Balance Patch Preview - WvW

[RedShark.9548]

@"subversiontwo.7501"

 

Well said. I absolutely agree.

 

And to all the doomsayers, do you rly think this gamemode should go on without any changes, the way it is right now? I dont. Atleast they are trying to do something.

They admitted that it will be chaos in the beginning, but thats ok, nobody can say which classes will be on top after this, but thats why they promised to roll out patches more frequently.

 

Ive played wvw for many years and ive had less and less fun. And a big part of that lesser fun was how powercreep affected the gamemode. Same with pvp, even tho i didnt play it as excessively as i played wvw.

 

It either gets wvw off the downhill path or it wont, but then it wouldnt matter anyways.

Atleast in the first days of the patch we will see an increase in player numbers. Veterans checking how it went. You cant rly lose much at this point.

[Swagger.1459]

> @"Destro.9871" said:

> We have went though 6 years of skill tree and trait balances under the current system. Some skill has been changed 8 times, or a trait line has been rearranged several times. A trait has been re-written more than once or had its positions in a skill tree changed 3 times. To get to a semblance of balance under the current system. How about utilities that have been changed at least 5 times already and nerfed into the ground to work as they are right now.

>

> A patch like this, maybe not this patch is long over due. However these changes do not take into consideration, that we will need at least another 2-3 years of balances patches under the current release cycle system to fix this patch.

>

> Its a misrepresentation that this is a balance patch. This is not a balance patch it will more than likely reduce the balance in the current game. The is the beginning on an entire re-do of the combat system and I am just not sure if what is left of the player base has the patience for the time its going to take to un-do the negative side effects.

>

>

 

I think most of us understand this isn’t some regular ol’ balance patch, bc we were told this isn’t some regular ol’ balance patch. Ty though!

 

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/96750/balance-patch-preview-wvw

 

“This patch is unusual in that it’s more about establishing a new paradigm than it is a regular balance update”

[Junkpile.7439]

Look sword weaver faceroll keyboard and fight 5 vs 1. Let's nerf scepter/dagger core ele healing and damage. Funny that healing skills were already so weak that nobody even bothered use those . :D

[SloRules.3560]

> @"blackgamma.1809" said:

> > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > You've missed the part where this patch is just the beginning and they mention follow up balance patches around every 6 weeks following this. It's a very important first step and honestly a large change thatmisses the mark on many, but also hits the mark on many smaller changes is better than not changing anything about the big picture at all.

>

> 6 week is a lot to wait on, heck, 3 days is too much if it ends up being a face flop of a patch.

> It only takes 5 mins to find out if its a good or a bad patch. people wont wait for a hot fix because we are too jaded to know hot fixes dont do anything, nor 6 weeks for something to fix the issues. when you can easily just turn to a simpler game with more fun or rewards.

>

> Because remember, Gw2 is not the only game to play, Gw2 is not in a vacuum. and its not like im trying to advocate people to play other games, its just a simpler option to play something else rather than deal with potential bad patches, which historically, WvW has for the most part had trash patches that created more problems than solutions.

>

> Infact lets throw the Devs integrity under a burning bus, we are dealing with a team, that refused to force reset the matchup when a server had 5 links on its own side when it bugged out. when in the past they were able to reset matchups willingly 2 days in a matchup

>

> 6 week window is an god horrible cop out excuse to do less work, when they cant do the bare minimum to make wvw a function game mode

 

Actually it takes a whole lot longer to see effect of such patch than 5 minutes...

 

Usually it's 1 to 2 weeks testing different things (3 times a week) and than settling on something, but adapt to what you see than. So yeah, you could push next non-hotfix balance patch in 4 weeks, anything sooner and it's actually too soon to see full effect. 6 weeks is a streach, that i do agree on.

[kialb.2098]

This patch is good but not perfect.

new dev have to do big balance fast because atm pvp is really terrible, proba next blance patch will be more thought

[Bassdeff.1895]

You are right, this isn't a balance patch. It's a much needed "slow this fucking game down patch".

