Balancing Goals Moving Forward

[Ario.8964]

I, and many others, realize the current game design is simply not sufficient for a competitive scene to be had. There's too many passive forms of damage, cc, invuln, block, etc. While at the same time there's too much damage, cc, etc. present to allow for the removal of those passives creating a large fustercluck of a game. As far as balancing in the future goes (note this is in an ideal world where resources would not be an issue as far as redesigning many things goes) there are certain goals that we should strive to meet in order to foster a competitive game:

 

Removal of ALL passive invuln, counter cc, stunbreak, etc.

- If this game is going to be competitive then you have to remove the safety nets that allow bad players to be carried and good players to be near unkillable without any real skill demand on the player. (conditional passives such as "Increase damage by X when Y condition is fulfilled" are fine as that allows skill and knowledge to propell a player to greater success)

 

Reduction (And I mean MASSIVE REDUCTION) of all healing, damage, cc, stunbreak, condi removal, and condi output in this game

- This kind of speaks for itself but if you need an explanation as to why this would be better than what we have now: This allows for the removal of passives that are unhealthy for the game and instead focuses more on a player's skill to cycle through defenses, bait engagements, and win trades instead of a game of "who can 1 shot through everyone's invuln first". These changes would be especially important in aoe (no aoe should ever hit as hard as a single target skill, that's the tradeoff for affecting multiple opponents). As far as conditions go, they need to be put back into the DoT role (pre stacking change behavior) instead of an alternate, and often more powerful, burst that allows the user to be safe. But to compensate, condition removal needs to be looked at and heavily changed to still allow for condition builds to be influential

 

Increase cooldowns on more influential skills

- Things like heavy stuns, aoe's, and other game changing skills need longer cd's. Take a look at the revenant's glint heal as an example: It's an amazing and potentially fight winning skill when used right but it has a really long cd which means it can't be spammed and the ability of a player to utilize it effectively determines their effectiveness with the class in fights.

 

Visual clutter toned down

- Again, I feel like this is pretty straighforward but right now there's too much visual noise to allow people to really see what is going on. This makes the game unenjoyable both to play and watch. Skill telegraphs need to be apparent but some of the visual stuff (very pretty and cool, but often large and obnoxious in pvp, animations on aoes and such are the biggest culprits). What this allows in the future (assuming a competitive route is taken) is for shoutcasting to be a manageable thing to do. It allows people who don't know much about the game to watch and enjoy what they see, possibly raising their curiosity and eventually the playerbase numbers as more peeople try out this new and amazing looking game they see on twitch streams.

 

Build Creation needs more customization options:

- With limited trait selections (largely due to too many mandatory traits existing and only 3 lines able to be taken) you all too easily fall into the meta trap of "this is objectively the best possible combination for every circumstance and you have no wiggle room without sacrificing the integrity of your build". A way to fix this is to add stat selection for each gear piece kind of like how the amulet system works (basically no gear is actually needed but there'd be a slot for an amulet stat combo in every place where you'd normally have gear so stat selection becomes more customizeable creating more diversity in builds and playstyles. You could also go a step further and after shifting some traits around allow people to spec into traits like the old system where they didn't have to take the full line (this is also after stuff that ought to be baseline is made baseline for the respective class) but could choose small parts of each line to invest in giving, again, more customization to the player and making going over builds a more interesting process for casters and watchers.

 

Now that I've addressed the more straightforward stuff, there is a big thing to talk about (where most of the redesigning and such would be dedicated to):

- Defenses in this game are absurd atm, there's too much invulnerability and defense that requires very little thought or skill to utilize effectively (basically hard damage mitigation and reactive defenses like stunbreaks with stability or damage immunity attached). That's why the game needs to focus defenses into the following: Blocks, Evades, and Barrier. These are all forms of prediction based defense or active styles of play rather than reaction based like stunbreaks. As far as balancing defenses and damage mitigation go I'd argue that Power Herald is the best balanced/designed profession when it comes to demanding active gameplay from users. It is completely reliant on blocks and evades to survive and does not leave much room for error on the player's part. Really good revenants can feel untouchable at times but really bad ones will melt very quickly, this is a good thing (yes frustrating for awhile for newer players as they learn but in the long run more beneficial) as you force defenses to be more actively focused and dependent on the player's actions rather than some passive they put in a trait slot. Barrier would be an alternative form of defense to give some artificial tankiness to glassier builds like weaver or scourge which helps to cover their lack of evades and blocks. Barrier would be changed so that barriers will last 5 seconds before they decay in combat if you haven't added more on. (ofc numbers would need to be adjusted to not allow for immortality through the use of barrier stacking)

 

To summarize that little paragraph: Make defenses more active and prediction based rather than reactive or passive. Remove invulns and make classes utilize evade, barrier, or block as their defense instead of hard mitigation (like projectile reflection or damage reduction/immunity) or stunbreaks.

