Arenanet is going down the "Fun" road that RiotGames went and ruining PvP.

[ybintell.1984]

Arenanet is going down the "fun" route that RiotGames is going down and ruining PvP by focusing on trying to make the PvP experience "fun" above all.

 

Originally, in the patch notes from League of Legends seasons 1 to about midway through season 3, and before that back in the days of Morello as the head of the Balance team of League of Legends, every single patch note and every single post by a RiotGames balance team member on the LoL forums mentioned "**COUNTERPLAY**" as the primary motive when designing and balancing. Everything had to have counterplay. This was healthy and League of Legends grew, and the common maxim was that if you are losing, it is your fault because there is a counter strategy against everything and there is always a counter.

 

Soon after that, RiotGames began a transition to a new way of thinking: they wanted to get rid of "unhealthy" gameplay and to smooth out the power curve of every champion in the game. They began to target champions which had a bad early game and whose performance in the mid-and-late game was dependent on their laning phase and they said it was "Feast or Famine" and that this was "frustrating" for players to deal with so they smoothed out the power curve for all weak-early game champions. Then they began to remove "unhealthy" mechanics such as silence on Kassadin's Q.

 

Then they began to specifically target "fun" and "rewarding gameplay" as a goal for champion balance and champion design.

 

And what could be more fun than CC that cannot be countered? It feel "rewarding" when you knockup your opponent and land your full damage combo. That's "Fun". It has no "counterplay", but it's definitely a "fun" feeling. So now almost every new champion has a knockup. Knockup is the only CC in the game that has no reasonable counterplay (there is QSS-Flash). Riot Games appears to have forgotten that other forms of CC exist like Fear and Silence and Blind and Nearsight. Some of the knockups don't even make sense.

 

And somewhere along the way around season 4 or 5, "**COUNTERPLAY**" *stopped being mentioned in patch notes* **ALTOGETHER**. When was the last time that "Counterplay" was mentioned in a recent League of Legends patch? The word is **GONE** from Riot's Balance team's mind. It's all about "4Fun".

 

Arenanet is going down this path with all of the nonsensical tanky damage classes like Warrior and Guardian having ridiculous amounts of low-cooldown knockdowns and CC.

 

@Arenanet you are going to ruin your game. Just a heads up. PvP is not about fun through "**Rewarding gameplay**". It is about working, theorycrafting, failure and continuous re-tries until you figure out how to counter each and every opponent class, and then dominating them through your superior preparation and practice. It is about practice and preparation. It is about careful planning and building. It is about theorycrafting. You are failing to understand why PvP players like PvP and you are thinking that you have to make it fun. You are making a serious mistake and you don't understand what you are doing.

 

PvP players are not looking for easy ways for the developers to make them feel "*REWARDED*". They are looking for an array of tools, and an intricate set of mechanics with a well-defined set of interactions which they can then theorycraft around and beat their opponents with, by being better prepared and better practised. PvP players don't want your help in winning. They want you to give them a **BALANCED SET OF TOOLS** and then let **THEM** forge their own victories. It's not about you. PvP is about the growth of the **PLAYER**. You are not a part of that process. Stop overrating yourselves and over-intervening. Balance the classes and then step away.

 

That's your job when it comes to PvP. Nothing else. PvP players don't care about your "vision" for "where the game should be headed". PvP players don't care about your "ideas" for "how to make it a better experience for everyone involved."

 

You are fundamentally misunderstanding the kinds of people who are drawn to PvP. Step back.

[Blocki.4931]

Wtf am I reading.

 

None of this makes sense and I play a ton of League (Diamond 2 atm). Counterplay is introduced everywhere, they don't have to specifically mention it every single time to make sure the worst of the bad players can understand it?

[ybintell.1984]

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> kitten am I reading.

>

> None of this makes sense and I play a ton of League (Diamond 2 atm). Counterplay is introduced everywhere, they don't have to specifically mention it every single time to make sure the worst of the bad players can understand it?

