Update - January 5, 2012 - Guild Wars Guru archive powered by Guild Wars Legacy

cormac ap dunn

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2007

Mystic Empires III [xMEx]

Me/

15 Jan 2012 at 22:17 - 361

Quote:

Originally Posted by IrishX

1. It does pretty much make melee useless. The AoE on Stone Sheath is absolutely retarded (It can very easily cover earshot range), and combined with the huge armor buff on top of everyone already stacking as much armor as possible, you just do not do damage. Also, 12s recharge.

2. Assassins are probably the least impacted by Stone Sheath, since dagger damage is already so low, and most of their damage comes from spamming attack skills.

3. The risk vs. reward ratio is way out of whack. For 5e and 1.75s, you force AT LEAST 10e and 2s on condi removal (assuming 2 frontline), and force target swaps. You can strip the ele, but it still has glowstone. You can also interrupt it, but at a 1s cast, you basically have to camp the ele, and due to it being a 5e cast, it can be faked indefinitely until it is FC'd.

4. Nobody likes playing elespike.

While I understand the reasoning behind the worry, this happens with every skill rebalance. Soon there will be a shift in the meta game, what was once uncommon is now the gold standard. As far as the assassin comment I was generalizing. Suggesting that people have no counter to stoneshealth is silly, true it doesn't fit with the metagame, but the standard will shift. Th idea that a speedy spike is the only good strategy is exactly why skill repolishing is needed. Variety is the spice of life. If the meta game is allowed to spiral the same way pvp will die completely. Now people are forced to try new builds, the game will move on, and hopefully what is considered normal shifts with it.

Martin Alvito

Older Than God (1)

Join Date: Aug 2006

Clan Dethryche [dth]

15 Jan 2012 at 23:51 - 362

Quote:

Originally Posted by cormac ap dunn

Suggesting that people have no counter to stoneshealth is silly, true it doesn't fit with the metagame, but the standard will shift.

This assumes the existence of a counter. The meta has been dominated in past cycles by single skills which no one was able to find a reliable counter for. Feast of Corruption, the original Ritualist spirits, Aegis and that awful Jagged -> Fox Fangs -> Death Blossom update spring immediately to mind. All of them had to be nerfed.

This situation is no different. There's good theoretical reason to expect Stone Sheath to be a problem. Unsurprisingly, it is. And there's good reason to expect that it won't go away in the absence of developer intervention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cormac ap dunn

Th idea that a speedy spike is the only good strategy is exactly why skill repolishing is needed. Variety is the spice of life.

This "rebalance" is going to lead to a massive surge in the prevalence of spike builds once the current flux ends. An Obsidian Flame spike ignores armor and can easily maintain Stone Sheath everywhere. Care to guess what people will be playing and why?

lemming

The Hotshot

Join Date: May 2006

Honolulu

International District [id???]

16 Jan 2012 at 02:55 - 363

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mouse at Large

I'm still not completely understanding the Stone Sheath hate from a PvP perspective. It introduces a new dynamic and shakes up the meta - as did the mesmer and derv updates. Instead of QQ, why not try to adapt???

GW has actually had a very good example of why this line of reasoning is flawed. For the one morning when Signet of Might existed, the metagame did indeed "adapt" to the presence of a skill that instantly wins you the game - all teams shifted their builds to accommodate for the only remaining goals - getting a Signet of Might cast off on the opposing guild lord and preventing the opposing team from doing so.

Of course, I'm sure that someone out there would have argued that that metagame was more "fun." However, whether or not a metagame has become degenerate is kind of an objective thing to evaluate.

Kaida the Heartless

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2006

N/

16 Jan 2012 at 07:16 - 364

I think some people might be missing the fact that stagnant gameplay can be balanced, but still be detrimental to the overall experience. In Guildwars, offense has always needed to overpower defense, otherwise every match goes to VoD and it's generally a very boring experience.

Stone Sheath does too much for too little in a way that is very hard to actively counter, actively prevent, or reactively remove.

