JusticeRetroHunter.7684

> @"Ragnar.4257" said: > And I've already demonstrated multiple times in this thread how changing the numbers DOES lead to meaningful changes. >So, you're wrong. Demonstration? Where? > And I'll say again: The Feb 2020 patch was not really anything to do with "balance" as such. It was about re-shaping the pace and flow of the game. That's literally all it did, was reshape. It literally did not accomplish anything remotely close to balance and for good reason...but is this not why people wanted Anet to do? Balance the game? I'm proving @"Arheundel.6451" point about how number changes for the system as a whole is meaningless and doesn't accomplish anything. You are in fact supporting this by saying what you just said above. What really matters about balance in the game, is mechanics, and build diversity, and there are very good reasons why. Buffs and nerfs lead you to power-creep and power-dip and we've now experienced both sides. There's no mistake why that is the case, and my comment illustrates why.

> @"Ragnar.4257" said: > Because that is the only scenario in what you're saying makes any sense. If it was perfectly balanced beforehand, then you're right. But, it wasn't, so what are you talking about? The entire point is to illustrate how in it's fundamentality, changes to a system, whether it's already balanced or not, does not lead to any meaningful changes. I could have given you an unbalanced system (Feel free to go and do that yourself)... there is no operation that makes that system balanced without universally effecting all things in that system. This is a consequence of trying to make things equal.

> @"Ragnar.4257" said: > What relevance does this have to anything that is being discussed? Like i said, any change that doesn't universally effect the entire system in an attempt to make it equal, imbalances the system. what the hell do you think happened February Patch? and what do you think happened as a consequence of the patch?

> @"Ragnar.4257" said: Think of it like this then... You have Player A, That does 1000 damage, and has 10 HP. You have another player that does 10 damage, and 1000 HP. How would you go about balancing this system? There is essentially no operation you can do to balance the system above. In fact, the above is as equivalent to both players having 505 damage, and 505 HP. In all sense of the word, no matter what you do in this system, the above can not be changed to anything that is meaningfully balanced then what it already is. making either of them less or more then the other makes the system by definition IMBALANCED.

> @"Ragnar.4257" said: > The Feb 2020 patch didn't reduce damage and health by the same proportion. Why do you keep making this point? uhh...exactly. Only some of the things changed, it's all pointless number pushing. Nothing is actually accomplished. What goal is there if the entire meaning of balance is to make things equal (Is that not what "balance" means), when you are purposefully making some things stronger or weaker then other things. In either case, nothing is actually accomplishing the goal of "balance."

> @"Ragnar.4257" said: > I think its you who don't understand what it is you actually wrote. Please explain how i don't understand what i wrote, it's quiet clear. lowering all numbers in a system that was previously 1000 damage for every 10,000 health, is the same as a system with 1 damage for every 10 health. In this scenario, the barrier for entry doesn't change. Changing only SOME of the things in the system, leads to what we have now, which doesn't accomplish actual balance because you are only changing some of the things in that system, and this is what we see in gw2 currently.

> @"Ragnar.4257" said: > Except, that isn't what happened is it? @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" I think you misunderstand. No matter what one could do to change the system with number changes, the system doesn't change in any meaningful sense. Creating a new power-level does nothing because it's all relative. In the same token, changing some but not all things, means you aren't actually balancing anything, just moving numbers in the system around.

In Guild Wars 1, The observe mode was essentially a recording, that went live after the match was already played. GW1's Obs system was just superior in every way to the current obs system...I don't understand why they couldn't just do that for Gw2, but whatever at this point it's just too late...they had a decade to implement the system and they gave us this one instead.

Building off of what @"Arheundel.6451" said, Constant nerfs are just as bad as buffs. There is a video on Youtube that says Buffs are better then nerfs...but this is simply not true...However there is a rationale for their reasoning. It has to deal with essentially, the barrier for entry on how useful something is to accomplish a goal. You can think of this type of thing as a catalyst...in order for a chemical reaction to happen it has to hit a certain temperature first... Without hitting that temperature (Melting Point...Boiling Point Etc...) Chemical reactions just don't happen. It's the same thing with the usefulness of choices. Now if in theory everything in the game was nerfed, an i literally mean every single thing, you can lower the barrier for entry. Want to nerf something to do 1 damage? Then reduce the HP, Armor, Amulets Sigils, Abilities, Traits to be in the 10's. The key is that EVERYTHING has to be nerfed....And at this point what have you really changed? The barrier for entry isn't a rational number on a number line...it's a ratio. Something that does 1000 damage against an opponent that has 10000 health, is the same barrier for entry for something that does 1 damage against an opponent with 10 health. , and if one were to lower one thing without nerfing everything else, the barrier for entry is unfairly distributed, so what did we accomplish exactly? Number tweaking in the above manner is pointless because it doesn't change anything about the system in any meaningful sense. This is why the current balance philosophy of "nerf everything" was always flawed to begin with, as well as the "Buff this" mentality that is often posed as the counter argument to the nerf everything stance. Neither actions lead to anything that is balanced in any sensical form, and an approach that @"Arheundel.6451" alludes to is what is really the critical factor in deciding how a system is able to change. Functionality changes, and build diversity.

