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Wyat_hawke

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How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

NOTE: Before we start this discussion, I would like to point out that it's going to be an almost purely theoretical one. By no means would it probably happen, but if something like the scenario described below happened, what would you suggest?

Imagine that A-Net some day in the distant future decided to separate PvE from PvP, so that they could balance every skill properly to suit the needs from the 2 different realms. What normally happens is that when a particular build gets overpowered in PvP, they nerf the build, and thus also nerfs many different PvE builds as well, to much grief. So A-net decides to separate the 2 universes, to prevent one of them to inflict any damage over the other one. A lot of people dream about this happening, and my immediate question to them would be:

How can we balance PvE?

And by balance, I don't mean adjusting numbers on the most overpowered skills like they do when they balance PvP, I mean a total, fundamental change. GW PvE can, unlike PvP, afford to bring some more build and profession diversity. The big challenge for PvE, would be to make each profession equally wanted. I'm talking about the typical 2x Warriors, 2 x Pyromancers, 1x MM, 1x SS and 2x Monks setup, or the "holy trinity" (consisting of warriors as tanks/damage, eles for damage, and monks for healing, the "typical" setup for most parties.)

If you could do whatever the heck you wanted, to promote diversity in PvE, what would you do? Nerf monk healing/prot skills and give huge buffs to self-healing? Give Mesmers huge AoE effects, and ritualists mobile spirits dealing +40 DPS? Is the answer to everything just buff, buff and buff, or do you think that if balance are to be achieved, some nerfs are in place as well? Is Ursan Blessing that good for the community? And not at least, we can all make each profession equally wanted by giving them 1 doomsday button each, that's fair enough... But is there any possible way to reward active gameplay (pre-protting, interrupting, proper positioning/tanking in high-end ares, etc), and at the same time promote the rarely used professions, the ones that are not part of the holy trinity mind-setup?

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

12/04/07 17:41

Skittle Cody

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RE: How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

It would be awfully hard for A-Net to balance PvE and PvP separately I think.

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12/04/07 17:43

Wyat_hawke

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RE: How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

QUOTE

It would be awfully hard for A-Net to balance PvE and PvP separately I think.

Yeah, which is why it most likely won't ever happen as well. So, it's all theoretical...

12/04/07 17:44

kielus_

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RE: How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

theroetically it'd be utopia when everything would be balance, players would be just screaming in delightment when trying non-trinity builds and so on...

theoretically... but let's face the facts

mastering the balance doesn't mean buffing, it usually means nerfing. Why nerfing you say - the mobs don't get lower hp/dmg 'n stuff! that's unfair! buff us, nerf mobs!
thing is, we as humanity (gonna theoritise here ^^), we still develop, discovering things that either were given by the game creators, or using our own imagination and combining our knowledge, so we can use the skills better, faster and with overall success; combining them and addint the human factor makes the areas easier. Look at The Deep - it was kinda hard at very first, now with the correct skill setup you can go <35 in HM. Soloing? Well that's more of a meh, it's for income so we'll skip it in our great theory of balance.

Balance means forcing us to think of other ways. MM died! some cried some time ago, the game is broken! i can't see less mm's recently, and you? Nerfing any skill, makes either changing its way of usage, leaving it alone and looking for other solutions or just thinking of something new and imaginative. C'mon it's easy to see...

PvP skill balance way affects PvE, but yet you've come out of the trouble as victorious, 600/smite was born, VwK was born, mm's have been changed, we use the skills in new ways, make em better and more efficient.

Nerf to PvE, hmm nah not really, only significant PvE based nerf i remember (memory looks like golden cheddar with mucho grande holes) is the great nerf train of the PvE skills from Nf/Factions (SoL, SY! etc), some are still used, they didn't affect gameplay much overall.
They balance the game downwards, but they have to stay within the limits, overnerf is always bad, but changing one attribute here and there, why not? doesn't hurt... We balance it upwards, doesn't matter A-net shouldn't give us buffs, hell yeah they are loads of fun 'n stuff! but... errm... ursan? that's more of a joke... really

btw. blah blah blah, i have to put my 2$ in everything! w00tzords :P

ursan >>>>>>> balance ^^

Kielus [MU] and all is clear

QUOTE

nvm -_-

12/04/07 18:29

babinro

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RE: How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

Something like this would be very very difficult as the more balanced you make classes, the less diverse any given class is. If the balanced party could function fine without a Monk, it would likely prove to make Monks relatively worthless.

Personally, I'd look at it like this:

Warrior: They are quite balanced as is due to high armor and defensive stances as well as decent healing options. They only need a little more defensive skills for each weapon tree to give them a varied defensive build option. The warrior should have very limited conditions associated with their skills though and be focused more on consistent damage dealing. I'd keep their conditions limited to bleeding and deep wounding only.

