Does ArenaNet actually "test" anything before they release a skill "balance"? - Guild Wars Guru archive powered by Guild Wars Legacy

lutz

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2006

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09 Apr 2009 at 06:45 - 1

Here's a list of bugged skills that were within in the last two major skill balances: December 2008, and March 2009.

Quote:

Mark of Insecurity - 90% enchantment/stance increased expiration period. More like 500%. Never fixed. Didn't change bars to pink. Fixed. (December 2008)
Recurring Insecurity - kept covering itself, even when removed. Fixed after one week. (December 2008)
It's just a flesh wound - applied speed buff even if conditions weren't removed. (December 2008)
Lingering Curse - didn't change bars to pink. Fixed. (December 2008)
Weaken Knees - didn't change bars to pink. Fixed. (December 2008)
Cultist's Fervor - worked with all spells, not just Necromancer spells. Fixed after 2 days. (December 2008)
Signet of Ghostly Might - triggered twice on some spirits (December 2008)
Weapon of Warding - ends after an ally lands a hit, not attacks as description states. Never fixed. (March 2008)

So, let's see how many skills were actually changed in the last two skill balances:
40 (December 2008) + 19 (March 2009) = 59

Let's see how many skills had functionality changes:
37 (December 2008) + 4 (March 2009) = 41

Let's see how many bugs were the result of functionality changes? Oh wait, all of them.

8 skills.

8/41 is around 20% (19.51...%). Around 20% of their functionality skill changes are bugged.

So, I have two questions to ask:

1. Does ArenaNet actually test anything when they release a skill balance? Or, do they just release something to us and have us test it and find the bugs for them?
2. When they say "we don't have enough time to test", when all they need to do is change numbers around (which has a bug rate of, for the past two months, 0%, AND they are literally spoon-fed the exact updates they need to do), would you believe them?

FoxBat

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Apr 2006

Amazon Basin [AB]

Mo/Me

09 Apr 2009 at 06:47 - 2

20% bugged would be an amazing record with literally zero testing.

Now Diabolical

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2008

Team Everfrost [eF]

A/

09 Apr 2009 at 06:48 - 3

I actually don't, if every Skill is tested, but "big updates" like the VoD-Update, Zaishen-Update, the implantation of the AT's had been tested on a Test-Server with Players from the Community.
Of course it is impossible, to test everything, especially now, while nearly everyone works on GW2.

SkekSister

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2008

Brighton UK

09 Apr 2009 at 08:08 - 4

From 8 years working in games dev I can tell you that even with large teams of dedicated QA working round the clock its almost impossible to eliminate all bugs from a large complex game system. You concentrate on the crashes and vulnerabilities, then the game blockers, then, way further down the list, comes the notion of 'balance'.

Not saying thats right or wrong, but its the way it is when you are under time and money pressure from the bean counters at the top who don't give a flying **** about a few guys QQing on a forum or whether you can farm 2 or 20 ectos per hour with a skill set.

Sun Fired Blank

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2007

09 Apr 2009 at 08:29 - 5

They also shadow update fairly often. "It's Just A Flesh Wound!" used to give you energy for the target and the user, even after the functionality update. They fixed it recently but no update notes for that.

Many of the skills you listed had fairly minor issues. For example, most of the hexes didn't cause degen until the update, and that simply got overlooked. The game has handled rounding in the same fashion for years. Mark of Insecurity making short-duration stances and Patient Spirit simply not work was a problem with the skill's new mechanics being retarded, not a bug itself.

In fact, the only bugs on that entire list that I think were actually problematic were Recurring Insecurity and Cultist's Fervor; those were pretty major oversights by QA. The rest of your complaints are nitpicky; relevant, sure, but not quite as major as you seem to be making them out to be.

fb2000

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2006

09 Apr 2009 at 08:32 - 6

Meh, you have to consider they cant afford to work much on the game anymore, its going to be quite a bit of lying to keep the community at bay - thats about it id say

Gforce

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Mar 2006

Isle Of Solitude

Super Kaon Action Team [SuKa]/[DoDo]

W/

09 Apr 2009 at 08:33 - 7

Honestly though, how can you not notice a degen hex doesnt make the bar pink if you are testing skills..

lutz

Jungle Guide

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09 Apr 2009 at 08:53 - 8

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Fired Blank

They also shadow update fairly often. "It's Just A Flesh Wound!" used to give you energy for the target and the user, even after the functionality update. They fixed it recently but no update notes for that.