> @"torben.1532" said: > Thing about this patch is that it addressed a lot of issues in „higher tiers“ where dh just isn’t a problem > For ranked q where people can’t deal with it however it still is a reality that dh is very strong against people who don’t quite know how to deal with it > Im assuming it will be addressed in the next patch Personal comment here, i find DH annoying because it takes forever to kill one, and they do so much damage through passive burn applications (all they really need to do is hit a couple times with some auto's to proc a sizable chunk of burning damage to you) while at the same time doing sizable power damage, so not only do you get harassed by persistent conditions, but also have to dodge quiet a few attacks. Now this didn't phase me most of the time because I understand how to fight against a DH...but when it takes years to kill them...block, block, dodge, block block, heal trap, block, F2 Heal, Invuln...F2 Heal again and disengage, heal trap stealth away... It get's really frustrating to fight something that's strong and resilient, all while having to kite off node since traps are also AOE. Now i don't mind that this build exists...in fact it's always existed. I just hate having to be shoehorned into 1 build in order to beat really, any bunker-y build in this game (which in my case is Zerk Reaper) and this limits how I can deal with a build like DH...which for a zerk reaper isn't exactly easy to beat. I can understand with BM but the drop in damage from zerk to BM is so significant, that you can't ever beat a Healbreaker with it...at least not in any feasible amount of time. I us-to have maybe 8-9 different builds I could use to enjoy the game, and now it's just 1...because nothing else can even come close to being remotely competitive. This is what I find frustrating really. Staring at the only build I can play and not actually enjoying playing it because it's so limiting. Now ya, I could join the dark side and just play a DH, or play a Sevenshot or play a healbreaker... but the truth is that I don't want to. I want to play the class I enjoy, on a build I create and still be useful. Otherwise this game just isn't fun. And so at best, I've played only couple hours over the past couple months, and usually only to check patch changes. All the vet's and people i us-to know are gone...what's left really but a game that makes you toxic after a few hours because it's not fun at all? Blow out matches...ridiculously dull mechanics...Nobody even in duel arena's to duel with anymore even or experiment with builds. For me, everything just went downhill post-February, and I knew it would. Just makes me disappointed...anyway... /end rant

What happens if you fail every test. Does that mean you're a bot? What if a bot passes the test does that make them human? What does it mean to be alive...do we have a soul....

