Guild Wars 2

Hey fellas,

We don’t have a post up about this over on Guru yet, but here’s the details.

Host: Grouch
Date/Time: April 26th, 2013 12PM PST (7PM GMT)
Duration: Around one hour.
Special Guests: ArenaNet Developers Jonathan Sharp and Karl McLain
Players Participating: Symbolic (Team Paradigm EU), Phantaram (Team Paradigm EU), Caed (NA)
Where: You can find us at twitch.tv/guildwars2guru

We’ll have some shownotes available for you guys sometime prior to the show, but expect discussion regarding upcoming changes in the April patch.

If you have any questions/comments let me know about it below.

Sweet sounds good! Hopefully we can get some info on the formula on this MMR.

When are we going to see Steb on here to talk about Death Blossom for like 2 hours.

So the devs are in? Nice surprise!

Ten characters.

Infrastructure question:

We have seen a lot of success with free-to-play games lately. League of Legends is the largest and most successful e-sport game right now, for example. This is due to the game being more accessible to the casual gaming population. Even though it’s free-to-play, wherever there is a crowd, there is money.

What if the Heart of the Mists was made into an online downloadable free-to-play segment of the game? In order to leave the Mists, you must purchase the game. Do you see potential in this as a marketing strategy for GW2?

Balance question:

Are you aware that slows in this game not only affect regular movement, but also reduce the range of moving abilities by -50%? This makes slows much more potent than they should be. Thief’s heartseeker is affected, Warrior’s Rush, Bull’s Charge, Whirlwind, Eviscerate, etc are all affected. At the same time, some class’s moving abilities are immune to slows, like Elementalist’s Ride the Ligntning. What are the devs’ thought process behind this mechanic?

Warrior:

I noticed that a lot of effort has been put into beefing up banners. Are you aware that the #2 healing skill from Banner of Tactics heals for only 500 HP? The skill description says it should heal for almost 4k HP, but in actuality it only heals a measly 500 HP. Intended? Also, there were no changes to the Battle Standard elite. Thoughts on that?

As I enjoy playing as an offensive elementalist, I’m most interesting in knowing specific plans about what they intend to do to our fire/ air/ earth traits, but questions about the focus’ and staff’ viability for pvp are also worth it.

Also, when is the aoe update coming? And equally important, how are they addressing that problem? Have they designed a scaling mechanic, have they simply toned down the numbers for aoe, what? And how are they trying to preserve the power of heavy aoe weapons?

maybe not this time, but i would really like a future SOTG that focuses specifically on underpowered and underused things. For each class.

For example, with Ele, what are they going to do to make staff and focus more viable? What about the fire/air/earth traits? etc. or any of our elites? conjured weapons? anything other than cantrips? etc.

Or for warrior, what are they going to do with the entire class? :p But more specifically, how will they make melee more viable in this game? What about our elites? etc.

Personally i would get much more excited about hearing about new things i could be doing with my characters, rather than nerfs to op stuff or features that we already know about.

I hope there is more focus on classes and utils weapons that aren’t seeing some play and “why” since the splits are happening, more than going over the D/D, S/D ele for the 5th month.

I’d really like to know if they are willing to make separate Leaderboards for teams and solo ques, I really like everything as it is now except for how negatively solo q’ing affects rating. Would be really exciting to have this split, I think both for teams and for solo players.

they are bringing in Karl again? ahahah this is going to be fun!

I can’t miss this!

Hmmm another SotG… Perhaps this time we could have more than just mesmer, thief, and ele special guests? Not hating here, just would like someone who mains some of the other classes that need more help, such as warrior and engineer. It doesn’t always feel like those other classes are brought up enough. And when they do, all we get is the class description

Stoked to see Phantaram on here! :]

NDHWAR.4853:

Hmmm another SotG… Perhaps this time we could have more than just mesmer, thief, and ele special guests? Not hating here, just would like someone who mains some of the other classes that need more help, such as warrior and engineer. It doesn’t always feel like those other classes are brought up enough. And when they do, all we get is the class description

This! It would be great.

Thanks God!

At least this time I’ll have somebody who will tell the devs how rubbish are : conjure/signets/glyph, how ridicolous are fire/air traits , how garbage is the staff, how shatterstone and dust devil on scepter are utter trash and how close to UP are ele elites.

