Einlanzer.1627
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Posts posted by Einlanzer.1627
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> @"yusayu.3629" said:
> Why?
>
> Imo active defense is much more interesting than "just stack this stat and you no die" and makes the game more exciting. It's one of the advantages GW2 has with its dodges over "stand still and press buttons"-games like WoW.
Again - this has been reviewed extensively in this thread. It's a fallacious argument because a.) no one is suggesting to remove active defenses, and b.) the poor balance of active vs passive defenses actually causes combat to be more shallow than it would be with a more equal contribution of both.
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> @"Astralporing.1957" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > See, I actually wholeheartedly disagree that a rework wouldn't be worth it.
> I wasn't joking or exagerrating when i said it's comparable to making a new game. You are severely underestimating the amount and depth of changes any such rework would need to do. Basically everything in this game is made with the basic assumptions of the current combat system in mind. You change those assumptions (and you _do_ want to change them), and you start a domino of consequences. Reworking whole game to that degree is much, much harder than starting from scratch.
>
>
>
> > By reworking defense mechanics, they would gain the opportunity to make the combat system in general much more engaging by adding significantly more strategic depth to it.
> What strategic depth? Stack up toughness and vit, and facetank the boss? You want the game to become more passive and boring?
>
>
This misconception has already been addressed numerous times in the thread. In short, this is a refrain that holds no water - it's the dominance of active defense (i.e. poor balance between passive and active defense) that makes combat more shallow than it should be. It leads to a lack of strategic depth in character building - something that's critical for horizontally focused games, and it creates a situation where the only counterplay in combat is hitting the v button when you see a telegraph.
The rest of your post makes just as little sense, really. Condition damage was obviously designed as armor penetrating to begin with, so I don't understand why you're trying to act like that's a made-up claim. Conditions were always on short durations in GW2, so, yes, being armor-penetrating was a huge part of their identity and clearly a big separator between Toughness and Vitality as defensive stats.
Arenanet even openly admitted they were overtuned, but then when they went to rebalance them they took it in the wrong direction by extending durations instead of reducing damage - something that makes no sense as short as the average fight in GW2 is and given the fact the distinction of armor penetration was already built into conditions. But, we're straying away from the point of the thread with the topic of conditions. It's a separate topic.
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> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > It's a 6-of-one, half-a-dozen of another issue. I wouldn't disagree with anything you said here, and in particular I think that power damage is on too high of a scaling factor, with the floor and ceiling being too wide apart based on stats.
> >
> > But, I also don't think it reveals the full scope of issues within the combat system. We touched a lot on the over-reliance on active defense above and, how, despite the belief of many players, it actually harms the gameplay by reducing the strategic depth of the combat system. Improving the baseline and reducing the scaling on power/toughness/precision is just one of many overhauls I would want to make to the combat system. Another would be tying a stat to endurance so that Active Defense becomes an aspect of _strategic building_ - most likely Vitality since swapping it to that I think fits better both thematically and mechanically.
>
> I think it's a bigger issue though. I would never walk into a T4 fractal wearing Soldiers gear, but I wouldn't see anything wrong doing so with Trailblazer.
>
> But if you increase toughness/vitality scaling, you simply make condi builds even tougher, while maybe bringing power up to where condi used to be.
>
> My point being, it isn't that defensive stats don't give enough benefit, but that power builds alone lose way too much damage to get them, and the only gear that has power/prec/fer + defensive stat is Marauder anyways, while Trailblazer is almost a perfect setup, as I'm led to believe that power damage makes up a very small portion of a condi DPS overall damage.
>
I'm not really suggesting improving scaling on Toughness and Vitality as a fix for any issue in the game now. In fact I think that would be the exact wrong approach to balance. Any overhauls need to be more comprehensive than that. The list of things I would do are mentioned above.
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> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> >Again, I ask you, how much damage do you lose in Soldier's and how much defense do you gain?
> >
> I'll answer your question: too much.
>
> Problem is, you're discussing the wrong issue. The problem with GW2 is that power damage requires 3 stats (Power/Precision/Ferocity) while a Condition build only requires 1 (Condition Damage), though you could argue Expertise is equally important.
>
> What do you lose from Berserker's to Soldiers is huge compared to what you lose from Vipers to Trailblazer.
>
> So in order to boost defenses, Power builds have to sacrifice way more damage than their condition counterparts, because the don't have to worry about the multipliers of crit chance and crit damage.
It's a 6-of-one, half-a-dozen of another issue. I wouldn't disagree with anything you said here, and in particular I think that power damage is on too high of a scaling factor, with the floor and ceiling being too wide apart based on stats.
But, I also don't think it reveals the full scope of issues within the combat system. We touched a lot on the over-reliance on active defense above and, how, despite the belief of many players, it actually harms the gameplay by reducing the strategic depth of the combat system. Improving the baseline and reducing the scaling on power/toughness/precision is just one of many overhauls I would want to make to the combat system. Another would be tying a stat to endurance so that Active Defense becomes an aspect of _strategic character building_ - most likely Vitality since swapping it to that I think fits better both thematically and mechanically.
