Balance Discussion Forum v3

[vianiznice]

I had some excellent ideas for the Zealot Witchcraft tree a few months back. Of course it was flushed from my memory because I wasn't playing at that time... Oh well!

[peterthepan3]

Simply put, feedback was split right down the middle with many feeling that we didn't go far enough with Guard changes.

Feedback that stemmed from a more knowledgeable environment was anything but 'split right down the middle': results on the balance discussion pertaining to Guard - where people were 'forced' to argue their case thoroughly - were overwhelmingly against the proposed 25% Guard changes.

Poll feedback may have been different (can't say as I don't think results have been made public), but a poll should never trump actual written feedback, especially when there is no prerequisite involved; one can simply click a box, without having to explain their position, just to spite the status quo if they wanted (in fact I'd wager a great many did this). Polls are good for getting a feel of how some people may feel about a certain issue, but should not be held in the same regard when discussing balance, due to lack of arguments/verifiable evidence involved in the process of clicking a box.

This is due to the more hardcore focus we've had in balance for a significant period of time, where those at high levels of performance often fail to see what the path looks like to get there, or what the expectations of a class are to a wider base of players they may not regularly interact or agree with. While we have a large amount of respect for players at the top end of the meta, there is room to balance from the middle upwards, instead of solely balancing from the top down.

This is anything but reassuring. Does this now mean that balance discussions (and potential changes as a result of said discussions) will now be conducted around unorganised/nonoptimised environments? That a player who is not using all of the tools at his disposal/wrong tactics or rotation, playing on his own, can now have balance discussions specifically tailored towards his playstyle?

The moment we stop balancing around competent & organised play - be that group, warband, or solo (to an extent) - and start focusing around 'less organised play', is when we open the gates for hardcore players to exploit such changes. It also dumbs down PvP as it leads people to believe that they do not need to worry about getting organised, or playing with others, as balance will be done to cater to them regardless.

Stale meta is an enemy to PvP, no one really wants to see the same group composition dominate others for months or years at a time.

What can be considered stale is subjective, and is also no reason to change things around 'just because'; what's most important is that it works. Will also add that the group v group meta right now is anything but stale as I have seen a great variety of comps made to work compared to previous years/Live.

Without a dedicated balance team that can represent all parts of the community, I fear that premade concerns will just be rubbished/ignored, and that the spotlight will be put on the 'Average Joe''s experience to the detriment of group and warband players. Exaggeration? Hopefully.

Regardless, I wish you the best of luck.

[perche]

So a lot of people voted to eliminate 3 hit combo when using the shield in bo ?

[mubbl]

Thank you, for making balance decission more transparent again, and give us at least a feeling to get involve.
balance not from top to bot....lets see what you have in mind here, that will be interesting and mostlikey very painfull.

Spoiler:

btw like thepan no. 3 said, you should use pools pre action AND or afterwards, i mean you will get the opinion blown in your face anyways after patch release.

[Acidic]

I think one of the problems has and always will be who is that balance team, a lot of conflict has always arisen from who decided and what is on the table as people become more personally involved they also get more sensitive to criticism.
Hopefully we don’t break more people involved with balance and new ideas.

[tazdingo]

Without a dedicated balance team that can represent all parts of the community, I fear that premade concerns will just be rubbished/ignored, and that the spotlight will be put on the 'Average Joe''s experience to the detriment of group and warband players. Exaggeration? Hopefully.

i don't see why it can't be both. when it comes to meta or even somewhat frequently used tactics/abilities, balance them around competitive play. in regards to things that are never taken or used by anyone ever (of which there are far less than live, but still a few, especially tactics) redesign them with pub play in mind, creating more off meta builds and variety

meta play is never going to make use of every single ability and tactic available to a class, balance is never going to be that tight no class is ever gonna have like 7 viable specs

[Tesq]

oh yes what about that sea of stuff in pending review?

[DanielWinner]

oh yes what about that sea of stuff in pending review?

Spoiler:

[wargrimnir]

oh yes what about that sea of stuff in pending review?

Spoiler:

Quality community manager post

[bulgy70]

The Balance Discussion Forum is changing again.

Over the past several months there has been very little activity on the BDF as much of the focus was directed internally. We have always needed a public area to direct people and their proposals to. This version of the BDF takes much of the decision making duties off the hands of any moderator, allows developers to choose proposals to keep any direction flowing more harmoniously with internal leadership, and leaves it up to the community to come to their own conclusions about what to do with these proposals. There will still be rules, but it should be up to YOU as the poster to follow them, or your feedback may be silently disregarded.

Does this mean more frequent changes to classes?
No, probably not. Frequent changes are troublesome to gauge implementation and can be painful for groups slow to shift to new metas.

Does it mean Devs no longer make changes internally?
No, not at all, we will always reserve the ability to make changes to classes, whether it’s small adjustments, or larger reworks (which will be exceedingly rare).

We are planning running some of the more extensive changes through the BDF properly, if only to give you some fair warning that change is coming and why we're interested in doing so. With the experimental change to Guard and the ability to run in-game polls, we've realized that while we get a lot of noise on the forums about certain topics, reaching a broad base of players with in-game polls often leads to much less solidarity among general sentiment. Simply put, feedback was split right down the middle with many feeling that we didn't go far enough with Guard changes. This is due to the more hardcore focus we've had in balance for a significant period of time, where those at high levels of performance often fail to see what the path looks like to get there, or what the expectations of a class are to a wider base of players they may not regularly interact or agree with. While we have a large amount of respect for players at the top end of the meta, there is room to balance from the middle upwards, instead of solely balancing from the top down.

That might sound a bit ominous to our prior position on balance, but we're not looking to tear down a mountain of work that was largely done in good faith with good results. It does mean that we're more open to changes that can improve the experience of more average players on the server, provided they don't lead to imbalances at higher levels of performance. We hold in high regard players that can play a class to the highest level, and have expectations that no matter the shift in meta, they will find ways to succeed regardless. Stale meta is an enemy to PvP, no one really wants to see the same group composition dominate others for months or years at a time.

Personal note -
I will not be leading this endeavor on my own, but I will take an active role as needed to organize and coordinate among the devs who do the actual work and the other leads on the server to have a consistent vision between us. That's a role I've been filling in the background for quite a while.

To little to late. You have knewn for months that where has been a major imbalance. and you done nothing about it. all you have done is make it easier for order to keep rolling desto. You have taken the time to bring in new op weapons, when what was needed was for a good balance. you have taken the time to bring in a new rvr system, which is so bad, that there are now more people afk'ing, more zerging then there has been before.