65 replies to this topic

[rukh]

GW1 - creating
GW2 - refining




GW2 involves much more room for min-maxing which is probably why it feels more "mathy".  But a wide range of mathematical outcomes is much easier to balance than a wide range of playstyles (gw1's skill system).

Edited by rukh, 16 January 2013 - 11:19 PM.

[Age]

It is a little confusing PWI was a little easier to figure out.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Is this the reason why everyone starts ranting about WoW and LoL whenever I ask them to show their gear so I can confirm they're actually running the role they claim to be running?  Because they are afraid of math?

[Omega X]

I've yet to see a MMO more mathy than Cryptic MMOs. City of Heroes instantly springs to mind.

[Menehune]

Who needs math? Us simple country folk get along just fine without any of that there fancy stuff.

1? Chaaaaarge!
1, 2, 3 .... RUUUUNNNN!!!!
veteran? hmmm, ok give it a shot.
champion? fugetaboudit!
PvP? No way, Jose!

I'm not a min/maxer and I've never used spreadsheets for games. Sure, I equip the best gear that I can conveniently acquire, but I don't go nuts over it. In games with gear treadmills, I ignored dungeons and raids and just played the bits that I enjoyed. If any part of the main quest line or a story arc required specific gear and that gear was difficult or took a long time to get, I quit the game. Anyone wants call me noob because of my gear or attitude towards gear? They can go right ahead. No skin off my nose. Among my 9 characters, I only have 3 pieces of exotic gear and 4 of them have dinged 80. My main, who is level 80, has 1 exotic and the rest is a mix of blue, green and yellow - yes, level 72 blue boots, iirc. Thank all the gods of Tyria and warm fuzzy kittens that none of the PvE content is gated behind minimum gear requirements. Eventually, my characters will have gear that combine t3 racial skins with crafted exotic stats, but that is stil months down the road.

A few days ago, my thief, level 58 at the time, got a green head piece drop. When checking the dropped head piece against what my thief was wearing, I was surprised to see that she was wearing a level 7 mask. Granted that she undoubtedly could have survived some fatal encounters with more level appropriate gear, but those few occasions aren't enough to justify me grinding for higher stat gear.

[MrForz]

I came from Anarchy Online where I stood for 6 years or so while going through Champions Online, alot of min-maxing potential in there. I felt it was mathy when extending my number of builds on my Engineer, but that's as far as it went, not going to complain though I'm fine with that.

[Gilles VI]

Yui San, on 16 January 2013 - 04:21 AM, said:

This makes me wanna cry. This is exactly the "ping your build", *don't see all the "must have skill"*, "omg noob" reaction attitude that hurt the game so much. (I appologize for the free style syntax ^^).

I'm glad that GW2 is a bit more complicated and gives us more possibilities (even though it has not nearly as many skills as GW1). I don't think it is as "Mathy" as it seems in the first place, it just takes some time to come up with something nice because there are many interesting builds and stat/equipment combos. And thank god, it's not possible to ping builds in this game.

Dont forget gw1 at launch actually had fewer skills than gw2 at launch.

GuanglaiKangyi, on 17 January 2013 - 04:28 AM, said:

Is this the reason why everyone starts ranting about WoW and LoL whenever I ask them to show their gear so I can confirm they're actually running the role they claim to be running?  Because they are afraid of math?

Reason they do that is because everything is so easy in GW2 there is no need to do gear checks.
And alot of people (myself included) see a lack of skill/experience in people who want to do exactly that.

[Elr3d]

GW2 highly dynamic combat system makes it a lot less "mathy" than other games I think, especially in PvP. It allows more margin of error during play, as anything can be avoided, and in PvP human mistake is a very important factor in all the fight you can have.

I mean you don't build your character while thinking "I need this much power, toughness and vitality to do this", but you build it by thinking "I want this type of gameplay and I have that choice of stats or this one or maybe an hybrid of both". Sure there is room for optimization but what matters is the concept behind your build and the way you play it, not the maths you did while gearing.

