There is no build diversity

[Dantheman.3589]

> @"wevh.2903" said:

> > @"Dantheman.3589" said:

> > > @"wevh.2903" said:

> > > > @"Dantheman.3589" said:

> > > > The problem with this list is that you are including viable builds in ranked as half meta. They aren’t half meta, try taking any of those to an mAT and watch yourself get farmed, except ofc decap scrapper which should be included in meta instead of support scrapper. As such you decent builds are mostly meme builds except a few that should be in the category above.

> > > > Overall flawed or extremely exaggerated list considering some stuff just won’t even be playable in mAts hence not being meta. There’s a reason builds like bunker core guard are only good ranked on metabattle, they work but just aren’t meta.

> > >

> > > List is about ranked , but there is builds u r missing cuz NA comps r stuck in the same , big example was symbolbrand :")

> >

> > I’m not missing any builds. If you wanna say Na isn’t up to date well I’d like to see you beat team USA then maybe we can talk.

>

> U misisng worm comps , double decap druid/scrapper was a good aids comp too ,

> Healbreaker is pretty good roo , choronomancer has hid value. Etc , ofc some shot overperforms but there r some build pretty much usabled.

>

> U can use sic em for daily at or sd daredevil without problem and still perform with it

>

>

> On na every team played same stuff tanky slb /condi thief playing full team flght comps and then r55 comed with daredevil nades holo

 

You really have builds messed up. Decap druid was first played in the Na mota and only the team USA teams brought soulbeast, no else did and in the end it doesn’t matter at alllll. Chronomancer and healbrealer have been played on Na as well as other thief builds , but it’s also irrelevant because they are garbo.

You have builds that are basically memes that sometimes work in farming ppl in ez matches rated way to high. In the end they are still memes compared to dominating meta builds

[lare.5129]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684 " said:

>

it good video, but it ffrom wvw. On spvp we have not wide stat choose, so first make point on this.

 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"KrHome.1920" said:

> The balancing of the game is better than most of the community thinks. There is a lot of stuff that is viable.

 

But there is exponentially more builds that aren't viable...at all whatsoever. The thing that's being pointed out here isn't the actual number of builds that people are playing...it's the disparity of the amount of possible combinations, and the builds that are actually viable...functional even.

 

There are millions of possible combinations for build options, and only a single digit number of them are actually competitive....and only a handful of them we can call "functional" because they can at least do something.

 

But aside from functionality, it also is dependent on how unique the build is that determines how diverse the system is. you can't point to Onslaught Reaper A that uses a Greatsword, and Onslaught Reaper B that uses a dagger/warhorn, and say that those two builds are different mean that the game is diverse. Uniqueness is rigid, in that it is a direct measure of **how** different parts of a particular system is.

 

Perhaps you would remember a group of certain builds that usto work for necromancer, called Shroud Dancing Builds. Builds that essentially operated on the premise of flashing in and out of shroud. Not only did this single mechanism redefine the play-style of the class, it opened up a plethora of widely varying styles of builds, that really in comparison to how most necromancers play the class now, you would think it was a completely alien and new class all together. If i could relate the builds made around this particular mechanic to something, it was very similar to Power Shatter Mesmer.

 

The point here is that shroud dance builds varied enough from other necromancer build that they are deserving of their own category, so much so that they got a specific name. This is actually called something in biology science...where a new species is found we well...give it a name. And so what matters here is how different the builds are between each other, and how many different builds there are that define how diverse the system is. 1000 builds that are all basically the same is not diverse...don't pretend like it is.

 

> @"lare.5129" said:

> it good video, but it ffrom wvw. On spvp we have not wide stat choose, so first make point on this.

 

You know why it's WvW? It's because more builds work there than they do in Spvp. Back in those days, WvW wasn't split like Spvp...so we had a much larger variety of viable choices.

[Ragnar.4257]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> There are millions of possible combinations for build options, and only a single digit number of them are actually competitive....and only a handful of them we can call "functional" because they can at least do something.

 

You keep saying that.

 

You say that there are millions of possible combinations, which means you're considering permutations on runes, sigils, off-hand weapons, specific minor traits, as "different combinations".

 

By this definition, there are also then hundreds of current "meta" builds. You can quite easily shuffle around a few sigils, minor traits, runes, and still have a "meta" build.

 

But then later you also say that 2 builds that are nearly identical but for 1 weapon choice, can be considered the same.

 

So which is it?

 

Please try to be consistent.

 

Either there are millions of possible combinations, or, there are actually only essentially ~10 "meaningfully distinct" different builds per class, so ball-park figure of 100 different builds. In which case having 20+ viable at once isn't bad.