 

Obviously, I don't have all the answers so more things would need to be added/changed in this list but that's what you are all out there for.

 

Please note: this is not about matchmaking or any sort of system put in place, this is purely class balance and interaction with combat. Don't bring up things outside of pvp- specific balance.

 

I wrote this at 4 in the morning, please forgive grammatical errors or ranty lines. But if you have questions on what the intended meaning of something was feel free to ask.

[Cynz.9437]

It is a good notion. I think many of us has been asking for this (at least in pvp). Problem is, currently Anet seems to be only interested in selling xpac, which is ok, they need to make money after all. However the methods they chose for it rather hurt community in long run, imo (and not just pvp). Even though we were promised that elite specs will be alternative, they are (for most part) are straight upgrade from existing builds (necros can sing about it, necro -> reaper -> scourge, such blatant upgrades).

 

Reasoning? Well, you can chose not to buy xpac and play core and be at huge disadvantage or buy xpac and have easier times killing your opponents and winning games. In short: pvp/wvw in this game turned into p2win. So i don't see how the goals you posted would ever be considered by balancing team when their management obviously encourages powercreep at costs of losing entire community at some point. As long as there are still few sheeps that will spend money on new specs, the trend will continue.

 

I have seen same pattern in other game from NCSOFT until pvp community got killed off completely and game was shut down not so long after (i guess they didn't realize that pvp'ers also pve and spend money on skins and co.).

 

[arke.3241]

I agree with all the points. I have played the game on and off since it was released up until now, and I feel everything is just too powerful. Classes don't need buffs, everything needs to be toned down heavily, with some classes in specific needing it way more than others (cough cough, looking at you scourge). I also feel that the old class system where you could only go 30 up to two skill trees felt more balanced since you couldn't have "everything", the choice was harder and builds consequently didn't feel as overpowered.

 

The visual clutter in sPvP is also quite the problem in my opinion. Some classes skills like Necro, Mesmer and Engineers can add an extreme amount of visual noise that makes it hard to focus on what's going on.

 

And @cynz.9437, I'm not sure the expac is such a big deal outside a couple of specs. Most classes core specs (not all) can hold their own just fine against the new elites. I think it's a question of mentality and self-defeating thought process that if you don't have it, you already lost. Besides, you don't pay a sub, this has always been a Buy to play game. I have no issue that new classes are locked behind the expansion. They even gave you the base game F2P so you can experience pretty much everything. The servers and the team don't get fed without people supporting the product. Not even to mention that you can buy the expansions on some websites for less than 20$. It's really not that much.

[Swagg.9236]

This isn't meant as a shot to anybody, but it's kind of cathartic how everyone is starting to sound like me from back in 2013.

 

Personally, PvP gains nothing from more stat options. A better way to increase build diversity would be to break the currently fixed options like traits and put them into pools a la utility skills. Given how much bloat exists in the game's trait lines, it'd be more than possible to cull all of the bad or irrelevant/filler designs, pool all core traits into one line, and then allow players to pick whichever traits they would like. A counterbalance to the increased choice customization could be to assign a maximum limit of selectable traits (maybe 4) and also placing a "value" onto individual traits by assigning them costs which would compound up to a maximum traitline limit (i.e. some traits would be worth 1 point while others might be worth 3; then no player could have a total trait value selection above 5). Then just limit player spec totals to only 1 active spec line at a time. Players will either play core, HoT or PoF rather than a mix of core and expac. Limiting and sharpening up choices will only cut down on clutter and also reestablish a focus in role design among specializations (since there would no longer no any fall-back traits mixed into every build).

