Flux: gimmick or dev. tool?

It seems like every post that mentions flux has been negative.

It has been hinted that they started it with the idea of trying out different environmental effects to see how it affects the meta; with the idea of pinpointing what changes to PvP would be most effective.

I'm all for it with that in mind, but isn't a month a long time to keep one of those in place?

I would think that if it was a serious development tool, that it would be A. Changed more often, B. different effects for different formats. (ie June's is completely wasted in non-DP formats).

Besides, the complete PvP philosophy at ANet until now has been GvG and Tournament focus.
Does this signal a change?, because if not I wish they'd just take it out of the rest of PvP instead of jerking everyone around for the sake of one format...again!

I like the Flux, but I think it should change on a daily basis.
I would like to see a lot of diffrerent effects..

I think the cycle is fine as it is. Anet wanted the flux to force groups to use new tactics with the flux. Changing it on a daily basis wouldn't give a group enough time to test a flux and create a tactic that is superior to other groups.

I personally think they should change it every week at the same time events start.

I want to see different effects as well.

So far, I haven't seen the flux effect force any changes in the meta or player's tactics.

Lone Wolf seemed like the only flux that might effect game play, this month's flux doesn't seem to change much which is good in my opinion.

I LOVE the Flux! It brings back fun to PvP, and makes it interesting again!

First, Anet cared about PvP but didn't really care about PvE

Then they cared about PvE but didn't really care about PvP

Then they stopped caring about both

And here we are.

There is really no effect? I guess most builds won't change with June's but maybe playstyle might change? or the power boost at least allow some interesting come backs or a visible change in power?

Again, going on the basis of a development tool, I would think at least a week and no more than 2 weeks would be enough.
I understand that the Live Team is busy, but half the analysis is done by regular players and is posted here or on wiki.

If it is to increase playability or encourage different playstyles, then there is an even stronger argument for a more rapid changeover.

"Lone Wolf" seemed like a well thought out question; but Unyielding Spirit sounds like a gimmick to reward the unlucky/poor connection people and draw out GvG matches longer.

I'd think there would be more important questions for PvP balancing; ie hexes and conditions, physical vs elemental, red-barring vs. protting.

All of which begs the question, what is ANet's balance philosophy towards current PvP?
Perfect Balance creates stasis, and the matches purely rely upon player reflexes,experience, and connection speed (Counter-strike)
Imbalance is three derv frontline.

Do they plan on making any profession viable for PvP (my paragon is getting lonely) or do they want to "lock-in" a meta before GW2 is released so they won't need further balancing?

Quoted for the truth.

All this months Flux does is allow teams with high Dp on warriors/midline to maybe mount a comeback.

So, it has a small, but noticeable, effect? Gee, that sounds exactly like what they intended....

In theory, Flux is a good idea if you believe that a different degenerate build dominating every month is a good state of game balance.

In practice, fortunately, the Live Team hasn't instituted any Fluxes that would create any format-warping builds. Of course, the corollary to that is that the Fluxes we've seen so far don't do much of anything. Neither one was really worth building around - Lone Wolf, instead of doing what was intended, simply made the dominant tactic of the dominant build stronger, while Unyielding Spirit isn't worth exposing your damage dealers to dervish 3-shots.

That depends on your approach to "perfect" balance. A game with only a few viable builds can still be extremely diverse, skill-intensive, and fun - look at, say, the late 2007/early 2008 metagame, which was dominated by three variants of dom balanced.

Of course, the ideal of game balance is what you see in Brood War, which has been played professionally in its current state for over a decade without any modifications save new maps, which are more frequently introduced merely for variety than for balance purposes. Individual periods of racial or build dominance have always been eventually checked by metagame evolution.

Of course, this state of perfect balance isn't feasible in just any game, but Anet's approach to balance is the exact opposite of this. Every time the meta stabilizes, Anet decides that it's getting too staid and elects to randomly buff enough skills to break the game for a few more months.

This was alluded to in a different thread where Anet's philosophy towards releasing huge, splashy, unbalanced skill updates was mentioned. Perhaps the point of a skill update is difficult to immediately recognize if the buffed skills are not immediately adopted, but that should never be the point of an update. What you want your buffed skills to do is exist as a potential option, so that when the time does arise that it would be useful, it's strong enough to be worthwhile. Buffing skills to absurd power levels just means that they'll immediately dominate the metagame. Sure, it forcibly produces a different set of meta builds, but not in a healthy fashion.

in guildwars, we make builds, so as playing the build.
in other games, we only play the build that is set by the game developers.

so if in guildwars there is only a stabilized skill set or we called it a stabilized build, it will actually stop player playing the build making process....

Gimmick.

I especially find it funny to base a flux on a game mechanic (death penalty) that doesn't even appear in about half the PvP formats.

Flux aren't easy to introduce IMO.
A Flux effect shouldn't be too strong to cripple/buff a certain set of skills, but if you introduce a too weak Flux you'll not see any real playstile change among players.
Also, u must consider that Fluxes stays up for a month (at least atm), so if you balance it wrong you'll have a month with pvp balance problems probably (i know some ppl would say "We already have those", but don't mind...).

In other words, Flux change rate should be increased (2 weeks seems the best imo), thus allowing to fix any problem with a not-so-well-designed Flux, and maybe have the effects pool rotate more frequently.

But again, Flux should affects gameplay w/o too impacts on determinates classes/roles/builds. And again, i do not think is THAT easy.

This. I think the intention of the Flux feature was to address staleness and mirror matches. What the hell use is that if it only changes every month?

It's still Build Wars.

I really didn't understand how something that is supposed to influence PvP battle slightly, doesn't change an actual mechanic that exists in it.

Most people are glad that it's only affecting the meta slightly, and as a development tool that is great.
Certain builds and roles were strongly affected by Lonewolf. Unyielding Spirit encourages boldness and a touch of recklessness, to move the matches along faster.

However, I'm all for some more radical fluxes as long as they are for shorter amounts of time. You don't want to have a strong flux effect during a tournament, but now that guilds are farming strongboxes, a forced change in strategies could benefit different teams and force flexibility.

Hourly.

Or quarter-hourly, at random.

It only puts pvp into a state of flux once every 30 days. Ooooooo.