Many of the skills you listed had fairly minor issues. For example, most of the hexes didn't cause degen until the update, and that simply got overlooked. The game has handled rounding in the same fashion for years. Mark of Insecurity making short-duration stances and Patient Spirit simply not work was a problem with the skill's new mechanics being retarded, not a bug itself.

In fact, the only bugs on that entire list that I think were actually problematic were Recurring Insecurity and Cultist's Fervor; those were pretty major oversights by QA. The rest of your complaints are nitpicky; relevant, sure, but not quite as major as you seem to be making them out to be.

Mark of Insecurity was incredibly bugged. It made enchantments/stances expire 90% faster, which made things expire much faster than Air of Disenchantment which made enchantments expire 300%? faster. So, there was a clear misunderstanding and a failure in testing. That skill should have probably been the most tested skill. I would even say that the skill needed to be tested with every enchantment and stance in the game before being released (which takes like, what, 1 hour?) to make sure it interacts correctly. Clearly, this didn't happen (lol Patient Spirit).

Testing is not hard. You read what the skill says, and you see if that's what the skill actually does. Then, you look at the side cases and try to exploit it. If ArenaNet was a smart company, they would design a special map just for skill testing. Or, they would let AIs play with the skill and see what they do with it. AIs look through all potential targets of a skill, and if someone sees an AI using Signet of Ghostly Might on another ally (as when it was incredibly bugged), it would probably raise a "holy shit, we need to fix this."

Not turning bars pink is a clear indication that they never really used the skill on anyone, or absolute retards are "testing" the skills (either is quite plausible). The pink bar is pretty damn obvious. That kind of oversight just makes me wonder if they even put it on their bar and click it. Ever. I wouldn't mind if they forgot things like "Lingering Curse doesn't work correctly with Aura of Restoration" - that kind of thing, even though it should never happen in a real game, takes more than just 1 hour of testing. All these bugs are the FIRST thing I would notice about a skill. "It's just a flesh wound"'s applying speed boost even without conditions is probably the first thing I would have tested. No pink bar on a degen hex? That's as clear as glass. Come on, this shit is obvious.

gremlin

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Oct 2006

GWAR

Me/Mo

09 Apr 2009 at 09:30 - 9

If you really believe they make changes without testing then there is no point being here and little point playing the game.

I reckon the situation goes something like this.

The number of skills in the game is huge a couple of people working on making changes to those skills can only check so far and can only put so much time into testing.
Mistakes will be made and assumptions will be wrong.

To put it another way there are maybe 4 people working to fix problems and many thousands working to create them.
I assume Anet are well aware of this problem and will make GW 2 more robust in this area.

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

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09 Apr 2009 at 09:41 - 10

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

Testing is not hard. You read what the skill says, and you see if that's what the skill actually does.

You know very little about "testing". They have hundreds of possible combinations, it's not as simple as reading a piece of text and testing whether the skills actually does that, if it affects enchantments you have to try it on dozens of enchantments with many different professions and considering all other enchantment-affecting situations, you have to combine the skill with other skills in various order (test that it does what it's supposed to do and doesn't do what it's not supposed to do), repeat previous tests done for previous updates to see whether the new update hasn't broken something done before, you have to plan for the unexpected in terms of game mechanics by considering the skill changes from a purely software point of view (I guess devs suggest what to test and it can be VERY different from reading the skill text). It does NOT take the "1 hour" you quote, tester is a full-time job, 8h a day (more when you're closer to release), 5 days a week. As Regina said recently (about Anet hiring testers for GW2), it's an extremely repetitive task that requires meticulous and precise execution, reports must be written where you check hundreds of boxes and you're expected to improve the testing techniques constantly.

lutz

Jungle Guide

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09 Apr 2009 at 09:43 - 11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

You know very little about "testing". They have hundreds of possible combinations, it's not as simple as reading a piece of text and testing whether the skills actually does that, if it affects enchantments you have to try it on dozens of enchantments with many different professions and considering all other enchantment-affecting situations, you have to combine the skill with other skills in various order (test that it does what it's supposed to do and doesn't do what it's not supposed to do), repeat previous tests done for previous updates to see whether the new update hasn't broken something done before, you have to plan for the unexpected in terms of game mechanics by considering the skill changes from a purely software point of view (I guess devs suggest what to test and it can be VERY different from reading the skill text). It does NOT take the "1 hour" you quote, tester is a full-time job, 8h a day (more when you're closer to release), 5 days a week. As Regina said recently (about Anet hiring testers for GW2), it's an extremely repetitive task that requires meticulous and precise execution, reports must be written where you check hundreds of boxes and you're expected to improve the testing techniques constantly.

