Einlanzer.1627
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Posts posted by Einlanzer.1627
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> @"maddoctor.2738" said:
> An addition (and to keep the above post smaller), to see how badly Precision and Ferocity scale
>
> Base: 24
> Power/Precision vs Vitality/Toughness: 24 (same as base)
> Power/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 28
> Power vs Vitality/Toughness: 29
> Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 36
> Power/Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 19
>
> Just increasing Power has a very similar effect to increasing Power+Ferocity (at 5% base crit chance this is to be expected) but surprisingly enough, increasing Power alone is much more efficient than increasing both Precision and Ferocity. In fact, Vitality + Toughness scale much better than Precision + Ferocity as you can see by the 50% increase in the number of hits required, from 24 to 36.
>
> Another way to illustrate this (vs base defenses):
> Power + Precision: 10 hits, Power + Ferocity: 12 hits, Power alone: 12 hits, Precision + Ferocity: 16 hits, All of them: 8 hits
>
> And then you propose new formulas that reduce the effect of Power, what would that accomplish other than making characters damage sponges.
The misses the fact that Precision and Ferocity scale off of power, not independently, which is why Power is massively over-emphasized in the game's combat mechanics. The issue is not that Precision and Ferocity are too strong (in fact, if anything it's the opposite) - it's the fact that they increase the magnitude of Power's effectiveness when Power is already too effective.
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> @"Zin Dau.1749" said:
> > @"Khisanth.2948" said:
> > I wonder why a game developer wouldn't want players to be able to stand around passively and ignore enemy damage ... there can't possibly be any good reasons for that.
>
> OP has created many such similar threads. The last one was only 1 or 2 weeks ago. We try to explain why there is no such thing as ideal stats system that balances offense and defense. Most importantly, it's human nature to want battles to end as quickly as possible, to waste as little time as possible. Hence, players themselves will always choose to maximize offense--regardless of how the stat system works (or seemingly fails to work.)
>
> QED There is nothing to fix, because metagames are ultimately driven by human behavior, not math. And if you believe math is important, then understand that duration of combat is the most important factor. Not whether offense and defense are "balanced" on a statsheet.
That's exactly right. This is an example of how literally no one understands what I'm actually saying. It really is just starting to seem like it's just too nuanced a topic for most posters.
It's natural that offense is valued more than defense in an MMO - _which is why its harebrained to make offensive stats more effective than defensive stats._ Which is why defensive stats are a useless trap. They aren't "training wheels" until you get better at the game or your class, which is what a lot of people like to wrongly suggest. They are just flat-out a worse option than offensive stats _no matter your skill level_.
And 2/3s of the available stat sets use defensive stats on them, making them automatic dismissals for gearing, which is why they all sell for 30 silver compared to Berserker's 8 gold. The fact that people defend this as _working in the best way it can_ blows my mind. No, it isn't. Period.
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> @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> - Revising Attributes - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/82217/revising-attributes/p1 - July 16th, 2019 (last edited August 1)
> - We really need rebalanced attributes - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/50192/we-really-need-rebalanced-attributes#latest - July 31, 2018
> - Do you think defensive attributes are (generally) underpowered in PvE? - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/48480/do-you-think-defensive-attributes-are-generally-underpowered-in-pve/p1 - July 17th, 2018
> - Attribute rework/cleanup - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/11229/attribute-rework-cleanup#latest - October 19, 2017
> - Changes to Toughness/Vitality/Endurance - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/11227/changes-to-toughness-vitality-endurance#latest - October 19, 2017
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> All from TC, all on the same subject, all within a similar timeframe yearly.
>
> That's without counting the phase in which TC was having issues with condition damage which also make up a nice 1 year span of 4-5 threads on that subject matter.
>
> As to on this subject matter, please refer to you other thread which is barely 1 month old.
Who cares? All this means is that it's something I've thought about for a long time. I actually spend a lot of time doing work on game design/mechanics between mods/patches, building/revising table-top games and working on my own PC RPG. I know what I'm talking about.
For years before that, I talked about Thief P/P, since, at the time, I mained Thief. People would routinely whine about how weak P/P felt on the forum, but they would mis-associate the main reason why to all kinds of wrong things like Body Shot. What I would state repeatedly and have dismissed was the obvious problem that Vital Shot being under-tuned was what ruined the set because it was setting too low of a damage baseline, forcing you to over-rely on Initiative dumping for unload and, in the process, starving the set out of an appropriate level of utility and mobility.
Lo and behold, it took them 5 years but they finally buffed the crap out of Vital Shot, and now it's one of the more generally usable and useful sets for the Thief.
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Ugh. Groupthink for the win!> @"Astralporing.1957" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > **The gist of it is that doubling your power doubles outgoing damage, while doubling your _armor_ halves incoming damage.**
> Almost as if the developers wanted to promote dynamic, offensive playing style over passive turtling.
>
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Khisanth.2948" said:
> > > I wonder why a game developer wouldn't want players to be able to stand around passively and ignore enemy damage ... there can't possibly be any good reasons for that.
> >
> > Missing the point, but nice strawman. Nobody is suggesting you should be able to stand around and not utilize the dodge system.
> Except, at it has been pointed out to you many times over, in multiple threads you made on the issue, the game already allows you to facetank most of the damage _if you specialize for it_. Imagine what would happen if defense ended up being even stronger than that. Or if getting that kind of defense didn't require you to sacrifice a lot of offense.
>
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > The evidence that it's a problem is in the game itself - there's widespread consensus that using defensive stats results in a major net loss in effectiveness
> That's only because "effectiveness" is practically always a derivative of only a single factor - time to kill. Increasing the defensive stats makes your time to kill rise, thus making you less effective. Nothing in your proposal changes that - the best effectiveness will always be as much offense and as least defence as the game will let you get away with. It's not a result of stat calculations. It's a result of player mindset. Nothing you can do with stats is going to change that.