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > I am really not sure that this is the best model to regard skills in this game. One of the things that kept bothering me about our previous posts is that I know games that have no cooldown, no recharge, no mana system, etc. Fighting games, hack-and-slash games, old-school adventure games, and so on. The one that kept ringing in my head was Street Fighter, largely due to a series of articles I read about competitive gaming revolving around it. These are games where you can spam attacks and abilities indefinitely, yet I cannot find any way in which they suffer for it. I can now articulate my contention: > > You aren't alone. > > Years ago, I called it the Auto-Attack War. It is a basic way to model inequality in this game, and it works like this: the player who has the higher DPS X Effective Health product will, by default, win the fight. I.E. if a Warrior and an Elementalist walk up and start auto attacking each other, the Warrior is going to win, simply because they have roughly the same resting DPS but the warrior has 8.7k more effective health by default. That's 75% higher, which is no small ratio. An elementalist achieves victory by avoiding the damage spikes of the warrior (thus lowering the warrior's DPS) while simultaneously landing their own. The means through which this is done is endless, but in concept it is really simple: combat exerts pressure on your character, and failure to alleviate that pressure or beat it back with greater pressure results in defeat. Combat is a race, in this sense. > This is the thing that is lacking from your analysis. It is true in theory that spamming Twist of Fate off cooldown will avoid a limitless amount of damage given no definite timeframe. But in practice, I know not a single fight in this game where doing this would improve performance, either in PVE or WvW. Indeed, spamming Twist of Fate without regard for appropriateness will either lead to defeat, or a slower victory in a definite timeframe. > > There are two sides to every skill: how it affects your own damage, and how it affects enemy damage. Both have to be considered for any practical sense in this game. Twist of Fate, for example, has a negative effect on both. You can't attack while spinning. So, if you twirl about when the enemy isn't attacking, or if the enemy is using low-priority skills, then all it succeeds in doing is hindering your own performance. Worse yet, in PVP you telegraph that you can't Twist for the next 5 seconds, opening you up to burst skills. You gain value only if you avoid a damage spike (or CC that would lead to one), because then the drop in enemy DPS is significantly higher than the drop in personal DPS. > > Doing the math for all of this would be difficult, because human psychology in PVP becomes a factor. The general trend, however, is the same: when you consider that all skills are used on an opponent who is trying to kill you while staying alive themselves, then all of these skills have a tradeoff that is contingent on proper timing. That tradeoff is the decreased ratio of DPS x Effective Health product as compared to your opponent. What an excellent response man, this is spot on. I like the way you think and it seems on many things we think in the same way. Though it seems we arrive at differing conclusions. Basically i think you believe that the conclusion you've reached is enough, whereas I don't think it's enough; "when you consider that all skills are used on an opponent who is trying to kill you while staying alive themselves, then all of these skills have a tradeoff that is contingent on proper timing." Everything in a sense hinges on this property of proper timing. And really, this is kind of what's really being debated here. How would a rational agent define "proper timing" in this game with the skills available to them. Right now in game, I believe it is this very RPS structure, where there is a supposed to be a Block/Parry/CounterBlow for every attack that one could spam and vice versa that puts into question when a player is supposed to think about their skills, is the very structure keeping this game together. **This is essentially the counter argument to support the continued existence of Lich Form... There exists counter-play for the 1 spam (Reflect, Projectile Hate) Therefor it existence is justified.** In many ways, I believe that this RPS structure existing in Gw2 is a healthy attribute to have, and is structurally apart of what makes gw2, a good game. **But, It is my point of view, that the existence of Tradeoffs and RPS style counter-play aren't mutually exclusive,** They can be separated, and treated as different things but then can be joined together and work together to further improve the system and make it better, My opinion, is that tradeoffs augment the system as a whole further. GuildWars1 is a good example of a game in which it is a RPS game, again almost the same as gw2, but with way better designed tradeoffs to further augment the performance of players in the game. So It's not that the tradeoff model I put forward doesn't apply to gw2...it's that gw2 simply doesn't incorporate tradeoffs in their design philosophy, or when they do those tradeoffs are just terribly designed tradeoffs. So I had to write this comment rather quickly, so sorry if I didn't completely elaborate on something, or if something i said doesn't make much sense. But so far I really like your engaging counter-arguments. Cheers,

> @"Sigmoid.7082" said: > I'll accept anti-positive under the premise but I won't agree with the premise in general. The game really isn't designed to support it and has moved away from the concept of it in the past in favour of other methods, which by the fervour of your posts, you disagree with. Right, I disagree with those methods, currently employed in the game's design, but I also firmly believe they do not work either. > You're far more likely to see dampening effects or changes to logarithmic growth instead of exponential being introduced. Right, this is some-what how trade off's are structured currently in Guild Wars 2. Usually in the form of hard limits like target caps, soft limits like diminishing returns, or nonconsequential trade-offs like -vitality stats on exponential growth effects like Impact Savant. If I were to draw the feedback curves for a set of current gw2 game examples, their benefit-to-tradeoff growth curves would probably look something like this  Now in many cases, you can not change the shape of these growth curves by adding cooldowns or cast times. In the example for Deathly Claws, let's say you added a 10 second cooldown. You would still have a positive linear growth curve because in all cases, it is most optimally used by using it off cooldown, so it would remain the same. Twist of Fate in the above picture shares similar traits to many other evade skills. One can essentially evade an infinite number of attacks...so the growth curve is beyond exponential, based on a per attack/per person basis. Again adding a cooldown would not change the growth curve on this skill, as it will always be more beneficial the more attacks you evade, for each additional person. In simple terms, it just means you will never be penalized for using this ability on cooldown, even if you don't evade anything...So even in scenario's where one uses this ability on cooldown it will always yield a net positive beneficial effect (0 or greater). This to me at least is a huge problem. You can see this problem manifest when bots perform on builds and can play almost as efficiently as real human players. It's because the skills or builds they exploit will almost always yield net positive results, regardless of whether they blow their cooldowns or not because of the nature of the benefit to tradeoff imbalance present in those builds. Just a disclaimer, there are some skills that have things like range, are projectiles, respect LOS etc, and those in themselves provide a little bit counter-play and are in someway trade offs in and of themselves...not exactly as straightforward to quantify these kinds of mechanics, but I do acknowledge their existence and I don't discredit those in any way. What I'm really talking about here is more about how skills are balanced in a "general" sense.

