Feedback:User/4thVariety/Variable Skill Strength (Death to PvX Wikis)

Currently, players react strongly to every small change in PvE skill balance. Usually arguments for and against any change clash in an inflammatory matter. Reason for this behaviour seem to be the players' feelings of entitlement to a certain status quo from which some benefit, while others don't.

I suggest removing this feeling of status quo from the game. This can be achieved by skills not having an absolute strength, but by giving skills a variable, yet predictable, component. The same skill will have different values attached to it, depending on the day of the month. For most skills, such as Flare, this change will cause nothing more than shrugs. Some people might be enticed to change from axe to sword, or from fire to water for a few days. But the biggest gain of this proposal is gamebreakers being put on a power-cycle so they do not ruin all the game all the time.

My example is Shadow Form. Right now, there is no way to remove it without people going ballistic. But imagine the skill being on a 23 day cycle during which it varies in strength. For 10 days the skill can be maintained 24/7, the rest of the days the skill grows too weak to create the dreaded PermaSin. This way the skill is not totally destroyed, yet people would be forced to come up with something new every few days. One of the original gameplay elements of GW, adaptation to circumstance and creative build creation, would again flourish. The PvX-Wiki's destructive powers of mainstreaming every elite area down to one build would be gone in one update forever.

People would be able to enjoy the 55, the Permasin, the Ursan team it its full terrifying power, without the dangers of either build ruining the longterm gameplay on the whole map. More importantly, the users would be conditioned to perceive skillbalance as an ever-changing beast requiring constant adaptation on the player's part. This is in stark contrast to how people perceive the balance now, as a wishful static perfection that only requires them to copy builds off websites. With people used to experiencing slight variations in every day play, they will react less aggressive to further skill changes introduced by balance updates. On top of that, if a new skill balance proves to have created a skill of unforeseen power, it will fix itself in time and create less of a ruckus when it never reaches exploitative heights again, due to another update. Right now there would only be the choice of totally removing it asap or tell the users to suck it up.

The cycle of power should range from +15% to -15% of base values. In that regard, the “magic tide” would not influence skill power more than existing items, although stacking with them. With gamebreakers adjusted to work only during the +15% time window, their appearance and disappearance from the game would be guaranteed. Players would be happy while not taking the power they receive for granted the way they do now. The length of the cycle should not be a period of days dividable by seven. It would not be good if some skills only worked best on Saturdays or Tuesdays all the time. Some players, not having time to play on those days, might feel alienated by that.

Each attribute gets put on a cycle determining its rise and fall of power. Each attribute is on one of seven cycles, which length is 5, 11, 13, 17, 23, or 27 days. Due to choosing prime numbers for cycle lengths, it would take 20.000 years until all of them are at +15% at the same time. Still, there would be the issue of attributes on the same cycle being either always a good together, or always suck at the same time. To break that new vicious cycle, attributes should shift from one cycle to the other as standard operating procedure. This would guarantee that the combination of attributes being the “strong” one is never quite the same. For convenience's sake a new UI element would list all attributes, their current modifier, whether it will rise of fall next and the time until that happens.

This was suggested for GW2 under the assumption that integrating such a system in GW1 is not a viable option due to the limited resources of the Live-Team.