On one side:"PvP is dead"..on another side:"We need more nerfs"

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

> @"Jekkt.6045" said:

> > @"Lord of the Fire.6870" said:

> > > @"felix.2386" said:

> > > you do realize what started the killing of gw2 pvp was the start of the power creep from HoT release, right?

> >

> > Yes they increased the dmg with the HoT specs but they nerfed a lot of them at then end of HoT again also the new elite specs gave the classes new identity. The point is people got used to the builds and how they work but whit PoF everything get into a over drive modus Arena.NET pushed for faster gameplay and they wanted their new elite specs better then they old (which they also accomplished by nerfing the old).

>

> They pretty much increased everything with HoT specs. shoutbow, d/d ele and cele engi were quite tanky back then. during HoT beta i played a tournament on cele herald and it was more tanky than those 3 and absolutely destroyed them with the damage it dealt... turns out cele herald wasn't even good because marauder was just as tanky and dealt even more damage lol.

>

> fast forward to HoT release where scrapper was insanely tanky on a damage amulet while dealing 7k+ damage with hammer 2 and 4k+ with hammer block... or druid with 15k damage smokescale and 20k damage spiky pink dinosaur. core guard dropped out of the meta a long time before because of dd ele and shoutbow. then you get unkillable minstrel tempest that heals for 800k per game... but you know what? who needs healing if you have chrono making the whole team invul.

>

> while elite specs seemed nice at first glance, i wish we would have never gotten them. not only did they ruin balance forever, they made it apparent how rigid vanilla design was. ele will probably never get an elite spec with a non elemental class mechanic because they'd have to redo all skills on all weapons.

>

> what they should have done instead was adding new utility skill types and weapons (like they do with elite specs, just not tied to anything). and maybe new core traitlines or additional traits in existing traitlines.

 

Well yes but they tuned it massively down multiply times now the game is for most players too tanky so that Arena removed the cele amulet(from their mindset side). I don't know why they removing amulets it is silly its not the reason why the game became more tanky . There is no way back to the good old days not without completely destroying the game which they partially already done with PvP.

 

I also think you underestimate how the community makes a difference in vanilla most players were more casually with HoT Arena.Net aimed for more 'pro' players at least from the PvE content side so there are also more players who look into how you can optimize builds and team composition. This makes also for faster gameplay I know elite specs also gives more possibilities which can be exploited . Somehow I wonder why they went for skills fixed on weapons and then invent new weapon + new traitlines + new mechanics which gives easier access to something imbalanced because it has more option which are less obvious.

 

But let me make on thing straight there wasn't everything okay with ~~the balance ~~ a lot of things in GW 2 before either core engi, and core ele are so bad words can't describe it.(all game modes) . I know some people will jump on it and scream I play that and I'm good with it believe me ... NO just NO

 

There was the problem or is the fact that support builds always gives you an advantage if they exist in a MMORPG if you ban them it is exactly what is criticised in this thread. Actually they all live with it or not because you always have the option to swap its only in GW 2 such a mimimi that they push to nerf the support builds .

 

There was some example about LoL in the other thread well you see players there know they need to play support and there isn't a discussion about it to begin with . Yes this here is an RPG LOL is not but this makes the point even more valid that means nerfing constantly builds let people leave or not playing for you support any more .

 

I did suggest since we can't have pre-mades in ranked that we could make request to the server give me e.g a healer and thief in my group pretty please . There are also things like rating and 2 map metas which could be solved better but Arena.NET has other priorities.

[Jekkt.6045]

> @"Lord of the Fire.6870" said:

> > @"Jekkt.6045" said:

> > > @"Lord of the Fire.6870" said:

> > > > @"felix.2386" said:

> > > > you do realize what started the killing of gw2 pvp was the start of the power creep from HoT release, right?

> > >

> > > Yes they increased the dmg with the HoT specs but they nerfed a lot of them at then end of HoT again also the new elite specs gave the classes new identity. The point is people got used to the builds and how they work but whit PoF everything get into a over drive modus Arena.NET pushed for faster gameplay and they wanted their new elite specs better then they old (which they also accomplished by nerfing the old).

> >

> > They pretty much increased everything with HoT specs. shoutbow, d/d ele and cele engi were quite tanky back then. during HoT beta i played a tournament on cele herald and it was more tanky than those 3 and absolutely destroyed them with the damage it dealt... turns out cele herald wasn't even good because marauder was just as tanky and dealt even more damage lol.

> >

> > fast forward to HoT release where scrapper was insanely tanky on a damage amulet while dealing 7k+ damage with hammer 2 and 4k+ with hammer block... or druid with 15k damage smokescale and 20k damage spiky pink dinosaur. core guard dropped out of the meta a long time before because of dd ele and shoutbow. then you get unkillable minstrel tempest that heals for 800k per game... but you know what? who needs healing if you have chrono making the whole team invul.

> >

> > while elite specs seemed nice at first glance, i wish we would have never gotten them. not only did they ruin balance forever, they made it apparent how rigid vanilla design was. ele will probably never get an elite spec with a non elemental class mechanic because they'd have to redo all skills on all weapons.

> >

> > what they should have done instead was adding new utility skill types and weapons (like they do with elite specs, just not tied to anything). and maybe new core traitlines or additional traits in existing traitlines.

>

> Well yes but they tuned it massively down multiply times now the game is for most players too tanky so that Arena removed the cele amulet(from their mindset side). I don't know why they removing amulets it is silly its not the reason why the game became more tanky . There is no way back to the good old days not without completely destroying the game which they partially already done with PvP.

>

> I also think you underestimate how the community makes a difference in vanilla most players were more casually with HoT Arena.Net aimed for more 'pro' players at least from the PvE content side so there are also more players who look into how you can optimize builds and team composition. This makes also for faster gameplay I know elite specs also gives more possibilities which can be exploited . Somehow I wonder why they went for skills fixed on weapons and then invent new weapon + new traitlines + new mechanics which gives easier access to something imbalanced because it has more option which are less obvious.

