Curse

Vanquisher · Sep 24, 2007, 02:14 PM // 14:14

No monthly fees meant less money to reinvest. Honestly, I would rather be paying monthly for some high class PvP than not paying monthly for lackluster stuff. While GW's PvP is still the best around, and I doubt that will change even with Fury and Warhammer, the lack of monthly fees really hurts every aspect of gameplay.

Byron · Sep 24, 2007, 02:54 PM // 14:54

I'll probably buy it. Folk like to complain about this or that skill being overpowered or too harshly nerfed, constantly calling for a return back to the "good old days." Well, there were skill balancing issues for the whole life of guild wars. Did we forget ether renewal, gale, energy drain, FC air spike, etc? I think we are misinterpreting "imba" for simply a stale system and a stale game. Nothing has much changed for pvp play in itself since GW release: monks heal, melee kills, midline supports.

Riotgear · Sep 24, 2007, 04:20 PM // 16:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by revaer

In my opinion WoW isn't even a PvP game to begin with (GW was

). But now when the last expansion to GW is out, why should ANet keep its playerbase satisfied when GW2 is going to be so much different from its predecessor anyway?

While WoW was obviously not designed for PvP, their update cycle is extremely long, nerfs are too often stupid token nerfs with no real effect, and they consistently play "nerf around it" when stuff like an unremovable 10-second duration 6-second recharge 50% healing debuff stays in destroying the game balance.

In other words, the design problems are half of it, the other half is that their update cycle is terrible. I think it really is easy to take for granted the excellent update deployment system that Guild Wars has, even if Izzy's been dropping the ball ever since Nightfall came out.

Quote:

I think we are misinterpreting "imba" for simply a stale system and a stale game.

The game has had a bunch of imbalanced stuff in the past, the difference is that Nightfall has had it plaguing every format since it was released, and unlike past problems, hasn't really been getting fixed.

Shmanka · Sep 24, 2007, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Byron

I think we are misinterpreting "imba" for simply a stale system and a stale game. Nothing has much changed for pvp play in itself since GW release: monks heal, melee kills, midline supports.

Next time we gvg, I'll pm you as a guest to run a 75% Crit Wammo with Aegis that attacks just about aggro circle distance.

Andrew Patrick · Sep 24, 2007, 06:30 PM // 18:30

I think you should probably wait for a bit more info before you start ruling out a game years away.

I think a more productive topic would be "what can ArenaNet improve for the PvP community to entice you to buy Guild Wars 2." It's a bit less doom and gloom, and could actually lead to positive changes.

hyro yamaguchi · Sep 24, 2007, 06:38 PM // 18:38

What Anet could do is start to employ (for money or free stuff or something ingame or w/a) some people who have actually played the various forms of PvP on a high level, high level GvG'ers, high level HA'ers, high level HB'ers and, if they even exist High level TA/AB/RA'ers. To give their opinions on what would fix the broken stuff, and what would balance the game.

Yichi · Sep 24, 2007, 06:48 PM // 18:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

I think you should probably wait for a bit more info before you start ruling out a game years away.

I think a more productive topic would be "what can ArenaNet improve for the PvP community to entice you to buy Guild Wars 2." It's a bit less doom and gloom, and could actually lead to positive changes.

There hasn't been 9817406591785409165 suggestions by the PvP community as to what would help to fix the problems in PvP already????!!!

Mirage Isnt Emo · Sep 24, 2007, 06:50 PM // 18:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanquisher

No monthly fees meant less money to reinvest. Honestly, I would rather be paying monthly for some high class PvP than not paying monthly for lackluster stuff. While GW's PvP is still the best around, and I doubt that will change even with Fury and Warhammer, the lack of monthly fees really hurts every aspect of gameplay.

I agree with this, as if you really want to be competitive in pvp, you have to buy all the new chapters when they come out. They do not force you to, but to effectively play, you need them. A monthly fee could actually end that. You could pay the same amount, probably have a lot less new skills, and they could actually work on more aspects of the game. Of course, from a pve aspect this would kill the game. A lot of pvers who are too dumb to realize that they are paying just about the same as they would if they were playing WoW, would stop playing. A semi-good thing about no pay per month is you are not always forced to buy the new expansions... As EOTN is one of the most worthless pvp expansions, a lot of people haven't even bought it.

suiraCLAW · Sep 24, 2007, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

I think you should probably wait for a bit more info before you start ruling out a game years away.