[Svarty.8019]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> Well considering how people yell *very loud* on the forum on how they want to balance the game with **delete that** and **entirerly change the game mode into something else**, with a ton of people agreeing and going thumbs up, it seems to be a fine match with the community.

... and yet we've already determined that the forum is completely unrepresentative of the player base. Funny that.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

what I can't understand is the "but new cadence/ paradigm" argument when something this big is happening. its almost as if ppl don't have the right to be scared out of their minds. somehow this new balance team is going to fix the game in no time at all, we will live happily ever after and roses will bloom in every street. yeah the entire history of anets horrid balancing is suddenly gone in one post. ok.

[Ghostof Luzifer.6159]

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> what I can't understand is the "but new cadence/ paradigm" argument when something this big is happening. its almost as if ppl don't have the right to be scared out of their minds. somehow this new balance team is going to fix the game in no time at all, we will live happily ever after and roses will bloom in every street. yeah the entire history of anets horrid balancing is suddenly gone in one post. ok.

 

what do you want to do? Just be accepting of mediocracy just because changing might turn out to be a worse experience You have to start somewhere. People are (hopefully) mostly excited about the announcment of the devs to start an improvment process into the correct direction. They want to tackle existing issues and that in a timely manner. No one argues that this patch will most likely rock the gw2 pvp world..maybe even for the worse.

Alot of players have been waiting for change and are now excited that it seems as if we are getting what we have been asking for.

[Burnfall.9573]

> @"XenesisII.1540" said:

> So what? many games have skills and traits that are changed many times over time to fit with new mechanics in the game. Especially when expansions are launched with new classes. You seem to forgot during those "6" years there were two expansions and 19 more specs added to the game on top of the original 8, with power creep of boons, conditions, gear, and stats, and a lot of outliner stuff were allowed to stay around for long periods of time. Each expansion destroyed the balance before it, a giant example was stability.

>

> You're right, this isn't a balance patch, this is a reset patch, lowering most damage down 30% and reducing problem support skills and traits, from there on balance will happen on a faster cadence than previously.

>

> If you don't think terrible power creep and balance didn't play a part in chasing people away from wvw you're deluding yourself.

 

**+10+**

 

XenesisII and others speak the entire Truth- this is indeed a reset patch

 

I completely agree

[blackgamma.1809]

> @"SloRules.3560" said:

> > @"blackgamma.1809" said:

> > > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > You've missed the part where this patch is just the beginning and they mention follow up balance patches around every 6 weeks following this. It's a very important first step and honestly a large change thatmisses the mark on many, but also hits the mark on many smaller changes is better than not changing anything about the big picture at all.

> >

> > 6 week is a lot to wait on, heck, 3 days is too much if it ends up being a face flop of a patch.

> > It only takes 5 mins to find out if its a good or a bad patch. people wont wait for a hot fix because we are too jaded to know hot fixes dont do anything, nor 6 weeks for something to fix the issues. when you can easily just turn to a simpler game with more fun or rewards.

> >

> > Because remember, Gw2 is not the only game to play, Gw2 is not in a vacuum. and its not like im trying to advocate people to play other games, its just a simpler option to play something else rather than deal with potential bad patches, which historically, WvW has for the most part had trash patches that created more problems than solutions.

> >

> > Infact lets throw the Devs integrity under a burning bus, we are dealing with a team, that refused to force reset the matchup when a server had 5 links on its own side when it bugged out. when in the past they were able to reset matchups willingly 2 days in a matchup

> >

> > 6 week window is an god horrible cop out excuse to do less work, when they cant do the bare minimum to make wvw a function game mode

>

> Actually it takes a whole lot longer to see effect of such patch than 5 minutes...

>

> Usually it's 1 to 2 weeks testing different things (3 times a week) and than settling on something, but adapt to what you see than. So yeah, you could push next non-hotfix balance patch in 4 weeks, anything sooner and it's actually too soon to see full effect. 6 weeks is a streach, that i do agree on.

