GW2: How2Ballance without making PvE people whine.

Simple: Release "serious" PvP part of game year (or more) in advance before releasing PvE part.

Reason: PvEr issue with nerfs is that:
a) They get attached to unbalanced crap that makes game easy and protect it as 'ballance'
b) They get attached to unbalanced crap that gets em virtual pixel goods and protect is as 'fun'
c) They get attached to unbalanced crap they did not know is unbalanced crap and protect it as 'being punished for being original'

Which is all eliminated if they never get to use that builds before and when their first hands-on encounter with skillset happens after all major rebalances happen.

Normal Betas/Alphas usually fail at detecting broken stuff which gets discovered quite fast in environment where people play to win and not to test. (Failure being discovering 100 exploits and not noticing number 101).

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Would separating PvP/PvE chronologically work better than separation at skill level?

You make it right by make PvP fixed and PvE variable.

You get a skill, it is way powerful, bring it to PvP, it gets limited.
You get a weapon, it deals a hell of a lot of damage, you bring it to PvP, it gets limited to PvP maxs.
You get armor, it has an insane armor rating, you bring it to PvP, it gets limited to PvP maximums.

And in the other way... you get a skill, it is crappy and you don't have enough attribute points to make it good, you bring it to PvP, it gets buffed.
You get a pointed stick that could not harm a baby hamster, you bring it to PvP, its properties gets maxed.
You get a piece of cloth that could not protect you from the bite of a mosquito, you bring it to PvP, its properties gets maxed.


Making available one side of the game after of before has nothing to do with that. Just change some numbers and rules while under PvP mode.

No.

1. The game is constantly being balanced and re-balanced by Anet as the metagame is continuously evolving. It's inevitable that you'll need balance updates during the course of the game after the "PvE content" has been released. If you don't, PvP will stay stagnant and be stuck in a boring meta. Unfortunately, PvE'rs complain every time their is any sort of nerf. They think everything should be buffed, and don't understand how power creeps work or why the meanies at Anet decided to nerf their favorite skill.

2. Not all OP PvP builds are found in one meta. They change overtime as more skill combinations are discovered and more game balances are implemented. It would be impossible to eliminate all the builds and skills that the PvE community might whine about when they get nerfed.

3. Even assuming that PvP and PvE are completely seperate, their will still have to be nerfs in PvE based on PvE-only skills. You can't balance only half your game. Believe it or not, some PvE skills are overpowered (*cough*old ursan*cough*). These skills are vital to being nerfed to avoid promoting unskillful play. Will the PvE community cry when they get nerfed? Yes. Was it necessary to nerf them? Yes. Could the PvP community had found the OP'ness of the skill? No.

In the end, separating PvP/PvE chronically would do nothing but piss PvE'rs off because they have to wait a year to play the game they want to play. And to further that, when the PvE portion is released, their will still be nerfs that will occur, making the chronological seperation useless.

I always thought that the best way to deal with overpowered crap was to do with it whatever the PvP guys want.
But after you do that - you look at how it affects PvE and adjust PvE accordingly. That way you keep the overpowered crap out of the game AND break the persistence of PvE. (I mean - why the hell is the ritu hench in factions STILL a bloody spirit spammer!??)


If they do not want people to bitch, they should do their job.

This is basically a massive pre-release open pvp betatest.

Why not, they should consider this. There were GW sneak previews before release, too, and it did not hurt them.

The problem is that companies hardly put alpha-stage ideas out for public testing. So often beta tests are what people get in the end, more or less. More promotion for the game than bugtesting, actually.

They could also say, just release it and fix it while the game is live.


The issue is still that GW PvE and GW PvP often require totally different styles of play and skill setup. What works great and is balanced in the other part might cause trouble in the other.
I am also not sure if they want to further the PvP/PvE split, and how much emphasis they want to put on the pure pve skills.



There is also the chance that Guild Wars 2 is vastly different to GW1... and not just "Guild Wars 2.0", somewhat more bugfixed and balanced...!

How to balance without making people whine? You can't. People whine no matter what you do.

As for the suggestion; I don't think it would work at all. Group A would QQ as group B gets access to game before them.

I don't think there is (or even should be) such thing as balance. Game should be changing and evolving all the time.

