Guild Wars 2: Balance Change Post-Mortem Concerns | MMORPG.com

Comments

• Thornropics Newbie CommonPosts: 5

  July 2023

  Might actually go back and retry the game to see
• Aeander Member LegendaryPosts: 8,060

  July 2023

  Problem is, GW2's simplified buff and debuff systems mean that support is inherently limited, and they've frequently shown they don't like unique class buff mechanics like traditional banner stat buffs. When you limit yourself to a handful of boons and conditions, you only really get flexibility over the duration, ease of application, area of effect, and potentially number of stacks of the same effect.
  
  Whereas Guild Wars 1 had dozens of unique buffs and debuffs, and it was wonderful. Daunting to learn, sure, but it gives a real sense of class identity and allows for individual skill balancing.
• Kirzan Member UncommonPosts: 70

  July 2023 edited July 2023

  They've backed themselves into a corner. When the game wasn't *that* popular, most of its life, they just played around with specs like playdoh. They didn't add much, they did add challenging content. This formed a meta and now, since this was basically a player-designed meta and they let players run with it, they're stuck with it.
  
  It's kind of an ESO LA weaving deal. It's crap, but it's effective, part of the meta, things have been balanced for damage including this weaving, and they're stuck with it.
  
  The sad truth is: ANet needs to take a risk and potentially piss a lot of people off, but actually have a roadmap in order to embrace the meta, create new professions building systems and balance the game around it.
  
  They need to review their design philosophy taking the meta they've tried tricking people off of in their marketing for so long into consideration. I believe GW2 is a better game if things like Quickness and Alac are actually just massive cooldowns that you use strategically. It's also a better game if it acknowledges the "trinity," and includes roles in its UI, maybe with spec templates even. So, overall, just a much more structured game.
  
  As sucky as it is, this "freedom" the article talks about is actually what caused this game to be where it is now. The same, weird mess every patch as it's been since HoT because they just "do whatever." They still firmly think there's no trinity, or even a meta. They say they do, they say they balance around it/them, but they don't. Every balance patch is almost consistently a weird mess. Every single one of them!