> @"Sigmoid.7082" said: > > @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said: > >anti-positive > Dear lord the word you're looking for here is negative. > No not negative...that's an entirely different mechanism. To be clear, Negative Feedback brings a system from exponential growth to non exponential growth (equilibrium). Anti-positive Feedback is essentially the same as positive feedback but in the opposite drection. When you have feedback that amplify a signal exponentially, you have a second signal which is also positive feedback that amplify a signal but in the opposite direction. the way it's described is that a positive feedback loop is Input -> Output = Input+Output. A Negative Feedback Loop is when you have Input -> Output = Input-Output. An anti-positive feedback is (Input -> Output = Input+Output) - (Input -> Output = Input+Output). Anti-positive isn't a real term, because in science they are all just considered positive feedbacks...anti-positive was just the best word to describe the above premise without getting into feedback loop science. Edit: Just an illustration to make sure everyone understands why I'm saying "Anti-positive" and not talking about negative feedback. 

> @"NorthernRedStar.3054" said: > I also agree AND disagree with @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" in that more skills, particularly on classes that "spam" a lot, should have a definite anti-positive when used / used repeatedly within a short time frame. The easiest example from GW1 that comes to mind is **overcast**; however, GW2 is such a fundamentally different game from its predecessor that is nigh' impossible to compare the two in this manner or reflect the changes forward. > > Some skills already have a 'downside' in either moving you to an unfavorable position or telegraphing you for your opponent. On the other hand we have shouts and commands that are basically just a form of "Kitten you, nope." I think many Signets are some of the most interesting skills in this aspect, and the most well-balanced; an (often) instant cast which trades a passive favor for a short-period active benefit. And I think some - but not all - skills could do with a similar re-structuring in order to fresh out the game. Signets are pretty cool mechanically speaking. Though I still don't believe signets should be exempt from having actual tradeoffs. Right now i think most signets are underwhelming, because they don't have real trade-offs (They have something more in line with opportunity cost...in which using an ability means you sacrifice the usage of another ability.) I think this limits the power of those signets being able to have exponential mechanics, and we get what we have right now instead...mediocre stat boosts with somewhat relevant active effects. One signet build I wish existed was a signet or trait that benefits from other allies bringing signets. For each signet currently active on a player, increases the power of the signet's passive and active. to me that idea sounds REALLY Fricken awesome...but without a real tradeoff, we could never have such a mechanic.

> @"Kuma.1503" said: > In that vein, what do you think of trade-offs like Impact Savant? I think Impact Savant is a good example of a skill with an infinite positive feedback curve, with a poor tradeoff that doesn't work. If one were to an infinite amount of damage, they would have an infinite amount of barrier. The ability is scale invariant, which of course makes it fun, at all scales of fights... but it lacks the anti-positive feedback that is supposed to prevent it from being abused, something that the -180 vitality is "supposed" to do but it fails catastrophically at doing so because it's a linear...additive penalty. Like this math problem; (2^10^10) - (100) is still going to equal a googol of damage. So ya, Impact Savant needs a tradeoff that grounds is exponential nature. > I believe that there are some skills in GW2 that retain the same design philosophy from GW1, and some that are close. For example: > > Overcharge Shot: CC yourself and also your opponenet. > Epidemic (Or any corruption really): Spread conditions from one foe onto nearby foes, place conditions on yourself. > Kneel: Gain enchanced skills and +300 range. You cannot move with WASD. > > Examples of skills that are close, but missed the mark > > Surge of The mists: Roots you in place, but evades while standing still. Added clunk, but no real trade-off > Pain Absorbtion: Pull conditions from allies onto yourself. Gain resistance per condition. Energy cost gates this too heavily when the effect itself has potential to be the trade-off. In regards to this, we pretty much spoke before on the topic and i think you understand my point of view. What you said here are good examples of how some skills that already have proper tradeoffs, are balanced. In addition you show some ideas where skills if they did had proper tradeoffs, would actually make them more interesting skills with better mechanics. The truth is that right now, with these dodgy tradeoffs we currently have in game that don't work or are not existent, limits the "fun" capacity of the game because we can't have these kinds of interesting mechanics without tradeoffs because otherwise they would busted, and of course some of them truly are...which should be obvious but I suppose most people don't see that idk. > Finally a few ideas of my own. These aren't meant as balance suggestions, or even necessarily changes that I would want to see. This is mostly to see if I've understood your points correctly in what a proper skill trade off would look like: > > Engineer Shield 4: [Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds.] Create a projectile reflecting bubble for 2 seconds. Gain 1 charge per projectile reflected. At 10 charges, shield explodes, knocking you back and dealing heavy damage to you. Cannot be interrupted manually except by magnetic inversion. > > -- Flip Skill -- > > Magnetic Inversion [added 3/4 cast time] - Block all incoming attacks and continue building charges. Then knockback foes and consume 5 charges. [Note: cannot be stow canceled] > > Since the reflect and block are consolodated into one skill, shield 5 can be changed into a new skill. The idea here is to create a constant risk if this ability is used carelessly. You will always have a minimum 3/4 second commitment when using this skill, and you only get rid of 5 of your 10 charges if you land it. Spamming this carelessly will cause you to get knocked back and take damage, which could either get you killed or cause you to lose node. Eventually the engi may want to kite off node to clear out their charges without risk of being hit. > > > > Pain Absorbtion: > > Energy cost reduced to 15 > - Create swirling dark field around the Rev for 3 seconds > - Allies **or enemies** who walk into the field will transfer condis to the Rev once per pulse > - Gain torment per enemy condi. Resistance per ally condi transfered > > This turns pain absorption into a position reliant skill. It has the potential to be insane, making the enemy team immune to conditions. It can also cause the Rev to torment bomb themselves if they dare use this while in combat. If forces them on the defensive for 3 seconds if they try to stunbreak with it despite the low cost. Enemies are further rewarded for punishing them by giving the rev a taste of their own torment. Ya I like these ideas a lot actually. I can imagine a build where a Revenant saps all conditions from everyone in a team-fight, focusing all conditions onto itself, then using those conditions perhaps as a way to support allies, or to focus damage onto a single player, or have options to use it in an area of effects. Frankly the sky is the limit when we think about mechanics that have positive feedback nature, with their respective anti-positive tradeoffs. It creates unique mechanisms while at the same time grounding it. It's not a surprise to me that the ideas begin to flow because feedback is a universal concept, that most natural systems operate on.