>

> But let me make on thing straight there wasn't everything okay with ~~the balance ~~ a lot of things in GW 2 before either core engi, and core ele are so bad words can't describe it.(all game modes) . I know some people will jump on it and scream I play that and I'm good with it believe me ... NO just NO

>

> There was the problem or is the fact that support builds always gives you an advantage if they exist in a MMORPG if you ban them it is exactly what is criticised in this thread. Actually they all live with it or not because you always have the option to swap its only in GW 2 such a mimimi that they push to nerf the support builds .

>

> There was some example about LoL in the other thread well you see players there know they need to play support and there isn't a discussion about it to begin with . Yes this here is an RPG LOL is not but this makes the point even more valid that means nerfing constantly builds let people leave or not playing for you support any more .

>

> I did suggest since we can't have pre-mades in ranked that we could make request to the server give me e.g a healer and thief in my group pretty please . There are also things like rating and 2 map metas which could be solved better but Arena.NET has other priorities.

 

i talked about this before and why the game feels too tanky. sustain damage and self sustain are too high while burst damage that you can set up is too low. the game used to have way less sustain damage and self sustain but higher burst. that's also the reason why "side noders can't kill each other anymore".

 

i disagree. the pvp scene in the second part of vanilla was extremely big and many players were really good and eager to play. pre hot patch ruined this somewhat because that's when the bloat began. enthusiasm continued into HoT until people realized how extremely bad it was.

 

when we talk about support builds we have to differentiate between support and healer. we did not have healers before HoT. guardian and necro, kind of the first supports we had in the game were simply that, supporting allies. those builds didn't have insane healing numbers. guard became the sole support later down the road because necro wasn't very useful. guard had the res knockback, aegis, cleanse, protection etc. later we had shoutbow and d/d ele that replaced guardian because they contributed more in a fight and had way more mobility.

 

of course not everything was perfect. as i mentioned, especially the pre HoT trait overhaul patch ruined way too much. d/d ele that used to be a good build suddenly became absolutely broken because you could pick full fire or earth and ring of fire was bugged and could kill you in 2 seconds with 8+ burn stacks (yes that's also the stupid patch that added condition stacking).

 

playing support in LoL is also way more interesting than playing support in gw2 tbh. in gw2 basically every support skill is aoe around you, most of the time 600 range. all you do is run away from the enemy while pressing aoe heal buttons until you win or die. in LoL supports set up kills and don't feel like aoe heal bots. finding a healer wouldn't be that much of a problem if we actually had a healthy pvp population and people wanted to play together. but we don't, and people pretty much only care about what amazing rank they reached on ladder.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

> @"MrForz.1953" said:

> > @"Kuma.1503" said:

> > Some of us come in and inspect the hole, we notice that the sides are all lumpy. It's much too big in some areas and much too narrow in others. We can't exactly blame the diggers... they've been digging with hammers.

> >

> > We suggest adding dirt back to the areas where the hole is too wide. "No", say the people digging the hole "We just need to take more from the other side. It will even things out".

> >

> > "But then the hole will be too big" Say the onlookers.

> >

> > "We can't add dirt back or we'll end up back at square one"

> >

> > So they begin hacking away at the other side of the hole with their hammers...

> >

> >

>

> I guess that can come full circle afterwards.

 

The point that Kuma is making here, is that they are in a hole to begin with using tools that only further to address the shape of the hole rather than addressing that the hole itself is the problem. It's [Plato's Allegory.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave)

 

 

[comarusprimus.9461]

As long as all builds are as close as possible to common level, it does not matter how high or low the bar is.

Why does it matter if Anet nerfs (or buffs) ? What matters is that there are no outliers from the general standard. It is applicable both too to strong and too weak builds. That is why they nerf busted things.

[UNOwen.7132]

> @"comarusprimus.9461" said:

> As long as all builds are as close as possible to common level, it does not matter how high or low the bar is.

> Why does it matter if Anet nerfs (or buffs) ? What matters is that there are no outliers from the general standard. It is applicable both too to strong and too weak builds. That is why they nerf busted things.

 

Because the environment is the issue, not individual builds. Imagine if every build could never die under any circumstances, and the game devolved entirely into using knockbacks to obtain points. If every class had knockbacks of equal value, there would be no outliers. It would also be the worst MMO PvP to have ever been created.

[Kuma.1503]

> @"comarusprimus.9461" said:

> As long as all builds are as close as possible to common level, it does not matter how high or low the bar is.

> Why does it matter if Anet nerfs (or buffs) ? What matters is that there are no outliers from the general standard. It is applicable both too to strong and too weak builds. That is why they nerf busted things.

 

Removing every outlier sounds nice in theory... but you're chasing an impossible goal. Until the day comes that every class is a carbon copy of each other, outliers will **always** exist.

 

I'm not sure you'd even want to play a game that looks like this. Imagine a world where necro has mobility on par with thief. Where ele has tankiness on par with warrior. Where the boon support capabilities of thief is on par with guardian. What would happen to the identity of these classes? It would need to be this way in order to reign in potential outliers, and even then, the number of ways in which a particular build can overperform in relation to others are enormous.

 

Perhaps you've reigned in outliers in every major category, from damage to sustain, to boon uptime.

 

What about cooldowns? Do we remove initiative from thieves so they can't spam more than other classes. In a homogenized game, the ability to use your abilities with no cooldowns is a massive advantage.

 

What about projectile velocity. Nade holo ran grenadier for a reason. Faster projectiles are both easier to land and harder to react to. We would have to create a uniform projectile velocity in which every projectile flies at the same speed.

 

Deflecting shot? Fires at the same speed as rapid fire.

 

But that's not right? Deflecting shot shouldn't fire as fast as rapid fire. It's a CC + reflect. Ranger can't fire off a ranged CC reflect so neither should dragonhunter. So we make sure that no class has any more or less projectile hate or CC than any other.

 

Do you see where I'm going with this. No matter how much you nerf/buff in order to reign in outliers, there will always be another way in which a class can under/over-perform. It's a fool's errand.

 

 

[MrForz.1953]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > @"MrForz.1953" said:

> > > @"Kuma.1503" said:

> > > Some of us come in and inspect the hole, we notice that the sides are all lumpy. It's much too big in some areas and much too narrow in others. We can't exactly blame the diggers... they've been digging with hammers.

> > >

> > > We suggest adding dirt back to the areas where the hole is too wide. "No", say the people digging the hole "We just need to take more from the other side. It will even things out".

