This Friday, December 6th, at 2pm PST (22:00 GMT), we’ll be airing the first episode of “Ready Up”, the PvP team’s new bi-weekly livestream that focuses on just about everything PvP.
In the first episode, we’ll be talking about the following things:
John Corpening (PvP Team Coordinator) will joining me for a Q&A on today’s blog-post that details our development plans going through the end of this year and into the next. Feel free to respond below with any questions you might have on the recent blog post and we’ll try to answer as much as we can!
Hugh Norfolk (PvP Game Designer) will be showing off the first wave of PvP reward changes going in with the December 10th update.
Karl McLain (Skill and Balance Coordinator) and Roy Cronacher (Skills Designer) will be previewing eight brand new never-before-seen healing skills, available in PvP, WvW, and PvE!
For future episodes, we’ll be using Ready Up to preview upcoming changes, recap tournaments, get feedback on things in development, and much much more!
Rank Tokens/tournament tokens With people that were late to the “horde your glory party”, and instead bought a bunch of chests, what can we expect to see done with the hundreds of rank tokens we now have from the salvaging?
Achievements attracting new players immediately. With MMR being admittedly too high at the default level, what is being done to ensure those players aren’t immediately lumped in with seasoned players when they queue up for ranked tournaments as rank 1?
Money/Glory spent on leveling tomes. Will the gold being spent be far less than the gold that would be spent in crafting? For around 4 gold I can get 10 levels from cooking. Will it be far less than that if I buy individual tomes?
Duo Queue – Is there anything on the horizon to improve queueing for 2 friends? Right now, the option is team queue, where you’ll almost definitely face a full 5 man team, or struggle in hotjoin to get and stay on the same team.
A way to differentiate between a PvP and PvE version of an item – Is there any way to possibly add a blue glow or some other easily identifiable way to see that the version was earned in PvP? There is something prestigious about being good at PvP in games, and it should show aesthetically.
Really excited that PvP is getting its own weekly feature. Hopefully this builds some buzz and gives the community something to be positive about. Stoked for previews and tournament coverage!
1. With the removal of the rank system being announced, how long do players have to get their desired rank finishers before it is too late? Or more simply how long do we have before the rank system is gone?
2. If you guys do eventually remove the rank system and reward the players prestige for their earned ranks, will anything be done about the people who farmed skyhammer? You’d basically be rewarding people who exploited the game.
Tournament chests: Two questions here
1) Will the bug when transferrring between EU/NA be fixed so you don’t lose any chests in the transfer with these updates?
2) You mentioned in state of the game on 6th of september that the chests will be less rng so you there is more point to them and you actually get useful stuff. Can you explain if the chests will be changed somewhat or remain the same with the gear update.
Skyhammer farm: These people have gained a lot of glory, my worry is this might damage the economy even more with so many people having that much glory to exchange to gold. Is there a limit on the exchange rate and will skyhammer farmers be addressed in any shape or form?
Removing ranks: I’m not sure what brought this forward, but is there a way we can still achieve phoenix and/or dragon rank after this update for the finisher or is this limited to divisions?
Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?
Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise can not see all ends
Glad that you guys are taking this initiative on having a stream every 2 weeks for PvP! Questions I would like to have asked:
How many skill points will the new heals cost total (including skill tiers)? I’m really hoping that we won’t have to buy hundreds of tomes on each character just to unlock the new heals.
How much glory will each tome cost?
Any insight as to what effect the existing PvP skins will have after this gear revamp? Will they only be able to be used for aesthetics, or will you be able to trade them in for something?
Any info on how Legendaries will be handled? I think it would be cool for PvP and PvE to have their own Legendaries (with the PvP ones having less trailing and glowing effects). Since we are going to blur the gear lines together, it would be nice to keep Legendaries separate to show the player’s hardcore dedication to that particular area of the game, and give players something to strive for if they’ve mastered one area of the game but not the other.
For the ladders, what will be done to discourage people at the top of the ladder from sitting on their ladder position till they are dethroned or the season ends? It’s been alluded to that decay will be better handled in the future, any details on that which can be spoken about now?
Ladders are the final step on our rewards road trip, and as such, they are a long-term project.
I know you can not give us an exact date, and it might also change till the release, but I would still love to get a peek at your plans.
The quoted sentence is formulated so vague, that it can also mean we have to wait till December 2014 for the ladder implementation.
