Guild Wars 2

Hi Chris, I was fortunate enough to check the instance in question that I mentioned to you about and it seems that the Greatest Fear portion of the story A Light in the Darkness is kept intact. No removals, no nothing. It was only modified on the Story Journal itself, which I still think sucks but nonetheless, I can confirm that the PS was not cut in anyway, shape or form.

To go back to the original title of this thread, I’d like to suggest that when a thread hits 4 or 5 pages, someone on the Anet team make it a point to go in and comment? Then, if it is a VERY busy thread (hello, traits?), come in once a day to keep up and respond once, at least? As it slows down, make it every 2-3 days, then taper it off. But a thread like this, where it is a bigger one, and Chris is being so active in it, really goes a long way towards soothing the waters. Smaller threads could be a “catch as catch can”, or a “post if it looks interesting” type of thing.

I just know that the longer, and busier the thread, and the less of an Anet presence there is, the hotter tempers get, and the higher the frustration level.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Malkavian.4516:

Hi Chris, I was fortunate enough to check the instance in question that I mentioned to you about and it seems that the Greatest Fear portion of the story A Light in the Darkness is kept intact. No removals, no nothing. It was only modified on the Story Journal itself, which I still think sucks but nonetheless, I can confirm that the PS was not cut in anyway, shape or form.

Awesome Malkavian I really appreciate the info. Leah is looking into it and we will update when we have more info.

chris

Unfortunately the event is still scrambled or totally missing for most of us, please don’t ignore it thank you so much, it feels so much better to feel this getting some acknowledgement

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Keysha.2815:

To go back to the original title of this thread, I’d like to suggest that when a thread hits 4 or 5 pages, someone on the Anet team make it a point to go in and comment? Then, if it is a VERY busy thread (hello, traits?), come in once a day to keep up and respond once, at least? As it slows down, make it every 2-3 days, then taper it off. But a thread like this, where it is a bigger one, and Chris is being so active in it, really goes a long way towards soothing the waters. Smaller threads could be a “catch as catch can”, or a “post if it looks interesting” type of thing.

I just know that the longer, and busier the thread, and the less of an Anet presence there is, the hotter tempers get, and the higher the frustration level.

Hi Keysha,

We should have more forum coverage very soon (-:

chris

Hi Chris,

You already do! :P

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Vyetta.3976:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Malkavian.4516:

Hi Chris, I was fortunate enough to check the instance in question that I mentioned to you about and it seems that the Greatest Fear portion of the story A Light in the Darkness is kept intact. No removals, no nothing. It was only modified on the Story Journal itself, which I still think sucks but nonetheless, I can confirm that the PS was not cut in anyway, shape or form.

Awesome Malkavian I really appreciate the info. Leah is looking into it and we will update when we have more info.

chris

Unfortunately the event is still scrambled or totally missing for most of us, please don’t ignore it thank you so much, it feels so much better to feel this getting some acknowledgement

We are absolutely not going to ignore it FYI.

we will have more info soon.

chris

While you are getting info on this, will we also be getting info on the changes in the order of the Orr personal story steps? As you may have seen on the forums, the story no longer makes sense with the re-ordering and many continuity issues and other pacing problems have been introduced. Just to hear that you are aware of these issues also would be a major reassurance for those of us who love the story of Tyria as much as ArenaNet seem to!

Thanks for your communication, Chris.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Illysharia.7286:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ohoni.6057:

While I think a great many players also agree, the CDI for guilds was talked about before the patch.

Yeah, but I didn’t care about it then either. CDIs are great, but there is nothing they could do involving guilds that would make the game any better, and the only thing they could do is make things worse (by adding new features that you need to be part of a large guild to benefit from), so I’ve never cared about a guild-based CDI. Before this week, I would have wanted a CDI on the destructive changes to the Traits system introduced in the last feature patch.

This new patch is a major issue though, and they need to have a major sit-down explaining why we shouldn’t hate the things we believe we hate about it. Why should we like the new level-gating system? Why should anyone? Why should we appreciate having to go several layers deep to see what we just sold rather than having it as a top-level option? These are all far more important topics of discussion than anything involving guilds.

To you maybe but the world doesn’t revolve around either you or I. I promised the CDI and we are doing it. There is plenty of awesome stuff that can come from it so it is a pleasure to be able to read what members of the CDI have to say.

if you don’t see the value in it then don’t partake.