> > >

> > > "But then the hole will be too big" Say the onlookers.

> > >

> > > "We can't add dirt back or we'll end up back at square one"

> > >

> > > So they begin hacking away at the other side of the hole with their hammers...

> > >

> > >

> >

> > I guess that can come full circle afterwards.

>

> The point that Kuma is making here, is that they are in a hole to begin with using tools that only further to address the shape of the hole rather than addressing that the hole itself is the problem. It's [Plato's Allegory.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave)

>

>

 

I know about the allegory, but I doubt it was the point. If it was, it was poorly adapted to what I said.

[Quadox.7834]

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said:

> > @"Quadox.7834" said:

> > Not what power creep means.

>

> Fair, but I don't really have a word for it.

>

> Like it or hate it, Feb 25th was a big patch that changed a lot within in the game. It was something new that invalidated a lot of ways to play through nerfing everything, and there were plenty of outliers for months after because certain things just weren't nerfed or weren't nerfed equally. Call it power creep, power dip, call it whatever you want really.

>

> > It's never going to be perfectly balanced so...? What are you proposing, that we stop trying, just stop implementing balance patches? It is obvious that a game as complex as this one will never be perfectly balanced, and there are two ways to deal with this:

> > 1. Occasionally change up the meta so people dont get bored. This is what most popular pvp games do.

> > 2. Make most char/build be very fun and deep so people keep enjoying it for a long time. Smash melee for example. One of the big problems with achieving this in gw2 is that builds that are a bit easy and shallow are often pretty effective, like minion necro, kalla ren, healbreaker and so on.

>

> No, I agree its good to shake up the meta and it would stagnate quick if they just stopped.

>

> I just think that nerfing everything to achieve that adds nothing to the game, and makes it progressively more boring to play. Why not instead of nerfing the meta to the point of unplayability every 3-6 months, they do the opposite and focus on buffing/reworking weak and underused skills/traitlines to rival the current meta for that time?

>

> Like I say, either way it's going to be imbalanced. It's really up to people on whether they want an imbalanced and boring game, or an imbalanced but fun game.

> If you actually play Melee, i'll figure you're a fan of the latter. Melee is incredibly broken, but that's part of what makes it fun.

 

thats what they did and the game got powercrept to shit and it wasnt fun

 

"melee is broken" is a fun buzzword-like thing people like to say but isnt actually that true, sure it has minor glitches that make the combat more fun and deep but most of the gamebreaking glitches (like game crashes) got fixed in the later game versions (check version change notes on the wiki), ofc with certain exceptions esp wobbling which is pretty broken

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

> @"Quadox.7834" said:

> thats what they did and the game got powercrept to kitten and it wasnt fun

>

 

Kinda subjective. I liked it better tbh, and I don't think that powercreep has gotten any better since. From my perspective all the new changes just created a meta about playing whatever got the nerfed the least. It also restricted what you can get away with playing and turned teamfights and 1v1s into slogfests compared to the old, but I might also be biased after playing at the old pace for so long.

 

If elite specs powercreeping over core was such a problem like people say, I don't see why they wouldn't just focus on buffing core and giving more tradeoffs to elite specs to give people some real decision. Instead they just nerfed core; lowered coefficients, increased CDs to target the elite specs. ?

 

> "melee is broken" is a fun buzzword-like thing people like to say but isnt actually that true, sure it has minor glitches that make the combat more fun and deep but most of the gamebreaking glitches (like game crashes) got fixed in the later game versions (check version change notes on the wiki), ofc with certain exceptions esp wobbling which is pretty broken

 

I mean the imbalanced kind of broken.

[Quadox.7834]

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said:

> > @"Quadox.7834" said:

> > thats what they did and the game got powercrept to kitten and it wasnt fun

> >

>

> Kinda subjective. I liked it better tbh, and I don't think that powercreep has gotten any better since. From my perspective all the new changes just created a meta about playing whatever got the nerfed the least. It also restricted what you can get away with playing and turned teamfights and 1v1s into slogfests compared to the old, but I might also be biased after playing at the old pace for so long.

i dont disagree that the game isnt super fun after patch, all im arguing for is that the game had insane lvls of powercreep and the right solution was not to just buff core to compete with the overpowered elite spec, that sounds like some maplestory-esque balancing. to me, the problem is that they focused on nerfing damage numbers when the thing it is traits and certain skill designs that are the real problem - the real powercreep. to take mesmer as an example, nerfing blinding dissipation to only blind on f2 was a good change, as was removing stun on daze, however nerfing phantasmal berserker by like 30% was very unnecessary. and the worst part of the feb patch is that they hard nerfed lots of active skills like, say, mes gs2 and gs4, but didnt nerf lots of easy-to-use dumb stuff, like trait condi procs, downstate autos, retaliation damage, and so on. when it should logically be the opposite.

>

> If elite specs powercreeping over core was such a problem like people say, I don't see why they wouldn't just focus on buffing core and giving more tradeoffs to elite specs to give people some real decision. Instead they just nerfed core; lowered coefficients, increased CDs to target the elite specs. ?

"if powercreeo was such a problem why dont they focus on buffibg core" welllll... because that would further increase powercreep.

>

> > "melee is broken" is a fun buzzword-like thing people like to say but isnt actually that true, sure it has minor glitches that make the combat more fun and deep but most of the gamebreaking glitches (like game crashes) got fixed in the later game versions (check version change notes on the wiki), ofc with certain exceptions esp wobbling which is pretty broken

>

> I mean the imbalanced kind of broken.

 

even in this regard it isnt that bad or different from other games, it is more noticable in melee because the balance is persistent i.e. no patches. leffen defends this point at the start of this video

[georgessj.4198]

> @"Supreme.3164" said:

> There is no best way to describe the current situation than using a **famous quote**

> 

>

> The more you nerf...the more the game stagnate because people will always gravitate toward the "least effort=biggest reward" gameplay , which will always exist in a game with 9 different professions and will continue to do so unless you "virtuall" remove all but a single profession and a single build or...change all professions to a carbon copy of the same profession to give people the illusion of choice ( I tend to believe that this is what people really want in the end).