I think a more productive topic would be "what can ArenaNet improve for the PvP community to entice you to buy Guild Wars 2." It's a bit less doom and gloom, and could actually lead to positive changes.

Lets take a look at the current problems of PvP:
- Too steap learning curve
- You're forced to buy all chapters in order to compete in high end PvP. This decreases the amount of new players quite a bit
- VoD tactics: slow, boring gampley
- Dissapearance of splits and thus split tactics
- People are getting bored: the PvP is still the same as in the beginning. And the new formats, the equivalent of PvE expansion packs, failed.
- Lack of team (12v12) coordination made AB unattractive for the majority of the PvP community
- The fact that HvH is dominated by a single build
- Heroes in PvP leading to the decrease of competition

Possible solutions:
- Matchmaking systems for RA, TA and AB
- Announcing ideas for new/reworked PvP formats and accept advice from the PvP community. Example: AB zone that can be entered by 12 people IF these are from the same alliance and is matched versus other alliance teams.
- Weekly skill balance, until there are at least +-10 completely different team builds in high end PvP (GvG, HA, HvH)

Despozblehero · Sep 24, 2007, 07:43 PM // 19:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

I think you should probably wait for a bit more info before you start ruling out a game years away.

I think a more productive topic would be "what can ArenaNet improve for the PvP community to entice you to buy Guild Wars 2." It's a bit less doom and gloom, and could actually lead to positive changes.

Except that if the way this game was handled is any indication of the way GW2 will be handled (individual things, gamewide things, concepts, implemetations, and genereal upkeep by the company), then GW2 could have all the potential in the world (like prophecies) and will end up not so great, just looking at the past shows this is GW2s likely outcome and all the words in the world from any future updates about how great its going to be dont speak louder than that to me. I am a long time player (been here since 2nd beta), I have no reason not to want the best for the game and would love as much as anyone else to be looking forward to something that I enjoy, but I dont look forward to GW2 and same with quite a few long-time should-be-loyal players on this thread... I suspect my exceedingly empty friends list doesn't have people on the thread to say this stuff but feel the same way too

... this should lead to some positive changes IF someone who really understood what they were reading listened to it (not taking a snip at anyone there just saying IF*)... although I suspect if its not an "OMG I LOVEZ EVERYTHINGZ YOU DOESEZ!!!111" thread full of butterfly hearts and fairy farts its uninformative in anyway and just gets ignored, or is incomprehesible to be accurate or true?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MistressYichi

There hasn't been 9817406591785409165 suggestions by the PvP community as to what would help to fix the problems in PvP already????!!!

QFT

ockhams · Sep 24, 2007, 08:44 PM // 20:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

I think you should probably wait for a bit more info before you start ruling out a game years away.

i thought gw2 was sposed to be released next year, not years from now. y'know, about the same amount of time it takes to make a "skill balance".

but anyway, how bout a bit more info, then.

Servant of Kali · Sep 24, 2007, 09:45 PM // 21:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by suiraCLAW

People are getting bored: the PvP is still the same as in the beginning.

It's not the game mechanics. It's the number of viable choices and creativity aspect.

If you're doing the same thing all the time, it gets boring. Here is where GW's skill system should jump in, combined with excellent game update system they use. Unfortunately, this has been so.... badly used... wait, unused is what I meant.

The lack of proper and frequent skill balances is what makes PvP boring very fast. If you have 1000 skills but everyone playing 10 skills, then nothing will keep you in the game for a long time. No, titles won't, because PvPers don't have (as a rule) grind mentality. They play for fun. This includes armor/weapon unlock option for casual players; more stylish options = more enjoyable gameplay. No stylish options = cyaz.

I am not quite sure what's the main reason for lack of skill balances.. is it perhaps that ANet thinks PvErs would quit more if game was more dynamic? I don't know. Is it perhaps that frequent skill balance is not traditional in the genre? Perhaps, but ANet has been willing to set trends in many other things. Is it perhaps a fact that skill balance changes need to be translated in supported languages and translation costs money? Or maybe just a lack of interest? However, that's kinda doubtful... even on wiki there are a lot of smart players who suggest how to fix/tweak skills. For an experienced player (and skill balancer should be) it wouldn't be hard to notice who knows and who .. does not and just trolls the area. So, I don't believe a skill balancer would need to spend significant time balancing skills.