Incidentally, your mentioning of Expertise is also a bad side effect of balancing conditions through duration rather than target armor - something else discussed above. Expertise is less valuable on condition builds than it should be because conditions were somewhat recently modified to have longer durations than they should have in GW2's combat system as a misguided way of trying to rebalance them.
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> @"ArchonWing.9480" said:
> The longer the fight, the more mechanics you have to deal with. As a result, dps will always be king in these regards. And there is also dodging.
This is strategically shallow and not good for the game. That's the argument being made.
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> @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > > > @"Haishao.6851" said:
> > > > > > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > > > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > > > > > > > > What BRA said:
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > The problem is not that defensive stats scale weaker to offensive stats.
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > The issue is that they are not needed and people, even after 7 years, still try to play a game which is centered around active mitigation like any other MMORPG. Get as tanky as possible and brain afk content, which simply does not work that well.
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > If they "aren't needed", or, at least, aren't really ever useful, why do they exist?
> > > > > > > > > As you've been explained in the last 100 threads you've made about this subject in the past 5 years:
> > > > > > > > > Those stats exist to allow people who are not good with the evade and mitigation mechanics to be able to play all the existing content of the game by trading some power to get more defense.
> > > > > > > > > They're also useful in WvW.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > As has been explained to you, that isn't actually how it works, because passive defense is pretty much useless due to the misdesign of the combat system.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > That is your subjective opinion. You have not yet shown that passive stats are useless. Make a build with base toughness and vitality and go play WvW, then make a build with maximum vitality and toughness and go play WvW again, then come back and tell us it made no difference.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > You simply do not LIKE the amount of difference it makes since in either case, active avoidance and skill use remains important.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > "That is your opinion" posts are pointless because it clearly applies to nearly every post in every thread. If you have an actual argument, state it, otherwise stop trying to derail mine without one.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Also, it's easy to infer we're talking mostly about PvE here, you know, the part of the game that sees actual development.
> > > > >
> > > > > No it doesn't. I could link the damage calculation and by mere existance of toughness in it could disprove that the stat is useless. That would be factually correcter than you assumption/opinion.
> > > > >
> > > > > The stat is just as useful for pve. Active avoidance remains important but having more defensive stats allows for way more mistakes.
> > > >
> > > > Link the difference in damage vs mitigation for Berserker's and Soldier's gear, as I requested in my original post, and I'll humor your argument.
> > >
> > > It's aproximately 10% between full marauder and berserker with giving up damage stats for aproximately 3k life (which can be as much as 25% more max life depending on class).
> > >
> > > Given the stat difference between berserker and soldier I would assume around 60% since soldier gear stacks toughness and vitality. It's also way tankier than berserker gear.
> >
> > Marauder's value relative to Berserker is decent. I've always known that. 25% more attrition for 10% less damage is about how offense vs defense should be tuned in general, but it isn't. Marauder's is an offensive set with some bonus Vitality on it.
> >
> > The comparison of Soldier's and Berserker's is much, much more telling. Seriously, let's do some theorycrafting.
>
> That makes literally no sense. If defensive stats are useless, one set can't be okay while the other is trash unless you are willingly ommiting things from the equation.
>
> Vitality does not perform any different between marauder and soldier gear. Thus I would need to assume your mein beef is with toughness for which you are not happy how it scales.
>
> As to theorycrafting? Of what value is this information to me exactly and why would I spend my time on this? I'm not the one unhappy with the stats in this game (especially since this has likely been calculated multiple times by people by now).
No it makes a lot of sense, because the two sets aren't weighted the same. Marauder is a four stat spread that gives more total points than Berserker and is still much more offensively focused than defensively. Also, I amended my above comment to more accurately reflect my feelings on the matter.
They do not make for a great comparison in this context. Again, I ask you, how much damage do you lose in Soldier's and how much defense do you gain?
If you do not want to theorycraft, stop bothering to argue with me.
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> @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > @"Haishao.6851" said:
> > > > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > > > > > > What BRA said:
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > The problem is not that defensive stats scale weaker to offensive stats.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > The issue is that they are not needed and people, even after 7 years, still try to play a game which is centered around active mitigation like any other MMORPG. Get as tanky as possible and brain afk content, which simply does not work that well.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > If they "aren't needed", or, at least, aren't really ever useful, why do they exist?
> > > > > > > As you've been explained in the last 100 threads you've made about this subject in the past 5 years:
> > > > > > > Those stats exist to allow people who are not good with the evade and mitigation mechanics to be able to play all the existing content of the game by trading some power to get more defense.
> > > > > > > They're also useful in WvW.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > As has been explained to you, that isn't actually how it works, because passive defense is pretty much useless due to the misdesign of the combat system.
> > > > >
> > > > > That is your subjective opinion. You have not yet shown that passive stats are useless. Make a build with base toughness and vitality and go play WvW, then make a build with maximum vitality and toughness and go play WvW again, then come back and tell us it made no difference.