>

> The idea itself that you should have always a "fair" fight in a MMO is what has brought us here, the idea itself that a MMO should be treated like a PvP game...it's again: insane. **MMO are all about collaboration between professions/jobs to reach a common goal not for you to have a glorius 1v1**.

>

> I blame Anet for not curbing this wrong ideology , Anet should have never allowed for this way of thinking to proliferate ...........

>

> Anyway the game itself is already **unsalvageable** for a good part, the mentality of the playerbase cannot be changed and people will keep asking for nerfs until everything is a "fair fight" in their mind but...there won't be a game to play by that time..truly a shame, this game could have been so much more...but it's far too late for anything now

 

PVP is dead cause arena made the bots practically legal by never baning them not cause of builds numnuts.All these bots are pushing silver skill players to plat especially when they abusing revenant and a couple of other things, we ask at least to nerf these op builds since they will never ban bots.You cant understand the basics, you compare 2 different issues that have nothing to do with each other and yet you dare quote Einstein??? Or perhaps you miss the times when mesmer was coming out of stealth hiting for 27k damage???Maybe that will fix things again genius?

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

> @"Quadox.7834" said:

> i dont disagree that the game isnt super fun after patch, all im arguing for is that the game had insane lvls of powercreep and the right solution was not to just buff core to compete with the overpowered elite spec, that sounds like some maplestory-esque balancing. to me, the problem is that they focused on nerfing damage numbers when the thing it is traits and certain skill designs that are the real problem - the real powercreep. to take mesmer as an example, nerfing blinding dissipation to only blind on f2 was a good change, as was removing stun on daze, however nerfing phantasmal berserker by like 30% was very unnecessary. and the worst part of the feb patch is that they hard nerfed lots of active skills like, say, mes gs2 and gs4, but didnt nerf lots of easy-to-use dumb stuff, like trait condi procs, downstate autos, retaliation damage, and so on. when it should logically be the opposite.

> >

> "if powercreeo was such a problem why dont they focus on buffibg core" welllll... because that would further increase powercreep.

 

Right, that's why I think all the elite specs should have tradeoffs that most do and a handful don't. I mean there wouldn't be much point if they just buffed core because if elite specs were still decidedly stronger and if there was no downside to taking them that would just exacerbate the issue.

 

Meaningful tradeoffs are the best changes imo. They're like Nerfs/Buffs in one that (usually) make a profession/character much more fun to play and watch. Do you play Ultimate as well? Joker main here, and I actually loved the Arsène nerf. It made Arsène deplete faster as Joker takes damage; which, sounds like a flat nerf on paper, but the way to deal with Arsène previously was typically just to abuse invincibility frames and wait the boy out, but with the tradeoff it opened up a quicker way to deal with Arsène, provided you actually challenged him. It's like a buff/nerf at once, it was great.

If they just made Arsène deplete faster or nerfed his launch power/damage that would have been boring.

 

We have a few already of those already; what with elite specs like Mirage getting 1 dodge, Reaper shroud depleting faster than normal and losing range, Zerker losing toughness in favor of power/condi, but not every elite spec has a tradeoff. That, or they have one and it isn't enough.

 

Once those were in place, then I think it would be safe to buff weak and underplayed skills/traits across all classes. Nerfing a core skill to target elite specs doesn't really solve anything if the elite spec and its class mechanic make it better still. At most you've just removed that one elite spec from the meta, and made the core version of that class weaker as well through the nerf.

On top of all those other bad consequences that come with nerfing everything.

 

> even in this regard it isnt that bad or different from other games, it is more noticable in melee because the balance is persistent i.e. no patches. leffen defends this point at the start of this video

 

Well that's what I said from the start. Melee is an unbalanced game, but it's also a fun game, and doesn't require balance patches. I think Gw2 balance should be way more hands-off than hands-on, like melee. Not to the extent of not touching it at all, but also not nerfing everything in the game and being too afraid to buff anything because 'powercreep.'

 

Even though when they did the Feb 25th patch(you know the big nerf instead of buff thing) it created tons of new poster children for the forums to whine about because some skills were overlooked, bugged, or were less nerfed than others.

 

Balance =/= Fun

They're both subjective, but anyone who complains that an unbalanced game can't be fun is clowning both you and themselves.

I also have to go now, I need to go chug a Red Bull so I can hopefully make it through 1 Unranked match for dailies. ✌️

[Quadox.7834]

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said:

> > @"Quadox.7834" said:

> > i dont disagree that the game isnt super fun after patch, all im arguing for is that the game had insane lvls of powercreep and the right solution was not to just buff core to compete with the overpowered elite spec, that sounds like some maplestory-esque balancing. to me, the problem is that they focused on nerfing damage numbers when the thing it is traits and certain skill designs that are the real problem - the real powercreep. to take mesmer as an example, nerfing blinding dissipation to only blind on f2 was a good change, as was removing stun on daze, however nerfing phantasmal berserker by like 30% was very unnecessary. and the worst part of the feb patch is that they hard nerfed lots of active skills like, say, mes gs2 and gs4, but didnt nerf lots of easy-to-use dumb stuff, like trait condi procs, downstate autos, retaliation damage, and so on. when it should logically be the opposite.

> > >

> > "if powercreeo was such a problem why dont they focus on buffibg core" welllll... because that would further increase powercreep.

>

> Right, that's why I think all the elite specs should have tradeoffs that most do and a handful don't. I mean there wouldn't be much point if they just buffed core because if elite specs were still decidedly stronger and if there was no downside to taking them that would just exacerbate the issue.

>

> Meaningful tradeoffs are the best changes imo. They're like Nerfs/Buffs in one that (usually) make a profession/character much more fun to play and watch. Do you play Ultimate as well? Joker main here, and I actually loved the Arsène nerf. It made Arsène deplete faster as Joker takes damage; which, sounds like a flat nerf on paper, but the way to deal with Arsène previously was typically just to abuse invincibility frames and wait the boy out, but with the tradeoff it opened up a quicker way to deal with Arsène, provided you actually challenged him. It's like a buff/nerf at once, it was great.

> If they just made Arsène deplete faster or nerfed his launch power/damage that would have been boring.