>
> It doesn't mean that defensive builds aren't effective - on the contrary, they can be amazingly effective (something you keep refusing to admit). It's just the kind of effectiveness that is not needed in most of PvE situations (and is something anet specifically doesn't want in PvP. We've had a bunker meta there already, and almost everyone hated it).
>
>
>
>
This simply isn't true - the evidence can be seen in other games. When offensive stats and defensive stats achieve the right level of balance, the **latter does become attractive**. Even GW1 was this way.
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> @"Sigmoid.7082" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > Most people won't agree with me in this thread because it's either above their comprehension and/or they have status quo bias.
>
> You want people to get involved but saying something like this will dissuade people from trying to open any further discussion because disagreeing with your statements means they either don't understand the problem or are to blind to see why you are right and they are wrong.
>
>
If that's how they want to see it, so be it. I provided a survey above that people who want to have an actual discussion can spring from. Chances are good if they don't come into the thread wanting to have a discussion, then nothing I say will matter one way or another.
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> @"Airdive.2613" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > Parity can be easily improved by modifying the damage formula to either lower the effect of Power or increase the effect of Toughness, ideally through a supplemental subtraction of damage to give it a role separate from the dodge system. This would have the effect of making passive defense less of a trap option and allowing low skill or disabled players a more controlled way of playing the game. _Do you agree or disagree with this being a good thing? If you disagree, kindly explain why._
>
> Things I disagree with: that the parity can be easily improved; that your suggested changes would have any effect at all.
>
> > Separately, it might be worth requiring investment in active defense by tying it to a stat instead of making it good for free, so that glass cannon stats are properly glassy and people can build into a high-dodge playstyle if that's what they enjoy and are good at. _Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why._
>
> I don't really care about this, as long as the game stays balanced overall. Of course it's going to be a lot of work balancing all those defensive and evasive skills that aren't attribute-dependent now.
My argument is that the balance between offensive stats and defensive stats is so massively out of whack that defensive stats actually _harm your attrition_, making them worse than useless.
This is because the effect of killing mobs at 1/2 to 1/3 the speed is far more significant to your likely survival of an encounter than the effect of being able to take a couple of more hits in that encounter. What I always fail to understand in these conversations is why people don't see that as a balance issue.
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> @"Airdive.2613" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > The evidence that it's a problem is in the game itself - that there's widespread consensus that using defensive stats results in a major net loss in effectiveness, so nobody does and forum advice universally steers people away from it. I'm providing the data showing why this is the case. If you want to argue otherwise, then it's on you to provide evidence that there isn't a problem.
>
> You are clearly *not* providing any data apart from some disconnected facts (for the current system) and pure speculation (for your proposed one).
>
> > Also, I looked up LoL's damage formula and it's this:
> >
> > physical damage = damage * [(armor - armor penetration) / (100 + armor)]
> >
> > Doesn't really seem comparable to GW2's damage formula so I'm not sure why you brought it up. You'll have to provide more context if you want me to seriously respond to it.
>
> It is "skill coefficient"x"damage attribute"/"armor" for most abilities. Yes, there is no "armor penetration" in GW 2, but the rest is the same.
>
> > Most people wont' agree with me in this thread because most people are authoritarians who defend whatever the status quo is.
>
> I've tried to help your analysis in my first post, but to summarize here: you do not provide enough meaningful data about neither system. At this moment there's nothing to argue with as there's nothing to infer from your points.
Let me rephrase my above post so I can hold you accountable for more properly responding to it instead of just using hollow reasoning to falsely claim I haven't brought facts to the discussion. **And, actually, I'd love for others to respond to this as well as a sort of informal poll**.
By investing in offensive stats, you can more or less triple your outgoing damage. By investing in defensive stats, you might double your time to live, and that's without factoring in active defense, which greatly offsets the already questionable usefulness of defensive stats. _Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why._
Tripling your time to kill (consistently) is much more desirable than doubling your time to live (as a best case scenario) with the same level of investment, and that includes even in terms of surviving combat, since you can eliminate threats much more quickly. _Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why._
This total lack of parity is a balance problem because it means that defensive stats are a ruse that serve no purpose but to undermine your overall effectiveness in combat, forcing everyone to play a glass cannon, leading to the utter dominance of Berserker stats in PvE, and making the game flat-out unfriendly to less skilled or disabled players. _Do you agree or disagree that this is a problem? If you disagree, kindly explain why._
Parity can be easily improved by modifying the damage formula to either lower the effect of Power or increase the effect of Toughness, ideally through a supplemental subtraction of damage to give it a role separate from the dodge system. This would have the effect of making passive defense less of a trap option and allowing low skill or disabled players a more controlled way of playing the game. _Do you agree or disagree with this being a good thing? If you disagree, kindly explain why._
Separately, it might be worth requiring investment in active defense by tying it to a stat instead of making it good for free, so that glass cannon stats are properly glassy and people can build into a high-dodge playstyle if that's what they enjoy and are good at. _Do you agree or disagree with this statement? If you disagree, kindly explain why._
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> @"Airdive.2613" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
>
> > **The gist of it is that doubling your power doubles outgoing damage, while doubling your _armor_ halves incoming damage.**
> > This sounds good in theory, but it overlooks a few major things that throw the balance way out of whack:
> >
> > 1.) Power is given much more reach through Precision and Ferocity than Toughness gains through Vitality and Healing Power (or vice versa)
>
> Yet you provide no evidence it is a problem at all, nor that your solution is any better.
>
> > 2.) Power is calculated independently in the damage formula while Toughness is combined with armor value, which dilutes the effect of each point of Toughness. Doubling your toughness doesn't double your your armor, it instead just increases it by about 50%, which reduces your incoming damage by about 33%.
>
> Somehow League of Legends, surely a renowned and competitive game, uses damage modifiers and then divides "pure" damage by the target's armor score. It seems to work just fine in that game, where is the evidence of it being problematic in Guild Wars 2?
>
> > 3.) Because combat typically gives more weight to offense than defense by default, in order to be competitive, defensive stats should carry more weight than offensive stats. In GW2, as illustrated above, we have the opposite. People act like it's because "offense is better, period", when, in reality, poor balance is to blame for the dominance of Berserker.