Shield of Deflection (blocking exchanged for crit immunity) + Enfeebling Blood (with extended range) + Energy Surge (less 20 damage with no Energy Removal) = Stone Sheath for a single person, so multiply the situation x 2. That's basically 4 Elites, 34% HP sacrifice, and 32 Energy for 2-3 Energy on a much faster cooldown.

It. Does. Too. Much.

Mouse at Large

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Dec 2005

Scotland

Fuzzy Physics Institute

E/

16 Jan 2012 at 10:34 - 365

Still puzzled. If earth eles running stone sheath and obs flame spike is so OP, then why am I not seeing earth ele-heavy teams steamrolling all versions of PvP?

At most, I'm seeing (in obs mode) a single earth ele in PvP teams and in general, no more than 2 eles in total. I've yet to see a team with 2 or more stone sheath earth eles.

Theorycrafting aside, my observations would indicate that stone sheath is not anything like as OP/game breaking as feared.

Kiki Go Boom

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2009

Mr Sunqua Blade

Rt/

16 Jan 2012 at 10:41 - 366

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mouse at Large

Still puzzled. If earth eles running stone sheath and obs flame spike is so OP, then why am I not seeing earth ele-heavy teams steamrolling all versions of PvP?

Because of this. Watch out for them next month

zwei2stein

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Jun 2006

Europe

The German Order [GER]

N/

16 Jan 2012 at 12:29 - 367

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiki Go Boom

Because of this. Watch out for them next month

I kinda wish this flux was slightly nerfed (1s disable) and kept forever...

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

16 Jan 2012 at 12:57 - 368

Quote:

Originally Posted by zwei2stein

I kinda wish this flux was slightly nerfed (1s disable) and kept forever...

All the flux's should be nerfed into oblivion. They are the worst implementation of balance I have seen in a video game.

drkn

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jan 2009

Wroc??aw, Poland

Midnight Mayhem

Me/

16 Jan 2012 at 13:40 - 369

Quote:

All the flux's should be nerfed into oblivion. They are the worst implementation of balance I have seen in a video game.

Balance? I thought they were meant to be new, additional, somehow fun and unpredictable mechanics, slightly changing the meta every month; not an attempt at any form of balancing the game.

@down: i thought, again, that the flux was ANet's 'lazy attempt' to bring a constant 'update', as in a change to the meta, not necessarily balancing it in the process; just altering, so it's not stagnant.

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

16 Jan 2012 at 13:55 - 370

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

Balance? I thought they were meant to be new, additional, somehow fun and unpredictable mechanics, slightly changing the meta every month; not an attempt at any form of balancing the game.

Anet implemented flux in an attempt to help balance meta builds. Flux being fun was nothing more than an after thought and a reason to feed to the players. Every single flux has been irritating to say the least, especially this months. Watch out for Mesmers in JQ sneaking up on you and using WW/WD.

Quote:

Last Halloween, the Lunatic Court followed through on an ill-conceived plot to free Mad King Thorn from his realm. Seals were broken, bizarre acts were performed, terrible jokes were deciphered, and it seemed at the time that all the fuss had been for nothing.

But since then, instability has begun to seep into the world, gathering in the places where the influence of the Mists is felt most strongly. The instability has resulted in fluctuations – changes that alter the experience of playing in our competitive venues. Fluctuations seem to come and go, bringing new effects with them every month.

The introduction of Flux is a compelling tool to help us keep our competitive formats dynamic, while allowing us to further balance the game. Because slight shifts in the meta are expected from Flux to Flux, it allows us to better target overly problematic builds. If powerful builds can thrive in environments that are not suited to them, we can review the skills to bring them more into line. We want to encourage gameplay where the team that wins does so because they've played more skillfully.

The Flux system is the precursor to several improvements that will be coming in a PvP-specific update. We'll be taking a look at improving some titles, the incentives to play, the rewards for various formats, and more. Look forward to it!

— Developer updates

As you can see it was meant to be a balancing tool.

Missing HB

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Mar 2010

Anna

A/

16 Jan 2012 at 16:27 - 371

Quote:

Originally Posted by drkn

Balance? I thought they were meant to be new, additional, somehow fun and unpredictable mechanics, slightly changing the meta every month; not an attempt at any form of balancing the game.

