweaks of the old, and it's just stagnant/broken. Clearly he enjoys dervs in their current state and SOJ linebackers, elite shutdowners,frontline buffers. When you watch a guild like rawr play 6 defensive templates with a few dmg skills and or buffs for their frontline and win time after time, against 8v8 builds and split builds something needs to be done. They are so brilliant and have figured out as long as we can buff our frontline with a conjure here and an SOH there we can keep packing the rest of the build with defense and blow you up in vod, having 2 sig hums floating around helps the cause too much also.

Izzy tried and tried over the balances to fix said skills which just add on the layers of defense lets look at them;
Aegis
ward melee
B surge
D anthem+ all those other HP shouts/defensive shouts
Lod
Prot was kail

Pretty much a failure how we are back to this style of play. I don't see the justifications for nerfing splinter and ancestors, if the reasoning behind that was to deter npc farming, why are we still left with scythes hitting multiple targets, or any other AOE effect?, to me nerfing those two skills just deterred anyone from taking wipes pre vod, and slowed down npc blow ups.

Master Fuhon · Jun 17, 2008, 07:55 PM // 19:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

The game needs a big update dude. Maybe not an update on every skill, but say, more than 10 skills would be nice. Especially when 8 of those did nothing for the meta. (ie: worthless unless if he shakes stuff up)

I mean, its not going to be perfect on the first day, but at least it'll be more fun than this current p.o.s.

While I'm not going to argue the point that there are tons of changes that should be done, I think that a community consensus doesn't look the same as it used to. If a majority of reasonable people said Wounding Strike needs a slight nerf, theres going to be the part that creates a loud argument proposing radical buffs to the dervish class. Used to be able to tell them Willa the Unpleasant is not a good example of skill balance, and they would go away.

I know this isn't saying much, but skill balance is an ordinary job. Doesn't get any glory most of the time when done right. If someone doesn't do it a few times, people get the sense something is going wrong but are not sure why. And other times, nothing needs to be done at all. You could probably spend all day arguing with people even about when it needs to be done. The needs for skill balancing are vague in themselves. (interesting/stagnant meta, how often is shakeup needed?)

But anyways, skill balancing looks to me to be a more vital part to the functioning of this game than indicated by the resources they might have planned on dedicating to the task. Just something for future considerations.

jaeharys targaryen · Jun 17, 2008, 11:52 PM // 23:52

Revert ancestors(1/4, but nerfed damage) make it hit the target of your ally exclusively. or make it 10 energy.

SoH+conjure=unstack

reverse conditions on Wouding, 6 recharge

signet of mystic speed=your own enchants not someone else's.

escape functions only with a bow

revert the spear bleeding skill, stupid buff

humsig removes a stance. (i know thats beating a dead horse if you carry out the other nerfs, but damn, this skill was never interesting)

make motivation a viable line without brining back partygons(reasoning for this? my paragon has a really nice motivation shield. deal with it.)

Riotgear · Jun 18, 2008, 12:00 AM // 00:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winstar

But in terms of balancing and knowledge of the game by its balancers this game is a gem - despite the wrong turns it has made.

Doing a shitty job is not justified by other people doing a shittier job.

erk · Jun 18, 2008, 12:23 AM // 00:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Doing a shitty job is not justified by other people doing a shittier job.

It's is actually, it's a relative value judgment regardless of the labels used. Whatever you perceive as the arbitrary reference point to base those terms on, is probably external to the commercial forces that creates and maintains something like Guildwars. I know no other D&D style RPG that rates up to the PvP experience of GW today, so it sits at the top of the pile. If you know of something better lets hear about it so we can all try it. If not ,please cite the basis of your comparison.

Riotgear · Jun 18, 2008, 12:42 AM // 00:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

It's is actually, it's a relative value judgment regardless of the labels used. Whatever you perceive as the arbitrary reference point to base those terms on, is probably external to the commercial forces that creates and maintains something like Guildwars. I know no other D&D style RPG that rates up to the PvP experience of GW today, so it sits at the top of the pile. If you know of something better lets hear about it so we can all try it. If not ,please cite the basis of your comparison.

