Mid Season Balance is Desperately Needed

[Hooglese.4860]

The inclusion of 9 new specializations has added some severe gaps in profession balance. Some are so undertuned, they're never used, others are so overtuned that you will see at least one in over 80% of your matches and win well over half their matches. The previous balance patch was fine, but given the massive number of new skills, traits and interactions between them, there is no way that a single balance patch _could_ cover everything. Nerfing one thing will buff another. I don't think it would have mattered how vast the balance patch was, there are so many new combinations that it would be impossible for the most competent balance team to cover it all in a month. I thought this was obvious from last time that this happened and all the same shit is happening again, albeit in a less boring way.

 

We're only a few weeks into the first competitive season of PvP with PoF, and there's been significant player base drop. Streamers have basically disappeared for the game in what _should be_ a peak play time. They haven't exactly been quiet as to why they stopped streaming, it's because they don't like how unbalanced the game gets when expansions come out and how long it is between balance patches. While I don't have statistics for every single player, I know for my friends list the number of games has gone from ~15-20 on day one and 30 more for the first week, then maybe one day after that if they're prolific. I personally have played less than that. It makes sense for a game's player base to decline over time, but this is insane. Last night I played 3 games in a row with the same people were in all of them (well I say people but the bot was one of them).

 

You _could_ attribute this to the game just being old, but people have been pretty vocal about it. It's the broken balance and knowing that we won't get another balance patch until 2018, if Arenanet plays by their own rules of not disrupting the balance mid-season. The rule is weird on its own, but when there are massive additions in skills, it's downright bad and needs to be changed. I, for the life of me, do not understand why, after the infamous bunker meta, this rule is still being followed. People are fed up with the lack of balancing that goes on in the game when balance has been shifted heavily. The community that's stuck around has stayed here for one reason: it's fun. I was underwhelmed by the PvE, the PvP was what kept me playing. There ~~are~~ were some amazing game design in it. Each profession has it's own method of sustain and dps, and the maps discourage zerging fairly well. Every game I've tried since has made me think either "I wish they did this like GW2" or "I wish GW2 did this" with the sole exception of the buggy mess that was HoTs roll out. People are pretty passionate about it too, with some brilliant and creative solutions to the games problems or just cool elite spec ideas. Yet, despite all this, things take forever to fix and sometimes they don't get fixed at all. It feels like the player base cares about the health of the game more than the people that are making the game do. I love this game and I want it to succeed, but it's not going to if this is how it's being treated.

 

From a purely analytical perspective, the game is unbalanced. Scourge is the most popular spec in the game, with one in five players running it. It's not for no reason, either, Scourges consistently win over half their games, and it's not hard to play. You can get something like 20 stacks of torment and 5 stacks of burning, with no cast times. Firebrands can refill their own health bars and the health bars of all of their teammates in a matter of seconds, consistently. You can get over a million healing in a game without question, and average over 700k on top of all of the damage reduction abilities they have. Mirage in the right hands puts enough confusions stacks on you that using one skill would kill you, all while being invulnerable (in the wrong hands it's a weaker chrono). On the other hand you have Elementalist, which is doing horribly. They're not winning games, and they're not being played. I don't have Arenanet's stats but I have my own, and I can only assume some degree of consistency.

 

This probably won't lead to the changes we need but there needs to be one. The player base is crashing. Please, Arenanet, save your own creation.

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @Hooglese.4860 said:

> The previous balance patch was fine

 

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

That's totally contrary to what most top players would say or have been saying for the past several years.

 

They've been in need for huge redesigns for almost half of this game's history but would rather focus on PvE benchmarks.

 

Hate to say it but this game's competitive scene died before HoT even came out given how horribly balanced and designed most of the professions were. Most of those people were just trying to get their shiny anime backpieces for bragging rights. PoF may be the final nail, but that coffin's been in the works for a while.

 

 

[Hooglese.4860]

> @DeceiverX.8361 said:

> > @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > The previous balance patch was fine

>

> AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>

> That's totally contrary to what most top players would say or have been saying for the past several years.