 

Wrong. I played up to season 5 and started playing ranked in season 5, and I hit gold. Around that time, the ELO distribution in ranked meant that a gold rating meant I was **AT LEAST** in the top 11% of the playerbase (

)

 

I stopped playing LoL soon after that and gave my account away (http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=ybintell). Go to that profile viewer and navigate to my season 5 records.

 

So no, I was not a "bad player". I was better than 89% of the playerbase. By any standard, that is at least a decent player.

[Vayne.8563]

If the idea of making something fun is ruining it, I'm all for it. I'd rather have a fun experience. Maybe more players want to have fun. Fun isn't a bad word you know.

[Teevell.1684]

Gotta love the people who think that their way is the only way, and that they somehow know what the entire population of a game mode wants. There is not a universal PvP-er, and there is not a universal style of PvP game. I look forward to having more fun in PvP.

[Felipe.1807]

What? Riot is going for the "fun" when they balance the game? Which game you talking about, cause it cant be League of Legends...cause sure its not fun at all to go top lane with a Bruiser and get destroyed by a range champion like Kennen...the same goes for fighting mages like Victor or Cassiopeia...thats not fun at all, you play the whole laning phase at the mercy of your jungle...oh yeah, and if it is against a Akali, you gonna get curbstomped without even actual counterplay(you could say Akali is the Thief from LoL, but removing all the possible counter that Thief have here)...or what about trying to play bot lane against that Jhin that just get Stormrazor as his first item and he just can perma kite your entire team while he was meant to be a "immobile" champion...play High risk/reward Gangplank were you have to actually work for your damage with the barrel combos while a 0/10/0 Katarina or Illaoi can just ult in a middle of team fight and get a penta lol if League was about having fun I would still be able to keep playing Kayle.

 

But going back to GW2, you say that Warriors and Guards have "ridiculous amounts of low-cooldown knockdowns and CC."...its been a while since I last played sPvP, but I am pretty sure that Hammer/X or Mace-Shield/X is not a thing again, without that I cant see how war have a bunch of CC...and Guard...Hammer was just nerfed, and was played for the burst damage, other then that you Shield and the pull on Greatsword...dont think the CC signet is played or Hammer spirit...

And I disagree, fun should be priority...if you aint having fun, why keep playing it? its what games are about...playing against Mirage was not fun...playing against Deadeyes was not fun...going on sPvP match against Scourge/Firebrand was not fun...Holosmith, Soulbeast, SB, all not fun.

[UBcktieDL.5318]

hey there, season 1 league veteran here to clarify some things:

 

While i don't play league as much as i used to, i still hit platinum rank each season. I was also diamond in S4-S6, so i think i have a decent understanding of league :)

 

However i do not agree with how you interpret "counterplay". In fact they added a lot of counterplay to most problematic league champions. At least mechanical ways to outplay abilities, like turning everything from point&click spells to skillshots, removing most oneshot burst from assassins etc. but they also removed many strategic elements over time in favor of a more streamlined and "fun" experience. Most champions also have only a single viable itembuild and runepage, everything else is suboptimal. People who liked to experiment with different builds, rune and masterie setups are left out in new, streamlined, rewarding league.

 

I don't see it happening in gw2, at least not in the way it happened in league. Most classes have multiple viable builds in each gamemode, and even core builds, while being inferior to elite specs in most cases, have good chances of winning. Ofc the game has some balance issues, mostly with elementalist, necromancer and revenant, however it is far away from league current approach of "class x does y, class z does a but sucks at y etc."

[Fortus.6175]

While "Fun" is indeed subjective, there is a middle ground where getting fun out of something doesnt mean inflicting endless frustration on players, or even worse, getting your fun out of making the enemy feel miserable and frustrated.