> @"Shao.7236" said: > @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" Players will always complain about the most irrelevant of things even in a perfect balance and no matter how hard you try to explain it, you'll be pointed at with the same blame. Yep. Even in perfect homogenous state, there are always variables, that are outside of the game that aren't balanced, and this is just a consequence of living in a Heterogenous world governed by these physical laws. One would have to break fundamental laws of physics to get to such a state. This is also one reason why it's in gw2's favor to balance towards heterogeneity... it's like playing to it's strengths rather then trying to fight against them.

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said: > Only partly though. I can't be asked to keep track of a ton of different effects on a single skill. Everyone's different. But I think there is more text on gw2 skills then there are on gw1 skills. Pretty sure i can trait my Overload Water to have such a long tooltip that it extends beyond the boundary of my monitor. Most skills in gw1 weren't bloated much at all really. They were very simple skills, with clearly identifiable strength and weakness. Part of what made the game so fun was the complexity that arose from this simplicity. Just an example of a very simple skill that had huge complexity in it's mechanics, but was very simple to understand.  This was probably one of my favorite skills from the game to talk about. Every time you received a condition, you'd give that condition to nearby foes, for a simple price of some of your health. What's interesting about this skill is that A) you couldn't fully control how many conditions you were getting...but you could make builds where you can inflict conditions on yourself in order to spread those conditions to other players around you. B ) You could also make builds where sacrificing your health triggered other cool effects with other skills...Such as Dark Aura. In totality, it was a useful skill in certain team compositions where you could inflict insane condition pressure, while you yourself were extremely vulnerable when trying to exploit such a mechanic...and from this we got probably what most people would consider their favorite team build in the game "Contagion Bomb" Which was a coordinated effort to use these sorts of necromancers as condition bomb nukes, where the whole team would simply support two of them, as they transferred conditions from each other using skills like "Draw Condition." My favorite build is an understatement...it was such a fascinating build that I would go so far to say it warrants scientific study as to how and why it existed. Basically the amount of complexity that arose from a few simple mechanics created something so...unique... is the only way to describe this build. But back on topic, you can see that, the skill has an Effect, and a anti-positive tradeoff on that effect, that helps balance it out. In addition, the cooldown and the casttime are basically irrelevant in the grand scheme of the skill, since it has a duration of 60 seconds, and a cooldown of 20. You could screw up 3 times casting this skill before you lost it's effect really... Now, Imagining if this skill didn't have a tradeoff to ground it...it would be BUSTED and would require no coordination in order to use it... This skill's mechanics simply can not exist without a tradeoff as the exponential nature of it's mechanic would be too powerful. > Like, say every util did get a tradeoff. Let's use Twist of Fate for an example because lots of people been talking about that. Even if it lowered a Weaver's max barrier with every use, the CD is so long that it would really only be able to proc the debuff like 8-9 times per match max, and with how low damage is that debuff probably wouldn't even be very noticeable. If you have tradeoffs, you can lower the cooldowns. In a perfect world, no skill would have any cooldown, and the rational decisions made by agents would be to not spam the skill. To even get approximately close to such a world, means that the skills need some kind of tradeoff that prevents them from just button mashing something with no cooldown...what would that effect be? Well it could really be anything and your imagination is the limit here. For me, draining barrier was just the first thing that came to mind. But hell it could be anything... Perhaps, something like "For every attack that is evaded, X Barrier currently on you gets drained. If you have no Barrier, you take damage equal to 2x of every attack you evaded." Again just a quick example of what you can do...the above cast time and cooldowns don't even really matter. You could make TOF with a 10 second cooldown...so long as it has a consequence involved in it's usage...it's like adding an artificial cooldown to it...except it's not based on time, it's based on using rationality of when to use it so you don't get punished for using it any time you want. Thanks for the great comment Cheers,