>
> This is simply a speculation. I'm sure you're convinced in your own stance, but, as I said, you refuse to provide clear illustration of a problem.
>
> > The best fix I can think of is to reign-in the over-emphasis on Power by making the outgoing portion align with the incoming portion by changing the damage formula so that weapon attack and power are summed instead of multipled, then the sum of both is multiplied by a level-based constant. OR, alternatively, to increase the significance of Toughness in the damage formula by adding a subtraction component after the division component of damage reduction.
>
> I see no reason to assume your suggestion is going to "fix" anything unless you actually carry on some analysis. Which you claim to have done, but refuse to provide the results, trying to speculate instead.
The evidence that it's a problem is in the game itself - there's widespread consensus that using defensive stats results in a major net loss in effectiveness, so nobody does and community advice universally steers people away from _using any at all_. This begs the question of why it exists to begin with considering it's a trap option. I'm providing the data showing why these people are correct and that it is indeed a trap option - because tripling or quadrupling your offense is far more effective, including for surviving, than increasing your defense by 50-80% is. Are you disagreeing with this? If not, why are you disagreeing that this is a problem?
Also, I looked up LoL's damage formula and it's this:
physical damage = damage * [(armor - armor penetration) / (100 + armor)]
Doesn't really seem comparable to GW2's damage formula so I'm not sure why you brought it up. You'll have to provide more context if you want me to seriously respond to it.
Most people won't agree with me in this thread because it's either above their comprehension and/or they have status quo bias. That doesn't make them right. I've provided the evidence above that changing the damage formula increases parity between power and toughness, something that's desirable for balancing the stats. The evidence is right there in the alternate formula I provided. Unjustifiably persisting in claiming I haven't proven anything doesn't make it so - that's the tactic that creationists like to use.
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> @"Metasynaptic.1093" said:
> PvP battles would take a really long time if defensive values were different. The problem had always been balancing around 3 game modes.
I'm not convinced this is as true as people think it is. I think the biggest culprit behind "bunker" problems in PvP is the over-effectiveness of healing skills at baseline relative to their scaling with Healing Power. Additionally, condi was designed to ignore armor. The idea should be that direct damage struggles against high armor targets and you need condi support. The problem, of course, is that condi is also overtuned which has led to too much resistance negating condi damage.
It's all ripple effects of really bad mechanical balancing over the last several years. It honestly needs to be unwound and redone.
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> @"Khisanth.2948" said:
> I wonder why a game developer wouldn't want players to be able to stand around passively and ignore enemy damage ... there can't possibly be any good reasons for that.
Missing the point, but nice strawman. Nobody is suggesting you should be able to stand around and not utilize the dodge system.
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> @"Airdive.2613" said:
> This needs more math to justify your point.
> You could start with plotting some arbitrarily chosen damage per second (or just some real skill to use as a point of reference, say ranger's longbow 1) against power increase and toughness increase for both the current and the proposed system so we can see what the curves look like in average and in extreme cases, both with and without protection or 25 might stacks.
> Having a target time-to-kill value in mind could be helpful: try to balance both distributions around the desired point and explore what happens.
I'm not sure it does. Too much data just obfuscates what I'm describing and it's actually very simple.
**The gist of it is that doubling your power doubles outgoing damage, while doubling your _armor_ halves incoming damage.**
This sounds good in theory, but it overlooks a few major things that throw the balance way out of whack:
1.) Power is given much more reach through Precision and Ferocity than Toughness gains through Vitality and Healing Power (or vice versa)
2.) Power is calculated independently in the damage formula while Toughness is combined with armor value, which dilutes the effect of each point of Toughness. Doubling your toughness doesn't double your your armor, it instead just increases it by about 50%, which reduces your incoming damage by about 33%.
3.) Because combat typically gives more weight to offense than defense by default, in order to be competitive, defensive stats should carry more weight than offensive stats. In GW2, as illustrated above, we have the opposite. People act like it's because "offense is better, period", when, in reality, poor balance is to blame for the dominance of Berserker.
The best fix I can think of is to reign-in the over-emphasis on Power by making the outgoing portion align with the incoming portion by changing the damage formula so that weapon attack and power are summed instead of multipled, then the sum of both is multiplied by a level-based constant. OR, alternatively, to increase the significance of Toughness in the damage formula by adding a subtraction component after the division component of damage reduction.
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> @"MachineManXX.9746" said:
> Maybe, just maybe, It's done like this on purpose? And the developers don't want everything equal? And maybe, a "solution" is not required? Just a thought.
Maybe. And maybe it's also wrongheaded and deserves to be scrutinized. Don't just appeal to authority or thoughtlessly defend the status quo.
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I want to do a technical analysis on the attributes and how they effect gearing and combat dynamics in GW2. The TLDR version is that the current damage formula makes the attributes very poorly balanced, there's really no good justification for it, & simple updates could really, really help breathe new life into the game and reign in over-the-top power creep and general clutchiness of combat to make the game more friendly for different types of players.
Let's start by taking a look at the damage formula:
Damage = (Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient) / Armor
We can see something weird right out of the gate looking at this formula. Namely, that power and weapon strength are considered separately and multiplied, while Toughness is simply added to Armor. Let's plug in some numbers and look at the effect of this using an arbitrary skill with a coefficient of 3 on an ascended greatsword vs a medium armor target.
(1100 * 1000 * 3)/2118 = 1558 damage
Now, what we can assume from this is that adding 1000 power will double the damage. Adding another 1000 (hypothetically) will triple it, and so on.