> > > > >
> > > > > You simply do not LIKE the amount of difference it makes since in either case, active avoidance and skill use remains important.
> > > >
> > > > "That is your opinion" posts are pointless because it clearly applies to nearly every post in every thread. If you have an actual argument, state it, otherwise stop trying to derail mine without one.
> > > >
> > > > Also, it's easy to infer we're talking mostly about PvE here, you know, the part of the game that sees actual development.
> > >
> > > No it doesn't. I could link the damage calculation and by mere existance of toughness in it could disprove that the stat is useless. That would be factually correcter than you assumption/opinion.
> > >
> > > The stat is just as useful for pve. Active avoidance remains important but having more defensive stats allows for way more mistakes.
> >
> > Link the difference in damage vs mitigation for Berserker's and Soldier's gear, as I requested in my original post, and I'll humor your argument.
>
> It's aproximately 10% between full marauder and berserker with giving up damage stats for aproximately 3k life (which can be as much as 25% more max life depending on class).
>
> Given the stat difference between berserker and soldier I would assume around 60% since soldier gear stacks toughness and vitality. It's also way tankier than berserker gear.
Marauder's value relative to Berserker is decent, but even then that extra 10% damage is more useful in more situations than the extra 25% health is, due to the reasons given above in various posts - active defense vs. heavy hits dominates combat in PvE. Apart from the benefit of faster rewards, then 10% extra damage will help you avoid getting downed by killing mobs faster than the 25% extra health will in more situations than not.
Regardless, Marauder is an offensive set with some bonus Vitality. The comparison of Soldier's and Berserker's is much, much more telling. Seriously, let's do some theorycrafting. The exchange would need to be something like 3:1 for defensive gear to hold any significant value in PvE.
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> @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > @"Haishao.6851" said:
> > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > > > > What BRA said:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > The problem is not that defensive stats scale weaker to offensive stats.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > The issue is that they are not needed and people, even after 7 years, still try to play a game which is centered around active mitigation like any other MMORPG. Get as tanky as possible and brain afk content, which simply does not work that well.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > If they "aren't needed", or, at least, aren't really ever useful, why do they exist?
> > > > > As you've been explained in the last 100 threads you've made about this subject in the past 5 years:
> > > > > Those stats exist to allow people who are not good with the evade and mitigation mechanics to be able to play all the existing content of the game by trading some power to get more defense.
> > > > > They're also useful in WvW.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > As has been explained to you, that isn't actually how it works, because passive defense is pretty much useless due to the misdesign of the combat system.
> > >
> > > That is your subjective opinion. You have not yet shown that passive stats are useless. Make a build with base toughness and vitality and go play WvW, then make a build with maximum vitality and toughness and go play WvW again, then come back and tell us it made no difference.
> > >
> > > You simply do not LIKE the amount of difference it makes since in either case, active avoidance and skill use remains important.
> >
> > "That is your opinion" posts are pointless because it clearly applies to nearly every post in every thread. If you have an actual argument, state it, otherwise stop trying to derail mine without one.
> >
> > Also, it's easy to infer we're talking mostly about PvE here, you know, the part of the game that sees actual development.
>
> No it doesn't. I could link the damage calculation and by mere existance of toughness in it could disprove that the stat is useless. That would be factually correcter than you assumption/opinion.
>
> The stat is just as useful for pve. Active avoidance remains important but having more defensive stats allows for way more mistakes.
Link the difference in damage vs mitigation for Berserker's and Soldier's gear, as I requested in my original post, and I'll humor your argument.
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> @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Haishao.6851" said:
> > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > > What BRA said:
> > > > >
> > > > > The problem is not that defensive stats scale weaker to offensive stats.
> > > > >
> > > > > The issue is that they are not needed and people, even after 7 years, still try to play a game which is centered around active mitigation like any other MMORPG. Get as tanky as possible and brain afk content, which simply does not work that well.
> > > >
> > > > If they "aren't needed", or, at least, aren't really ever useful, why do they exist?
> > > As you've been explained in the last 100 threads you've made about this subject in the past 5 years:
> > > Those stats exist to allow people who are not good with the evade and mitigation mechanics to be able to play all the existing content of the game by trading some power to get more defense.
> > > They're also useful in WvW.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > As has been explained to you, that isn't actually how it works, because passive defense is pretty much useless due to the misdesign of the combat system.
>
> That is your subjective opinion. You have not yet shown that passive stats are useless. Make a build with base toughness and vitality and go play WvW, then make a build with maximum vitality and toughness and go play WvW again, then come back and tell us it made no difference.
>
> You simply do not LIKE the amount of difference it makes since in either case, active avoidance and skill use remains important.
"That is your opinion" posts are pointless because it clearly applies to nearly every post in every thread. If you have an actual argument, state it, otherwise stop trying to derail mine (and others') without one.
Also, it's easy to infer we're talking mostly about PvE here, you know, the part of the game that most people play and sees actual development.
