Curse

Ensign · Oct 18, 2007, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

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.

Off topic and wrong. You win teh prize!

DreamWind · Oct 18, 2007, 02:13 AM // 02:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

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.

You posted my exact thoughts. That is EXACTLY how I think Guild Wars should be balanced.

Getting back on topic, Anet can't/won't balance properly. We are wasting our time talking about this.

LightningHell · Oct 18, 2007, 02:23 AM // 02:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

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.

Diffuse sky radiation?

Why would Johnnys be affected if the game was balanced properly instead for diversity? They merely get a different skillset to work from.

Proper balance should actually enhance a Johnny's experience, I think...

moriz · Oct 18, 2007, 02:52 AM // 02:52

whatever, i knew it was caused by the scattering (or absorption. i win!) of light caused by the air.

what i was trying to say was this: there's competitive gaming and what it would entail in terms of game balance, and there's everything else. competitive game can only exist in a specific environment (that is, with everyone starting off at the same level in terms of advantages), and simply cannot exist in any other environment.

just rude · Oct 18, 2007, 04:12 AM // 04:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

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 .

bump

its like that...or it was when the heavies played.

It's now like college American football vs the pros. You can run the option all day in college, but if your try to run that shit in the pros is just gets blown up.

thats how I see it. Wild variation's vs subtle ones.

edit for bad grammar.....

Ensign · Oct 18, 2007, 06:15 AM // 06:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

whatever, i knew it was caused by the scattering (or absorption. i win!) of light caused by the air.

No, actually, you don't win. Scattering is about as distinct from absorption as things can be when talking about the interactions between photons and massive objects; the two are largely unrelated. In addition, the scattering phenomena relevant to understanding the colors we observe in the sky operate on the *blue* end of the visible spectrum.

The point being that if you don't know what you are talking about, *stop acting like you do.*

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

competitive game can only exist in a specific environment (that is, with everyone starting off at the same level in terms of advantages), and simply cannot exist in any other environment.

Bullshit. Look at chess. It's possibly the most popular competitive game in the world, and it is decidedly unequal - the white player gets to make the first move. At grandmaster levels of play, the advantage gained from pulling the white pieces is significant enough that the two sides warrant different styles of play. The advantages given to each competitor do *not* need to be even in a good competitive game; they simply need to be small enough that individual performances in a given contest have a much higher weight on the outcome.

moriz · Oct 18, 2007, 01:37 PM // 13:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

No, actually, you don't win. Scattering is about as distinct from absorption as things can be when talking about the interactions between photons and massive objects; the two are largely unrelated. In addition, the scattering phenomena relevant to understanding the colors we observe in the sky operate on the *blue* end of the visible spectrum.

The point being that if you don't know what you are talking about, *stop acting like you do.*

what i was trying to say was, i knew it was one of the two. just happened to say absorb instead of scatter. my mistake. should i go hang myself now?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensign

Bullshit. Look at chess. It's possibly the most popular competitive game in the world, and it is decidedly unequal - the white player gets to make the first move. At grandmaster levels of play, the advantage gained from pulling the white pieces is significant enough that the two sides warrant different styles of play. The advantages given to each competitor do *not* need to be even in a good competitive game; they simply need to be small enough that individual performances in a given contest have a much higher weight on the outcome.

GW is, and was never, based on chess. so please stop making this comparison.

LightningHell · Oct 18, 2007, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by lacasner

LOL...stick to GW, where it's obviously your forte.

Saying that white going 1st warrants an advantage is such a blundering mistake I can't even believe you used it as an arguement.

Counter-Opening of openings are just selections made to maximaze your potential to best counter the other players, not to make up for an "advantage" your oponent has. In Chess history, being black was prevelant when defenses such as Sicilian and others were very popular.

Stick to Gw.

White in GM games wins ~60% of the time, from what I know. That should say something. In Chinese Chess, the template opening move also effect a defensive move from the opposition. Korean Chess also gives 1.5 points to the red team due to the blue team starting first.

Lorekeeper · Oct 18, 2007, 02:58 PM // 14:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

White in GM games wins ~60% of the time, from what I know. That should say something. In Chinese Chess, common opening moves also effect a defensive move from the opposition. Korean Chess also gives 1.5 points to the red team due to the blue team starting first.

you really shouldnt use statistics to make a point unless you have firm proof to back it up. I dont have any statistical proof, but i think chess would not have become so popular, attracting prize funds in the 6 digits, globally recognised as one of the most balanced games ever... if white had a significant advantage over black, which is what 60% would suggest. I dont know enough about Chinese chess or korean chess, but if korean chess gives more ''points'' to the opening team i think thats more a hint of Korean chess being quite different to the Chess we seem to be discussing.