>

> We have a few already of those already; what with elite specs like Mirage getting 1 dodge, Reaper shroud depleting faster than normal and losing range, Zerker losing toughness in favor of power/condi, but not every elite spec has a tradeoff. That, or they have one and it isn't enough.

>

> Once those were in place, then I think it would be safe to buff weak and underplayed skills/traits across all classes. Nerfing a core skill to target elite specs doesn't really solve anything if the elite spec and its class mechanic make it better still. At most you've just removed that one elite spec from the meta, and made the core version of that class weaker as well through the nerf.

> On top of all those other bad consequences that come with nerfing everything.

>

> > even in this regard it isnt that bad or different from other games, it is more noticable in melee because the balance is persistent i.e. no patches. leffen defends this point at the start of this video

>

> Well that's what I said from the start. Melee is an unbalanced game, but it's also a fun game, and doesn't require balance patches. I think Gw2 balance should be way more hands-off than hands-on, like melee. Not to the extent of not touching it at all, but also not nerfing everything in the game and being too afraid to buff anything because 'powercreep.'

>

> Even though when they did the Feb 25th patch(you know the big nerf instead of buff thing) it created tons of new poster children for the forums to whine about because some skills were overlooked, bugged, or were less nerfed than others.

>

> Balance =/= Fun

> They're both subjective, but anyone who complains that an unbalanced game can't be fun is clowning both you and themselves.

> I also have to go now, I need to go chug a Red Bull so I can hopefully make it through 1 Unranked match for dailies. ✌️

 

they cant leave this game alone like melee bcs this game isnt 90%+ perfect, there are many dumb things that should be nerfed

[Psycoprophet.8107]

> @"Quadox.7834" said:

> > @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said:

> > > @"Quadox.7834" said:

> > > Not what power creep means.

> >

> > Fair, but I don't really have a word for it.

> >

> > Like it or hate it, Feb 25th was a big patch that changed a lot within in the game. It was something new that invalidated a lot of ways to play through nerfing everything, and there were plenty of outliers for months after because certain things just weren't nerfed or weren't nerfed equally. Call it power creep, power dip, call it whatever you want really.

> >

> > > It's never going to be perfectly balanced so...? What are you proposing, that we stop trying, just stop implementing balance patches? It is obvious that a game as complex as this one will never be perfectly balanced, and there are two ways to deal with this:

> > > 1. Occasionally change up the meta so people dont get bored. This is what most popular pvp games do.

> > > 2. Make most char/build be very fun and deep so people keep enjoying it for a long time. Smash melee for example. One of the big problems with achieving this in gw2 is that builds that are a bit easy and shallow are often pretty effective, like minion necro, kalla ren, healbreaker and so on.

> >

> > No, I agree its good to shake up the meta and it would stagnate quick if they just stopped.

> >

> > I just think that nerfing everything to achieve that adds nothing to the game, and makes it progressively more boring to play. Why not instead of nerfing the meta to the point of unplayability every 3-6 months, they do the opposite and focus on buffing/reworking weak and underused skills/traitlines to rival the current meta for that time?

> >

> > Like I say, either way it's going to be imbalanced. It's really up to people on whether they want an imbalanced and boring game, or an imbalanced but fun game.

> > If you actually play Melee, i'll figure you're a fan of the latter. Melee is incredibly broken, but that's part of what makes it fun.

>

> thats what they did and the game got powercrept to kitten and it wasnt fun

>

> "melee is broken" is a fun buzzword-like thing people like to say but isnt actually that true, sure it has minor glitches that make the combat more fun and deep but most of the gamebreaking glitches (like game crashes) got fixed in the later game versions (check version change notes on the wiki), ofc with certain exceptions esp wobbling which is pretty broken

 

Well turns out most people disagree with u about what fun lol, turns out players like to feel powerful on their chosen class. Soon after the big lazy de-powercreep patch the pvp population plummeted. In 6 yrs I havent seen the pvp and wvw population so low. The games has been in a steady decline for yrs but as soon as the heavy blanket nerfs happened it was only a few months and pvp was basically dead.

Obviously something's wrong and it's no coincidence the population left when it did. They should roll back to pre feb patch and nerf the outliers where they need nerfed and then continue nerfing individual outliers as needed while maintaining a builds viability. The feb patch everyone thought was magical was actually a lazy doomsday patch that killed the game despite some warnings given,, great job.

[Quadox.7834]

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > @"Quadox.7834" said:

> > > @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said:

> > > > @"Quadox.7834" said:

> > > > Not what power creep means.

> > >

> > > Fair, but I don't really have a word for it.

> > >

> > > Like it or hate it, Feb 25th was a big patch that changed a lot within in the game. It was something new that invalidated a lot of ways to play through nerfing everything, and there were plenty of outliers for months after because certain things just weren't nerfed or weren't nerfed equally. Call it power creep, power dip, call it whatever you want really.

> > >

> > > > It's never going to be perfectly balanced so...? What are you proposing, that we stop trying, just stop implementing balance patches? It is obvious that a game as complex as this one will never be perfectly balanced, and there are two ways to deal with this:

> > > > 1. Occasionally change up the meta so people dont get bored. This is what most popular pvp games do.

> > > > 2. Make most char/build be very fun and deep so people keep enjoying it for a long time. Smash melee for example. One of the big problems with achieving this in gw2 is that builds that are a bit easy and shallow are often pretty effective, like minion necro, kalla ren, healbreaker and so on.

> > >

> > > No, I agree its good to shake up the meta and it would stagnate quick if they just stopped.

> > >

> > > I just think that nerfing everything to achieve that adds nothing to the game, and makes it progressively more boring to play. Why not instead of nerfing the meta to the point of unplayability every 3-6 months, they do the opposite and focus on buffing/reworking weak and underused skills/traitlines to rival the current meta for that time?

> > >

> > > Like I say, either way it's going to be imbalanced. It's really up to people on whether they want an imbalanced and boring game, or an imbalanced but fun game.

> > > If you actually play Melee, i'll figure you're a fan of the latter. Melee is incredibly broken, but that's part of what makes it fun.