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> @"Haishao.6851" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > What BRA said:
> > >
> > > The problem is not that defensive stats scale weaker to offensive stats.
> > >
> > > The issue is that they are not needed and people, even after 7 years, still try to play a game which is centered around active mitigation like any other MMORPG. Get as tanky as possible and brain afk content, which simply does not work that well.
> >
> > If they "aren't needed", or, at least, aren't really ever useful, why do they exist?
> As you've been explained in the last 100 threads you've made about this subject in the past 5 years:
> Those stats exist to allow people who are not good with the evade and mitigation mechanics to be able to play all the existing content of the game by trading some power to get more defense.
> They're also useful in WvW.
>
>
>
As has been explained to you, that isn't actually how it works, because passive defense is not only useless, more often than not, it actually harms your attrition by doing very little besides making you kill things more slowly. This is a major misdesign of the combat system. This is not an unsolvable problem - it's hilarious how many people act like it is. Think a little harder, I say.
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> @"Ototo.3214" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:
> > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > I mostly agree, and I think all the "but active defense so it's fine" comments are just cop-out arguments from folks who don't see the holes in the system and are defending a bad status quo, which you see a lot of in any game community.
> > > It's not that the system is good. It isn't. It's just that the bad parts do not justify the massive work that would be redoing the whole combat/stats/gear/traits/skill system because nothing less would do).
> > > You're talking about completely changing the game at this point. It's simply not going to happen - if they were to do that, it would be easier for them to do GW3.
> > >
> > > > Rework conditions to be on shorter durations and only be stronger than power on high armor targets (the way they tried to balance conditions is the biggest sign of the balance team not knowing what they're doing - long duration condi makes no sense in GW2 and it just made power that much better in general PvE)
> > > ...i wondered when you'd get to that.
> > > No, condi damage not working the way you envisioned does not mean it makes no sense. It just means that your vision for condition damage role is different than the one devs have.
> > >
> > > If you want to make passive defences worth more, you need to decrease the role of active defences significantly. And that doesn't mean just dodge. It's everything - dodge, ability to just walk out from telegraphed attacks, blocks and invulnerabilities...
> > >
> > > For that you would need to do a complete rework of all skills (no, you can't just touch defensive ones, because the whole balance would change, and you'd need to adjust for that), all enemies, all encounters... All that in a game that does a single poor balance patch every 3 months. All that for a risk that many of the current players would _not_ like how it turned out.
> > >
> > > Again, honestly, GW3 is far more likely.
> >
> > See, I actually wholeheartedly disagree that a rework wouldn't be worth it. One of the major failures of this game (arguably **the most** major one) is having a very deep and versatile class/build system with very little strategic counter-play to build off of it because combat works as a spam fest. This is exacerbated by the fact that the end game is horizontally focused instead of vertically focused, making _strategic engagement_ the primary vehicle for retaining players.
> >
> > By reworking defense mechanics, they would gain the opportunity to make the combat system in general much more engaging by adding significantly more strategic depth to it. If it's done the right way, it could do wonders to refresh the game and make it more enticing for long term play. I don't even think it would take all that much work. Basically what I outlined above.
> >
> > Also, regarding conditions - I'm telling you their vision makes no sense and is one additional dimension of a poorly balanced combat system that turns people away from the game more than it brings them in. By giving conditions high wind up and high damage, they crippled them in general PvE while making them overpowered in difficult content, forcing themselves as designers to rely on gimmicks to weaken them, while at the same time further undermining the value of passive defense. While still not ideal, it would actually have been better to leave them as they were at launch.
>
> How is just having stats to facetank a hit with no input required more engaging than actively avoiding the hit? Last I checked, most people don't enjoy playing meat shields. FFXIV has an excessive number of DPS classes and only 4 tanks, one of which was only recently added. Then you have to wait forever in queues for a tank because far fewer people want to play tank. Yet people still whine about nerfs to tank dps because apparently even in a game with the supposed holy trinity, dps is what people want to do. I'm all for more stat combos being viable, but unless they're damage focused you probably won't see them as what most people use in PvE. Because people just want to do big damage.
>
> Also, how is vertical progression better in any way?
It's not. It's the combination of both in a more controlled, strategic environment that would be more engaging. I also never said vertical progression is better. I prefer a horizontal focus, but the game's mechanics need to be in alignment with that to make it work well. Read a little deeper please.
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> @"Astralporing.1957" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > I mostly agree, and I think all the "but active defense so it's fine" comments are just cop-out arguments from folks who don't see the holes in the system and are defending a bad status quo, which you see a lot of in any game community.
> It's not that the system is good. It isn't. It's just that the bad parts do not justify the massive work that would be redoing the whole combat/stats/gear/traits/skill system because nothing less would do).
> You're talking about completely changing the game at this point. It's simply not going to happen - if they were to do that, it would be easier for them to do GW3.
