Curse

Greedy Gus · Jun 22, 2008, 09:55 PM // 21:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yoshikuni Mahsu

Now if Izzy sticks to the 2nd situation and does this repeatedly, you'd think that at some point everything imba would eventually be fished out and everything would be right in the world? Wrong.

The problem is that if Izzy nerfs and buffs at the same time, its basically switching Imba stuff, on the OTHER hand, if izzy repeatedly nerfs without buffs he's basically passively buffing skills.

What you're missing is that there are two scales of balance, relative and absolute. Relatively, you're correct in that there will always be favorable skills, especially if they have similar effects and the importance is on the numbers for power. However, there is still very important absolute balance, mostly as it pertains to static standards like health levels, armor levels, battle lines / positioning, NPCs, non-number based skill effects, etc. I feel that pulling back on the overall power creep (high absolute power) is very important, regardless of whether some skills are still relatively stronger than each other or if they're perfectly the same, and I tried to put a lot of emphasis on the reasoning for that in my balance thread.

Yoshikuni Mahsu · Jun 22, 2008, 09:57 PM // 21:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by spawnofebil

No it's not. Skill X, in addition to doing damage, is likely to have some other effect to compensate. You also don't have one skill doing wayyyyy more damage than the others, which is what imba is about.

Imba is not the same as strong.

Like I said, there are many more factors that would make it much harder to balance, but you miss the point.

The point is regardless of numbers and effects, you nerf something, and something that was pretty good but not as good as the original skill takes its place, nerf that and the process continues until the original skill is now imbalanced again not because its been buffed but because everything else has been nerfed as well.

The idea is "passive buffing" in which nerfing something buff's everything else.

around · Jun 22, 2008, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Greedy Gus said it right.

If you nerf skill Y originally, it no longer is head and shoulders in front of the opposition. X and Z do similar amounts of damage, and most likely their secondary effects will be different to compensate. The skills are balanced relative to one another, and you don't need to do any more nerfing.

Yoshikuni Mahsu · Jun 22, 2008, 10:04 PM // 22:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

What you're missing is that there are two scales of balance, relative and absolute. Relatively, you're correct in that there will always be favorable skills, especially if they have similar effects and the importance is on the numbers for power. However, there is still very important absolute balance, mostly as it pertains to static standards like health levels, armor levels, battle lines / positioning, NPCs, non-number based skill effects, etc. I feel that pulling back on the overall power creep (high absolute power) is very important, regardless of whether some skills are still relatively stronger than each other or if they're perfectly the same, and I tried to put a lot of emphasis on the reasoning for that in my balance thread.

You're right, and it was something I didnt have to time to touch on (had to go to lunch), as you think about static things that arent changed (I.E. Armor, Positioning, HP, equipment etc.).

Balancing skills so that they are all equal to each other on one level or another is of course important, but balancing them so that they are on the same level with set standards such as HP, Energy, Armor etc. is just as, if not more important.

A bad static-non static balance situation would be if skills were all nerfed to the point where the most powerful spike a team of eight could muster wouldn't even be enough to overpower one 600hp skill bar, or vice-versa where one person could easily spike through 600hp, a spirit bond and an infuse.

*EDIT, Spawn the example was on an extremely simple level, what I ment by simply dmg numbers was in essence overall effectiveness of the skill. Skills with overall different side effects would, relative too eachother, be balanced as they do not do the same thing and thus cannot be judged compared to eachother. The cycle I was talking about would mostly pertain to skills in they're own field. By that meaning very broad fields in which skills can be in multiple fields, I.E: AoE would include from firestorm to splinter weapon to Arage. But then along with that comes the need to nerf one field in conjunction with another. If you nerf healing skills (healing here mainly aimed at healing and prot) too much and dont either buff them a little bit to compensate or nerf dmg skills to compensate then there is an imbalance between damage and healing.

I think, for example, the triple derv/smite build would be an imbalance between pressure (note pressure is not just damage, this includes the damage, KD's, sig hum, interrupts) and the ability to cope with pressure (whether that be the static positioning, armor, etc. of teams or the non static pressure-relieving skills). For example: I doubt dervsmite would be considered overpowered if aegis could not be interrupted and could be maintained between 2 monks and was un-strippable.

