Meta-Meta-Game??

I want to get some thoughts on this. I vaguely recall reading at some time in the past that Asheron's Call (or some other mmorpg) had a feature where, if many people were using a spell, that spell would become less and less powerful. I don't know if that actually made it in as a feature, but I was thinking about how there are several skills that are pretty useless in GW, and a couple that are overwhelmingly popular. I myself prefer to have lots of variety and creativity in how I can play the game (although GW already has oodles more than say, WoW)

What do you think about some sort of auto-balancing (or rather, auto-variety creating) system, where skills that are equipped by many people, and used by many winning teams, gradually (over weeks/months) become less effective (costs go up, or effects go down, etc). Whilst skills that are rarely used, become more effective? I also think the current "effectiveness modifier" of a skill should be clearly stated so you can keep track of what's hot and what's not.

I think it might be interesting because some odd combination of skills might suddenly become viable, whereas those FOTW famous builds will become ineffective more quickly. (Especially those builds that have very few effective counters - like a well run spirit spam, which seems to only be defeatable by a handful of strategies. Such as EoE).

It would also encourage balanced groups. If everyone was running 5 Air Elem spiking teams, then it would get real old real fast. And it encourages quick thinking and adapting.

And somehow, I prefer an "automated" system over getting the devs to muck about trying to fix balance issues. It often seems like whenever they make a patch to fix balance issues, a whole host of whinges and other problems pop up.


Any suggestions how it would work? Possible problems to overcome? Anyone seen any similar systems in other games, succeed or fail?

Whilst this would increase the longevity of the game for some, most people would find it frustrating to change their builds every so often to keep up with the times. The beauty of GW is that you can leave it for a week or so, pick it up and be exactly where you were before. With this, you would come back, find your build is obsolete and discover which skills are 'hot' at that moment.

Although it would be nice to see the lesser used skills in action, however the concept will probably not be accepted by the masses.

Since I'm pretty much a pure PvEer, and probably always will be, I'd hate to have my spells effectiveness lessened or strengthened due to it's popularity or lackthereof.

Really? Dont you sometimes see a perfect plan in the skill lists that will allow you to pwn all those nasty monsters, only to see it fail because the numbers just dont add up? I'd like for the day to come when all my lucky modifiers come up and I can go, "At last! I will be King! Mwahaha! For a while...."

Seriously, tho, don't you get tired of using/seeing the same things again and again? I guess some people just like to find/get told what works and stick with it :/

Really?? I thought that was the exact reverse... in most other MMORPGs/online action games, when you leave, and come back, you come back exactly where you were before. I thought the beauty of GW is that it evolves and gets updated pretty quickly by video game standards (maybe because it's new, but...), and that the meta game is constantly shifting.

I guess the metagame currently doesnt have much of an impact on PVE characters (apart from the "If you're a Necro, noone wants you..." or "Cant find monks in the desert!?!?")... on that note, wouldn't you want some sort of metagame in PVE as well? So that rarely-used builds and classes become more desirable/useful, etc?

I, for one, have constantly tried to make a melee E/W work well, but still haven't quite succeeded :P (But luckily in PVE it doesnt matter that much, you can use any build and do ok.)

Well, updates do come regularily, but then you know exactly what's changed. If all your skills are no longer effective, you'd have to work on a completely new build, and from my experience this is the part that takes up most of my time (well, non-playing time).

Ok, I guess the 50c question is, are you enjoying the process of thinking up a new build? Or do you view it as an annoyance or chore? I spend a lot of time (usually at work :P ) planning out builds and stuff... I enjoy it quite a bit.

And having it done by an automated system seems less anger-prone to me, where in other games players often accuse the devs of favoritism or ignoring certain classes etc.


Oh, and how would you feel if most of the skills, during normal use, remain fairly close to their baseline effectiveness? And only skills that are very very popular or unpopular start to feel auto-balance effects?

I do enjoy the process a lot, and like you I do it at work :P but I don't want it to take over all of my working hours everyday which it would if I wanted to have an effective build to try when I get home. A bit too much effort for me, and I would soon get bored of it. I guess that's the way I feel, others might be different.

Fair enough, I guess. I was hoping to find some people who might have seen a similar system in another game (was it Asheron's Call? I remember it was the MMORPG done by Microsoft...?) and whether they could comment on how well/badly it worked.

Mending would start to do degen instead of regen, considering all the paladin templates I see using it. The problem with this idea is that bad skills get used a lot, too.

Well, like I said, it doesn't necessarily have to be the actual effect (especially where the effect is so discrete, like mending). The modifier could apply to the cost, casting time or recharge.

As for bad skills being used a lot, well, possibly the effect might be to nerf them out of existence, and then it'd get better again, and then enough people would use it to keep it at a reasonable level of usefulness. After all, it's a metametagame, it's purpose is to fluctuate over time

I agreed. Actually I did think about this idea. This actually promote diversities.

The auto balance should be slow and predictable so people can catch up.