Cheers

Chris

It’s sort of like planning a family meeting a week in advance to talk about how the kids could help out mom more around the house. You promise your wife it will get better, and set a date and time. Then, when the promised time comes up, the house catches on fire. Rather than addressing the fire, you stubbornly sit your family down in the burning living room to make good on your promise.

That is the degree of sense you are making. It is such a magnitudinous sign relating to the disconnect between what is going on, and what ANET wants to do.

No. It is nothing like that at all.

Chris

Did you just seriously reply to the guy with the equivalent of “nuh-UH”? He’s right. The house is on fire, and you’re worried about the dripping faucet in the basement bathroom nobody ever uses.

Because screw the players, am I right? You’re mother effin’ Anet, you’ll do what you want and the players will like it because you are the gods of Guild Wars and only you, just you, have The Vision.

Go back to your star chamber and light up a cuban. We don’t want your CDI.

I do not think ANet does what you are accusing them of doing.
I DO think if they actually did what you accused them of doing then we would have a better game. It feels more like ANet doesn’t have a sufficiently strong vision of what the game should be. A large part of that comes from the lack of communication.

Chris any comment on the group/dungeon stealing issue?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Malkavian.4516:

Hi Chris, I was fortunate enough to check the instance in question that I mentioned to you about and it seems that the Greatest Fear portion of the story A Light in the Darkness is kept intact. No removals, no nothing. It was only modified on the Story Journal itself, which I still think sucks but nonetheless, I can confirm that the PS was not cut in anyway, shape or form.

Awesome Malkavian I really appreciate the info. Leah is looking into it and we will update when we have more info.

chris

Alright, I think I may have jumped the gun with what I said earlier. It seems that the issue lies in Chapter 7. Those who are in the middle of the quests related to their greatest fears in this case, Tonn and Apatia’s and your other quest were apparently skipped as a side effect of the consolidation of quests into chapters. Either way, please keep us posted.

Chris,

First, thanks for all the replying you’re doing. I really hope those changes in forum personnel come soon, so we can get even more answers.

Any thoughts on all the other NPE changes (not level gated changes), but changes to the starting zones?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-did-you-do-to-Metrica-Province/first

I’m sure I’m not the only one that would like to hear a reason behind these changes.

Hey Chris,

We really appreciate you responding so frequently in these forums, even to negative posts. Communication is always a good thing, and I really dont think anyone else has responded to player concerns as much as you.

What are your thoughts on current Class Balance in Dungeons, sPvp, and 5 man roaming WvW?

Are there any plans to make classes that lack group utility useful in these game modes? Perhaps more frequent balancing, as in GW1?

I made a thread then started reading a bit and found this. I should have posted what i had to say here.

You could read the thread but it was roughly about getting communication expertise. I don’t know about the US, but here in Quebec there is a college major called communication and i feel it might be good to have in order to address the negativity.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Just to let you know I am very busy all day and am doing WvW tonight

You are doing WvW tonight? Good. Maybe you can tell us how long it takes to destroy a tower gate using Series 7 Golem elite skill.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Illysharia.7286:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ohoni.6057:

While I think a great many players also agree, the CDI for guilds was talked about before the patch.

Yeah, but I didn’t care about it then either. CDIs are great, but there is nothing they could do involving guilds that would make the game any better, and the only thing they could do is make things worse (by adding new features that you need to be part of a large guild to benefit from), so I’ve never cared about a guild-based CDI. Before this week, I would have wanted a CDI on the destructive changes to the Traits system introduced in the last feature patch.

This new patch is a major issue though, and they need to have a major sit-down explaining why we shouldn’t hate the things we believe we hate about it. Why should we like the new level-gating system? Why should anyone? Why should we appreciate having to go several layers deep to see what we just sold rather than having it as a top-level option? These are all far more important topics of discussion than anything involving guilds.

To you maybe but the world doesn’t revolve around either you or I. I promised the CDI and we are doing it. There is plenty of awesome stuff that can come from it so it is a pleasure to be able to read what members of the CDI have to say.

if you don’t see the value in it then don’t partake.

Cheers

Chris

It’s sort of like planning a family meeting a week in advance to talk about how the kids could help out mom more around the house. You promise your wife it will get better, and set a date and time. Then, when the promised time comes up, the house catches on fire. Rather than addressing the fire, you stubbornly sit your family down in the burning living room to make good on your promise.