I don't think you read my post. I don't care about those small interactions that you might come across very few times. Even though I expect most good games to fix those, I don't expect ArenaNet to.
I expect them to fix the clear, obvious bugs. Which, they don't.
And, I do know QA pretty well. I did QA for a summer in high school for Blizzard. See, we spent hours on one skill, going over obvious stuff first. ArenaNet doesn't even do the obvious stuff.

Here, ANet, I'll spoon feed you exactly what you need to do for the update (only number changes, so it's easy):

Aegis: 30s -> 45s recharge
Warrior's Endurance: 14 second duration
Strength of Honor: 25s recharge, reduce +damage by 4
Lingering Curse: 10s duration, 15s recharge
Peace and Harmony: 0...3 hexes/conditions removed (3 at 12 divine), remove 90% duration reduction, 3/4 cast, 5s recharge
Mind Blast: 5s recharge, -1 energy on the energy gain
Aura of Restoration: Require 10 Energy Storage for 1 energy gain (Mind Blast eles lose 4s Distortion)
Vampiric Spirit, Vampiric Gaze, Angorodon's Gaze, Unholy Feast -> reduce life stealing by 15-20 for each, increase recharge by 4s.
Mirror of Ice: Smiter's Boon this. or at least: 20s duration, 40s recharge, reduce damage by 5.
Glyph of Renewal: 15 or 20s recharge
Power Attack: reduce damage by 3, recharge to 4s

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

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09 Apr 2009 at 09:50 - 12

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

I don't think you read my post.

I did. But you didn't really understood what I was saying:

the QA guys have thousands of things to test, going through a very lengthy and painful process; they may have not noticed some bugs due to the time taken to check all their stuff; they may also know the bugs you mention but the devs may not be able to fix them with a quick fix (more likely).

Testing is a cruel task, you can't get directly rewarded, since doing your job nicely means nothing happens ingame. No one come here to talk about the several hundreds of skills with each various aspects (time, energy, features) working perfectly well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

(only number changes, so it's easy):

You must be a superdev! It's well-know that the skill numbers are in a big file, so it's just a 30mins change! Well done.

fb2000

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2006

09 Apr 2009 at 10:05 - 13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

You must be a superdev! It's well-know that the skill numbers are in a big file, so it's just a 30mins change! Well done.

Sarcasm? If so, assuming changing these values (provided the guy gets them spoon-fed like this) will take longer than 30 mins is really ridiculous

Eragon Zarroc

Atra estern?? ono thelduin

Join Date: Jan 2008

Madness Incarnate

[Duo]

W/P

09 Apr 2009 at 13:42 - 14

sure they test it. how extensively? lol, who knows. prolly 2 guys working on it by themselves.

Skyy High

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: May 2006

R/

09 Apr 2009 at 14:40 - 15

Quote:

Originally Posted by fb2000

Sarcasm? If so, assuming changing these values (provided the guy gets them spoon-fed like this) will take longer than 30 mins is really ridiculous

No, the ridiculous thing is that you think they would just take your word, change the numbers on all those skills, and not do any testing. I see why we need a storage update; some of the players around here have such enormous egos, they just can't fit anywhere right now.

Ask yourself this: when you were doing your internship at Blizzard, did you have more than 2 people working on QA? I'm going to assume more than one full-time employee was helping you. If so...what the hell do you know about ANet's process? I'm sorry, but if you have a QA team of 2 people, you can't reliably spend hours on one skill, as you say.

Shursh

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jul 2008

KaVa

N/

09 Apr 2009 at 15:13 - 16

bro - first of all, blizzard probably had 100 other interns just like you who were all working around the clock on skill updates.

second, stop bitching about skill bugs - the vast majority of the ones you pointed out are trivial, at best.

send in a report, then step away from the computer if it bothers you that much.

