Thw world after tommorow - bringing PvE into the balance equation.

I still find it amusing that there are SO many people cursing that NOBODY wants non-ursan groups.

I could go through and count, but I'm guessing at least 4 or 5 people in this thread alone have claimed this. Add in 3 or 4 heroes, and you've got yourself a party right there...without any use of ursan.

Maybe someone should set up a sticky thread where "URSAN H8TRS" can go sign up so they can all find each other more easily. Hell, I don't even have GW:EN, so it's all the same to me.

I've said it before, and I'll reiterate just in case: people who say things like "LOL NO WE ONLY WANT R6+ URSAN 4 FOW CLEAR" are IDIOTS. You do not want to play with these people, ursan blessing or not. In this situation, ursan is helping you spot these idiots in advance, so you don't party with them.

If they were forced to use normal skills, you might not know they were idiots until you'd paid your entrance fee, loaded up, and found they'd already leeroyed into the biggest mob of monsters they could find and dragged them back to the nearest NPC.

See: ursan can be your friend..of sorts.

My wife plays the game and it is not because of the fancy graphics and setting up skill bars and managing her inventory is not what she consideres fun. I do those thing for her and she is the typical casual player. Unfortunally most casual players don't have someone like me updating their skill bars for them once a week before weekend play.

QFT, I hate dragging this thread into more ursan debate but I think he/she just nailed it with, "ursan is helping you spot these idiots in advance."

my 2 whatevers worth.
First I think there is more to the 'revert on May 1' than we are getting here.
Could it be that they arent sure that the skills they are nerfing are indeed the problem causers and would like to 'test' this out before they make it final??

Seems logical to me to do this in a tournament type play so they can see how the changes are being utilized before they make them finalized (yeah they can say they will revert back, but I have this itching feeling that some of those changes are going to be back after May 1). They have done this before with the temporary skill changes....so why not on a higher level this time?

Secondly...for that poster.....not everyone in pve uses ursan...I dont even have the skill and I have rarely played with any one who does. Please leave that to a different thread it has not connection to this discussion here.

The outrageousness of Ursan's Blessing detrimental effect on PvE gameplay is so great that I am almost at a loss to understand why it hasn't been balanced.

What previous skill, with the (possible) exception of Resurrection Signets has been so prevalent in every single skillbar of every single profession (except healing monks) in every single PvE area in the GW universe?

This is the best I have come up with so far:

1) ANet thinks PvE is beneath contempt.
ANet Devs love PvP so much they decided to break PvE or at least reduce the PvE skill requirement to an infantile and contemptible level.

2) ANet needs the player base to go away!
ANet want to bore the PvE community into wanting GW2 and ensuring long term players get the h*ll off their GW1 servers. Maybe if they make all the players gods they'll finally get their titles and fissure armour and stop playing on free servers?

3) EotN is compulsory for Elite Areas.
ANet wanted everyone to require (read: BUY) EotN in order to remain viable players in GW.

All, some or none of the above?

no offense to all the PvE players here, and i do play PvE aswell, but there is no such thing as "PvE balance".

When you're fighting foes above levelcap, with unique skills, environmental effects, ... there's no such thing as "balance". Therefor i think it's laughable to even consider taking the PvE-side into account when balancing skills.

A ton of skills have been changed over the course of GW, and every time the PvE crowd went nuts for about 2 days untill they found something else to do the exact same thing.

PvE doesn't need balancing, nor should it be included in the skill balancing.

RotteN: balance means something slightly different in PvE.

The idea is to have all character classes equally able to contribute to a party: at the moment, mesmers are ok, sure...but you'd probably do better if you just ditched them and took..well, anything else.

And for people who care about doing "better" more than having fun (which is a lot of people, apparently), this results in being quite detrimental to PvE mesmers. Likewise for assassins and (apparently) ritualists.

So a balance would bring all the classes more into line: you'd still need to use highly different tactics with a mesmer-heavy team than you would with a warrior-heavy team, but you'd be JUST as successful with either.