That is the degree of sense you are making. It is such a magnitudinous sign relating to the disconnect between what is going on, and what ANET wants to do.

No. It is nothing like that at all.

Chris

Did you just seriously reply to the guy with the equivalent of “nuh-UH”? He’s right. The house is on fire, and you’re worried about the dripping faucet in the basement bathroom nobody ever uses.

Yes. Yes, he did just respond to someone with the equivalent of “nuh-UH”

Unfortunately for him, the analogy was spot on regardless of how many times he “nuh-UH’s” all over it.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Jerus.4350:

Chris any comment on the group/dungeon stealing issue?

I have spoken to a friend at work and he is investigating. I expect I will have something to report on monday.

Chris

Thank you, I(We) really appreciate it.

Going up to the update you all seemed quite devoted to making sure the people greifing others would be punished, but since the update the only thing we’ve heard is more or less that nothing will happen and that’s quite troubling.

Just to throw my opinion just so it’s out there. Not like it’ll get any attention, but whatever.

I think what really hurt the playerbase (me included) is not communication or unintentionally empty promisses. What really hurt us is a game that’s devoid of endgame content and things to do after 2 years. I couldn’t have been more excited on August 28, 2012 when the game launched. Little did I know that I would just log in once or twice a month a few years later

I don’t see what the problem is with making an expansion per se. Guild Wars did it marvelously. 2 years after launch we had Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall and Eye of The North. THOSE were exciting times. New stories, new lore, new settings and new stuff! It just felt so, so very fresh to arrive to Canthan shores for the very first time. 2009 brought us little side quests to mine some lore for GW2, which was fine since we were aware GW wasn’t going to receive meaningful content since the 2nd was in development. Back then we understood since we already had got so much out of the game that the extra story and missions were just icing on the cake.

Then, we have Guild Wars 2, a brilliant game, with brilliant execution that lacks content 2 years after it was launched. The Living Story should have been something kept for starved players in the last few years of the game. The team should have focused on delivering chunky piles of content at once in expansions or new campaigns. I’m fine with updates, content patches and some new areas every 3 montsh too but…keeping the players like bunnies chasing a carrot can only take you so far. And so far we’ve come.

For me, the only route GW2 can take to get me back to playing it nonstop like I did is to go the expansion route so I can play to my hearts content. I’m pretty let down by playing 3 new missions after months and months of waiting. It’s like watching the Lord of the Rings, 5 minutes at a time with 2 month breaks in between sessions. It’s just not enough.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Right I am going to be afk for a kitten

ris

Will there be a CDI about the PVE?
I saw this and I think this new player has the mind set of a portion of the community at this time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqJlKjwrKB4

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hey folks just a reminder that i will be playing WvW this evening so I will likely not be on the forums.

chris

I’ll see you there! (assuming you go EBG)

JonathanSharp.7094:

@balance in different game types: Class balance for those 3 game types differs, based on class and the game type, obviously.

For instance, in WvW, swiftness is a very important tool, while being less crucial in Dungeons (if you’re in fights a lot of the time). What we usually talk about in balance discussions is how some class specs will be stronger in one game type than they are in others, and that’s ok.

How about making it then important in dungeons too? Like a fight where every minute you need to outrun a electric wall which can only be done with 25%+ over base MS (but the fight has no chill cripple immobs).

JonathanSharp.7094:

@class group utility: I hope I’m reading your meaning correctly on this one. We try to make sure that we spread this stuff out into different “buckets” for each class. So if you have a ton of damage in a spec, you probably won’t have as many ways to dole out tons of CC as well. If a spec does have that, we try to bring down one of those aspects of the spec. For instance, the new Ranger specs we’re seeing dish out a TON of damage at range, but they are relatively squishy if you get right on them (compared to say, a defensive Guardian’s ability to tank damage), and they have no way to really deal with enemy boons effectively.

But they have the CC to keep you away and not all professions (or all viable builds) from what i know have reflects or enough on demand dodges/vigor/evades to escape it before they finally get to them, kinda like Tristana currently in league of legends (compared to lets say kog maw who would get killed by zed/talon instantly instead of jumping away/knocking you off if you were in a position where he could get you/you didnt have hard peelers), the requirement for a single thing to be attacked/pressured from multiple sources is not really healthy, be it pvp or pve.