So i think some people need to think about what they are asserting here before they assert it with such abandon.

the only advantage you get while playing white is that you get to choose which tactical stance to take in the game. Some players favour an offensive stance to the game, they want to keep the opponent reacting to their moves, and this brings the psychological factor into the game, the defensive player must react correctly to the offensive players move otherwise it could result in a mistake which could lead to defeat. Players who prefer to play defensively enjoy having to adapt to what they see, they use their experiences and knowledge of the various strategies in the game to allow them to prevent their opponents from gaining the upperhand as the game draws into the mid and end game. The advantage inherent in defense is that you get to see what your opponent does before you make your move, the disadvantage is, you might misinterpret your opponents move (and this is where sacrifices and fake plays come in). The advantage in offense is that you can try to fool your opponent into making the wrong defensive moves...

i suggest you all read Clausewitz, who often spoke about the inherent advantage of defense over attack, not because defense could win a battle but because defense followed by a good offense could win a battle and that an offense followed by a defense put you in a weak position. Diverting resources into the offense was a gamble, which should only be done once victory was certain... with regards to chess... such a victory is impossible to recognise in the opening stages of the game, so saying that the player with the opening move will win the match is simply wrong.

at the end of the day the victory comes not to the player who makes the first move, but to the player who makes the right moves and makes the least errors.

as for whether discussion of chess has any relevance to guild wars, i think it does.

chess achieves balance by limiting the number of options and variables that the player needs to worry about. Both players have the same number of pieces and exactly the same type of pieces. Chess is a fine example of a game where the skill and experience of the players is the deciding factor in a match.

Guild wars is a different type of game, but the need for balance is still there. Guild wars presents players with multiple variables and many options, which means you cannot predict two opponents to field the same type of build or type of strategies.

where guild wars needs to achieve balance is by making sure none of these options or variables have advantages over the others, balance through diversity is achieved by keeping the diversity in check with itself.

without this balance, the diversity becomes its own downfall, and what is best for the game becomes a reduction of that diversity to a bare minimum of balanced options.

and that is basically what has happened to GW. It has become so difficult to achieve a balance between its larger diversity, the only thing left to do was to promote a narrow window of that diversity and balance the game around that narrow window instead.

Master Ketsu · Oct 18, 2007, 03:32 PM // 15:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

GW is, and was never, based on chess. so please stop making this comparison.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lacasner

LOL...stick to GW, where it's obviously your forte.

Saying that white going 1st warrants an advantage is such a blundering mistake I can't even believe you used it as an arguement.

Counter-Opening of openings are just selections made to maximaze your potential to best counter the other players, not to make up for an "advantage" your oponent has. In Chess history, being black was prevelant when defenses such as Sicilian and others were very popular.

Stick to Gw.

You guys kind of missed The point in what he was saying. He was making the point that in any competitive game, when you get to a certain level of "professionalism" The small, seemingly insignificant advantages start to become significant ones.

Ill use myself as an example. I used to be in the Top 50 in the halo 2 ladder, but to be honest I was just as good as #1 and #2 ( Stk ogre 1 and Stk ogre 2, dont know if anyone remembers that ) and #50~100 was just as good as I. Why ? Because at that level of play we were all perfect We sniped headshots 100% of the time unless we were drunk. We all always 4 shotted the battle rifle ( perfect aim let you kill someone with 4 shots with that weapon ) We all had all the maps completely memorized ( Im serious, down to the last pixel ) and knew exactly what strategies to use when and were.

What happened was wins at that level of play were being determined by factors that normally wouldn't even matter if the players were normal. Spawn points at the beginning of the match were determining wins due to positioning advantages. We could predict which of us were going to win, based on our first spawn in most of the maps. Only 1 map didnt follow this formula to a t, and that was lockout.

The same thing will happen in any competitive game irregardless of those games differances. As Player skill approaches "X" Game balance declines, because the tiny factors of luck in the game begin to be more important. The better you get at a game, the flaws in that games balance become more glaring.