Being able to make improvements is not about someone else currently doing better. This is particularly the case when it takes no longer to publish pointless updates to Lightning Touch and Symbolic Strike than it does to fix Wounding Strike and Signet of Mystic Speed.

Quite frankly, there is a D&D style RPG that rates higher than the PvP of GW today, and that's the GW of pre-Nightfall (or pre-Factions, depending on who you ask). If making a game progressively worse is not a shitty job, repeatedly misfiring attempts to fix actual problems for several consecutive months is not a shitty job, and introducing brash ideas that pan out horribly and taking several months to revert them is not a shitty job, what is?

DarkNecrid · Jun 18, 2008, 10:13 AM // 10:13

Cleaning shit for a living.

Har har.

The thing is Master Fuhon, is that these small updates don't work, because just like every balance there's always these off-the-mark things he hits, but the problem is now it's a smaller balance and these off the mark things are more common. Let's look at the last update:
Rust: who cares.
Lightning Touch: yeah because I'm totally going to run up to someone in no armor just to blind them for a few seconds which'll get removed anyways. Makes perfect sense.
Arc Lightning: It's a decent idea but this is a skill that's overshadowed by other stuff, and by magic damage generally sucking in general.
Drain Enchantment: Wasn't needed at all.
Drain Delusions: See above.
Wastrels Worry: why.
Strength of Honor: this makes no RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing sense. Why would you up the recharge of a maintained enchantment. Unless if it was like SIXTY SECONDS or something, this means nothing. Misses the real update needed (prevent conjure stacking)
Holy Wrath: see above.
Aura of Stability: I'm alright with this. This was decent.
Balthazars Pendulum: -_-
Fetid Ground: -_-
Suffering: -___________-
Vile Miasma: -______________________________________________-
Soul Bind: WHYYYY
Can't Touch This: *hits head on desk repeatedly*
Barbed Spear: *lights self on fire*
Antidote Signet: I'm ok with this for now, but I think the recharge should be upped a tad. It's a bit strong for a free 1s cast super fast recharging signet.
Barbed Arrows: *throws self on spikes*
Bulls Charge: *drops nuclear bomb on self*
Charge: *drops another nuclear bomb on self*
Symbolic Strike: *faints*
Mantra of Inscriptions: WELL THANKS. This was probably the best skill change, too bad thanks to not changing everything else needed people are just taking an extra mesmer to make up for it.
Ancestors Rage: whatever.
Splinter Weapon: it's still decent for what it does, which is make NPCs blow up.
FGJ: good...all those FGJ abusers are done for......

There was like...*counts* 3 good changes out of 25. That bloooows.

A bigger update would not only MOST LIKELY have more good changes to bad changes, but would at least change the stagnate meta, and make the game a bit more fun as everyone scrambles to make new builds for the 1st time in forever. Sometimes I wish someone from Anet would just hire like me or jr or ensign or riotgear or.........pretty much anyone of worth who comes here as a skill balancer because I'm sure stuff would get done. The man has to focus on 2 games now, while having a rl, while having less CR people to back him up, I mean, come on! It'll never happen I'm sure, but maybe he could try to do a little bit more focus on gw1 for a change, because I don't think I know anyone who actually thinks the current meta is fun at all.

Master Fuhon · Jun 18, 2008, 06:22 PM // 18:22

I agree the last few skill changes have been ineffective (and I expect the situation to get worse), but I'll at least give some credit right now. I don't know of a place where anyone has attempted to balance mmorpg team pvp before. Many games are in the process of trying it at this moment. In maybe 15 years everyone will be discussing it like we are geniuses, but right now there are no breakthroughs and we all sound dumb. You can't just fiddle with numbers until you have a simplified model you intend to follow. Or maybe you can, and it can just solve temporary problems by creating new ones. Problems that are seen at the skill level are also at the build level, and in turn, would be a problem with the team pvp balance concept.

