Guild Wars 2

First, I’m loving the recent patch. I know the pvp forum has been salty since the patch hit, but I do think we all appreciate the hard work the devs have done to improve this game for us. When I look at all the threads in this forum, there seems to a common theme, though: uncertainty. We really haven’t heard from anyone with regard to our pvp concerns.

I know in the past ANET has shown us that they can communicate with us: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Communicating-with-you/ But right now, I’m not hearing much. How come?

In PVP, balance is everything. PVP players feel even the most minor and nuanced balance issues, because unlike in PVE, we have skills and strategies used against us. Unlike a Legendary Champion out in the world—essentially programmed to die and provide loot—it’s up to PVP players to come up with the counterplay necessary to succeed. Why can’t we hear the dev’s thoughts on current balance? For example, Mesmer PU/burst. Is that where you want it? How about current burn ticks? Current state of the necro/ranger in pvp? Now I can see not wanting to discuss balance, especially when a patch is so new. But can you at least tell us what you’re monitoring and maybe what PVP players can expect in the future?

I fear that the PVP community has grown to believe that ANET doesn’t care about SPVP. But after playing GW1 since its release, I KNOW this isn’t true. Look at ANET’s track record: GW1 had some of the best PVP I’ve ever seen. ANET not only cares about pvp, but they basically created some of the best pvp in the genre. So why not learn from what’s been done in the past? Can GW2 implement some of the changes that really worked to help balance GW1? For instance, it seems like conditions are a serious issue: too weak in pve (with the exception of burn) and too strong in pvp. I’m seeing a great opportunity for the pve/pvp functionality split. What do you think?

Balance aside, many of us are left wondering about other things: What about leaderboards? Is SoloQ gone forever (and if so, why? Random Arenas seemed to work so well in the past)? Will anything be done to improve maps like Courtyard? Can we queue up again in pve while we wait for a match instead of hanging around in the HotM for 5-10 minutes? Any ideas on 4v5s? How about improving pvp rewards?

I love this game, but right now I feel frustrated because the great communication that we have had in the past seems to have disappeared. As we learned from the “Communicating with you” thread, this is toxic for our community.

I’m not asking for answers you don’t have yet, but complete silence on balance and other issues seems counterproductive.

I do understand that the developers have more responsibilities than posting on the forums, but I agree that communication (particularly regarding game balance) has been a consistent problem during GW2’s lifetime, and that the lack of communication has taken a toll on the community’s spirits. “Uncertain” is definitely a fitting way to describe the mood of the players in the past few weeks.

For me personally, it doesn’t really help that the devs’ current silence is following a major burst of communication in response to the uproar over the expansion’s price tag, and a short-lived spurt immediately after the last balance patch. That suggests to me that the developers only commit time to communicating on the forums when they need to do damage control. Perhaps that’s not true, but so long as we’re not hearing anything to the contrary, what exactly are we left to think? We went from silence, to major activity, to silence again as soon as each crisis had passed.

When Anet decides to talk to us, they tend to say some incredibly smart things. There have been more than a few times when their posts have illuminated why issues that seem to have simple solutions are actually complicated problems that take time to solve. When devs take time to fill us in on what they’re up to, it helps build trust with the community, even if we don’t always like the things they’re saying. It also gives them a chance to get feedback from a player perspective, and I can think of more than a few balance updates where having more of that perspective would have been valuable for Anet.

The Forum Specialists are a step forward, but they still don’t give us much insight into what the devs are actually thinking or doing at the time, and that feedback is precious to players. With no test server and very little back-and-forth between devs and players, each patch feels like a stab in the dark, and it really doesn’t have to be that way.

I’d honestly love it if some of the dev teams could write a paragraph at the start of each week that briefly goes over what they’re working on, the types of solutions they’re considering, ideas they’d like to explore in the future, and so on. Just a paragraph from each team, compiled into a weekly report and posted on the blog each Monday. No major time commitments, no expectations of anything they say being set in stone, just brief updates to keep us in the loop and let us see the way that they’re progressing. If that wouldn’t work, that’s fine, but anything would be better than what we have right now.

Arena net never talks about future plans, this has been a policy for years and given how rabid guild wars 2 players are, there is no point. they tried to once but that did not work out too well.

Besides talking only buys 2 weeks worth of peace then another 6 months of QQ when their plans are further away then what people on the forum anticipate. The point being, they are not going to talk and even though I would love for them to talk, they are not going to suddenly change their policies.

Also based on their definition of communication those 2 new post you got today is them communicating. It might not be what you want, but they never promised to give you exactly what you wanted. Finally, I wouldn’t bother to link a 10 month old comment designed to appease the people. If you want to see if they are communicating look at the dev comments, based on my experience Arena net considers that good enough.