[Rodzynald.5897]

There never should have been any passive mechanics that give so much potential in the first place. I would rather go with 90% damage reduction than a full immunity for endure pain because too many times a kiting warrior gets passively saved with this crap, but that is just one example. To counter power spikes there should be some more ways to lower the damage beside weakness and protection. Prot is 33% reduction to damage which is alright, but with so much power damage flying around we could use some more reduction boons to both condition and power. This would prevent those situations when someone gets invulnerable for days to all sources of damage on top of being able to heal or kite with mobility. Sometimes it's really tricky to kill, let's say, a druid. Other dps builds are countered with decent damage both from a pet and the druid. Healing, mobility, invisibility, way too much. I have to do so many tricks and mind games to lure a druid into corner just to find them pop that annoying stone signet right before getting rekt with the last few % of their life left. If the damage reduction was applied there, it wouldn't change much then. This is just another example, but a lower cooldown on stone signet and a significant % damage reduction is what I'd like to see. I am just tired of seeing everyone go invulnerable or untouchable with some weird shenanigans right before getting killed by their own mistakes. I know that stone sig is not passive, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a cheap life saver.

 

But in the end of the day none of these things will happen. PvE balances this game and they won't rework or block passive traits because that would also include doing that on PvE for some reason.

 

EDIT:

Also I think that nerfing skill abilities to do just one thing at a time. There are too many skills that do multiple things, for one example Lunar impact on druid.

Along with the healing and mobility that druid has access to, a heal blast with a daze every 8 second? Hoh! That's too much I say. Either heal or daze, not two things at the same time.

Rocket charge on scrap's hammer has an evade built to it. Mobility + damage + damage evasion, that's just lazy design to create skill that make you feel "I am safe for now but I can still kick your butt".

The same goes to whirlwind on warrior's GS. The list goes on and on, but the thing is to make players suffer for mistakes, let them die if they screw up, no second chances. You either git gud or go farm mobs, this is how it should be and should have been when GW2 tried ESL.

[Rukia.9860]

They don't split pvp/pve

They keep adding more passives and powercreep

They have literally been working on reward and matchmaking structure since the release of the game

Pvp team doesn't balance

 

What this tells me: they have near zero communication in office, their pve team is going one way and pvp is going the other (if it's going anywhere at all). They do not consider pvp when making new elite specs or skills because we aren't whales. They are clearly understaffed, and horribly so. How many times do they have to reiterate the same thing? I feel so trolled.

 

You can expect changes from op in about 250 years. Sarcasm aside, even if they started these changes now, we aren't on Blizzards budget, it would take a few years at least to tone down the passive garbage. Our best bet is to afk in some other game for a while and hope to come back to something completely different.

 

It's pretty horrible when so many of us go from "need other mode than conquest" to "we don't want new content we want balance" like how bad does the game have to get where we actually DON'T want new content? It will be just as much trash as conquest and stronkhold currently is due to insane power levels and aoe.

 

I like your post but we should be realistic, ANet needs a MUCH better infrastructure in their own design team and we need to fix those issues before we begin to fix the game. They need to start actually caring for pvp and give us dedicated devs , not just 1 or 2, but a full team who can balance and full split skills. Spvp is on life support, it is looking eerily similar to GW1 right now and that game is completely abandoned by devs.

[Xuazinegueri.3592]

> @Ario.8964 said:

> Visual clutter toned down

> - Again, I feel like this is pretty straighforward but right now there's too much visual noise to allow people to really see what is going on. This makes the game unenjoyable both to play and watch. Skill telegraphs need to be apparent but some of the visual stuff (very pretty and cool, but often large and obnoxious in pvp, animations on aoes and such are the biggest culprits). What this allows in the future (assuming a competitive route is taken) is for shoutcasting to be a manageable thing to do. It allows people who don't know much about the game to watch and enjoy what they see, possibly raising their curiosity and eventually the playerbase numbers as more peeople try out this new and amazing looking game they see on twitch streams.

 

Please, do a button to turn it on or off, don't nerf the skill effects in a way we can't see them beautiful and "nerfed" like you did the last time.

