Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone – I’m Amos and I play an engineer. I LOVE my engineer, his tools, his playstyle, everything! I come here as an ambassador from the engineering forums with some questions to ask. I understand developers do not normally post in ANY of the profession-specific forums, so I was hoping to get a miracle here

It’s incredibly frustrating to not get any feedback on your profession from the developers. It seems like any time there is a developer post, blog article, or live stream, they talk about mesmers, warriors, guardians, elementalists and thieves. I was thinking about this after today’s stream when someone asked about class balance across the board, and they made one point about elementalists, another about mesmers, then moved on.

I’d like to ask if the community can point me in the direction of any information about the dev’s feelings on engineers. It is my understanding that, for whatever reason, official game information can be released on third party sites such as Twitter Reddit, etc., while the official site inexplicably goes uninformed.

Honestly, if a dev told me right now that they felt engineers were fine and nothing is going to happen to them, I’d be satisfied with that! My engineer does quite well in pve and pvp, and I’m completely happy playing him as-is. It’s just the sheer amount of questions, bugs, and stuff that goes not only unanswered but unacknowledged that is so frustrating. I KNOW that they are reading the posts, and I KNOW things are in the works, I would just like to hear more about it in the meantime. I feel like I know other professions’ futures better than my own!

It is pretty obvious Anet lead designers haven’t played engineer much at all. They are probably themselves playing warrior, guardian and thief as their main and elementalist and mesmer as their alts. At least the game seems to be biased like that. I can be wrong as there is very little communication. No developer has ever commented any of the threads I have originated or participated.

Arenanet should reward its employers for communicating here. Now most people, like you, are yelling at a wall. I feel your frustration.

Deniara

Deniara Devious.3948:

It is pretty obvious Anet lead designers haven’t played engineer much at all.

Comments like this keep the developers out of the forums more than they bring developers in. The tone of conversation goes both ways. If you (and the community you represent) want developers to make an appearance, then the community needs to behave themselves in a manner that will encourage developers to visit them.

Amos.8760:

It’s incredibly frustrating to not get any feedback on your profession from the developers.

Yeah, it’s kitten frustrating. But that’s how it goes. I wish I had something more useful to say, but this is the nature of game development and community inclusion: the scales aren’t always balanced.

If that gets too much on your nerves, perhaps it’s time to take a break from the forums for a month or two. Just let the issue slide, and give the situation some time to balance. I promise that as long as you lurk on the forums in hopes that maybe today, or maybe tomorrow, a dev post will happen, it will only make you more sour about the subject. Forums are really great for reintroducing the topics that bother you, which is a large part why so many game forums become malignant over time: players who frequent forums subject each other to the same complaints and shortcomings over, and over, and over. Sometimes it’s best to leave it alone.

Yeah, I just check them real quick 1-2 times a day when things are slow. I’m really not the complaining type. There are some real immature people in the engineering forums that yell and kitten and moan about the profession – all the while I’m having a blast (pun intended) playing my engineer. There are some great discussions and well-worded complaints in there too.

It just feels like whenever I listen or read dev feedback, none of it has anything to do with me. I honestly think that I’ve never heard or read the word ‘engineer’ from a dev’s mouth or keyboard aside from the profession description on the website, or patch notes. Our last patch addressed only one of the many issues the engineer forums have been wondering about for months now – and we’re left wondering about the rest of the issues. Like I said, if their answer to them are “it’s fine the way it is, and it will stay that way”, then I’ll be happy, shut up, and continue to play my engineer. But the lack of even acknowledgement of us as a profession is quite unsettling!

Hey, if the dev do not talk about engineer, this is a good thing for you, this means the engineer class is perfect as it is now ^^

The less the devs notice the engineer the less they get pointlessly nerfed.

Pinder.5261:

Deniara Devious.3948:

It is pretty obvious Anet lead designers haven’t played engineer much at all.

Comments like this keep the developers out of the forums more than they bring developers in. The tone of conversation goes both ways. If you (and the community you represent) want developers to make an appearance, then the community needs to behave themselves in a manner that will encourage developers to visit them.

You are right. I apologize the tone of my comment earlier.

But the thing is: It is not the task of the game players to encourage developers to visit the official forums of the game. This is the task of the management of Arenanet and NCSoft.

They should encourage their employers to participate the discussions here by rewarding them. E.g. give $50 reward for each Arenanet employer who posts an intelligent forum message. If one developer does 50 posts per month, he/she would receive $2500 bonus = nice!

Now the lack of communication, keeping players in the dark, not replying the questions even when several players repeatedly ask for that is sure to lead to player frustration and leaving the game.

Maybe there are some “gestapo” rules inside Anet, forbidding the developers comment here? Maybe there is financial trouble and lack of resources, not giving the developers enough time to post even one message per week?

We can only speculate…

Deniara

Amos.8760:

It just feels like whenever I listen or read dev feedback, none of it has anything to do with me. I honestly think that I’ve never heard or read the word ‘engineer’ from a dev’s mouth or keyboard aside from the profession description on the website, or patch notes.

Something to remember is that the engineer was the very last class to go through an overhaul, which occurred late in the public beta tests. If i had to guess, I’d say that the devs have focused on other classes because those areas have gathered sufficient information relative to the distance from the last big change, and the devs are now ready to act on it. Whereas the engineer probably needs more time, if not to percolate, just to wait its turn.

I know that doesn’t mean the devs have to stay silent, but hopefully you can see why that would make them cautious about confirming or denying information that isn’t ready for public affirmation. Its a pain to wait, but devs don’t get a lot of breaks when talking to the public- backlash almost always happens, even with good news. While you, personally, might feel happy hearing a dev say that everything is fine with engineers- just because you got to see them post- many other players would riot over the idea. Their safest option is to stay out entirely.

Look at the Tera forums, people ask questions there. The staff answers them. Threads don’t disappear when someone says a naughty word.