 

Something I learned in physics is that if you want to know what some force does, like friction or tension, then you have to take things to the extremes and see what it does on both ends, and then you can isolate its function. To that extend, if you have perma stealth (like DE in WvW) you can find out what about it is frustrating. It might sounds like a bad analogy but please bear with me for a sec. Riot had old eve, as well as near-perma dodge jax (if you have played long enough like me, you will know exactly how bad those were), which left little room to counterplay, which makes current Akali's stealth pale in comparison. As time passes, people forget, or simply didn't experience these things, so a new "norm" is created and thus it has new parameters for "extremes". Thats where we are right now. Although I complain and whine about balance all the time, we are perhaps in one of the healthiest PvP metas we have had. I played since day -2, I remember the thieves and mesmers straight up killing you from stealth, and while that still happens, true, it now takes more time to set up those ones, rather than literally going back to stealth and ending you again within 10 seconds of the last time they did it.

 

I'm ok with the current state of damage as long as the classes HAVE to build for it and are **left vulnerable** for doing so, not like soulbeast/holo/spellbreaker who are inherently difficult to kill while pressing 3-4 keys and leaving you at 10% if you managed to dodge a couple of skills. I actually want to see more removal of defenses, bring people to ele's dilemma of either blowing the enemy in 3 seconds or being blown just as quickly, rather than the current "oh burst didnt kill them? reset, heal/stealth try again in 8 seconds or disengage free of worries otherwise".

 

**tl:dr** hard counters are bad, but there is a middle ground where every build has a place and can battle it out, rather than having 3-4 builds dominating supreme in all aspects. Bring down the outliers (soulbeast/holos/spellbrekaers/mirage) and everything will start falling in line with a healthier gameplay **FUN for everyone** .

[Airdive.2613]

I'd rather GW 2 followed LoL down the "clarity" road.

[Apolo.5942]

"Going down the road ruining pvp"? dude that ship sailed years ago...

[Spartacus.3192]

> @"Apolo.5942" said:

> "Going down the road ruining pvp"? dude that ship sailed years ago...

 

lol truer words have never been spoken.

Trait overall of 2015 (only 3 trait lines now vs could put points in upto 5 trait lines).

Continuous removal of amulets instead of trying to balance.

Refusal to allow more build diversity by sticking to their flawed Amulet only system of stats.

Flawed skill split system (pve/pvp/wvw) ruining the flow of rotations by drastically changing CDs instead of just adjusting power/damage/boon uptime.

 

Could go on but can't be bothered. Just like ANET i guess.

 

[coro.3176]

No opinion on League, since I haven't played in years, but this:

 

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417

 

is a legendary forum post by one of their devs and should be required reading for all game designers. I don't know if they stick to that kind of philosophy any more, but that's the mentality devs should have when thinking about balance.

>Game Design Anti-Patterns

> **Power Without Gameplay**

> This is when we give a big benefit in a way that players don't find satisfying or don't notice. The classic example of this is team benefit Auras. In general, other players don't value the aura you give them very much, and you don't value it much either -- even though auras can win games. As a REALLY general example, I would say that players value a +50 armor aura only about twice as much as a +10 armor aura... Even though +50 is 5x better. Another example would be comparing a +10 damage aura to a skill that every 10 seconds gives flaming weapons that make +30 damage to all teammates next attack (with fire and explosions!). I am pretty sure that most players are WAY more excited about the fiery weapons buff, even though the strength is lower overall.

 

> The problem with using a "power without gameplay" mechanic is that you tend to have to 'over-buff' the mechanic and create a game balance problem before people appreciate it. As a result, we tend to keep Auras weak, and/or avoid them altogether, and/or pair them on an active/passive where the active is very strong and satisfying, so that the passive is more strategic around character choice. For example, Sona's auras are all quite weak -- because at weak values they ARE appreciated properly.

 

> **Burden of Knowledge**

> This is a VERY common pattern amongst hardcore novice game designers. This pattern is when you do a complex mechanic that creates gameplay -- ONLY IF the victim understands what is going on. Rupture is a great example -- with Rupture in DOTA, you receive a DOT that triggers if you, the victim, choose to move. However, you have no way of knowing this is happening unless someone tells you or unless you read up on it online... So the initial response is extreme frustration. We believe that giving the victim counter gameplay is VERY fun -- but that we should not place a 'burden of knowledge' on them figuring out what that gameplay might be. That's why we like Dark Binding and Black Shield (both of which have bait and/or 'dodge' counter gameplay that is VERY obvious), but not Rupture, which is not obvious.