 

Where you, or anyone else, chooses to draw the line and say "this build is different to that build" or "those builds are essentially the same" is entirely arbitrary.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> Either there are millions of possible combinations, or, there are actually only essentially ~10 "meaningfully distinct" different builds per class,

 

Right... the key here is how you put it as saying "meaningfully distinct"

 

With millions of possible combinations, with little to no meaningfully distinct builds is a disparity and the problem i'm highlighting. so it's not an "Or" statement...it's there ARE objectively millions of combinations...and 99.999% of them do not function in any competitive sense.

 

>Where you, or anyone else, chooses to draw the line and say "this build is different to that build" or "those builds are essentially the same" is entirely arbitrary.

 

If it's not defined it is arbitrary, like a lot of things happen to be. But that doesn't mean the definition isn't still rigid. Again you can say that Onslaught Reaper A with a Great Sword is different than Onslaught Reaper B with a Dagger /Warhorn. But HOW different are the two. We can rigidly define that as a proportion to one another, and to other classes and builds of the same class. This is how it's done in Biology to determine how similar one species is to another and find it's possible ancestry.

 

I'll explain the above like this. Homosapiens have chimpanzee cousins in the evolutionary tree. How similar we are is based on proportionality of the genome we share between the two species...So even though we share 99% of the same DNA, you can say that we are completely different species because you look at a chimp and a human and think "wow what a difference that 1% makes..." but it's HOW different we are from each other that define us as being similar...we are 99% similar and therefor that's why we are more likely to share ancestry (which we do) So do you get it? It's only arbitrary if you aren't defining the difference between the two things you want to compare as proportions, which you can agree on.

 

I think we can agree that two Onslaught Reapers with the same exact build setup except for a weapon change is still an Onslaught Reaper.

 

 

[Ragnar.4257]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> > Either there are millions of possible combinations, or, there are actually only essentially ~10 "meaningfully distinct" different builds per class,

>

> Right... the key here is how you put it as saying "meaningfully distinct"

>

> With millions of possible combinations, with little to no meaningfully distinct builds is a disparity and the problem i'm highlighting. so it's not an "Or" statement...it's there ARE objectively millions of combinations...and 99.999% of them do not function in any competitive sense.

>

> >Where you, or anyone else, chooses to draw the line and say "this build is different to that build" or "those builds are essentially the same" is entirely arbitrary.

>

> Sure if it's not defined it is arbitrary, like a lot of things happen to be. But that doesn't mean the definition isn't still rigid. Again you can say that Onslaught Reaper A with a Great Sword is different than Onslaught Reaper B with a Dagger /Warhorn. But HOW different are the two. We can rigidly define that as a proportion to one another, and to other classes and builds of the same class. This is how it's done in Biology to determine how similar one species is to another and find it's possible ancestry.

>

> I'll explain the above like this. Homosapiens have chimpanzee cousins in the evolutionary tree. How similar we are is based on proportionality of the genome we share between the two species...So even though we share 99% of the same DNA, you can say that we are completely different species because you look at a chimp and a human and think about that 1% difference... but it's HOW different we are from each other that define us as being similar...we are 99% similar and therefor that's why we are more likely to share ancestry (which we do) So do you get it? It's only arbitrary if you aren't defining the difference between the two classes, which you can agree on.

>

> I think we can agree that two Onslaught Reapers with the same exact build setup except for a weapon change is still an Onslaught Reaper.

>

>

 

Just FYI, all the pseudo-intellectual tangents and over-elaborate analogies come off as pretentious and cringey, and actually detract from making a concise and impactful point. You don't need to write a paragraph on DNA to make the point that "differentness" is not a binary and has degrees. Not a dig, just a tip on how to make a compelling argument.

 

Okay, so we agree that those 2 Onslaught Reapers are essentially the same. (I'll skip making the point that, just because you've defined what degree of difference is "material" doesn't mean it isn't arbitrary. Your definition is still arbitrary, someone else could choose to define a different line.)

 

How, then, do you conclude that there are millions of possible builds in GW2? Which, as a reminder, is what you contrasted with the "single digit" current meta builds, to show how woeful current diversity is.

 

As a reminder:

 

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> I'll repeat this one more time. You have millions of possible build combinations, and only 25 somewhat relevant builds across 9 different distinct classes. That is a HUGE disparity.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> Just FYI, all the pseudo-intellectual tangents and over-elaborate analogies come off as pretentious and cringey, and actually detract from making a concise and impactful point. You don't need to write a paragraph on DNA to make the point that "differentness" is not a binary and has degrees.

