Guild Wars 2

Any chance you guys will ever take a look at necromancer pets and make them more….fun? It’s like you just stuck them on a utility, made some (really bad) models, and named their auto attacks.

With HoT you really put some awesome ranger pets in with some really neat animations like the wyvern and smoke skale. Yet necro pets still look terrible and just auto attack. The bone minions more just…headbutt things…slowly.

I may never have a chance to ask the creature designer guys this again. Even if you dont ask it on the show, PLEASE just bring it up. They’re SO …SO bad. There are so many cool undead in the game, please get rid of these cartoony looking things that look like they belong on scooby doo.

Also please do what you did for guardian with reaper. The greatsword skills need to be rearranged. 5 needs to be 3, 3 need to be 4, and 4 needs to be 5.

Before I get to my question I would like to take a step back in the past to give an example what I want to ask.

Guild Wars 1; Eye of the North:
In Eye of the North, especially the jungle area’s you encountered many creatures for example the Raptors. These raptors and other creatures seemed to be tracking around the map a lot more compared to the ones we see in Guild Wars 2; Heart of Thorns.
In Guild wars 2 most creatures feel very limited in their movement, usually standing around or just walking in a circle.

My question:
Can we expect more creatures roaming around the map like some of the creatures from Eye of the North?

RubiBayer.8134:

Thanks everyone who asked about creature design! Brian and Ben went through today before livestream rehearsal and picked out some good questions from the thread, so we’re all set.

I’d like to say thanks for asking! This approach is nothing but good, I think. You get real questions from the players and time to prepare some polished answers.

So, yay, +1 for communication!

What inspired the animation behind many of the monsters/creatures? Did you look at real animals with similar body structures? Or did you go with what ‘felt right’ for the creature, given their size, weight, style of attacks etc…

Now that the questions have been picked I just want to say…

It’s amazing to me how many people don’t read the topic and just throw any old question they feel like in here. Happens every time.

Kudos to those who actually read.

Kalarchis.8635:

Now that the questions have been picked I just want to say…

It’s amazing to me how many people don’t read the topic and just throw any old question they feel like in here. Happens every time.

Kudos to those who actually read.

Why is that so surprising? There hasn’t been a lot of indication from anet that they’re listening to players on this forum, so when they start a rare thread like this expressly asking for player feedback, people are going to grab onto it and pour out their feelings. In the ten months or more that I’ve been playing this game, this is the first post of its kind that I’ve seen on here. There may have been others I missed, but the fact that I missed them should show you how rare they are. Hopefully, this is the start of a new trend where anet creates threads asking for input on various topics. If they provide more such avenues, players will address their questions/comments to the appropriate threads and you won’t have to look down on us from your high horse.

Kalarchis.8635:

Now that the questions have been picked I just want to say…

It’s amazing to me how many people don’t read the topic and just throw any old question they feel like in here. Happens every time.

Kudos to those who actually read.

Honestly there are a ton of questions which have not been answered and hence you will find this sort of behavior and there is nothing wrong with it.
I am sure if Anet sees certain questions they could potentially answer then they would and ones they cant, they would hopefully take those back and possibly do a spot light on that topic in future or give us a one off response in the forum.

Either way it does not hurt to ask.

Why have you screwed over WvW players for 3 years?

That is the only question WvW players care about. The rest of this crap is fluff.

RubiBayer.8134:

ZilentNight.5089:

I am sure if Anet sees certain questions they could potentially answer then they would and ones they cant, they would hopefully take those back and possibly do a spot light on that topic in future or give us a one off response in the forum.

Either way it does not hurt to ask.

That’s not really something that’s going to happen in this context. When I say “What would you like to know about creature design?”, the responses that are “Yes here is my question about WvW/beer/skill balance/fractals/festivals/stuff I want in the gem store!” simply get skimmed over while we pull questions from people who have questions about the actual topic.

That doesn’t mean “Oh hey clearly this is a list of things that ArenaNet as a company doesn’t care about”. It means that me, the creature team Animator, and the creature team Game Designer can’t answer those questions–not only because they have nothing to do with the topic of Friday’s Guild Chat, but because we don’t work on those teams and we don’t have answers.

So! Kudos to those of you who had questions on the topic! Ben and Brian came to me with two pages of good questions that were interesting to talk about and we’re looking forward to addressing them tomorrow.