@down: i thought, again, that the flux was ANet's 'lazy attempt' to bring a constant 'update', as in a change to the meta, not necessarily balancing it in the process; just altering, so it's not stagnant.

Indeed, i thought that flux were about making "auto-balances" in the game and making things fun too, but well :
- Codex was as well supposed to have a tournament system
- Heroes Ascent was supposed to have a rework, including especially new map
- That 2009 henchman contest was supposed to reward originality and creativity
- Turtle Bug is supposed to be fixed for months

Except 1 flux( which was the one making people move faster), i didn't see any single fun or game - balancing flux... but well, it was quite predictable

Vincent Evan

Academy Page

Join Date: Feb 2011

Ancestral Lands

Dont Rage [シシ]

A/W

16 Jan 2012 at 16:49 - 372

The flux was meant to "spice" up the PvP in this game. Although, and I think it is fair to say, all the flux is doing is shaking a lifeless corpse.

Martin Alvito

Older Than God (1)

Join Date: Aug 2006

Clan Dethryche [dth]

16 Jan 2012 at 18:40 - 373

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

All the flux's should be nerfed into oblivion. They are the worst implementation of balance I have seen in a video game.

They're actually a great concept in theory, but their implementation has been deeply flawed.

The basic problem is that PvP balance in this game is such a knife-edge condition. Make it too easy to kill things and it becomes Twitch Wars; make it too hard and you get stalemate. Add in the arbitrary conditions that top players have come to prefer over the years (no spike metas, no hexway metas, etc.), and you have a nearly intractable problem.

Coming up with twelve global conditions that will meaningfully alter such a fragile balance without kicking it into Twitch Wars or stalemate isn't a trivial task. The Live Team has neither the theory to propose good candidate solutions from the outset, nor the resources to find good solutions through iterative testing. The result is predictable: a large number of conservative, relatively meaningless fluxes. I commend the Live Team for finally taking a chance with this one.

With testing and a smaller skill base, the flux system could work quite well. Unfortunately, what I'm seeing with the skill combo system suggests that ANet hasn't learned anything about sticking to a manageable number of variables to balance.

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

16 Jan 2012 at 20:30 - 374

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

They're actually a great concept in theory, but their implementation has been deeply flawed.

The basic problem is that PvP balance in this game is such a knife-edge condition. Make it too easy to kill things and it becomes Twitch Wars; make it too hard and you get stalemate. Add in the arbitrary conditions that top players have come to prefer over the years (no spike metas, no hexway metas, etc.), and you have a nearly intractable problem.

Coming up with twelve global conditions that will meaningfully alter such a fragile balance without kicking it into Twitch Wars or stalemate isn't a trivial task. The Live Team has neither the theory to propose good candidate solutions from the outset, nor the resources to find good solutions through iterative testing. The result is predictable: a large number of conservative, relatively meaningless fluxes. I commend the Live Team for finally taking a chance with this one.

With testing and a smaller skill base, the flux system could work quite well. Unfortunately, what I'm seeing with the skill combo system suggests that ANet hasn't learned anything about sticking to a manageable number of variables to balance.

If circumstances were better such as the ones you stated then yes, flux could indeed work but the fact is it does nothing but irritate people. Flux just shows Anets unwillingness to give PvP the attention it so rightly deserves. Especially with zero testing. Why on earth they don't have a PTS(Public Test Server) for PvP is beyond me.

Martin Alvito

Older Than God (1)

Join Date: Aug 2006

Clan Dethryche [dth]

16 Jan 2012 at 20:50 - 375

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

Flux just shows Anets unwillingness to give PvP the attention it so rightly deserves.

From a purely business perspective, marginalizing PvP makes a great deal of sense given the business model. It is expensive to maintain. It demands significant human resources to come up with and implement ideas to keep it fresh. PvP also requires a greater commitment to server costs than PvE due to the need for stable connections. Finally, serious PvP players spend a lot more time actively playing the game than the average PvE player.

So what you have is a format which is more costly to maintain, but doesn't provide any additional revenues due to the business model. It's not surprising that ANet backed off from its early strategy of aggressive, expensive promotion of PvP when it failed to take off as a serious e-sport. Chasing the larger PvE market segment, which is cheaper to pursue, is the right call unless you can find some way to segment PvP players and charge them more.