 

that not entirely true, true in general, but not in regards to gw2 in wvw, you only have to read patch notes to know how bad the patch is, the patch doesn't have to be live for you to know its a bad patch. in fact it can take something as quick as seconds to know a patch can be bad, just by reading the notes.

 

and generally, i like the idea of dont knock it until you tried it, things should be tested, that the problem, its not, and when it is, its done badly. the statement you have said could very well apply to many things in gw2, but that statement doesnt hold true in WvW in the past year of this game. because there has been times where a patch has been straight up bad before its been implemented

 

example. when they remove reveal from scrapper, zerg fights became terrible and unplayable, fights became dictated based on became whoever came out from reveal first, lost the fight. people who played wvw that read the patch notes KNEW it was a bad patch for wvw from the get go, regardless of its fixes, devs were completely oblivious to how bad the changes were.

 

these changes were not fixed for a whole for 2 and a half months. people had to play a toxic zerg meta that no one liked. the devs didnt rectify the situation for the entire duration of that patch

[Dralor.3701]

I don’t think anyone is arguing that it is a reset or huge shift in the game. If you think they are going to get it right and release updates fast enough if(when) they screw it up that is pretty optimistic.

 

They had trouble balancing the game before even when they had the larger staff to do it.

 

IMO doing it the way they are is the lazy fix instead of taking a systematic approach to the current problematic skills/traits. Either way the game is extremely far behind in balance as it has never been given adequate attention.

[ArchonWing.9480]

We had 6 years of pve balance.

 

But don't get me wrong. I do agree that it is likely this patch will make things worse and there may not be enough patience for the player base to handle it. But we're long past the point of no return-- any effort to have made this game mode sustainable required decisions made years ago. It's like telling a dying person that has spent their whole life neglecting their health that they should have exercised more and eaten healthier. At this point, any solution will not be comfortable or pretty, nor do we have the luxury of such either. There is nothing left to cling on at this point; it either works or we finally just move to another game.

 

Basically we shouldn't even be here having this conversation. But here we are.

[Burnfall.9573]

> @"ArchonWing.9480" said:

> We had 6 years of pve balance.

>

> But don't get me wrong. I do agree that it is likely this patch will make things worse and there may not be enough patience for the player base to handle it. But we're long past the point of no return-- any effort to have made this game mode sustainable required decisions made years ago. It's like telling a dying person that has spent their whole life neglecting their health that they should have exercised more and eaten healthier. At this point, any solution will not be comfortable or pretty, nor do we have the luxury of such either. There is nothing left to cling on at this point; it either works or we finally just move to another game.

>

> Basically we shouldn't even be here having this conversation. But here we are.

 

**+1**

ArchonWing; Great example...quite true....You said it perfectly

 

This patch will be indefinitely the last straw for me, To stay or to finally just leave for good

 

I am willing to give Anet the benefit of the doubt to get this game back on the right track

[Chaba.5410]

> @"Destro.9871" said:

> We have went though 6 years of skill tree and trait balances under the current system. Some skill has been changed 8 times, or a trait line has been rearranged several times. A trait has been re-written more than once or had its positions in a skill tree changed 3 times. To get to a semblance of balance under the current system. How about utilities that have been changed at least 5 times already and nerfed into the ground to work as they are right now.

>

> A patch like this, maybe not this patch is long over due. However these changes do not take into consideration, that we will need at least another 2-3 years of balances patches under the current release cycle system to fix this patch.

>

> Its a misrepresentation that this is a balance patch. This is not a balance patch it will more than likely reduce the balance in the current game. The is the beginning on an entire re-do of the combat system and I am just not sure if what is left of the player base has the patience for the time its going to take to un-do the negative side effects.

>

>

 

You even play this game anymore, bruh? I thought you quit years ago.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

> @"Ghostof Luzifer.6159" said:

> what do you want to do?

 

to summarize my post: take it with a huge grain of salt.

