How I learned to stop worrying, and love the Power Creep

In the next few paragraphs, I'm going to throw out some pretty radical ideas. Not all of them are completely thought out, so don't think I'm absolutely behind specific examples. If I make a suggestion, I usually have a few semi-obvious unmentioned changes in my head that go with it for it to be more viable and fun. I'm by no means a high-level PvP player, but most players, and many game designers, aren't.

I wish for GW2's PvP to be as fun and as engaging as any other online action game. Lowering the learning curve, lowering the escalation of commitment of playing, and injecting more fun are all parts of this. Here, I'm hoping to stimulate conversation.

With the PvP/PvE split, Anet is learning tons of things about what makes the game more fun. The game is more fun with more "hey that's cool" skills. Trying to tweak numbers to find a place for certain skills isn't the best approach. True numerical balance is impossible in this game for a handful of very good reasons. While it keeps the game fresh and fun, the "hey that's cool" approach is disliked by some folks because of the Power Creep that usually accompanies it. In response to that, I'd like to explain How I learned to stop worrying, and love the Power Creep.

I believe the game is more fun when player teams can be broken easier, that is, in PvP, however, PvE is definitely a different case. PvP monks shouldn't be able to always defend their team from kills, but PvE monks pretty much have to have that capability in the name of fun. On that note, Selfless Spirit should be buffed to a more practical level (say, spells cost 3 less energy, recharge lowered to 30), and PvP monks should continue becoming more fragile due to power creep. Hard pressure should always crack a backline, and midline should never be passive, maintainable, and act only as a temporary measure. Tied to this, the end victory condition should always be based on how tactfully aggressive you are, and as a side note, efforts should always be increased to ensure a pure spike meta never exists as truly viable.

Take a look at other popular competitive action games. Very few allow a team to survive a full frontal beating from the other team for 20 minutes straight. Also, most of them allow you to change your loadout and tactics from round to round or as the match goes. For example, scouting the map in Starcraft lets you anticipate the next move, so you have the option to prep counters. Being flexible is also key. In TF2, you can freely switch to a different class at the base to suit the situation. Part of what makes TF2 so popular and fun is that the healing class is the easiest to pick up, however, skill still remains.

Even consider micro power-creep. Success in Counterstrike gives cash. RTS's have tech trees which require resources, and CS always starts with pistols and usually ends with kevlar, HE grenades, and AWPs. Escalation in power to helps quickly resolve a match, and having your rate of escalation being tied to skillful play creates a positive feedback loop, otherwise known as fun. Winning gives resources gives upgrades. Anet touched on this a bit when fiddling with NPC kills being tied to VoD, but the experiment failed because too much emphasis was placed on one small part of the larger battle.

Guild Wars lacks the ability to change your loadout once to start your match, so it can be argued that some matches can be won/lost before the match even starts. This could mean two teams fight until a nearly arbitrary victory condition chooses a winner, or one team brings a popular meta team, and the other team wins or loses on how lucky their build picks were that day. This is commonly known as build wars, and isn't fun.

Imagine if Guild Wars allowed team members to swap out a skill or two on their bar and quickly respec if they held the flag stand for 2 minutes, or completed some other relevant tactical feat, like kill/guard a VIP NPC, hold a shrine, or ferry a relic. Now imagine if, instead, both teams were also given one free respec, every five minutes, at the cost of retreating to their base to receive it. Build wars would most likely cease to exist. Specific skills intended to be counters to specific tactical elements would no longer be wasted slots, but used and useful when needed.

To sum up, here's what I think should happen for GW2 PvP to be more approachable and fun, compared to GW1 PvP:

-monks are easier to play, but generally less effective at keeping a team alive under very heavy pressure
-midline protection and support also less effective, or rather, effective but temporary at best, which means less blindbots, wards, DA, etc
-the spike meta is discouraged whenever possible, and heavy pressure is encouraged to drain a monk of it's resources in order to make a kill
-efforts should be made to make shorter and easier to pick up matches, like a team-template mode for HA where players joining just pick their spot on a list, and to help facilitate this, you can simply pay some balth faction to temporarily use the skills and equipment pieces in your build for as long as you are in that party
-flexible mid-match loadouts, both as part of the match, and given as rewards for showing skill

I suppose I'm describing a game that isn't GW PvP. I guess the philosophical question there is, would you play GW if it wasn't GW? I know it's not GW as it is now, but I do hope these ideas have a place in GW2.

You know what, I agree. In any pvp monks just seem to drag everything on, especial in things like TA/RA(if you're lucky enough) where a 'pro' Mo/W can easily keep the entire team alive and is hard to kill at best due to the limited number of people. It's all kind of turned into a pile on of healers and having just enough offense to kill the opposing team unless they have a similar set up, it's so mind numbingly boring I only ever JQ/AB now where you actually get some variation.

I smell deviated preverts...

too bad the teams health depends not only on the monks, but the whole party

monks? how about adding a mechanism that causes :

"the higher the (potential, calculated on the skill loadout and total HPS) health output (ie. healing) the lower the hp of the healer (proportionally)"

and/or then just restricting the total HPS a team can have in PVP.

A popular balancing tactic for healer classes is lower HP and armor, which is pretty viable. In general, I think the breaking point should either be a consequence of poor tactical positioning, shutdown, and/or running out of energy. Positioning is obviously related to player skill, and survival of shutdown would be relegated to teamwork. Also, because I think breaking a monk should be a function of energy management, monks shouldn't really have viable energy management so that their role can be precisely controlled.

To prevent spikes, I'd start with something like:

If a foe takes direct damage from a skill, any damage or health loss taken from the same skill is lowered by 50% for the next 2 seconds.

Of course, you'd still have to lower (or cap) single-skill damage output so that rainbow spikes simply don't replace all other existing spikes.

not being able to change your build is part of the 8 skill setup where u hafta make good strategic choices as to wut u bring. i think making it so u cant switch armor mid match was a bad idea. who uses lieteunant's helm now? back in the day it was switched around.

if monks were too fragile and healing was too weak, ud end up wit a game where healing isnt used at all.

The most important thing is to reduce rigid gameplay. When holding a shrine gives ridiculous buff to all party members, then you got builds that are meant to hold the shrine. Counter-Strike is an example of near-perfect balance. Success gives possibilities, but these possibilities alone doesn't make you win. Being decked out with AWP, Kevlar, full nades still doesn't guarantee you wouldn't be taken down in one shot from Deagle. Further, your equipment might end up in enemy hands, flashes might blind your own team, holding rifle for better damage potential incurs movement speed penalty. You could be ganked just like in GW, but it doesn't take 30 minutes for your actions to have ultimate effect in round result.

This is very unlike to world of RPGs where nearly anything you do is permanent. When you get your better elite skill / sword, you will have permanently better edge at winning. Compare Warcraft III here. Levels can have important meaning and items could be really good, but if the game is over in 20-30 minutes it remains fair. In GW world, you'll never consider swapping your Survivor insignia for +15 armor vs. cold damage, because you have no way of knowing what your opposition will be using. That is the permanence and rigidness of RPG genre. With this being said, I'm really surpised to find that people turn to MMO games and expect to find good PvP.