Guild Wars 2

First a person names a question about something you wonder why it’s implemented that way.

The next person now puts himself into the shoes of a developer and tries to answer with a (relatively) satisfying answer (the answer he thinks a developer would give).

some rules:
-) no answers like “because it makes money”, but gameplay/stlye related answers.
-) only 1 question at a time
-) you can only ask a question, if an answer to the previous question was given.
-) real dev-quotes are the best answers possible. Add the source!
-) don’t be afraid to give long answers. YOU are the developer who tries to give a fair and honest answer…
-) trolls should be ignored

example:
Q: why aren’t gathering nodes scaling with your true level? Give us T6 nodes in Queensdale when we’ve reached lv.80.
A: We want to make sure that players can gather low level crafting materials at any given time. Some people enjoy leveling their alts with crafting, so it makes sense for lv.80 players to gather those low level mats somewhere. Also T6 mats should be more difficult to get, so it makes sense to limit those to the difficult zones in the game.

so let’s go

First question: Dear Anet dev, why is supporting in GW2 as inefficient as it is at the moment? Some professions have support-build-options but healing power scales very poorly.

A: Players are too clever at creating invincible self-heal bunkers so we have to keep nerfing healing.

Q: Why are dyes unlocked per character instead of per account?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Dear Anet dev, why is supporting in GW2 as inefficient as it is at the moment? Some professions have support-build-options but healing power scales very poorly.

Dear Marcus,

Thank you for your question and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to respond to you.

As a design analyst and all-round nice guy, I have looked into this exact issue. My investigation has shown that, whilst increasing the Healing Power scaling would be beneficial to the game as a whole, the nest-egg I have placed in Dettol shares would increasingly drop in value as a result.

So, although we have logged your concern and passed it to the relevant department for internal review, unfortunately we will not be increasing Healing Power Scaling at this time.

Thank you once again for your feedback and please continue to enjoy the cuts, scrapes, abrasions Tyria offers and remember to look in aisle 9 for Dettol as required.

Your programmatical servant
– Scoundrel

Dear A-Net,

Why is the Fixer-Upper not able to be used by Engineers?

Gibson.4036:

A: Players are too clever at creating invincible self-heal bunkers so we have to keep nerfing healing.

Q: Why are dyes unlocked per character instead of per account?

Dear Gibson,

Why indeed, there answer there is “For your enjoyment”
I thought loing and hard about this and asked myself how stoked i would be to get an abyss dye drop,and the answer is pretty kitten stoked, now if i made all your dyes account bound you only feel this joy once, as it stands now you feel this joy with each new character. Glad i could make you feel better, your welcome.

Dear Dev

Why does it cost me so much to use a portal – I helped save the world should I not get a discount.

noctern.5213:

Dear Dev

Why does it cost me so much to use a portal – I helped save the world should I not get a discount.

dear noctern

we need regular gold sinks in the game and waypointing proved to be among the best. Players love to teleport from one metaevent-boss to the next and are able to farm quite a bit of silver that way. It’s our way to balance that.

you could give the alternative a try. Running. You actually might encounter events which you haven’t experienced before.

next question:

dear dev
Why are there no dynamic events in the big cities like there are in Ebonhawke? I love that gem of a city.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

next question:

dear dev
Why are there no dynamic events in the big cities like in Ebonhawke? I love that gem of a city.

There are actually events within the ebonhawk fortress. I’ve done one or two… wiki actually lists 4…

In regards to dynamic events within the actual capitol cities themselves… I’ve not a clue, and even putting myself into a devs shoes, I can’t think of a reason why there aren’t, well…maybe 1.

Cities are “safe zones” in that you can feel safe knowing a band of foes isn’t going to roam through and kill you if you go afk. One could assume that you could potentially have small events like “stop the purse thief” or “save ‘x’ from being mugged” however, these would sort of kill the “safe” feeling we’re supposed to have.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

dear dev
Why are there no dynamic events in the big cities like in Ebonhawke? I love that gem of a city.

There are several events in Ebonhawke.

sorry, wrong wording. I meant: why are there no events in big cities, like there are in Ebonhawke? DR, BC, Grove,… all silent.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

sorry, wrong wording. I meant: why are there no events in big cities, like there are in Ebonhawke? DR, BC, Grove,… all silent.

Ah, yeah probably simply for the ‘safety’ feeling, presented previously.

My question (finally came up with one haha)

Why aren’t there more non-skirt options among the armor sets? There seem to be a lot of skirts/trenchcoats across all 3 armor tiers, but few simple “pant” outfits.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

sorry, wrong wording. I meant: why are there no events in big cities, like there are in Ebonhawke? DR, BC, Grove,… all silent.

Ah, yeah probably simply for the ‘safety’ feeling, presented previously.

My question (finally came up with one haha)

Why aren’t there more non-skirt options among the armor sets? There seem to be a lot of skirts/trenchcoats across all 3 armor tiers, but few simple “pant” outfits.

Thank you for your question.

Skirts are relatively easy to code. Pants, on the other hand are roughly twice to code to make sure there aren’t clipping issues and that your dye looks the way you wish. We have enough clipping issues with tails, and pants would complicate matters further. On the other hand, there are some of the lower-level skins that have more pants-like options. Someday, we may implement more pants skins, but as of right now, there are other concerns with armor that we are dealing with.

Q: Why can’t we see when our guild members logged in last?

Dear Ashabhi,
We are now focusing on core features to make GW2 the best PC game we can and right now guild functionality are not on high priority, but they are definitely not off the table, just don’t expect to see something before the end of the year.

Q: Since GW1 had the best arena-based PvP ever made, why did you choose to NOT introduce GvG or HA as core pvp design in GW2?