Fluffy Kittens

Guest

Join Date: Dec 2009

16 Jan 2012 at 22:29 - 376

Flux wasn't supposed to balance the game, it was supposed to change the meta, which is fine and completely unrelated to balance.
There is no way to make the game perfectly balanced (or anything close to that) but what is possible is to have the balance as we had years ago.
For example: sway (raos and n/rt backline), it may be was "degenerate" and some even called it imbalanced build, but it did require more than just randomly mashing your head on the keyboard.
The biggest problems started with the dervish update, you would press couple buttons and stuff would die. Similar case is with the ele update, only difference is that you have one type of eles where you randomly push buttons and people die and another set of eles where you randomly push buttons and keep people alive (stone sheath).
I think the main problem is that most (if not all) Anet admins stopped pvping, so there's no way they can know what's going on. All they know is what random people from test krewe tell them, which is kinda sad and has to be fixed.

Xenomortis

Tea Powered

Join Date: May 2008

UK

N/

16 Jan 2012 at 22:31 - 377

A metagame that evolves without intervention is indicative of a balanced and healthy game. The meta is most definitely not independent of balance.

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

16 Jan 2012 at 22:34 - 378

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

From a purely business perspective, marginalizing PvP makes a great deal of sense given the business model. It is expensive to maintain. It demands significant human resources to come up with and implement ideas to keep it fresh. PvP also requires a greater commitment to server costs than PvE due to the need for stable connections. Finally, serious PvP players spend a lot more time actively playing the game than the average PvE player.

So what you have is a format which is more costly to maintain, but doesn't provide any additional revenues due to the business model. It's not surprising that ANet backed off from its early strategy of aggressive, expensive promotion of PvP when it failed to take off as a serious e-sport. Chasing the larger PvE market segment, which is cheaper to pursue, is the right call unless you can find some way to segment PvP players and charge them more.

Guild Wars PvE was never meant to be and kind of long term satisfaction. That's why at the end of the game people play for monetary superiority. By the time they chose to make the decision of focusing on PvE the PvE part of the game was hardwired and too hard to work with without adding grind. Abandoning PvP may have been their worst mistake because money can be made from it. League of Legends comes to mind.

Guild Wars PvP does have items in the store such as skill and weapon packs. As I have said countless times before, the problem with Guild Wars PvP is the massive skill base, then there's skill splits. It's too much for new players. TBH I would like to see PvP become like LoL and by that I mean you choose a character(henchmen) and you have to play that henchmans build. PvP would be so much easier to balance and it could give room for growth in other areas. As you stated earlier it could work with flux with the limited skill base. You can also sell outfits for those henchmen

.

Essence Snow

Unbridled Enthusiasm!

Join Date: Nov 2009

EST

DPR

16 Jan 2012 at 22:37 - 379

It wouldnt really matter what anet did...ppl wouldn't be happy with anything. Anet is damned if they do damned if they don't when it comes to pvp. Ppl rage that they want change...yet when things change they rage. I don't blame them for treating pvp like a "red headed step child"...nothing they could do would ever be enough to quell the relentless storm. Flux is great imo...it remedies some of the stagnant nature that pvp meta brings with minimal effort.

Martin Alvito

Older Than God (1)

Join Date: Aug 2006

Clan Dethryche [dth]

16 Jan 2012 at 23:04 - 380

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

A metagame that evolves without intervention is indicative of a balanced and healthy game. The meta is most definitely not independent of balance.

Any meta would be stagnant after this many years in release. You can't pin that on the devs. Between improvements in communication technology and computers, the information age has been hard on strategy gaming in general.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rezz Anna Nicole

Flux wasn't supposed to balance the game, it was supposed to change the meta, which is fine and completely unrelated to balance.

Not entirely. For a flux to be effective, it has to change the meta without throwing the game out of balance. Since balance is such a difficult condition to achieve and the consequences of accidentally destroying it are dire, the Live Team predictably erred on the side of preserving balance, rather than changing the meta.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

Abandoning PvP may have been their worst mistake because money can be made from it. League of Legends comes to mind.