(1100 * 2000 * 3)/2118 = 3116 damage
However - what is the effect of the target adding Toughness? Let's be symmetrical and use 1000
(1100 * 2000 * 3)/3118 = 2116 damage
In summary - adding 1000 power at level 80 will double your damage (and this is not factoring in Precision and Ferocity), while adding 1000 Toughness will only reduce your damage by around 1/3 due to the way the damage formula handles Power and Toughness. Moreover, the amount that increasing Toughness reduces damage perpetually shrinks, while the same is not true for Power. **This is backwards.** Because offense will always carry more value than defense (this is only natural), the weight of defensive stats should be **greater** than the weight of offensive stats. This would be true even if the game didn't have an active defense system - the fact that it does only makes it more true. **So, in a nutshell, the presence of dodging is not what makes Toughness mostly useless - it is simply under-tuned in effectiveness within the damage formula, or, conversely, Power is over-tuned.** Berserker meta isn't a given, Berserker only dominates the game because there's major imbalance in the way offensive and defensive stats are weighted within the combat mechanics.
Vitality fares only slightly better. Adding 1000 Vitality can raise your Health by between 50% and 85% depending on class, and while it helps against condi, it lacks synergy with healing power. Meanwhile, Power has strong synergy with both of its supporting attributes (Precision and Ferocity) - further widening the gap in usefulness between offensive stats and defensive ones.
What should be done about it? There are a couple of different potential observations and solutions.
1.) It has nothing to do with Toughness or Vitality - Power (and, as a result, condi) is over-emphasized. The gap between damage floor and ceiling is too high in a game where damage is king. A simple solution would be to rework the damage formula to reduce the multiplicative effect of Power (and, subsequently, Precision and Ferocity). This could be done by "banding" power so that, for example, Power bonuses are multiplied by 2/3 instead of full value. Perhaps a better option might be to rework the formula so, instead of multiplying power by weapon damage, power and weapon damage are summed then multiplied by a level-based constant. Condi damage nerf would of course be needed to bring it back in line with Power, resulting in a reigning in of the power creep we've seen over the last few years. **Condi should outperform power on high armor targets, and vice-versa.**
2.) Power scaling is fine. Vitality and Toughness are both under-emphasized in the combat system and should be reworked to be more interesting and useful choices. My proposal in this case is (and always has been) to make the following modifications - a.) add a damage subtraction _after_ the damage division using only Toughness as opposed to combined Armor. This makes thematic sense (representing a greater ability to shrug off minor blows/injuries) and it would give Toughness a proper role separate from the dodge system by helping mitigate minor sources of damage that you wouldn't normally bother dodging while also helping to offset the severe diminishing returns of the stat. b.) Make Vitality improve endurance regeneration instead of Health. It seems more thematically appropriate and would create better synergy between the 3 defensive attributes. Give lighter armored classes slightly higher endurance regeneration baseline than heavy armor classes.
**Potential new damage formulas for tinkering:**
Damage = Weapon Strength * (base Power + bonus power * 2/3) * Skill Coefficient/Armor
Damage = (Weapon Strength + Power) * Skill Coefficient * Level-based constant/Armor
Damage = (Weapon Strength * Power * Skill Coefficient/Armor) - (Toughness/6.67)
It's worth noting that an attribute tied to Endurance regeneration isn't a new idea - there was one prior to the beta (Called Willpower) and it was removed for some reason, which I think was a bad idea as it led to the loss of need to invest in defense and the ability to over-stack offense - becoming a glass cannon that really isn't that glassy - creating a lot of imbalance in the game. Instead of simply adding Willpower back, I think reworking Vitality makes more sense - there's, IMO, no need to have a health-increasing stat. Just have % bonuses on occasional foods/runes/sigils (and maybe buff baseline health a bit depending on other changes.)
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Since this conversation is swirling above so many heads, I edited the OP to attempt to clean up & clarify what I'm proposing.
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> @"Zin Dau.1749" said:
> > @"joneirikb.7506" said:
> > Clarification: Einlanzer is not talking about improving the importance of the "current" defensive stats. But essentially make new defensive stats, based around the "active defenses".
> >
> > Essentially having a defensive stat for "energy regen" to dodge more often, so it's a build decision how often you want to dodge (and thus gutting the existing energy regen in order to leave space for that stat).
> >
> > The old "toughness", "vitality", and "healing power" would likely be removed or just rolled in as secondary effects on those stats.
> >
> > The goal being a "risk vs reward" in building. Do you want the absolute max DPS or do you want to have enough Dodges to survive (not passive defenses).
> >
> > ---
>
> If their argument that active defense is just "number of dodges", then their argument is already dismissed. Every class (with few exceptions) gets enough endurance for only two consecutive dodges. So no one can rely on just those dodges for any long and/or tough battles. In practice, players also rely heavily on defensive skills, traits, and boons. Not to mention that fighting as a group further covers up each others' defensive shortcomings. Thus regardless of how you try to push defensive stats, players just need enough defensive stats where they feel comfortable, but not a point more.
>
> Minmaxers gonna minmax. Shuffling stats and numbers around won't discourage or prevent minmaxing. Which in other terms, is exploiting the "risk vs reward" in any given system. Thus it doesn't matter how you build the system, someone will "minmax" the system into a metagame. They're not something one can prevent; these are just phenomenons and emergent behavior one has to accept in any game design.
>
> Anyway, how much more "risk vs reward" can you get than glass cannon?
That isn't as universally true as it's made out to be. This is an issue of weight. Offense carries more weight than defense does, therefore offensive stats carry more weight than defensive stats do. This is actually true even dismissing the presence of dodge/active defense. Its existence just makes it even more true. The fact that defensive stats affect your defense the same or even a little less than offensive stats affect your offense is _poor balance_, which led to the dominance of Berserker/Viper stats.
If they altered the weight of each, so that defensive stats are more effective than offensive stats (which is what they need to do) - you'd have a lot more competition between the two in the meta. There are a number of different ways they could do this. My suggestion was to tie dodging to Vitality to make baseline defense much lower, meaning that purely offensive builds would become much glassier than they are today - because I think this would be the most interesting way to solve it, and it would also increase the flexibility of the combat system to make the game more playable for handicapped or low skill players by giving them the option of focusing more on passive defense. Toughness may need to be slightly buffed under this change, but not much.
But they could just as easily nerf the effectiveness of offensive stats without changing defense and it would yield the same benefit, just IMO in a less interesting/dynamic way.