>
> > Rework conditions to be on shorter durations and only be stronger than power on high armor targets (the way they tried to balance conditions is the biggest sign of the balance team not knowing what they're doing - long duration condi makes no sense in GW2 and it just made power that much better in general PvE)
> ...i wondered when you'd get to that.
> No, condi damage not working the way you envisioned does not mean it makes no sense. It just means that your vision for condition damage role is different than the one devs have.
>
> If you want to make passive defences worth more, you need to decrease the role of active defences significantly. And that doesn't mean just dodge. It's everything - dodge, ability to just walk out from telegraphed attacks, blocks and invulnerabilities...
>
> For that you would need to do a complete rework of all skills (no, you can't just touch defensive ones, because the whole balance would change, and you'd need to adjust for that), all enemies, all encounters... All that in a game that does a single poor balance patch every 3 months. All that for a risk that many of the current players would _not_ like how it turned out.
>
> Again, honestly, GW3 is far more likely.
See, I actually wholeheartedly disagree that a rework wouldn't be worth it. One of the major failures of this game (arguably **the most** major one) is having a very deep and versatile class/build system with very little strategic counter-play to build off of it because combat works as a spam fest. This is exacerbated by the fact that the end game is horizontally focused instead of vertically focused, making _strategic engagement_ the primary vehicle for retaining players.
By reworking defense mechanics, they would gain the opportunity to make the combat system in general much more engaging by adding significantly more strategic depth to it. If it's done the right way, it could do wonders to refresh the game, bring old players back, and make it more enticing for long term play. I don't even think it would take all that much work. Basically what I outlined above along with some iterative balance to control scaling factors between offense and defense (I think offense is on too steep a curve - the difference in damage output between Berserker and support/defense gear is higher than it should be.)
Also, regarding conditions - I'm telling you their vision makes no sense and is inappropriately based on condi concepts in more traditional MMOs. It is one additional dimension of a poorly balanced combat system that turns people away from the game more than it brings them in. By giving conditions high wind up and high damage, they crippled them in general PvE while making them overpowered in difficult content, forcing themselves as designers to rely on gimmicks to control them, while at the same time further undermining the value of passive defense and eroding the value of expertise in condition builds, again worsening the game's overall balance through build asymmetry. While still not ideal, it would actually have been better to leave them as they were at launch.
Conditions were designed to bypass armor while direct damage is mitigated by it, and combat duration should and does vary between "easy" and "hard" content. This means that conditions are best balanced primarily through target armor ratings rather than fight durations. That way, condition vs power damage become true roles in a group with dynamic trade-offs.
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> @"Hannelore.8153" said:
> There's a few reasons i dislike active defenses as an argument, and in general:
> - They are too powerful; always resulting in 100% incoming reduction of damage, control, etc.
> - They require almost no investment compared to damage, and passive defenses, because stats don't affect them at all.
> - The sacrifices to build to have them are usually small, as most active defenses can be boosted with damage rather than removing DPS.
> - In general they allow builds that should not be possible; cheap and easy min/maxing, etc.
> - They make complex rotations harder, favoring classes with simple rotations that can afford to dodge/etc alot.
> - They make playing non-DPS-centric builds frustrating (support in fractal or raid, etc.).
> - They're bad for disabled people, and alot of disabled people play games since they can't always do much else.
>
> I understand that people like active defenses, but you also have to understand that they are overpowered and have been in need of reduction since the game was released, and that has only worsened with power creep. Its not that passive defenses should necessarily be strengthened, its that the active defenses offer nigh-invincibility, and its made encounters in the game always be boring one-hit-wonders, because there's no other way to punish players who utilise such defenses except to down them in one hit.
>
> Since release, the game's design motto has been "punish every mistake, because its our only hope to kill the player".
>
> The combination of active defenses and easy reviving in particular has been noxious. Its resulted in ArenaNet having to develop encounters where the only viable tactic is just "down the whole party with every attack" because there's no other way to be a serious threat, and even then there's alot of encounters in the game which don't end up being a threat to a decent party, even when poorly played.
>
> By making the combat more "dynamic", you're making the encounters more "static". Despite being seen as a tool of strategy, you require less thought with active defenses since you can just click a button and become invulnerable.
>
> Passive defenses haven't made the game casual, active defenses have.
I mostly agree, and I think all the "but active defense so it's fine" comments are just cop-out arguments from folks who don't see the holes in the system and are defending a bad status quo, which you see a lot of in any game community.
There's actually a lot of stuff wrong, and potential things to fix in tons of areas, but tying a stat to endurance regeneration I think would be a good change. This is a list of things I would probably do with an overhaul:
modestly raise baseline health
lower the current baseline for endurance regeneration
make Vitality increase endurance regeneration instead of Health. Health would only be improvable through food and sigils/runes.
nerf Vigor from 50% to 25 or 33%
Increase sources of minor damage in PvE to improve the value of Toughness and passive defense
Rework conditions to be on shorter durations and only be stronger than power on high armor targets (the way they tried to balance conditions is the biggest sign of the balance team not knowing what they're doing - long duration condi makes no sense in GW2 and it just made power that much better in general PvE)
Make a maximum damage threshold to be able to rally. I.e. if you are "downed" by an attack that does more than 50% of your total health, you are instantly defeated. <- this would apply to a lot of the big boss telegraph attacks vs glassier targets.