 

> In a sense, ALL abilities have some burden of knowledge, but some have _a lot more_ -- the ones that force the opponent to know about a specific interaction to 'enjoy' the gameplay have it worst.

 

> Good particle work and sound -- good 'salesmanship' -- will reduce burden of knowledge (but not eliminate it). We still would not do Rupture as is in LoL ever, but I would say that the HON version of Rupture, with it's really distinct sound effect when you move, greatly reduces the burden of knowledge on it.

 

> In summary, all mechanics have some burden of knowledge, and as game designers, we seek to design skills in a way that gives us a lot of gameplay, for not too much burden of knowledge. If we get a lot more gameplay from something, we are willing to take on more burden of knowledge -- but for a given mechanic, we want to have as little burden of knowledge as possible.

 

> **Unclear Optimization**

> This is a more subtle one. when players KNOW they've used a spell optimally, they feel really good. An example is disintegrate on Annie. When you kill a target and get the mana back, you know that you used it optimally, and this makes the game more fun. On the other hand, some mechanics are so convoluted, or have so many contrary effects, that it is not possible to 'off the cuff' analyze if you played optimally, so you tend not to be satisfied. A good example of this is Proudmoore's ult in DOTA where he drops a ship. The ship hits the target a bit in the future, dealing a bunch of damage and some stun to enemies. Allies on the other hand get damage resistance and bonus move speed, but damage mitigated comes up later. Very complicated! And almost impossible to know if you have used it optimally -- do you really want your squishies getting into the AOE? Maybe! Maybe not... It's really hard to know that you've used this skill optimally and feel that you made a 'clutch' play, because it's so hard to tell, and there are so many considerations you have to make. On the other hand, with Ashe's skill shot, if you hit the guy who was weak and running, you know you did it right... You also know you did it right if you slowed their entire team... Ditto on Ezreal's skill shot.

 

> **Use Pattern Mis-matches Surrounding Gameplay**

> I won't go into too much detail on this, but the simple example is giving a melee DPS ability to a ranged DPS character -- the use pattern on that is to force move to melee, then use. This does not feel good, and should be avoided. I'm sure you are all thinking -- but WoW mages are ranged, and they have all these melee abilities! Well... Frost Nova is an escape, and the various AEs are fit around a _comprehensive_ different mage playstyle that no longer is truly 'ranged' and is mechanically supported across the board by Blizzard -- so the rules don't apply there ;p

 

> **Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun**

> Anti-fun is the negative experience your opponents feel when you do something that prevents them from 'playing their game' or doing activities they consider fun. While everything useful you can do as a player is likely to cause SOME anti-fun in your opponents, it only becomes a design issue when the 'anti-fun' created on your use of a mechanic is greater than your fun in using the mechanic. Dark Binding is VERY favorable on this measurement, because opponents get clutch dodges just like you get clutch hits, so it might actually create fun on both sides, instead of fun on one and weak anti-fun on another. On the other hand, a strong mana burn is NOT desirable -- if you drain someone to 0 you feel kinda good, and they feel TERRIBLE -- so the anti-fun is exceeded by the fun. This is important because the goal of the game is for players to have fun, so designers should seek abilities that result in a net increase of fun in the game. Basic design theory, yes?

 

> **Conflicted Purpose**

> This one is not a super strong anti-pattern, but sometimes it's there. A good example of this would be a 500 damage nuke that slows enemy attack speed by 50% for 10 seconds (as opposed to say, 20%), on a 20 second cooldown. At 50%, this is a strong combat initiation disable... but at 500 damage it's a great finisher on someone who is running... but you also want to use it early to get the disable -- even though you won't have it avail by the end of combat usually to finish. This makes players queasy about using the ability much like in the optimization case, but it's a slightly different problem. If the ability exists for too many different purposes on an explicit basis, it becomes confusing. this is different from something like blink which can be used for many purposes, but has a clear basic purpose -- in that place, players tend to just feel creative instead.

