Jon Peters - Forum post about class balance

[DrakeWurrum]

Please listen to him.
Source

I just wanted to write a quick post to address our overall balance philosophy. I see threads inside every single profession sub forum talking about how that profession is either overpowered, underpowered, or both. In the past we made balance updates fairly frequently. While we will continue to be responsive to serious issues, we also want to make sure that we let the basic meta-game stabilize before making too many changes.

If you see something that is really strong please try and find counters to it before assuming it is overpowered. We have put a lot of hours into the game already and there are still many things we are learning about the depth of the combat and the balance. There are also finally enough players consistently playing that we can actually gather metrics on skills and make some more informed decisions about what is too weak/strong.

Please don’t hesitate to point out builds that look like they could use some balance work. We are constantly striving to make Guild Wars 2 the most balanced game it can be and appreciate all of your feedback. Try to keep your feedback focused and specific so we can know the context of your issues. PvE, WvW, and sPvP balance are all equally important and we will address them all with the same amount of weight and thought. Remember, as well that when we want to make a change it takes time for us to decide what to do, how to do it, and then to test it and make sure that it isn’t going to create any unwanted results. Our hope is that our turnaround can be quick, but implore you to be patient, as well thought out changes will be better for the health of the game than knee-jerk reactions.

Thanks again for your feedback, your time, and your passion.

Jon

[VibrantViolet]

So glad he touched the subject, but I know people will continue to bitch. >_<

[SirRobin]

So glad he touched the subject, but I know people will continue to bitch. >_<

Pretty much, but its nice to see them talking about it.

[Deleted]

There are also finally enough players consistently playing that we can actually gather metrics on skills and make some more informed decisions about what is too weak/strong>>

All Engineers are kindly requested to stop owning (Mif i am looking at u) , and die a lot more
We need the buffs !

[Deafknight]

So glad he touched the subject, but I know people will continue to bitch. >_<

Criticism != bitching although they very much sound alike if you consider mmo terms.

ZOMFG WARRIOR ARE MOTHERFUCKING OP, NERF THEM DAMAGE
=
my research has shown that warriors have disproportionately high damage output and have it too easy delivering said damage.

It is insane fanboys like you that should learn to deal with criticism of something that you did not even create.

There is no need to insult directly or indirectly. If you can't form an argument above playground name-calling don't bother posting. Consider this your only warning. -Fencers

[DrakeWurrum]

Criticism != bitching although they very much sound alike if you consider mmo terms.

ZOMFG WARRIOR ARE MOTHERFUCKING OP, NERF THEM DAMAGE
=
my research has shown that warriors have disproportionately high damage output and have it too easy delivering said damage.

It is insane fanboys like you that should learn to deal with criticism of something that you did not even create.

That all bold text is definitely not the kind of feedback/criticism that developers find helpful. That's the kind of post they throw in the "trash" pile, and ignore.

You would think after WoW being around for 7 years, players would have learned what is useful to a dev. But then I remember that people are... people. :|

[Zephyr Storm]

"Well thought out changes will be better for the health of the game than knee jerk reactions."

He might as well have said,"We don't plan on trying to fix class imbalances like WoW does, because in the end, it still usually fails."

Hahahahaha. That is the only thing I could think of when I read that sentence. And it's so freaking true. I'm looking at you, multitudes of knee jerk reactions in Cataclysm.

Let's not start with the game bashing please. -Edge

[VibrantViolet]

Criticism != bitching although they very much sound alike if you consider mmo terms.

ZOMFG WARRIOR ARE MOTHERFUCKING OP, NERF THEM DAMAGE
=
my research has shown that warriors have disproportionately high damage output and have it too easy delivering said damage.

It is insane fanboys like you that should learn to deal with criticism of something that you did not even create.

Wow, way to insult people based on one sentence. So I'm an "insane fanboy" because I said even though a dev touched the subject of class balancing, people will continue to complain? Read the GW2 forums, there are posts that are constructive, then there are also a lot of locked posts of people just complaining, and not offering any feedback or good examples.

[Deafknight]

MOTHERFUCKING insane fanboys

There is no need to insult directly or indirectly. If you can't form an argument above playground name-calling don't bother posting. Consider this your only warning. -Fencers

If you can't take the time to read the whole post instead of just the words you find offensive, don't bother dishing out warnings.