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Hi - I had a question about folding dungeons into story content. It seems to me that story-driven dungeons (similar to the classic ones but maybe not as large), rather than being a separate system maintained by a different team, would be something that were periodically created as part of the living world episodes. This was in fact done during LW1 with the Molten Facility and Aetherblade, which were unfortunately folded into FotM later, which I didn't see as the best solution (LW1 should really be edited and restored at some point, with these locations brought back into the world as instanced LW content).
The story comes packaged with a lot of instanced content, but, after season 1, there's never been a proper dungeon created in this way to my knowledge. This seems like a wasted opportunity - especially since the original dungeons were sort of created as story content to supplement the Personal story. This could have added a lot of richness to both the HoT and PoF zones.
Is this something that's ever discussed?
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> @"Astralporing.1957" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
>
> > Again, you're using fallacious reasoning.
> >
> > a.) Investment vs skill is a false dichotomy. Rewarding player investment does not mean the game is not rewarding skill. Nearly everything in the game rewards both skill and investment, with the only real exception (preposterously) being active defense - which arguably rewards neither particularly well.
> It's not a false dichotomy. If 100% = X+Y, then he higher X is, the lower Y must be. If you increase importance of investment on something, you automatically decrease importance of skill for that.
> Also, i would heavily disagree with your baseless claim that active defences do not reward skill.
>
> > b.) Your assumption that "less dodging = less skill required" is the opposite of the way it would actually work. Nerfing active defense to be more in-line with passive defense would increase the benefit of skill by making the dodge mechanic less fire-and-forget. This would force players to make choices around how much dodge to build for and to think strategically about how much they might need to be able to dodge in various encounters. It would also force players to be more strategic with the actual dodges they make in combat, which would _increase_ the reward for skillful playing.
> They _can't_ increase rewards for skilled playing. Not without increasing dependency of survival on active defences, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do.
>
> By the way, one of your proposals was ramping up on unavoidable damage - something that would be countermanded not by skill, but by gear. How that can be called increasing rewards for skilled play? How that can be even called leaving rewards for skilled play as they are now?
>
> No, in the end, what you want is to increase rewards for preparations done before combat, _at the cost of skilled play_.
You, again, commit a logical fallacy right out of the gate, here. Investment + skill into some zero-sum paradigm. And, to prove this point, can you do 34K DPS with either alone? That's why investment and skill should both be seen as important, and not in conflict with either other. There's nowhere else in the game where they are.
> @"Astralporing.1957" said:
>Or, to phrase it differently: is your intention for survivablility to rise, go down or stay the same as currently? Same question for player dps/mob survivability.
>And how that would look for differnt stat sets? For berserker, for soldier, for nomad?
There are a few problems that I'm trying to solve in a specific way. There are other ways they might be solved -
a.) there is nothing resembling parity between different stat sets. Damage is nearly always more desirable for a variety of reasons, so the stats need to be balanced around that reality - meaning that defensive stats needs to carry more weight than offensive stats. Imagine a hypothetical where 10%-20% loss in DPS gets you 20-40% increase in survivability, and realize that should be a rough benchmark for Soldier vs Berserker. Maybe they are even weighted differently in PvE vs PvP since combat dynamics differ between the two.
b.) passive defense is rendered mostly pointless by the over-emphasis on active defense. It is not my suggestion to remove active defense or even really to nerf it per se, it's to make it require investment the same way both offense and passive defense do. In doing so, it's also worth attempting to make passive defense and active defense complementary instead of redundant, which is why I suggested giving Armor a different formula that hybridizes division and subtraction so that it has a greater effect on smaller sources of damage than it does on larger sources of damage.
c.) damage is too high for attrition kind of across the board, which might be solved dynamically with adjustments to defense (i.e. requiring players to invest in a stat to be good at active defense), but this would be a matter for subsequent tuning.
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> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Ototo.3214" said:
> > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > @"Ototo.3214" said:
> > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > @"Ototo.3214" said:
> > > > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > > > @"Ototo.3214" said:
> > > > > > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > > > > > @"Ototo.3214" said:
> > > > > > > > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Ototo.3214" said:
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > Guys, look, it should be obvious, but:
> > > > > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > Passive defense vs active defense is a false dichotomy. Literally no one is suggesting that active defense/dodge should be removed from the game so that combat can be fully passive. LITERALLY NOBODY. Stop using strawman arguments.
> > > > > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > What's being suggested is that passive and active defense should work together to create a more satisfying, strategically deep build/combat system. Doing so would require adjusting mechanics to moderately decrease emphasis on dodging and increase emphasis on damage absorption.
> > > > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > > And you completely ignore how that isn't necessary. There are already working passive defense stated builds that work just fine in PvP modes. Reducing the prominence of active defense so that you can be more of a meat shield makes the game boring because most people prefer trying to actively avoid the hit rather than be forced to take the hit. Idk how that is so hard to understand.
> > > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > I don't "ignore that it isn't necessary". This is a game - literally nothing is "necessary." I am saying that revamping it the right way could benefit the game enormously.
> > > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > > Saying it would "make the game boring" is a hollow statement that is based on a shallow (and arguably authoritarian) analysis of both the current and hypothetical future state of the combat system.
> > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > > I and many others, based on the other responses I've seen, agree it would be more boring. I could just as easily say that you're previous statement that current gameplay is shallow is a hollow statement. Passive defenses are currently fine.
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > This is a classic case of status quo bias. The fact that about half the people in this thread agree with me despite me suggesting radical changes to the current state is a huge indicator that something is actually wrong.
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > For the sake of argument, I went back and read most of the posts in the thread and I'd have to say...no, most people don't necessarily agree with you. Just cause you yourself have made a bunch of posts doesn't mean a ton of people agree with you. And most of the ones that you could argue a maybe with didn't necessarily agree with your solution, but rather offered a different one or didn't agree it was worth the overhaul.