“The Forum Specialists are a step forward, but they still don’t give us much insight into what the devs are actually thinking or doing at the time, and that feedback is precious to players. With no test server and very little back-and-forth between devs and players, each patch feels like a stab in the dark, and it really doesn’t have to be that way.”

We are forbidden to speak on behalf of ANET or state anything that can be considered concrete unless it’s public knowledge already. The forums specialist job is to keep the threads on the right track with ideas and constructive input, answer general questions in regards to their subject areas and pass along information to the development team.

For the most part, the emails we send are not directly responded to by a member of the dev team. It’s usually just “Got it” along with any answers to questions that they are willing to publicly answer.

The pvp community is being heard though, within the last 30-40 days you can go back through the dev notes and see things the community has suggested that been implemented in one way or another.

Wolfey.3407:

“The Forum Specialists are a step forward, but they still don’t give us much insight into what the devs are actually thinking or doing at the time, and that feedback is precious to players. With no test server and very little back-and-forth between devs and players, each patch feels like a stab in the dark, and it really doesn’t have to be that way.”

We are forbidden to speak on behalf of ANET or state anything that can be considered concrete unless it’s public knowledge already. The forums specialist job is to keep the threads on the right track with ideas and constructive input, answer general questions in regards to their subject areas and pass along information to the development team.

For the most part, the emails we send are not directly responded to by a member of the dev team. It’s usually just “Got it” along with any answers to questions that they are willing to publicly answer.

The pvp community is being heard though, within the last 30-40 days you can go back through the dev notes and see things the community has suggested that been implemented in one way or another.

Just to be clear, I didn’t mean that remark as a criticism of the Forum Specialists. I understand that it’s not your job to be spokespeople for Anet, and I wouldn’t expect you to pass on information that the developers themselves aren’t speaking about. The point I wanted to make was that it’s frustrating that the communication usually only goes one way – from players to devs. The devs’ half of the conversation usually remains unheard until patch time, which leads to an impatient and uneasy community. That’s not the fault of the Forum Specialists, though. You guys are doing your job perfectly, and I just wish there was a way that we could turn the lists of feedback we give you into something more resembling a conversation.

About Anet never discussing future content, I know that’s been their policy since well before launch, and when it comes to implementing major pieces of content, I can definitely understand the policy of not making promises you’re not sure you can keep. However, game balance is generally more dynamic than something like new game modes or reward systems, and the strength of the game’s professions is something players have to interact with continually during their game experience, regardless of what game modes they play. If my Ranger currently has weak weapons and skills, that affects my immediate experience much more than the upcoming Stronghold game type, or even more than future Elite Specializations. Having a dialogue regarding balance helps to reassure me that the devs are aware of the specific issues, gives the community insight into the solutions the devs are planning, and gives the devs a chance to gather feedback on those solutions from players who are able to spend more time playing the game itself.

As an example of where balance currently goes wrong, consider the recent nerf to the Necromancer trait Chilling Darkness. Necromancers were blindsided by this change, since no one was really complaining about it in-game or on the forums, and it made a trait that was once a viable choice for builds much less appealing. There was no discussion leading up to the nerf, and no explanation following it. Without any context from the devs, it looks like a nerf for the sake of a nerf, and that’s not a good way to market your balance changes. I can’t help but think more community interaction would have either resulted in a different outcome, one way or another.

With Elite specializations coming with HoT, we’re going to be experiencing even more shifts to game balance, and it would be great to have some concrete reassurance that developers and players are on the same page. At present, I’m not convinced we are. Here are a few reasons I can cite:

1) Anet has repeatedly made the statement that they want to avoid “whack-a-mole” balancing, and instead gradually tune the professions by increments, but for quite some time now, we’ve alternated between sudden, massive balance changes and long periods of stagnation. Why is that? I wish we knew, but we don’t.

2) We’ve got professions that have been crying for specific changes since close to launch, but many have either been ignored or addressed in ways that ignore community feedback (e.g. Guardian Shield skills). Why? We don’t know.

3) Why weren’t so many obviously overpowered builds from the recent patch filtered out during the testing phase? These weren’t “hidden” combos by any means, and players found them immediately when the patch released. So why? We don’t know.

We don’t know anything about these types of issues, so it’s hard to put our complete faith in Anet’s design decisions going forward. It would be great if they could at least keep us somewhat in the loop as they’re making changes, because otherwise, it’s just going to lead to worse community relations over time. There doesn’t need to be an essay explaining every change, and not everything has to be open for discussion, but again, just about anything would improve the current situation.

The only people Anet devs communicate with are top ESL players. This is evident from this thread, https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Fix-for-Taunt-coming-soon/first#post5250587, where the only dev post was of course to defend themselves.