EU – Multiple times #1 SoloQ pre Dec 2014 (pure MMR based ladder)
Primoridal (S1) & Exalted (S2) & Illustrious (S3) Legend
What are your thoughts on how PvE gear in PvP might diminish the skill value of the player (ie, flame legion armor being way harder to obtain in PvP than PvE).
Will the new ladder ranking system be directly implemented in the game as ranks are now instead of a website?
Will current leader boards ever be view able in game?
These “PvP specific rewards” will they be skins and can they be used in PvE?
-Should we hold on to our chests or can we open them without the danger
of them having shards added a few months down the line?
-What is done about prestigious pvp armor? The way I see it is that anybody can have every armor in pvp regardless of their personal skill or time invested in spvp.
To each his own but I personally don’t like that.
Question: Along with the new skills, reward and armor changes (which i personally love em), what other ideas on PvP modes you have that are different from the current ones? Also are you thinking of making small PvP arenas for 1v1 2v2 3v3 only?
What are your plans for hot-join when the new game modes and the ladders are released? Will it become unranked but with the same rules as ranked, remain 8v8 or will it be removed?
With the removal of the rank system being announced, how long do players have to get their desired rank finishers before it is too late? Or more simply how long do we have before the rank system is gone?
• Mystic Forge : Will mystic forge pvp crafting still be a thing, and if so will it play a even bigger part with the new rewards system?
• What’s coming first? : Ladders or new game-modes.
• Will you hold back? : A big topic right now is the skhyammer farmers. Taking this in mind, will you minimize the amount of rewards that current glory-holders will get due to to those farmers?
• Will we stand out? : Are titles going to be the only thing that will distinguish us from the pve community?
1) As there was no mention of the new game modes in the blog, would you be able to share where the new game modes rest in the release roadmap?
2) How long will a season be?
3) Will there be titles to go along with the forthcoming season/ladder system?
Is there any chance to keep the rank finishers and progression to unlock them in any form?
I was hoping that remained at least as some sort of indicator of time spent doing things in PvP, parallel to ladders, but without any effect on matching. You know, like the /age command, but just for time spend in PvP?
I don’t mind losing the /rank emote, but I wanted to get at least bear to use with my Bear norn. Now I will never get there, because I refused to farm points with some silly “red resigns”-like scheme.
SUGGEST-A-TRON says:
PAY—ONCE—UNLOCKS—ARE—ALWAYS—BETTER.
No exceptions!
[quote=3303383;felivear.1536: ]A way to differentiate between a PvP and PvE version of an item* – Is there any way to possibly add a blue glow or some other easily identifiable way to see that the version was earned in PvP? There is something prestigious about being good at PvP in games, and it should show aesthetically. [/quote]
Anyone can get full Arah armor from PvP by random chance from tournament chests. If you do enough PvP you can obtain pretty much anything you want. The PvP reward system is essentially a massive grind, it has very little to do with being good (especially when you consider that the match making system attempts to place you with similair skilled opponents). There is nothing presitigous about the aesthetic rewards from GW2 PvP in its current form, it’s merely an indicator of how much you’ve played sPvP no matter how poorly you played. Many of the higher ranked people did so via Skyhammer farms, the others simply played more than other people.
I see no reason why PvP gear would be more prestigious than PvE gear. In fact the reverse is usually the case. Obtaining Arah armor in PvE (baring paying someone to run you through the dungeon) is arguably more prestigous than PvP gear. Many PvE armour sets show accomplishment in specific content. The PvP gear is all currently generically awarded for participation. You don’t have to master any content, you just have to turn up.
On topic. I wish the people in charge of skill balance across the game would make more of an effort to communicate about skill balance specifically in areas outside of sPvP. I get that sPvP is a format that struggles and needs care but it seems like other areas of the game are consistently neglected when it comes to developer communication about skill balance and the PvE meta.
I would like to ask devs what are thier plans for necro. Atm necro is in realy bad situation and i am not talking that its concider as a condi spam call but this is an issue also. The thing is that in current state of the game when we have conquest mode team setup need to have good mobility and good sustain to roam on the map and be able to defend/fight for the points.Necro lack both thats why we dont see to much teams play necro , atm if u want to run necro u need to build whole team around it , basicly necro was always the easiest target becouse he dont have any blocks,escape abilitys so most of the time necro need a lot of support from team , ofc necro is realy strong when it comes to teamfight but to be strong he need to deal dmg , but ofc most of the time necro will be under hevy presure. So i hope devs have some ideas how fit necro to curent state of the game.