 

> **Anti-Combo**

> This one is bad. This is essentially when one ability you have diminishes the effectiveness of another in a frustrating manner. Some examples:

> - Giving a character a 'break-on-damage' CC with a DOT (yes, warlocks have this, but they tuned it to make it not anti-combo much at all)

> - With Warriors in WoW -- they need to get rage by taking damage so that they can use abilities and gain threat -- but parry and dodge, which are key to staying alive, make them lose out on critical early fight rage. So, by gearing as a better tank, you become a worse tank in another dimension -- anti combo!

> - With old warrior talent trees in WoW, revenge would give you a stun -- but stunned enemies cannot hit you and cause rage gain... So this talent actually reduced your tanking capability a lot in some sense! Anti-combo!

 

> **False Choice -- Deceptive Wrong Choice**

> This is when you present the player with one or more choices that appear to be valid, but one of the choices is just flat wrong. An example of this is an ability we had in early stages recently. It was a wall like Karthus' wall, but if you ran into it, it did damage to you, and then knocked you towards the caster. In almost every case, this is a false choice -- because you just shoudln't go there ever. If it was possible for the character to do a knockback to send you into the wall, it wouldn't be as bad. Anyhow, there's no reason to give players a choice that is just plain bad -- the Tomb of Horrors (original module) is defined by false choices -- like the room with three treasure chests, all of which have no treasure and lethal traps.

 

> **False Choice -- Ineffective Choice**

> Similar to above, except when you give what appears to be an interesting choice that is then completely unrewarding, or ineffective at the promised action. An older version of Swain's lazer bird had this failing... Because the slow was so large, you could never run away in time to de-leash and break the spell and reduce damage, and in cases you did, you'd just dodge 20% of the damage at a big cost of movement and DPS -- so running was just an ineffective choice.

 

> **Or We Could **** the Player!!1111oneoneone**

> This is where you straight up screw over the player, usually with dramatic flair, or maybe just try to make the player feel crappy in a way that isn't contributing to the fun of the game. These range in severity, but examples usually are spawned because the designer is a pretentious wanker who likes to show what a smart dude he is and how stupid the player is. I do not respect designers who engage in this pattern intentionally, and encourage any design lead out there to immediately fire any of your staff that does. I do understand that it can happen inadvertently, and that you might cause some of this stress on purpose in an RPG for character development.. And of course, I love you WoW team despite the 'playing vs' experience of Rogue and Warlock, as you DO have the best classes of any MMO, and they look even better in Cataclysm.... But, on Bayonetta, did the developers really think the stone award was a good idea? But I digress...

 

> Very Severe: The original tomb of horrors D&D module is the worst in existence. Good examples are the orb of annihilation that doesnt look like one and instakills you and all your gear if you touch it, and the three treasure chests where each has no loot and deadly traps and no clues that this is the case.

 

> Severe: There's a popular wc3 map in China where you enter a bonus round, and have a 2% chance of just straight up dying rather than getting cool loot.

 

> Situationally Moderate:Horrify + fear kiting from a competent warlock who outgears you in WoW. Guess what? You die before getting to react, while watching it in slow motion!

 

> Mild: Stone award in Bayonetta. So... you barely get through the level for the first time, then get laughed at by the game with a lame statue of the comic relief character, and a mocking laugh. Please -- maybe a bronze award and a 500 pt bonus might be more appropriate? The player might have worked VERY hard to get through the level, espec on normal and higher difficulties.

 

> **Non-Reliability**

> Skills are tools. Players count on them to do a job. When a skill is highly unreliable, we have to overpower it to make it 'satisfying enough'. Let me give you an example: Let's say Kayle's targeted invulnerability ult had a 95% chance of working, and a 5% chance of doing nothing when cast. We'd have to make it a LOT stronger to make it 'good enough' because you could not rely upon it... and it would be a lot less fun. Random abilities have this problem on reliability -- they tend to be a lot less satisfying, so you have to overpower them a lot more. Small amounts of randomness can add excitement and drama, but it has a lot of downsides. There are other examples of non-reliability, but randomness is the most obvious one. Abilities that require peculiar situations to do their jobs tend to run into the same problems, such as Tryndamere's shout that only slows when targets are facing away from him.