JonathanSharp.7094:

@more frequent balancing: We do 2 major “modes” of balancing – one is the feature pack balancing, which just happened this week. We try to put out a lot of new stuff for the classes, and try to spread out the changes. Once that happens, we watch the game for a while and listen to the players. This can happen in game, it can happen in VOD’s, Twitch, Youtube, the forums, etc.

FP2 was a “fail” (lower xp is nice, lockout and no kits/cheer the cows is bad) for early levels + bug fixing and minor changes, not a balance patch.

JonathanSharp.7094:

After we give a patch a few weeks to settle, we then look at our second mode of course correcting, which is done by making smaller changes if we feel they’re necessary (shaving down something that feels way too powerful, or bringing something up that feels way too under powered), while also scoping out balance changes for the next feature release!

Hope that helps!

-Chap

Isnt the whole point of QA and beta testing to get those “few weeks”? And then if a problem still exists for more than the patch, its weakness gets made more obvious by the devs of the game (unless its a flat statistical and not counterplay issue).

Thanks for the time and hope that my points aint too loaded/out of topic.

P.S.
“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.” – when will we increase the limit of Tyria then?

Well the idea is that there will always be imperfections and flaws with each release. QA can only minimize the problem, but rarely clear them out completely. In this case, I noticed a gaping flaw in relation to the Personal Story

Yo Chris.
(You might want to split this one into a separate thread in case you decide to answer it, to prevent your thread from being cluttered):

Where does the dev team see room for improvement in the game? I’m asking because we’re still lacking some kind of roadmap for the general direction you intend to take and honestly, I’m pretty sure the players would love to be part of that discussion.

Malkavian.4516:

Well the idea is that there will always be imperfections and flaws with each release. QA can only minimize the problem, but rarely clear them out completely. In this case, I noticed a gaping flaw in relation to the Personal Story

There will be, and thats expected, but from what can be seen in GW2s history, it looks like the QA team doesnt even play trough the changes they make or dont work together with the team which implements the changes, either way a flaw in management.

I am not sure if this an ok place to ask this but i saw some of the recent comments have been talking about the new patch so thought i may as well try.

In regards to the latest communication changes to try and be more interactive with the community; was the knowledge that some of the community was close to leaving from lack okittennowledgement also something you were aware of, i am just curious as to why this was released now and not released in a later feature pack when the community was a little more satisfied and wouldn’t mind if they didn’t get as much changes as they wanted.

now if i recall correctly you said that you usually did read the forums and knew what was going on somewhat so was just wondering if that was something being noticed or discussed.

Now in regards to its release time (feature pack 2) i do actually think it was released now to stop people from all going to the new recently released mmorpgs but i wouldn’t think that would be the case as they get a lot more coverage than gw2 at the moment because of the fact that they are new and more advertised, so going up against them now just seems like a joke.

Now i don’t know much at all about business and social trends or such so I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a good reason for all this.

I hope this doesn’t come off as a snide comment, I’m just a very curious person and like to find reason for certain events.

Nice to see some communication going on.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Apokriphos.7042:

What are your thoughts on current Class Balance in Dungeons, sPvp, and 5 man roaming WvW?

Are there any plans to make classes that lack group utility useful in these game modes? Perhaps more frequent balancing, as in GW1?

Hey Apokripho (cool name btw)!

@balance in different game types: Class balance for those 3 game types differs, based on class and the game type, obviously.

-snip-

-Chap

Firstly, thankyou very much for taking the time to come into this thread and communicate with us. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we really appreciate it.

Class balance for those 3 game types differs, based on class and the game type, obviously.

For instance, in WvW, swiftness is a very important tool, while being less crucial in Dungeons (if you’re in fights a lot of the time). What we usually talk about in balance discussions is how some class specs will be stronger in one game type than they are in others, and that’s ok.

My concern with class balance is that only one game mode seems to be considered when balance changes are made: SPvP. I understand that maintaining balance in SPvP is important, but when it’s the only thing being considered, players like myself (who never engage in SPvP) feel a bit left out, stuck with the same old builds whilst the SPvPers get to try out new, exciting builds. It’s a telling point that the PvE meta is still Zerker after all this time.

So if you have a ton of damage in a spec, you probably won’t have as many ways to dole out tons of CC as well. If a spec does have that, we try to bring down one of those aspects of the spec. For instance, the new Ranger specs we’re seeing dish out a TON of damage at range, but they are relatively squishy if you get right on them (compared to say, a defensive Guardian’s ability to tank damage), and they have no way to really deal with enemy boons effectively.