Firstly this needs addressing sooner rather than later.
Additionally, what can we expect to happen to Glory boosters (including active buffs on characters).
I am fine with the retirement of Glory as a currency as it is mostly worthless in its current form, however losing earned ranks is of greater concern as it represents a life long time investment into this game mode. I understand the need to revamp the rewards to attract new and older players back into the game mode but why does it need to be at the expense of veteran’s progression?
wow this is great! But please dont remove rank.. or something that we could still achieve the rank finishers aside from the leaderboards to have those special finishers..
(I still want to achieve my shark finisher someday even if im slow and long way to go)
I like the idea that pvpers could earn gold now.. :-)
. How do you want to manage the new crowd pve/www players that want to try tournament queue only to farm gold?(AFK + rank1 problems)
. When glory will go away and gold will be the only currenct in pvp, what stop a pve player to enter in the mist only for shopping and not for playing?
How and when do you plan to address the issue of gold farming through AFK in soloQ?
The addition of gold to soloQ rewards will attract a lot of exploiters who have no intention of actually playing PvP. You currently have no working mechanisms in place to deter or prevent AFKing. This is a train wreck waiting to happen.
When will you lower new player entry MMR?
Too high currently.
Skyhammer farmers
Spine visible when?
Been here since launch
Legend S1-S3 with 100% solo queue 100% conquest
Filthy casual, 6k sPvP games
Will there be a Revamp for this?
Cause i like the PVP-Locker but with the New Reward thing i think there is no reason anymore to have this for PVP-Only.
Idea:
- Make it Crossworld and just store SKINS PVE/PVP
- Revamp Characterwindow and remove runes from items – Give Runes/Sigils Extra Slot so we can change Skins or items on the Fly or just change the Runes
Will there be a chance for PvPers to get all the Skins they missed because they were PvE only.
How is this going to be fair if there will be only gold and PvEers had more then 2 years time to farm gold, same with skins.
Working harder for a win should result in higher rewards. With this change, we will not only reward winning in PvP more than losing, but formats where the competition is higher will receive greater rewards.
Given this, I have two questions.
Is this change happening with the new reward system you aren’t discussing or will it apply to the immediate upcoming reward changes?
Any thoughts on scaling rewards based on the score difference? (IE: team 2 loses by 3 points; their reward gets modified).
Duo Queue – Is there anything on the horizon to improve queueing for 2 friends? Right now, the option is team queue, where you’ll almost definitely face a full 5 man team, or struggle in hotjoin to get and stay on the same team.
This has been my question for sometime, but if I may, I think I can better word it.
Currently sPvP only supports parties of 5 and solo play in competitive environments. Are there plans in the future to help cater to mixed party sizes in competitive play?
Archgoat and I would be eternally grateful if this was a question that got some air-time/attention
IMO, the most exciting part of a pvp game is the sheer joy of competition and all the talk about games, teams, players, dramas, tournaments… Rewards come after pride, they’re nothing but the cherry at the top.
1/ what is arena net’s take on this? Do you acknowledge this aspect of the game? Is it something you think is crucial for the success of Gw2? How do you understand your role as a developer with regards to that “concept of competitive pride” and more broadly speaking with regards to fostering passion, commitment and a true sense of community?
2/ why does it feel like the WvW community is much more committed to the game than what is left of the pvp players? What do you think prevented the creation of the team/guild spirit in pvp, although it turned into a real esprit de corps in both WvW and gw1’s GvG?
3/ having answered the above, what drove the decision of not having meaningful ladders 18-24 months after the release plus 5 years or so of development?
Once ladders are implemented, ranks will be retired. The original finishers will not be earnable again.
I am not sure about this, I think a lot of people will be angry about this. I am slowly ranking up, and one of the main reasons is the permanent titles and finishers I can get with ranks, to show other players I am good PvPing. I bet a lot of people is working hard to get the dragon finisher for the same reason, and they will lose the opportunity to get it.
Tome of Knowledge … available for purchase with both glory and gold.
Please be careful with this. What that means exactly? glory AND gold? you will need both? I mean, could this be exploitable, and someone with a lot of gold level up to 80 in a minute?
We waited pretty long for some answer on the exploiters by now.