>

> They've been in need for huge redesigns for almost half of this game's history but would rather focus on PvE benchmarks.

>

> Hate to say it but this game's competitive scene died before HoT even came out given how horribly balanced and designed most of the professions were. Most of those people were just trying to get their shiny anime backpieces for bragging rights. PoF may be the final nail, but that coffin's been in the works for a while.

>

>

 

Cool story. Why are you posting this if you think the games been dead for years?

[Alehin.3746]

@Hooglese.4860 said:

> > @DeceiverX.8361 said:

> > > @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > > The previous balance patch was fine

> >

> > AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

> >

> > That's totally contrary to what most top players would say or have been saying for the past several years.

> >

> > They've been in need for huge redesigns for almost half of this game's history but would rather focus on PvE benchmarks.

> >

> > Hate to say it but this game's competitive scene died before HoT even came out given how horribly balanced and designed most of the professions were. Most of those people were just trying to get their shiny anime backpieces for bragging rights. PoF may be the final nail, but that coffin's been in the works for a while.

> >

> >

>

> Cool story. Why are you posting this if you think the games been dead for years?

 

Probably because they still play the game and/or have fun discussing stuff? Also they're not wrong, the balance is bad since forever because ANet have no clue of what is going on in-game.

[Hooglese.4860]

> @Alehin.3746 said:

> @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > > @DeceiverX.8361 said:

> > > > @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > > > The previous balance patch was fine

> > >

> > > AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

> > >

> > > That's totally contrary to what most top players would say or have been saying for the past several years.

> > >

> > > They've been in need for huge redesigns for almost half of this game's history but would rather focus on PvE benchmarks.

> > >

> > > Hate to say it but this game's competitive scene died before HoT even came out given how horribly balanced and designed most of the professions were. Most of those people were just trying to get their shiny anime backpieces for bragging rights. PoF may be the final nail, but that coffin's been in the works for a while.

> > >

> > >

> >

> > Cool story. Why are you posting this if you think the games been dead for years?

>

> Probably because they still play the game and/or have fun discussing stuff? Also they're not wrong, the balance is bad since forever because ANet have no clue of what is going on in-game.

 

Then the games not dead.

[Maugetarr.6823]

 

Nothing concrete, but it's something.

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > @Alehin.3746 said:

> > @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > > > @DeceiverX.8361 said:

> > > > > @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > > > > The previous balance patch was fine

> > > >

> > > > AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

> > > >

> > > > That's totally contrary to what most top players would say or have been saying for the past several years.

> > > >

> > > > They've been in need for huge redesigns for almost half of this game's history but would rather focus on PvE benchmarks.

> > > >

> > > > Hate to say it but this game's competitive scene died before HoT even came out given how horribly balanced and designed most of the professions were. Most of those people were just trying to get their shiny anime backpieces for bragging rights. PoF may be the final nail, but that coffin's been in the works for a while.

> > > >

> > > >

> > >

> > > Cool story. Why are you posting this if you think the games been dead for years?

> >

> > Probably because they still play the game and/or have fun discussing stuff? Also they're not wrong, the balance is bad since forever because ANet have no clue of what is going on in-game.

>

> Then the games not dead.

 

The game? No. But that's not what I said. The competitive scene? Absolutely dead. A few hundred players on a mainstream game is not alive. That's practically decomposed corpse.

 

As I've been saying for a while, though. the forum PvP is better than it is in-game.

[Azel.4786]

> @Maugetarr.6823 said:

>

>

> Nothing concrete, but it's something.

 

This means just as much as the comments prior to the launch of PoF (in which they did very insignificant changes - speaking at least from an ele perspective) and then on the previous AMA when they mentioned things such as making DoT not Spike over Time (and again didn't even touch on it).

 

Fact of the matter is that there is not enough people, are very disassociated with the compatible game modes (PvP and WvW) to even grasp what needs to be changed and last but not least the code they have to work with is probably such a gigantic hassle that they are unable to do even a semi-decent work on balance.