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > The solution to this problem is the very thing you're objecting to: scaling effects. I suppose you misunderstand me then. I have no objection to scaling effects. In fact although I didn't discuss it here at all, I think all skills should have infinite scaling effects (Being what's called [scale Invariance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_invariance)). This is basically the essence of what positive feedback loops are and why they are useful. But you can't have positive feedback loops without anti-positive feedback loops otherwise you get infinite growth curves. That's the idea behind actual REAL tradeoffs... Necromancer (and all classes) could get better mechanics that could scale infinitely if they had tradeoffs that punished you for using those abilities in such a way that abuse infinite feedbackloop growth. So essentially, if you were behind the idea of scale invariance, that's good.... you were on the right track to making the game fun and balanced actually...It's just that you missed the other half of the "equation"...you missed the other piece that makes the idea whole...and it has of course caused problems that reverberated for the remaining history of the game. It's not immediately obvious because knowing why scale invariant systems need equally scale invariant tradeoffs is something you could only know by doing hardcore research in areas of study that are in relation to gw2, pretty abstract. (chaos theory/complexity science/Non-linear Dynamic Systems studies etc...) Now about opportunity cost. I already talked about it in comments above and I'm just gonna refer you to those comments. Opportunity cost is not a real tradeoff, and there are a number of good reasons why...mostly because it can't address feedback loop behavior, again, the above mentioned scale invariance. But additional reasons for why they aren't real tradeoffs is because cast-times and cooldowns are essentially irrelevant in the large scheme of things... Think of it this way...Let's take your example, of Arcane Shield. Let's pretend it didn't have a cooldown or a cast time...in fact pretend that no skill at all in the game had cooldowns or cast-times at all. You still have the option to choose which one you want but you can't have both... So the question is, what would the behavior of a player be when either of these skills are used in their most optimal scenario's? They would be used on cooldown...aka spammed indefinitely, or at least as often as possible. Think about it for a moment. Arcane Shield provides 3 blocks. Using this skill every millisecond would mean you would have 1000 blocks every second. Likewise, Twist of Fate, would give you 1000 evade frames every second. The reason these skills are used indefinitely in the above manner is because there is no reason for a rational player to stop and think about the usage of these skills... in fact with lower and lower the cooldowns and cast-times are, unchecked mechanics REWARDS them for pressing it as often as possible...Even if they don't actually evade or block anything... it just makes more and more sense to use such skills as often as humanly possible. So where is the opportunity cost in all this? Well it's not involved...it doesn't enter at all. You are either choosing Twist of Fate and spamming it...or you are taking Arcane Shield and spamming it. In both cases the rational agent acts the same with the skill they pick...which is using the skill as often as possible no matter what the scenario, whether it had an effect or not on enemy players. I have to wrap up this comment, i had a bit more to add to the conclusion of the above thought experiment...but essentially if we were to return to the normal world of cooldowns and cast-times, those things merely prevent us from being more and more rewarded for using an ability constantly. Think about Lich Form. The transform cooldown is about 150 seconds, and the spell that most people use inside it has a 1 second cooldown. Think about how this skill is used. We use lich form as often as possible in order to gain access to a skill that heavily rewards us for using it over and over again for 10 seconds. I mean this skill is like a living example of rational behavior in action. Where is the opportunity cost in using Lich-form when one cooldown is 150 seconds, and the other is 1 second, and both times we all use it the same...1, 1, 1 is in mostly all situations the most optimal way to use the form. Not saying that lich form doesn't have counter-play, it does...but what's in question here is why people use it in the above manner rather then thinking about the skills they use. Cheers for the good response btw.

