Curse

Neo-LD · Oct 17, 2007, 08:32 PM // 20:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

The truth is, diversity is why people play games in the first place.

I think you must think that the more times you say this, the more true it is. And Im at a loss for how to explain how incredibly wrong you are.

Lets try coming at this from a different angle:

You, and a large number of casual players who are completely irrelevent to the point at hand, define fun as being creative. Personally I can barely even believe that this position exists, as winning with some cute little gimmick bores me to death whether I've done it before or not.

I, and those who are interested in a legitimate competitive game, define fun as being better. I would rather outsmart my opponent on the field, than in the build lab. It doesnt matter how many times I've done it before, it never gets old.

Quicksilver Switch-Blade · Oct 17, 2007, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I think you must think that the more times you say this, the more true it is. And Im at a loss for how to explain how incredibly wrong you are.

Lets try coming at this from a different angle:

You, and a large number of casual players who are completely irrelevent to the point at hand, define fun as being creative. Personally I can barely even believe that this position exists, as winning with some cute little gimmick bores me to death whether I've done it before or not.

I, and those who are interested in a legitimate competitive game, define fun as being better. I would rather outsmart my opponent on the field, than in the build lab. It doesnt matter how many times I've done it before, it never gets old.

So you have your opinion and he has yours, neither are wrong, so trying to proof so is truly irrelevant. Especially since your basing the reason you think everyone played this game on you personal view on what you think the game should be. No one reason was the majority in people playing this game imho.

People who believe in what Servant of Kali believes, are what I would call a Mechwarrior type personality (sorry, but this is the best way to describe it, since that game imho truly balanced tactics and player skill into a competitive game) they enjoy being creative with builds, trying different builds, but terrain and player skill can still have a big impact on who wins (as they know how to reduce a teams effectiveness if they know the build and how to beat them, even if at a disdvantage build wise).

You would be just like the chess player, you want everything to be the same, no differences, you just want to prove you better at thinking on your feet essentially, you don't want to be put at a disadvantage at the beginning due to not knowing what to take.

Master Ketsu · Oct 17, 2007, 09:06 PM // 21:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I think you must think that the more times you say this, the more true it is. And Im at a loss for how to explain how incredibly wrong you are.

Lets try coming at this from a different angle:

You, and a large number of casual players who are completely irrelevent to the point at hand, define fun as being creative. Personally I can barely even believe that this position exists, as winning with some cute little gimmick bores me to death whether I've done it before or not.

I, and those who are interested in a legitimate competitive game, define fun as being better. I would rather outsmart my opponent on the field, than in the build lab. It doesnt matter how many times I've done it before, it never gets old.

Stop right there, You guys are arguing the difference between Johnny and Spike type players, which is something that can go round and round in an endless circle of flamewars with the Johnnies saying you suck because you cant get your own build and the spikes saying they suck because they dont use the best build. Its a huge matter of opinion with no definitive way to tell who's right and who's wrong.

IMO Spikes should never make fun of those who test builds over and over. Its because of them that spike players even have the "best thing to run" to begin with.

Haskell · Oct 17, 2007, 10:01 PM // 22:01

GW needs a general gamedesign-revamp. It's not just about balancing.

Balancing certain skills is not powerful enough to overcome all the issues Factions and Nightfall have given to this game. Discussing if LoD or "passive defense" should get changed is one thing. But: ATs slowed down the inventionprogression of new strategies alot. 8 Skillslots are in no relation to the skills avaiable now anymore; There should be at least 9 skillslots, if not 10. The whole gameplay has to get slower, smoother again; Strategies and tactics should have way more impact again, not execution. Micromanagment is not really the strength of a MMO-game. People have to have time to translate their strategies; The outcome of a match should not be determined by VoD or the build a guild is running. There has to be room, room to move, room to make successful decisions. There is none - atm.

--selber

Servant of Kali · Oct 17, 2007, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

, and those who are interested in a legitimate competitive game, define fun as being better.

Well, that's the difference between you and me then. I define fun, as fun. I can lose, and still have fun, if it was fun. And I can be better, but have no fun in that.

If you define fun as being better, then for you bashing newbies in a competitive game is fun. For me, fun can mean losing to an equally good opponent in an interesting match.

My team can play an awkward and insanely fun build which will make us lose in 60% of matches, but win 40% of matches. For me, that can be great and acceptable if the matches are fun.
Your ideal of fun is taking a team build which everyone else plays on top, and then after 999 mirror matches you say "wow Im better than everyone else, how fun is that". For you, that is fun. Great. For me it's utter boredom. I don't play games to be better, that's what Chess is for. I play games to have fun. Outplaying the opponent is fun, but not necessarily so, and not necessarily the only way of having fun.