This became the flame thread at some point, so I'm not surprised the thread with a similar name is getting a better discussion right now. I like how they brought up rock, paper, scissors, so I'm probably going to finish my train of thought in there as long as they don't change the topic soon. It's a very good idea to discuss this at that level of theory because that's where I think the problem is.

But at this point, I have to agree that it's better to take steps to solve the problem than to give up on it.

Greedy Gus · Jun 18, 2008, 06:39 PM // 18:39

If every skill balance creates three times as many problems as it tries to solve, it's good for the person trying to maintain his job as skill balancer indefinitely, but not so good for players trying to enjoy a competitive game.

Master Fuhon · Jun 18, 2008, 09:06 PM // 21:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

If every skill balance creates three times as many problems as it tries to solve, it's good for the person trying to maintain his job as skill balancer indefinitely, but not so good for players trying to enjoy a competitive game.

He could hate the job, doing it the way its being done could get the same results. At least when a biased community member proposes a skill buff, they could have a particular build in mind. Nerfs are so effective because they have a goal of killing a specific build. Random buff generator is randomly good or bad. If there is no vision behind the skill changes, he could still be tinkering with the stuff while we are all having fun in Guild Wars 2 or whatever other game.

I think what people want to see is a game full of semi-overpowered but popular skill combinations. The same types of reasons why people love boon prots but hate signet mesmers. Boon prots kill the healing skill line, while signet mesmers are part of a melee heavy meta, killing most types of caster dps builds.

moko · Jun 19, 2008, 01:21 PM // 13:21

stop it already -- cleaned ALL your off topic trash, don't want to see it again.

thank you

streets101 · Jun 19, 2008, 03:17 PM // 15:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Problem.

erk, why is it that every time you say something, its completely stupid.

The reason a Power Block Mesmer can lock up an RC/SoD, is because of what those bar's have come to entail, not because Power Block is imbalanced or "completely worse shutdown". The current-gen RC/SoD bar has come to entail all prot skills because of the addition/necessity of Aura of Stability. Pre-Aura of Stability, the RC/SoD bar included Gift of Health, and getting Power Blocked wasn't so much of a detriment.

Also, if a Power Block Mesmer is able to completely shutdown a WoH bar, then that WoH bar is a failure of a bar. If a Power Block is Power Blocking a WoH, all that WoH should need is Dismiss Condition/Protective Spirit/Reversal of Fortune (if not running Patient Spirit) and the small prot of his choice for 14 seconds to be able to assist in keeping the team alive.

In addition, how would it "of course usually include half the teams hex removal" when 99% of backlines run two Holy Veils?

erk, you really need to understand more about the game before you speak.

with the current hex meta most heal monks have started to drop the veils for spottless, this would mean a pb on heal monk = half the teams hex removal gone, don't just tell people to understand the game,when you yourself have just showed how much your understanding really is.

moko · Jun 19, 2008, 04:24 PM // 16:24

^ there is no hex meta. lol

Tab · Jun 19, 2008, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by streets101

with the current hex meta most heal monks have started to drop the veils for spottless, this would mean a pb on heal monk = half the teams hex removal gone, don't just tell people to understand the game,when you yourself have just showed how much your understanding really is.

Don't care about HA, sorry.

Snow Bunny · Jun 19, 2008, 04:39 PM // 16:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by streets101

with the current hex meta most heal monks have started to drop the veils for spottless, this would mean a pb on heal monk = half the teams hex removal gone, don't just tell people to understand the game,when you yourself have just showed how much your understanding really is.

Oh right, you're Xobile from GANK and you're talking about HA.

No one cares.

On topic:

Nerf Mantra harder, switch around condition stack, and SoH+Conjure, and we can stop debating this.