[Infusion.7149]

I talked to some non-GvG commanders that quit the game and some say it doesn't matter because ultimately the fight guilds have had the entire say on the balance of the game mode for the past however many years, at least when Raymond was in charge of WvW. Responses along the lines of "There's no one tagging siege anymore, nobody wants to fight for structures because PPT is meaningless without server pride (i.e. no reason to stick with a server when the going gets tough and just abandon ship and complain about no fights when other servers die off), off-hours (non NA prime) is stacked on several servers, the bigger force usually wins due to powercreep (stability is only a stunbreak when boon rip is rampant and doesn't function vs CC), there's no new players (i.e. dwindling mode), no point to keep playing except meaningless grind (people that have 10k rank /250k kills) "

Sarcastic guardian comment: "how does this patch change how WvW is played, which is about capturing and defending structures with some epic fights thrown in ; we'll be running in a circle throwing out stability and spamming 1"

Or as someone put it "same cycle, same players, same game, shuffled deck (_re: server hoppers/bandwagoners/"alliances"_) minus NCSoft neutered staffing"

 

edit, Re: new players to the mode "they need to restore the common average player's place in the game mode and focus less on making life easier and easier for the select few and forcing people into metas (_meta builds? I guess_) to succeed"

 

IMO It takes the game a step in the right direction but there's other outstanding issues as well related to the point of the game mode, which is capturing (sieging) and defending structures so they tier up (tower defense). *

For example : server stacking ("alliances" , relinks, etc) , warclaw being inaccessible to new players until they rank up, warclaw damage (not the stomp) which means the attacker usually has an advantage if it's not stealth push, warclaw on alpine making it much quicker to respond to anything on the south side of the map (debatable but with the increased time to kill it can be a potential problem), ascended food powercreep, the nerf to walls, players melting on burning oil pots and cannons (i.e. the stability/CC issue on it), etc

 

As far as the patch goes : The nerf to healing + defensive boons should make defensive siege in general more effective to actually warrant using it. Lower damage should mean that stealth push with stealth gyro is going to be less potent ; CC won't be pushing out damage so there's more response time against Winds of Disenchantment/Well of Corruption if there isn't coordinated damage. Lower damage should also be more suitable for new players so long as they don't stand in AoE.

 

(*) With the future introduction of 15v15 in PvP there really isn't an excuse for GvG to happen solely in WvW unless you're >15; there was already EOTM and also the armistice bastion arena for that purpose.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

> @"Destro.9871" said:

> We have went though 6 years of skill tree and trait balances under the current system. Some skill has been changed 8 times, or a trait line has been rearranged several times. A trait has been re-written more than once or had its positions in a skill tree changed 3 times. To get to a semblance of balance under the current system. How about utilities that have been changed at least 5 times already and nerfed into the ground to work as they are right now.

>

> A patch like this, maybe not this patch is long over due. However these changes do not take into consideration, that we will need at least another 2-3 years of balances patches **under the current release cycle system to fix this patch.**

>

> Its a misrepresentation that this is a balance patch. This is not a balance patch it will more than likely reduce the balance in the current game. The is the beginning on an entire re-do of the combat system and I am just not sure if what is left of the player base has the patience for the time its going to take to un-do the negative side effects.

>

>

 

The current release cadence they have, of 3 to 4 months, yes it will take that long. However I will just leave these here because clearly this is something lost on **quite a number of people**.

 

> @"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

> ### Future Balance Cadence

> This patch is unusual in that it’s more about establishing a new paradigm than it is a regular balance update, and the result is a giant set of changes. Moving forward with competitive balance, we want to make smaller adjustments more often. The specific cadence for balance will always depend on our overall release schedule, but ideally it will be closer to every 4-6 weeks, while still having the opportunity to make minor tweaks outside of the regular balance update. The goal here is to have better flexibility to fix problems in a timely manner.

>

_

> @"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

>

> **General balance concerns**

> We’ve read all the feedback and seen the concerns about future metas and the viability of certain professions and specializations after the update. After the patch goes out, we’ll be continuing to iterate as we gather more data and feedback based on actual gameplay. We’re prepared to act quickly in response to anything egregious that pops up, whether it’s an individual build greatly overperforming or a heavy skew of the meta in any particular fashion (unkillable tanks, dominant condition builds pushing out any power builds, etc). Once any major wrinkles are ironed out, we’ll settle back into the faster cadence that we mentioned previously as we work toward improving balance across the board.

