[Dev Update] Skill Balancing PvE and PvP Seperately - 09 May 2008

Pheonix, no limit on minions is stupid. Do you understand how fast you'll clear up an area?
Granted there are plentiful corpses.

Splinter is one of the most powerful skills in pve and you still want to see it buffed...

It would be fun, sure. But silly overpowered aswel.

The same goes for no limits on minions..


This is one of the things I don't want to see happen with this update.

I'm hoping the following get the first go at:

[skill]Incoming![/skill] [skill]Penetrating Attack[/skill] [skill]Clumsiness[/skill]

i would like for them to drop the Energy on a lot of the curses skills to 10E or even 5E instead of the 15E there at right now. unless they change soul reaping then it wont really matter what Energy there at.

It's not sad. It's nVidia's logo: The Way It's Meant To Be Played.

PvP is not PvE. PvE cannot be balanced like PvP. Monsters do not change builds.

The only problem is that if you do not change PvE skills, people will get stuck to the same builds again and again in PvE.

A good option to fix that would be to increase weaknesses and resistances in monsters.

If an area has a lot of monsters that are so weak against Air and resistant to fore, you don't bring the typical build.


But PvP versions being added doesn't mean that they are not touching the original skill anymore. They may still keep PvE skill changes once in a while to keep things moving.

This is a good thing for the game. Finally, we get an acknowledgement that PVE and PVP are two different beasts that sometimes need to be handled differently.

A skill that produces an overpowered condition in PVP is not necessarily overpowered in PVE because the situational variables and goals are different.

Take the spammability of Splinter Weapon, a staple skill for vanquishers, and VOD farmers.

PVE typically revolves around getting from point A to point B and killing all monsters in between. PVE monsters stats overshadow your own to makeup for AI deficiencies, whereas PVP NPCs are more on par with players and are subject to the full impact of your skill levels.

We must also note that PVE has a much different rhythm than PVP; there is a greater number of less intelligent (ok, debatable) foes to face. Balance must be achieved not only with the skill power levels, but also between the feeling of grinding through the game, and the feeling of playing through the game. This is why spammability of a skill is important and not necessarily imbalanced in PVE whereas it can cause unwanted side-effects in PVP at crucial moments.

Sure nerfing recharge will potentially fix PVP, but can be aggravating in PVE when vanquishing 200+ foes jumps from 1h00 to 1h30 hours (plz to wait for the rechargez).

By allowing the separation of those staple skills without making them PVE-only, will, I think, lessen tensions between the two player archetypes.

Um lets see... I think they can increase pve searing flames to at least 250+ fire damage and maybe limit the energy cost down to 5 since you have to spam it. PvE WoH should now also heal allies in the area because some pve mobs attack more than one target. Pve "Incoming" should also be increased to 15 secs with a 10 sec recharge because mobs deal too much dmg...

End of sarcasm...

I think I'm on the borderline of quitting this game after 3 years... seriously never thought anet was gonna mess up this badly.

Initially I thought it was a great idea. Then when I read some of the requests for buffs(revert) to the skills, maybe its not such a good move.

More people will QQ, more people will request for changes, and then more QQs. Its a cycle.

Maybe the new system is a nice idea, but probably making the difference for future changes and not previous changes.

As far as I understand it, they aren't going to buff skills in PvE while keeping them the same in PvP. From what I read, the idea is that the few times they need to nerf a skill in PvP that sees lots of use in PvE too, they can do it without it effecting PvE. So if we get more then 20 skills that are effected I will be very surprised. Anyone expecting lots of changes in their PvE game will be disappointed for sure. But then, looking at the last months of updates, anyone expecting lots of changes in their PvP game won't notice much difference either I guess.

Now the only problem will be if Anet starts with just a few skills, but then keeps listening to the forums and add more and more skills to it. As long as it is only a couple of skills, I doubt anyone minds.

You are saying this with absolute certainty. What gives you this certainty?

If what you say is true, yes, then this would be the most horrific move possible. However, my sincere hope is that the most glaringly idiotic PvE skills will actually get toned-down to a reasonable level.

What does PvE crowd gain? There will never be a case: "Some Skill [e] recharge was changed to 15 seconds because Shiverpeak Dwarves were too easy to kill". And what exactly will this "balance" bring? Will Scale Lashers now be a worthy opponent? Won't balance just hinder the vanquisher etc....

What does PvP crowd gain? Nothing really, since for them nothing has changed.

So where exactly is the benefit?

In PvE (since this is to prevent nerfs), stagnation will occur. With changing skills, builds rotated. To obtain balance, some skills would need to be incredibly nerfed (PS, SB, WoH) - but these were nerfed in the first place
because of PvP - so they will be buffed at best. But there will be nothing new, nothing of value to add.

And in PvP, it will take 2.7 days for new meta to evolve, and then whining will follow for next month till things change again.

And any kind of nerf that would slow down PvE will hinder the acquisition of titles. And is that really such a good idea in Title Wars?

No, someone please explain to me why now? Who will benefit from this? The myriad of new players, emigrating WoW, disilusioned from AoC vaporware, deceived by Vanguard:SOH, bored of EvE...

Who exactly is this change for? Everyone who's been around is sick of PvE by now. And those that are still replaying the content over and over will do it with or without this.

I don't know, I simply don't see any kind of benefit from this. Except mark my words - Ursan will seem weak, without it being nerfed.

After afking the rings last time, I think all I've got left is around 30k. They're yours if I'm wrong, It's a pitiful bet, but hey, it's something.

And if Ursan does get nerfed, the joy of reading the forums will make it worth the money lost.

I'm not sure but I think in GW2 PvE and PvP will be seperated from day 1 right?

At least they're trying to salvage what's left of GW1. Hopefully they will revert Ether Renewal (even though I never saw it's glorious form)

u presented no good argument that this is a bad idea
i'd like to hear y u think seperation is not good

This update here is probably just a test to see how many people get pissed off about this.

As a player who plays both part of the game, I must say that this idea just doesn't sound right to me.
I played all classes in pve, and I never ever felt hurt by soul reaping nerfs, paragon nerfs or whatever. Buffs, nerfs, they were all fresh air in the game and tweaking builds is a lot of fun...

I guess I'll just completely stop playing PvE...

Oh good, because PvE needs to be a little easier when we already have PvE skills and consumables turning everything into a joke.

I want to know why people are complaining about the PvE/PvP bridge, do you really care that much about what other people play? In fact, for Hardcore PvP players, isn't it a better thing because it's more likely you'll have more challenging opponents?

Hmm if they pull this off without making PvE skills feel arbitrarily balanced, then that'll be quite an achievement, cos skills that aren't balanced based on competitive play for me are always gonna seem arbitrarily balanced.

Anet really cooked their own goose by suggesting that skills might be un-nerfed for PvE. Haven't they learned by now not to even give the faintest whiff of pandering? This thread is proof that anything Anet does, no matter how widely suggested, will end up causing endless wailing and gnashing on the forums.

Anyway, I have a maxim that every topic is fully exhausted by page 3, and this is already page 10+. No one important is reading this, so I can just end with monkey monkey monkey monkey monkey

So you're saying that PvE wasn't 99.9% of a joke before ursan and consumables?

Basically with this update you went from 99.9% of PvE, about 75% of PvP... to 99.9% of the game being a total joke... GJ!