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> @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> What BRA said:
>
> The problem is not that defensive stats scale weaker to offensive stats.
>
> The issue is that they are not needed and people, even after 7 years, still try to play a game which is centered around active mitigation like any other MMORPG. Get as tanky as possible and brain afk content, which simply does not work that well.
But, see, a lot of this reeks as defending a broken status quo. If they "aren't needed", or, at least, aren't really ever useful, why do they exist? This is a fundamental balance problem that they need to try to address - even if addressing it means revising the whole combat system.
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> @"LucianDK.8615" said:
> Never understood why people are so ticked off by mobs in pof, its not different from hot. Its just much more flat and making it easier to seem overwhelmed when its not. Ive never had issues with mobs there.
No, it is actually different. The difficulty of HoT is more in the map design than it is in the mob design. It's definitely easier to avoid being overwhelmed by mobs in HoT than it is in PoF. I'm also pretty sure the aggro range in HoT isn't as high as it is in PoF. I could be wrong, but, either way, there is a difference in mob concentrations.
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For the first time in a while. Surprise, surprise, they seem pretty much empty. I wonder why? Maybe the fact that whereever you go there are 10,000 mobs with 20,000 aggro range completely destroying your ability to enjoy doing anything in them?
It's such a shame such fantastic environmental work is being wasted in this way.
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Water deserves to have some DPS. Water for ele has a long history of giving up too much damage for the utility it offers.
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The game's combat mechanics are clearly heavily weighted toward valuing offense over defense. This is pretty normal, really, but the poor balance of offensive and defensive attributes exacerbates the phenomenon of dumping all defense for more damage being good. There are significant balance issues with some mechanics and the relative values of attributes _that need to be revised_ - in particular, the weight & value of offensive stats vs defensive stats is _massively out of parity_ for no good reason, really, and efforts should be made to address that in a way that also addresses some of the power creep since HoT's launch. (I also think the class-specific attributes need updates/overhauls, but that's a different topic.)
Damage formula = Damage = (Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient) / Armor
**What this formula means is that the presence of a Dodge system has little to do with the uselessness of Defensive stats** - Power (alone, not even factoring in Precision/Ferocity) is about 50% more effective in boosting your offense than Toughness is in boosting your defense, since the former is considered separately in the equation while the later is consolidated into total armor. This is really bizarre since player bias (with good reason) already values offense over defense, meaning it should if anything be the other way around. It's no wonder Berserker stats dominate the game and defensive stats are worse than useless - they are a trap option. No matter how you slice it - either Power is over-tuned or Toughness is under-tuned. There are some fairly simple ways to help balance while also reigning in power creep - one of them would be to revise the damage formula to look something more like this:
Damage formula = Damage = ((Weapon strength + Power) * Skill coefficient * level-based constant) / Armor
_Note of course this would need to come with condi adjustments also - in general, condi should outperform power on high armor targets and vice versa_
Alternatively, it would take more work, but they could revise the defensive attributes to make them both more strategically interesting and useful:
**Toughness** - _Add a small but significant subtraction on top of the division in the damage reduction formula - something like this: .Damage formula = Damage = ((Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient) / Armor) - (Toughness/6.67)_
Toughness is pretty blatantly under-tuned and doesn't perform its role very well. Even in PvP, the "bunker" phenomenon is more due to the poor balance of personal healing (discussed below) - and even that's not really a problem anymore due to power creep. In addition to being just less effective point by point than Power alone is, the fact that it only divides damage means it features _massive_ diminishing returns. All in all, it is too redundant with the active defense system, making it mostly useless. It should, after dividing damage, subtract a small portion of the remaining damage. Tuned correctly, this would cause it to have a noticeable effect on smaller sources of damage and damage incoming from multiple weak sources that dodging can't effectively mitigate (common in regular PvE) while only having a relatively minor (and still desirable) impact in PvP and vs heavy hitting mobs that would still require a lot of active play. This would, rightly, make it much more useful for solo/casual players, farming, and would generally make the game more playable for people with a low skill ceiling due to disability, age, or whatever.
**Vitality** - _Change it to influence Endurance Regeneration instead of Health; buff base Health values by around 20% & nerf baseline ER/Vigor to about 40% of their current values. Perhaps rename it to "stamina" or "agility."_
I never liked Vitality improving Health. It's just not the right thematic or mechanical choice for a few reasons like redundancy with toughness, classes having different Health baselines, and lack of synergy with Healing. Base Health should be slightly raised across classes, and only be improvable by % effects from food, sigils, or traits. Moreover, the lack of a stat contributing to active defense is an issue because it requires no investment to be good at it, which allows glass builds to avoid being that glassy. So, Vitality should be revised (and renamed if desired) to improve Endurance Regeneration to allow players to build around active defense (which, with the change to Toughness, is complementary with passive defense). This would require nerfing both baseline Endurance Regeneration and Vigor, which is worth doing. This would also mean that glassy builds become **more properly glassy** than they are today, making defense attributes more attractive in the meta and helping to reign in power creep. These changes may or may not result in a need to nerf condition damage a bit.