 

So at the end of the day your options are embrace the imbalance, play the flavor of the quarter and just ignore anything else or shout in frustration until you can't take it anymore and throw the towel and move on as you realize the hopelessness of what the OP is asking for.

 

Take your pick.

[saerni.2584]

The AMA for the recent Living World release included a dev stating that the Balance Team is working on a smaller patch to address post-PoF balance concerns.

 

So you will get your wish, albeit perhaps after the season ends, but not after three months.

[OriOri.8724]

> @saerni.2584 said:

> The AMA for the recent Living World release included a dev stating that the Balance Team is working on a smaller patch to address post-PoF balance concerns.

>

> So you will get your wish, albeit perhaps after the season ends, but not after three months.

 

Yea, but they said that was specifically because PoF shook it up so much with the new mechanics. They made it sound like after these "emergency" balancign patches are done they are perfectly content with quarterly patches again

[brannigan.9831]

One in five streamers you follow are running Scourge you mean. I pvp a lot an its more then 20%. I've tracked it many times it gets boring after awhile. My experience is its 30-40% in reality. I'll do it again sometime soon and post the results. Saying 20% of players are running meta scourge builds in rated is acutally underepresenting the problem as crazy as that sounds.

[otto.5684]

There is a slimmer of hope that devs might make some changes before the quarterly update, since they mentioned it in the AMA. But, there has been two balance changes since PoF release and not much has changed.

 

Some issues with PoF elites require major rework to fix (all the major boon removal/corrupt, resistance, sustain). A small patch is no where close to enough.

[Kaga.7629]

_After the explosive Season of HATE comes..._

Season NEIN: in quest of that mythical balance.

 

 

I have a lot of thoughts about the recent changes to the pvp balance, but for everyone's sakes i'll try to keep it short. Mind that my point of view is that of a main war, so my experiences are colored by that. This being said....

 

* Scourges are still melting people. it's just that instead of doing it in 4 seconds, now it's more like 16 seconds. Progress ?

* Ultrazerk holos can put down so many damaging _layers_ of damage that their spikes are now as retarded as the ultrazerk mesmer's superclonepops...(An issue **never fixed** because _reasons_ *cough* or favoritism?)

* Guards in general are just as strong, _if not stronger than before_, mostly because of layers of toughness, blodges and heals + burns + other shenadigans ( like traps or overtuned skills like shield of wrath hitting for 5K+). Not to mention full retard fulldef bunker is still pretty ridiculous to get off a cap.

* Rangers need something to make them great again. Just NOT gimmicky things like Oneshot Gazelles. Could probably use a buff or two to some lesser used weaponskills perhaps? But the Signet of stone bul!@#$ must end.

* Revs are in a strange place.

 

On war : FC shave to 10.25 seconds was predictable, but still feels like a made up number. The hit to balanced stance is just ridiculous however. The stability uptime on it is now just total trash, and that's just wrong for a skill that's been useful for 5 years as part of core war. _Might is Right_ is next on the chopping block. I expect a "shave" to 100/might just to finish putting warriors back where everyone wants us to be ( aka, closer to the bottom).

[trunks.5249]

well i play a ranger and i found no real; use for the new spec unless i want to play a full bunker. however i found that the new pets go fantastic with old builds i use a druid trapper build because one of the pets can set seed skill off on the druid line

[Hooglese.4860]

> @DeceiverX.8361 said:

 

> The game? No. But that's not what I said. The competitive scene? Absolutely dead. A few hundred players on a mainstream game is not alive. That's practically decomposed corpse.

>

> As I've been saying for a while, though. the forum PvP is better than it is in-game.

 

Fair enough. I'd put it as a vegetable waiting for the plug though. The mode as a whole though, it looks like its next. I just wanna have fun playing PvP, not running around scourges all game, nor do I wanna play ring around the rosy with Cursedlfye for 15 min.

 

[YEREMS.8279]

anet is too busy making more gemstore outfits. FUCK YOU ANET

[Hot Boy.7138]

i agree with you OP. I don't do any ranked matches anymore because I don't like the direction of class balance.