FoxBat

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Apr 2006

Amazon Basin [AB]

Mo/Me

09 Apr 2009 at 15:34 - 17

Alot of that is nitpicking skill descriptions, which are hard to fix because they need to be localized to all languages.

E.G. MoI- the mechanic reduces enchant/stance duration, not increasing expiration. It reduces by 90%, leaving 10% of the original duration.... or in other works, 1000% faster expiration. It was always intended to work this way, that's how it functioned when it said 50% faster expiration, and the current version still does: the description just isn't terribly clear. Peace and Harmony is exactly the same.

This is no different from Frenzy saying "you attack 33% faster", when it's actually a 33% frame reduction, which really translates to 50% faster. This is just one of many points on which the skill descriptions are inconsistent - that doesn't mean the skill mechanics aren't working as intended.

Dronte

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Sep 2006

09 Apr 2009 at 16:17 - 18

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

I don't think you read my post. I don't care about those small interactions that you might come across very few times. Even though I expect most good games to fix those, I don't expect ArenaNet to.
I expect them to fix the clear, obvious bugs. Which, they don't.
And, I do know QA pretty well. I did QA for a summer in high school for Blizzard. See, we spent hours on one skill, going over obvious stuff first. ArenaNet doesn't even do the obvious stuff.

Here, ANet, I'll spoon feed you exactly what you need to do for the update (only number changes, so it's easy):

Aegis: 30s -> 45s recharge
Warrior's Endurance: 14 second duration
Strength of Honor: 25s recharge, reduce +damage by 4
Lingering Curse: 10s duration, 15s recharge
Peace and Harmony: 0...3 hexes/conditions removed (3 at 12 divine), remove 90% duration reduction, 3/4 cast, 5s recharge
Mind Blast: 5s recharge, -1 energy on the energy gain
Aura of Restoration: Require 10 Energy Storage for 1 energy gain (Mind Blast eles lose 4s Distortion)
Vampiric Spirit, Vampiric Gaze, Angorodon's Gaze, Unholy Feast -> reduce life stealing by 15-20 for each, increase recharge by 4s.
Mirror of Ice: Smiter's Boon this. or at least: 20s duration, 40s recharge, reduce damage by 5.
Glyph of Renewal: 15 or 20s recharge
Power Attack: reduce damage by 3, recharge to 4s

Of course, very nice skill balance, stomp every second skill to the ground. Now read again, skill BALANCE is the name for a reason.
Half of these skills deserve a nerf, but not like that.

Fay Vert

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2006

R/

09 Apr 2009 at 16:21 - 19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

You know very little about "testing". They have hundreds of possible combinations...

Actually it sound more like you don't know anything about testing. Each of those combinations and variations is just a test case, sure, they have a lot of them, but they are just items in a test plan, most of which should be fully automated or even ran as unit tests.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

You must be a superdev! It's well-know that the skill numbers are in a big file, so it's just a 30mins change! Well done.

What the hell has the size of a file got to do with it? Most modern programs are huge, but the code, data and resources are organised so that they are easy to find and change, otherwise nobody would be able to change anything!

Of course, if the code is badly organised, and there are no formal unit tests or automation, then yes, very hard to make changes and test thoroughly. So the high fault rate would indicate either poor/lack of software testing, or poor dev practices. It could just be down to lack of resources. Either way 20% fault rate on trivial changes is quite startling.

moriz

??ber t??k-n??sh'??n

Join Date: Jan 2006

Canada

R/

09 Apr 2009 at 17:11 - 20

it's a common pattern with anet in general: excellent ideas, seriously lacking execution. the entirety of GW is testament to that.

HawkofStorms

Hall Hero

Join Date: Aug 2005

E/

09 Apr 2009 at 17:44 - 21

Oh boy. The health bar not changing to purple when you have a degen hex on you. Because that's a crucial bug.

The hyperbole of an OP deserves no response.

Sun Fired Blank

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2007

09 Apr 2009 at 19:01 - 22

As mentioned before, the problem is that Air of Disenchantment doesn't have the same functionality as Mark of Insecurity, despite the wording. In one case, Mark of Insecurity, you have 100 - x: linear duration reduction. In the second case, Air of Disenchantment, you have (something like) 100 / x. The intention behind both skills is pretty clear judging by equations and numbers; it's not a bug, it's the design for Mark of Insecurity and wording for both skills that suck.