Hi Rubi, it’s always good to hear from anet (thank you!) …..but… ugh… I just wish you hadn’t worded it as “simply get skimmed over”. At least tell us that the off-topic questions might be reviewed later by the relevant teams. It doesn’t have to happen but at least it would sound more positive. This thread is, unintentionally, providing an outlet for players to feel like they’re being listened to. Use that PR to your advantage.

And… uh.. if I’m being frank, I wish that “Kudos to those of you who had questions on the topic!” hadn’t happened either. The off-topic posters have just heard that their concerns are being “skimmed over” and now they’re getting a whack on the nose with the newspaper while their on-topic cousins get a “Who’s a good boy?” (Ouch!)

Anyway, moving on. Thanks again for giving us a chance to voice our questions on the creatures in the game, and thank you even more for animating them. Have a good guild chat Friday!

Great post, Zoltar. In 100% agreement with all you just said.

That said, necro minions are a little lack-luster.

There is a time and place (and team) for everything. Trying to push things unrelated to the subject presented, and then pouting cause your feathers got ruffled by a genuine and measured response is pretty silly.

Does one really need to be coddled and told they ara good boy and that every concern, no matter how unrelated will be jumped on asap? That is a pretty big double standard to expect that, while at the same time lacking the courtesy to answer the question originally presented.

Maxite.6102:

There is a time and place (and team) for everything. Trying to push things unrelated to the subject presented, and then pouting cause your feathers got ruffled by a genuine and measured response is pretty silly.

Does one really need to be coddled and told they ara good boy and that every concern, no matter how unrelated will be jumped on asap? That is a pretty big double standard to expect that, while at the same time lacking the courtesy to answer the question originally presented.

I’m not sure from the wording if that’s addressed at me? I have posted some creature comments here so…. anyway, I just wanted to ask which response you’re referring to as the “genuine and measured response” to give me some context?

RubiBayer.8134:

Melanion.4892:

I love how absolutely pointed Rubi’s response is. Let’s keep in mind that she has nothing to do with most of the things we actually care about. She’s just in charge of marketing stuff so she’ll be doing this kind of fluff to try to distract us from our disappointments with the game.

The power (I’m in charge of marketing! A promotion!) and ulterior motives ascribed here give me too much credit. The real reason behind the question is much less exciting: It’s the topic of Friday’s show.

That’s pretty much it. We have a planning meeting for each episode of Guild Chat with the developer guests. During this one, Ben and Brian asked me if we could have this forum post because they wanted to hear from GW2 players and answer some of their questions on the show. I said yes. They went through the thread today, picked questions, and gave them to me at rehearsal.

The reason for topic of this week’s Guild Chat isn’t too sinister either: When we did the last show with the creature team, it was on very short notice due to a last minute scheduling change. The developer guests really enjoyed themselves, and at the end of the show said they’d love to come back when there was more time to plan and they could give people a better look. I said I’d bring them back as soon as there was a spot in the schedule. February 5th is that spot.

So there’s a peek behind the scenes of Guild Chat show planning. It’s… not very thrilling.

i like this post

Pretty good chance that most people just read the title of the thread.

Khisanth.2948:

Pretty good chance that most people just read the title of the thread.

Right, which lets be honest, was a tad misleading.

(click-bait’ish, if you will.)

Siobhan.5273:

Khisanth.2948:

Pretty good chance that most people just read the title of the thread.

Right, which lets be honest, was a tad misleading.

(click-bait’ish, if you will.)

Even the devs have to live within the limits of the title length.

• Upcoming Guild Chat — important context
• “We want to answer your questions” — also important context
• “About ____” — forum topic length limit strikes again

I imagine it’s possible to have rephrased it, but then it would have been “misleading” about something else.

Just 1: When’s bunny ears coming back?

I’d prefer that anet explain it’s seeming dislike of Mesmer. Also, how about some insight into balancing? It looks pretty random and/or personal agenda from where I’m sitting.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Siobhan.5273:

Khisanth.2948:

Pretty good chance that most people just read the title of the thread.

Right, which lets be honest, was a tad misleading.

(click-bait’ish, if you will.)

Even the devs have to live within the limits of the title length.

• Upcoming Guild Chat — important context
• “We want to answer your questions” — also important context
• “About ____” — forum topic length limit strikes again

I imagine it’s possible to have rephrased it, but then it would have been “misleading” about something else.

True to an extent, but..

Upcoming Guild Chat: Ask Creature Design Questions! is less characters than what was used and is more clear in it’s intent.