And I still believe PvE/PvP split (and PvE only) is one of the worst moves they did.

The only way to never have a single player whine is to never have a single player.

You can limit impact thou. One things is when devs realize that they created monster and decide to stomp it and look for new niche for given class (Rt Lord for example, Paragons ...). Such changes only happen early after release or once few metas have run their course.

Once big evil stuff was dealth with (radically, without having to cater for PvE.), there would be a lot less followups to anger people.

Later nerfs can then be just refreshers and minor shakedowns (from which PvE does benefit as much as pvp).

Problem with this is that they will probably have to change skills after this year-long "grace period" anyway, so what's the point?

The factors involved in balancing pvp is different from the factors involved in pve. Having a delay on skill availability for pve would only hurt the game.

Regarding "balance," I think it is important to decide how you wish to evaluate balance. To me, the clearest way to evaluate balance in pve is to look at the meta team build for a particular task, then look at whether other builds are still present for that activity, and whether any professions are being excluded from an activity, and whether one particular profession is necessary for a group activity.

Currently, it seems fairly difficult to find a PuG for UW unless you are a perma or you fill one of the very specific ancillary roles needed for the UWSC. If you aren't one of those people, you pretty much need a guild. Not a big deal to me, but it does indicate a problem with balance, when dependency on a perma affects how most people play the game.

They nerfed Ursan because of similar issues. It was getting harder and harder to find a group unless you were Ursan. The PvE game was getting dumbed down, and the variety of team builds was diminishing to the point of the game being boring.

I sense that ray of judgment will be a nerf target at some point for similar reasons. (Try to find a group in any challenging pve area that doesn't use roj or cryers for primary damage). Also note how dumb so many roj are in combat situations (similar to the masses that flocked to Ursan). Don't get me wrong... roj is great, and I also use it. But, like Ursan, a lot of people with very little skill are using it. And they are taking up spots on teams that used to be occupied by promise nukers, or splinter barragers, or spiteful spirit necros, etc. If and when roj is nerfed, I suspect it will be something as simple as the AI recognizing the aoe and then scattering, as opposed to trying to get a suntan (as they do currently).

So from a balance standpoint, a skill that takes over the meta to the exclusion of most/all others, is by it's nature, unbalancing in pve. shadow form is approaching that for tanking, ray of judgment is approaching that for damage.

Outright stop pretending that PvE means anything, allow pve-only superitems, and give us Diablo 2 in 3d.

Alternatively, realize PvE players play regardless of most changes, the money's already in the bank, and just do what's necessary without listening to the complaints. But ANet, tweak mechanics to create balanced and dynamic play?

I am not sure if I want that from PvE or GW PvE to be specific. I do not want Guild Wars to be a Diablo clone.

The "there cannot be enough power" statement/lip confession was made in Blizzards Diablo 3 promotion.


PvE is important. It pays the bills, so no need to bash PvE to be meaningless.
PvP is not the game anymore, and never was, despite opposite claims. It never paid the bills.

It is about as important for ArenaNet as the NHL is in comparison to the IFFA, the International Fly Fishing Association.

PVPs a relatively tiny and very vocal minority who seem to go round bitching, moaning and sticking their nose up at the PVE players(who they brand inferior) which make up the majority of the games player base.

Get rid of the "QQ" by dropping PVP.

This issue will never be solved as long as people can play one game two different ways, in which each are unique and should be kept separate. PvP recognizes team work and build, versus PvE which recognizes the grinding, adventuring, following some set of organized mayhem er, umm, learning the game at a pace. PvP is relegated to a few boards where every decent player knows the landscape and eventually the benefits as well as the pitfalls of each "arena". PvE learns the shortcuts to pass through terrain to the next mission/quest/reward. If ANET truly wants to balance the game to everyones benefit, they need to make everything mutually exclusive to each form, make one version of a skill for PvE, then make a duplcate version for PvP but change the name of it. Just as we have multiple skills across the multiple expansions same exact cost and wording but different skill names to show which version of skill is being used. PvP can tweak to its heart content, while PvE won't have to cry and moan everytime something gets "nerfed, for the benefit of everyone".

