Balance Defined

Balance:
And Equilibrium
I wanted the furor of the last few days to die down before posting this. Note there is one slight difference between balance(static, it is a single point or an object) and equilibrium(a system of influences; its used more to describe fluid systems or things constantly shifting). You might say balance is a point and equilibrium is a self correcting circle around it.

What I wanted to point out with these definitions is their context to GW, and what I think it about skill balances, etc.

Why balance?

Someone posted this question as a thread the other day, but I'll reanswer this quickly.
Anet is attempting to keep us interested in GW as long as we can, trying to keep the game fresh so we keep playing. As another person(sorry can't remember your name) noted, sometimes they jump the gun and correct imbalances due to fotm builds, rather than letting us figure out the solution ourselves. Other times they simply tweak the skills involved because a large number of people would be put off of the game because of the time involved in figuring out the solution.
One example would be DoA. Anet refused to tweak until we worked out a viable build. Only once people stopped going there did they tweak it; they waited until they had a good measure of the average skill, and adjusted so it presented a challenge to as many people as possible. I've never been there, so I can't say what the area is like now.

What needs balanced?

There are different variables in the game which have to be held in check, the forces which Anet is attempting to hold in equilibrium: the greatest of these are AI, skills, and players.
In pve, AI is least important of the 3 because it can always be adjusted to fit the needs of the latest skill changes or fotm. This can be seen through the recent addition of HM.
Skills are a tough one, because they have to be balanced against themselves and against Variable X. Skills have to look good on paper, have to be tested, and then introduced. Time consuming, but fairly straightforward if you've been working with the skills since their inception(which Anet has).
Variable X is the players themselves. Players are always finding the latest exploits in AI and the latest, greatest skill combo to devestate the foe. Players are the reason that I prefer the term Equilibrium, because we are always forcing a change.

How?
There are two ways, imo, to keep the game in equilibrium. One is to make the game static. No more new skills to add to the already confusing mix. This allows the programmers to slowly work out all the bugs between skills, and eventually skill updates will fade away as the interactions are perfected. The downside is the game will become stale and many players will leave. The balance point will have been reached.
The second way is put so many skills in the game that instead of having one or two fotm builds, you have at least 10. In other words, nobody can predict what type of opponent they will be facing.
Right now in the game there are only so many skills, and many are repeats or similarly acting skills. With enough attractive choices players may broaden the scope of the skills they carry to keep from being predictable. We're fighting inside a box; take the fight outside and you have more choices on how to fight.

When?
The game has been compared to Magic: TG at many points. The reason Magic works as a card game, with no skill changes(to my knowledge)is the variety of skills and usages available. You can't predict what you're opponent will bring, but you can provide yourself with a bit of leeway and strategy to win.
Because of the constant input of Variable X, the player, balance cannot be reached in this game and equilibrium is a tough goal to accomplish. Due to the advent of GW 2 I don't believe GW 1 will achieve this state.

Please remember that GW was originally an experiment for the company, to see if this style of online game could succeed. In my opinion, it has. More importantly, it has provided enough information for a sequel. You might say this is the alpha or beta version of GW2.
Now, ASSUMPTION: if you assume that the 300+ skills of GW will carry over to GW2, I believe that equilibrium can be reached, a self correcting system can be established. If they can work out tweaks in skills(and there is the possibility that some skill updates being done now are to take into account GW:EN and GW2 skills) then they have a solid base off which to work in any new skills. We already have 300+ skills, if they can add even a couple hundred unique skills(a high order, I know) then more builds will show up than the couple long standing fotm's. I say again, everything in this paragraph is an ASSUMPTION or speculation.

Please forgive any ignorance concerning M:TG, or such topics in which I am ignorant in this thread. I have little experience with that game. One thing I am sure of, however, is this: players define the game. We may not get everything we whine for(red polka-dotted pink ponies come to mind), but our actions and our ability to break other player builds with ingenuity and strategy of our own define the growth of skill updates and the equilibrium of this game and its sequel. If you depend upon Anet to destroy or buff a build, this game will die. If you think before you complain(i'm not saying everyone is a whiner, but you know who you are) you will find solutions in some odd skills that will give you a fighting chance. And just maybe you'll have fun at the same time.

Above all, try and make these games grow into something amazingly fun to play.

But that's just my two cents

Far too many skills in the game to keep everyone happy when it comes to skill changes in Guild Wars. Once a skill is changed, it is like a domino effect.
I give Anet alot of credit trying to do the best they can with balancing with so many skill combinations in the game.

This is why I am hoping in the future that we have less skills and less classes in the game with Guild Wars 2.

Balance or equilibrium... whatever you wish to call it..... will never actually be reached.

Imagine you have two scales... and five masses...
You have to place all five of the masses on the scales and aim for balance.
Now... you can get one mass on each end of each scale and things would be balanced.... but you have to put down the last mass, and it WILL invariably inbalance one of the scales. If you move it to rebalance that scale, you end up unbalancing the other one.