 

I don't know why you haven't noticed but i do not care what you think about what i'm saying or how i say it. You either understand it or you don't...i'm doing my best to help you understand it so i don't waste my time explaining things over and over again...If you don't want to put in the effort to understand what i'm explained to you, which you could have just found out on your own with google searches and your own research, you can do that too. I could have said it with a lot less analogies but i'm doing you and others here the courtesy so that you or others aren't completely lost in the conversation. It's not exactly the easiest subject to follow... and it takes a lot of information to fully understand some of the concepts that are being exposed here.

 

In other words deal with it. I don't care about your personal taste in how i describe and illustrate my discussion points (unless they are fallacious, than feel free to point that out).. Now back to the actual topic.

 

> How, then, do you conclude that there are millions of possible builds in GW2? Which, as a reminder, is what you contrasted with the "single digit" current meta builds, to show how woeful current diversity it.

 

Millions is a rough estimate...A Wild guess. Nobody really knows how many combinations...but we can estimate that it's probably a lot...at least in the 6 digits. I mean if you think about each permutation, which can be grouped with any other permutation, it's just an exponential relationship. We've got about 100 runes, 100 kinds of personal buffs (WvW exclusive only) at least 30 different Armor combinations, at least 30 different sigils, at least 60-70 different utility choices, a number of weapon choices and then finally you have maybe a couple hundred, maybe even a few thousand possible trait combinations...i did the calculation once and only thing i remember...was that it was an obscenely large number of possible combinations.

 

Pull out from the pool of available Runes, Sigils, Stat Choices, Traits, Weapons and Utilities at complete random. If we assume that there are a million different combinations that are possible, Then the percent chance that this build will actually work in a competitive environment and is played at all in general, in said environment is over 25,000 to 1...That's being generous to the OP who said that the 25 builds mentioned are played competitively...and we assume that the 5 meta builds aren't just way better than the other 20 that was listed as also being "somewhat competitive."

 

So when comparing the amount of possible builds we could randomly generate, a significant portion of them are not in the list, let alone have a name or probably even function to where a build is actually recognized as existing. This isn't just something you can wave your hand at and say the problem doesn't exist...it's the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about.

[Ragnar.4257]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> > Just FYI, all the pseudo-intellectual tangents and over-elaborate analogies come off as pretentious and cringey, and actually detract from making a concise and impactful point. You don't need to write a paragraph on DNA to make the point that "differentness" is not a binary and has degrees.

>

> I don't know why you haven't noticed but i do not care what you think about what i'm saying or how i say it. You either understand it or you don't...i'm doing my best to help you understand it so i don't waste my time explaining things over and over again...If you don't want to put in the effort to understand what i'm explained to you, which you could have just found out on your own with google searches and your own research, you can do that too. I could have said it with a lot less analogies but i'm doing you and others here the courtesy so that you or others aren't completely lost in the conversation. It's not exactly the easiest subject to follow... and it takes a lot of information to fully understand some of the concepts that are being exposed here.

>

> In other words deal with it. I don't care about your personal taste in how i describe and illustrate my discussion points (unless they are fallacious, than feel free to point that out).. Now back to the actual topic.

>

> > How, then, do you conclude that there are millions of possible builds in GW2? Which, as a reminder, is what you contrasted with the "single digit" current meta builds, to show how woeful current diversity it.

>

> Millions is a rough estimate...A Wild guess. Nobody really knows how many combinations...but we can estimate that it's probably a lot...at least in the 6 digits. I mean if you think about each permutation, which can be grouped with any other permutation, it's just an exponential relationship. We've got about 100 runes, 100 kinds of personal buffs (WvW exclusive only) at least 30 different Armor combinations, at least 30 different sigils, at least 60-70 different utility choices, a number of weapon choices and then finally you have maybe a couple hundred, maybe even a few thousand possible trait combinations...i did the calculation once and only thing i remember...was that it was an obscenely large number of possible combinations.

>

> Pull out from the pool of available Runes, Sigils, Stat Choices, Traits, Weapons and Utilities at complete random. If we assume that there are a million different combinations that are possible, Then the percent chance that this build will actually work in a competitive environment and is played at all in general, in said environment is over 25,000 to 1...That's being generous to the OP who said that the 25 builds mentioned are played competitively...and we assume that the 5 meta builds aren't just way better than the other 20 that was listed as also being "somewhat competitive."

