PvP Skill/Profession balance.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> The Systems team mashes together the Skills and Balance, Player versus Player, World versus World, and Rewards Teams. Combining these teams will help to us create more cohesive content and make the most logical changes to Guild Wars 2 while reducing the chances that any particular part of the game will be negatively impacted when there are game-wide changes. The members of the old teams are now sitting in the same area with one another, like one big family composed of gleeful charr, modest sylvari, bashful norn, ornery humans, and whimsical asura.

>

> This means that there is greater communication and sharing of knowledge between everyone involved.

>

> **If a particular profession or elite specialization is out of tune in one game mode, there will be greater communication about it and more traction on changes suited to that mode.** If some rewards are unbalanced and could use a little fine-tuning, it will be much easier for a team member to bring up the need and work with others to discover the best solution.

 

My interest is regarding the bolded section above. If this is created after a more comprehensive post, apologies and please merge.

As a player with a more weighted interest in PvP content than PvE, I have constantly found myself frustrated by what I perceive as lingering imbalance following a patch or introduction of a new specialization. There is usually consensus on what professions, skills, traits, or mechanics are overperforming, along with scattered reasonable arguments among the [ghostly wailing] in the PvP subforums if the issue is large enough. However, patches to address the issue are infrequent, in many cases miss the mark or exacerbate the problem, and developer interchange/communication regarding the perceived issue is usually muted/neutral in the few cases when it is present at all, outside of the major balance patches.

 

I'd like to get some elaboration on what you mean by greater communication and more traction.

 

Will the forums see any of that communication with dev posts? Should we expect to see more developer presence in the PvP forums in particular?

Will balance patches be more frequent?

What criteria will be used to determine what is under or overperforming? metrics? the forums/feedback? A mix of both?

Will hotfixes/hotpatches become a thing for pvp?

What will the scheduling be for patches?

Will they be pushed mid league if the problem is severe enough, or will they tend to be pushed off season?

Do we have developers that also play the classes they balance? Will they be doing this vs each other or in actual matches so they can see what may or may not need tuning?

 

[Irenio CalmonHuang.2048]

'allos Azure!

 

I'll get right into the questions:

 

* The greater communication was largely within the team - just as you care more about a particular mode, so do members of the team. The increased communication there should mean that changes to address an issue in a mode are going to be less likely to exacerbate an issue or miss the mark.

 

* I expect balance patches are going to happen at a faster pace than quarterly. :)

 

* We use metrics such as play-use at the high-end in a game mode. e.g. How many necromancers are using a particular utility/trait/etc in high-end PvP.

We also read numerous sources, in particular the GW2 forums, but we also check reddit and other forums.

 

* Hotfixes are a difficult item due to the inherent dangers of making a very fast change without as much vetting as we'd like. If they are possible then we will do them.

 

* Scheduling for patches isn't something we have fully settled yet. They need to remain flexible.

 

* We are willing to do mid-season patches if they address bad issues.

 

* Developers play the classes they balance, but also with significant feedback/oversight of this. We test internally and across game modes.

 

Cheers!

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Appreciate the responses, thank you~