Kaon · Jun 22, 2008, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Draikin

Because they'll still want to keep the PvP community playing GW until the sequel is released. PvE in GW is nothing special compared to other games out there, so there's no doubt the PvE community will be moving on if there's no additional content being added. The depth of gameplay offered by PvP in GW on the other hand was (is?) better than anything the competition has to offer, so it can retain players a lot longer if they can just manage to keep things balanced.

You have ignored the question (which for a random reason got deleted) completely. Why would anet want to keep the gw community playing pvp untill the sequal is released?

Legendary Shiz · Jun 22, 2008, 11:03 PM // 23:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

You have ignored the question (which for a random reason got deleted) completely. Why would anet want to keep the gw community playing pvp untill the sequal is released?

Because if they keep the PvP community playing in GW1 they aren't, or at least not completely, getting involved with other games. So that when GW2 comes out, the next logical step is for the PvP players in GW1 to be PvP players in GW2.

Riotgear · Jun 22, 2008, 11:08 PM // 23:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yoshikuni Mahsu

The problem is that if Izzy nerfs and buffs at the same time, its basically switching Imba stuff, on the OTHER hand, if izzy repeatedly nerfs without buffs he's basically passively buffing skills. I love examples so here we go again:

A common fallacy in balance discussions is to use "has been buffed" and "has been nerfed" as indicators of how strong a skill is. It's like trying to determine a car's value exclusively on whether you've installed a new stereo in it, ignoring whether it's going inside a Mustang or a rusting Pinto.

Regardless, the situation you mention doesn't really come up much, if anything A.net is extreme hasty to buff things and very slow to bring them back down to a manageable point when they become too powerful. The ongoing power creep, ESPECIALLY from Nightfall, is one of the biggest ongoing problems, much bigger than having too many nerfs. If anything, nerfs are what's most needed to get things back to a stable point, not going around buffing shit like WoH to ridiculous levels.

notrich · Jun 22, 2008, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Legendary Shiz

Because if they keep the PvP community playing in GW1 they aren't, or at least not completely, getting involved with other games. So that when GW2 comes out, the next logical step is for the PvP players in GW1 to be PvP players in GW2.

I think there is an argument for keeping pvp going - but with so many high ranked people leaving the game, haven't they already failed (to keep desirable pvp'rs and transition them into gw2)?

In the other (earlier) thread that got locked in favor of this one (???), I mentioned that there may be an intent to drive people away to keep server/BW cost down (do we know how much they spend on those things?).

Not sure if its true, but it might explain why they are eager to sell the product (at near full price - three years after the launch) to new players (and give them an easy button to instant happiness/fading sense of joy = the bear button).

Trinity Fire Angel · Jun 22, 2008, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Well, GW2 won;t be out until Sept 2009 according to EB Games Australia.. so are they going to do something to keep us going or what? i personally love skill balances and massive changes in Meta. For at least 2 weeks there is a grace in the game where no one can run OP wiki shit and have to make up their own builds for once.

Age · Jun 23, 2008, 12:37 AM // 00:37

They could always hire JR as long as he is nice to Monks.The question is when would they release a new update skill balance.

erk · Jun 23, 2008, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trinity Fire Angel

Well, GW2 won;t be out until Sept 2009 according to EB Games Australia..

I would love to see A.net's revenue graph over the last couple of years to see what effect this release gap, and declining update quality is having. Is it publicly available on a company report somewhere?

/EDIT a bit of Googlin found me this report from earlier this year

http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+R...s/3650917.html

Gotta laugh at this quote:

Quote:

NCsoft CFO Jaeho Lee said, "As proven once again in the Q1 financial results, we strongly believe our key franchise products, such as Lineage and Guild Wars, will meet our sales target with a strong customer base and continued content updates going forward." And he added, "We plan to ensure the smooth launch of many new products in the next two to three years, which will strengthen our position as a global leader in online games."

Riotgear · Jun 23, 2008, 02:28 AM // 02:28

EB does not have any sort of secret information on release dates. All of the retailers spew out "estimated" release dates for future products, they mean absolutely nothing.