>

> So when comparing the amount of possible builds we could randomly generate, a significant portion of them are not in the list, let alone have a name or probably even function to where a build is actually recognized as existing. This isn't just something you can wave your hand at and say the problem doesn't exist...it's the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about.

 

*sigh* you're still not getting it.

 

You are comparing 2 numbers, A and B. The statement is "A is significantly bigger than B".

 

But you are using different metrics for each number.

 

For A you are using the metric of "any kind of variation, no matter how small, counts as a different build".

For B you are using the metric we already discussed of "meaningfully different".

 

To be more specific, you are counting the 2 Onslaught Reaper builds we discussed twice for A, and only once for B.

 

This is like me saying I'm taller than the Eiffel Tower. Because I'm 185 tall, while the Eiffel Tower is only 0.3 tall. Never mind that I'm using cm for the first number and km for the second.

 

Actually, that isn't a perfect analogy. A better one would be me saying I'm taller than the Eiffel Tower because I'm measuring myself with a ruler where I've scrubbed out the centimetre marks and marked in crayon "light-years".

 

I would contend that there are not "millions" of meaningfully different builds, and that it's actually barely into 3-digits.

 

And I understand everything you've written just fine, tyvm. It's just wrong. Astonishingly, you're not the only person who's been to university or opened a book. There is nothing to research here, it's a simple error in logic on your part.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> *sigh* you're still not getting it.

 

No i understand exactly what you are saying...it is exactly this which is what i'm highlighting as the problem here, and you inadvertantly jumped to exposing the solution of diversity problem in gw2.

 

> I would contend that there are not "millions" of meaningfully different builds, and that it's actually barely into 3-digits.

 

So this above is the exact problem i'm referring to. you can pick at random 1000 permutations of Reapers Onslaught, and it will still be Reapers Onslaught. This means that each choice you have made in these permutations has no meaningful differences the separate them enough to actually make the build meaningfully different.

 

Just as an example, A Great sword Reaper's Onslaught and a Dagger/Warhorn Reapers Onslaught should function differently to each other to the point where they would both be meaningfully different builds. But this is not the case...Both builds are too similar in function to even warrant them as being different at all and are just "Onslaught Reapers."

 

The same can be said for different sigils or runes or whatever...most of these choices available do not differentiate the build enough to warrant their own sense of being meaningfully different...They are all just under the blanket as Onslaught Reapers and they still function exactly the same way. This is the problem in terms of the "meaningfulness" of choices you have available to you in the game. This lack of actual meaning in trait choices, rune choices etc, reduces the number of meaningfully different builds we can make, which you point out as being barely 3 digits...and that's exactly correct...it's a drastically low number (probably lower than 3 digits)

 

The solution here is that each choice should drastically alter the functionality of a build to the point at which we can consider them as being meaningfully different.

 

This is why when people talk about "Staff thief" and "DP thief", we are referring to two different builds where the weapon is the defining feature for what makes these two builds function meaningfully different to one another... You can extrapolate this differentiation to every possible permutation in theory if every permutation warranted their own level of meaning to define different builds...Therefor the maximum number of meaningfully different builds can potentially be a million (or whatever the number is). But if those choices aren't meaningful...well then you'll never hit that maximum...and it's only lower the less meaningful choices you have.

 

Edit: Just to bring the point home, In Guild Wars 1, when names were assorted to different builds and build compositions we no longer would even use the names of the particular skills that belonged to the composition...people would just make up names...usually as a reference to the creator of the build, or some nickname that was fitting for the type of composition it was. Rainbow-way, Hexway, 55monk ... names had to be artificially generated because there were almost more build compositions then there were ways to describe them with functions in game.

[Ragnar.4257]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> > *sigh* you're still not getting it.

>

> No i understand exactly what you are saying...it is exactly this which is what i'm highlighting as the problem here, and you inadvertantly jumped to exposing the solution of diversity problem in gw2.

>

> > I would contend that there are not "millions" of meaningfully different builds, and that it's actually barely into 3-digits.

>

> So this above is the exact problem i'm referring to. you can pick at random 1000 permutations of Reapers Onslaught, and it will still be Reapers Onslaught. This means that each choice you have made in these permutations has no meaningful differences the separate them enough to actually make the build meaningfully different.

>

> Just as an example, A Great sword Reaper's Onslaught and a Dagger/Warhorn Reapers Onslaught should function differently to each other to the point where they would both be meaningfully different builds. But this is not the case...Both builds are too similar in function to even warrant them as being different at all and are just "Onslaught Reapers."