Wow, way to insult people based on one sentence. So I'm an "insane fanboy" because I said even though a dev touched the subject of class balancing, people will continue to complain? Read the GW2 forums, there are posts that are constructive, then there are also a lot of locked posts of people just complaining, and not offering any feedback or good examples.

A dev touching an issue does not mean he has a full grasp on it or that he can just ignore what player less articulate have to say.
Oh btw dont worry, i've based the fanboy on all your posts not only that one !

[Scyth]

So glad he touched the subject, but I know people will continue to bitch. >_<

Well this can't really be helped. People love to bitch about every single thing. Just ignore it is all we can do. But it is good to see them talking about this at least

[Lucky_]

Can't really be bothered to care about a PR drone talking about balance. If Izzy talks about it, I'll listen. PR drones, who cares? They'll tell you whatever it is they think will calm you down.

[wuzzle]

As for now they just need to adjust the obvious flaws anyway due to no competitiveness. There's no ranking, no Elo, no paid tournaments, no private server hosting and no spectator mode. And for that no competitive scene whatsoever. If you've got a decent team, you roflstomp through the free tournaments regardless of the imbalances.

They've got to come up with the said things. Otherwise it will all derail to casualness and not the least e-sport viable environnment. I know it's only the beginning, but they better hurry up to implement the needed tools or they'll miss the chance to make GW2 an esport.

[DrakeWurrum]

If you can't take the time to read the whole post instead of just the words you find offensive, don't bother dishing out warnings.

If you can't make posts without a handful of offensive and insulting words, then you shouldn't bother socializing with the rest of humanity. It's not THAT hard to say what you have to say while being polite.

---------- Post added 2012-09-15 at 10:44 AM ----------

They've got to come up with the said things. Otherwise it will all derail to casualness and not the least e-sport viable environnment. I know it's only the beginning, but they better hurry up to implement the needed tools or they'll miss the chance to make GW2 an esport.

Can somewhat agree with that, but this game still isn't even a month old.

[Sylvanie]

Can't really be bothered to care about a PR drone talking about balance. If Izzy talks about it, I'll listen. PR drones, who cares? They'll tell you whatever it is they think will calm you down.

Jon Peters is an ArenaNet game designer.

[DrakeWurrum]

Who the fuck is this Izzy guy you're constantly bringing up? I have never seen nor heard from him, anywhere, in any kind of interview or statement or anything in regards to GW2. According to the GW2 wiki, he's simply a "game designer" which is very non-specific - the guy that's constantly posting and communicating and being brought up in regards to profession balance is Jon Peters, who is ostensibly a "game systems designer" (more specific, though still very general). He's the one that, it is said, is basically "going crazy" over everything being posted in the profession sub-forums, taking in feedback and whatnot.

Last I checked, every time you've brought up Izzy, you complained about him, and think he's terrible at balance.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

I dunno, I can't see anything to complain about in a post from a developer talking about class balance in a game where the classes are already pretty well balanced right out of the gate.

It's just the usual bad, vocal players who think everything is either under or over powered based on how hard they get owned in PvP without actually doing research in to their class. I've run in to so many players who complain about this but don't even know what a combo field does, finisher is or only use one weapon with no switching...

[Alilei32]

I agree that people seem to be 50/50 on classes when it comes to who is OP or who sucks. But why havent they fixed stuff that 100% of people agree is bad. Like necro minions for example. No one in their right mind is going around saying they are good. They should have been fixed a week ago.

[Sylvanie]

But why havent they fixed stuff that 100% of people agree is bad.

Presumably because of the fairly hard limit of there only being 24 hours in a day (or 40 hours in a week that you can reasonably expect a person to be productive).

[terrahero]

It would help if they started fixing bugged abilities first.

[Lucky_]

It's just the usual bad, vocal players who think everything is either under or over powered based on how hard they get owned in PvP without actually doing research in to their class. I've run in to so many players who complain about this but don't even know what a combo field does, finisher is or only use one weapon with no switching...

Strange how many of those organised teams are currently M/M/M/G/G or similar composition, typically stacking mesmers for offense and guardians for defense/support. I do wonder why, with such a wonderful balance, surely there would be equivalent amount of El/El/El/En/En competitive teams stacking elementalists for offense and engineers for defense/support?


They must have missed the memo you got about class balance, and just "rolled without knowing what combo field does, finishers and using only one weapon". On a bright side, with a team consisting of former, you don't really have to know those things to utterly rape one consisting of latter regardless of their playing skill.