Whats happened to the GW meta is that it has been n00bified. Anet keeps Nerfing Stuff like anti melee hexes, buffing condition removal allowing faster recover from cripple and blind, and buffing physical damage to high levels. This has resulted in a failure of a meta. Back in the day, rank 9 actually meant something. Nowadays any scrub who can 12345 and has an hour or so a night to HA can be rank 9, because in the current meta thats what most builds are based off of. Gw no longer takes that much skill to play. Top 100 guilds still do take alot of skill to play, but even then, not as much. And part of the problem is actually melee weapons themselves. Axes and scythes especially frequently deal wild damage. The same wearying strike from the same scythe can deal 40 damage in one swing and 100 the next.

Anet needs to reinstate a way for 1 person to reliably shut down multiple melee targets at once, and give mesmers a reasonable buff ( not just the october fluff-buff ) so that mesmers can do what they were originally intended to do: make sure the metagame shifts.

moriz · Oct 18, 2007, 03:43 PM // 15:43

so... you are advocating the return of the hex meta, where you couldn't move without having 20 layers of hexes stacked onto you? i don't know about you, but such a metagame is even more boring than the one we have now.

the thing is, it's not just about buffing skills to meet the power of something else. now, it's about toning things down so existing counters can come back into the game. the frameworks are already there; it's just the physical damage power have gotten well beyond what they could handle.

Master Ketsu · Oct 18, 2007, 03:58 PM // 15:58

Quote:

so... you are advocating the return of the hex meta, where you couldn't move without having 20 layers of hexes stacked onto you? i don't know about you, but such a metagame is even more boring than the one we have now.

Your reading your own assumptions into my post.

NO. Im recommending they balance them to meet todays standards. Not revert them completely.

Quote:

the thing is, it's not just about buffing skills to meet the power of something else. now, it's about toning things down so existing counters can come back into the game. the frameworks are already there; it's just the physical damage power have gotten well beyond what they could handle.

You can actually accomplish the same thing either way...

Actually, buffing the U-P skills to meet the normal skills and O-P skills is better. Whenever you nerf an OP skill people just go to the next best thing, which may or may not change the meta and occasionally turns out to be even worse. This has been proven to be a fact after every nerfdate. No one can deny that.

A real decent way to buff things, is rather then making huge skill updates every 1.5 months, change three skills or so every week that need a change. That way It will be easier to analyze what those skills did to the meta and it will be easier to balance them.

( edit: sorry, I meant to say "can", not "cant" )

LightningHell · Oct 18, 2007, 04:36 PM // 16:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

/snip

Nobody was asserting that whoever moves first wins - it is merely the recognization that moving first is an advantage, however small. Hence, the slight imbalance.

The large difference in figures might be attributed to:

Quote:

He was making the point that in any competitive game, when you get to a certain level of "professionalism" The small, seemingly insignificant advantages start to become significant ones.

I'm not a professional at chess, but I do play Chinese chess to a reasonable extent, and although the two sides are generally well balanced and all, the starting player can generally lock the other into a semidefensive setup, although the higher the level the players are at, the more insignificant to the overall game these early game...gimmicks, one might call them, and that Chinese chess in the early game relies on having a stable defense with a piece or two on attack.

But I overall agree.

Seamus Finn · Oct 18, 2007, 08:10 PM // 20:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Ketsu

Actually, buffing the U-P skills to meet the normal skills and O-P skills is better. Whenever you nerf an OP skill people just go to the next best thing, which may or may not change the meta and occasionally turns out to be even worse. This has been proven to be a fact after every nerfdate. No one can deny that.

I think it's been the buffing and power creeps that have been hurting the game so much. Basically what these things tend to do is drastically increase the pace of the game to the point where, in order to try and slow down the pace to more of a "thinking man's game" people have had to slot all this defense that everyone is loathing at the moment. In order to bring the game back to what people seem to be wanting would require a scaling back of skills(particularly the red bar goes down type).

In my opinion, the only skills that have hurt the game from being nerfed are skills like gale, not hexes(well I suppose diversion).

Bankai · Oct 18, 2007, 09:06 PM // 21:06

Chess is never comparable to another game, simply because of random factors. Just like Ketsu mentioned, random factors can be game-breaking. In GW, it's the case of which build you take. If you have to choose between HEV and Esurge on your mes, for example, your Knights can suddenly also move diagonally if you choose HEV and have to fight against a hex-team.

Ensign · Oct 18, 2007, 09:20 PM // 21:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

GW is, and was never, based on chess. so please stop making this comparison.