And this really highlights where I feel the issue is. Your comments here are perfectly valid: but only in SPvP. A spec that deals a ton of damage but has little to no CC has, from a PvE perspective, no downside, as CC isn’t used, due to defiance and the content simply not needing it. Boon stripping; again, this is exclusively a PvP balancing issue; PvE content has no need for boon stripping.

It feels like the balance developers are terrified of making sweeping, exciting changes that affect all game modes because of their impact on SPvP. I can’t help feeling that as I try to figure out what elite skill is still worthwhile on my Elementalist that the reason Tornado is so lackluster is because if you buffed it too much, it would break SPvP. I can’t help thinking that your mindset on Fiery Greatsword is “Hey, we buffed its mobility so it’s still a great choice!” when mobility for us in Dungeons or Fractals is pointless, and buffing its damage would make it too much of an “I WIN” button in SPvP.

We, the PvE players, really do want encounters that utilize CC, mobility, boon stripping, healing, and all the other things that the SPvP community gets to play around with. We WANT that support-control-damage trinity in PvE content, just like the SPvP players currently have. We’re tired of the same old specs, the same old abilities, the same old meta, and the same old mechanics. Please, balance for all of us. Everyone likes new toys when a patch comes around, but for PvE players, it feels like a long time since we got something new to entertain us.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lheimroo.2947:

Those megaserver changes.. they read like addressing the individual bullet points from the feedback thread. I have to give kudos.

Seriously, though.. having that on the boil and yet not telling us sooner did the atmosphere here on the forums a lot more harm than good. I understand not giving details or timelines.. but surely the motivation was fixed to address the issues ‘soon’ months ago.

We always do our best to listen to the community and read the forums, we just don’t always have the time to reply and engage, and it is our goal as expressed last week and over the weekend to build a better relationship with you all.

Chris

This was back on page 18 and it caught my eye.

Can I put forward a more pragmatic suggestion?

Instead of ‘listening’ to the community, can we maybe have an implementation of a system whereby you ‘read’ the post in a way that’s more visual to us, kind of like a checkbox that we can see you’ve ticked that shows you have actually taken the time to read what is being discussed?

It’s all very well and easy to say that something has been read by the people that make the decisions and forum users can get a dialogue happening with, but without knowing that you’ve read the comments (ie. no reply to a specific issue or statement), then there’s no real way of us knowing that you’ve actually gone to the trouble of reading stuff that’s been put forward. This confirms that you indeed have read them, rather than no reply and wondering why you’re not talking to us.

Maybe my idea might be a bit too idealistic and hopeful that something better might come from the system that we have now; sure it could have it’s flaws, Anet staff can just go through each post and blithely ‘tick’ posts, but it’s just a brainwave I had based on Chris’s comment and it’s my contribution into the effort of you communicating better with us.

Even if you can’t talk about stuff, it shows us that you’re at least listening.

I really enjoy playing GW2. This game has so much potential and this is why I will give you my advices as a player for the futur. Those are, in my opinion, keys of success for PvE and PvP.
As a recently graduated economist, I always have this sentence in mind while thinking about something :

“Remember what worked in the past, watch what is working now and guess what is gonna work in the futur”.

As a mater of fact, most of the people playing since the start are now a bit disapointed with the current state of the game. Remember however that a complaining player/customer is a player that loves the game.

I really hope somebody from Anet will read this because I truly think that improving those key aspects of the game would raise a lot of interest for the game.

1. High reduction of the number of WAYPOINTS in NEW areas

WHY? Because they reduce a lot the excitent and the feeling of exploration/danger/far from the city.
They were no WP in GW1 and they are no WP is the new others successfull MMO’s.

2. Focus in new PvP modes, maps and HoH substitute

A) The tournaments of legends are nice but only dedicated to “hardcore” players with a available 5 players team. You really should reintroduce a substitute to HoH/paid tournaments where people can group IG and just enjoy. The currents TN are way to repetitive and players would get much more exited by multiple steps TN.

B) By introducing new modes, it will allow players to play different meta/teams than those required for the contests. The build/team creation was one of the best aspect of GW1. Teams/builds diversity is something very important for many players.

Examples of modes : Team deathmatch (with or without respawn), Capture the flag/relic, King of the hill (3 teams matches), …

PvP maps are small and 3 steps permanent TN could be fast introduced. Just give them a beta period in order to check what is working and what needs fixes.