Although, I'll agree the tooltip are very bad in GW2, especially compared to GW1. I hope it's one of Anet's priority to fix them. I'd like for instance to have all the added benefits of my traits listed in the tooltip while mouse-hovering a given skill, things like seeing how my cloaking skills give me 2 might on my S/D stealth Thief, and for exactly how long a time given my current boon duration, etc. Tooltips are extremely unclear right now.

[Heart Collector]

I never bother with the math in any RPG except on a very basic level. I just take the stuff that seems most useful to me at any given time. I just don't find all this spreadsheet stuff worth the hassle, as long as I'm having fun.

Edited by Heart Collector, 18 January 2013 - 04:46 AM.

[Soki]

GW and GW2 are not mathy at all - and WoW's math was incredibly easy to work out, if you passed middle-school math.

[Zosimus]

Go play Ultima Online and come back and see how Mathy Gw2 really is. It's a piece of cake compared to UO. lol

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Gilles VI, on 17 January 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

Reason they do that is because everything is so easy in GW2 there is no need to do gear checks.
And alot of people (myself included) see a lack of skill/experience in people who want to do exactly that.

Easy =/= fast.  With a fast group with high DPS you can easily do COF1 in 8 minutes.  With a slow group with low DPS, it's usually twice that.  That means that if I am trying to squeeze as many runs as possible into one use of an Omnomberry Bar, I can get 4 runs with a fast group and 2 with a slow one.  Are you going to be the one to compensate everyone else for that 1.5g each they lost?  If you are then I'll take you along.  If not, stop complaining.

If your only measure of success is "I can finish this eventually given infinite time and resources" then of course everything is going to seem easy.

Moreover, if the content is so easy, then why aren't you geared for DPS in the first place?  "This boss is easy so I'm geared for maximum defense so he doesn't kill me" isn't really a coherent excuse.

[Flavvor]

If you ever played FFXI then yes that game is Mathy. This game is not very math based. You could have any type of Rare or Exotic gear and still be fine. In FFXI you had to have certain gear that had certain stats to get parties in that game. In GW2 it will just take a little more time to kill an enemy if your gear is mixed and matched. I really like that about GW2. That's just my opinion.

[Nirc]

I don't think mathy is the right description, but analytical, maybe. GW was the same way. There weren't a whole lot of calculations, but you had to take a lot of intangibles into account (if you need more conditions/heals/straight damage, what kind of role you should play, how you can counter other possible roles, how your build fits in with the team, etc.), and build concepts usually fell on heuristics. I feel like it's the same way with traits.

[Trei]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 18 January 2013 - 07:14 AM, said:

Easy =/= fast.  With a fast group with high DPS you can easily do COF1 in 8 minutes.  With a slow group with low DPS, it's usually twice that.  That means that if I am trying to squeeze as many runs as possible into one use of an Omnomberry Bar, I can get 4 runs with a fast group and 2 with a slow one.  Are you going to be the one to compensate everyone else for that 1.5g each they lost?  If you are then I'll take you along.  If not, stop complaining.

If your only measure of success is "I can finish this eventually given infinite time and resources" then of course everything is going to seem easy.

Moreover, if the content is so easy, then why aren't you geared for DPS in the first place?  "This boss is easy so I'm geared for maximum defense so he doesn't kill me" isn't really a coherent excuse.

The only thing I can agree with you is "...stop complaining."

If one wants a speed run, look for speed groups or form one.
Same goes for those looking for casual runs.

Different people play for different game experiences.

I only ask for understanding and courtesy from both parties when deciding to let go players due to them not able to meet a group's expectations.

Edited by Trei, 18 January 2013 - 08:02 AM.

[kendro1200]

I played GW1 for funzies, played WoW for 7 years doing heavy theorycrafts from the start all the way till the end.  GW2 is not "mathy".  Yes, you can do math to try and mix/max a build, but you don't have to.  Most cases there is minimal gain to min/maxing might weaving/stacking type builds.  How everything interacts is fairly straight forward, and hell, most bonuses to the duration or damage of things is additive rather than multiplicative, which makes guesstimations super easy.