Dropping PvP would be the nail in the coffin, I think it's a bit more important than PvE personally.

If Anet announced today that GW2 won't have PvP. Then it's allready dead.

Because GuildWars hasn't got that good PvE. It just has shiny graphics and stupid AI and repeating content. People want PvP.

Personally I think the number of PvE only players is small compared to those who participate in both PvE and PvP.

Imagine what it would be like if the entire PVE element of GW was disabled and then compare it to what would happen if PVP was disabled.

Which situation would leave the most players? If you think PVP only would have the most players remaining then IMO you're slightly deluded.

gw is beyond proper balancing
too many skills, game modes and crap professions

that being said, i still think pve should have balance. balance between the professions is important. while it is pve there is still competition between players for a spot in groups. players using weaker professions are at a disadvantage. so try to make them all viable via balance.

I think: PvE and PvP will be separated in GW2, they will each have their own skills and balance plans in a way that they wont ever interfere with each other.

Someone will always have something to whine about. What is nerf for someone is bonus for someone else. Someone will whine about it.

Lets look at a non GW example. Where I live they wanted to build a wind farm to provide electricity. A load of people moaned about how it was an eyesore and ruined the landscape. Well now it looks like they are getting a nuclear reactor. I am sure there are going to be a few people whinging about that to.

No decision will ever be made without someone, somewhere whining about it.

First of all, I find the way this post is setup quite annoying and rather insulting.
I am a PvE player and don't whine as mentioned about, but as a Ranger, I cannot see why EW had to be nerfed in PvE just because PvPers whined about it.
That never made sense to me, and never will.

Calling all PvErs whiner is really crossing the line and just says more about the OP then what he wants to talk about.
Fact is, the needs of PvE and PvP players are different even with the same skills.
With GW as basis, the idea of skills adjustment as they are now, that is the way to move on.
Leave the PvE skills as they are, only balance the PvP skills. I can only agree, there should not be one set of skills in PvP that owns PvP, like good old IWAY. PvP is a game area where skill, use of them and tactics with teamplay decides the outcome.

I would even vote, that PvE should be reset to original skills and PvP skills should be the only onces balanced.

And furthermore, not only PvErs "whine", I heard my fair share of PvPers whine too.
So for another time, be adult, quit blaming people, do go after the issue as such.

/Santa

This is why I like ya, guru. You guys miss the entire point of threads/people's posts, instead quoting specific parts you dislike and go off on tirades about them. Bravo. <3

Probably a good idea. You cant just balance for PVP then expect it to work in PVE. A mob isn't just another team its a completely different set of opponents with higher stats, more dmg and much more primitive A.I hence the tactics to counter it are different.

Old mesmers might of been fairly balanced in PVP but in PVE they were not balanced as there role was nearly insignificant without AOE spells.

PVP balance does not map to PVE balance so GW2 should keep it separate.

If you agree with the above you might want to consider whether that means that PVP skill doesn't necessarily map to PVE.

impossible to avoid whining ;-)

In all honesty the biggest mistake that A-net ever did was not splitting the skills between PvP and PvE versions right from the get-go, or at least after Factions was released.

Here we go again, it's PvP'r against PvE'r all over again.. Yawn.. we've been here already, time to get a new record this one is broken.

You are forgetting that GW2 will be an all new game, so you have no idea on the quality of the PvE content. It seems to me that those who play PvP and post on Guru have very high opinions of themselves and what is right for the peons who play PvE. GW may have been a PvP oriented game to start with but not anymore, GW2 will probably revolve around the larger of the player bases.

The good news is that none of the current professions or skills have been confirmed for GW2! But the bad thing is races... (what if I want to look like one thing but have the advantages of another race!? hate that! I'll probably stay human though, I always play human).

Problem is PVE balance depends on no change while PVP balance depends on constant change.

The situation could be improved by properly adjusting creature skills when you alter the player skills.

It was the additional classes and skills that first caused imbalance followed by the PVP players developing new tactics and builds.

Since the players outnumber the developers they will always create the need for periodic rebalancing buffing nerfing call it what you will.

So the great idea stops the PvE people whining, now what to do about the PvP people?

Fine-tuning the balance of a game is hard enough on technical merits; the public relations part of balancing is even harder, because as a rule your most dedicated and vocal players do not want balance.