In an ideal world. But hey, even PvP still isn't perfect, and they've been working on that for ages. It'd be nice to think they were at least TRYING for PvE, anyway.

And Rene: SURELY you overexaggerate. I, like cosyfiep, have never encountered ursan users in the vast majority of GW PvE areas. HM endgame missions and elite missions, yes. Everywhere else? No. There's a HELL of a lot of game you can wander around without ever seeing an ursan spammer.

Such as the Ring of Fire Islands. I finished Prophecies this week and, guess what? I was the only player with Ursan (a measly r4) in the PUGs (which weren't in any way tuned or balanced, though I did get lucky in that there were good pullers and a couple of experienced players in each of them) I completed them with. And, except for Hell's Precipice (mainly because we were moving fast enough from mob to mob that it didn't have time to run out ), I didn't even Ursan for more than a couple of spots in Ring of Fire (the bridge) and Abbadon's Mouth (the Wurm and one or two other spots)...

EDIT: Oh, and my Party Search ad didn't mention the Ursan at all ("LFG W/R axe/bow for Seals"), yet I still got PUGged within 10 minutes for the first two (didn't need to for Hell's Precipice since the Mouth PUG did it without changes).

*awaits the inevitable cries of "Well, everyone knows Prophecies is absurdly easy, so it doesn't count"*

im sorry but you're just wildly incorrect here... please refer to the other 4 pages of this thread or http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...0280273&page=5

for more info on what we're talking about..

I agree. For this one shining moment, there is this glimmer of hope that maybe PvE will finally see some real dev attention. If they're serious, we may finally see the game mode that most players actually play finally take a front seat. Or, at the very least, some actual consideration of the PvE impact of skill balances. And maybe, if we're really lucky, that damn timer will finally be removed from soul reaping.

I have the same preference. I want a good, well-taken-care-of PvE game, maybe with PvP on the side. Moreover, I want that from GW1. I hate to say it, but there's pretty much no chance in hell that I'm buying GW2 after the terrible things that have been done to GW1 PvE in the name of "balance" and out of neglect because the devs were too busy with PvP nerfs and/or GW2. Without a very strong sign that GW2 PvE will really be the devs' top priority, I'm just not interested in getting on the same rollercoaster again. Really taking major steps to fix GW1 PvE would be that sort of sign. (Hint: Start by removing the SR timer.)

I've often said something similar, but it's not quite accurate. There is a need for "balance" in PvE, but it's not the same animal as "balance" in PvP. PvP balance is about balancing skills so that the range of equally dominant strategies stays somewhat broad and interesting. PvE balance is about balancing classes, and, to a lesser degree, skill lines, so that every class/skill line is roughly equivalent in effectiveness and therefore roughly equivalent in desirability when forming parties.

That's where Ursan maybe comes into the discussion. We often hear "whether other people use Ursan or not has not effect on your ability to complete zones any way you like, so do as you like and let others do as they like." In general, this is true. The only way Ursan could affect your non-Ursan play is if Ursan began to steal players who would otherwise be available for non-Ursan PUGs. Now, despite the large number of "R10 Ursan LFG" that can be seen in towns, I' don't think that's what's happening. I have the impression that most Ursans are pretty bad players who would not be attempting zones like UW at all without Ursan -- and you wouldn't want them in your group even if they were. So Ursan isn't really diminishing the pool of skilled players available for balanced groups in "elite" zones, just adding another avenue for (numerous) unskilled players to get in.

That's my current impression anyway. I could be persuaded to change my mind by a deluge of "I used to play in balanced groups (that successfully finished the zone), but now I play Ursan" indicating that Ursan really is stealing players that balanced groups would want.

I think this is an excellent post (well, actually two posts I've cut/pasted together) that does an excellent job of capturing what's wrong with letting PvP "balance" take absolute precedence over PvE and how frustrating it is for PvE players.