Now, no one in their right mind expects such naive things as 100% of skills perfectly balanced. That would be no good. However, there are few rules to follow in skill creation and balance:
1) First things first, most important PvP modes deserve the most attention (GvG)
2) A skill shouldn't destroy a balance in other arena (HB does not count) - skill scaling
3) A skill needs to be usable somewhere, in at least 1 arena (HB does not count).
4) Skills should be diverse, and have fun effects whenever possible.
5) Useless skills should be buffed or tweaked
6) PvE should not be taken into account when doing skill balance. Monsters skillbars and strenght is indirect PvE skill balance. Also, PvE-only skills are good. If a normal skill is overpowered in PvE that's good because PvErs like overpowered skills. If normal skill is underpowered in PvE, no problem because they have PvE-only skills anyway, and they can always choose cookie cutter ones like now (which they do) and bash monsters with weak skillbars. In either case, as long as there are strong PvE skills there's no problem.

In other words, if the game has 500 skills which are underpowered in GvG, that's not so bad if these skill are useful and fun to use at least in some PvP arena, even if it's just Fort Aspenwood or RA. The problem with zillion of current skills is that they are utter trash - everywhere! Hell, not even PvErs use them.

I'll take a nice example. Thunderclap. This skill is underpowered, and because of the effect it should stay that way. But, unlike other underpowered skills, this one is *at least* fun to play in RA for instance. That's what justifies this skill at least somewhat (a small dmg addition would be nice). Unlike Thunderclap, there are numerous numerous trash useless boring skills which absolutely have no use. I will not name them, we all know them since no one plays em.

---

Another important thing along with skill creation and balance is also profession creation.

Most professions are nicely designed, more or less, so I will skip that.

But let's take a look at Paragon. It's a *school example* of a badly designed class.
a) Primary attribute which defies game rules, ie an environment which ranges from 4v4 to 12v12
b) A huge number of skills which have no counter, or no viable counter, or only buildwars counters (personally, I'm all for *all* skills having a counter).
c) A huge number of skills which discourage balanced builds and encourage "Paragonway". Skills need to have diversity. Protective Spirit works no matter how many Monks you have in the team, and for Judges Insight you don't need to have an all-melee team. In theory, Paragon was supposed to be team support, in reality, Paragons drastically decrease the creativity of builds (which is horrible in a game that relies on creativity of builds).

Now, I perfectly understand no one in ANet will say "OK so we made a mistake and badly designed class cause we were in a hurry". I also don't expect anyone will tweak the Primary Attribute and other stuff. But at least learn, and hopefully there won't be same mistakes in GW2.

That being said, there are a lot of class designs which I like; like Ashes for instance, and I'd like to see those used more. For instance, exhaustion on ele skills seems to disappear after Prophecies, which IMO is a shame. Sure, some skills don't deserve it but it would be cool to have Exhaustion as a balance mechanism. Assassin chaining is also a great design.

fatman12342 · Sep 24, 2007, 10:22 PM // 22:22

you guys know that gw2 pvp is gonna be way diffrent such as world battles that last hours and dont require talking to someone because there wont be instances for every thing so their will be huge battles

Blame the Monks · Sep 24, 2007, 10:29 PM // 22:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by MistressYichi

There hasn't been 9817406591785409165 suggestions by the PvP community as to what would help to fix the problems in PvP already????!!!

QFT
456789101112

Riotgear · Sep 24, 2007, 10:45 PM // 22:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by suiraCLAW

- People are getting bored: the PvP is still the same as in the beginning. And the new formats, the equivalent of PvE expansion packs, failed.

Stable gameplay is probably a good thing, really. However, this sort of ties in to the next point:

Quote:

- Lack of team (12v12) coordination made AB unattractive for the majority of the PvP community

The AB format has a LOT of potential to be a well-designed, competitive format, much more so than HvH ever did. However, without the ability to control 2/3 of your team makeup, it's impossible to properly reward good players, because victory and defeat is too far out of the control of a pack of 4 players.