 

[Eleazar.9478]

Ya the condition vs cleanse war is a killer of build diversity

[Ario.8964]

> @Eleazar.9478 said:

> Ya the condition vs cleanse war is a killer of build diversity

 

Hence why the tone down would be necessary, I think a good example of a balanced set of clear would be holosmith. It has a good amount of condi clear but it's not passive so the engi has to choose when they want to cleanse and because they don't have a ton of condi clear they have to be concious about follow up conditions after they clear in order to not die to condi. It's more thoughtful play with clear and use of clear that would balance out the extreme "nerf" to conditions (I say nerf relative to their current status)

[Ario.8964]

> @Xuazinegueri.3592 said:

> > @Ario.8964 said:

> > Visual clutter toned down

> > - Again, I feel like this is pretty straighforward but right now there's too much visual noise to allow people to really see what is going on. This makes the game unenjoyable both to play and watch. Skill telegraphs need to be apparent but some of the visual stuff (very pretty and cool, but often large and obnoxious in pvp, animations on aoes and such are the biggest culprits). What this allows in the future (assuming a competitive route is taken) is for shoutcasting to be a manageable thing to do. It allows people who don't know much about the game to watch and enjoy what they see, possibly raising their curiosity and eventually the playerbase numbers as more peeople try out this new and amazing looking game they see on twitch streams.

>

> Please, do a button to turn it on or off, don't nerf the skill effects in a way we can't see them beautiful and "nerfed" like you did the last time.

>

 

I'd be down for a button to reduce that, similarly to how standard models are an option for players in pvp.

[Ario.8964]

Actually changing the systems like they are looking at doing will be the other half of creating a competitive environment. Also, you have to understand that balance isn't in control of the pvp team, so they are doing what they can to create a competitive game by fixing the stuff they have control over. Yes, I'd prefer to have a dedicated balance discussion but that'd be hard to do on the forums where you'd have to fight so much bias and whining to actually try and get any good content out of it.

[Devilman.1532]

If the PvP team has no say or input on balance then the system is fundamentally broken and is not recoverable...

[Dahkeus.8243]

This kinda stuff has been brought up over and over for a long time. The devs have pretty much decided that it’s better to give up on ESports than to do a massive rework to all of PvP since that would either have a huge impact on PvE or cause too many abilities to be too different from how they work in the rest of the game.

[Ario.8964]

> @Devilman.1532 said:

> If the PvP team has no say or input on balance then the system is fundamentally broken and is not recoverable...

 

Unless enough pressure is put on the two teams to force more cooperation and discussion between the specifics of each team's choices and changes. It's very unlikely any of these changes will ever be put in if I'm being honest but I'd rather throw it out there and say I tried.

[XxsdgxX.8109]

I like this, maybe one day...

[Crius.5487]

IMHO something that would help a lot is to completely remove healing power from amulets in PvP--that alone might destroy all bunker builds and a support firebrand and bunker druid won't be near impossible to kill.

[Razor.6392]

Wishful thinking. They aren't gonna redesign everything, but removing passive defenses would be a good start.

 

 

[Ario.8964]

> @Crius.5487 said:

> IMHO something that would help a lot is to completely remove healing power from amulets in PvP--that alone might destroy all bunker builds and a support firebrand and bunker druid won't be near impossible to kill.

 

Removing bunker builds completely is a bad thing. Support as a role is essential to a structured pvp setting but the near immortality of those builds would be addressed by reducing the amount of things each individual skill does as they go through with balancing stuff. I.E no more skills that heal for 6k, remove 3 condis, block, break sun, etc. all in one (Exaggeration but you get the point)

[Arheundel.6451]

> @Ario.8964 said:

> I, and many others, realize the current game design is simply not sufficient for a competitive scene to be had. There's too many passive forms of damage, cc, invuln, block, etc. While at the same time there's too much damage, cc, etc. present to allow for the removal of those passives creating a large fustercluck of a game. As far as balancing in the future goes (note this is in an ideal world where resources would not be an issue as far as redesigning many things goes) there are certain goals that we should strive to meet in order to foster a competitive game:

>

> Removal of ALL passive invuln, counter cc, stunbreak, etc.