>

> There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.

> -The Systems Team

 

I agree that the **current** release cadence is an issue, but they are intending to shorten that cadence. 4 to 6 weeks is **much** better than what we have now, but we'll see if they can keep to their word on it. 4 to 6 weeks was also roughly the release cadence they had for balance updates in GW1, so again if they can keep to that then that is much better.

 

> @"Dralor.3701" said:

> I don’t think anyone is arguing that it is a reset or huge shift in the game. If you think they are going to get it right and release updates fast enough if(when) they screw it up that is pretty optimistic.

>

> They had trouble balancing the game before even when they had the larger staff to do it.

>

> IMO doing it the way they are is the lazy fix instead of taking a systematic approach to the current problematic skills/traits. Either way the game is extremely far behind in balance as it has never been given adequate attention.

 

We have yet to see how it will play out. Remaining skeptical isn't bad, I mean I'm still skeptical too, but also leave room for seeing how things play out. As for their issues balancing things before when they had a larger staff, keep in mind many of them had been on **other projects** before the layoffs and during this time, as we can clearly tell now, they did **not** have a dedicated team meant for PvP balancing. Now they do.

 

Also the approach of systematic changes over time was **not** working and it is what got things to this point to begin with, so now the current team has to do a major shift to try and resolve the problems that these 3+ years of nonsense changes have caused. If they were to continue with the same approach they have been using, incremental patches to slowly address issues that appear under the **current** balance environment it would just be more of the same crap we have had for years, not different, not better, just more of the same which is arguably the worst approach.

 

The way they are doing it, due to the apparent inability to have a test server due to technical constraints, is the only way any meaningful change is going to happen. In fact their very intention, as outlined in their more recent Balance Update Update thread and part of the quote above from Cal, is to have this upcoming patch be a **baseline** they have set for themselves, a foundation if you will, so that they can alter things and make changes based around **that** rather than the garbage we have right now. Which is exactly what I've repeatedly told others on this forum the update is intended to be just based on what they are doing. It didn't take much deductive reasoning to figure that out and other people caught on and have repeated it as well.

 

I am all for being critical of ArenaNet, I have been critical of them for quite a long while now both on these forums, ingame and on Discord when speaking about it to others. My skepticism hasn't gone away, I'm just saying to wait and see what happens because we don't know the future and making assumptions does nothing.

 

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> what I can't understand is the "but new cadence/ paradigm" argument when something this big is happening. its almost as if ppl don't have the right to be scared out of their minds. somehow this new balance team is going to fix the game in no time at all, we will live happily ever after and roses will bloom in every street. yeah the entire history of anets horrid balancing is suddenly gone in one post. ok.

 

Scared out of their minds over what? Its a video game, walk it back a bit.

 

I think what most people who argue the point of "but new cadence/paradigm", just speaking for myself really, is that we can't see the future...and things can often times look very different on paper than they do in actual practice so we will wait and see what happens. Skepticism is one thing, complete disregard of the context is another. The two aren't related.

 

I certainly haven't forgotten ANets past history with these things but I'm also not so scared of change that I'm unwilling to wait and see how this update will play out. I mean what were people expecting out of this patch? Balance was suddenly going to be better? Problems were **all** going to be fixed in one go of it? Fuck no. Before I even saw the upcoming changes I had been telling everyone I talk to on Discord and ingame that the update was likely going to intentionally be a mess, that it was going to be chaotic and that it was going to break things because thats what needed to happen. Balance was **never** going to improve if they didn't do something about where the game was at **now** and the update provides a different starting point for it so as to have better opportunities going forward to change things.

 

Again this has been said **multiple** times on this forum and even in some way by Cal in the threads with the actual changes in them. Like I said before, I get skepticism...but be skeptical, don't behave like this is the end of the world. Wait and see what happens.