Right, but not without a radical redesign. If you want to make money by selling people convenience, you have to inconvenience them. Skill unlocks in GW are a one-time problem and aren't all that difficult even for a PvP player, so they don't provide a quality source of revenue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

Guild Wars PvP does have items in the store such as skill and weapon packs. As I have said countless times before, the problem with Guild Wars PvP is the massive skill base, then there's skill splits. It's too much for new players.

The problem has never been the skill base. The nuances of PvP were too much for most prospective players to grasp before Factions ever hit. Success in PvP demands a lot of scarce attributes: dedication to improvement, time commitment, quality connection, reaction time, the ability to anticipate, and the ability to work as an effective team member. What made GW PvP great is also its Achilles heel: it's deep and unique, but it's also not for most gamers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Ppl rage that they want change...yet when things change they rage.

Any changes to GW PvP have distributional consequences: they make some players better off at the expense of others. The result is that there will always be aggressive lobbying for both change and the status quo.

It's the developer's responsibility to find the signal in all that noise, though you may have an argument that the rational response is to just tune out the noise and do whatever you want.

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

16 Jan 2012 at 23:48 - 381

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Success in PvP demands a lot of scarce attributes: dedication to improvement, time commitment, quality connection, reaction time, the ability to anticipate, and the ability to work as an effective team member. What made GW PvP great is also its Achilles heel: it's deep and unique, but it's also not for most gamers.

Many players shave claimed these as their reason but many new players also claimed the sheer amount of skills sent them packing int he first place. It becomes more of a problem when they have to unlock the skills to. If the attributes you said are the primary cause then I see trouble for GW2s conquest game type. I would hate to see Anet repeat their mistake.

Reverend Dr

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2005

Super Fans Of Gaile [ban]

W/

17 Jan 2012 at 03:51 - 382

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Any meta would be stagnant after this many years in release. You can't pin that on the devs.

But it could certainly be far better than it is in its current state. Back towards the end of Prophecies there were less skill updates, yet there was still evolution in the metagame. A large part of this came back to the fact that the game at that time, despite having less skills, had more effective builds. Currently there are so many "must have" skills that there is very little difference between most teams, and only a very small number of gimmicks. A lot of the old meta evolution revolved around finding and slotting various skills to be able to deal with the multiple builds that would be encountered, but with less builds to be considered it should be no surprise that there is less meta evolution.

Martin Alvito

Older Than God (1)

Join Date: Aug 2006

Clan Dethryche [dth]

17 Jan 2012 at 05:02 - 383

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

But it could certainly be far better than it is in its current state. Back towards the end of Prophecies there were less skill updates, yet there was still evolution in the metagame.

You won't get any argument from me that it could be a whole lot better. However, the primary reason that the metagame was still evolving in late Prophecies was that there were still a lot of mechanics left to tease out. We didn't fully understand the importance of armor, VoD hadn't been exploited to the hilt by [iQ] yet, and so forth.

Once we learned what was left to learn and optimized, even the Prophecies-era meta would have stagnated. But it's a credit to the developers that so much remained to be discovered after a year of very serious competitive play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

A large part of this came back to the fact that the game at that time, despite having less skills, had more effective builds. Currently there are so many "must have" skills that there is very little difference between most teams, and only a very small number of gimmicks.

That's definitely true. Some very poor Factions/NF skill introductions severely limited HA build diversity, and the change from one HoH win condition to three then pretty much killed diversity. Power creep (particularly among elites) has similarly limited GvG build diversity.

Kaida the Heartless

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2006

N/

18 Jan 2012 at 01:15 - 384

Even the proph meta stagnated to a degree; this should look familiar:
Warrior (Shock Axe)
Warrior (Dev Hammer)
Ranger (DShot, Crippling Shot)
Mesmer (ESurge, Diversion, Blackout)
Ele (Light Orb, Blinding Flash)
Monk (Boon Prot)
Monk (WoH, Infuse)
Ele (Ether Prodigy, Heal Party)

It's just the way games like these work. People find things that work, then sit inside the box. It was really the S-tier teams that rotated the meta (via obs mode/tournies), and most of them are gone.

