Guild Wars 2

I quit playing months ago. I’ve been enjoying SC2/HoTS.

Just wanted to say that I appreciate you guys continuing to give feedback and beta test this game. Was wondering if you’ve managed to get any sense of when it will actually be ready for launch? I would consider playing it again once it’s actually released.

Aldizi.5671:

On a side note Anets idea of Boonhate dmg wtf? im gonna be penalized for putting up boons lols… ? i dunno. Its kitten like this that makes me feel like they are all over the place.

I see no problem with this…they aren’t going to directly punish you for putting up boons. They are going to allow players to make the choice to punish you for putting up boons. My understanding is that they would have to either spec into or gear into such choices, thus limiting their ability to be as effective elsewhere. There are already other skills in the game that have this function, Corrupt Boon is a great example. Corrupt boon is totally useless if you don’t find someone with either a lot of buffs or the appropriate buffs to corrupt. Similarly, if they make, for example, a rune set that gives +dmg vs enemies with buffs, then these runes do nothing for them against someone who doesn’t have any. It is all situational, and I actually thought it was a pretty great idea, if implemented intelligently.

As for the host and two contributing players. I agree that Xeph did a great job, and I think his tone about the whole thing was perfect. Pointed questions, and at no point did I feel like Xeph was being accusatory, impolite, or wasting time.

Nero, to me, felt like an angry high school debate captain just asking the same, unanswerable questions over and over again. I understand that you wanted to ask questions about transparency and time-tables, but after a certain point, surely you must have figured out that they weren’t (couldn’t as it happens) budge on that.

Whilst Xeph was asking good questions, Nero was asking deep questions himself. Grouch is all about making the show move forward so I wouldn’t kick him for not asking hard hitting questions and remember he did call them out on how, when they spoke about the rating system last time, it sounded like they were going to split organized teams from solo queuers.
Nero definitely asked good questions. Pushing Anet to explain their process is definitely good questioning because really, that’s what you guys complain all the time. People always say their process sucks so why not get an idea of their process so we know if it really sucks.
Xeph asked good question but Nero and Grouch did their thing just as well.

I was pretty happy with the questions asked by both non-anet guests. Nero did try to force them to specify what they meant by “we’re looking into it”, which made me feel this perverse sense of vindication when they couldn’t properly answer it (because it’s their catch-all phrase that means nothing but takes pressure off them). What I would have a problem with is how both of them are Mesmer mains. It would make a lot more sense to have the weaker pvp classes get more in-depth talk-time during interviews like these.

lol Grouch iis the kittenng host..lol

Jzaku.9765:

I was pretty happy with the questions asked by both non-anet guests. Nero did try to force them to specify what they meant by “we’re looking into it”, which made me feel this perverse sense of vindication when they couldn’t properly answer it (because it’s their catch-all phrase that means nothing but takes pressure off them). What I would have a problem with is how both of them are Mesmer mains. It would make a lot more sense to have the weaker pvp classes get more in-depth talk-time during interviews like these.

if you didnt know ppl who play mesmer are extremely skilled and know more about this game than other profession players

Sanis.1096:

if you didnt know ppl who play mesmer are extremely skilled and know more about this game than other profession players

interesting, when did this happen?

kito.1827:

Sanis.1096:

if you didnt know ppl who play mesmer are extremely skilled and know more about this game than other profession players

interesting, when did this happen?

Same time all thieves became master players because they could stack xxKiLlStReAkSxx in hotjoin

I am not saying they are not experienced players with knowledge on other classes, but I seriously doubt they know more than experienced players that actually main said other classes.

I thought it was pretty good. The focus of the questions was very geared toward what ANet is trying to do to get the sPvP player population to healthy levels, such as incentivizing PvE/WvW players to sPvP, more rewards, etc.

These things, along with custom servers, is going to have a muuuuuuuuuuuch bigger impact on the player population than a solo q will. I’m not even a fan of solo q to begin with in this type of game format and with such a small playerbase currently.

One thing ANet should do though to accommodate solo q’ers is the match-making system should form your team first so that you can get people on TS, organize your team composition and roles, talk strategy, make sure people aren’t afk, etc. before you actually submit the team into the queue.

That’s actually a great point. That whole process is something we want to streamline/make better. Getting into tourneys, seeing your progress in them, etc.
It’s down the road, but it’s part of the plan.

Don’t forget separating PuGs and teams.

1. Remove the 3 round queue. Nobody plays this. It only serves to lengthen queue time of solo queue.
2. PuG only queue.
3. Team only queue.
4. ???
5. Profit.

The three round Q is an issue. Y not have 2 seperate different maps Q. People would sometimes q one, sometimes the other. Nobody ques for three team tournies at least on Na.

So two different map 1vs1 tournies might be a small temporary adjustment (at least for na).

Yea I had to switch off after Nero talked, I couldnt take the questions and reactions seriously lol, was expecting better questions to kick it off than being pedantic about anets grammer and wording, we know what the answers are gonna be, use your brain, ask stronger things.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Skyro.3108:

One thing ANet should do though to accommodate solo q’ers is the match-making system should form your team first so that you can get people on TS, organize your team composition and roles, talk strategy, make sure people aren’t afk, etc. before you actually submit the team into the queue.