[Dralor.3701]

Not the end of the world but temper your expectations too, that’s all. Looking forward to the changes and hope it all works out for the best.

[Joao.3410]

There are people who are very sceptical of this proposed "paradigm shift" because it appears that it will do more harm than good.

 

I'm hearing a lot of complaints about power creep and TTK, but I don't think those are problems with the game mode at all. Anet has done a pretty decent job in buffing core specs so nearly all of them are as viable as their elite counterparts. Can this really be considered a problem if all specs are receiving enhancements across the board?

 

There is a lot of reminiscing about how things were good pre-HOT before all the "power creep", but was it really better back then? When we had the pre-HOT GWEN meta, I don't recall TTK being any longer - you stand in that well bomb you melt just as fast as you do now. In small scale fights, those power mesmers and d/p thieves will burst you down in less than 2 seconds, and you also have those really tanky d/d eles and PU condi mesmers that will grind you down - all of which aren't too different than what we have now.

 

My recollection is that the game was more fun back then because there were more people and the matchups were more even. Even though we (HOD) were stuck in the old T4 forever with NSP, CD, DH, and EBAY, we were very close population-wise so the result could be different each week and all the fights were pretty even. What do we have now? Last week, we faced against a fat FA with blobs on each map + Bully who queues a map by himself (no disrespect, he's an awesome guy) and we were outnumbered 24/7. Does that sound fun? Does that sound like it's a power creep/TTK issue?

 

Back then, it was not an issue about PPT vs PPK - most of the action and best fights were from defending keeps, picking off the slower enemies until you the enemy zerg becomes small enough for your guys to push them out. That's so much harder to do now that we have mounts.

 

I totally understand why there is a portion of the wvw community that is upset with this "paradigm shift" announcement because it's game breaking and sounds like it's another wild goose chase.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

> @"Joao.3410" said:

> There are people who are very sceptical of this proposed "paradigm shift" because it appears that it will do more harm than good.

>

> I'm hearing a lot of complaints about power creep and TTK, but I don't think those are problems with the game mode at all. Anet has done a pretty decent job in buffing core specs so nearly all of them are as viable as their elite counterparts. Can this really be considered a problem if all specs are receiving enhancements across the board?

>

> There is a lot of reminiscing about how things were good pre-HOT before all the "power creep", but was it really better back then? When we had the pre-HOT GWEN meta, I don't recall TTK being any longer - you stand in that well bomb you melt just as fast as you do now. In small scale fights, those power mesmers and d/p thieves will burst you down in less than 2 seconds, and you also have those really tanky d/d eles and PU condi mesmers that will grind you down - all of which aren't too different than what we have now.

>

> My recollection is that the game was more fun back then because there were more people and the matchups were more even. Even though we (HOD) were stuck in the old T4 forever with NSP, CD, DH, and EBAY, we were very close population-wise so the result could be different each week and all the fights were pretty even. What do we have now? Last week, we faced against a fat FA with blobs on each map + Bully who queues a map by himself (no disrespect, he's an awesome guy) and we were outnumbered 24/7. Does that sound fun? Does that sound like it's a power creep/TTK issue?

>

> Back then, it was not an issue about PPT vs PPK - most of the action and best fights were from defending keeps, picking off the slower enemies until you the enemy zerg becomes small enough for your guys to push them out. That's so much harder to do now that we have mounts.

>

> I totally understand why there is a portion of the wvw community that is upset with this "paradigm shift" announcement because it's game breaking and sounds like it's another wild goose chase.

 

Sure there are problems with the fundamental mechanics of WvW and lower population has caused a lot of this along with the server bandwagoning, as well as the warclaw more recently. Power creep was another issue, it isn't just some illusion made up by people its an actual thing and you pointed it out yourself by commenting on how ANet has buffed the core specs so that nearly all of them are as viable as their elite counterparts. Thats the power creep, or at least part of it. Much of the power creep has come from how accessible boons have become, mostly Might and Stability, but a few others as well that have very much contributed to an exacerbated power creep problem that has existed ever since HoT released. It wasn't as pronounced then but PoF really kicked it over the edge. No one is saying there weren't outlying problems earlier in GW2s time, of course there were, but that doesn't mean the game hasn't been power crept since then.