> > > > > > > > > I'll concede that some active defenses are probably a little too overtuned, but that doesn't require an overhaul of the system...it just requires those skills/traits/whatever they are being tweaked. As for passive defensive stats currently being useless. They aren't. I see that as a fallacious statement. Plenty of builds use them to great effect in PvP modes as I've stated numerous times. Are there tons of available stat combos that are arguably useless? Yeah, but I feel like many of them are because the stat distrubutions are
> > > > > > > > > The only "status quo" I guess I'm biased toward is that...who gives a kitten about it in PvE. I'm perfectly fine with it not taking forever to kill trash mobs.
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Yes, they do, based upon the likes of my posts as well as posts stating similar things throughout the thread. They may not perfectly agree with every suggestion I've made, but more people than not recognize that there's a problem with the way things are tuned today.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Go re-read the thread.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I've read through it numerous times.
> > > > >
> > > > > Then you're the one suffering from a confirmation bias.
> > > >
> > > > Every single highly rated post in the thread is critical of the status quo. So, no, that isn't me.
> > >
> > > And not all of them necessarily agree with you.
> >
> > You are being pedantic to try to cover the weakness of your argument. Virtually nobody has ideas on how to fix problems that are in perfect alignment with each other. The point is that players disproportionately see there's a problem with how things are balanced with the stats.
> >
> > Ultimately, it doesn't even matter. The entire player base could be against my proposed changes and that wouldn't actually be telling at all regarding the quality of the ideas. This is something you see all the time out in the real world. New idea faces extreme criticism until they are implemented and everyone actually realizes it was a good idea. Just as common as the opposite.
> >
> > Literally all the opposition I see in this thread is some variation of "no it's fine don't change it" or "you want to make combat boring" - arguments that hold no water whatsoever, especially in light of absolute dominance of berserker in the game.
>
> When you condense other people's arguments down to nonsensical statements like "you want to make combat boring", then it's easy to say that they don't hold water. Nice straw man.
No - that's literally the argument he and some others have made. You're applying bias because you think the system is fine and dislike my dogmatism to the contrary, which is why only people who disagree with me are still following the thread. It's the emotional entrenchment effect.
> If all you do is force players to use passive defense stats on their gear, you've changed nothing.
I like how you condensed my argument down to a nonsensical statement like "I want to force players to use passive defense stats on their gear." Nice strawman.
If you "didn't see much in the way of ideas" you must not have read my first post, which was a detailed layout of what I thought was wrong and how to fix it. Maybe try reading that first before posting. What you **actually** aren't seeing is any detailed analysis or ideas in my response to my suggestions - just random dead-end arguments about how it would make combat more boring. There were, eventually, a few questions that I should take the time to respond to, but it's difficult when posts like this keep interfering.
I have given plenty of detail. It is not up to me to figure out the precise numerical values that would result in the greatest balance, and it's ridiculous to suggest otherwise - that is done through ongoing tuning and balance updates. There's a ton of analysis in this thread, especially on page 1, about why the current status quo harms the design of PvE encounters and how nerfing active defenses or requiring players to invest in it would not only improve attribute parity, but would create an opportunity to significantly improve and streamline combat in general. Hannelore's post sums it up rather well.
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delete this post
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> @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:
> > > > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > > >
> > > > > > Again, you're using fallacious reasoning.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > a.) Investment vs skill is a false dichotomy. Rewarding player investment does not mean the game is not rewarding skill. Nearly everything in the game rewards both skill and investment, with the only real exception (preposterously) being active defense - which arguably rewards neither particularly well.
> > > > > It's not a false dichotomy. If 100% = X+Y, then he higher X is, the lower Y must be. If you increase importance of investment on something, you automatically decrease importance of skill for that.
> > > > > Also, i would heavily disagree with your baseless claim that active defences do not reward skill.
> > > > >
> > > > > > b.) Your assumption that "less dodging = less skill required" is the opposite of the way it would actually work. Nerfing active defense to be more in-line with passive defense would increase the benefit of skill by making the dodge mechanic less fire-and-forget. This would force players to make choices around how much dodge to build for and to think strategically about how much they might need to be able to dodge in various encounters. It would also force players to be more strategic with the actual dodges they make in combat, which would _increase_ the reward for skillful playing.
> > > > > They _can't_ increase rewards for skilled playing. Not without increasing dependency of survival on active defences, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do.
> > > > >
> > > > > By the way, one of your proposals was ramping up on unavoidable damage - something that would be countermanded not by skill, but by gear. How that can be called increasing rewards for skilled play? How that can be even called leaving rewards for skilled play as they are now?
> > > > >
> > > > > No, in the end, what you want is to increase rewards for preparations done before combat, _at the cost of skilled play_.
> > > >
> > > > Hitting v to dodge more /= more skill. Skillful playing involves proper positioning, using the right abilities at the right time, and understanding your limitations and working around them. So, yes, nerfing active defense and tying it to a stat would further emphasize both investment needs for defense and skill while playing. I really don't know how to explain it any other way. It's not the most complicated thing in the universe.
> > >
> > > Nerfing active defences to punish poor play is one thing.
> > >
> > > Compensating this change with making passive defences more potent is another.
> > >
> > > You are not tying the skill component to passive defences. That's ludicrous. You are tying the survival aspect of the game play to passive stats which by their very definition are passive. Thus they do not contribute in any way to the combat while it is happening.
> > >
> > > You still fail to understand the basic design of this game combat system with active defences. It can be summarized as follows:
> > >
> > > **Use as little defensive stats as needed, use as much offensive stats as possible.**
> > >
> > > Every build in all game modes can be summed up and explained that way. PvE uses almost no defensive stats since fights are scripted. Competative game modes use more defensive stats since players are not scripted (and even go as far as setup defensive builds to protect party members in charge of damage, like berserker scourges or weavers who are covered by thei parties Firebrand and Scrapper supports). With your desire to make defensive stats more important, all you are doing is altering the minium requirement for defensive stats. That's not enaging gameplay nor does it make more stat combination viable. At best it simply shifts the used stat combinations to something different.
> >
> > I understand it perfectly well, and am saying, unequivocally, that it's a flawed design that is harmful to the game and always has been.