The logical process behind noticing a degen hex doesn't make the bar purple is probably just a failure to tick the "makes bar purple" box. In fact, those skills probably didn't get QA'ed that intensely because they assumed they wouldn't need to be QA'd intensely. In the case of most of those degen hexes, all that needed to be added was a copy / paste the degen clause and (in some cases) a numbers tweak on pre-existing code. In the case of Mark of Insecurity, this probably lead to the "your Patient Spirit and Tactics Stances among other things are completely irrelevant" problem, and in the case of Weaken Knees, they probably also copy / pasted the code segment from Shameful Fear.

It was clearly overlooked that those hexes didn't cause degen before, and from a player-side perspective it probably doesn't make much sense that the degen clause isn't automatically tied to the "makes bars purple" clause. From a developer-side perspective, it's a pretty sensible separation that just requires you to flip a boolean switch.

At any rate, as I said I think you're just being nitpicky. That's fine to some extent, but I'm generally more worried about things being terrible then things being overlooked; the only time I care about the latter is when it overlaps with the former.

You just got tomahawked

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2006

H-Town

The Battle Bakery [vPie]

N/

09 Apr 2009 at 19:04 - 23

Protoss, stop getting pissed because you can't get a silver cape even when you're surrounded by amazing players. This is the reason you don't have access to Izzy's forums. This is why no one in the PvP community respects you. You have to post on guru (and in Riverside) to get an audience to listen. Go find the integral of something or whatever.

lutz

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2006

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09 Apr 2009 at 21:02 - 24

Quote:

Originally Posted by You just got tomahawked

Protoss, stop getting pissed because you can't get a silver cape even when you're surrounded by amazing players. This is the reason you don't have access to Izzy's forums. This is why no one in the PvP community respects you. You have to post on guru (and in Riverside) to get an audience to listen. Go find the integral of something or whatever.

If I posted this on QQ, everyone would agree with me and that wouldn't be anything new, now would it?

Most of QQ that's worth talking to already knows most of what I'm saying.

I don't have access to Izzy's forums because I haven't won a gold cape, or haven't placed in the top 2-4 consistently. I've only been playing competitive PvP for probably less than a year, with people that I like playing with, with builds I like playing. What's wrong?

u mad?

Konker2020

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2009

Exiled Forcez [Ex]

09 Apr 2009 at 22:33 - 25

Read this thread. http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10366145

And you do realize that by changing any one thing, it is possible to change something else anywhere else within the game, and GW is a big game... I'm guessing that you have no experience with coding.

Anyway... they do test them and clean out a fairly large portion of bugs before hand, expecting them to clear every single bug is naive.

When they then release the update, we (the gamers) which number vastly more than the staffing at Anet, find and report the rest of the bugs.

It's actually a pretty simple process that is commonly used when it come to anything gaming, or related to coding directly. That is also the reason for alpha and beta testers for games.

lutz

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2006

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09 Apr 2009 at 23:04 - 26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konker2020

Read this thread. http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10366145

And you do realize that by changing any one thing, it is possible to change something else anywhere else within the game, and GW is a big game... I'm guessing that you have no experience with coding.

Anyway... they do test them and clean out a fairly large portion of bugs before hand, expecting them to clear every single bug is naive.

When they then release the update, we (the gamers) which number vastly more than the staffing at Anet, find and report the rest of the bugs.

It's actually a pretty simple process that is commonly used when it come to anything gaming, or related to coding directly. That is also the reason for alpha and beta testers for games.

I don't care about minute bugs that are pretty difficult to find.
What I do care about are bugs that literally should be found within 20 minutes of testing.

Quote:

And you do realize that by changing any one thing, it is possible to change something else anywhere else within the game, and GW is a big game... I'm guessing that you have no experience with coding.

The skill database is most likely hardcoded into the game, rather than being a separate table. If you actually bothered to read, I noted that hard-to-find skill mechanic changes bugs are not a big deal, because one person could not possibly find all of them in a reasonable time (it would take that person 4 hours to do all of that. I mean, in a real company, that would be small, but with ArenaNet, my standards have dropped drastically).