[coro.3176]

GW2 examples that break these rules:

 

**Power Without Gameplay**

* "perma-boon" builds that just get their boons basically for free without really having to do much

* shared stat buffs (devs rightfully nerfed these traits) and many traits that are pure stat buffs

* passive cc cancels, passive life-savers, most passives, really

 

**Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun**

* certain "cheese" builds, regardless of how OP they are or not (eg. 2000 range full-glass unblockable quickness rapid fire soulbeast, condi perma-evade thief, perma-stealth deadeye)

 

**Burden Of Knowledge**

* many effects that are only visible on the opponent's stat bar (.. but at least they are trying by making it visible there. That's just too fast to see in combat a lot of the time, and you can't have every player in a fight targeted at the same time)

* many traits that do things that the player can't know about until they happen - especially passives

* many more. GW2 is pretty bad for this. In order to fight well in this game, you need to know your opponent's build inside and out for pretty much every class/build combo in the game.

 

**Conflicted Purpose**

* Actually, I think GW2 is pretty good at avoiding this one. I can't think of any egregious examples

 

**Unclear Optimization**

* The condi system - you want to keep attacking your target, but by applying a new stack of the same condi, it makes it the first one that will be cleansed.. This is possibly a **False Choice**

 

etc..

 

would love to go through and analyse more, but it'd take all day

[Spartacus.3192]

Good post @"coro.3176"

[getalifeturd.8139]

> @"coro.3176" said:

>**Anti-Combo**

> **False Choice -- Deceptive Wrong Choice**

>**False Choice -- Ineffective Choice**

>**Or We Could **** the Player!!1111oneoneone**

>**Non-Reliability**

These both fall under each of those categories:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unhindered_Combatant

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elusive_Mind

[sephiroth.4217]

I just want to team play with friends for rewards at our own discretion...

 

Got all these leggies and vanity items but no friends to queue with anymore because its not allowed in this game anymore.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

PvP = Fun???

Since when?

[Bashi.8902]

I Agree for the most part but for real in what universe are wars and guardians op? Huge telegraphed slow hitters and the cc isnt even there for guardians. Also btw if u didnt notice yet, this game has stunbreaks...

[Master Ketsu.4569]

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> kitten am I reading.

>

> None of this makes sense and I play a ton of League (Diamond 2 atm). Counterplay is introduced everywhere, they don't have to specifically mention it every single time to make sure the worst of the bad players can understand it?

 

It doesn't make sense because the definition of fun he is using is very weird.

 

Most people would consider builds more fun with the MORE counterplay options they have.

[Malsheem.1794]

Whether or not the OP is right, doesnt really matter. It never mattered what ppl said or contributed with inputs. Anet has done stuff their own way since day one. ESL was a clear proof of that. Ppl come in with suggestion on balances issues and points out flaws. Then Anets ignores it and nerfs/buff stuff nobody wanted or asked for.

 

I still think last pvp patch was good but what really changed though ? Still same specs that runs supreme and ppl complained about. Ppl still get deleted in 1 sec.

 

Nothing will change. Anet will continue to do so until servers shuts down. All we can do, is try to enjoy what we have and leave when it gets too much.

[Blocki.4931]

> @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > kitten am I reading.

> >

> > None of this makes sense and I play a ton of League (Diamond 2 atm). Counterplay is introduced everywhere, they don't have to specifically mention it every single time to make sure the worst of the bad players can understand it?

>

> It doesn't make sense because the definition of fun he is using is very weird.

>

> Most people would consider builds more fun with the MORE counterplay options they have.

 

I don't disagree. It's not fun if there is only 1 way to win against something, but since that is rarely if ever the case it really doesn't apply there.

[SoulSin.5682]

> @"coro.3176" said:

> **Burden Of Knowledge**

> * many effects that are only visible on the opponent's stat bar (.. but at least they are trying by making it visible there. That's just too fast to see in combat a lot of the time, and you can't have every player in a fight targeted at the same time)

> * many traits that do things that the player can't know about until they happen - especially passives

> * many more. GW2 is pretty bad for this. In order to fight well in this game, you need to know your opponent's build inside and out for pretty much every class/build combo in the game.