>

> The same can be said for different sigils or runes or whatever...most of these choices available do not differentiate the build enough to warrant their own sense of being meaningfully different...They are all just under the blanket as Onslaught Reapers and they still function exactly the same way. This is the problem in terms of the "meaningfulness" of choices you have available to you in the game. This lack of actual meaning in trait choices, rune choices etc, reduces the number of meaningfully different builds we can make, which you point out as being barely 3 digits...and that's exactly correct...it's a drastically low number (probably lower than 3 digits)

>

> The solution here is that each choice should drastically alter the functionality of a build to the point at which we can consider them as being meaningfully different.

>

> This is why when people talk about "Staff thief" and "DP thief", we are referring to two different builds where the weapon is the defining feature for what makes these two builds function meaningfully different to one another... You can extrapolate this differentiation to every possible permutation in theory if every permutation warranted their own level of meaning to define different builds...Therefor the maximum number of meaningfully different builds can potentially be a million (or whatever the number is). But if those choices aren't meaningful...well then you'll never hit that maximum...and it's only lower the less meaningful choices you have.

>

 

Now you see, this is more interesting.

 

We've now clarified that the problem is NOT that only 0.1% of all possible builds are viable, and that actually the problem is that, even if 100% of all possible builds were viable, there would still not be significant enough difference between them for your taste.

 

Is the problem there the number itself (~100) or the variance between those 100? Because even if we bumped that number up to 10000, that still would not guarantee variance within that population. You could clone the Thief class 100 times, and call it something slightly different each time, but if they all basically play the same..... the absolute number is not relevant here.

 

To be honest, what you're asking for is not within the realms of tweaking skill numbers. You're asking for a whole array of completely new classes. Seems a bit unrealistic.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> To be honest, what you're asking for is not within the realms of tweaking skill numbers.

 

Yes that's right. Tweaking number is actually just a pointless endeavor. I've explained this before and i can refer you to a post where tweaking numbers just doesn't work.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1344346#Comment_1344346

 

> You're asking for a whole array of completely new classes. Seems a bit unrealistic.

But no this is not what i'm saying. You don't need new classes or to have more choices to make the game more diverse, you just need to have more meaning to choices, it's really not much more complicated than that. Of course we skipped the entire "why" part of the conversation, because usually most people don't click with the idea that fast, but i guess you caught onto it before we could even talk about...cool, but it seems you just don't agree. That's probably because we skipped the entire "why" part of that conversation.

 

And whether it's a realistic endeavor...well who knows. It's really not my place to tell Anet what to do or how they should make their game, nor do i have the authority right? I'm just talking on a forum to help maybe people understand the game isn't gonna be solved by just "nerfs and buffs" the problems are deeper then that.

 

> @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> We've now clarified that the problem is NOT that only 0.1% of all possible builds are viable, and that actually the problem is that, even if 100% of all possible builds were viable, there would still not be significant enough difference between them for your taste.

 

So okay, you mention that it is about my taste. Again we go back to what we said before, that you can define "meaningfulness" objectively by comparing it as a proportion of said things to one another. This isn't a personal thing, this is a numbers thing. The less meaningful the choices are, the less meaningful build differentiation there will be. Even in such a loosely stated context, "meaning" itself can also be objectified into a metric we can measure and issue to make appropriate changes, by just looking at other systems that exist in the world that exhibit large diversity (aka biology).

 

Edit:

Just wanted to address this

>Is the problem there the number itself (~100) or the variance between those 100? Because even if we bumped that number up to 10000, that still would not guarantee variance within that population. You could clone the Thief class 100 times, and call it something slightly different each time, but if they all basically play the same..... the absolute number is not relevant here.

 

The problem is the variance...That's why the number of the builds and number of combinations don't actually matter, it's the proportion of those builds to the combinations that matter. The proportion of the million to the 25 it's what's important here. That's why in a general sense we can say that the more meta builds there are, the more diversity there is.

 

And yea, if we had thief clones that all were basically the same, There's no way we should logically consider that as diverse. Even if we were very lax with our definition of diversity. Just think about the statement alone...It just doesn't make sense to logically think that thief clones of each other means the game is diverse. Rigidly, the more different those clones are, the more diverse the game becomes until all the clones are completely unique, and that's where you reach maximal diversity.

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

The problem with the meta itself is the list what you call 'meta' is shorter then we has at the beginning this year 4 to 7 to be exact in high end tier only those classes are played in PvE its the same . The second problem almost every build we had before went out of meta which makes a lot of players salty

[Stand The Wall.6987]

i herd ranked is a bad thing to judge viability of builds since the average skill level is low compared to a few years ago

[otto.5684]

Do we have more diversity now than pre Feb patch? No, the end.