Then Nightfall brought a power creep and a stagnation that brought Guildwars to where it is now.

Edit: Found a perfect example of the power creep. This is kinda neat:

Word of Healing, Original
5e, 1c, 5r (Bumped to 5e, 3/4c, 4r shortly thereafter)
Elite Spell. Heals for 20...56...65. Heals for 30...74...85 more if target ally is below 50% Health.

Word of Healing, May 14, 2009
5e, 3/4c, 3r
Elite Spell. Heals for 5...81...100. Heals for 30...98...115 more if target ally is below 50% Health.

It's just short of 70% stronger, if you're hitting your procs like a good Monkie. And that's without the decreased recharge. Just something interesting!

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

18 Jan 2012 at 01:33 - 385

With WoH, they chose to solve power creep with power creep. That's what that is there.

Killed u man

Forge Runner

Join Date: Feb 2006

18 Jan 2012 at 03:44 - 386

Actually, the biggest buff to WoH was the change to "self targettable". That change alone (offcourse in conjuction with every skill added from Factions/NF) changed the "heal monk" from a character which required insight, timing and a good understanding of positioning to a character who can spam his shit in recharge.

Back in the day, if you infused someone, you were screwed. Infuse is amongst the most tactical in GW (the Monk's frenzy, so to speak), or was atleast. Infusing someone meant that you put yourself in a very vunerable position to save an ally. Healing Touch barely healed you up to 60-70%.

Power creep isn't just all the numbers they buffed over the years, it's also the idiotproofness that creeped into the game when all these tactical mechanics/skills got replaced by raw power. Ob flame now does exactly the same damage as it did back then, yet noone called Ob flame bad the past 5 years. (ignoring the recent buff) Skills around it got buffed like mad, yet Obsidion Flame has always seen play, and by no means, was concidered OP in the early days.

Point I'm trying to make here is that alot of people are under the illusion that reducing the numbers on every OP skill out there will suddenly make this game "skillfull" again, which sadly isn't true. So many mechanics and "mini-games" disappeared from GW due to skill changes and overhauls.

I think if you ignore the blatantly overpowered skills (which early Proph had aswell), you'll find that the numbers now aren't that much higher than back then. Eles got a little bit extra damage (not much) but alot more options (Proph: air and earth, now: everything will work). Monks heal for more, but it's not that much. (I'dd say an increase of 25-30%, it was alot worse during LoD days) Prots are pretty much identical, with the exception of Aura of Stability. (Which is once again a nice example of non-number related power creep)

It's the removal of "skill" in GW PvP that made it so unfun, not the increase in raw damage or healing power.

Kunder

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2010

18 Jan 2012 at 04:10 - 387

WoH also had a 5s recharge and 1s cast time. Altogether it got at least a 200% buff in raw power, along with an infinite buff in self-sustainability during splits, other monk being disrupted, or <8 player areas thanks to being able to target self.

bhavv

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2006

18 Jan 2012 at 07:07 - 388

WoH had to be buffed because damage creep ended up getting too strong.

Powercreep in PVE is understandable - you have content which vastly scales in difficulty from easy peasy to HM UW + DoA.

In PVP though I just dont get it. Monking has continuously become insanely difficult as powercreep in PVP keeps on going up when players only have the same fixed amount of armour and HP since day one.

Monking in RA now is a serious challenge. I manage to get 10-20 wins regularly in a good team, but getting to 25 wins is a gamble, no matter how good you are at healing. The only way I've managed 25 wins since the update is with my mesmer going full caster shutdown.

This is just the one thing I hate the most about GW -

1) Anet introduce some new really hard PVE content.
2) Current skills, and several classes are terrible at this content, and every group runs the same highly class inclusive meta builds to complete the content asap.
3) Anet realize this but a few years later than they should, and have their team of highly trained monkeys with magical typewriters find an adequate solution (or maybe the monkeys need to spend 2-3 working on such balance fixes).
4) Anet for some reason that is completely beyond me apply 90% of their skill changes to both PVE and PVP, regardless of which one the change was intended for.
5) The community weeps over anets ever continual lack of being able to correctly balance both PVE and PVP, even since they added the skill split.