What I am concerned about are incredibly obvious things that are found in skill mechanic changes. e.g.: Degeneration hexes not turning someone's bar purple. That's incredibly obvious. "It's just a flesh wound" giving someone a speed boost without actually removing conditions. That's the first test anyone would do with that skill. Cultist's Fervor working with every spell instead of just Necromancer spells? Should have been found within the first 10 minutes of testing. Recurring Insecurity not ending even on hex removal - really? These kind of errors are the kind of errors I wonder if ArenaNet even tries to find.

And as for programming, I don't even care about the mechanic changes which require coding to change in skill interactions (which shouldn't really happen if they incorporated modular design better) - what I'm concerned about are number changes. Number changes are incredibly fast. They are modifications to particular tables of values (whether the values are set in the code or retrieved from internal database is irrelevent).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

No, the ridiculous thing is that you think they would just take your word, change the numbers on all those skills, and not do any testing.

The ridiculous thing is that most of the time, they take bad advice from their own co-workers, not do any testing, and release the skill update.
and then ignore the people who actually know what they're doing.

Edwards

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Dec 2007

Canada

After This Game Its Baby Making [Time]

10 Apr 2009 at 04:46 - 27

What's insulting to me is not so much that they let some of these things slip, but that they then tell us that we can't have a skill update this month because it wouldn't have "the level of polish, consideration, and testing that it should have."

That excuse doesn't really fly when normal updates don't have an exceptional level of "polish, consideration, and testing" in the first place. If I believed that by postponing this month's skill update, we would get a better quality one next month, or if there was a high standard of quality for them to be concerned with upholding to begin with, it wouldn't be such a slap in the face. Anet is famous for skill updates which ignore the major balance problems in the game, introduce new broken stuff, and generally don't improve things all that much. So why not at least throw us a bone and nerf at least one of the obviously broken skills/templates in the game?

Skyy High

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: May 2006

R/

10 Apr 2009 at 04:51 - 28

No, no, it's more ridiculous that you think you know better. See, it's their game. If they screw it up beyond all reason, well, they have the right to do that. It'd be pretty stupid, but it's still their job. You, on the other hand, are some random nobody on teh intarwebs spouting off (in many cases horrendous) skill changes, demanding that they be taken at face value, and that they would solve all balance problems in PvP. This is why it's ridiculous: because not only are you doing a poor job of suggesting skill balances, but you're a nobody with the ego of someone who...well, matters.

Try putting yourself in the shoes of the people who get stones thrown at them whenever any update introduces some imbalance into the game - and really, with so many skills, professions, and game modes, there is always going to be some imbalance somewhere that someone can complain about - instead of being the anonymous guy throwing stones from amongst the crowd.

pumpkin pie

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jul 2006

behind you

bumble bee

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10 Apr 2009 at 06:39 - 29

I wander if anyone is familiar with "most contest rules" something along the line: No employee (past or present) or family member of an employee (past or present) of XX Company or any of their affiliates, suppliers, thrid party providers, its advertising agency can enter and win the XX contest.

i am just wandering and thinking aloud, actually this has been sort of in the back of my mind for some time, and now i saw someone mention Izzy's Forum. and then I think about all the players who goes to GW Wiki to the Arena Net Staffs pages to report/complain/or whatever and not getting any attention at all from these staffs. And all this while, there is a secret forums somewhere where a bunch of "good friends" and "cronies" are secretly "plotting" something. so how do we know any of the contest and tournaments are even fair? how do we konw if the skills nerf are not "greatly influenced" by these friends and cronies ? weather (wanders if this is the correct weather) they be tested or not.

lutz

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2006

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10 Apr 2009 at 06:46 - 30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

No, no, it's more ridiculous that you think you know better. See, it's their game. If they screw it up beyond all reason, well, they have the right to do that. It'd be pretty stupid, but it's still their job. You, on the other hand, are some random nobody on teh intarwebs spouting off (in many cases horrendous) skill changes, demanding that they be taken at face value, and that they would solve all balance problems in PvP. This is why it's ridiculous: because not only are you doing a poor job of suggesting skill balances, but you're a nobody with the ego of someone who...well, matters.