[Kovu.7560]

A shame ranger only cracks "decent" in this list, glad that I'm able to crack plat 1 with it despite knowing I'm only a gold-tier player who gets murdered by casual thieves in wvw.

I think the stronger builds are always going to be the builds with a multitude of tools for mitigating damage (not through stats but through class features) while still outputting it. That, at least is the case in gold 3/plat 1. Feb patch or not, this game still feels like rocket tag.

 

~ Kovu

[gousgou.5438]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> Okay, perhaps this post is directed, indirectly at me and my comment on another thread. So, I'm going to address you very briefly here because i go to work in a half an hour.

>

> There are around over a million different possible combinations for one to make a unique build on any particular class. Out of all these possible combinations, there are a single digit number of them that can actually perform to the level to which most would consider to be acceptable in gold 3 (the top of the bell curve where most of the players reside in the Spvp population).

 

You mean condi gear, with power related talent selection and monk runes should work like charm and they don't?

 

Of course there are builds that show strong synergy with skills and gear stats over a bucketload of random selections you can make!

 

 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"gousgou.5438" said:

>You mean condi gear, with power related talent selection and monk runes should work like charm and they don't?

 

Well, yea. The fact that they don't work together in some way means that, that particular permutation is...meaningless.

 

You have to understand, that what we are discussing here, is the gravity of the usefulness of available choices. If a rune only works with one permutation out of millions of them...well that's a problem.

 

In the same token, you have some runes that are used by the majority of permutations. You have to question why this is exactly...is it because that particular rune is very good? Or is it because there are no other runes that can replace it? Or is it because no other rune makes "sense" to use in the build you are playing because they lack synergy with more than just one permutation.

 

The above are questions that should be asked when trying to understand why the balance in the game isn't good....why we have such low build diversity. So your question right now is "In the box." It's a question that is already loaded into prescribing into the singular view, that power related talent selections should only work with power related gear, or power related runes...This is what i'm highlighting as part of that diversity problem.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> > @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > > @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> > > *sigh* you're still not getting it.

> >

> > No i understand exactly what you are saying...it is exactly this which is what i'm highlighting as the problem here, and you inadvertantly jumped to exposing the solution of diversity problem in gw2.

> >

> > > I would contend that there are not "millions" of meaningfully different builds, and that it's actually barely into 3-digits.

> >

> > So this above is the exact problem i'm referring to. you can pick at random 1000 permutations of Reapers Onslaught, and it will still be Reapers Onslaught. This means that each choice you have made in these permutations has no meaningful differences the separate them enough to actually make the build meaningfully different.

> >

> > Just as an example, A Great sword Reaper's Onslaught and a Dagger/Warhorn Reapers Onslaught should function differently to each other to the point where they would both be meaningfully different builds. But this is not the case...Both builds are too similar in function to even warrant them as being different at all and are just "Onslaught Reapers."

> >

> > The same can be said for different sigils or runes or whatever...most of these choices available do not differentiate the build enough to warrant their own sense of being meaningfully different...They are all just under the blanket as Onslaught Reapers and they still function exactly the same way. This is the problem in terms of the "meaningfulness" of choices you have available to you in the game. This lack of actual meaning in trait choices, rune choices etc, reduces the number of meaningfully different builds we can make, which you point out as being barely 3 digits...and that's exactly correct...it's a drastically low number (probably lower than 3 digits)

> >

> > The solution here is that each choice should drastically alter the functionality of a build to the point at which we can consider them as being meaningfully different.

> >

> > This is why when people talk about "Staff thief" and "DP thief", we are referring to two different builds where the weapon is the defining feature for what makes these two builds function meaningfully different to one another... You can extrapolate this differentiation to every possible permutation in theory if every permutation warranted their own level of meaning to define different builds...Therefor the maximum number of meaningfully different builds can potentially be a million (or whatever the number is). But if those choices aren't meaningful...well then you'll never hit that maximum...and it's only lower the less meaningful choices you have.

> >

>

> Now you see, this is more interesting.

>

> We've now clarified that the problem is NOT that only 0.1% of all possible builds are viable, and that actually the problem is that, even if 100% of all possible builds were viable, there would still not be significant enough difference between them for your taste.

>

> Is the problem there the number itself (~100) or the variance between those 100? Because even if we bumped that number up to 10000, that still would not guarantee variance within that population. You could clone the Thief class 100 times, and call it something slightly different each time, but if they all basically play the same..... the absolute number is not relevant here.