C) Better rewards ! WHY? The answer is simple => it will give you the player base that this kind of PvP requires in order to quickly start the TN and the matches. Give players MEANINGFULL titles/armors or amount of gold/gems according to their performances in TN/HoH.

3. New areas/instances that STRONGLY challenge the experienced players

Just remember the HM(Hard Mode) in GW1. Players need CHALLENGE. But not only against World bosses. They wanna spend time in building a specific build and strategy for a specific small scale mission. This is what your players are asking for. Some good ENDGAME that will CHALLENGE them even with the best gear.
Example : FoW and UW in GW1

Thanks you for reading this. Please consider those 3 key points with attention.
As a player do you agree with me?

Just take some time to remember what people loved in GW1, what they love in GW2 and in other succesfull MMO’s and what they need to continue playing this game in the futur.

Sorry for my approximate English and I wish you a nice day!

Dry Top had the least number of waypoints to my knowledge. But then again, that place is not that big when compared to the other locations.

With regards to better rewards, I do agree that better titles and such would be nice though if the reward involves something as generous as gold or gems, then the feats have to be really difficult to achieve.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Malkavian.4516:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Malkavian.4516:

Hi Chris, I was fortunate enough to check the instance in question that I mentioned to you about and it seems that the Greatest Fear portion of the story A Light in the Darkness is kept intact. No removals, no nothing. It was only modified on the Story Journal itself, which I still think sucks but nonetheless, I can confirm that the PS was not cut in anyway, shape or form.

Awesome Malkavian I really appreciate the info. Leah is looking into it and we will update when we have more info.

chris

Alright, I think I may have jumped the gun with what I said earlier. It seems that the issue lies in Chapter 7. Those who are in the middle of the quests related to their greatest fears in this case, Tonn and Apatia’s and your other quest were apparently skipped as a side effect of the consolidation of quests into chapters. Either way, please keep us posted.

Will do.

Probably an update Monday if you don’t mind. Super busy today.

chris

Sounds fair.

Greetings, Chris

I just tried out the first few missions of Chapter 7, and I must say this: I am wholly unsatisfied with the new pacing the patch gave towards the Personal Story. I would be fine had you just consolidated certain episodes into chapters but still retained their original order. It just feels very messy to deal with to be honest with you and I would appreciate it if you would able to do the community had you can help in convincing the developers in fixing this as soon as possible. In addition to that, I already mentioned on a bug report relating to one other quest called “Romke’s Final Voyage” where I hear no voice coming from the characters in the cinematic NOR did I see any mouths opening when they were supposed to speak.

I beg of you, please help us out here in making sure that this message comes across. I am personally okay with the level gating of skills and the need to do 10 levels before proceeding to the next chapter of the story. But doing the old switcharoo on certain episodes to favor a different approach just doesn’t work unless you guys actually made serious changes to those episodes so that they can be tied together more seamlessly.

That’s all I got for now. Thanks so much.

Chris when is the team getting around to looking at this or at the very least acknowlegding this?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Ranger-Frost-Spirit-bugged-w-maths/first#post4408115

I honestly doubt they would give a a timeframe on when your concern will be addressed. Although I have noticed bug fixes happening daily since the feature patch was installed so I think they would get to it eventually. But don’t take my word for it.

Not really asking for a time frame.
Just asking for some “communication with you” in the bug forum. As I said a simple ‘yes we know’ and it’s on our to do list would be be fine. But totally ignoring it —not so fine.

Here’s something I want to know that I really want to hear form the staff on. There have been several glaring problems in recent patches that have the community in an uproar, and in which the player-base shares an almost unanimous stance. Two of the best examples being the update to gaining traits, and the more recent level gating.

Because of the shared negative opinion and desire of the players for a return to the old system, does the dev team even consider, or will they ever consider, that they made a mistake? That this new content isn’t good and they should step back and re-evaluate, or is this going to be a Windows style, plunge in head-first, no looking back, people will get used to it, kind of thing?

JonathanSharp.7094:

Apokriphos.7042:

What are your thoughts on current Class Balance in Dungeons, sPvp, and 5 man roaming WvW?

Are there any plans to make classes that lack group utility useful in these game modes? Perhaps more frequent balancing, as in GW1?

Hey Apokripho (cool name btw)!