AndrewSX

Jungle Guide

Join Date: May 2010

Italy, Turin

Lake

E/

18 Jan 2012 at 07:34 - 389

I'm stll amazed, like you, that Anet hasn't never thought of splitting muchmuch more skill, like the 50-70% in PvE/PvP versions. Simply, those game modes in GW are so different that having same working skills (for numbers mostly, but some effects too) is very (impossible) difficult for balancing properly.

Missing HB

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Mar 2010

Anna

A/

18 Jan 2012 at 08:24 - 390

Quote:

Originally Posted by AndrewSX

I'm stll amazed, like you, that Anet hasn't never thought of splitting muchmuch more skill, like the 50-70% in PvE/PvP versions. Simply, those game modes in GW are so different that having same working skills (for numbers mostly, but some effects too) is very (impossible) difficult for balancing properly.

Most skills are balanced either from PvE, either from GvG and that's why other formats ( most popular ones) are suffering from it for years until they get empty like today...
It makes no sense having an OP meta not nerfed and abused by every single team for months in Heroes Ascent, then nerfing it only because 2 guilds are running it in GvG, it really looks like " bwaaa i got rolled by that build, let's nerf"...

If, in theory, they can't really make each arena have a proper balance( too complicated, too many disparities) they should take into accounts them at least and not just do like " oww that's true, we didn't think of RA.." and not just delete formats for no reason without ANY explaination aside( expecially about Codex, which is really their biggest fail ever)

enter_the_zone

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Nov 2007

R/

18 Jan 2012 at 11:25 - 391

Yeah, at this point, I'd back Anet moving all PVP to a large "closed deck" of skills which are seperately balanced to PVE. Like Codex, but with more skill choices.

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

18 Jan 2012 at 13:04 - 392

Fusing PvP formats could be a cool idea, but only if that meant all formats would get attention, not just GvG. I may be a bit radical, but the game doesn't even needs to have more than 3 formats:

1) Put back in Team Arena. It's the same format as RA, just without being random.
2) Put FA/ JQ maps inside the map rotation of AB. Improve AB's map rotation. Give the option to join teams randomly, or only with 2-3 players and then have another random other players fill the holes. Don't make AB dependent on the guild. Remove codex, use its outpost to enter AB. Have the matches be joined as fast as in JQ/ FA.
3) Remove HA. Make GvG far more accessible.

Then, you would have to balance your PvP skills between a 12vs12 format, a 4vs4 format, and a hybrid 4vs4/12vs12 format.

EDIT: Or alternatively, leave RA as it is, ignore it, put something like Costume Brawl map system, put in them two teams of 4, and then we have a semi-AB. CB+AB would be easy to balance because what applies to one almost certainly would apply to the other. There, "two" formats MAX to balance around.

Yes, some of those proposals might be too radical and maybe beyond ridiculous, but the idea is simple: make some clean up, simplify all formats into a few crucial ones, and then focus on them.

drkn

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jan 2009

Wroc??aw, Poland

Midnight Mayhem

Me/

18 Jan 2012 at 13:25 - 393

The most basic and the most important idea has already been realised by ANet, but unfortunately, it only got introduced in GW2 - the ease to get into PvP. Why RA/JQ/FA are so popular? Because they're just one click away from playing; you don't need to form a group, they're friendly towards less sociable (not necessarily less skilled, though, for each format) people, they offer fast play instead of wasting time to form the group, wasting even more to find someone who would fill an empty slot because someone had to leave due to real life issues; and it's also reflected in the waiting times - waiting for opponents wouldn't be so bad in HA if it was a click-and-play format, like RA.
ANet realised it a bit too late, and they could only introduce PvP with such an easy start-up system in GW2.

Deleting RA in favour of TA would make it only worse and much more exploitable. On the other hand, letting people in AB to either form their own group of four or create a team with other random people, just as in JQ and FA, would tremendously heighten the popularity of AB.