In addition to this change to Vitality, it might actually be worth setting (slightly) different endurance regen baselines for different armor classes to improve attrition parity between the classes. So heavy armor classes end up with higher toughness/armor and lower armor classes end up with more endurance regeneration - which makes logical sense in addition to creating more defensive balance among the classes.
**Healing Power** - _No change to the attribute, but rebalance personal healing skills_.
Structurally, the attribute itself is fine. However, on average, personal healing skills are poorly balanced, having too high a baseline power and too low a coefficient with HP. This has the effect of making Healing Power a red herring stat unless you are a dedicated party healer. Since there's also outgoing healing modifiers, I don't really see the point of that, and it unnecessarily harms the effectiveness of certain stat combos (including Celestial) by making HP points a total waste. They need to be normalized and rebalanced, effectively nerfing their base values but improving their scaling with Healing Power. This would not only make the stat more attractive in general, but it would actually help reduce the phenomenon of overpowered bunkers in PvP as well.
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All they actually need to do is buff or change how Toughness/Vitality/HP work, which is overdue anyway.
Toughness in particular has been way too underpowered for too long. Toughness was supposed to provide counterplay to power that conditions could bypass, but then the balance devs, applying outdated concepts for EQ, buffed conditions by extending their durations so they can compete with power against light toughness/armor, so now the stat doesn't really amount to a hill of beans against either. Classic Anet balance not understanding their own game properly.
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> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:
> Correction: fractals **are** dungeons. The technical difference is that the original dungeons were built with the game's original authoring tools. As a result, it takes roughly six times the effort to do anything with the original dungeons, compared to the new dungeons (aka fractals).
>
> So "dungeons" aren't dead; the devs just stopped working on the originals because they can get more done doing something else.
>
> ****
> It's clear that the OP has a strong preference for the old dungeons nonetheless, so I'm hoping they can clear up what exactly is so different that fractals aren't giving them the endorphin fix they got from the originals.
>
> > @"ixora.3569" said:
> > I would like to see an update on the old dungeons maybe harder difficulty with a new 4 branch path and with new dungeon themed ascendant gear and weapons.
>
> > Also it would be cool to see dungeons added into the old expansions Hot/PoF and living world maps.
> Why would it be cool to attach them to the maps? Doesn't that just make them harder to start? That's one of the issues with the original dungeons?
>
> > I was told to play Fractal dungeons but it doesn't have that dialogue and cut scenes that I enjoy from the dungeons.
> Fractals have cutscenes and dialogue, just more like current living world and less like the personal story. More significantly for those of us who repeat dungeons enough to get new skins and other rewards: the dialogue ends up getting ignore (except for memes) and cutscenes just slow down completion. In other words, dialogue and cutscenes only matters early on.
>
>
The original dungeons were more akin to story instances than they are to fractals, and I think acting like FotM totally replaces the need for story-based dungeons has done a lot of harm to the game for years now and is something that needs to be corrected.
I think "classic" dungeons should be brought back as updates to the Living World. In other words, some new story instances would be non-fotm dungeons.
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It seems to me one of the best things that could happen to this game would be that classic-style dungeons get conceptually unified with the LW, instead of being an independent content system that just flaps in the wind because it was canceled years ago. They could be integrated into LW reward/achievement systems and be featured as a story-driven timeline from pre-LW1 (they could also do this with the Personal Story, but it would take a lot more work.)
So, as part of an update to the LW framework, classic dungeons would be brought in alongside an improved companion system and LW1. Then, new non-Fotm dungeons would be developed by the LW team and delivered through LW story instances that you would explore with your favorite NPCs (and potentially other players) using roughly the same challenge level that story instances today have. You would then be able to run these instances, just like the classic dungeons, in story mode or exploration mode.
All in all, it would be a way of bringing classic dungeons back to life without maintaining a separate team or content delivery system while also developing the LW in a way that makes it more interesting.
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> @"voltaicbore.8012" said:
> > @"IndigoSundown.5419" said:
>
> > I agree that high-priced mount skins are not for everyone. However, the financial reports suggest that, rather than ruining the profitability of PoF, mount skins -- as the one big addition to the gem store -- contributed to an increase in quarterly revenue which (temporarily, anyway) countered the reduction in revenue post-HoT.
>
> This is what I suspected as well. When I see a skin that I like, I'm not averse to dropping 2000 gems (or getting that 1600 sale price). I'm not saying that I'm a great representative of the playerbase's consumer habits, but I'd be shocked if I was an outlier.