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said: >TL;DR- Tradeoffs would probably feel better if every elite had one, and they meant something at all. Right but that's exactly it. The tradeoff's on Elite specs we have now don't mean anything. They are fugazzi's, and all they really do is make the barrier for entry on using builds higher and not much else. Much like the car analogy, it's like making a car more expensive, and higher price to buy the gas. If you want to travel from NY to LA, then such changes would only make it possible to drive a crappier car, from LA to TX...all to fix one build that was able to travel from NY to Alaska, so that only that particular build can travel to NY to LA. Essentially we just move the goal post by placing the post so far that only a soccer player who can kick the ball so hard that only he can score a goal...and if your not that soccer player, you are not scoring that goal. This is again just another allusion to builds and how those builds are balanced. Meta builds get "balanced" but all their off-meta builds get the short end of the stick and never see the light of day. Beyond that there are even larger implications that stem from this problem, but it goes way beyond what this topic focus is. > @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said: >Idunno. I never played Gw1. Partly for that reason. Here's the thing about gw1. People actually looked forward to the balance patches every month or so that they released them. Mostly because when they released a balance patch, we would see a plethora of mechanics changes, and new builds to experiment and play around with. The meta was HUGE in comparison to gw2. We are talking hundreds and hundreds of viable meta builds...all with playstyles so vastly different from one another, that they each had been gives special names, usually the builds were named after the person or guild who found them or they were named after what the person desired to name it, and it gave incentive for theory crafters to create more builds. Just a few examples, we had [Gothspike](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gothspike), [Mathway](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mathway), Rainbow Spikes, Emo Bonders, 55 monks...believe me there are hundreds if not thousands of viable builds made in the history of gw1, and the balance discussions were almost non-existent. The only thing people actually complained about was "Melee Hate" (which is that casters generally had more punishing abilities to melee classes, then melee classes could actually deal with...) So if you didn't play gw1 because it had tradeoff's, I'd consider that either uncharitable to the game, or just an uninformed decision as to why you wouldn't play the game for that reason. It didn't have perfect balance, no game ever does (monks were required on nearly every team late stage meta games, melee-hate), but it was far vastly superior balance wise in comparison to gw2.

> @"Shieldbash.5304" said: > There needs to be some Nerfs and sooner rather than later! I want to be absolutely transparent on this topic. Nerfs is what got us into the mess we have now. I would suggest doing what i've done, and look at these problems not from an emotional point of view, but from a logical and mathematical one. There is a reason that balance has not been achieved after 7-8 years of constant tweaking, and not just in this game but in all games in history so far. It's because the idea of "balance" is fundamentally misunderstood concept. It is an extremely nuanced area of physics that's been watered down and distorted over many iterations of oversimplification. Let's start with the most basic idea here... what does balance actually mean? Would you say that balance of two objects on a scale means it's "balanced?" What happens when you take this logic further and further to it's logical conclusions? [i fully explain here, what happens when one follows that logic to it's valid conclusion](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1344346#Comment_1344346 )...but to abridge what was said in that comment; **balance is just an illusion**. Two objects or skills can never be balanced unless they are equal in every way. Making all things equal in a system is what is called "Homogenization," a term that should sound familiar to you because you've heard it in Thermodynamics, and Chemistry class. So now take the above logic a step further. If balance is an illusion, then what do changes in that phase space amount to? Does lowering numbers or increasing numbers have any meaningful changes to the system as a whole? In short, changes in the phase space amount to nothing...absolute pointlessness, that any "nerf" you make is just as impactful as any "buff" you make in this system. So you realize that perfect balance is meaningless unless all things are completely homogenous...does that mean gw2 can never be balanced? The answer is that it can, and again you have to go into the fields of mathematics and logical analysis and science to understand why. Think back to the word "Homogenization." If making all things equal is one side of a spectrum, what is the opposite of that behavior? What lies on the other side of the spectrum? The opposite is when all things are infinitely different from one another...this is called "Heterogeneity." A system in which the system is defined by it's differentiation to everything else within the system.  So you start to realize after some thinking about what mathematics, science and logic is trying to tell you about what's happening here in Guild Wars 2's. That not only is it impossible to achieve balance, but that in trying to achieve perfect balance through homogeneity, you sacrifice build diversity, aka heterogeneity...and until all things are infinitely equal, any small miniscule change will be considered the most optimal choice and balance changes become more and more difficult until you reach such a state sound familiar? It's current gw2 state. The solution, is that because gw2 is inherently a heterogenous game in design, you should go toward the other direction...balancing for heterogeneity...which is basically just making expanding build diversity. How to do that is tough to understand because build diversity is also a nuanced topic...but it involves knowing a science called complexity theory...which is just studies of non-linear dynamic systems (basically the study of how all systems in the world actually work, including games and behavior of agents playing these games)

> @"Filip.7463" said: > Yes CD is very important. If u haven't noticed, there is no build with more than one long cd skill. No one said that cooldown's aren't important. I said it wasn't important to the point I was making about tradeoffs. > If every skill gives negative effect on u, its the same as if no one skill gives negative. I know its fantasy game but there is no logic u should get penalty for using stunbreak or evading an attack. Penalty is for wasting long cd skill and dying cuz u cant use it. That's not a "real" tradeoff...this is what you have in game already and it doesn't work. Do you have a car? Cooldown's and cast-times are equivalent to paying for that car every month, and putting gas into it in order to use it. But just because you pay for a car, doesn't mean you can just drive on the sidewalk and think that you will not suffer dire consequences. This is essentially what's happening in gw2. People bought and pay gas for a car (opportunity cost) and drive it on the sidewalk (not facing consequences for using skills) Making the price of a car more expensive, or making the gas you pay higher doesn't factor into a decision of whether you drive said car on a sidewalk or not.... Or are you really thinking about Gas prices as you mow people down?