> >
> > This is especially true, given PvE at least, that passive defense does virtually nothing to improve your survivability because the minor gains you make in ability to absorb damage are _more than offset_ by the reduced effectiveness in neutralizing threats. This is exacerbated by the dodge system, which works well without requiring any stat investment or trade-off. It doesn't make sense, and neither do any of the arguments opposed to revamping it to work better. If it had not been design this way, literally nobody would be suggesting it be changed to work this way.
>
> See, you keep repeating that but I fail to see any proof. Go and tank a raid with 1050 toughness, 1300 toughness, 1500 toughness, 1800 toughness and 2400 toughness. I guarantee you you will notice a difference between all of those values.
>
> You are basing your opinion on face-roll easy content, mostly open world I would persume. It is simply not applicable for challenging content or non-scripted content (Spvp+WvW).
>
> It's not even applicable for medium content like fractals where 2-3k life more can make a huge difference or some toughness. Go play a Heal firebrand with Minstrel gear and harrier gear. You WILL notice a difference.
>
> EDIT: oh and those values for toughness are not randomly chosen by me. They are or have been break points in the past or present for toughness for tanks. I have tanked literally every raid boss in this game multiple times with a variation of those values or very close to them (with my Full Minstrel chrono with toughness infusions hitting 2.4k). I know what I am talking about in that regard.
Okay... none of that changes what I stated above for 99% of PvE content (and 100% for anyone who isn't a chronomancer).
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> @"Cyninja.2954" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:
> > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > >
> > > > Again, you're using fallacious reasoning.
> > > >
> > > > a.) Investment vs skill is a false dichotomy. Rewarding player investment does not mean the game is not rewarding skill. Nearly everything in the game rewards both skill and investment, with the only real exception (preposterously) being active defense - which arguably rewards neither particularly well.
> > > It's not a false dichotomy. If 100% = X+Y, then he higher X is, the lower Y must be. If you increase importance of investment on something, you automatically decrease importance of skill for that.
> > > Also, i would heavily disagree with your baseless claim that active defences do not reward skill.
> > >
> > > > b.) Your assumption that "less dodging = less skill required" is the opposite of the way it would actually work. Nerfing active defense to be more in-line with passive defense would increase the benefit of skill by making the dodge mechanic less fire-and-forget. This would force players to make choices around how much dodge to build for and to think strategically about how much they might need to be able to dodge in various encounters. It would also force players to be more strategic with the actual dodges they make in combat, which would _increase_ the reward for skillful playing.
> > > They _can't_ increase rewards for skilled playing. Not without increasing dependency of survival on active defences, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do.
> > >
> > > By the way, one of your proposals was ramping up on unavoidable damage - something that would be countermanded not by skill, but by gear. How that can be called increasing rewards for skilled play? How that can be even called leaving rewards for skilled play as they are now?
> > >
> > > No, in the end, what you want is to increase rewards for preparations done before combat, _at the cost of skilled play_.
> >
> > Hitting v to dodge more /= more skill. Skillful playing involves proper positioning, using the right abilities at the right time, and understanding your limitations and working around them. So, yes, nerfing active defense and tying it to a stat would further emphasize both investment needs for defense and skill while playing. I really don't know how to explain it any other way. It's not the most complicated thing in the universe.
>
> Nerfing active defences to punish poor play is one thing.
>
> Compensating this change with making passive defences more potent is another.
>
> You are not tying the skill component to passive defences. That's ludicrous. You are tying the survival aspect of the game play to passive stats which by their very definition are passive. Thus they do not contribute in any way to the combat while it is happening.
>
> You still fail to understand the basic design of this game combat system with active defences. It can be summarized as follows:
>
> **Use as little defensive stats as needed, use as much offensive stats as possible.**
>
> Every build in all game modes can be summed up and explained that way. PvE uses almost no defensive stats since fights are scripted. Competative game modes use more defensive stats since players are not scripted (and even go as far as setup defensive builds to protect party members in charge of damage, like berserker scourges or weavers who are covered by thei parties Firebrand and Scrapper supports). With your desire to make defensive stats more important, all you are doing is altering the minium requirement for defensive stats. That's not enaging gameplay nor does it make more stat combination viable. At best it simply shifts the used stat combinations to something different.
I understand it perfectly well, and am saying, unequivocally, that it's a flawed design that is harmful to the game and always has been.
This is especially true, given PvE at least, that passive defense does virtually nothing to improve your survivability because the minor gains you make in ability to absorb damage are _more than offset_ by the reduced effectiveness in neutralizing threats, meaning that Toughness and Vitality are red herring stats that trick you into making yourself less effective. This is exacerbated by the dodge system, which works well without requiring any stat investment or trade-off.
It doesn't make sense, and neither do any of the arguments opposed to revamping it to work better. If it had not been designed or tuned this way in the beginning, literally nobody would be suggesting it be changed to work this way.
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> @"Linken.6345" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:
> > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > >
> > > > Again, you're using fallacious reasoning.
> > > >
> > > > a.) Investment vs skill is a false dichotomy. Rewarding player investment does not mean the game is not rewarding skill. Nearly everything in the game rewards both skill and investment, with the only real exception (preposterously) being active defense - which arguably rewards neither particularly well.
> > > It's not a false dichotomy. If 100% = X+Y, then he higher X is, the lower Y must be. If you increase importance of investment on something, you automatically decrease importance of skill for that.
> > > Also, i would heavily disagree with your baseless claim that active defences do not reward skill.
> > >
> > > > b.) Your assumption that "less dodging = less skill required" is the opposite of the way it would actually work. Nerfing active defense to be more in-line with passive defense would increase the benefit of skill by making the dodge mechanic less fire-and-forget. This would force players to make choices around how much dodge to build for and to think strategically about how much they might need to be able to dodge in various encounters. It would also force players to be more strategic with the actual dodges they make in combat, which would _increase_ the reward for skillful playing.
> > > They _can't_ increase rewards for skilled playing. Not without increasing dependency of survival on active defences, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do.