That being said, if people want to argue all day and night about what makes something, "mathy", then go for it.  For decades RPGs of any sort have included at least basic algebra due to their table top origins.  If algebra is too scary for you, or too hard to stomach, just leave it alone.  For some people though, the math and theorycrafting is a huge part of the game.  So like all things in GW2, if there's something you don't like, you don't have to do it, leave it alone and go do something that you do like.  There are no damage meters, and apart from frequent deaths (which can also be attributed to really bad rng, I'm looking at you Prisoner Alpha and your hard on to kill me every time we meet) there is no real way for people to gauge your performance without your assistance by divulging information.

[Gilles VI]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 18 January 2013 - 07:14 AM, said:

Easy =/= fast.  With a fast group with high DPS you can easily do COF1 in 8 minutes.  With a slow group with low DPS, it's usually twice that.  That means that if I am trying to squeeze as many runs as possible into one use of an Omnomberry Bar, I can get 4 runs with a fast group and 2 with a slow one.  Are you going to be the one to compensate everyone else for that 1.5g each they lost?  If you are then I'll take you along.  If not, stop complaining.

If your only measure of success is "I can finish this eventually given infinite time and resources" then of course everything is going to seem easy.

Moreover, if the content is so easy, then why aren't you geared for DPS in the first place?  "This boss is easy so I'm geared for maximum defense so he doesn't kill me" isn't really a coherent excuse.

And again your math is faulty, just as with your weapon damage calculations.
If you clear p1 over and over, there is DR, so saying 2 runs is half of 4 runs simply isn't true.

And there is a difference between playing with total noobs, or just accepting people whatever their profession/gear but they know what to do, again something you seem to mix up.

And why am I not geared for DPS? Every profession I have at 80 has its specific gear.
If I do speedclears I'll come on my full zerker warrior, high-level fractals on my full soldier guardian, low level fractals on my hybrid ele, hard dungeons on my thief,...

[RaoulDukeHST]

this is the most casual MMO from a theorycrafting point of view i have ever played,i don't know what gives you the impression the game is "mathy".

[The Comfy Chair]

RaoulDukeHST, on 19 January 2013 - 09:47 PM, said:

this is the most casual MMO from a theorycrafting point of view i have ever played,i don't know what gives you the impression the game is "mathy".

Although 'casual' is a bit of a strange word considering this is hardly farmville level of simplicity, i agree to a degree, there's not a massive number of variables to consider although there is definitely a LOT more than guild wars 1. This is mainly because exotic always has the same numbers for stats and damage/armor, so that removes that element, where actual armor/weapon ratings would tie into the considerations.

You know for example, that exotics will have (off the top of my head +/- a couple) +179, +128, +128 of 3 stats and a fixed damage/armor rating, so you don't necessarily need to consider 'x weapon has slightly more damage as a base stat, and these 3 relatively randomized numbers need to be compared ect.' Most of your 'min maxing' will come from better timing of skills ect.

On the other end of the scale is borderlands 2, which turns into an arrow checking game all the time (although the end result is still 'shoot man with gun' so it all feels painstaking wasteful).

Edited by The Comfy Chair, 19 January 2013 - 09:55 PM.

[RaoulDukeHST]

The Comfy Chair, on 19 January 2013 - 09:51 PM, said:

Although 'casual' is a bit of a strange word considering this is hardly farmville level of simplicity, i agree to a degree, there's not a massive number of variables to consider although there is definitely a LOT more than guild wars 1. This is mainly because exotic always has the same numbers for stats and damage/armor, so that removes that element, where actual armor/weapon ratings would tie into the considerations.

You know for example, that exotics will have (off the top of my head +/- a couple) +179, +128, +128 of 3 stats and a fixed damage/armor rating, so you don't necessarily need to consider 'x weapon has slightly more damage as a base stat, and these 3 relatively randomized numbers need to be compared ect.' Most of your 'min maxing' will come from better timing of skills ect.