> >

> > thats what they did and the game got powercrept to kitten and it wasnt fun

> >

> > "melee is broken" is a fun buzzword-like thing people like to say but isnt actually that true, sure it has minor glitches that make the combat more fun and deep but most of the gamebreaking glitches (like game crashes) got fixed in the later game versions (check version change notes on the wiki), ofc with certain exceptions esp wobbling which is pretty broken

>

> Well turns out most people disagree with u about what fun lol, turns out players like to feel powerful on their chosen class. Soon after the big lazy de-powercreep patch the pvp population plummeted. In 6 yrs I havent seen the pvp and wvw population so low. The games has been in a steady decline for yrs but as soon as the heavy blanket nerfs happened it was only a few months and pvp was basically dead.

> Obviously something's wrong and it's no coincidence the population left when it did. They should roll back to pre feb patch and nerf the outliers where they need nerfed and then continue nerfing individual outliers as needed while maintaining a builds viability. The feb patch everyone thought was magical was actually a lazy doomsday patch that killed the game despite some warnings given,, great job.

 

many people wanted a reduction in oneshots (or close to) from things like mantra mes, thief, power rev. this is why basically every top pvp player reacted positively to the patch, at least initially. in fact it wouldn't surprise me if CMC made this patch partly based on input from high-level players from their balance discord, streams, and such.

 

"feeling powerful" sure, but you can feel powerful and have fun playing with only a stick as long as you are effective (the other players arent much stronger than you) and if the game is fun - this is what people actually want.

 

and though you personally may feel powerful from oneshoting somebody, the other guy feels the opposite (frustrated and weak) - surviving well can also make you feel powerful. there needs to be a balance.

 

note, dont get me wrong, i also think the feb patch was badly executed, they nerfed too many active skills while not nerfing many of the more passive/easy things.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> Well turns out most people disagree with u about what fun lol, turns out players like to feel powerful on their chosen class. Soon after the big lazy de-powercreep patch the pvp population plummeted. In 6 yrs I havent seen the pvp and wvw population so low. The games has been in a steady decline for yrs but as soon as the heavy blanket nerfs happened it was only a few months and pvp was basically dead.

> Obviously something's wrong and it's no coincidence the population left when it did. They should roll back to pre feb patch and nerf the outliers where they need nerfed and then continue nerfing individual outliers as needed while maintaining a builds viability. The feb patch everyone thought was magical was actually a lazy doomsday patch that killed the game despite some warnings given,, great job.

The real decline started with HoT powercreep, the lovely unkillable chronobunkers which everyone loved.

No new content, no reason to play, no rewards, nothing, why would people even want to play it?

If A-net would rollback to pre-feb patch then it they would just shot themselves in a knee once again, why would they do that? Game would be unhealthy once again and % nerfs here and there won't fix a kitten bad design of e-speces.

They've brought so much broken stuff to the game, it would be much faster if they just rollback everything to 2012 game release state.

Game with each patch runs somehow worse than it did before, I really don't know what they're doing with their game engine, but it must be some real mess if some changes not even aimed at classes will screw them somehow.

The biggest issue with Feb patch is not the patch itself, but the lack of follow-up changes.

Powercreep =/= content.

[Leonidrex.5649]

Im just gonna say it, I can deal over 600k dmg in a match and get 1 kill, the fact that you can play against 4 bunkers or close to bunker classes that spam aoe, cc and rez one another makes the game boring beyond belief.

I as a glass power mesmer have more fun playing against thiefs that counter me then fighting necros that I supposedly counter.

There is nothing fun about running out of cooldowns in 5s and then standing still for 30s+ holding M1 and dealing 0 dmg to someone that has equivalent of 70k hp.

and this shit applies to most classes, be it guard, necro, rev of any kind, scrapper,warrior,ele. TFU its boring as fuck. Bring some of the damage back and nerf this retarded level of sustain the classes have, as I said somewhere before, I can deal 30k+ dmg in 1v1 and my enemies can be full HP.

[Axl.8924]

> @"TrollingDemigod.3041" said:

> > @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > Well turns out most people disagree with u about what fun lol, turns out players like to feel powerful on their chosen class. Soon after the big lazy de-powercreep patch the pvp population plummeted. In 6 yrs I havent seen the pvp and wvw population so low. The games has been in a steady decline for yrs but as soon as the heavy blanket nerfs happened it was only a few months and pvp was basically dead.

> > Obviously something's wrong and it's no coincidence the population left when it did. They should roll back to pre feb patch and nerf the outliers where they need nerfed and then continue nerfing individual outliers as needed while maintaining a builds viability. The feb patch everyone thought was magical was actually a lazy doomsday patch that killed the game despite some warnings given,, great job.

> The real decline started with HoT powercreep, the lovely unkillable chronobunkers which everyone loved.

> No new content, no reason to play, no rewards, nothing, why would people even want to play it?

> If A-net would rollback to pre-feb patch then it they would just shot themselves in a knee once again, why would they do that? Game would be unhealthy once again and % nerfs here and there won't fix a kitten bad design of e-speces.

> They've brought so much broken stuff to the game, it would be much faster if they just rollback everything to 2012 game release state.

> Game with each patch runs somehow worse than it did before, I really don't know what they're doing with their game engine, but it must be some real mess if some changes not even aimed at classes will screw them somehow.

> The biggest issue with Feb patch is not the patch itself, but the lack of follow-up changes.

> Powercreep =/= content.

 

At this point i doubt they will roll back to 2012 i doubt it and there are too late to take out content from pof hot as that would be degrading the game.

 

They have mechanical issues that are really bad for the game such as mass spam of AOE(scourge) overpowered mirages with spamming condis from illusions and firebrands with ridiculous amounts of copius boonspam. How do you fix scourge aoes and make it not toxic in SPVP and WVW? Many of these need serious overhauls to be functional and not so broken op. Many of us haven't forgotten the mirage condi spam where they spam millions of their illusions that throw enough condis to 1hko people and enough mobility to put thieves to shame.

 

There is a reason why some stuff was nerfed into oblivion, and its because when they are viable they are also broken op and ruin the game.

[Arheundel.6451]

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> Im just gonna say it, I can deal over 600k dmg in a match and get 1 kill, the fact that you can play against 4 bunkers or close to bunker classes that spam aoe, cc and rez one another makes the game boring beyond belief.

> I as a glass power mesmer have more fun playing against thiefs that counter me then fighting necros that I supposedly counter.