This statement is somewhat alarming. It is important to note the last few words: will not impact PvE at all. This is a very strong statement. It does not mean that the nerfs will be mild so that the impact on PvE is minimal - they say there will be no impact at all.

Recent update had many modifications that involved skill effects on GvG NPCs. These changes do not influence PvE at all. Is that where the future focus will be? I hope that future skills changes will balance both skill function and, if necessary, their function in relation to the NPCs. However, how would it be possible to change a skill without affecting PvE unless you separate functions for PvE and PvP?

I think that statement means exactly the opposite. We're all in agreement that 99% of skill balance changes in the past came from PvP. If they're not making those 99% of changes, do you think they'd double Izzy's workload and have him balance PvE, or do you think they'd completely ignore it since every PvE skill change sparks flamewars?

To me, this means that all skills and rules in PvE are now set in stone, while PvP will only receive the most minor of changes.

Although PvE can be done completely with Ursan (and easily too), I know that not everyone plays Ursan all of the time. You suggest that all PvErs do is use 6 Ursans/2 HBs and that is definitely not the case. By blaming everyone that PvEs for using Ursan all the time, you are continuing the sterotype that all PvPers look upon PvE with disdain. Stop. You are outnumbered firstly, and secondly there are plenty of both smart and dumb people that regular play on one side (PvE or PvP). PvPers also do the "same" by creating the meta after an important skill balance and by next week, 30-50% of teams in HA/GvG are running the same build. So please, before you blame PvEers for using "the same skill most the time", realize that PvPers do "the same build most the time".
The problems of PvP started ever since people began creating metas. The problems of PvE started about with the inclusion of HM. Which came first?......
Note: I am not blaming you for this mindset, but this is the reason why we need to completely separate PvE and PvP. This interconnection by way of the skillset destroys relations between the two. I hope Anet has some good means of figuring out the best way to do this.

<thinks for a moment> Well.... that would be better than the status quo, but I still would not be happy. There's a few things that really need to be fixed in PvE <looks at the soul reaping timer> before it can be just left the way it is.

QFT. I am PVE only and tbh i wish they would just seperate PVE\PVP and end

this ENDLESS debates,rants and winnings. let us play are game and let the pvpers play theres. each would have there own skills balances

The more I think about this situation and read some of these posts, the more frustrated I get.

These recent changes from Anet have nothing to do with balance. If Anet is going to continue manage their games this way, I have no hope for the future of the series. Let me explain.

Anet has taken the policy of doing whatever it takes to not cause backlashes in the PvE community, regardless of the effects it has on their game.

The statement that all these changes are going to be reverted because of PvE purposes really blows my mind on so many levels. This policy is only made to prevent people complaining about the changes (which clearly hasn't worked). The scary thing is the changes hardly affect PvE whatsoever, and the biggest problem of all in PvE (Ursan) still exists.

Now once in a while I see a sprinkle of PvE players who post that they care about balance. They post that all classes should be equal. Well I hate to break it to you, but you are the big minority. The majority of PvE players HATE HATE when any nerf whatsoever takes place. This is evidenced in the hundreds of threads over the years (and I will pull many of them out if asked). You NEVER hear PvE players complaining about buffs, only nerfs. This is the exact reason Anet will not touch Ursan, because of the backlash it will cause.

And that is why these recent "we won't affect PvE" comments are beyond stupid. The heart of the matter is that this situation has NOTHING to do with balance, and everything to do with appeasing the majority.

GW PvE doesn't need balance it needs to be nuked, then completely rethought. As that isn't going to happen, let it rot.

"let it rot".

wise words for the $200 i spent to play this game...

Yeah, 'cause all the times "half activation speed, double damage" bosses get BUFFED it's just lovely, right?

I think "you rarely hear PvE players complaining about buffs" would be more accurate.