> - If this game is going to be competitive then you have to remove the safety nets that allow bad players to be carried and good players to be near unkillable without any real skill demand on the player. (conditional passives such as "Increase damage by X when Y condition is fulfilled" are fine as that allows skill and knowledge to propell a player to greater success)

>

> Reduction (And I mean MASSIVE REDUCTION) of all healing, damage, cc, stunbreak, condi removal, and condi output in this game

> - This kind of speaks for itself but if you need an explanation as to why this would be better than what we have now: This allows for the removal of passives that are unhealthy for the game and instead focuses more on a player's skill to cycle through defenses, bait engagements, and win trades instead of a game of "who can 1 shot through everyone's invuln first". These changes would be especially important in aoe (no aoe should ever hit as hard as a single target skill, that's the tradeoff for affecting multiple opponents). As far as conditions go, they need to be put back into the DoT role (pre stacking change behavior) instead of an alternate, and often more powerful, burst that allows the user to be safe. But to compensate, condition removal needs to be looked at and heavily changed to still allow for condition builds to be influential

>

> Increase cooldowns on more influential skills

> - Things like heavy stuns, aoe's, and other game changing skills need longer cd's. Take a look at the revenant's glint heal as an example: It's an amazing and potentially fight winning skill when used right but it has a really long cd which means it can't be spammed and the ability of a player to utilize it effectively determines their effectiveness with the class in fights.

>

> Visual clutter toned down

> - Again, I feel like this is pretty straighforward but right now there's too much visual noise to allow people to really see what is going on. This makes the game unenjoyable both to play and watch. Skill telegraphs need to be apparent but some of the visual stuff (very pretty and cool, but often large and obnoxious in pvp, animations on aoes and such are the biggest culprits). What this allows in the future (assuming a competitive route is taken) is for shoutcasting to be a manageable thing to do. It allows people who don't know much about the game to watch and enjoy what they see, possibly raising their curiosity and eventually the playerbase numbers as more peeople try out this new and amazing looking game they see on twitch streams.

>

> Build Creation needs more customization options:

> - With limited trait selections (largely due to too many mandatory traits existing and only 3 lines able to be taken) you all too easily fall into the meta trap of "this is objectively the best possible combination for every circumstance and you have no wiggle room without sacrificing the integrity of your build". A way to fix this is to add stat selection for each gear piece kind of like how the amulet system works (basically no gear is actually needed but there'd be a slot for an amulet stat combo in every place where you'd normally have gear so stat selection becomes more customizeable creating more diversity in builds and playstyles. You could also go a step further and after shifting some traits around allow people to spec into traits like the old system where they didn't have to take the full line (this is also after stuff that ought to be baseline is made baseline for the respective class) but could choose small parts of each line to invest in giving, again, more customization to the player and making going over builds a more interesting process for casters and watchers.

>

> Now that I've addressed the more straightforward stuff, there is a big thing to talk about (where most of the redesigning and such would be dedicated to):

> - Defenses in this game are absurd atm, there's too much invulnerability and defense that requires very little thought or skill to utilize effectively (basically hard damage mitigation and reactive defenses like stunbreaks with stability or damage immunity attached). That's why the game needs to focus defenses into the following: Blocks, Evades, and Barrier. These are all forms of prediction based defense or active styles of play rather than reaction based like stunbreaks. As far as balancing defenses and damage mitigation go I'd argue that Power Herald is the best balanced/designed profession when it comes to demanding active gameplay from users. It is completely reliant on blocks and evades to survive and does not leave much room for error on the player's part. Really good revenants can feel untouchable at times but really bad ones will melt very quickly, this is a good thing (yes frustrating for awhile for newer players as they learn but in the long run more beneficial) as you force defenses to be more actively focused and dependent on the player's actions rather than some passive they put in a trait slot. Barrier would be an alternative form of defense to give some artificial tankiness to glassier builds like weaver or scourge which helps to cover their lack of evades and blocks. Barrier would be changed so that barriers will last 5 seconds before they decay in combat if you haven't added more on. (ofc numbers would need to be adjusted to not allow for immortality through the use of barrier stacking)

>

> To summarize that little paragraph: Make defenses more active and prediction based rather than reactive or passive. Remove invulns and make classes utilize evade, barrier, or block as their defense instead of hard mitigation (like projectile reflection or damage reduction/immunity) or stunbreaks.

>

> Obviously, I don't have all the answers so more things would need to be added/changed in this list but that's what you are all out there for.

>

> Please note: this is not about matchmaking or any sort of system put in place, this is purely class balance and interaction with combat. Don't bring up things outside of pvp- specific balance.

>

> I wrote this at 4 in the morning, please forgive grammatical errors or ranty lines. But if you have questions on what the intended meaning of something was feel free to ask.