I don't know what you consider gimmick, but if gimmick is every unortodox unconventional build then im a gimmick fan. I certainly didn't play GW so that I would be forced to play 1-2 'moral' 'acceptable' builds. I play whatever I find fun and creative.

You also don't realize that you outsmart your opponent in the build lab as well as on the playing field. A good general knows both tactics and strategy, but you neglect one of these aspects and moreover mock it.

Lastly, I loathe your demeaning statement that me and "..a large number of casual players are completely irrelevent to the point at hand."

TheOneMephisto · Oct 17, 2007, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

Well, that's the difference between you and me then. I define fun, as fun. I can lose, and still have fun, if it was fun. And I can be better, but have no fun in that.

If you define fun as being better, then for you bashing newbies in a competitive game is fun. For me, fun can mean losing to an equally good opponent in an interesting match.

I'm sure that he thinks that interesting matches are fun. However, interesting matches are more fun if they're between opponents that start on an equal playing level (not the same as being exactly the same, see Starcraft for some variety with equal footing) and are decided by the strategic and tactical plays of each side rather than the fact that they did or didn't bring the necessary counters.

Lorekeeper · Oct 17, 2007, 10:14 PM // 22:14

In the history of GW competitive tournaments, the truly memorable ones, before monthly ATs, several, highly regarded, highly respected guilds won gold or silver capes by being creative.

FoC spike and Meteor Shower at VoD are two shining examples of this type of ''aces up my sleeve'' type play.

In ladder play, grinding rating in order to quality for these seasonal tournaments was the order of the day, and because of the unpredictable nature of the ladder (both in terms of maps and opponents) guilds opted to play safer, more reliable builds which were best suited to giving them the best chance at defeating as large a variety of possible builds as possible. The balanced build.

In tournament play, maps were known, and so were opponents, and coupled with the time given to teams to prepare for their matches, build creativity became increasingly influential. If you knew your opponent was weak versus a certain type of build, you ran that build. If you knew you were fighting on a split map and you had strong individual players, you ran a strong split build.
If you had practiced behind the scenes running a heavy hex or condition build you ran that as the ''ace'' hoping the catch your opponents offguard if they hadnt brought enough condition or hex removal. Some might point out that build wars takes the outcome of the game away from the player and into the skills themselves. But to be honest, if you wanted a competitive game were skill was truly the only deciding factor you would not be playing an online RPG like GW (im not sure if there are ANY online competitive RPGs that can boost being of that nature... but please correct if im wrong and explain why they had achieved it where GW had failed... imo its because of the vast options available to us in GW that makes it so hard for competitive play to involve only a few aspects of those options).

The rarity of those seasonal tournaments gave them a much higher value of prestige, and elevated the top 5 or 10 guilds to quite high status... with EW, iQ, EviL and WM (and others) enjoying almost cult status.

Most if not all of these guilds took part in the creative build wars that is part of this game, you could almost say they exploited it. But since gold capes and prizes for first place did not come around so often, they happily exploited this aspect of the game in order to win. They already showed their level of play by regularly achieving top ladder ranking during regular ladder seasons, so you could say the seasonal tournaments were but showcases for their talents at tournament style competition which at that time, was generally a matter of mind games in terms of builds and the ability to execute those builds well.

Things have changed drastically. Gold capes are awarded monthly, the ladder is persistent and as a result has lost its meaning completely. ATs are where guilds compete for the QP points that will get them into the monthly ATs, there really isnt any need to GvG after you have earned enough QP to enter the monthly.

In terms of the monthlies, they have become much more casual affairs, which has its own advantages and disadvantages of its own. Fail to get silver or gold cape and you can try next month. The prestige is not gone completely, but its surely not as high as it was in the older days.

Only in the most recent 2 Monthly ATs we have seen guilds dabbling in the type of build wars that became so familiar in the older champioships. The prevalence of the blockway balanced build for so many months gave a few guilds the confidence to build against it. Build wars can pay off, and it almost did (if it not for error 7s).

In light of the hit to blockway, and what people saw in the last 2 ATs i think it will be very interesting to see the what happens in the october and september monthlies.

i expect to see much more buildwars going on. And i for one would love to see it come back, because i love making builds and seeing what other effective builds other people can come up with is part of that. Building builds is not easy, and when done in a highly competitive environment it gets increasingly risky in terms of costs/benefits.

