It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
One of the biggest problems for Guild Wars 2 developers facing this stance in on balancing lately, however, has been the frequency that patches are being delivered to the community, with the meta shifts being too slow, too far between and too small for a great deal of the vocal community.
Comments
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
Since GW2's spvp mode only seems to cater towards conquest, I feel like having faster balance patches would be better, but at the same time, shouldn't interfere with current spvp seasons.
If GW2 had more spvp maps with different objectives, than I think larger scale updates that take a longer time would make more sense.
It all wouldn't be so bad, but build options and synergies between all the different classes are impossible to balance when half the abilities available for each class are basically useless.
They really should be spending time making current abilities more viable for different builds rather than spending time creating new elite specializations that just bring in more balance problems.
Anyways, that being said.. I've seen worse balance.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Barrage which is one of the best ranger skills is useless 80% of the time due to having to dodge or move which cancels the skill.
Playing: FFXIV
Future: wishing for SWG 2, World of Warcraft Classic
Played: Most current and extinct MMO's - 18 Years in....
Interesting Fact - I own 27 Tarantula's
Defined roles in a ROLE PLAYING game...no ...say it ain't so?
Ok joking aside,yes roles are exactly what the game SHOULD have been doing all along but i would by now HOPE people can see an agenda was in place all along in that they were simply aiming for a CHEAPER way to deliver a game and NOTHING they claimed to be doing was for the game or gamer's.
However ,here is the problem, you cannot and NEVER will have balance in a rpg and imo you never should have balance.
So the question is could it still work?Well somewhat and if you give the players the truth instead of your BS agenda's AND you have to keep it totally separate from the PVE.
If i remember correctly,are not a few of the original system designers gone,not even working there anymore,like Peter's for one?So if your original team/vision are gone,how do the new people carry on the same vision or is that old vision even viable?
IMO the old vision and bull they were feeding people was NOT viable and never would be,if they want to make a good solid FAIR pvp system,it takes a LOT of work a lot of testing and some smart people.They would have to make a lot of changes to the game and a lot of restrictions to pvp.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I do not think that having long periods between balance patches is helping them any, but they seem intent on messing around with stuff that is working and yet constantly ignore things that really need to be fixed.
I have played alot of mmo's and the team here is not the worst ive seen but pretty close. I know in these games there will never ever be balance but normally in other mmo's ive seen attempts to fix glaring balance issue but this team wants to bury their heads in the sand and ignore them.
Add onto the fact they refuse to hold their hands up and say we f'ck'd up and revert something when it doesn't work. They keep trying to polish a turd and expect it to be different rather than admit they made a mistake and go from there.
Or maybe they just better to look at the meta, and make changes/elites according to popular demand, tweaking under-represented classes to fill those roles.
ROLE PLAYING SHOULD HOPE CHEAPER NOTHING BS NEVER AND PVE IMO NOT LOT.
is the secret message off of my handy decoder ring. . .
With so many variables I'm thinking "perfect" balance, or anything close to it is impossible.
I also think if any developer actually achieved it most players would quit soon after.
Chasing after the next fotm build has always been a core progression driver of the genre.
Heck, it's a big incentive to create a new character of a different class or even one of the same class as often you needed at least one or more for PVE, and perhaps multiples for PVP.
A friend of mine had 5 level 50 Shammies in DAOC, each with a separate purpose.
Perhaps the real problem isn't how slowly balance changes are made, or how quickly players figure out the next new fotm build.
Perhaps the issue is players are able to respec into a new build too easily.
My first MMO Lineage 1 had no respecs, not even when devs drastically altered the class, you were expected to reroll. A bit too extreme and one reason I left but it slowed things down.
DAOC had it about right at launch. You could respec twice while leveling up, and had to choose your final spec at level 40, 10 levels before cap.
Once you got to 50 you had a choice, live with your build, try to obtain a respec stone which were very rare and expensive, or since you likely wanted to keep the build, reroll a new character.
So yeah, you never will stop the need to rebalance, nor likely would want to.
But there is definitely ways to slow down player's consumption of the new changes.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
What would perfect balance even entail? I think an 80yr old with slower reflexes should still have a chance to beat a twitchy tween all hopped up on redbull while playing World of Warcraft. Others would say that should absolutely not be allowed to happen.
Plus, a meta build is just a template. You can change utilities to fit the situation. You can change some of the gear stats if you need additional defensive stats. You can change your sigils and sometimes your runes to a viable alternative. You can change a trait if you would prefer a different one. Even changing one of these things effectively makes it a different build. And that's awesome. It represents a type of community interaction and organic build iteration.
I wish that what is described in the article was really the case with GW2.
The problem with builds and combat in GW2,is not that they try to provide relatively balanced builds that each is unique,but the exact opposite.
They deliberately make builds over perform and they've been doing so for years now,and they've bloated everything to the point where playing the most powerful builds has no downside to it.The newer and more desirable builds don't simply add flavour,they achieve everything their predecessors did,only way more efficiently,with less effort required.
All those features described in the article as characteristics of GW2 class balance atm,is what the game doesn't have.
Look at the top tier builds of the newest "meta".
Some of the easiest builds to play,and arguably some of the most powerful that we've ever seen.
For example,when you introduce a class/build that essentially prohibits melee combat to 8 out of 10
other melee builds,I'm talking about Scourge,then your problem is not that your game allows for build diversity and aims for imperfect balance,but that it is simply,not balanced.
The class balance team has been producing one sub par patch after the other,and they are mainly responsible for the PvP and WvW scenes reduced numbers and player loss.
There's no excuse for the current state of combat in PvP and WvW.The vibe I get is that they are not even trying.They allow for obviously over tuned builds,with the expectation that these might contribute to new players staying with the game.
I won't even touch general issues that the community's been pointing out,and have been ignored for years now.
Just look at the latest patch,and tell me if there is anything included in it,that will entice players that left WvW and PvP after PoF because of the cluster f@ck combat,to return.
I hope they have more 120 Euro mount packs inc.They are going to need them.
I'm looking for them to allow us to create templates so we can switch to the most appropriate one depending on what we're doing. That way I can play Reaper then click on the Scourge template when I want to change. Instead of have to go in and redistribute points, gear, and weapons. SWLs, Rift, and a few other MMO's has this and it's really nice to be able to change builds with just a click of the mouse.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey