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Guild Wars 2 - What Does Class Diversity Mean? - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Guild Wars 2 - What Does Class Diversity Mean? - MMORPG.com
At launch, Guild Wars 2 was an MMO that strove to break the boundaries set by the classics of the genre and sought to achieve this through a diverse set of skills and abilities that each class could bring to an encounter. Now more than ever, Guild Wars 2 and the community expect certain roles for any difficult encounter, with specific classes fulfilling these roles either exclusively or objectively better than any other.
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Actually no that's not true. There are serious issues with classes such as the engineer which still has nerfs that were implemented 2 months after beta and after launch. It's literally been that long. What they've done most recently has put a bandaid on the explosives spec for example just to try to get engineers to stop talking about the holes in the class.
Much like the necromancer used to be, Engineers are still stuck using condition damage outside of using the new holo spec. It's really that bad. We used to have our own setup for power builds using explosives but that's been nerfed to the ground, and doesn't really do justice to what it should be.
Mine toolbelt still sends mines all over the place, all mines are tiny and have no real AOE trigger zone to speak of so enemies still dance around them. Use it see how tiny they are seriously it's. Just. That. Bad.
Bombs don't have the same AOE zone as wide as 2 handed swords. Every class that uses 2 handed swords can swing their swords and hit enemies in a larger area than any bomb or mine that engineers have you can visually test these things and see what I'm talking about yourself.
When you say classes are balanced relatively well you're leaving out huge holes in classes like the engineer that have never been fixed.
The thief is another one with large issues when it comes to power builds. I'm playing it right now. There are only 1 skill per weapon on ranged weapons that actually do enough damage to get the job done properly. Pistol Whip, Cluster Bomb, Unload, and Death's Judgement.
Any of the other skills on thief does nothing when it comes to power damage. They are weak as hell. Sure the CC skills should be however, I'm talking about ALL of the other skills on ALL of the other ranged attacks. None of the other classes have to deal with this type of nerfing with their ranged attacks even those with pets such as the Necromancer and the Ranger. Why is a class with no pet being penalized like this when there are more powerful ranged classes than the Thief that do way more damage on their other skills on their weapons and enjoy free damage with their ranged attacks? Why is thief being penalized when it's not the top DPS for power or crit.
No matter what Anet do to "balance" class's, players will always look for the numerical advantage, declare that as Meta, and insist that other players adopt it or GTFO.
Personally, I just build my characters in a way that I find to be most fun, if that aligns with a Meta build for that class, ok, if it does not, again, ok, I am still going to play it that way regardless.
As for group content, not adhering to Meta build wise, does not mean the content is not doable, it is, it just means it will take more time.
The problem is the elitists.. who spread their attitude across forums and websites and then the non-elitists follow that advice. Elitists are much more likely to make their ideas known publicly.
Sure, there are combinations that can make things faster or easier. But in order to be successful you don't need to do what the elitists are doing. Generally, speed is what they care about the most.
GW2 still has the diversity. You can go in with really mixed up builds and complete just about anything. Might take a bit longer but your risk of failure could be much lower.
It's a player problem, not a mechanics problem.
As for the every class should be able to fulfil every role opinion. I personally don't see the point in having a class system if every one can do everything. They would just be cosmetic.
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While elitism is an obnoxious part of any online gaming community, it arises from imbalances in the game, not the other way around. Min-maxers only exploit what is already there. Now, the reason why Guild Wars 2 tends to be min-maxed towards damage is that the innate dodging, blocking, and self-sustain of classes tends to make durability irrelevant in most PvE content. Sure, you could lower your risk of failure by tanking up, but this only tends to work when the whole party does it. In a typical group situation in which at least some players are going to be glass cannon, having other players in tank builds actually lowers the survivability of glass cannon allies increasing their odds of failure. Glass cannons rely on their teammates to do the same - killing bosses before boss mechanics or adds overwhelm the group.
On class diversity:
Honestly, this point is simply dead wrong. Two classes can fill the same basic role and still be wildly different both to play and in what they bring to the team.
For example, a Necromancer handles condition damage, support, and tanking in totally different ways from a Guardian. A Necromancer condi build is defined by its ability to transfer conditions and corrupt boons. No other class can effectively perform this sub-role. A Guardian condi relies on wracking up high stacks of AoE burning to quickly kill targets; this strength comes with fewer cover conditions and less versatility. A support Necromancer supports allies through lifesteal, barrier, and downed-state revival. A support Guardian can bring general boon support, aegis, and healing. A tank Necromancer is an odd, niche build based on self-sustain and minion mastery. A tank Guardian would use blocks, aegis, and over-time heals to survive.
Every class, even in its ability to perform the same core roles, comes with unique strengths and draw backs.
Warriors excel at damage output and might stacking, but lack overall support and tend to rely more on high base stats than active blocks to tank.
Guardians excel at burning, boon support, healing, active blocks, and damage, but lack mobility, range, and innate bulk.
Power Revenants have high damage, boon support, and powerful active defense skills, but lack condi removal. Condi revenants have great condi removal, condition variety, and resistance, but lack in terms of active defenses, unless you sacrifice a second condi set to have a staff and defensive legend. Both build are predictable and lack versatility.
Necromancers, as stated before, are masters of boon and condition manipulation, but lack in terms of stun breaks, mobility, and supportive boons.
I could go on, but I think my point should be pretty well illustrated here.
If you plays tournaments I can see why you would care but since I play for fun I make builds that works for my personal playstyle.
I honestly never been booted for my build from any group, people have asked me about the gear I have though. Heck, no one even asked about my build (but I guess they would if I played poorly).
Now, in the first GW people asked for specific builds all the times in the chat and I seen them asking for specific classes or advanced classes in GW2.
I don't think people would bother invinting random people anyways to a tournament so it is more about a team sitting down and tuning their builds to eachothers there. For us that doesn't play tournaments you can just skip worrying about it as long as you do what you should in your group.
Of course if you don't really perform as well as you should looking on builds is certainly worth it just as getting tips from experienced players of the same class is but otherwise it is up to you.
There might certainly be people whining about your build (especially if you play druid) but it can't be that common or I am very lucky since I PUGed a lot during the years and never been asked about my build except by newer players who want tips.
Let's leave this one to people who play competetive PvP or who just plainly enjoy min maxing their toons.
The reality is that there are countless utilities, weapons, and traits that are literally of no use, regardless of game mode, that eat dust.
No, when you have 30% and greater damage differentials, you are neither balancing the game, nor diverse.
That said, I gave up on Anet balancing or making skills playable long ago. Pvp and wvw are simply not given the attention needed to be diverse or balanced. Now I play open world pve where it doesn't matter.
Anet has successfully made their own game modes irrelevant by lack of attention. Raiding is soon to follow pvp and wve as their trends on not addressing things timely or adequately continue.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
I'm not saying what you're saying is wrong, but it's elitist
My last paragraph was a reply to the end of the article, in case that's where the confusion is.
Specifically:
"For others, and this applies heavily to fans of the Guild Wars 2 approach, it is the ability for their class to fulfil any role in the game as effectively as anyone else- or at least at a level accepted by others in the community."
I wasn't saying GW2 lets every class fill any role.
Well said, and dually applicable to ESO which is why I don't play it anymore.
I don't understand the idea that the players should just accept massively ineffective builds instead of the devs fixing their imbalance. That is literally what they get paid to do.
Oh, and labeling something elitist isn't an argument. It's a silly label. It's akin to "winning" a political argument by labeling your opponent. It simply doesn't hold up in any kind of debate.
You also misunderstood my point on class roles. What I was trying to establish is that allowing every class to fill every core role (those being power dps, condi dps, tank, and support) does not mean that classes inherently blend together. Distinct subroles (like condi/boon manipulation, might stacking, heavy crowd control, quickness sharing, alacrity sharing, etc.), which I NEVER argued were all required for a group, allow each class to distinctly fill the core roles while providing their own unique benefits and playing differently to a different class performing the same role.
Furthermore, I would say that the combinations of core and sub-roles allow classes to stand out in their offerings even further. For example, both Druids and Warriors make fantastic might stackers, while each fulfilling a different core role (damage for the warrior, healing for the druid) that give each of them a different reason to be taken in a hardcore team composition. Perhaps a raid group wishes to use a Phalanx Strength Berserker for might stacking while utilizing an aura support Tempest for healing. They can do that. The different combination of roles and sub-roles allow for flexibility of team comp. Which if anything, adds to build diversity and decreases so-called elitism.
Again, my last paragraph was a reply to the article. A general reply that could be applied to all games. GW2 does not let every class fulfil every role because of the sub-role situation.
1) That you seem to believe that elitism stems solely on the player end and that class diversity doesn't exist in elitist comps.
2) That allowing every class to fill every role on the team would make all classes arbitrary to the point of being cosmetic.
Build diversity absolutely exists. I would never want nor expect it to be otherwise. But the notion that simply having group expectations eliminates any build diversity is simply exaggerated. The belief that giving every class the option to fill any role would lead to the homogenization of classes is not only untrue, but runs contrary to what I consider to be good game design. Therein lies our apparent disagreement.
1) I'm guessing you don't get what I was saying because you've never had the misfortune of raiding with proper elitists. Argue semantics all you like.. but there are people out there that will kick you out of the raid if you don't have exactly all the skills, gear, runes or whatever they expect you to have to be 100% optimal. If there is diversity in what you think is an elitist comp, it's not an elitist comp. That is what an elitist is to me. It's not a general term, it's definable, and, to my understanding, that's what it means. You seem to think elitist just means raider.
2) Again, the sub-roles mean the classes can't fill all the roles. If every class could fill every sub-role, which is what I meant by saying all classes filling every role.. it has to be EVERY role; every SUB-role too, then you could all just play the same class and fill every role you want. More classes would just be a skin... because they could all do the same thing. PLEASE, stop saying they don't all do the same thing in GW2. I know that.
I've stated multiple times that GW2 has diversity. Why do you keep saying it back to me?
As a player can already listed so much problem about the classes, i wonder what they do to the balance team to make them not notice these problems. May be they never listen to the players and no one in the dev team actually know the game really well.
You said builds, not useless skills.
If it's always useless then it obviously needs fixing.
Aloha Mr Hand !
Speed clearing raids/fractals for the sake of grinding rewards on the other hand is one of the most boring activities that I can think of. But I can understand that if you really want to do this, that you try to alleviate the grind by using the most efficient builds. I could never bring myself to do this for PVE, but I used to be this kind of elitist in GW1 for PVP though (mostly GvG).
Anyway, there is no wrong way to approach a group encounter. It is all preference. The only problem here is that the group finder tool mixes the adventurers with the elitists.
I haven't played GW2 for a while, but is there no option to classify the type of group you are looking for/trying to create? I mean, it is not as if Anet will balance this game and make all skills useful. So maybe a better LFG tool could be a solution.