Riotgear · Oct 17, 2007, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysterial

You always bring this up, but just because people say "buff" doesn't always mean they're thinking "make the numbers on the skill bigger until it works". While there are a few skills, like Keystone Signet, that are fundamentally broken at a very low level, skills like Discord could easily have been buffed to a non-broken state with relatively small functionality changes that don't modify the "spirit" of the skill.

With the amount of resources that would need to be devoted towards overhauling the mechanics that make most bad skills unusable, they could probably be reviving more viable things that have fallen by the wayside with number tweaks. Those should probably be top-priority, because they allow a positive contribution to the game with minimal effort on something that is already known to be viable in non-degenerate play. Selecting skills for buffing based on the fact that they are terribad rather than their actual potential is a waste of time.

Quote:

I don't know what you consider gimmick, but if gimmick is every unortodox unconventional build then im a gimmick fan.

There have been numerous definitions, but a gimmick is generally something that has one very specific way of accomplishing anything and generally has no flexibility whatsoever. If what you're initially attempting to do doesn't work, you lose, because you have no plan B.

"Outsmarting your player on the build tab" is absurd. You are not told what your opponent is running, so there are no "tactics" or "smarts" involved: You are guessing, and any advantage or disadvantage that incurs is blind luck. Competitive games need a level playing field to work, not Build Wars where the outcome of a game is largely decided before the game even starts.

ksalanpang · Oct 17, 2007, 10:59 PM // 22:59

When the new stuff is better than all the old stuff, you get to pick the new stuff. Pretty much you lod everything everywhere now. And Eviserate everything anything. I really think that the ANET definition of game balance is the same as overpowerskill nerfing. I'm sure anet knows that skills like glimmer of lite, word of healing, life shealth, withdraw hexes, decapitate, Headbutt, forceful blow...more and more skills are not as useful/effective/efficient as the other recent elites.

Is there a way to close down the gap between those underpower skills and those existing overpowered skills? That would at least make it more variety for players to choose from. I might not know what I'm saying here right after work, so bare with me.

I still remember how they buff SoD and make it useful in pvp. Can they do similiar things to some other skills, ex. life shealth, For the next 10 seconds, the next 60...250 damage target ally would take is negated.

Just an example there, please don't take that seriously and flame me.

As a gw player, I really want more varieties on our bars. I don't want to run the same lod bar for a year without anything change.

Quicksilver Switch-Blade · Oct 17, 2007, 11:17 PM // 23:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

With the amount of resources that would need to be devoted towards overhauling the mechanics that make most bad skills unusable, they could probably be reviving more viable things that have fallen by the wayside with number tweaks. Those should probably be top-priority, because they allow a positive contribution to the game with minimal effort on something that is already known to be viable in non-degenerate play. Selecting skills for buffing based on the fact that they are terribad rather than their actual potential is a waste of time.

There have been numerous definitions, but a gimmick is generally something that has one very specific way of accomplishing anything and generally has no flexibility whatsoever. If what you're initially attempting to do doesn't work, you lose, because you have no plan B.

"Outsmarting your player on the build tab" is absurd. You are not told what your opponent is running, so there are no "tactics" or "smarts" involved: You are guessing, and any advantage or disadvantage that incurs is blind luck. Competitive games need a level playing field to work, not Build Wars where the outcome of a game is largely decided before the game even starts.

If builds/skills were balanced decently, it wouldn't be decided before the game even starts unless
a) player skill was evenly matched between teams (better build will win in this case)
b) the player skill difference allows the team favors the team who already has the build advantage
but again, it comes down to how you enjoy playing, some people enjoy this aspect of the game. Im really suprised at the complete disrespect towards this type of play by some, considering I would think there is 1000+ skills in this game for a reason (granted half of them are useless) and people would realize that a-net intended for a diverse format (but I guess that could be argued, on both intention and implementation).
Also, Lorekeeper put it best for those who enjoy this type of play style

Quote:

In tournament play, maps were known, and so were opponents, and coupled with the time given to teams to prepare for their matches, build creativity became increasingly influential. If you knew your opponent was weak versus a certain type of build, you ran that build. If you knew you were fighting on a split map and you had strong individual players, you ran a strong split build.
If you had practiced behind the scenes running a heavy hex or condition build you ran that as the ''ace'' hoping the catch your opponents offguard if they hadnt brought enough condition or hex removal. Some might point out that build wars takes the outcome of the game away from the player and into the skills themselves. But to be honest, if you wanted a competitive game were skill was truly the only deciding factor you would not be playing an online RPG like GW (im not sure if there are ANY online competitive RPGs that can boost being of that nature... but please correct if im wrong and explain why they had achieved it where GW had failed... imo its because of the vast options available to us in GW that makes it so hard for competitive play to involve only a few aspects of those options).