On the other end of the scale is borderlands 2, which turns into an arrow checking game all the time (although the end result is still 'shoot man with gun' so it all feels painstaking wasteful).

I probably played to much PoE lately,so that's why i used the word casual,a skill tree with 1350 skills changes a man
GW 2 mechanics can be understood 100% in a day,that's not necessarily a bad thing,i think the game is deep enough in terms of mechanics,the only really bad part imo is the one you mentioned,the crappy same stat gear values.It would have been really nice if they added different effects on top of stats(something like runes,but not that dull).

[The Comfy Chair]

RaoulDukeHST, on 19 January 2013 - 10:25 PM, said:

I probably played to much PoE lately,so that's why i used the word casual,a skill tree with 1350 skills changes a man
GW 2 mechanics can be understood 100% in a day,that's not necessarily a bad thing,i think the game is deep enough in terms of mechanics,the only really bad part imo is the one you mentioned,the crappy same stat gear values.It would have been really nice if they added different effects on top of stats(something like runes,but not that dull).

It's like being inside the total perspective vortex!

I can see why the stat values are as they are for PvP reasons (which by proxy includes WvW), but even though the stats are the same (one major, 2 minors) i'd like more combinations personally. I don't see why we can't have a set with healing as a minor trait for example, instead of only a major. Although there's nothing saying you can't simply mix and match armor pieces admittedly.

Considering how it's set up, i would err more towards the side of keeping fixed stats for balance reasons, and the runes/sigils do genuinely change gameplay styles quite a bit already so i'm not sure what they could do to make the mixing of stats more fun, but then again, i never found it all that fun in other games (the armor/weapon comparison, not actual build creation)!

Edited by The Comfy Chair, 19 January 2013 - 10:35 PM.

[VanderBeltLegacy]

TBH, GW1 and GW2 are on par with using math's..per say, gw1 "X-skill does XXX amount of damage, with XX amount of attribute" or "XXX enchantment last so many more second with XX attributes", while GW2 is "XXXX trait allows XXXX amount of damage with Crit/Cond/Power" and "XXXX boon last XXX more in certain attribute"...and not to mention gw1="XXXX skill allows you to have XXXX armor + add XXX mod to that shield you can have XXX more armor"(vice verse with enchantments) and we get the same with sigils and runes for GW2 as we did with runes+mods in gw1, i'd say the math requirement is on par, but since every1 is relatively new to the game, it's not a commonly known thing like it became in gw1 after people got to know the game, i constantly explain what little i know to people..per say the condition stack with Sigils of Corruption, and the whole 25 stack, while i personally dont like this sigil itself and run a different style of using "crest/medallions" or what ever the hell they are called and go with something that suites me, and have to say, alot of people say i play pretty damn good, also "XXXX traits" are only useful to know dependant on your play style, while some people play offensively, some play defensively.

now i could sit here and compare mod to sigil, rune to rune, but crunching numbers to do the most damage is in any MMORPG just so many follow gear/builds like lemmings in games like GW1 to be "the most affective"..

seriously did you think some guy just sat there and thought "hmm, in GW1 if i used the Glyph and this assassin skill with 20% enchantment mod, i could keep it up perma"?, no some guy sat there and crunched the number's on keeping shadow form up permanently and though't "hmm, how do i keep this up longer to farm more areas then just a chamber of UW being half mesmer and arcane echoing Shadow form while using deadly paradox to recharge it quicker and a 20% enchantment mod", they went through a list of wiki skill's, crunched some numbers got there answer, then crunched some more numbers to make silver armor output more damage aswell...then you had "consumables" to crunch numbers with in gw1, we get that in gw2(thank god).

Edited by VanderBeltLegacy, 20 January 2013 - 09:33 AM.

[Calebrus]

Gilles VI, on 17 January 2013 - 02:59 PM, said:

Reason they do that is because everything is so easy in GW2 there is no need to do gear checks.
And alot of people (myself included) see a lack of skill/experience in people who want to do exactly that.