As long as @Phantaram will tell the devs: how much the ele community kittening hate conjure and other non cantrip utilities, how frustating is the lack of defense and reasonable direct damage on staff, the scepter which need few buffs there and there and how ridicolously UP the focus is…I’ll be happy, He can then have bunker ele build nerfed all He wants

Grouch why you always invite people who you know from TS and you play with them? What about inviting random players who want to join? I saw many people in last question topic, where a lot of people want to join SOTG

Did you take any suggestions from the last SotG?

I hate to sound rude, but we don’t want Karl on the show.

Do you have a choice in the matter? Maybe have Sharp by himself, or with someone else?

Yea, if Karl start reading again, I will die…

So it seems no top players play warrior, so we will never have a warrior main be invited to these SotGs, so we’ll never be able to tell Anet straight up how stupid their opinion on warrior being “very close to becoming an unstoppable beast” is

How depressing

Coming soon in this month’s SotG:

• Class descriptions!
• Stat buffs to inherently clunky and awful mechanics for pvp!
• Promises for new content “some time to the future that may or may not be, but most likely will, be closer to the present time”(!)
• 2 minute segments for the lowest tier pvp classes!

Jzaku.9765:

So it seems no top players play warrior, so we will never have a warrior main be invited to these SotGs, so we’ll never be able to tell Anet straight up how stupid their opinion on warrior being “very close to becoming an unstoppable beast” is

How depressing

Coming soon in this month’s SotG:

• Class descriptions!
• Stat buffs to inherently clunky and awful mechanics for pvp!
• Promises for new content “some time to the future that may or may not be, but most likely will, be closer to the present time”(!)
• 2 minute segments for the lowest tier pvp classes!

“How do you feel about warriors after the recent patch?”

“We think that the changes were a little over the top. To compensate, Frenzy now lasts 2 seconds longer.”

Larynx.2453:

Jzaku.9765:

So it seems no top players play warrior, so we will never have a warrior main be invited to these SotGs, so we’ll never be able to tell Anet straight up how stupid their opinion on warrior being “very close to becoming an unstoppable beast” is

How depressing

Coming soon in this month’s SotG:

• Class descriptions!
• Stat buffs to inherently clunky and awful mechanics for pvp!
• Promises for new content “some time to the future that may or may not be, but most likely will, be closer to the present time”(!)
• 2 minute segments for the lowest tier pvp classes!

“How do you feel about warriors after the recent patch?”

“We think that the changes were a little over the top. To compensate, Frenzy now lasts 2 seconds longer.”

Warrior customer: Yeah that extra two seconds for frenzy skill on warriors is like saying come hit me I got the 50% damage taken damage on me for 2 more seconds woohoo. hahahah

I don’t use the frenzy skill at all because of that condition. It reminds me of the old Recklessness skill in WoW. Such a stupid mechanic to put for warriors no offense, but it’s really bad. My vision for frenzy skill

• It eats warriors boons to do extra damage than take damage.
• They can’t receive any boons until it wears off.

Hey Grouch,

Love what you do and appreciate you putting the effort in to get this out! It’s something I look forward to every month, especially when you are able to get devs in on the show.

There are many many threads that go on for months or get revisited again and again on these forums. Yet they never get a dev response. Some of these are bugs, others are balance changes. Examples include: Engineer Asura and Elixir S, Warrior Blind Immunity, Thief Pistol/Bow Range.

Now, I’m not asking for answers to these specific concerns, but I’d like to know how the dev team is going to improve their communication in the future. These threads go on and on, the conerns don’t go away. I’d just like to see them acknowledged! Let us know for example that Thief Pistol Range is a design decision their sticking to and why, not just an omission -or- that they are aware of bugs like Asuras and Elixir S, but it is a low priority. Just more communication would be nice.

I certainly don’t expect a dev response on every little bug or balance concern that gets brought up in the forums. But some of these are very popular threads. The mods should be alerting the dev team to the bigger ones, and getting some communication going.

