Guild Wars 2

Ok guys lets keep this thread civil and on track and move back on topic
Keep the emotions in check and be professional

Evan I have a question for you.
You read these forums a bit and take in alot of feedback and information.

From your own professional opinion what is your take on the pve vs pvp priority discussed here, and what would you do to increase spvp productivity/resources. If it is something the community can help with what question would you ask us.

I don’t think it is an issue. PvP eats up a lot more resources for the same amount of results. Usually about 6 to 12 times as much actually. With that in mind I think things are going along at an acceptable rate if they have an even split of resources between PvE, PvP, and WvW.

Now this is going to sound like I’m dumping on the PvE content devs so I apologise in advance.

If the quality of content, the testing, the polish, the bug fixing and the balance, of PvE content that comes out with the Living Story was the quality of content for sPvP you guys would be running for LoL or WoW PvP faster than a D/D ele with the old RtL. The bar for what’s acceptable in a PvP environment (both in WvW and in sPvP) is far higher than what’s acceptable in a PvE environment.

Consider WvW for example. The new changes to the borderlands map are pretty dramatic. One of the things the devs mentioned was they wanted to be sure you can’t treb any of the keeps from those locations. That’s just one thing they have to consider. The entire format revolves around clever siege placement and knowledgeable use of your surroundings. My old guild used to have a map of WvW and ideal locations to place certain siege when defending or attacking based on what it could hit and what could hit it. The complexity of the map is astounding and poor considerations lead to poor player experiences. If the devs just chucked random things into the game and random maps ro game modes, all kinds of crazy imbalances would happen and the general experience would be far worse. Honestly, when I PvP, rarely does it matter which map I’m on (unless it’s Skyhammer or Raid on the Capricorn) because aside from an environment, the map doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as the meta, and for all the kittening sPvP players do about PvE favouritism, the sPvP meta is far more dynamic and central to balance patches each month than the PvE meta.

I pray each month that my favourite PvE class becomes abysmally weak in sPvP because that’s usually the only time real action is taken to address power level issues (no matter how dramatic they are in PvE). Take ranger spirits for example. They are absolutely pathetic in PvE (even the Frost Spirit is only used in speed clear groups and never for anything other than the 7% damage buff, in pugs it’s an awful skill) yet they are considered OP in sPvP. How likely is it that their PvE issues will be resolved any time soon as a result of this unfortunate development? To get balance action on an sPvP issue all you need to do is rate a bit above or below average in terms of power level. In PvE you can take off more than 25% health from one of the hardest bosses in the game with a single skill and nothing is done about it (Feedback on Lupicus). You can have a core mechanic which not only is often unhelpful, but actually makes content harder (ranger pet will often die to random AoE or cleaves but it will also trigger traps like blossoms in Twilight Arbor or the mines in Canache’s Layer but it will also be targeted by AoE skills which target all party members resulting in more damage to people who fail to dodge or are unfortunate enough to be near the pet and enemies which gain something when they land a hit can charge off of the pet).

All things considered, sPvP is very privileged in some ways. If you think getting another pumpkin to carve or snowman to build or the same puzzle to repeat because an achievement said so (or a new daily to do to get a new ring with slightly better stats), if you think that’s quality content you’ve set the bar very low.

As a non PvE player I think you have a bit of a warped view of what PvE currently has… I know this may seem weird to hear (and I don’t disagree with your assessment of spvp on a whole) but sPvP is possibly the closest thing to polished the game has at the moment and their PvE updates have been far from wonderous.
I mean look at the next update which I am really looking toward and hoping that it is good, but in reality it is just fixing how bad the giant world boss fights were in the first place.

PvP has effected pve too many times skill wise and thrown off balance too…. Spirit weapons used to be viable early on, but now because they were invulnerable in PvP (which I could totally understand changing) have a health bar AND a timer… 90% of the time in pve they die so fast it is a waste of a utility slot.

Or AoE abilities of players AND most mobs being limited to 5 targets… Look at the Shadow Behemoth… I was watching old beta footage I had taken recently and whole scores of players would go down to the red circles it would make… now… even if my character does get hit while standing still… I take ~300-600damage tops, even with an under leveled character.
Heck I 5manned it during the scarlet invasions just to see what it was like and it STILL didn’t dent me.

So yeah,
TL;DR
PvE requires frequent updates to keep people playing because the core game is needing so very much fixing, I mean even the leveling process is painful.
sPvP requires lots of finesse fixing and every fix takes much longer and has a wider effect than most people think.
WvW… WvW is actually coming along at a pace I am happy with tbh, once they add some better reward structures and commander tools I can see it being okay at updating at the pace it is now.

So how likely is it that Anet will get rid of condition damage from the game?

Kline.9561:

FrownyClown.8402:

So how likely is it that Anet will get rid of condition damage from the game?

This is not the point of this thread

This is not the point of anything actually

natsos.3692:

silvermember.8941:

Now you are just using hyperbole.[…]

I understand that, and I might have to clarify my post a little bit.