Still, your point is fair enough, given that for the most part in PvE either you can exploit the stupid AI and whomp em, or the supa-cast double damage whomps you before you can do anything. Never in PvE does a superbly crafted 'exploit' build kill you over and over and over to the extent that you pretty much never see "class X" using anything BUT that build, so the experience of 'overpowered skills' is very very one-sided.

Nerfs on the other hand usually have a direct effect on a player's own ability to do stuff, so will obviously lead to more complaints. You don't really notice enemy rangers doing more or less damage with a given skill when you're not fighting enemy rangers ALL the time, and are also taking damage from a great many other sources. You DO however notice that YOU'RE not doing as much damage with a skill you use on ALL monsters, ALL the time. It's sheer frequency as much as anything.


This, to be honest, confuses me. To date, I would say...what, 90%+ of any and all skill balances have been based entirely on PvP, on the principle that PvE is theoretically easy enough to permit players to adapt no matter what, whereas PvP is cutting-edge enough to make regular skill tweaking necessary to avoid gimmick builds overtaking. And this has always been going on, and yes, there has been much "QQing" from the PvE community. Who have all, nonetheless, stayed around.

So really, this is one of the first actual examples I've ever seen of them actually STATING that they're trying to avoid backlashes from the PvE community, rather than something that they've always done.

So if you're saying that "ANET has NOW STARTED taking the policy of doing whatever it takes to not cause backlashes in the PvE community..etc etc", then it makes a little more sense, but is still woefully overreacting. As noted above: this is the FIRST example of this sort of thing being stated outright. It may indeed be the last (if the QQing from the vocal PvP community is sufficient, for instance), but either way, it's far far too small a representative sample of behaviour to base a DOOOOOOM-based polemic on.

Yes this is the first example of them doing this, but I am not convinced people are overreacting. The statement in itself is a huge deal. They are basically doing 3 things at once:

1. Sacrificing PvP to prevent PvE backlash
2. Giving up the quest for PvP balance
3. Lying that they are doing it for PvE balance, because Ursan exists

I think my main point was that this update isn't about balance at all, but something else more sad that is disguised as a balance update.

Everything has to end. You continue to play. I'm giving my gold stuff to that guy for his event, then I'll prob uninstall to make roon for AoC.

PvP is broken. If it worked properly they wouldn't have to continually make adjustments to skills.

Although the people that I know who play PvE are a very small percentage of the GW population, none of them rely on Ursan, but this and all the other 'PvE only' skills were thrown in to appease the PvE crowd. Unfortunately there are still a lot of PvE'ers that don't rely on those skills to a great extent, hence the outcry when skills get 'nerfed'. I've always tried to take these update with a grain of salt, but it seems that ANET is pushing more and more PvE players into using Ursan. PvE is broken.

PvP broken + PvE broken = GW broken. Can they fix the problem in GW2? Time will tell.

That makes no sense. In order to keep the game fresh and discourage single builds like IWAY dominating, skill changes are necessary. Sometimes a nerf is to fix something broken, other times it's to encourage alternate playstyles. For instance, bsurge wasn't particulary overpowered, especially considering the foul feast necros everywhere. However, it was boring as hell to play the same eles every time. The game is now skewed more towards water eles.

If both PvE and PvP are receiving no updates, that means the game is completely neglected, not that things are working.

It seems a pretty ridiculous thing to do (the reversion, that is) when the update it's planned for is so minor. I could understand it if they did a major overhaul targeting a lot of problematic skills/mechanics, but these are really just small tweaks.

There are going to be balance changes anyway, and if this week's are any judge, there will be complaints no matter how much actual effect they have on PvE. I'd not like to see ANet try to avoid the inevitable complaints from PvE players by making small, ineffective changes.

Quoted:
The truth of the matter is that these skill balances, the lost of real rewards in pvp, and the ongoing problems in GvG/HA/TA/RA are real problems that need attention.

So, what ARE the ongoing problems in PvP arenas?