Try putting yourself in the shoes of the people who get stones thrown at them whenever any update introduces some imbalance into the game - and really, with so many skills, professions, and game modes, there is always going to be some imbalance somewhere that someone can complain about - instead of being the anonymous guy throwing stones from amongst the crowd.

You're acting like they gave out Guild Wars for free.

It's quite the contrary.

We paid for Guild Wars. Therefore, your entire argument is invalid.

lol @ saying my skill balances are bad.

Quote:

there is always going to be some imbalance somewhere that someone can complain about - instead of being the anonymous guy throwing stones from amongst the crowd.

Hi, these skill updates are not hard.
Everybody (intelligent) in Guild Wars knows exactly what needs to be done. Everyone is telling Izzy or whoever the new shitty skill balancer is exactly what nerfs need to happen.

They just don't do it. It's hilarious.

Tell me exactly what's wrong with the skill updates. Maybe some of them are a bit too harsh. And maybe defense needs to be nerfed a little bit more. But, you get the general idea.

If you knew what you were talking about, you probably wouldn't sound so retarded.

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

E/

10 Apr 2009 at 07:12 - 31

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

You're acting like they gave out Guild Wars for free.

You're acting like we're paying monthly fees.

This whole thread is a joke.

Krill

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2005

America

10 Apr 2009 at 07:40 - 32

I could (and have) done quite a lot of bitching about skills that were buffed in the three major skill updates last year but there's no need to do all that again. You have a valid point questioning how the skill balancing is actually vetted because a lot of the problem skills should have been seen a mile away. The most obvious one in my view was the short lived WotA that was like 30% IAS with any weapon, there's simply no way that skill should have gone out the door if there really is any testing. The worst part about the skill buffs though is how long it took, and still is taking to balance the crap skills so some of the good skill buffs can actually be used.

However, I liked last month's update for the most part and understand if they really don't have time this month, so let's not light the torches just yet. What Regina said could be interpreted as "we're not letting Izzy push total garbage out the door anymore." Perhaps they understand what a disaster the skill buffing was and are going to be more careful in the future. Who knows though, it would be nice to get an official statement on the state of the game and future PvP skill balancing.

Medion

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2005

Netherlands

10 Apr 2009 at 07:56 - 33

Quote:

What's insulting to me is not so much that they let some of these things slip, but that they then tell us that we can't have a skill update this month because it wouldn't have "the level of polish, consideration, and testing that it should have.

That excuse doesn't really fly when normal updates don't have an exceptional level of "polish, consideration, and testing" in the first place. If I believed that by postponing this month's skill update, we would get a better quality one next month, or if there was a high standard of quality for them to be concerned with upholding to begin with, it wouldn't be such a slap in the face. Anet is famous for skill updates which ignore the major balance problems in the game, introduce new broken stuff, and generally don't improve things all that much. So why not at least throw us a bone and nerf at least one of the obviously broken skills/templates in the game?

This.
Well, I'm not that easily insulted really but I do agree with his point.

Quote:

You know very little about "testing". They have hundreds of possible combinations, it's not as simple as reading a piece of text and testing whether the skills actually does that

I'm absolutely not doubting your knowledge on testing. I'm simply going to assume, that yes, it is required to test every single skill combination possible (ok, I lied, I do doubt that but lets say I don't).
But in the end, the skill SHOULD do what it says it does. It not breaking other skills does not mean it's "fine".
This is the skill description for It's just a flesh wound.

Quote:

Elite Shout. Target other ally loses all conditions. If a condition was removed in this way, that ally moves 25% faster for 1...8...10 seconds.

I'm going to assume lutz is right in saying that the skill was bugged for some time.

How is it possible that the whole if-clause was missed? I'd assume that the first thing you do in a test, is to see if a feature (skill in this case) does what it's supposed to do. Since if it doesn't, you're gonna need to change it anyhow so the other tests are useless (since you'd need to redo them after changing the skill). And if that's not the first thing done in a test, why not?
It's like a car manufacturer putting in a new type of brakes into the car and first testing if it has any effect on the steering or the driver seat but not properly testing if the brakes work.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure QA has taken out many bugs, probably the majority. Ones which someone inexperienced in testing would never even consider. And that's great, absolutely great! But how can it be that a skill doesn't do what it says, if what it is supposed to do isn't complicated* at all.