>

> To be honest, what you're asking for is not within the realms of tweaking skill numbers. You're asking for a whole array of completely new classes. Seems a bit unrealistic.

 

Or ... new game design ... the game itself is too simple to allow enough strategies for more 'viable' builds paths for players to take and win. It simply doesn't make sense for people to complain there isn't enough diversity when the game is designed around simple solutions to win it.

 

It would be a fools errand for Anet to continually chase trying to give players 'diversity' and 'balance'. Players don't understand this.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

 

> Or ... new game design ... the game itself is too simple...

 

Wait...how is Gw2 simple? Mathematically, it would be considered highly complex. So you'd have to explain in what sense Gw2 is a simple game.

 

>...to allow enough strategies for more 'viable' builds paths for players to take and win. It simply doesn't make sense for people to complain there isn't enough diversity when the game is designed around simple solutions to win it.

 

This is a bit confusing. Are you saying that it's pointless to complain about diversity, because players will default to a path of least resistance (the easiest to use and most dominant builds) when trying to solve a problem? (implying here that the problems gw2 presents to your are **simple** problems.)

 

[Obtena.7952]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > @"Obtena.7952" said:

>

> > Or ... new game design ... the game itself is too simple...

>

> Wait...how is Gw2 simple? Mathematically, it would be considered highly complex. So you'd have to explain in what sense Gw2 is a simple game.

 

Well, that's what I find to always be the problems with your posts ... living in some math realm that you don't connect to what's happening in game. It's a simple game because compared to other MMO's there are not many strategies in GW2 for people to succeed in it ... In almost (and I say almost only because I can't think of an exception to this) every case it's just a DPS race and damage mitigation is healing and dodging ... and this isn't different between classes. The only difference is theme but basically, it all works the same way.

>

> >...to allow enough strategies for more 'viable' builds paths for players to take and win. It simply doesn't make sense for people to complain there isn't enough diversity when the game is designed around simple solutions to win it.

>

> This is a bit confusing. Are you saying that it's pointless to complain about diversity, because players will default to a path of least resistance (the easiest to use and most dominant builds) when trying to solve a problem? (implying here that the problems gw2 presents to your are **simple** problems.)

>

 

No, I'm saying it's pointless to complain about diversity because there are lots of builds that solve the problems we are presented with ... if a player doesn't find a build they want to play in that range of builds, they are being too specific. People complaining that builds don't perform as well as meta is the best example of that. Threshold for success in this game is low, so there are lots of builds that allow us to complete content.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> Well, that's what I find to always be the problems with your posts ... living in some math realm that you don't connect to what's happening in game. It's a simple game because compared to other MMO's there are not many strategies in GW2 for people to succeed in it ... In almost (and I say almost only because I can't think of an exception to this) every case it's just a DPS race and damage mitigation is healing and dodging ... and this isn't different between classes. The only difference is theme but basically, it all works the same way.

 

ehh...This sounds like a misrepresentation of what it means when we talk about simplicity and complexity. I said this earlier, but simplicity and complexity are both things that are somewhat interrelated... complexity arises from simplicity, and simple problems often require complex solutions in order to solve them.

 

You can break down the various mechanics in the game to more simple constituents sure...but those simple constituents give rise to complex behaviors, and because gw2 has many, many simple constituents that interact with each other in a non-linear fashion, the game is defined as being highly complex....This means that there are a million ways to solve a single problem...that is complexity not simplicity.

 

 

> No, I'm saying it's pointless to complain about diversity because there are lots of builds that solve the problems we are presented with ... if a player doesn't find a build they want to play in that range of builds, they are being too specific. People complaining that builds don't perform as well as meta is the best example of that. Threshold for success in this game is low, so there are lots of builds that allow us to complete content.

 

And this maybe applies for PVE...where the environment is static and linear... but for a dynamic system like spvp or WvW, this just doesn't apply. The threshold for success in spvp or WvW is always higher than what you can actually attain unless you are best player in the game with the best build in the game with the most optimal strategy. The reason it's like this is something you don't want to acknowledge is because of competition...competition is what makes the system of spvp non-linear system and in turn makes it highly complex. I've explained this one in detail before and i don't really want to do so again, but basically, players won't ever be content with just barrier for entry in pvp...bronze level whatever you want to call that level of success that you are defining...the level of success is always to get better and better than the other guy... this idea is the hallmark of competition and why it's been so successful in every field we know to exist, including biology...and diversity is a part of that structure.