 

Power creep and garbage balance between the professions is something that can be more immediately handled due to being able to drop patches like the one that is coming, WvW and its mechanics on the other hand is a more complicated matter the sort of encompasses class balance, game mechanics and mode mechanics all into one. We've seen some passing attempts at it with the Alliance system but we haven't heard much about it in quite a while, we aren't even sure its even still being worked on but who knows and who knows if what we do know about the Alliance system is even the solution, they might have changed their minds completely on how to approach reworking WvW as a game mode.

 

Its a complicated beast to tackle when you have a few different kinds of players trying to enjoy the mode in different ways. There are people who enjoy the PPTing, which already sort of falls into two groups; those who don't mind just mindlessly running with a zerg and thats all they care about and those who like to enjoy the large scale fights and the tactics that come with it. Then there are those who enjoy the smaller scale aspect of the mode, despite its sort of...lack of impact, roaming, scouting, functioning as a havoc group. All parties want to have their style catered to and I believe its a mode that can potentially do that but it entirely depends on how they approach reworking it. Making large scale fights matter and making the smaller scale matter just as much.

 

Currently the mode doesn't really accomplish that, and its really only large scale that has any impact and the smaller scale has more minimal impact due to how overwhelming numbers can get due to population imbalances between servers and how long form WvW itself just **is**. Flipping a T3 tower for like an hour or two with a small group until the large zerg shows up and just flips it back, then it decides to dominate on that map until they make everything they own T3 while their server has the population to not only do that, but also hold territory on other maps sort of invalidates running smaller havoc groups at all. Its not really "havoc" if it has practically no impact.

 

And don't get me wrong...I enjoy roaming, its what I do whenever I'm in WvW which is practically the only thing I play when I'm actually online, the thing is that its sort of irrelevant and thats a shame. Whereas you have other games with large scale combat where a small squad can actually have an impact in some form. Like BDO, at least earlier days in BDO, where running a more "elite" havoc group to harass and poke the enemy base during node wars and sieges could sufficiently distract and divide their numbers so your larger zerg can gain an advantage, this havoc group could also deal damage to said enemy base and force the enemy into a more defensive position. There is also Planetside 2 where a smaller squad of players can actually backcap objectives or push and capture less heavily defended objectives in another area on the planet to force a split in the enemy numbers or affect how your factions offensive moves forward.

[Jski.6180]

I think its a false argument ppl like to bring up about power creep and how numbers would do any thing to fix that. As long as classes got added effects from HoT and PoF this update dose nothing to fix the true power creep added to the game from these expatiation. Letting classes fill a healing roll was power creep adding more fields to classes was power creep adding more boons (not duration) was power creep added barrier was power creep these are the things that need to be removed from skills.

[SloRules.3560]

> @"Jski.6180" said:

> I think its a false argument ppl like to bring up about power creep and how numbers would do any thing to fix that. As long as classes got added effects from HoT and PoF this update dose nothing to fix the true power creep added to the game from these expatiation. Letting classes fill a healing roll was power creep adding more fields to classes was power creep adding more boons (not duration) was power creep added barrier was power creep these are the things that need to be removed from skills.

 

Yeah, but no.

[SloRules.3560]

> @"blackgamma.1809" said:

> > @"SloRules.3560" said:

> > > @"blackgamma.1809" said:

> > > > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > > You've missed the part where this patch is just the beginning and they mention follow up balance patches around every 6 weeks following this. It's a very important first step and honestly a large change thatmisses the mark on many, but also hits the mark on many smaller changes is better than not changing anything about the big picture at all.

> > >

> > > 6 week is a lot to wait on, heck, 3 days is too much if it ends up being a face flop of a patch.