PvP is a bit easier from a wide view, as PvP players, at least on the surface, don't want power outliers in their game. However the feedback loop is difficult because your most vocal and successful players typically want to steer the game to favor builds and strategies they find most enjoyable, which if taken to extremes will stagnate the game. There's always a lot of complaints out of the PvP community about balance, but it is very difficult to distinguish which complaints are serious balance issues, and which are complaints about the game being open to more strategies than they like.

PvE balance is very hard to sell, because your PvE playerbase as a whole despises balance, even though it's necessary for the health of the game. For your most dedicated PvE players, the game is typically an achievement engine, and that is most fun when you can find some strategy that is akin to cheating and milk that for rewards. Balancing those strategies is in direct competition to their goals. However it is necessary to keep the reward structure of the game intact.

Your more casual players generally do not understand the balance of the game nearly as well, and balance changes that hit their characters tend to upset them because it makes their character go backwards in a character building game, and they often are not using things in an abusive way / do not understand why something needed to be toned down.

PvE balance is the art of balancing the interests of your hardcore players against your casual players, while keeping a meaningful reward and goal structure in place. When the power curve gets steeper, your hardcore players have more to grind for but your casual players have less access - more problematic in what is fundamentally a social game. Keeping both of those groups happy while restricting the power structure enough that your reward structure is still good - that there are still things to achieve and goals to chase - is even harder. Both groups of players want to get achievements, and want to make progress faster, but if you let them go too fast the achievements get watered down. Most balance changes to Guild Wars PvE have been to gross attacks on the reward structure.

The biggest failing of Guild Wars PvE is how this particular balance has gotten worse over time. Between overpowered skills that are required for particular characters, overpowered PvE skills that require title grind, and pricey consumables that increase power significantly, one of the biggest selling points of the game at release - that you can log in and play and contribute with the character you have, due to the low level cap, flat equipment curve and skill restrictions - has gradually gone away. This is the sort of PvE balance I'm hoping returns for Guild Wars 2, as this being balanced was the one truly unique thing Guild Wars PvE has going for it.

PvE never really needs skill balance. You balance PvE by changing the maps you play on and the monsters you fight. A change to a PvE skill changes the game for everyone, on every map, against every monster. Generally, PvE needs to be balanced/changed when players find patterns and exploits that allow them to accomplish far too much for so little effort. In these cases, simply adding a new monster or updating an existing one to combat this effect is much easier than anything else. If players find an area in which they can stand and blast monsters with 1 skill over and over, you don't need to nerf the skill, you just need to change the map, or change the monsters to attack that area with better effort.

Guild Wars' largest problem with PvP was that none of the maps were made for PvP. The Devs were always aware of this problem but little could be done. It's a f2p game and making competitive maps for 0.1% of your playerbase is expensive. The map makers made the maps to spec, a flag stand was added to it, some spawn locations, and that was the end of it. No competitive testing was done, and no changes ever happened to the maps. If you look back at the competitive history of GW GvG, how many skills were nerfed simply because they were imbalanced on one single map? In no other game (RTS, FPS) are the skills/units/weapons balanced around a single map. That is insanity. But it happened almost every month for GW. GW would have benefited all along if they re-balanced some of the maps, or thrown them out all-together. You can't go around and balance skills around one single map because it effects the balance of every other area in the game. In other competitive games like StarCraft, Quake, and Counter-Strike, the maps follow a very specific template. This means mechanically all maps behave the same, but look and feel completely different. It's not perfect, but it greatly increases your chance of having a balanced game. Note that in all of these games, a small % of maps are actually considered Competitive/Tournament worthy, and in GW, they forced us to play on 100% of all the GvG maps, even when they knew most were horribly balanced.

If a skill or strategy is OP on one map, but is pretty well balanced on all the others, nerf the map, not the skill or strategy. GW had it backwards, but I don't think GW2 will.

Tbh, this sounds like its on its way to becoming a QQ/rage/PvP vs PvE thread where none of the posts will be about the actually topic.

No for my 2 cents. For GW2. realeasing the PvP before PvE wouldnt work simply because even though there is a Solid PvP only aspect, PvP and PvE are intertwined in the game. so realeasing just the PvP would not work as it wouldnt really be all the PvP.