Is it this? We all know there have been major issues in PvP, and Anet has proclaimed the lost of real world rewards in PvP. There have been numerous problems concerning griefer builds in arenas, like escape rangers; class imbalances in PvP such as Ranger superiority in interrupting in comparison to Mesmers, who are dangling on to the metagame by the thin strands of diversion, shatter enchantment, and shame. The retardedness of Paragon leadership mechanics, Ritualists now getting booted out of the meta because of recent nerfs....

??

Or is there more?

One of the most incisive comments I read a few days ago ran something like this: SKILLS got nerfed so that BAD AI could remain...bad. Skills got nerfed because they did too much damage to NPCs. The implied solution: fix AI in PvP battles, and no nerf is needed. However Rits and Paras had skills nerfed so hard (because of faulty AI in NPCs) that they became, as Helmos suggested, marginal classes.

When I first heard about the nerfs, I was playing Ursan, in a Hard Mode Dungeon, on my ranger. As the night began, I was even thinking, "I'm a bit bored with Ursan. It's knocking out vanquishes, dungeons, and more...but it's...boring. I'd like to try some other builds."

Then the nerfs came out, and I heard first about them on ventrilo...without the knowledge of the "temporary" part. And I realized the truth:

Ursan's about the only thing left that works.




Certainly, I exaggerate. Please don't flame. But the Ancestor's Rage nerf makes it highly susceptible to interrupt by HM mobs with interrupters. Paragon nerfs across the board have sharply limited the para's ability to keep parties alive. Mesmer nerfs have weakened the capabilities of mesmers against the lvl 28 foes we encounter.

Nerf after nerf after nerf has served to make Hard Mode harder for SOME people (if you're leet, I assume you already stopped reading to start typing your post about my team builds blah blah blah), and there has remained one easy solution: Press 1, 1, 1, 2, 1 , 1, 2.... Ursan it is.

I do not intend to dismiss the concerns of PvP players; they kick my ass too frequently for anything but my respect. I play little enough PvP that I can't speak to AI issues and imbalanced skills: but the nerfs (to keep it "balanced") serve to imbalance the PvE world just a little more every day.

I'm glad the skill nerfs revert. But shouldn't this step make SOMEONE designing PvP, skill balances, and NPC AI, wake up and recognize the intertwined situation...and seek a solution that DOESN'T limit Hard Mode Builds? Seek a solution that CAN BE PERMANENT? Seek a solution that DOESN'T hurt the casual, or hardcore, or farmtastic, or nooberiffic, PvE player? Seek a solution that DOESN'T force PvP into more and more narrow roles (involving the same 5 classes or so?)?

Hope this was vaguely coherent.

Thanks for agreeing that the 'nerfs' are "to fix something broken".

If something is running properly it doesn't need to be 'fixed' every week or two. "Alternate playstyles" should come about by people experimenting with different skill combinations, not forced by reducing effectiveness of skills.

I'm seeing a parallel in the mindsets of those that use the FotM builds (IWAY comes to mind) for PvP and those that use Ursan in PvE. They take the easy path.

Maybe they're testing the waters? See whether saying "S'ok, we'll change it back" gets a better reception that not saying so (irrespective of whether they'll actually change it back or not).

As for small tweaks, for the most part yeah, but the changes to the two rit rez skills are fairly major, given that their original advantages (speed/no recharge) have been lost, while their disadvantages (LOL U DIE I DIE/div by two health loss) have been retained.

(though yeah, ok: if you need rezes in PvE THAT much it's "lern 2 play" etc etc)

please enlighten me how someone's oppinion can be "wildly incorrect".

I still stand by my point : PvE does not need balancing like PvP does. Therefor i sure don't see any reason why they'd suddenly start including it in the balance policy.

Surely, you can counter that in PvE, every class should be just as effective. Effective at what might i ask ? The point of classes is that they all have something to excell at.
Sure, your mesmer might not be the most wanted party member. That's not because of flaws in class design, but because PvE's too easy to even have any need for shutdown (which is a mesmer's playground).
Mesmers will never nuke the hell out of stuff, nor pose a serious melee risk,... They're good for shutdown, it's what they do. Anet's "bigger harder faster stronger" approach on making PvE harder was the wrong approach. improving AI and setting up effective mobs with a viarity of professions (much like a GvG team) would've greatly encouraged diverse player parties, instead of the tank - nukers - monks stuff we've seen since day one.