 

Why don't you just go and play a MOBA?...This is a MMO after all and there is no balance patch that will change it into a MOBA

[Ario.8964]

> @Arheundel.6451 said:

> > @Ario.8964 said:

> > I, and many others, realize the current game design is simply not sufficient for a competitive scene to be had. There's too many passive forms of damage, cc, invuln, block, etc. While at the same time there's too much damage, cc, etc. present to allow for the removal of those passives creating a large fustercluck of a game. As far as balancing in the future goes (note this is in an ideal world where resources would not be an issue as far as redesigning many things goes) there are certain goals that we should strive to meet in order to foster a competitive game:

> >

> > Removal of ALL passive invuln, counter cc, stunbreak, etc.

> > - If this game is going to be competitive then you have to remove the safety nets that allow bad players to be carried and good players to be near unkillable without any real skill demand on the player. (conditional passives such as "Increase damage by X when Y condition is fulfilled" are fine as that allows skill and knowledge to propell a player to greater success)

> >

> > Reduction (And I mean MASSIVE REDUCTION) of all healing, damage, cc, stunbreak, condi removal, and condi output in this game

> > - This kind of speaks for itself but if you need an explanation as to why this would be better than what we have now: This allows for the removal of passives that are unhealthy for the game and instead focuses more on a player's skill to cycle through defenses, bait engagements, and win trades instead of a game of "who can 1 shot through everyone's invuln first". These changes would be especially important in aoe (no aoe should ever hit as hard as a single target skill, that's the tradeoff for affecting multiple opponents). As far as conditions go, they need to be put back into the DoT role (pre stacking change behavior) instead of an alternate, and often more powerful, burst that allows the user to be safe. But to compensate, condition removal needs to be looked at and heavily changed to still allow for condition builds to be influential

> >

> > Increase cooldowns on more influential skills

> > - Things like heavy stuns, aoe's, and other game changing skills need longer cd's. Take a look at the revenant's glint heal as an example: It's an amazing and potentially fight winning skill when used right but it has a really long cd which means it can't be spammed and the ability of a player to utilize it effectively determines their effectiveness with the class in fights.

> >

> > Visual clutter toned down

> > - Again, I feel like this is pretty straighforward but right now there's too much visual noise to allow people to really see what is going on. This makes the game unenjoyable both to play and watch. Skill telegraphs need to be apparent but some of the visual stuff (very pretty and cool, but often large and obnoxious in pvp, animations on aoes and such are the biggest culprits). What this allows in the future (assuming a competitive route is taken) is for shoutcasting to be a manageable thing to do. It allows people who don't know much about the game to watch and enjoy what they see, possibly raising their curiosity and eventually the playerbase numbers as more peeople try out this new and amazing looking game they see on twitch streams.

> >

> > Build Creation needs more customization options:

> > - With limited trait selections (largely due to too many mandatory traits existing and only 3 lines able to be taken) you all too easily fall into the meta trap of "this is objectively the best possible combination for every circumstance and you have no wiggle room without sacrificing the integrity of your build". A way to fix this is to add stat selection for each gear piece kind of like how the amulet system works (basically no gear is actually needed but there'd be a slot for an amulet stat combo in every place where you'd normally have gear so stat selection becomes more customizeable creating more diversity in builds and playstyles. You could also go a step further and after shifting some traits around allow people to spec into traits like the old system where they didn't have to take the full line (this is also after stuff that ought to be baseline is made baseline for the respective class) but could choose small parts of each line to invest in giving, again, more customization to the player and making going over builds a more interesting process for casters and watchers.

> >

> > Now that I've addressed the more straightforward stuff, there is a big thing to talk about (where most of the redesigning and such would be dedicated to):

> > - Defenses in this game are absurd atm, there's too much invulnerability and defense that requires very little thought or skill to utilize effectively (basically hard damage mitigation and reactive defenses like stunbreaks with stability or damage immunity attached). That's why the game needs to focus defenses into the following: Blocks, Evades, and Barrier. These are all forms of prediction based defense or active styles of play rather than reaction based like stunbreaks. As far as balancing defenses and damage mitigation go I'd argue that Power Herald is the best balanced/designed profession when it comes to demanding active gameplay from users. It is completely reliant on blocks and evades to survive and does not leave much room for error on the player's part. Really good revenants can feel untouchable at times but really bad ones will melt very quickly, this is a good thing (yes frustrating for awhile for newer players as they learn but in the long run more beneficial) as you force defenses to be more actively focused and dependent on the player's actions rather than some passive they put in a trait slot. Barrier would be an alternative form of defense to give some artificial tankiness to glassier builds like weaver or scourge which helps to cover their lack of evades and blocks. Barrier would be changed so that barriers will last 5 seconds before they decay in combat if you haven't added more on. (ofc numbers would need to be adjusted to not allow for immortality through the use of barrier stacking)