So to answer your question, Andrew, here's the wishlist:
1.) Get another real skill balance out and cut back on the garbage. If I never saw anyone using Avatar of Melandru, Shadow Prison, Conjure, Deadly Paradox, Augury of Death, Steady Stance or Rampage as One ever again, I don't think I'd miss them in the slightest. Fix Mantra of Recovery and GoLE so they stop breaking other skills. Fix Paragons so that they're actually counterable and have to actually think about energy.
2.) Revert the VoD changes.
3.) Expand the AB format into a real competitive format: Allow teams to pick the 2 teams they join with. Preferably separate pre-formed team sets from random-matched ones to let the noobs have their fun without getting steamrolled.
4.) Convert HA into rank-based bracketing: One bracket per 3 ranks, team members are restricted to that bracket's rank and lower, only the top rank goes to Halls, everyone else gets sent back to the lobby after Antechamber, reduce fame gain by bracket. This would expand interest in HA and remove the harsh barrier to entry without turning it into a scrubfest.

Quote:

But let's take a look at Paragon. It's a *school example* of a badly designed class.
a) Primary attribute which defies game rules, ie an environment which ranges from 4v4 to 12v12
b) A huge number of skills which have no counter, or no viable counter, or only buildwars counters (personally, I'm all for *all* skills having a counter).
c) A huge number of skills which discourage balanced builds and encourage "Paragonway". Skills need to have diversity. Protective Spirit works no matter how many Monks you have in the team, and for Judges Insight you don't need to have an all-melee team. In theory, Paragon was supposed to be team support, in reality, Paragons drastically decrease the creativity of builds (which is horrible in a game that relies on creativity of builds).

Win.

Shendaar · Sep 24, 2007, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

I think you should probably wait for a bit more info before you start ruling out a game years away.

I think a more productive topic would be "what can ArenaNet improve for the PvP community to entice you to buy Guild Wars 2." It's a bit less doom and gloom, and could actually lead to positive changes.

That's almost insulting. Just press the "Back" button on your browser and see for yourself.

Vaga · Sep 24, 2007, 11:15 PM // 23:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

I think a more productive topic would be "what can ArenaNet improve for the PvP community to entice you to buy Guild Wars 2." It's a bit less doom and gloom, and could actually lead to positive changes.

Fixing GW1 would be pretty good imo

Andrew Patrick · Sep 24, 2007, 11:35 PM // 23:35

I'm sorry, I did not mean to imply there are no such threads. I was simply saying making a post that says "I am not buying Guild Wars 2 because of X" is a statement to which there is no response or reaction. Saying "If ArenaNet did X better next time around, I may buy the game" on the other hand gets your point across (that you are unhappy with whatever X may be) while at the same time, stating that if it was improved, you would be enticed to buy the game. In no way was I implying there are no threads with good suggestions or ideas.

Nebuchadnezzer · Sep 25, 2007, 12:03 AM // 00:03

What you have to realize Andrew is most of the pvp community has already done that. We've expressed what we think is best for the game in many many many threads.

Lately we've seen some improvement which gives a small sliver of hope for the small pvp community we have now to continue on to GW2. Really all we have left right now is to make it clear how many people in the pvp community are EXTREMELY unhappy with the way this game was handled with down the road, so those same mistakes ARE NOT repeated in GW2. This is our way of conveying that.

lacasner · Sep 25, 2007, 12:04 AM // 00:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Patrick

I'm sorry, I did not mean to imply there are no such threads. I was simply saying making a post that says "I am not buying Guild Wars 2 because of X" is a statement to which there is no response or reaction. Saying "If ArenaNet did X better next time around, I may buy the game" on the other hand gets your point across (that you are unhappy with whatever X may be) while at the same time, stating that if it was improved, you would be enticed to buy the game. In no way was I implying there are no threads with good suggestions or ideas.

Skill updates. I thought this was obvious but apparantly not. If a certain build is being run by 99% of the GW population (I.e. A/W in HvH along with SoR monks and all that shiz), in GvG everyone already knows (Basically blocking to now end vod-way). etc, then that is probably an indicator either a skill or mechanic needs to be changed.

If these things aren't apparant, I don't know what to say. I'm not saying the job is easy, many people feel that not enough effort is being put into actually trying to make PvP better.