Whatever overhaul we're talking about, though, is not likely to happen - not with so limited resources on ANet's side, not so 'close' to GW2's release. If we want some real changes, we would probably have to actually think of achieveable, small steps, and then present ANet a draft of all those small tweaks in one big post in their support forum and/or the wiki, hoping that at least half of them makes it into the game.

DiogoSilva

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Feb 2011

Girl

E/

18 Jan 2012 at 15:13 - 394

The addition of random play for AB would actually be an easy change, I think, and probably a good place to start. Have its NPCs accessible outside of the GH would be another (put them in GToB and several factions maps). What else could we suggest? But that's probably best to leave it to another thread.

Missing HB

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Mar 2010

Anna

A/

19 Jan 2012 at 08:22 - 395

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiogoSilva

3) Remove HA. Make GvG far more accessible.

I can't believe i'm going to say it, but i actually think it's a very good idea. Making some place to find players to " pug" GvG( read: to find guests easier) and keep the main format of GW a bit more active...HA is completly dead anyway , too much flawed with unfair 1v1 situations when it's a little active, and metas are joke and unfun...Add to it you usually need hours to expect a full run and it's pointless...

Maybe some kind of personnal ranking like we had in Hero Battles could be something to increase players motivation...

Swingline

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2010

Somewhere far away from you

The Mirror of Reason[SNOW]

W/

19 Jan 2012 at 09:09 - 396

They won't delete HA.

I know I have said it before in this thread but I believe I must again to get the point across. HA can be active again by doing 2 things, make it a random join format like JQ/FA and cut the number of maps down to 5 or 6. The hardcore HAers will up and rage quit but a new wave of players will come in and possibly make it the most popular format. Some maps could probably use some tweaks to support the random format as well. By doing this GvG could become lively without any changes to it.

Codex could possibly benefit from being a random format but IMO it will still be a crap format due to the lousy skill pools that come around, monks especially suffer in this format because of this.

I find it puzzling that Anet claims to be for the casual gamer yet they won't embrace the random format more.

lemming

The Hotshot

Join Date: May 2006

Honolulu

International District [id???]

19 Jan 2012 at 09:40 - 397

random format + team game = ???

(and no, cod is not a team game)

Fluffy Kittens

Guest

Join Date: Dec 2009

19 Jan 2012 at 09:42 - 398

HA has same activity as GvG has. Both formats are great the way they're designed. HA is probably the best type of PvP format ever made. Problem now is lack of players which makes format look bad (i.e. 1v1 HoH when it's obviously meant to be 3-way).
One of the easiest solutions would be adding more rewards or even make a title for HoH wins, that way those silly PvE players who farm underworld or doa or whatever whole days would maybe actually be able to change their mind and play PvP and actually have fun in this game. But PvE is way too easily abused and gives easy rewards + requires no skill at all, which is complete opposite from PvP so it's kinda easy to see why PvP is dead.

Coast

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jul 2006

Belgium

Whats Going On [sup]

Mo/

19 Jan 2012 at 10:00 - 399

Making pvers to do ha would be a possible fix ha.
Make it pve-related again: in the old days guild wars worked with continents.
Lets say: Asia had the favor: only people on asian server had acces to the underworld and fissure of woe.
Now, an american team won halls and a message popped up: America has won a battles in the hall of heroes. 4 more wins and America will have the favor of the gods.
So after 4 more wins by an American team they had favor and then people on the American servers had acces to the Underworld and Fissure of Woe.

Why don't they introduce something similar again?
Like: every hour there needs to be a winner in the hall of heroes, if this didn't happen then accies to the underworld and fissure of woe is denied untill a team wins in the hall of heroes.

This way people will have to do some ha if they want to have acces to these popular areas of the game.( Large amount of people play uw/fow: some will not like this idea tho,but it can be good to revive ha).

discuss.

Mouse at Large

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Dec 2005

Scotland

Fuzzy Physics Institute

E/

19 Jan 2012 at 10:02 - 400

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rezz Anna Nicole

<snip>that way those silly PvE players who farm underworld or doa or whatever whole days would maybe actually be able to change their mind and play PvP and actually have fun in this game. But PvE is way too easily abused and gives easy rewards + requires no skill at all<snip>

Do you by any chance live under a bridge????