> There is nothing fun about running out of cooldowns in 5s and then standing still for 30s+ holding M1 and dealing 0 dmg to someone that has equivalent of 70k hp.

> and this kitten applies to most classes, be it guard, necro, rev of any kind, scrapper,warrior,ele. TFU its boring as kitten. Bring some of the damage back and nerf this kitten level of sustain the classes have, as I said somewhere before, I can deal 30k+ dmg in 1v1 and my enemies can be full HP.

 

If everybody could stealth/blink/teleport...there would be no "tanks" in GW2, imagine if we'd reduce even more the sustain across the board while introducing **a feature which was supposed to be in game since launch: NO re-stealth after entering combat** , less sustain and less .."running and repeat"

[Arheundel.6451]

Everybody.......you keep asking for "balance", from the comfort **of your biased point of view**, but let's stop for a moment and let's try apply **LOGIC** to the discussion. So you want balance right?! so this is a list of things which should **GO** from the game like...deleted in any form and format :

 

1) STEALTH

2) VISUAL CLATTER

3) HUGE HP DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PROFESSIONs(should be limited to max 20% more HP...no 80% more like now)

4) AOE SPAM (curb the amount of aoe spam, change 60% of all skills from aoe to single target)

5) CC STUNLOCK (introduce decreased return on CC as it was in GW1 - no more stunlock crap)

6) EXCESSIVE BOON UPTIME

7) BURST CONDITION DAMAGE (remove the "increase with intensity" feature from all the corresponding condis)

 

Once we deal with all the points above..we can start talking about having a fun and engaging game.....for now all of this biased talk is honestly pointless, despite all the good points made by the OP, people here keep asking for nerfs/buffs based on their profession of choice, EX:

 

A) Stealth based player asking for more sustain nerfs.....because apparently the GW2 community on the contrary of the rest of the planet doesn't consider STEALTH as a form of sustain and in need of nerfs like everything else

 

B)NON-BOON centric players asking to reduce boon uptime in the game...given as their professions can do well even without boons ( war -guard -thief )

 

And so on and so on....please just stop now, remove yourself from that "armchair developer" spot and go look at how other games deal with concepts like STEALTH, CC, CONDITIONS etc etc etc

[Leonidrex.5649]

> @"Arheundel.6451" said:

> > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > Im just gonna say it, I can deal over 600k dmg in a match and get 1 kill, the fact that you can play against 4 bunkers or close to bunker classes that spam aoe, cc and rez one another makes the game boring beyond belief.

> > I as a glass power mesmer have more fun playing against thiefs that counter me then fighting necros that I supposedly counter.

> > There is nothing fun about running out of cooldowns in 5s and then standing still for 30s+ holding M1 and dealing 0 dmg to someone that has equivalent of 70k hp.

> > and this kitten applies to most classes, be it guard, necro, rev of any kind, scrapper,warrior,ele. TFU its boring as kitten. Bring some of the damage back and nerf this kitten level of sustain the classes have, as I said somewhere before, I can deal 30k+ dmg in 1v1 and my enemies can be full HP.

>

> If everybody could stealth/blink/teleport...there would be no "tanks" in GW2, imagine if we'd reduce even more the sustain across the board while introducing **a feature which was supposed to be in game since launch: NO re-stealth after entering combat** , less sustain and less .."running and repeat"

 

I dont have issues with tanks, I enjoy playing tanks in loads of games, issue is. In gw2, tanks dont fucking die, they either get 1shot like everyone else or live forever through ridiculous sustain like over the top healing, barriers , and/or shields.

Its not a manner of this guy takes twice as long to kill, its a manner if I fight this guy within 15s one of us will die, if I fight this tank nobody will die for 2min no matter how fucking bad he plays and our fight will be decided who gets a thief to come first, and in teamfights you have 3/4 of them healing eachother to make it even fucking harder, taking turns in tanking and reviving one another while spamming weak aoe that adds up over time so that only bunker bullshit can survive forcing you to use the same braindead strategy

[Arheundel.6451]

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > @"Arheundel.6451" said:

> > > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > Im just gonna say it, I can deal over 600k dmg in a match and get 1 kill, the fact that you can play against 4 bunkers or close to bunker classes that spam aoe, cc and rez one another makes the game boring beyond belief.

> > > I as a glass power mesmer have more fun playing against thiefs that counter me then fighting necros that I supposedly counter.

> > > There is nothing fun about running out of cooldowns in 5s and then standing still for 30s+ holding M1 and dealing 0 dmg to someone that has equivalent of 70k hp.

> > > and this kitten applies to most classes, be it guard, necro, rev of any kind, scrapper,warrior,ele. TFU its boring as kitten. Bring some of the damage back and nerf this kitten level of sustain the classes have, as I said somewhere before, I can deal 30k+ dmg in 1v1 and my enemies can be full HP.

> >

> > If everybody could stealth/blink/teleport...there would be no "tanks" in GW2, imagine if we'd reduce even more the sustain across the board while introducing **a feature which was supposed to be in game since launch: NO re-stealth after entering combat** , less sustain and less .."running and repeat"

>

> I dont have issues with tanks, I enjoy playing tanks in loads of games, issue is. In gw2, tanks dont kitten die, they either get 1shot like everyone else or live forever through ridiculous sustain like over the top healing, barriers , and/or shields.

> Its not a manner of this guy takes twice as long to kill, its a manner if I fight this guy within 15s one of us will die, if I fight this tank nobody will die for 2min no matter how kitten bad he plays and our fight will be decided who gets a thief to come first, and in teamfights you have 3/4 of them healing eachother to make it even kitten harder, taking turns in tanking and reviving one another while spamming weak aoe that adds up over time so that only bunker kitten can survive forcing you to use the same braindead strategy

 

After 8 years of this game I came to the conclusion that only 2 options ever work :

 

A ) You have a build that can safely runs miles if things go south and try again later at your own leisure

 

B ) You play a build that can last "semi-forever" because option A doesn't apply to you

 

Anything in between is never ever meta and barely serves the purpose of giving players the illusion of choice, **I played actively all professions minus thief and mesmer** and it's always the same crap : pewpew from 1 mile away and run away or stealth before doing the same thing...otherwise I play the "mobile fortress" build because I can't run away as easily....everything tried in between is used for the LOLs in unranked or WvW so called "roaming".