>
> I like most of what you listed, OP, but adding greater NPC controllability in story instances seems like a total waste of resources/would do nothing for me. As for new players, if they can't finish story instances as they are now, there's little chance they'll do well at anything worth doing at level 80, so I don't see the enhanced companions doing anything for them, either. It'll just delay the inevitable ragequit, imo.
Well, one of my proposals that I didn't spell out well in this post it to unify classic-style dungeons under the LW framework.
This means the "LW" would include all story instances throughout time, which would also include all classic dungeon content, and, potentially new classic dungeon content introduced _as part of the story through the LW_ as opposed to being a separate content delivery system. This would mean the companion system would be used for all instanced content that is not a Raid or FotM.
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> @"borgs.6103" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > A cycling reward system to incentivize different maps at different times and help centralize players
> This exists. It cycles every 8 weeks. People were even once excited about Frostgorge Sound's map rewards because of Giant Eyes and Charged Lodestones.
> > A moderate overhaul to the attribute system to clean up options and the ways you can switch between them
> Legendary gear is what you want. Though you may be referring about something else?
> > A price reduction on mount skins. 2000 gems is outrageous when you have 8 different mounts. They basically ruined the profitability of PoF with that decision and probably drove a lot of people away from the gem market if not the game altogether.
> No comment about this. This really depends on the individual. If they think the price is fair, they would buy it.
> > A better companion system for _story instances only_ - I.e. the ability to properly view, upgrade, and adjust strategies for major NPCs that fight alongside you
> Could be cool, but in my opinion, story instances already easy enough that you could finish it with any build and class. Maybe if they implement this, they would also increase the difficulty of story instances. Challenging content! :open_mouth:
> > Better carrots for legendary gear, such as unique runes/sigils that aren't more powerful than ascended but have interesting and unique effects
> They've said before that legendary runes and sigils are coming. No other info about those though, just that they're coming in the near future.
> > Reformated and reintroduced LW1 that also helps to expand the technology for LW in a way that can benefit future seasons, such as different time periods for the same map, or dungeons-as-story instances
> Welcome to the club, sir. There are a lot of people wanting LW1 again. Also, something like this is sort of already in-game. If you do your character's personal story, anything that takes place in Lion's Arch happens in the old map.
> > New weapon types. Seriously, this is way overdue and would be a lot more bang-for-buck compared to new classes or new races
> Maybe in the future? Though I would be bummed out if they don't add any additional new weapons' skins from old BL skin sets.
>
I was actually unaware of those things existing/being announced, because they are both suggestions I made a while back. What's the current cycle?
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A cycling reward system to incentivize different maps at different times and help centralize players
A moderate overhaul to the attribute system to clean up options and the ways you can switch between them. i.e. grouping them, or making them collectibles.
A price reduction on mount skins. 2000 gems is outrageous when you have 8 different mounts. They basically ruined the profitability of PoF with that decision and probably drove a lot of people away from the gem market if not the game altogether.
Reformated and reintroduced LW1 that also helps to expand the framework for LW in a way that can benefit future seasons, such as different time periods for the same map, or dungeons-as-story instances
A unification of classic dungeons with the LW, with new non-FotM "dungeons" being released occasionally as story instances within the LW framework like they were in LW 1 (i.e. Molten Furnace, Aetherblade Retreat)
A companion system for the LW/story dungeons (_not raids or fotm_). I.e. the ability to properly view, upgrade, and adjust strategies for major NPCs that fight alongside you
A more exciting carrot for legendary gear, such as unique runes/sigils that aren't more powerful than ascended but have interesting and unique effects
New weapon types, at the very least a spear and one more caster-oriented one. Seriously, this is way overdue and would give a lot more bang-for-buck compared to new classes or new races
I like open world PvE, but the focus on it has been too heavy for too long. We now have a lot of competing metas, and the game would benefit more from more energy being put into other game modes for a while - instanced content, WvW and PvP.
Revising Attributes
in Guild Wars 2 Discussion
Posted
> @"ArchonWing.9480" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"ArchonWing.9480" said:
> > > The longer the fight, the more mechanics you have to deal with. As a result, dps will always be king in these regards. And there is also dodging.
> >
> > This is strategically shallow and not good for the game. That's the argument being made.
>
> I am merely stating facts. You can't really argue without taking the game in context. And this is a huge point. If you don't understand why this issue happens, then how can you expect to coherently solve it? In pve we do not usually take defense stats because they don't help with damage. Even if defensive stats were equal or greater it wouldn't matter. On the other hand defensive stats are common in wvw because the alternatives are just rallybotting.
>
> Despite all this you still have healers and tanks in some content. Is this not a sign there is more variety than assumed?
>
> For something so shallow it seems really hard to grasp. ;)
>
> Also I don't see an argument, merely subjective statements about how things should be.
>
It would actually matter if it was designed well. I'm not sure why this attitude of "it's broken but it can't be fixed so it's working" is so prominent here. I have also made a ton of arguments in this thread, including laying out exactly how I would change the attribute system.