In this kind of format, it doesnt come down to blind luck, it comes down to preparing for what you expect your opponent use that works to his strengths, you plan to beat you and outsmart you, maps also play heavily into your planning. So saying that its just blind luck in winning at build wars imo, comes form plain ignorance.

Quote:

There have been numerous definitions, but a gimmick is generally something that has one very specific way of accomplishing anything and generally has no flexibility whatsoever. If what you're initially attempting to do doesn't work, you lose, because you have no plan B.

I would say thats just specialized build, not a gimmick (I would think this is more considered a build that tries to imitate another classes job, ie thumpers, Spirit's Strength Rits, IW Mesmers, etc.), and if that is the general consensus of what a gimmick is, than I would say gimmicks are healthy for a diverse game, but that is really up to ANet and what they want PvP to really become (and they seem to prefer the diverse game since they kept buffing Keystone).

Bio-Flame · Oct 17, 2007, 11:18 PM // 23:18

This is an old M:TG discussion (and also, a Play-to-Win discussion):

Scrubs (not noobs, check Sirlin's definition) can't grasp high-level competitive play.
High-level players couldn't care less for "creative builds"...
...sorry dude, you're playing your own house made rules of GvG.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that the rest of us aren't playing the same game you are.

Neo-LD · Oct 17, 2007, 11:29 PM // 23:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Servant of Kali

that's the difference between you and me then

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Ketsu

Stop right there, You guys are arguing the difference between Johnny and Spike type players, which is something that can go round and round

Quote:

Originally Posted by QuickSilver Switch-Blade

So you have your opinion and he has yours, neither are wrong, so trying to proof so is truly irrelevant

Sorry, but this is NOT a matter of opinion.

The purpose of a competitive game is for players/teams to prove that they are better than other players/teams. For this to happen any given game must have a meaningful outcome, specifically that there is a near-guarentee that the team that wins is the team that played better. For that to happen the game must be balanced towards rewarding player skill.

If you disagree with anything in the above paragraph, its either because

1) you're ignorant.
2) you have some objection along the lines of "but I play for fun and dont care about all that competitive/better/reward-player-skill stuff"

If case 1 is true, go away. If case 2 is true, then sorry, you're opinion is unrelated to the debate at hand, which is how to correctly handle the balancing of a potentially legitimate competitive game - and thus, is irrelevent and belongs in some carebear PvE thread. Balance cannot bend to the whims of those who play for fun.

Quicksilver Switch-Blade · Oct 17, 2007, 11:41 PM // 23:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Sorry, but this is NOT a matter of opinion.

The purpose of a competitive game is for players/teams to prove that they are better than other players/teams. For this to happen any given game must have a meaningful outcome, specifically that there is a near-guarentee that the team that wins is the team that played better. For that to happen the game must be balanced towards rewarding player skill.

If you disagree with anything in the above paragraph, its either because

1) you're ignorant.
2) you have some objection along the lines of "but I play for fun and dont care about all that competitive/better/reward-player-skill stuff"

If case 1 is true, go away. If case 2 is true, then sorry, you're opinion is unrelated to the debate at hand, which is how to correctly handle the balancing of a potentially legitimate competitive game - and thus, is irrelevent and belongs in some carebear PvE thread.

I lol'd, really hard
Im not ignorant cause Ive played games that had diversity and were still competitive (granted they used slightly different formats that I wish could be implemented at this point, but oh well) and actually took more than learning how to play one role and required adaptation, preparation and player skill (ie battle awareness, and micro management), not more of a competition of who is the best at playing certain role, over and over again.
If planning and strategy aren't what you consider part of competition, so be it, but dont go saying everyone else is wrong or assuming they are a PvE carebear (lol) for thinking otherwise *sigh*

lacasner · Oct 17, 2007, 11:55 PM // 23:55

Quote:

Sorry, but this is NOT a matter of opinion.

The purpose of a competitive game is for players/teams to prove that they are better than other players/teams. For this to happen any given game must have a meaningful outcome, specifically that there is a near-guarentee that the team that wins is the team that played better. For that to happen the game must be balanced towards rewarding player skill.

