Quote:
Originally Posted by Bof
It comes down to the fact that it would be way too much work for a game that does not charge a monthly fee for income to implement the necessary skill changes to balance.
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The problem isn't that it's too much work. The problem appears to be that the devs have no theory with which to simplify the job. There is clearly no operational definition of "broken skill". If there were, skills like Lingering Curse and PnH that fail any possible litmus test would already be gone. There is no excuse for the persistence of these skills in their present form for five months.
I'm somewhat sympathetic to the "We introduced too many skills for it to be possible to balance the game" argument, but the simple fact of the matter is that ways to achieve balance still exist. Once they realized this problem, the devs could have implemented rotating limited formats (eg: no Nightfall-only skills) for GvG to create manageable skill sets that could actually be balanced.
The lack of standards for what a "healthy" meta should look like further complicates matters. The community is splintered into multiple camps that continue to argue over the definition of a healthy meta, and those camps all demand different things. At some point, ANet needed to decide what their vision for the game was and communicate it to the player base to standardize player expectations.
Some sample schools of thought:
1) The game is "balanced" when the classic build archetype of 2 W, Me, 2x Mo, runner, and two other midliners (either a ranger and a caster or two casters) is the only sensible thing to run in GvG. Otherwise it's Build Wars, and that's unacceptable. Skill is defined by who presses keys and clicks buttons best. Top players all run the same build and tactics. Periodically, someone has a good idea and the "standard" tactics alter subtly.
Classic position of those that have been in the GvG community for a while. Always struck me as a self-serving effort to standardize bars so that you have a job and so that you can guest people easily. Still, this is the sort of game the FPS crowd generally wants - perform the same job all day every day. Meshes well with observer mode such that the community can define "good" and "bad" play easily, because people run the same bars.
2) The game is "balanced" when the number of viable build archetypes is greatest. You get good matchups and bad matchups. Skill is defined by executing plans to deal with the bad matchups and win anyway.
This is the Magic: the Gathering crowd's idea of balance. The larger the proportion of skills that see use, the better. Cookie cutter bars are bad; substituting a single skill or two in your team build regularly to keep up with changing frequencies of adversary builds is essential. Ability to press keys well is helpful, but trumped by adaptability.
3) The game is "balanced" when the game is RPS. Ex: In GvG, split, 8v8 and spike builds should all be viable. Split beats spike, but loses to good 8v8 teams that can counter split. 8v8 loses to spike and has to try to split it.
A blend of the above two approaches. Some diversity of builds is preferred here, but bars for the archetypes are standardized and judging player skill is thus relatively easy. You can only lose to Build Wars if you play one style to the exclusion of all others. Tactics remain more or less standardized, but tactics are sharply different when facing each archetype. Innovation occurs in the form of subtle changes to the team builds of the archetypes.
You cannot please all of the above camps. The only sensible solution is to define an objective early on, communicate the objective to the players, and work to maximize it. The disappointed players leave, but you'll get a larger exodus in the long run by disappointing all three camps.
![Ec]-[oMaN](/static/static/../Img/avatar8384_2.gif){kind=avatar}
I will though haha