 

The game can only get close to "balance" if you remove both option A and B

[Daishi.6027]

> @"Arheundel.6451" said:

> 1) STEALTH

> 2) VISUAL CLATTER

> 3) HUGE HP DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PROFESSIONs(should be limited to max 20% more HP...no 80% more like now)

> 4) AOE SPAM (curb the amount of aoe spam, change 60% of all skills from aoe to single target)

> 5) CC STUNLOCK (introduce decreased return on CC as it was in GW1 - no more stunlock kitten)

> 6) EXCESSIVE BOON UPTIME

> 7) BURST CONDITION DAMAGE (remove the "increase with intensity" feature from all the corresponding condis)

 

Stealth is easy, but A-net refuses. It just needs to remove stealth when you miss for whatever reason or get blocked. It may feel bad to lose stealth from accidently auto attacking while trying to setup (which ircc was their original justification back around 2013), but frankly I believe that should be part of the risk and reward gameplay. If you're too eager and push buttons you shouldn't, while trying to set up and get punished for it; that's on them. I don't think "no tell" is flat out unhealthy, in many games you still need prediction; the issue is if the prediction is punishable and GW2 just makes it to safe.

 

Visual issues will always be a problem with the game, and there are so few ways around this without culling half of literally every class, and even then it's still going to be a ton of visual noise. Many disagree with me but honestly only viable solution I can think of is to reduce match size. When the guard and the necro are making aoes, and the ele has all these bright effects, meanwhile the ranger sitting in the back in muted colours has barely any distinct animation yet is targeting you and is the immediate threat; sure you could give more animation to the ranger in this example but that only perpetuates the problem long term. Sure, this is the kind of thing that can be adapted to and learned from, but I don't think that's a standard that should be held when originally half the reason why we never got addons was because we had to "See, react, and learn" kinda antithetical when they remove the "see" aspect.

 

HP Differences I agree, sort of. I feel like Amulets play a huge role in this, pretty sure the base difference is 40% between lowest and highest. Although sustain being to high is already a constant issue, I fear we make this issue worse by standardizing. At the very least HP would need to come down to match, as opposed to going up to match.

 

CC Diminishing returns I think again can be mitigated by match size. CC is a lot more manageable when you have one opponent trying to lock you down; rather than getting focused and being stunlocked because you ran out of defensive options, and hoping your allies can do something about it amidst the clutter.

 

Boon up time I hesitate to remove flat out. Certain boons are more problematic than others, and boons on certain builds are more problematic than others. This is what needs to be addressed first. Again I come back to the reasoning of smaller matches makes this more balanced. If there are less people to share boons to every class, boons can be hand crafted to be functional but not excessive.

 

Burst condi damage 100% agree. Unpopular opinion from myself tho: It's been so long, and A-net has struggled forever to find the proper balance with condi. Either making it WAY to sustain tanky able to win via attrition with low effort. Or Nukes you better than some burst; and ends up often being more reliable than burst, so best solution: Simply remove all damaging conditions from PvP except for poison as a counter to healing, and make it stack in duration for PvP only.

 

Even if you disagree PvP in this game is just bad, A-net has had years to fix it and never did what needed to be done. If you want a real pvp game better off playing something else; everyone here should just leave and let PvP continue to be the investment sink hole A-net thinks it is. And if you really want change long term then flat out leave PvE too. For as small as PvP is I have an inside source that has shown me the data regarding the ratio of players who play both PvE and PvP and how much they spend... But given how much A-net struggles; if everyone who purchases gems that currently reside in PvP ended up leaving; A-net would feel it more than people really know.

(inb4 a-net removes this post)

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Stealth lost if target missed or any damage taken would balance stealth. They should do that and literally ignore any players whinning about stealth moving forward.

[UNOwen.7132]

> @"TrollingDemigod.3041" said:

> > @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > Well turns out most people disagree with u about what fun lol, turns out players like to feel powerful on their chosen class. Soon after the big lazy de-powercreep patch the pvp population plummeted. In 6 yrs I havent seen the pvp and wvw population so low. The games has been in a steady decline for yrs but as soon as the heavy blanket nerfs happened it was only a few months and pvp was basically dead.

> > Obviously something's wrong and it's no coincidence the population left when it did. They should roll back to pre feb patch and nerf the outliers where they need nerfed and then continue nerfing individual outliers as needed while maintaining a builds viability. The feb patch everyone thought was magical was actually a lazy doomsday patch that killed the game despite some warnings given,, great job.

> The real decline started with HoT powercreep, the lovely unkillable chronobunkers which everyone loved.

> No new content, no reason to play, no rewards, nothing, why would people even want to play it?

> If A-net would rollback to pre-feb patch then it they would just shot themselves in a knee once again, why would they do that? Game would be unhealthy once again and % nerfs here and there won't fix a kitten bad design of e-speces.

 

Because the game was, and I know this is shocking, *better* pre-february patch. The february patch killed PvP, and most of peoples complaints go down to it. Sure, if you wanted to nerf specific things, do so, but instead they introduced major powerdip (basically like powercreep, except inverse and ***MUCH*** worse for the game), and killed build diversity.

 

> They've brought so much broken stuff to the game, it would be much faster if they just rollback everything to 2012 game release state.

 

I mean if you want to undo powercreep, just change back to 2014 PvP. Spoiler: Were currently in a state where everyone is *weaker* than they were in 2014. Thats how bad the powerdip is.

 

> Game with each patch runs somehow worse than it did before, I really don't know what they're doing with their game engine, but it must be some real mess if some changes not even aimed at classes will screw them somehow.

> The biggest issue with Feb patch is not the patch itself, but the lack of follow-up changes.

 

No, the biggest issue *was* the patch itself. There were follow-up changes. They keep nerfing the new "overperforming" build, and every time it fails to fix the problems, and more players leave. Because you cant fix the issue with nerfs. What needed to be done is to either roll back the february patch as soon as it became clear that it was an unmitigated disaster, or acknowledge that they *completely* overshot their target, and start buffing and partially rolling back changes. Nerfing further is just doubling down on the issues that made the february patch a disaster to begin with.