Thanks!

zone.1073:

Are you aware that slows in this game not only affect regular movement, but also reduce the range of moving abilities by -50%? This makes slows much more potent than they should be. Thief’s heartseeker is affected, Warrior’s Rush, Bull’s Charge, Whirlwind, Eviscerate, etc are all affected. At the same time, some class’s moving abilities are immune to slows, like Elementalist’s Ride the Ligntning. What are the devs’ thought process behind this mechanic?

just a note, you know whats the difference between usuall moving skills and RTL? they are not the same in good and even in bad attributes…

RTL is better because its not affected by slow effects…

at the other hand, RTL is worse, because you cant stop it in mid air, you cant cast instant cast skill and you cant do anything overall, so it requires much more skill to use, especially in Spirit Watch, one bad RTL and you are locked in the corner or falling down from cliff…

this difference MUST be taken into account when balancing… anyway, at least Orbs slow should reduce range for the sake o map balance, not sure about other slows…

Oh great its gona be a cantrip bashing party. Tell them about rtl aswell for the 700000000 time, ppl like repeating that so much.

ask them why is it okay to have so many uncontrollable PvE stuff in PvP? Necromancer minions, guardian spirit weapons, elementalist elementals, random rock dogs etc..

oh..symbolic is in??Prepare for cantrip ele bashing all day :P

KARL IS BACK
it’s nice that you invited 2 persons from the same guild tho (tp), yeye, nice.

Kultas Sunstrider.9218:

KARL IS BACK
it’s nice that you invited 2 persons from the same guild tho (tp), yeye, nice.

I guess he organises it and does all the hard work so can invite who he likes. Besides, I think TP are the best team right now (imho only) – myb not on spirit watch though

Are they are holding the SoTG the same day as major update? the 26th

google.3709:

Are they are holding the SoTG the same day as major update? the 26th

The devs will probably talk about what’s coming in the patch, and the reasons behind those changes.

Mssg.7804:

Grouch why you always invite people who you know from TS and you play with them? What about inviting random players who want to join? I saw many people in last question topic, where a lot of people want to join SOTG

Inviting random players seems like quite the gamble!

Karl!

Definitely watch it.

Not Team Paradigm again..

Dardamaniac.1295:

Not Team Paradigm again..

rofl just because of your new found personal hate?

No just because its the same team over and over again..I would like some other guys from the top leaderboards.
Empathetic Fighter for example..And another dude for Curse team,i dont remember his name,with long hair,not the italian dude.
And why should i have some personal hate?Its just a game..Sometimes tho i react bad to bad statements

Mssg.7804:

Grouch why you always invite people who you know from TS and you play with them? What about inviting random players who want to join? I saw many people in last question topic, where a lot of people want to join SOTG

Eh, I hope this doesn’t happen. If you read these forums regularly, then you know why choosing randoms would likely wind up with some goofy questions that would not really help any of us. More variety would be good, but keeping the discussion to top tier players (which clearly does not include me) is the best thing for the community.

I think that limiting the blanace discsussion to a much briefer time frame would also be beneficial. Balance is not relevant to the vast majority of the community playing nowhere near the skill cap, so I would suggest talking briefly about balance of maybe 2 or 3 professions that need addressing (IMHO ele and warrior probably require immediate attention, thief probably a distant 3rd).

Spending more time on features would be wise. Stuff like:
1) What features can we expect to see in custom servers?
2) What do you think about separating team and solo que?
3) What features are in development that the Devs can talk a little about?
4) Any details they can disclose about MMR or Ladder formulas?

Rieselle.5079:

maybe not this time, but i would really like a future SOTG that focuses specifically on underpowered and underused things. For each class.

For example, with Ele, what are they going to do to make staff and focus more viable? What about the fire/air/earth traits? etc. or any of our elites? conjured weapons? anything other than cantrips? etc.

Or for warrior, what are they going to do with the entire class? :p But more specifically, how will they make melee more viable in this game? What about our elites? etc.

Personally i would get much more excited about hearing about new things i could be doing with my characters, rather than nerfs to op stuff or features that we already know about.

Definitely agree here.

zone.1073:

When doing the balance segment, instead of going through every class without specific questions, perhaps it’s better to ask specific class balance questions.

Because I noticed last SotG went like this:

Q: Rangers?