> >

> > To summarize that little paragraph: Make defenses more active and prediction based rather than reactive or passive. Remove invulns and make classes utilize evade, barrier, or block as their defense instead of hard mitigation (like projectile reflection or damage reduction/immunity) or stunbreaks.

> >

> > Obviously, I don't have all the answers so more things would need to be added/changed in this list but that's what you are all out there for.

> >

> > Please note: this is not about matchmaking or any sort of system put in place, this is purely class balance and interaction with combat. Don't bring up things outside of pvp- specific balance.

> >

> > I wrote this at 4 in the morning, please forgive grammatical errors or ranty lines. But if you have questions on what the intended meaning of something was feel free to ask.

>

> Why don't you just go and play a MOBA?...This is a MMO after all and there is no balance patch that will change it into a MOBA

 

Why shouldn't I comment on ways to fix a game that I love to play? I want to see this game become a strong pvp game, that's like when you whine about firebrand or "mesmer bias in development". You suggest changes or address problems because you want to see a game you enjoy become a better game. Not everyone who wants competitive pvp needs to "just go and play a MOBA", that is just ignorance at it's finest.

 

And as a side note: None of this stuff would make this game a MOBA but if you want to make pointless comments I guess I can't stop you...

[Burnfall.9573]

> @Arheundel.6451 said:

> > @Ario.8964 said:

> > I, and many others, realize the current game design is simply not sufficient for a competitive scene to be had. There's too many passive forms of damage, cc, invuln, block, etc. While at the same time there's too much damage, cc, etc. present to allow for the removal of those passives creating a large fustercluck of a game. As far as balancing in the future goes (note this is in an ideal world where resources would not be an issue as far as redesigning many things goes) there are certain goals that we should strive to meet in order to foster a competitive game:

> >

> > Removal of ALL passive invuln, counter cc, stunbreak, etc.

> > - If this game is going to be competitive then you have to remove the safety nets that allow bad players to be carried and good players to be near unkillable without any real skill demand on the player. (conditional passives such as "Increase damage by X when Y condition is fulfilled" are fine as that allows skill and knowledge to propell a player to greater success)

> >

> > Reduction (And I mean MASSIVE REDUCTION) of all healing, damage, cc, stunbreak, condi removal, and condi output in this game

> > - This kind of speaks for itself but if you need an explanation as to why this would be better than what we have now: This allows for the removal of passives that are unhealthy for the game and instead focuses more on a player's skill to cycle through defenses, bait engagements, and win trades instead of a game of "who can 1 shot through everyone's invuln first". These changes would be especially important in aoe (no aoe should ever hit as hard as a single target skill, that's the tradeoff for affecting multiple opponents). As far as conditions go, they need to be put back into the DoT role (pre stacking change behavior) instead of an alternate, and often more powerful, burst that allows the user to be safe. But to compensate, condition removal needs to be looked at and heavily changed to still allow for condition builds to be influential

> >

> > Increase cooldowns on more influential skills

> > - Things like heavy stuns, aoe's, and other game changing skills need longer cd's. Take a look at the revenant's glint heal as an example: It's an amazing and potentially fight winning skill when used right but it has a really long cd which means it can't be spammed and the ability of a player to utilize it effectively determines their effectiveness with the class in fights.

> >

> > Visual clutter toned down

> > - Again, I feel like this is pretty straighforward but right now there's too much visual noise to allow people to really see what is going on. This makes the game unenjoyable both to play and watch. Skill telegraphs need to be apparent but some of the visual stuff (very pretty and cool, but often large and obnoxious in pvp, animations on aoes and such are the biggest culprits). What this allows in the future (assuming a competitive route is taken) is for shoutcasting to be a manageable thing to do. It allows people who don't know much about the game to watch and enjoy what they see, possibly raising their curiosity and eventually the playerbase numbers as more peeople try out this new and amazing looking game they see on twitch streams.