Yes to both. I came to this game from Madden, on the PC (R.I.P., PC Madden. Stopped after 08. The community is left to mod the game as best it can). We got one update for bugs, a marginal roster and picture update, both about 4 weeks after the game launch, and that was it. The game quickly fell into stasis, with no updates to rosters, drafts, teams, etc...and therefore little challenge. The evolutions in GW are part of what makes the game so fascinating: bars I've loved became weaker, useless, because of the nerfs. A bad thing? Only till I found something new.

And I really didn't like the split. The PvE only skills are sickly buffed variants of other skills. They reduced the need for team synergy, reduced the need for active experimentation, and reduced playing the game to PvE-skill steamrolling. I've actually begun to vanquish using guildies, H+H, but no PvE-only skills. Slower? perhaps. But a lot more intellectually stimulating.

So back to the OP. No, for as couple of reasons, some of which may be hard to articulate properly.

1. Marketing: PvE and role-playing and character "development" are still a large draw in these kinds of games. Not including PvE on the game's launch risks alienating a large part of the market, who could (unfairly?) perceive the game as being too PvP centric (let's leave the title GUILD Wars out of this, hmmmmkay?).

2. The split. If I understand some idea underneath your OP, then you would hope that this early release would actually PREVENT the need for a PvP / PvE split--that overpowered skills would get the nerf before there's a PvE to be overpowered in. I like the idea of not needing the split. But I fear that dropping the game early would lead to expectations of a split--because you've already split the playerbase. So the ones coming late might, instead of saying "oh. we get a balanced game 'cuz PvP tried these out for us," will say, "Oh, since these skills work one way in PvP, we'll get a tweaked mechanic soez we can roll in PvE." (I oversimplify, but I can't quite get this one out.)

3. dynamism: Many people claim to like that the game--the meta, and the PvE game--change. What many don't like is the sense that the changes are not in response to the community--whatever that community is. It's possible that saying 'hey, these work, let's leave it alone' will stagnate, not challenge, players as they develop GW2's meta.

If the articles that have come out so far are right, PvP in 2 will feel vastly different than PvP here in 1. Not sure, actually, how I feel about that. But I don't think a long-term prerelease PvP is the answer to the balance question.

Totally agree.

it seems to me most people who PvP seems to think thats the most important, which is to say retarded in the least, GW isnt complete without both PvP AND PvE, when i get bored with a mission or a quest, i go do some AB or HA, thats the whole point, the ability to change between those two. if you decide to get rid of one getting rid of PvP would be what they would do, it makes the most sence from their standpoint because the PvE player base is soo much bigger than the PvP one, no to say the PvP ones isnt important. for them what matters is money and they will always go with the larger player base.

In PvE balancing, one side complains. In PvP balancing, *both* sides complain.

But balance for one part of the game should never be disregarded. Variety and fairness needs to exist for players in *all* formats.

The difficulties for each have already been outlined.

In PvE balancing, one side complains when the game gets more balanced. In PvP balancing, one side complains because the game isn't balanced yet while the other side keeps complaining that the game is getting more balanced. That is...one side wants balance and the other doesn't. Shouldn't we be listening to the people who want balance?

As for the OP idea, I wouldn't mind it, because theres no way in hell im paying for GW2 PvE regardless. I doubt it would solve the problems of Anets incompetence when it comes to balance though (they do other things very well, but not balance by any stretch of the imagination).

The point was to show the fact that when only one side is vocal (ex: players, the people who are talking, vs the AI, who never talk), most on the other half is going to have a very hard time figuring out what's "balanced", leading to misconceptions that ANet is nerfing for no reason.

Fair enough. I'm an advocate of only buffs in PvE ever since the split anyways. People would probably stop whining that way. I've given up on Anet ever balancing PvP again, so they might as well make the majority of players happy.

In one of the interviews posted on this forum a few weeks back (and I think it was on the main GW website as well), a certain developer said that if they were starting over knowing what they know now, they'd have split PvE and PvP skills in specialized cases as they've just started doing. Expect that to have a major impact on the PvP/PvE balance work in GW2.