Completely agree.
And if the player actually has any skill/experience, then they are EXACTLY the kind of player that I don't want to play with.   I have never shown gear in any game and I never will. If anyone asks me, they get kicked from my party and/or I leave theirs immediately.

[Captain Bulldozer]

draxynnic, on 16 January 2013 - 12:10 AM, said:

I think the distinction is that the RNG statistics are more difficult to do the maths on, and less intuitive to see how you should go about improving yourself.

In GW1, it's usually fairly clear what you should do in order to improve your character in a particular area, at least within the confines of having a particular skill set. If you need more damage, pump up the attribute that determines your offensive capability. Need more defense, pump up the attribute that improves your defensive abilities. Having energy management problems? I think you can see where this is going.

For GW2, though, you have multiple ways of going for the same objective. Increasing power is pretty simple, but can a setup that gives you 30% chance of gaining Might on a critical hit be better than a flat 5% increase to attack power? Then you're looking at figuring out your chance to crit, how many might stacks you can expect to get and thus how much extra power you can expect to have from those might stacks, compensating for the effect of internal cooldowns on the buildup of Might stacks, how much extra damage you're going to get directly from having more critical hits from weighting more towards Precision versus any tradeoff you have from Power... and that's without considering defensive abilities or really any decision making beyond building around a Sigil of Force versus a Sigil of Strength.

GW1 did have a more complex set of skills to choose from, but once you had, gear and attributes were fairly straightforward - you might pull the calculator out occasionally to get the perfect mix, but it's going to be an attribute point here and there rather than a complete overhaul of your build. GW2 has made skill choice a lot simpler, but added a lot more complexity in gear and attribute allotments.

Very well said.  It is, perhaps, this fact alone that makes me enjoy GW2's build system quite a bit less than the one in GW1.  Despite all their claims to the contrary, Anet went with a design that makes you want/need to grind for your gear far more than GW1 ever did.  The complexity of the probabilisitc math combined with tiered gear stats makes this game far more "grind for gear" than A-net promised, though admittedly still less than a lot of other online RPGs out there.

[Katreyn]

I haven't found myself doing too much calculations.  I did a bit in Beta, but haven't really done much since release and when I was refining my gear at 80.  

I've spent more time on math in games like Ragnarok Online and Path of Exile.  Ah well, I love the math part in all honesty.

[Jump_N_Move]

VanderBeltLegacy, on 20 January 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

TBH, GW1 and GW2 are on par with using math's..per say, gw1 "X-skill does XXX amount of damage, with XX amount of attribute" or "XXX enchantment last so many more second with XX attributes", while GW2 is "XXXX trait allows XXXX amount of damage with Crit/Cond/Power" and "XXXX boon last XXX more in certain attribute"...and not to mention gw1="XXXX skill allows you to have XXXX armor + add XXX mod to that shield you can have XXX more armor"(vice verse with enchantments) and we get the same with sigils and runes for GW2 as we did with runes+mods in gw1, i'd say the math requirement is on par, but since every1 is relatively new to the game, it's not a commonly known thing like it became in gw1 after people got to know the game, i constantly explain what little i know to people..per say the condition stack with Sigils of Corruption, and the whole 25 stack, while i personally dont like this sigil itself and run a different style of using "crest/medallions" or what ever the hell they are called and go with something that suites me, and have to say, alot of people say i play pretty damn good, also "XXXX traits" are only useful to know dependant on your play style, while some people play offensively, some play defensively.

now i could sit here and compare mod to sigil, rune to rune, but crunching numbers to do the most damage is in any MMORPG just so many follow gear/builds like lemmings in games like GW1 to be "the most affective"..

seriously did you think some guy just sat there and thought "hmm, in GW1 if i used the Glyph and this assassin skill with 20% enchantment mod, i could keep it up perma"?, no some guy sat there and crunched the number's on keeping shadow form up permanently and though't "hmm, how do i keep this up longer to farm more areas then just a chamber of UW being half mesmer and arcane echoing Shadow form while using deadly paradox to recharge it quicker and a 20% enchantment mod", they went through a list of wiki skill's, crunched some numbers got there answer, then crunched some more numbers to make silver armor output more damage aswell...then you had "consumables" to crunch numbers with in gw1, we get that in gw2(thank god).