[Loop.8106]

Just hire the fucking nazi forum mods to handle reports and do balance. There will never be anything hitting more than 400 dmg and everyone will be banned.

[choovanski.5462]

before long it will just be bots fighting bots

 

**Bot Wars 2: Curse of the Scourge**

[Frozenblade.6039]

It seems everybody is ok with the thief. Except thief, every class have a lot of ideas, all the time.

There is no negative or positive feedback, very strange.

[Maugetarr.6823]

> @Frozenblade.6039 said:

> It seems everybody is ok with the thief. Except thief, every class have a lot of ideas, all the time.

> There is no negative or positive feedback, very strange.

 

In the thief forums there's a lot of suggestions on the core class and lately rifle/Deadeye. Some thieves are annoyed that thief has trouble in a teamfight and sometimes feel relegated to a decap/+1 role. I think the limiting factor is highly dependent on specific builds you're fighting, some being a match up that favors thief and some being a massive uphill struggle for the thief. The favorability of the match-up is highly dependent on the thief's skill relative to the opponent without many autoprocs to carry bad plays (at least that are actually used). So generally speaking, I think thief is decently balanced right now. There's one good meta build, a couple of more mediocre meta builds, and some decent off meta builds all accomodating various skill floors and ceilings. Without a nerf to mobility or a buff to another class's mobility (think revenant before it was nerfed) I don't see it getting completely pushed out.

 

There are a fair number of complaints about Deadeye, or rather Death's Judgement, because the skill can make the rifle swing between undertuned and overturned by significant margins without much in between depending on build and the opponent's ability to read the tells.

[Hooglese.4860]

> @Maugetarr.6823 said:

> > @Frozenblade.6039 said:

> > It seems everybody is ok with the thief. Except thief, every class have a lot of ideas, all the time.

> > There is no negative or positive feedback, very strange.

> There are a fair number of complaints about Deadeye, or rather Death's Judgement, because the skill can make the rifle swing between undertuned and overturned by significant margins without much in between depending on build and the opponent's ability to read the tells.

 

Yeah, there's reasonable negative feedback about deadeye. It's simultaneously overpowered and underpowered, and can fluctuate between frustrating to fight and a joke to fight for what Maugetarr said. If you're good at positioning with DE against an immobile team you win, but if they have a daredevil (which given the matchmaking system, you likely will), then you're just a burden.

 

[Mr Godlike.6098]

You guys show such big faith in Anet's balancing things... Do you really want to bet your rating on that?

 

[ChivalrousKnight.7201]

> @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > @Maugetarr.6823 said:

> > > @Frozenblade.6039 said:

> > > It seems everybody is ok with the thief. Except thief, every class have a lot of ideas, all the time.

> > > There is no negative or positive feedback, very strange.

> > There are a fair number of complaints about Deadeye, or rather Death's Judgement, because the skill can make the rifle swing between undertuned and overturned by significant margins without much in between depending on build and the opponent's ability to read the tells.

>

> Yeah, there's reasonable negative feedback about deadeye. It's simultaneously overpowered and underpowered, and can fluctuate between frustrating to fight and a joke to fight for what Maugetarr said. If you're good at positioning with DE against an immobile team you win, but if they have a daredevil (which given the matchmaking system, you likely will), then you're just a burden.

>

 

I've had games where my team consists of 2 gaurds and 2 scourges sitting mid on temple whilst deadeye shoots down on them from above. My god was it so one sided. Whereas some games our daredevil or mirage just sits on top of enemy deadeye all game or it's a tight map like forest. Deadeye really is too map/match-up dependent and I don't see how that will be fixed any time soon. Kind've reminds me of power LB rangers back pre HoT.

[Frozenblade.6039]

> @Maugetarr.6823 said:

> > @Frozenblade.6039 said:

> > It seems everybody is ok with the thief. Except thief, every class have a lot of ideas, all the time.

> > There is no negative or positive feedback, very strange.

>

... thief has trouble in a teamfight and sometimes feel relegated to a decap/+1 role.

 

In a daredevil build, most of the time I just feel like above, while nodding the other things mentioned.