GourangaPizza · Jun 23, 2008, 07:30 AM // 07:30

The first candidate for skill balancer I thought of would be Ensign but then again he seems to be MIA for nearly half a year on this forums.

DutchSmurf · Jun 23, 2008, 10:23 AM // 10:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by erk

Gotta laugh at this quote:

Lisney has already said that she is planning on adding new content when she can, so the quote is true. Those will (and should) be completely PvE based of course. Since keeping the PvP community playing for the next year is going to cost far more then it is worth. Even if it still had the numbers of the first months.

Kaon · Jun 23, 2008, 12:44 PM // 12:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Legendary Shiz

Because if they keep the PvP community playing in GW1 they aren't, or at least not completely, getting involved with other games. So that when GW2 comes out, the next logical step is for the PvP players in GW1 to be PvP players in GW2.

The people that play gvg now and really care about balance issues have played gw so much already that the vast vast majority of them will buy gw2 anyway. Only a very very small group of people will be pulled in by the gamebalances by far not near enough to warrant gamebalance.

Even if i would've quit the game 2 years ago i'd still buy gw2 if my RL permits it at the time. If you play a game for hundreds if not thousands of hours you would be a complete fool not to buy its successor.

As i said there's no financial reason for Anet to keep gw pvp balance, i think they should've stopped messing with it at about october last year. The game was perfectly balanced back then. They should've more or less abandoned gw1 and did full focus on gw2, it would've saved them a lot of money and it would've been a lot better game.

Akaraxle · Jun 23, 2008, 01:27 PM // 13:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Draikin

With the state the game seems to be in at the moment, ArenaNet really needs to do something if they want PvP to survive until GW 2 is released.

I stopped reading here.
Why would they want that? They run a business, man, and the time that should be spent on "PvP survival" is likely not worth buying a bunch of scrubs' -- such as ourselves -- happiness.

That said, what Izzy needs to do is to stop doing skill balancing and start doing game balancing. VoD isn't gonna be fixed by randomly buffing a dozen skills and nerfing another dozen, and he knows that.

shoogi · Jun 23, 2008, 08:43 PM // 20:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akaraxle

VoD isn't gonna be fixed by randomly buffing a dozen skills and nerfing another dozen, and he knows that.

Allow me to doubt the bold part.

pah01 · Jun 23, 2008, 09:11 PM // 21:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akaraxle

I stopped reading here.
Why would they want that? They run a business, man, and the time that should be spent on "PvP survival" is likely not worth buying a bunch of scrubs' -- such as ourselves -- happiness.

I am not of this kind of mindset at all when it comes to business.

With the epic failures of GW balance since nightfall the pvp community is no more. Lack of competitive rewards lost most of the really good players and thereby destroyed the community. I dont see any of these players who are in a way *hardcore* buying gw2 because the arenenet staff have time and again proven that they do not have the balls to make difficult choices to protect a competitve environment.

@Kaon, mitch, akaraxle.

World of charrcraft will be shit as a pvp game because it will incorporate all of the gay shit that entered the game since factions as well as being unable to solve problems like hex stacking that have been present since prohecies.

The game designers are shit. They produced a skill in nightfall that was called energising finale when ether renewal should have taught them all that was necessary about skills that give energy. They also produced a skill called rampage as one and therby proved that they had no idea about melee damage or dps.

The skill balance is shit because the skill designers are shit. I feel sorry for izzy in a way because all the designers give him to work with are shit skills. Those same people who produced those dopey ass skills are the ones working on GW2. Those same people who thought teleporting doesnt remove one of the most skilful aspects of the game [positioning] are making the classes for GW2.

Those same people who should have learned that passive party-wide defence was bad for the game within one week of factions release added the paragon class in nightfall.

Those same people who should have understood that after alienating the entire pvp community by being gay have gone halfway to alienating the entire pve comminity by adding stupid ass shit called ursan blessing lol.

Joe

DreamWind · Jun 23, 2008, 10:38 PM // 22:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

As i said, if you've played guild wars hundreds if not thousands of hours for many months/years then you WILL buy gw2. If you don't just because of some minor balance issues well, then i will consider you crazy. I will consider you a person that can hold a grudge forever and does not know any happiness.