At least folks know where they stand now.

Why remove any content from game? It just is counter productive. Like the old water pvp map was amazing (even when almost nobody went underwater). If it’s unbalanced, or something, then at least let it be used in hotjoin, what’s the harm? I don’t see any.

Will Anet try to do something about the Elitism in Raids? It’s already big time there (would be even crazier with dps meters). I mean i’m in a very big, very nice guild (980 members across two guilds). Finding a nice guild is hard. So i’m keeping this one. However finding a guild for raids is next to impossible. Either the guild has 10 trusted members (wich is perfect fit for raids, more members would cause a fight for guild raid slot drama), or just doesn’t accept non representing. LFG’s are so discriminating lately, that if you never done the bosses before you are disqualified. It’s even come this far that, while i have killed VG twice, i cannot fight ‘practise’ groups for sabetha and gorseval. Either be the early adopter king or get lost seems the current setting. I even made gear specially for raid, but ppl still don’t accept me. (either already full, another friend got priority, we don’t accept strangers, we need 20+ proofs of boss slaying, etc. So to repeat question: Will Anet try to find a way to make Raids more broadly played (without making em easier ofc)?

seabhac.5346:

When will we be able to fish?

+1 on this.

Fishing was, boring as many thought it was, really really cool in WoW. Loved hunting fishes and the fish swarms in particular. Would fit really well with the node-based model in GW2, too.

While I love the new enemies and I think the pressure they put is very cool, I would like to know: to what extent is it feasible/possible to create intelligent creatures which respond to player actions? maybe in massive scenarios such as open world maps it could be too expensive, but what about instanced content? are you guys giving some love in the enemy AI department ever since HoT was released?

@Edit
By “respond to player actions” I mean take whatever combat variables are in place (such as player position, armor class, profession, current health, amount of damage dealt, number of dodges/evades, etc) and take action based on such information. A responsive/smarter AI that takes advantage from how the player is fighting.

Here is a question to Rubi. What do you do with the question that are not related to the topic, the ones you said you skimmed over. Do you pass them over to the relevant people so that they can have a look at them or have you taken note of them so in future Q&A livestreams on other topics they will be asked? Or are they just Ignored all together?

Sird.4536:

Here is a question to Rubi. What do you do with the question that are not related to the topic, the ones you said you skimmed over. Do you pass them over to the relevant people so that they can have a look at them or have you taken note of them so in future Q&A livestreams on other topics they will be asked? Or are they just Ignored all together?

They are absolutely correct do scrap all non-related questions, because they weren’t requested in the first place. When you are asked to question another specific part of the game, do so, until then all the non-related questions will be ignored. No dev has to pass any question to anyone while they’re off the topic.

Why is it that as long standing players our opinion and suggestions seem overwhelmingly ignored? Why is it that things that need fixing stay broken for a long time. Why can’t there be a simple survey every major update where we can log in and give feedback. The game has definitely been losing long term players for over a year now. Give us the tools to help you guys easier. Us knowing feedback is gettting received and then seeing the results will go a long way.

Valento.9852:

Sird.4536:

Here is a question to Rubi. What do you do with the question that are not related to the topic, the ones you said you skimmed over. Do you pass them over to the relevant people so that they can have a look at them or have you taken note of them so in future Q&A livestreams on other topics they will be asked? Or are they just Ignored all together?

They are absolutely correct do scrap all non-related questions, because they weren’t requested in the first place. When you are asked to question another specific part of the game, do so, until then all the non-related questions will be ignored. No dev has to pass any question to anyone while they’re off the topic.

Anet do a lot of things right. I love this game. But managing customer expectations seems to be an area they struggle with. Sure, no specific dev has to do anything with off-topic questions in this case. Even anet as a company doesn’t have to do anything with these questions – but they shouldn’t make their players feel like they’re being ignored. That’s just bad customer relations. This thread is a rare occurrence where anet has asked for questions from the playerbase. Players felt like anet was listening. They felt like their questions were actually heard for a change. It was a great PR opportunity. A few simple words hinting that off-topic questions were archived for possible future consideration would have done wonders imho. Or even anet’s usual silence. But I feel that explicitly telling players that they’re being ignored is detrimental to anet’s business. You may disagree. It just makes me sad to see these opportunities missed again and again. But I’ve ranted enough about this subject. It’s good that anet opened at least this thread and I look forward to more like it. Thank you again, to anet’s creature designers. Keep ’em critters coming.