And because of the lack of skill diversity in GW2 so far, all that number crunching was reduced to run beserkers and don't suck.

[Beowulf]

gw2 is the most noob-friendly mmo ive played, it doesnt require any calculations other than stats that you see on your "H" panel. It doesnt even require you to calculate aggro, dps, etc. and you dont have to make strategies and tactics for raids and dungeons. If you think GW2 is mathy, then dont ever come close to WoW, RIFT, Lotro, Diablo 3, path of exile, starcraft 2, etc.

[Hukundu]

Briar, on 16 January 2013 - 04:39 AM, said:

Thank you Draxynnic this is what I was trying to say but I was having difficulty's explaining. The game has disposed of the complexity of skill interactions and has replaced it with numerical interactions. Which are much more subtle on first glance.

RNG by itself is not the problem, but yes it is the vast majority.

Other culprits include

• Power, Precision and Critical Damage interacting with each other in a trinity of confusing
  
• Diminishing and exponentially increasing returns (ala attributes and condition stacks/might stacks)
  
• Undocumented mechanic interactions such as Sigil internal cool-downs
  
• Runes that do similar things (Power or +4% damage! wait what?) this may also play on the fist point
  
• Condition stacks interacting in weird ways... Go for 25 bleeds BUT NOT MORE that's wasted dps

I am sure there is more I cannot think of. But as you can see it can get very complex, very fast

I agree.

The way precision in particular is dealt with makes no sense to me -- in fact, the existence of "precision" as an attribute in the first place seems foolish and confusing, since it really only stands as a proxy for critical hit chance (aside from a couple of traits that can add a small percent of precision to healing/vitality).  Precision increases every level, from a base minimum of 24 at level 1 to 916 at level 80, but base critical hit chance doesn't (which also, in itself, makes no sense).  What's worse, increasing level means modifications to precision from weapons, etc. yield a diminishing level of returns, as though a higher level character would have MORE difficulty scoring a critical hit with the very same weapon.

Maybe the idea is that higher level characters should derive more of their damage from base damage, and I'm sure it was easier to just make most things an "attribute" and have the base numbers run from 24-916.  But it seems like math for math's sake, and ending up with confusion.

Edited by Hukundu, 22 January 2013 - 08:18 PM.

[Stigma]

You can close your eyes and plow along and have fun. Or you can want to do some critical thinking and optimize. No one is forcing you to do either. In the real world, no one forces you to go to college and get a degree if you just want to sit at the post office and sort mail all day, go home after 8hrs and have fun.

If anything FotM has shown it's that Excel spreadsheets are useless. We have all these optimized builds running around but they are all relatively juggle the same armor/attack ratio. Yet no one questions whether their original design premise was actually a good idea in the first place ie. Shout heals, Pure Crit, Pure defense, bunker, etc. The design criteria is far more important than the math behind it when it comes to hardcore dungeoning in GW2 due to skill caps. i can take a 100% berserker spec build into Fractal 47 and beat it easily while a month ago, everyone would've said i was crazy or wrong to go with such a build into FotM.

In itemization, If anything, GW's runes, sigils and upgrades gives us more choices on what to do with our characters. Do i want to depend on Might? Criticals, pure power? What conditions do i want to proc with?

Some get excited thinking of all they can theory craft and then there is a population like you who don't care for all these things.

The only thing that is too Mathy for me is the fact that I believe Anet developers have built up too many mechanics in the game that are a function of too many things. ie. Magic Find, Loot rewards, Diminishing Returns codes, etc. Making certain things way more complex than they truly need to be.

Edited by Stigma, 23 January 2013 - 12:34 AM.

[AKGeo]

It's only as bad as you want it to be. Half the build discussions here on guru go into long-winded ultimately-ridiculous explanations about what's best and by what margin, when the combat system makes it so player skill is much more important for success than their gear. Use what you want, play what you want, just play it well and you'll succeed.