Please tell us something about it
I mean.. all that skyhammer farming and birthday present bug.. that’s pretty unfair no?
Getting 25k glory a match is like 62x more than i got at that time..
And they problably bought tons of dyes already with their glory..
Got a few abyss they sold for 41g.. couple of celestial for 27g..
And with even more rewards coming.. We sure would like to know what’s going to happen to them!
Would it be more beneficial to continue to horde glory boosters or to use them asap? Perhaps there will be another quaggan (npc) similar to the tournament ticket vendor?
Would the gold and glory you earn from pvp be enough to purchase the new stuff? Or would you need to earn more of one currency thereby forcing someone more towards PvP or PvE? Hopefully, you’ve put some interesting stuff in there, even if it’s more expensive and they’re not like the “vendors” in LA that all sell the same junk.
Is it possible to have a multiplier on the rewards for queuing based on how long you’ve been waiting in the queue instead of a flat increase?
Are the vendors based on your rank like they currently are, or will anyone be able to purchase any item regardless of rank with glory and gold being the only limitation?
Can you preview other never-before-seen balance changes that are not those healing skills?
As of right now, the only exclusive PvP reward this game has is finishers. However, you have recently revealed that you are pulling this out of the game and are replacing it with a totally new system. My questions are
What kind of rewards can we expect? New PvP-only gears? New PvP-exclusive finishers? New PvP-related titles? or a whole new thing?
Will there be rewards specifically exclusive to players who play tournament games and those that do not? (Rewards A for casual PvP, Rewards B for team tournaments and Rewards C for solo tournaments?)
You have also revealed plans to expand the current achievement system for PvP. Many players in this game prefer to focus on one or two classes.
Will there be achievements related to a specific class? There have been many, many posts about this on the forums throughout the year. For example, for a warrior, you get an achievement for rallying off of Vengeance X number of times or successfully banishing players off a point with a hammer Guardian X number of times.
With the implementation of a ladder system, will players be able to participate in teams/groups to climb position on the ladders or is it an individual progression?
Not so much a reward thingie, but…
Would it be possible that we could select to use a uniform models. I dont know maybe something client-sided that we could turn on or off or even choose which model to use.
For instance in GW1 everyone was human, sure not all of the same height but you didn’t have to check bellow your scrotum every second to see if there is an asura there.
I have two questions that I think desperately need to be answered:
What is the justification for…
Forcing PvP only players to level characters in PvE that they don’t like (I have one level 80, all of my alts are low level PvP characters) just so that they can unlock the new heals/utilities? This completely goes against everything GW2 has stood for in terms of skill > gear by giving everyone equal equipment and stats from the word go.
Destroying the value of high rank gear obtained in PvP by allowing wealthy PvE players to buy the high rank gear and show it off without even doing PvP? On the same note, transferring PvP gear skins into PvE (that aren’t unique, that’s another subject, because unique PvP skins need to exist and be transferable to PvE to draw players to PvP for the unique rewards/etc) will devalue PvE skins that aren’t very easy to obtain. For example, Arah dungeon armour is pretty hard to get in PvE, so any PvP player being able to take theirs to PvE devalues it a LOT.
Thanks, and please answer these two questions in some way!
I have two questions that I think desperately need to be answered:
What is the justification for…
Forcing PvP only players to level characters in PvE that they don’t like (I have one level 80, all of my alts are low level PvP characters) just so that they can unlock the new heals/utilities? This completely goes against everything GW2 has stood for in terms of skill > gear by giving everyone equal equipment and stats from the word go.
I just wanted to add here, the tomes of knowledge will give you skill points if your character is level 80. You’re not necessarily being forced to do pve, besides once the new healing skill is unlocked in either aspect of the game it’s unlocked everywhere.
On the subject of the new glory vendors…
Will there be items to gain rank points from those? Like with drop/thimble/keg of liquid world experience in WvW. This would be a nice boost to gain rank points and see some progress. Or it can drop from the tourney/rank chests.
To add to this, is there a possibility daily/monthly chests will contain rank points, like the ones in pve do? (ie exp/karma)
Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?
Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise can not see all ends
Just wanted to hop in and mention that we’ll also be talking about a few of the balance changes for each profession in addition to looking at the healing skills.
Hopefully this builds some buzz and gives the community something to be positive about. Stoked for previews and tournament coverage!