Guild Wars gets like this.
Every attempt to rebalance one part of the game invariably imbalances some other part of it. With so many skills and so many possible synergies, it is effectively impossible to stop people from exploiting more useful builds than what might otherwise be average.... Since everyone wants things at the best for themselves, they will also tend to use those same builds that appear to win for others.... creating a new imbalance.

Besides.... most such concerns fall toward PvP....
It always ends up being PvE that is horribly imbalanced. Certain classes just can't set foot in the "Elite" areas because it is imbalanced against them. Some have said areas imbalanced in their favour.... Do A-Net care? Fvck no. They're more concerned about the virtual playground tag aspect of the game (which IMHO is more boring than watching paint dry). Well fvck 'em... The PvPers can rot for all I care.

there is no such thing as true balance in GW, only perceptual balance, which varies per player. anet tries to fix the "glaring" or "popular" imbalances, but they will always be replaced by the next best thing once nerfed, which will likely be nerfed in the next balance update.

imo, anet isn't really trying to balance squat...because balance will never happen, and i assume they know so. they're just trying to fix some of the FotM stuff that irritates other players, with the intent to change the game periodically in order to mix things up a bit.

Balance is wholly and completely achievable.

But this cannot be done with Anet adding new chapters with new skills constantly. The static model is required.

Pawn is numerous but can only move 1 space and only capture diagonally.
Queen can move any direction as far as she wants, and capture anything, but theres only 1 of her.

GW has a LOT of skills. But it is NOT infinite. Im actually working on a model to correlate every skill in the game and how buffing one affects the network of skills....

Well said.

The problem i see with how Anet balances is they never just change what needs to be changed.

Lets use an example , lets say at a certain point hexes become overpowered and can not be dealt with.So hexes are overpowered and can not be dealt with OR hex removal sucks. ( not the players, the skills)

Now the logical solution would be to EITHER make hexes less powerful so they become balance OR you buff hex removals in order to take care of the hexes.

Now the problem i see Anet do a lot of the time is in a case like this they will Nerf hexes sometimes so bad, that they are no longer balanced but just useless AND they buff hex removal which at this point of hexes having been toned down makes hex removal overpowered.

Because this fix is new they will try to not adjust it immediately, so players will start using the overpowered hex removals ( of course they will ) and abuse them any way they can.(until Anet realizes that they have to change it anyways)

Nothing really to do about it , Anet just needs to learn what the true balance is and try to get as close to it as they can.( They are not there yet)

Balancing is the end result of having a limited number of parameters to work with, and this is due to the level 20 cap (which is BRILLIANT and I love!). Along with the level 20 cap is a maximum amount of health and energy a character can have. As a result, you have a limited amount of damage or e-denial a character can withstand and still maintain a reasonable game.

This limited amount of damage absorbable sets constraints on the amount of damage that can be delivered (via weapons and spells) as well as the amount of damage that can be absorbed by armor, shields and spells. Therefore everything has to work within these ranges or else it's over or under powered.

That being that, what happens is that things are tested to be within these constraints. However, and I know this from experience, developers and programmers tend to instinctive test within bounds that they know should exist in their minds; after all they wrote the stuff. When you add the chaotic element of players to the equation you find things developers missed simply because players will reach into parameters developers never intended or thought of.

For example, let's take monks. Monks are expected to do a good job of healing the party for at least a certain period of time, during which the part should make the opposing party go away. However, I recall a time where there was the completely unanticipated (by the devs) occurance of all monk teams forming invincible healing balls. As a result, skills needed to be adjusted to prevent that from happening.

This is also why skills tend to be "nerfed" as opposed to others being "buffed" in many cases... you have to be careful to not buff a skill above the set of parameters defined in the game.

So, there you have it. Balancing is the ultimate result of level 20, and level 20 brings the ultimate balance. Life is Zen. Have a cookie and smile.

"Balance" and "equilibrium" - nice concept

"Caprice" and "oscillation" anyone????

Seriously though, there is a way to manage this and it's basic stuff to do with managing customer expectations.

Give a customer a little then add something and they generally feel happier than if you give them a lot then take something away - even if the net result is the same at the end of both processes

I'm pretty sure in GW2 Anet is aiming to balance skills around the specific instanced area's within the game, PVE as one and PVP as the other, correct me if I'm wrong. In such a case we'll be much closer to the meaning of "balanced".

But the thing with guild wars is that it is in a state of constant change. Thats why I was referring to players as a Variable x. All the other weights on that scale can stay constant, but players change from day to day. The weight which represents players may weigh 1 gram now, maybe 2 grams later. It all depends on how they play.

Anet has set certain limits, such as level 20 and armor levels(before skills). But you can't quantify human ingenuity.

As MSecorsky said, players are always reaching outside the box. That's why things like the 55 cropped up. GW may have tested the interaction between skills quite a bit, but the players outnumber employees. That one in a million person figured out something insane, and made it work.

Balance is static, and in the current growing state of the game, not probabe. But equilibrium, the seesaw of motion, is possible at some point. Maybe not in this game, but perhaps in GW2. One side may lean a bit for a while, but players can tip the scales whichever way they like.

But that's just my two cents