Call me crazy then. I am one of said players who will NOT buy Gw2 unless it gets extremely good PvP reviews from friends and quality reviewers.

It isn't about holding some kind of grudge against Anet. Not at all. Its about the fact that they have no idea how to run a competitive game and have proven it. They have clearly shown that they either don't know how to balance or don't care about balance, they don't fix bugs in proper time (many are still unfixed), and the fact that they singlehandedly killed the PvP half/community of their game over a 2 year period is not very appealing for the future. How can we possibly expect things will be different in Guild Wars 2?

So yea...add me to the list of people who played GW1 for thousands of hours, loved it a lot, and still won't buy GW2 until further notice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Every single game that hits the market is incredibly imbalanced, there's a 1 on a million shot you release a perfectly balanced game, it just does not happen.

Of course. But the point is to find the inbalances and achieve a "perfect" (yes I know thats impossible but close enough) balance. Anet isn't getting anywhere near it. They haven't even shown that they CARE anymore. At least it "felt" like they used to. I HIGHLY suspect that Guild Wars 2 will start with heavy inbalance, and REMAIN that way throughout much of its lifespan. Looking back at things, I think the periods of something resembling balance that happened in Guild Wars 1 were basically flukes. I don't believe Anet knew what they had on their hands during those periods.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Izzy created the major part of the skills himself, and balanced them all out. There is no need to feel sorry for him at all, if balance is RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up it's more or less directly his fault.

Maybe. Probably even. I remember Izzy on a WoC episode actually admitted that adding the new classes to the game really killed balance. I was pretty impressed that he said it. Another point was brought up that every move Izzy makes has to go through a series of other people before it happens, thus not everything gets done.

That being said...the fact that we haven't seen better balances with the PvE/PvP split is a joke. Just another Anet debacle.

Master Fuhon · Jun 24, 2008, 01:12 AM // 01:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

What you're missing is that there are two scales of balance, relative and absolute.... However, there is still very important absolute balance, mostly as it pertains to static standards like health levels, armor levels, battle lines / positioning, NPCs, non-number based skill effects, etc. I feel that pulling back on the overall power creep (high absolute power) is very important, regardless of whether some skills are still relatively stronger than each other or if they're perfectly the same, and I tried to put a lot of emphasis on the reasoning for that in my balance thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yoshikuni Mahsu

A bad static-non static balance situation would be if skills were all nerfed to the point where the most powerful spike a team of eight could muster wouldn't even be enough to overpower one 600hp skill bar, or vice-versa where one person could easily spike through 600hp, a spirit bond and an infuse.

I feel you guys are pretty much dead on at where the skill balances have gone wrong. I would go a little further even and say that the balances specifically tried to achieve a game state that severely increased the power of offense to try to produce more kills.

I had wondered why I had gained an aversion to even watching pvp on observer upon seeing rout after rout, with a majority of matches ending with the resign function. But now I know what it is, because I see it during NBA games whenever they change the emphasis on rule enforcement to try to boost scoring. In GW, it is no longer a matter of if the offense will power through, the time holding out is the only display of defensive skill left. I will admit, that there is an equally unappealing scenario on the other side, where pary wide defensive skills were able to dominate.

But absolutely, I believe that this whole thing started with the power creep. There's almost no way I believe that the current armor and health levels are balanced around the original design of the game because the absolute power of skills have increased. I doubt that we are witnessing the natural skill development of the players. Probably the best thing that could happen for this game's balance would amount to being a gigantic list of nerfs of the newer abilities that were given both excellent multi-purpose functionality as well as high numbers.

As for the topic of firing a skill designer... well, why is a single skill designer given that much power over a game franchise? I believe the influence is being exerted by someone who definitely has alot of control over the design of the games. I also cannot say that this looks like the accidental kind of power creep people attribute to games from introducing new end game content. My opinion on the subject is to look for guys who spout "bigger, grander, etc" types of nonsense and you have your cause for the deliberately inserted power creep. Being a balance nerd tends to bore more people in conversation.