Why is it an unfair comparison?

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

White in GM games wins ~60% of the time, from what I know. That should say something. In Chinese Chess, the template opening move also effect a defensive move from the opposition. Korean Chess also gives 1.5 points to the red team due to the blue team starting first.

I've seen a lot of different numbers bandied about for white's winning percentage in decisive games. There's certainly enough data out there to analyze; I'll poke around the university next week and see if I can dig up some papers; the magnitude of the advantage very likely depends on multiple variables.

The point being though, that the two sides in chess are *not* identical. Advantage aside, the two sides play differently particularly in the early game. If chess doesn't need to be perfectly symmetrical to be a classic strategy game, why does anything else?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorekeeper

I dont have any statistical proof, but i think chess would not have become so popular, attracting prize funds in the 6 digits, globally recognised as one of the most balanced games ever... if white had a significant advantage over black, which is what 60% would suggest... at the end of the day the victory comes not to the player who makes the first move, but to the player who makes the right moves and makes the least errors.

The contrast between these two ideas get to the core of the issue. There can be small advantages in a game, as long as player performance overshadows those advantages in determining the winner of a match. White might have a small advantage that, statistically, is noticeable over the course of thousands of games - but in the outcome of any given game, the ability and performances of individual players dominates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

although the higher the level the players are at, the more insignificant to the overall game these early game...gimmicks, one might call them, and that Chinese chess in the early game relies on having a stable defense with a piece or two on attack.

It's largely a function of the complexity of the game. When the competitors are relatively bad at the game (in comparison with theoretical 'playing perfectly'), the disadvantages incurred through mistakes and otherwise suboptimal play far overshadow the tiny inequities in the game. As people get better and better at a game, they make less mistakes and smaller mistakes, and the relative magnitude of the inherent advantages becomes more significant.

For a sufficiently complicated game such as chess, which as far as we know cannot be entirely solved or played perfectly, the magnitude of mistakes even at grandmaster levels overshadow the minor advantages of going first.

Master Ketsu · Oct 18, 2007, 09:21 PM // 21:21

Quote:

I think it's been the buffing and power creeps that have been hurting the game so much. Basically what these things tend to do is drastically increase the pace of the game to the point where, in order to try and slow down the pace to more of a "thinking man's game" people have had to slot all this defense that everyone is loathing at the moment. In order to bring the game back to what people seem to be wanting would require a scaling back of skills(particularly the red bar goes down type).

The act of buffing them didnt hurt the game, it was the act of ridiculously buffing them that hurt it. Anet has a huge problem with game balance: Whenever they nerf a skill, they frequently nerf it into unusable oblivion ( poor boon prot

) and when they buff a skill, they buff them without any consideration to the possible combo synergy the buff would cause with other skills ( I point my finger at the recent keystone signet fiasco. )

The changes they make are too large to allow careful examination of what their updates are actually doing to the meta.

and TBH keystone would have been fine at 20 second recharge.

Thom Bangalter · Oct 18, 2007, 09:26 PM // 21:26

On chess: white has an advantage over black. If you think it isn't apparent or not important, you're an idiot. White usually plays more agressively because (surprise!) they get the first move, while black plays more defensively and tries to capitalize on white's mistakes.

bankai: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...Story/Business

read the first few paragraphs and replace 'chess' with 'guild wars'. They're way more similar than you realize, though chess lacks Guild Lords and NPCs, instead they have pawns and kings.

moriz · Oct 18, 2007, 10:56 PM // 22:56

chess is turn based. GW is a RTS and FPS combination. a competitive turn-based game will never be the same as a competitive game in real time. comparing the two is kinda pointless.

Lorekeeper · Oct 18, 2007, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

chess is turn based. GW is a RTS and FPS combination. a competitive turn-based game will never be the same as a competitive game in real time. comparing the two is kinda pointless.

so i cant compare the benefits of driving a car to work to riding a bike to work?

i cant compare french food with chinese food (a french chef would never dream of drawing similiarities between the two but can you not still compare them?)

chess is a competitive game
guild wars for PvPers is a competitive game

They can be compared and its quite interesting to do so. Comparing two or more entities does not imply total similiarity but a set of shared characteristics or an underlying common factor which can form the basis of comparison, whether it be to identify the merits or demerits of one against the other or to identify what, if any similiarities there are or what, if any differences there are and why).