Devs: Oh, blah blah…blah.

Q: Necros?

Devs: Yup, blah blah..

Q: Eles?

Devs: Mmmhm, blah.

This went on for what, 30 minutes? The devs’ responses were not very informative because there were no specific class balance questions. And also, you can make this segment much shorter by going to the core of things and asking specific questions for specific classes.

Also, try to phrase your questions so that it’s not susceptible to “Yes/No” easy-out answers. For example, instead of asking, “Are we going to see changes to Warriors next patch?” (Devs will respond with “Yup” or “Nah”), you could rephrase it like “What do you think needs to be changed for Warriors? What problems does the class have?”

A good indication of whether or not the devs know what they’re doing is to make them state the problem in their own words. Have them tell us what the problem is, and what their solutions are. Also remember to challenge the devs with thought-provoking questions. Don’t let them off the hook easily. They are being paid by the hour, so really exercise their brains with challenging questions.

Agreed. Grouch and the participating players need to ask the tough questions that the devs have been dodging for the past 8 months.

A very simple answer to a simple question: Last time that a solo queue was discussed Peters said “We don’t have the infrastructure currently to do that.” I don’t want that answer, I want to know if you PLAN on adding it and if it is your vision for the game.

Currently me and many others just want a solo/duo queue with premade groups separate and ranking for each. Are you going to do that? I don’t want to know why it would be difficult, I want to know if you are willing to do it and if it is in the cards. I genuinely hate my solo-play experience in this game.

Some question for Anet:

7 month since the release of the game. When you will fix all the runes bugs? (Like strenght runes)

Why don’t you put something like Zkeys of GW1? Chest with tonics food and random skins that waste a lot of money and give to pvp people the chance to get rich?

Why if you say that GW2 pv kitten plitted from pve you put pvp skins that you can have only doing pve? Why you don’t do the opposite? Why the pvp people have to play pve and you harldy avoid to do the opposite?

It is normal that Discipline (of the warrior) gives only 0.1% more damage with burst skill?

Why there are some skills unblockable but there aren’t skill that take you when you are dodging? Do you want to penalize only some professions?

Are you going to do some usefull buff for warrior? or you will do something like:

• Berserker’s Might: reduce the number of stack of might form 5 to 4
• Reviver’s Might: Now grant 2 stacks of might

I’m gettin bored of your promise that you will change the world and after 7 month there are still bugs and 1/3 of the service that there was in GW1.

Note: first 2 questions are quite serious the other are a mix of rage and irony.

There are skills that effect you while dodging or simply do not care if you are dodging or not to activate their effect.

Is there any chance at all that you can improve the current salvaging system?

My wrist hurts ;_;

When can we finally have a proper dedicated healer to make pvp about skill and strategy and move it away from who get to put the highest spike first?.

Not to be a negative nancy but what’s the point of these, the same questions are always asked and they are always answered the same way.

Apolo.5942:

When can we finally have a proper dedicated healer to make pvp about skill and strategy and move it away from who get to put the highest spike first?.

I miss being a healer.

SuperHaze.4210:

Apolo.5942:

When can we finally have a proper dedicated healer to make pvp about skill and strategy and move it away from who get to put the highest spike first?.

I miss being a healer.

Just play ele, you can be a healer, dps, and tank.

waka.9826:

SuperHaze.4210:

Apolo.5942:

When can we finally have a proper dedicated healer to make pvp about skill and strategy and move it away from who get to put the highest spike first?.

I miss being a healer.

Just play ele, you can be a healer, dps, and tank.

I tried. Didn’t really like it, but it’s easy mode.

Why will Karl appear again?No need of clowns please.
Pity for the effort grouch and the rest of the players who will participate.Good luck.

Will it just be lip service or will the deplorable state of pvp actually be addressed?

Ostricheggs.3742:

Is there any chance at all that you can improve the current salvaging system?

My wrist hurts ;_;

Good suggestion, something I wanna ask anyways is if they have plans for reworking a lot of the pvp system. Unless people don’t care for that kind of question in which case just tell me in here! I am personally quite interested because at this rate I’ll be rank 80 in like 3 more years. And then another year salvaging the chests I buy at rank 80.