Point remains : PvE doesn't belong in the balance equation

This i agree with this, sorta. But, say you've been playing your ONE character for almost 3 years and something comes along (a nerf to a skil(s)/attribute). Sadly, you no longer enjoy playing said class. Is this the point you where you start looking into WoW?


I personally believe that half of anet's message "we don't want to infringe on pve" ( too lazy to go grab it) was a BAD idea to even put. they should have simply left it out and stated the changes were for the tourny and that skills would be replaced may 1st. or maybe not even announced any of this and just changed it back on may 1st.

Is it worth getting upset over? no. it's just a game. and it's called Guild Wars for a reason. so if you update bothers you, just remember the name of the game.

This is so true

Its very difficult to look at this from the correct perspective, when everyone has a unique take on what makes a great game or is fun for them to play.

How does GW look to somebody starting out today for the very first time?

How does it look to a player with only one chapter?

How does it look to someone thats been here for 3+ years?

How does it look to Anet?

From my perspective(3+ year player/PvE mostly) GW was an excelent testing groud for new ideas. They didn't all work but they did give us a game that out lasted many other games.

Perfection is something to be sought after, but it can never actually be achieved. The fact that Anet is still trying to adjust the game to keep things working is very impressive to me.

Is there a perfect integration of PvP and PvE? So far the answer is no.

Will they create the perfect ballance in GW2? We all hope so!

Along with Heroes, yes, you are correct.

The game was broken long before Heros or PvE skills.

One of the biggest flaws is that for a PvP game you need reasonable HP on players to keep it balanced, but in PvE you need a much higher standard to give you more room for dealing with massively unbalanced mobs and super powerfull bosses.

I am not saying PvE was too hard, or too easy, just that it plays much differently than PvP.

Another flaw I believe was the way they implimented Dual classes. They created situations where some skills were more powerfull/usefull on chars as a secondary class than as a primary class.

Instead of allowing one class to use another classes skills they should have created a new set of dual class skills. While this aproach would be much more complex and take much more thought on thier part it might have made a very large impact on how people play the game as well as creating a larger variety of choices for players.

Guess who sucks at reading.

Yep, I am starting to see that too.

Did my monthly guessing for z-keys and looked through some of the skill charts and one thing I noticed, these people playing agianst duplicates of themselves. I don't know if it is the easy path or the path guranteed to win.

Wow, great post. It took a bit to read it all but strong points overall and very well versed. Unfortunately, as I recall reading that speech by Jeff Strain on how to make a successful mmorpg, everyone here who posted their issue clearly and with utter precision falls under the elite player category;not mere casual gamers. In short, unless you're on the dev team posting here, your points, no matter how strong or well versed, will simply not be held in consideration. Please read the final paragraph under the MMO Cookbook section; provided here http://www.guildwars.com/events/trad...7/gcspeech.php
As you can see, knowing the game so well to the point of precision marks you as an elite player, in short, a minority. You can always however, trick the casual player with cookies to sign a petition to make your dissatisfied population appear larger than what it actually is, forcing the belief that the large playerbase is dissatisfied and not a minority.

That is a damn good article, but all the things I want to say about it would derail this thread even further. So, kudos to you for posting that.

I aggree they have been completely different games for a long time now but once upon a time they werent. That is where all hell started to break loose.

Anet put themselves onto the precarious ledge they are on. They could still make balance for PvP and keep PvE untouched, but yet refuse to take the steps needed to do it. IS this a step in the right direction I'm not currently sure. Should it have happened long ago, YES.

Less misinformation please.

That is the difference between WANTING to change a bar and being FORCED to change a bar.