> >

> > Build Creation needs more customization options:

> > - With limited trait selections (largely due to too many mandatory traits existing and only 3 lines able to be taken) you all too easily fall into the meta trap of "this is objectively the best possible combination for every circumstance and you have no wiggle room without sacrificing the integrity of your build". A way to fix this is to add stat selection for each gear piece kind of like how the amulet system works (basically no gear is actually needed but there'd be a slot for an amulet stat combo in every place where you'd normally have gear so stat selection becomes more customizeable creating more diversity in builds and playstyles. You could also go a step further and after shifting some traits around allow people to spec into traits like the old system where they didn't have to take the full line (this is also after stuff that ought to be baseline is made baseline for the respective class) but could choose small parts of each line to invest in giving, again, more customization to the player and making going over builds a more interesting process for casters and watchers.

> >

> > Now that I've addressed the more straightforward stuff, there is a big thing to talk about (where most of the redesigning and such would be dedicated to):

> > - Defenses in this game are absurd atm, there's too much invulnerability and defense that requires very little thought or skill to utilize effectively (basically hard damage mitigation and reactive defenses like stunbreaks with stability or damage immunity attached). That's why the game needs to focus defenses into the following: Blocks, Evades, and Barrier. These are all forms of prediction based defense or active styles of play rather than reaction based like stunbreaks. As far as balancing defenses and damage mitigation go I'd argue that Power Herald is the best balanced/designed profession when it comes to demanding active gameplay from users. It is completely reliant on blocks and evades to survive and does not leave much room for error on the player's part. Really good revenants can feel untouchable at times but really bad ones will melt very quickly, this is a good thing (yes frustrating for awhile for newer players as they learn but in the long run more beneficial) as you force defenses to be more actively focused and dependent on the player's actions rather than some passive they put in a trait slot. Barrier would be an alternative form of defense to give some artificial tankiness to glassier builds like weaver or scourge which helps to cover their lack of evades and blocks. Barrier would be changed so that barriers will last 5 seconds before they decay in combat if you haven't added more on. (ofc numbers would need to be adjusted to not allow for immortality through the use of barrier stacking)

> >

> > To summarize that little paragraph: Make defenses more active and prediction based rather than reactive or passive. Remove invulns and make classes utilize evade, barrier, or block as their defense instead of hard mitigation (like projectile reflection or damage reduction/immunity) or stunbreaks.

> >

> > Obviously, I don't have all the answers so more things would need to be added/changed in this list but that's what you are all out there for.

> >

> > Please note: this is not about matchmaking or any sort of system put in place, this is purely class balance and interaction with combat. Don't bring up things outside of pvp- specific balance.

> >

> > I wrote this at 4 in the morning, please forgive grammatical errors or ranty lines. But if you have questions on what the intended meaning of something was feel free to ask.

>

> Why don't you just go and play a MOBA?...This is a MMO after all and there is no balance patch that will change it into a MOBA

 

give the Op credit. After all; whatever it takes to make gw2 competitive, healthy and fun should be well received :)

[Reaper Alim.4176]

> @Ario.8964 said:

> Actually changing the systems like they are looking at doing will be the other half of creating a competitive environment. Also, you have to understand that balance isn't in control of the pvp team, so they are doing what they can to create a competitive game by fixing the stuff they have control over. Yes, I'd prefer to have a dedicated balance discussion but that'd be hard to do on the forums where you'd have to fight so much bias and whining to actually try and get any good content out of it.

 

Well said! However we shall see. They speak a good game. But I'll withhold my judgement and support. Till after I experience some of this goals of the Devs. come to past.

[xDudisx.5914]

I agree with everything except the increase on CDs.

[Lilyanna.9361]

> @Crius.5487 said:

> IMHO something that would help a lot is to completely remove healing power from amulets in PvP--that alone might destroy all bunker builds and a support firebrand and bunker druid won't be near impossible to kill.

 

Ah, gutting support roles, so there's nothing but mindless dps.

 

I see.

 

I absolutely ADORE when people just straight out delete support builds. Because screw support classes, right?

 

Gotta be frickin kidding me, can we not make this game more braindead than it already is. Some people actually /like) supporting their teammates you know?

[Morwath.9817]

Quaggan would suggest posting your thoughts about PvP balance in [profession subforums](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/categories/professions "profession subforums"), as balance team members are active mainly there.