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said: > I think they should only exist on class mechanics though(IE Zerker losing 300 toughness in Zerk-mode) and that tradeoffs like that should exist across all elite specs in a meaningful way that doesn't make the elite spec just a straight upgrade. I mentioned this in the above comment, but imo these fake tradeoffs anet has added to Elite Specs hurt more then help then anything else, and there's a good reason why. Think about it for a moment. The real problems in this game arise from the mechanics of skills. The tradeoff's implemented on these elite specs are just bandaaid fixes rather then addressing the actual problems, and skills that are completely okay in design actually suffer additional punishment from an additional tradeoff that was never intended for said skill. This is why we see off meta builds dying when a meta build dies due to changes to the elite spec itself. Again good example is mirage going from having maybe 3 viable builds to 0 viable builds post feb. > When it comes to Utility skills, the tradeoff is usually the cooldown combined with having to give up any other utility skill in its place. And for this please refer to my previous comment. Opportunity cost, and cooldowns aren't real tradeoffs...they are fake...fugazzi...facade bandaid fixes. Again look no further then skills in gw1 where nearly every skill has about 3x times lower cooldown times...and in fact most skills could be perma'd, and the spam in that game is exponentially less then in gw2. It's no mistake why, it's because (most) skills could not be mind numbingly used without serious repercussions.

> @"ollbirtan.2915" said: > FYI Twist of Fate has a 75 seconds cooldown in pvp. Yaa thanks for the correction. But I'm sure you get the point though. Twist of Fate is just an example. You're right about it's cooldown, but the cooldown was not really important to the point I was making. > @"Filip.7463" said: > Why the kitten would someone use twist of fate if he will take double damage after? Its designed to prevent damage! Try playing your build without utilities. > Tradeoff is: u dont have stunbreak for next 75s. Like i said, have a look at Frenzy, and every other stance from gw1. Every stance has an anti-positive trade off. Opportunity cost and cooldowns aren't real tradeoffs...these are the "fake" tradeoffs that Anet thinks balances the game but they don't. Look again at GW1...Technically every skill in that game has less cooldown times...Frenzy has a 4 second cooldown and an 8 second duration...it and most other stance skills (along with many other skills in gw1) can actually be PERMA'D and yet gw1 was a less spammy gameplay then gw2, with CD's that are 4x,5x,10x longer. Think about that for a moment....(For those that never played gw1, Frenzy and other 33% attack speed skills was the equivalent of having the quickness boon on you.) One of the few actual spammy builds in that game was Blind Bot Ele. Reason why? [No tradeoffs on their blinding skills...](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blinding_Surge)go figure it would be the most complained about, most polarizing build in the game right next to Smiter's Boon.

Even though i agree that the state of spvp is absolutely mind numbingly dull, i don't think imposing limits is the solution to that problem. the problems in the game are deep rooted in actual mechanical design of skills. Many of them have no drawbacks, and this design philosophy was adopted in the games inception, where the line of thinking was "we don't want players to feel like they are being punished for using their skills." This design decision was the seed to the very core issues the game has in it's design. They attempted to solve such problems with "trade-offs" but these aren't real trade-offs. Just like actions taken in nature and in the real world, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Everything you do should have a consequence. Look at some of these skills. Some of them have absolutely no counterplay. The ones that do, are tied to abilities or traits that you have to take in order to counter play them, instead of the skill inherently having counterplay built in, it's just bandaged over by adjusting other skills to do more things in an attempt to adhere to the initial design philosophy. For example, Spectral Grasp, when targeting 1 player gives you 15% Life Force. When targeting 5 players, it gives you 80%. Where is the counterplay when a reaper uses this ability in a teamfight? There is none...there is no diminishing return for less active gameplay...you just spam it and wham it because it rewards you for using it in more favorable situations, rather then punishing you for taking the easy route. The idea is that there should be trade-offs to skills so that effects that return positive feedback loops should have an equal and opposite positive feedbackloop that prevents you from abusing said mechanic. An Example, Every time you use [Twist of Fate](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Twist_of_Fate), you should sacrifice barrier. The more often you use it, the more barrier is taken away. This prevents people from simply spamming it every 20 seconds on rotation and makes you question when to use it...Maybe even an exchange type of effect, where when you use Twist of Fate, you exchange that evade for double damage 1 second afterward (like [Frenzy ](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Frenzy)from Gw1) Harkening back to Guild Wars 1, just look at all the stance skills on warrior on the above linked page. Each and every one, has both a positive effect, and an anti-positive effect, that prevents someone just abusing it on cooldown constantly. This is that idea in action. That's just tickling the major balance issues, and really imposing limits imo is not the right answer, i think its just another Band-Aid fix to the actual problem.