> > >
> > > By the way, one of your proposals was ramping up on unavoidable damage - something that would be countermanded not by skill, but by gear. How that can be called increasing rewards for skilled play? How that can be even called leaving rewards for skilled play as they are now?
> > >
> > > No, in the end, what you want is to increase rewards for preparations done before combat, _at the cost of skilled play_.
> >
> > Hitting v to dodge more /= more skill. Skillful playing involves proper positioning, using the right abilities at the right time, and understanding your limitations and working around them. So, yes, nerfing active defense and tying it to a stat would further emphasize both investment needs for defense and skill while playing. I really don't know how to explain it any other way. It's not the most complicated thing in the universe.
>
> People already use proper positioning the right abilities at the right time (dodging are one of those abilites btw) and understanding their limitations to then work around them so why were those boost to passive defences needed again?
> As others have already said relying more on passive invested defence would lead to less need to use your head aka less skillfull play.
Gosh it's really clear I'm talking over heads here. But, that's okay, keep defending something that clearly isn't tuned right.
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Being forced to use mace/axe for condi builds is a little obnoxious. Revs need a hybrid or condi-focused melee weapon option. I'd be mostly fine with either Greatsword or MH Axe. We arguably should just get MH Axe as core, with Greatsword being the next elite.
I actually wish they would stop making weapon choices so focused on power or condi and try to hybridize them more with the power vs condi focus coming more from traits and gear. This would lead to a lot more flexibility.
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> @"Astralporing.1957" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
>
> > Again, you're using fallacious reasoning.
> >
> > a.) Investment vs skill is a false dichotomy. Rewarding player investment does not mean the game is not rewarding skill. Nearly everything in the game rewards both skill and investment, with the only real exception (preposterously) being active defense - which arguably rewards neither particularly well.
> It's not a false dichotomy. If 100% = X+Y, then he higher X is, the lower Y must be. If you increase importance of investment on something, you automatically decrease importance of skill for that.
> Also, i would heavily disagree with your baseless claim that active defences do not reward skill.
>
> > b.) Your assumption that "less dodging = less skill required" is the opposite of the way it would actually work. Nerfing active defense to be more in-line with passive defense would increase the benefit of skill by making the dodge mechanic less fire-and-forget. This would force players to make choices around how much dodge to build for and to think strategically about how much they might need to be able to dodge in various encounters. It would also force players to be more strategic with the actual dodges they make in combat, which would _increase_ the reward for skillful playing.
> They _can't_ increase rewards for skilled playing. Not without increasing dependency of survival on active defences, which is the exact opposite of what you want to do.
>
> By the way, one of your proposals was ramping up on unavoidable damage - something that would be countermanded not by skill, but by gear. How that can be called increasing rewards for skilled play? How that can be even called leaving rewards for skilled play as they are now?
>
> No, in the end, what you want is to increase rewards for preparations done before combat, _at the cost of skilled play_.
Hitting v to dodge more /= more skill. Skillful playing involves proper positioning, using the right abilities at the right time, and understanding your limitations and working around them. So, yes, nerfing active defense and tying it to a stat would further emphasize both investment needs for defense and skill while playing. I really don't know how to explain it any other way. It's not the most complicated thing in the universe.
Revising Attributes
in Guild Wars 2 Discussion
Posted
> @"maddoctor.2738" said:
> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:
> > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:
> > > An addition (and to keep the above post smaller), to see how badly Precision and Ferocity scale
> > >
> > > Base: 24
> > > Power/Precision vs Vitality/Toughness: 24 (same as base)
> > > Power/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 28
> > > Power vs Vitality/Toughness: 29
> > > Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 36
> > > Power/Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 19
> > >
> > > Just increasing Power has a very similar effect to increasing Power+Ferocity (at 5% base crit chance this is to be expected) but surprisingly enough, increasing Power alone is much more efficient than increasing both Precision and Ferocity. In fact, Vitality + Toughness scale much better than Precision + Ferocity as you can see by the 50% increase in the number of hits required, from 24 to 36.
> > >
> > > Another way to illustrate this (vs base defenses):
> > > Power + Precision: 10 hits, Power + Ferocity: 12 hits, Power alone: 12 hits, Precision + Ferocity: 16 hits, All of them: 8 hits
> > >
> > > And then you propose new formulas that reduce the effect of Power, what would that accomplish other than making characters damage sponges.
> >
> > The misses the fact that Precision and Ferocity scale off of power, not independently, which is why Power is massively over-emphasized in the game's combat mechanics. The issue is not that Precision and Ferocity are too strong (in fact, if anything it's the opposite) - it's the fact that they increase the magnitude of Power's effectiveness when Power is already too effective.
>
> Precision+Ferocity is worse than Power alone. While increasing Power, Precision, Toughness and Vitality by 1000 keeps the damage exactly the same. So why do you say that offensive stats are better than defensive ones? That should tell you that statistically the attributes in the game are actually balanced. What you are asking for is to make them imbalanced. I even provided you the result of using all 3 offensive attributes vs Vitality+Toughness and it saves just 5 hits. 19 instead of 24. That's about 20% higher effectiveness of THREE offensive stats versus TWO defensive ones. 20%!
Because Power alone is more effective than both Toughness and Vitality independently. And there are two other offensive stats that help magnify it further.
Now, with that said - I do see your point. That, while Power is easily the most effective of all the stats, Power + Precision is balanced with Vitality vs Toughness, and that's because offensive stats are weighted disproportionately toward Power while defensive stats are more equal. I'm still trying to make sure I'm in agreement with that.
Even so, what I'm actually suggesting is that the attributes do want to be slightly imbalanced in a way that favors defense, because offense carries more natural value. It's also the case that Vitality is slightly more useful than Toughness. My proposal of adding a minor damage subtraction component on Toughness might actually be the best improvement to make because it would offset the diminishing returns of Toughness and help make it not just redundant with active defense, since its effect would be more significant vs a lot of minor hits that you can't dodge anyway than major hits coming from big enemies that you're expected to dodge.