> > > It only takes 5 mins to find out if its a good or a bad patch. people wont wait for a hot fix because we are too jaded to know hot fixes dont do anything, nor 6 weeks for something to fix the issues. when you can easily just turn to a simpler game with more fun or rewards.

> > >

> > > Because remember, Gw2 is not the only game to play, Gw2 is not in a vacuum. and its not like im trying to advocate people to play other games, its just a simpler option to play something else rather than deal with potential bad patches, which historically, WvW has for the most part had trash patches that created more problems than solutions.

> > >

> > > Infact lets throw the Devs integrity under a burning bus, we are dealing with a team, that refused to force reset the matchup when a server had 5 links on its own side when it bugged out. when in the past they were able to reset matchups willingly 2 days in a matchup

> > >

> > > 6 week window is an god horrible cop out excuse to do less work, when they cant do the bare minimum to make wvw a function game mode

> >

> > Actually it takes a whole lot longer to see effect of such patch than 5 minutes...

> >

> > Usually it's 1 to 2 weeks testing different things (3 times a week) and than settling on something, but adapt to what you see than. So yeah, you could push next non-hotfix balance patch in 4 weeks, anything sooner and it's actually too soon to see full effect. 6 weeks is a streach, that i do agree on.

>

> that not entirely true, true in general, but not in regards to gw2 in wvw, you only have to read patch notes to know how bad the patch is, the patch doesn't have to be live for you to know its a bad patch. in fact it can take something as quick as seconds to know a patch can be bad, just by reading the notes.

>

> and generally, i like the idea of dont knock it until you tried it, things should be tested, that the problem, its not, and when it is, its done badly. the statement you have said could very well apply to many things in gw2, but that statement doesnt hold true in WvW in the past year of this game. because there has been times where a patch has been straight up bad before its been implemented

>

> example. when they remove reveal from scrapper, zerg fights became terrible and unplayable, fights became dictated based on became whoever came out from reveal first, lost the fight. people who played wvw that read the patch notes KNEW it was a bad patch for wvw from the get go, regardless of its fixes, devs were completely oblivious to how bad the changes were.

>

> these changes were not fixed for a whole for 2 and a half months. people had to play a toxic zerg meta that no one liked. the devs didnt rectify the situation for the entire duration of that patch

 

Actually even with reveal it's the same, the one that is revealed first dies, just that it doesn't depend on execution, but luck of scrapper player... Example of terrible patch is chrono and removal of IP.

 

As for upcoming patch, i can't evaluate it. I can't predict where meta will go in 2 months time. Because every time major balance hits (expansion for example), it's always pirateship first than something else shows up. As for pugs, i couldn't care less. A commander from vanilla could lead and most people wouldn't even know the difference.

[havenstance.1746]

Frankly, let's not do any of this, let's leave the classes as they are because that's not what's broken with WvW. We want a new map, and the old ones updated, we went Desert BL deleted from this god forsaken game and replaced with a map that isn't completely irritating to try and navigate. Then let's start by fixing the glitching characters thru the walls, penalizing those who just sit in a tower on siege, this game mode could be so great if you guys would take 5 minutes and fix the things that need to be fixed and quit with the nerfing and buffing all the time, you're completely ignoring the glitches this game has, and going for let's nerf. When is the last time any of you Anet Devs have played WvW, because it's not been very regular that any of you have. When you have 3 way zerg fights, your servers slow down to a crawl, let's fix that, and then we can go for making a condi heavy meta again. Because if you do this now, it will become a condi meta again, and here we'll be on servers that won't work with moves that won't go off on a Friday night again. The servers cannot keep up, your lucky if you get a 1 or a 2 to go off during the first few fights of the night. And then anytime the enemy zerg shows up everyone lags to the point the game is unplayable. You can't blame this on computers, because it happens to everyone, an entire guild at the same time, and over half of us have high end gaming pcs which your game doesn't even need because it's not graphics intensive at all for this new hardware. You guys need to spend some time perfecting code, because what you have now just isn't working. So let's ditch the nerfs and class changes, and let's fix the server issues before you no longer have a game left.