 

Its worth adding that "Burden of Knowldge" is only valid for lower skill brackets.

At higher ranked games, players are aware of everything, no matter how complicated it is.

 

"Overdesign" has always being a characteristic of MMos, which have lower grinding process intentional so that players can absorb things slowly.

 

I will understand that "BoK" is an issue in an arena game like LoL, but it matters little on GW2.

We only have 9 classes after all. At some point you learn everything.

 

Different from a game with 100+ Heroes.

If GW2 had 20 classes with 5 specializations each, then yes we would need a University course to learn everything about every class.

 

[Master Ketsu.4569]

> @"coro.3176" said:

> GW2 examples that break these rules:

>

> **Power Without Gameplay**

> * "perma-boon" builds that just get their boons basically for free without really having to do much

> * shared stat buffs (devs rightfully nerfed these traits) and many traits that are pure stat buffs

> * passive cc cancels, passive life-savers, most passives, really

>

> **Fun Fails to Exceed Anti-Fun**

> * certain "cheese" builds, regardless of how OP they are or not (eg. 2000 range full-glass unblockable quickness rapid fire soulbeast, condi perma-evade thief, perma-stealth deadeye)

>

> **Burden Of Knowledge**

> * many effects that are only visible on the opponent's stat bar (.. but at least they are trying by making it visible there. That's just too fast to see in combat a lot of the time, and you can't have every player in a fight targeted at the same time)

> * many traits that do things that the player can't know about until they happen - especially passives

> * many more. GW2 is pretty bad for this. In order to fight well in this game, you need to know your opponent's build inside and out for pretty much every class/build combo in the game.

>

 

> would love to go through and analyse more, but it'd take all day

 

Another way to put it is that Anets balance team is trying to fix one problem with another. Guild wars has a ton of "Burden of knowledge" problems in pvp. Significantly more than most other mmos I have played. Most mmos with active pvp have each class with 2~5 passives, but in GW2 every class has at least 18 at any given moment from over 40 to choose from. So in order to balance out the sheer knowledge required to PvP, the balance team of Anet tries to make the game "easier" by allowing for non-interactive cheese builds that don't allow for any meaningful counterplay to enter meta-status.

 

Basically Anet is trying to use "Anti fun" to counter "Burden of knowledge" and it just doesn't work or make sense. All they end up accomplishing is that PvP balance ends up with two problems instead of one. **This is probably the most fundamental core problem with how Anet goes about their balance decisions**, and is the reason why even grindy Korean MMOs like BDO or Tera tend to have better feeling PvP mechanics. It's really sad because if Anet realized that what they are doing is wrong this game has a TON of untapped potential.

 

TL;DR Anet needs to accept the fact that you don't cut off your hand to save your foot or else the state of PvP will never improve.

 

 

[Abazigal.3679]

> @"Malsheem.1794" said:

> Whether or not the OP is right, doesnt really matter. It never mattered what ppl said or contributed with inputs. Anet has done stuff their own way since day one. ESL was a clear proof of that. Ppl come in with suggestion on balances issues and points out flaws. Then Anets ignores it and nerfs/buff stuff nobody wanted or asked for.

>

> I still think last pvp patch was good but what really changed though ? Still same specs that runs supreme and ppl complained about. Ppl still get deleted in 1 sec.

>

> Nothing will change. Anet will continue to do so until servers shuts down. All we can do, is try to enjoy what we have and leave when it gets too much.

 

Hold on. Back in times, they actually did listen to the community. People asked for changes in skyhammer and in khylo. People asked for water underground removal. People asked for spirit watch and stronghold out of ranked. People basically wanted a mode where you sit on points with the same builds and minimal strategy, and that's what we got.

Unfortunately, there are indeed some people coming with problems , arguments and good solutions, but you have a big majority( some being even in top players ) that acts like " this is crap remove it " without thinking of the consequences