I used hyperboles on purpose because sometimes they help people shake their minds(sometimes it does the exact opposite, it’s a risk I had to take).

Now for the facts, indeed ANet never claimed that GW2 PvP will be the messiah of PvP, but it was advertised for something better than what it was.

Better, good or great are all based on opinion. To me personally, guild wars 2 PvP has the potential to be better than most other MMORPGs that I have played (I played guild wars 1 but I couldn’t do anything more than RA and RA was only fun If you were lucky enough to get a monk on your team, due to the culture in gw1 I was locked out of most PvP game modes during my time in gw1). I like the pick up and play nature of the game.

I am not saying guild wars 2 isn’t lacking because it is. Personally, I think it is bad form to make an argument entirely around marketing material, the goal of marketing is to present your product as the best there is and on unproveable statements. They are other things that makes PvP kind of kittenty for me personally, the biggest is the fact that that the elementalist is a disappointment and if I can’t PvP with my elementalist I aint bothering to PvP.

ADDED: not knocking you for using hyperboles, essentially that is all I do on the elementalist forum, I feel like it makes a somewhat horrible situation much more bearable.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Letting you guys know I’m still reading this thread. This topic comes up a lot and there is usually very little feedback simply because its so hard to explain without going over all of game development.

As for the sibling analogy, clothes are clothes. It doesn’t translate well to the different kinds of updates we release. I think relating to computer updates could be better:
Two siblings. One enjoys buildings and tweaking computers, and using it to its full extent to play the latest and greatest games. The other only uses the computer as a means to do homework, play casual games, social network, etc. The first always wants the latest parts, but they’re very expensive and the parents can only afford them on special occasions. However, lots of software for the other sibling may be easy to acquire because its cheap or free, and readily available. Even though the first sibling still wants software too, it’s relatively useless without those shiny expensive parts. In the end, one sibling gets more presents than the other without knowing how different they really are. I hope that makes sense :P

i like the sibling story’s , here’s mine

The first sibling wants 1 new thing that costs around 200$ together. He cant get it cause his parents think its to expensive. ( no argument there ).
BUT
In the meanwhile the second sibling has gotten already 10 small presents of around 20$ each. She got it cause the parents didnt think 20$ was a lot. So without them noticing it they already gave second sibling 200$ of presents in total while the first still crying for his 1 presents that cost the same.

Would you blame the first sibling for hating his parents ?

Evan Lesh.3295:

evilapprentice.6379:

I do want to say again that while I’ve been very harsh with my opinion here, I do still appreciate you taking the time to read and respond to the thread as a whole. I might not be happy with the current state of PvP, but I’m not just here to bash the game – I’d like to see it reach a better place, and hopefully soon.

I know you all love (or want to love) the game :P

we do want to love the game but you guys in A-net are not making it easy for us PvP players…

My take on this is that PvE is primarily content driven, where PvP is experience driven – the nature and quality of the experience, how it feels etc. I myself, and I know some others agree, would be more happy to see quality of life changes to PvP than new content – at least in the near term. New maps and rewards are nice, but you only see those things if you play – addressing the issues which cause the quality of the play experience itself to motivate people not to play would be a priority in my opinion.

Why do we have one game mode after one year ?

Even the new maps are just meh. I wonder what happen if they put skyhammer in tournaments.

Evan Lesh.3295:

The updates exclusive to PvE and PvP are hard to compare. Almost all PvP features require very intensive programmer and server support like solo queue, matchmaking, custom arenas, spectator mode, etc. Living story updates leverage existing technology to advance the story and expand content with new mobs, crafting recipes, dungeons, etc. PvP has few areas expandable by content; the main feature being maps which we release regularly. Balance updates affect all parts of the game and don’t come out for one any faster for one than the other.

Woah.

You’re telling me in the five years you developed the game, no one had foresight to create objects that could make producing PvP game objects easier? I get the argument that say extending content in PvE is essentially the act of extending an already existing class model and reworking it whereas in PvP you have to design the entire template. I get that, but things like meta balance, observer mode, data collection to ensure a smoother understanding of your meta, effective queues, effective tournaments, reasonable gamemodes that make sense.. All things that you pioneered in GW1 or learned a lot about in GW1 weren’t included in the design phase initially developed in the five years it took you to make GW2?

It seems to me that if I were to make a game, especially from scratch, I would use as many lessons I already learned as possible. My goal wouldn’t be to shoot blindly in the dark at release, it would be to take all the lessons I’ve learned in the past from previous developments, all the lessons from playing other games, from life experiences, all those lessons and use them. Not just create my own kittenumptions that are unfounded.

If Anet was a new developer and they were making this game from scratch, didn’t take five years to develop and saying “guys, these things are hard to develop,” I would believe them. Unfortunately, Anet doesn’t have that luxury.

If I were in charge of this project I would have fired all of my designers for the lack of foresight here.