@balance in different game types: Class balance for those 3 game types differs, based on class and the game type, obviously.

For instance, in WvW, swiftness is a very important tool, while being less crucial in Dungeons (if you’re in fights a lot of the time). What we usually talk about in balance discussions is how some class specs will be stronger in one game type than they are in others, and that’s ok.

@class group utility: I hope I’m reading your meaning correctly on this one. We try to make sure that we spread this stuff out into different “buckets” for each class. So if you have a ton of damage in a spec, you probably won’t have as many ways to dole out tons of CC as well. If a spec does have that, we try to bring down one of those aspects of the spec. For instance, the new Ranger specs we’re seeing dish out a TON of damage at range, but they are relatively squishy if you get right on them (compared to say, a defensive Guardian’s ability to tank damage), and they have no way to really deal with enemy boons effectively.

@more frequent balancing: We do 2 major “modes” of balancing – one is the feature pack balancing, which just happened this week. We try to put out a lot of new stuff for the classes, and try to spread out the changes. Once that happens, we watch the game for a while and listen to the players. This can happen in game, it can happen in VOD’s, Twitch, Youtube, the forums, etc.

After we give a patch a few weeks to settle, we then look at our second mode of course correcting, which is done by making smaller changes if we feel they’re necessary (shaving down something that feels way too powerful, or bringing something up that feels way too under powered), while also scoping out balance changes for the next feature release!

Hope that helps!

-Chap

Dear Mr. Sharp,

I really appreciate you for taking the time to respond to my question, and for giving us – the players – more insight into how balancing decisions are made.

Do you think it would be possible to include the aforementioned game modes (High-end Dungeons, 5 man WvW roaming) when making future balancing decisions?

Currently, a class that might seem on relatively equal footing in one game mode can be completely unwanted in other game modes, such as Dungeons.

For example, the Necromancer class may be balanced for sPVP but in speed-run Dungeons/Fractals it has the fatal flaw of no group beneficial ability (reflect, teleport, mass stealth, mass quickness, boon stacking, etc) to justify its party slot. Boon removal, as some have mentioned, does not seem very effective in dungeons.

According to these threads (below), excel spreadsheet calculations, and the current meta, most players seem to agree:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Best-to-worst-dungeon-dps-classes
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-group-DPS-Calculator
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Guide-How-to-speedrun-dungeon
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Class-for-dungeoning
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/ONLY-guard-warrior-ele-dungeons-fractals

Will future balances take these issues into account so that all classes will be more equitably valued in all game modes?

Hi Chris,

Glad to see you making such an effort for the community and the team at anet but I must also put across my disatisfaction with the current patch in regards to the new personal story.

I agree with other posters that the reordering of chap 7 & 8 was a very bad move, to the point that it now makes no sense, the story was fine the way it was!

I am currently running a new char myself and am getting very annoyed of having to grind another 6 or so levels to get to the next story chapter were as before this did not feel as noticable. although I did find it better starting the personal story at level 10 as this gave time for people to explore the starting area and get a feel for the game before venturing onto doing the main story line. But please fix the level gaiting in other places to a resonable level, and put the story back into its correct order.

I really look forward to getting any type of news on this situation and seriously hope the higher ups make a decision in regards to rethinking what they have done to the game!

Will experience scrolls be buffed to meet the new pushed back utility skill unlock levels?

Chris, I would like to thank you so much for all the responses you’re giving us in this thread. Especialy in regards to the Personal Story changes! It allows us to know what is and isn’t a bug, or bring issues like the removal of the Fear Arc right to the devs ears with feedback to boot. Really, it’s just refreshing to see. Thank you Chris.

My two cents on the Fear Arc: I would love it if it’s just a bug, but I can accept if it’s been intentionaly removed. Though if it’s gone, reasoning behind it’s removal would really soften the blow. It would still hurt, but not as much.

Hi Chris, Thanks for the responses, It’s really nice seeing more dev coverage on the forums, I don’t think it always has to be the main devs themselves commenting on posts all day whenever they have free time, Sort of like that other person was suggesting, that isn’t really fair. I was hoping we could see more of the community managers on the forums, I know there’s the french community manager called Stéphane Lo Presti. I’m not sure if he has counter-parts for NA etc but if he does I’ve never seen any posts from them in 2 years. I think it was Gaile Grey in gw1, what about creating one for gw2 if there is none.