Monk: They can more or less stay as they are.

Necromancers: These also wouldn't need much change. The Minion Master has great defensive capabilities. They also have life transferring skills that might be worth boosting for other builds.

Elementalist: Little to no changes would be needed here either, a very balanced set of builds for this one.

Ranger: Rangers are pretty solid as well. They are great all around characters that seem to lack a little bit of offense for widespread use. Having said that, I think Rangers would benefit from having a lot more conditions placed on their bow skills. Namely the ability to cripple foes, weaken armor points and even disarm them (basically disable melee attacks for a brief moment if no more than 2 seconds).

Mesmer: Mesmers should basically be a Ranger as described above but with AoE curses and shut down. I think they should also be given the option to alter the environment via illusionary skills. Much like how a rangers Natural Rituals. It would be nice if Mesmers could also cast different illusionary weapons/armor on themselves so they could fight for a brief period of time. Making them a little bit like the Dervish's Elite Forms but on a much more limited basis.

Assassins: These are built very well and would need very little changes in my mind. The focus here should be that they kill far quicker than any other class but are brittle. An assassin should have solid defensive options vs both melee and magic. They seem to lack that anti-magic so that would need a bit of a boost in my eyes.

Ritualists: Their spirits should be able to move. I've always thought it dumb that they can't. This change alone would make them far more desirable for all around play. They should have plenty of area effect lightning attacks where the Ele's would have little to none (giving reason to play a Rit for that). They should also have some healing edge over a Monk. For example, a monk could specialize on total party healing and protection, while a Rit would have better individual healing.

Dervish: These are already extremely powerful and in my eyes require no real adjustment at least in terms of scythe based skills. The other trees could use some work but I really don't have any suggestions there.

Paragon: These should focus on party buffs (not protection). Basically boosting party attributes/damage/speed/etc. This combined with excellent ranged damage equivalent (before buffs) to that of a ranger. That way those playing the rangers would do so for condition/pet/trap based range weaponry where paragons would do so as a party boosting non-conditional high damage.

12/04/07 18:46

Jamnog

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RE: How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

OK well take the agro spring off monsters and have monsters respawn constantly like in those time challenge things. improve the ai and lvl of monsters give them more ksills... this is what anet do have done and will continue to do.

as for buffs... yeah they buff skills all the time, mind bender, ursan mes ele necro have all had signifficant buffs in the last 6 months. sig of lost couls and all the sr skills are all buffs to counter the nerf in sr range. gets necro in closeer to the action. new skills = buffs old skills no one uses get buffed a little bit and people still treat them like they are lame. anet want players to act like a team. so solo builds often get a little nudge from the odd nerf to try and get us to act like players rather than chuck noris.

12/04/07 20:08

Charlotte The Harlot

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RE: How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

If you want pve diversity, no changes are truly needed to the classes (except maybe mesmer), just make monsters only half-way retarded. Allow them to move around the warriors to attack softer targets, generally make tanking no longer work, and there's your diversity. With enemies running around backline, the classic 2 warrior frontline to guard everything with a bunch of ele's behind them throwing down SH and/or Meteor Shower would fall apart and get destroyed.

12/04/07 21:42

Hammerite Rozsda

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RE: How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

It is so NOT hard to balance PvE from PvP!
Just create skill doubles!
Every skill (or most ones) should have a different capability in PvE and PvP.

Meaning: Executioner Axe - in PvP it adds +25 dmg, in PvE it adds +40. The function changes whenever you enter PvE or PvP area while this skill is equipped.

And so on and so forth with the rest of the skills.

I highly doubt this would be hard to implement for such bright coders like they have. This way we wouldn't all have to suffer from PvP nerfes.

12/04/07 23:49

Survivingsin

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RE: How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

QUOTE

Exactly, Make them balanced for both areas. For instance:

Shadow prison in PvE Could be for 5-11 seconds target foe moves 99% slower.

Or

Meteor Shower make it last even longer, buff the damage.

But then off course, you would have to buff the mobs as well if you make PvE that easy.

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12/05/07 14:12

Deathaxe

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RE: How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

Dervish could be balanced, sure. Give them a scythe attack which deals low damage, and applies conditions(non-elite like reapers sweep and wounding strike) The lower the damage, the less PvP will be affected as well, so it won't be nerfed fast. My ideas for conditions would be bleeding and deep wound.

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12/05/07 14:38

HackingHippie89

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RE: How Could GW PvE Be Balanced?

honestly id like an AI Buff for monsters and for pve the doomsday ideas sound cool :-p, not exactly field clearers but say warrs get something along the lines of giant stomp and for rits..maybe something that destroys all allied sprits and deals X to all foes in the area and on down the line

12/05/07 14:39

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