Those saying the skill balances of lutz are bad have missed the point I think. It isn't about those specific changes. I'm sure lutz his skill balances aren't perfect. The point is that (from his point of view), changing numbers (integers) is not something that will break the game.

*By complicated I mean this:
1. remove all conditions from ally
2. if condition removed -> apply speed boost
I do not mean the actual coding here since I'm obviously unable to make a judgement on that

DarkNecrid

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jul 2006

10 Apr 2009 at 08:33 - 34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

You're acting like we're paying monthly fees.

This whole thread is a joke.

Monthly fees are typically used to pay for servers and customer support, not actually the employees who do stuff for the game, so I'm going to have to disagree with you on this point.

Fril Estelin

So Serious...

Join Date: Jan 2007

London

Nerfs Are [WHAK]

E/

10 Apr 2009 at 09:18 - 35

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkNecrid

Monthly fees are typically used to pay for servers and customer support, not actually the employees who do stuff for the game, so I'm going to have to disagree with you on this point.

1) GW servers are not free
2) Even if you consider XTH accounts as a form of "subscription", it's nowhere near monthly income for Anet, thus you'll be short of a lot of money to justify in GW business model the type of support/QA that the OP is suggesting (making the parallel with his own experience at Blizzard which has litteraly tons of money),
3) End of thread derailing on my part.

pumpkin pie

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jul 2006

behind you

bumble bee

E/

10 Apr 2009 at 09:43 - 36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

You're acting like we're paying monthly fees.

This whole thread is a joke.

Like I said before, if all the staffs at Arena Net working on GW is getting paid, then do the job.

And I dare them to stop updating and nerfing and balancing. go ahead stop maintaining the game.

byteme!

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jan 2006

On Earth

W/P

10 Apr 2009 at 18:08 - 37

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

lol @ saying my skill balances are bad.

Are you saying you're good? How conceited. Get over yourself. Reality bytes.

PS. Does this make you laugh too? LOL?

Zabe

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Oct 2006

In world with nothing to do except poker

W/Rt

10 Apr 2009 at 19:18 - 38

This is the problem when posting to Guru. In every other place than Gladiators (and mostly even there) you will be jumped on by people that have no idea what they are talking about.

And I can predict their next argument when they jump on me: OMG ELITIST PVP'R!

And about the argument of ANet doing what ever they want with their game. They had a path to take when developing the game, either hope that the game would sell enough to keep the servers alive (and make decisions that reduce server costs like district stuff etc) or go for monthly subscription, they chose the first option, but that doesn't make my right to complain from shitty development of product I bought.

Apok Omen

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2006

Commence Aggro [BaMf]

Mo/E

10 Apr 2009 at 19:36 - 39

You have to understand, there is a problem with them testing skills they want to fix. From their perspective, whatever decision they make will be the correct one and them testing it will have almost no effect.

Really, it makes a lot more sense if the players test it out for them. And not in a closed experiment. It has to be open to the public so that the really f'ed up stuff can be ran. That way, Anet will know what went wrong and fix it immediately.

Anet employees and testers don't play to win; there is no reward in it for them. But the players have more to play for; we look for anything that can help us win faster and safer, for that failsafe victory. They don't.

Now, yeah, it is getting annoying how they aren't fixing these bugs, but they also recognize the magnitude of the actual effect the bug has on the metagame. Right now, for example, [anthem of disruption] is bugged (or maybe not, I just don't think that a ranger should interrupt someone who's behind a wall just by attacking) Now, do you see anyone abusing this? No. Why? Because there is no huge reward for interrupting someone behind an obstruction once every 10-15 seconds when you can easily interrupt them with a spell or by moving closer to them.

Same with "Its just a flesh wound!". There are better elites available (Incoming) that teams take over it. And if someone wanted to remove the conditions, they can just use Foul Feast or RC.

But, I wholeheartedly agree that it sucks that Anet chooses to give the community more useless storage instead of much needed skill balance.

lutz

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2006

Battery Powered Best Friends [Vibe]

Me/

11 Apr 2009 at 07:16 - 40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apok Omen

Anet employees and testers don't play to win; there is no reward in it for them. But the players have more to play for; we look for anything that can help us win faster and safer, for that failsafe victory. They don't.

I hope this is a joke.