 

If the USA was content with progress after Edison invented the light bulb where would we still be i wonder? Still writing letters to be delivered on horseback to the governor in the shanty town next hill over. Doesn't sound like this history would be very accurate or realistic.

 

Edit:

Just to clarify cause i want to be as clear as possible about the connection to this comment and diversity.

 

If you have two competitive agents...and one of them has a build that can't compete (is utter garbage)...they will not use that build anymore.

 

In the same vein, if there is 1 build that is clearly the most optimal strategy, in a competitive environment, everyone will use that build. Competition drives players to find solutions to problems...not satisfaction with a class theme or being content.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

 

> Just to clarify cause i want to be as clear as possible about the connection to this comment and diversity.

>

> If you have two competitive agents...and one of them has a build that can't compete (is utter garbage)...they will not use that build anymore.

>

> In the same vein, if there is 1 build that is clearly the most optimal strategy, in a competitive environment, everyone will use that build. Competition drives players to find solutions to problems...not satisfaction with a class theme or being content.

 

In some cases, but that's not absolute truth. If I'm a playing a build I like and I get new content, I'm going to try to complete that content with that build and in this game, that generally works because success has little to do what build I'm playing and more to do with ME as a player ... competition did NOT drive me to find a solution to the problem presented to me. I'm almost every case, I'm playing builds based on theme ... and have almost no problems. I have YET to create a build because I need some very specific elements in it to succeed in this game. That's even true in instanced group content. In those cases, my solution to content problem is COMPLETELY driven by my satisfaction with a class or build theme.

 

This is where my criticism of your posts come in ... sometimes you need to put your academic aside and look at things as how they **actually** work ... and this competition creates solutions theory is a great example of that. For that to be true, you need to have a competitive environment ... well, that's not PVE in this game. I know LOTS of people that play what they want and succeed ... and it has NOTHING to do with meta or competition or DPS numbers or whatever other measurable you want to concoct to associated it with some mathematical theory.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> That's not entirely true. If I'm a playing a build I like and I get new content and I'm able to complete that content ... competition did NOT drive me to find a solution to the problem presented to me.

 

But if the build you like to play (sucks) in competitive content you aren't gonna keep playing it... because then that means you cant solve the problem gw2 is providing to you, which is "You need to win this spvp match."

 

So you are inherently driven towards that behavior even if you don't think that you are... You might like a build but if it gets nerfed enough to the point where it (sucks) you would stop playing it eventually. I'm sure many people are aware of that feeling and can sympathize with that.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > That's not entirely true. If I'm a playing a build I like and I get new content and I'm able to complete that content ... competition did NOT drive me to find a solution to the problem presented to me.

>

> But if the build you like to play (sucks) in competitive content you aren't gonna keep playing it... because then that means you cant solve the problem gw2 is providing to you, which is "You need to win this spvp match."

>

> So you are inherently driven towards that behavior even if you don't think that you are... You might like a build but if it gets nerfed enough to the point where it (sucks) you would stop playing it eventually. I'm sure many people are aware of that feeling and can sympathize with that.

 

If I can complete content with it ... I don't care if it gets changes unless those changes are how the build plays; to be more specific with some examples of what I mean ... phantasm to clone mesmer change, berserker, herald, scrapper revamps. Only then I might not like the build, but it's not because of performance I would stop playing it. In otherwords, I don't care about performance because I win regardless in this game. The game is DESIGNED so that I can play that way and as do many others.

 

The problem with your theory of 'competition = solutions' is that PVE isn't competitive. Threshold for success is low enough so everyone can play what they want. That's why ideas about 'low diversity' can only be thrown around if you want to attach 'meta' caveat to it.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> If I can compete content with it ... I don't care if it gets nerfs unless those nerfs are how the build plays (like mesmer phantasm build). In otherwords, I don't care about performance.

 

But that's the thing...you can't compete with a build that sucks...it's not some kind of magical thing. You can't come in with a random build crappy build into ranked and start winning spvp matches... the reality is you get ripped apart and detour straight to bronze 1.

 

So yes...the performance of your build is dependent on you playing that build in a competitive environment. Again you can LIKE the build that you play...but if it can't compete you will not play it unless you like being in bronze 1. And in a competitive...real world, nobody actually aspires to be in bronze 1.

 

It's like social constructs...you think your free if you don't pay bills and live off the land...but you still aren't free enough to murder people without going to jail and facing consequences...your freedom is restricted by the constructs of our society...much like how your ability to pick and choose builds is restricted by the diversity of choices you have available to you, and the fact that you exist in the competitive system, you are compelled to follow these constructs even if you aren't aware that you are.