If you disagree with anything in the above paragraph, its either because

1) you're ignorant.
2) you have some objection along the lines of "but I play for fun and dont care about all that competitive/better/reward-player-skill stuff"

If case 1 is true, go away. If case 2 is true, then sorry, you're opinion is unrelated to the debate at hand, which is how to correctly handle the balancing of a potentially legitimate competitive game - and thus, is irrelevent and belongs in some carebear PvE thread. Balance cannot bend to the whims of those who play for fun.

Guild Wars is not the game for this, perhaps an FPS or something of that sort is more to what you are reffering to. Imo, there is not nearly enough skill needed to do well in this game for it to compensate for its needs for diversified builds.

Gonna call me ignorant for that? Maybe a carebear?

Servant of Kali · Oct 17, 2007, 11:57 PM // 23:57

Neo-LD, once you stop being so self-absorbed you will eventually realize that there are other people in this world as well.

Look closer.

Look closer.

Read what people said already.

Look closer.

Try to comprehend.

Look closer.

Analyze.

Look closer.

Understand.

Look closer.

Breathe.

moriz · Oct 18, 2007, 12:01 AM // 00:01

you know, as much you can say there's no black and white and only shades of gray, black and white DO exist. you can continuously argue that the sky is purple, bring forward why you think the sky is purple, and you can argue why the sky is purple to you... but the end of the day, the sky is blue, not purple.

the same can be said about the notion of competitive gaming. to have a truly competitive game, the two opponents MUST start with equal footing. they might not be completely the same, but both sides must have equal chance of winning, assuming equal skill. there's no such thing as "differences in opinion" here.

Mysterial · Oct 18, 2007, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

With the amount of resources that would need to be devoted towards overhauling the mechanics that make most bad skills unusable, they could probably be reviving more viable things that have fallen by the wayside with number tweaks. Those should probably be top-priority, because they allow a positive contribution to the game with minimal effort on something that is already known to be viable in non-degenerate play. Selecting skills for buffing based on the fact that they are terribad rather than their actual potential is a waste of time.

I didn't say anything of priority. Obviously, if a skill could be balanced by changing a 10 to a 7 or whatever, you consider that first. Still, there's sometimes an opportunity to add more to the game by making functional changes to a skill than changing the numbers on a known mechanic. Some good things came of the few times they were willing to do this, like Holy Veil.

TheOneMephisto · Oct 18, 2007, 12:04 AM // 00:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Sorry, but this is NOT a matter of opinion.

The purpose of a competitive game is for players/teams to prove that they are better than other players/teams. For this to happen any given game must have a meaningful outcome, specifically that there is a near-guarentee that the team that wins is the team that played better. For that to happen the game must be balanced towards rewarding player skill.

If you disagree with anything in the above paragraph, its either because

1) you're ignorant.
2) you have some objection along the lines of "but I play for fun and dont care about all that competitive/better/reward-player-skill stuff"

If case 1 is true, go away. If case 2 is true, then sorry, you're opinion is unrelated to the debate at hand, which is how to correctly handle the balancing of a potentially legitimate competitive game - and thus, is irrelevent and belongs in some carebear PvE thread. Balance cannot bend to the whims of those who play for fun.

I have to agree with you (though maybe not with some the harsher (cough PvE carebear) comments.

From what I've gathered, this thread is trying to balance GW in a way that would realize its full potential as a competitive game. Balancing for "fun" or "creative" gameplay might be what some people want, but I don't think that this thread is going towards that idea.

And people, just because players have an equal footing and winning is determined based on player skill doesn't mean that it has to be an FPS or chess styled game. As I've already pointed out, Starcraft is the best example of a game with 3 entirely different races and consequently 3 entirely different types of playing yet still maintains unparalleled balance. That's what I'd prefer GW to have, create various team-build templates that all have different playstyles and ways of winning, but all have the tools to effectively deal with each other and are balanced around using those tools effectively and in the correct manner.

intarwebs · Oct 18, 2007, 12:08 AM // 00:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

you know, as much you can say there's no black and white and only shades of gray, black and white DO exist. you can continuously argue that the sky is purple, bring forward why you think the sky is purple, and you can argue why the sky is purple to you... but the end of the day, the sky is blue, not purple.

Actually, the sky turns red at the end of the day :P

moriz · Oct 18, 2007, 12:11 AM // 00:11

only in one part of the sky. but that's beside the point. the sky is blue because of the high nitrogen content in Earth's atmosphere, which actively absorbs red spectrum light.