That’s actually a great point. That whole process is something we want to streamline/make better. Getting into tourneys, seeing your progress in them, etc.

It’s down the road, but it’s part of the plan.

The seperation of Solo-Queue and Premade-Queue still has to be on the top of your priority list. Any further implementations of possible features to polish the SoloQ as mentioned above should come after. Nobody enjoys the current queue or at least most do not.
A seperated leaderboard of both queues will also be a better indicator for skill and therefore be much more authentic than the mixed leaderboards. It will be much easier to pick players out of the SoloQ and put them in a team. So put that in as soon as possible as well.

I also wanna mention, the changes are coming way too slow and the importance is way too low as the current meta-game has been stagnant for a long time.
I know you guys are doing your best to deliver a completly polished feature but I think most players right now would not mind a finished feature being implemented while the polishing comes later. Custom Arenas were dated for last december, now they may come in the next few months which is not beneficial for the current state of the game while we need them very much right now.
The last few changes have also not benefitted the sPvP in this game even though they were steps in the right direction.
Speed it up!

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ solo-queue: Yes, solo-queue is something we think is important and it’s towards the top of our list! We have different proposals on how to handle this issue. It’s important to let new players and solo players feel like they can learn the game at their pace, against evenly matched teams. And there are also some players who just don’t have time/ (or the desire) to find a team and play with a team. We recognize that.

you wont get evenly matched teams when there is no players

Solo and team queue need to be two different ladders. In my opinion solo queue does not mean “casuals only” and it’s not like players who queue teams would not ever want to queue solo.

Solo ladder answers the question: “Who are the best sPvP players?”
Team ladder answers the question: “Who are the best teams?”

As a player I may want to compete in both ladders to achieve “best player status” and “best team” status.

you wont get evenly matched teams when there is no players

They should not even start a match until teams are even. Longer queues are worth having evenly matched teams. It will mislead the ladders otherwise.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Skyro.3108:

One thing ANet should do though to accommodate solo q’ers is the match-making system should form your team first so that you can get people on TS, organize your team composition and roles, talk strategy, make sure people aren’t afk, etc. before you actually submit the team into the queue.

That’s actually a great point. That whole process is something we want to streamline/make better. Getting into tourneys, seeing your progress in them, etc.

It’s down the road, but it’s part of the plan.

Another idea I had was to show on the ladder how many people each player typically queues with. So if someone 100% of the time queues with 5 people their number would be 5. If someone queues 70% as solo and 30% as 2 man queue their number would be 1.3.

It should be easy to design a formula which shows this. Then we can see who in the ladder is actually good and who just queues in full premades.

On solo queueing atm. It is fine until offpeak times and then it kind of sucks because you run into a full guild team and there arent enough good solo queuers at that time.

At this time of day in the eu (primetime) I always get good teammates on my level and we can beat premades. Not at night though when we will usually have 1 noob and 1 level 1 newbie.

one issue with a visible leaderboard is it wont capture players who solo Q frequently very well. People who always run with premades will be rated higher than players who are absolutely better than them, because solo Q not as strong as premade.

An average premade will beat more often than 50% of the time a team of 5 individually better players. Because of things like class balance ( having a bunker, side point holder etc) and things like voip allowing for faster and easy rotations.

chrisk.4320:

Solo and team queue need to be two different ladders. In my opinion solo queue does not mean “casuals only” and it’s not like players who queue teams would not ever want to queue solo.

This.

Also, we absolutely need to be able to see our rating, not just our ranking on the leaderboard, for all of the reasons Xeph mentioned in the SotG. Please make it happen; it’s important to know what you’re up against rating-wise.

As much as I think this situation prevails, not many or any top team currently plays. If they would it could frustrate more players than those being frustrated now already.
This actually helps others getting a more pleasent experience in tPvP.
There is no way around seperating the queues and ladders though.

Any chance u could make 3 things ?
1) move 5v5 ontop the hotjoin chart , like a huge majority of ppl have already asked ?

2) if the specter mode covers the customs arenas and the <<free modes>> could u occationaly create some bots as spectators (giving the illution on these ppl that are been watched and perfome better (its the best aphrodisiac to be watched ) )

3) on the friend list could u show in what hotjoin room number the person is located ? In order guild leaders , stop asking PvP ranks or creating threads on the forums , but <<scout>> on their own , for new members ?

Two things i’d hope you already considered but i think i’ll add them in regard to you mentioned solo and teams being mixed together right now is because of lack of a population in players, i say that has two problems

1. . First, even when i’m part of a solo team it doesnt take long for us to realize its a team we’re fighting due to guild tags. Often times someone on the team just dodges or gives up resulting in an unfun experience for everyone. Also any ladder system that works, will not put a ridiculously higher grou of players against much lower….so eventually the teams will be so high in rank it willl only want to que them against each other, resulting in longer que times. (point being, eventually teams will have long que times if there arent many of them anyway).

2. No one wants to come back to a game where they’re mixed. If i want to convince my friends to come back and play etc, and i tell them that solo and teams que together the responce ill get is “wtf? lawl…ya…they’re clueless well going back to my competitive game that doesnt do this” not word for word…but you get the idea, you’ll never have numbers in the first place if you put in things that discourage playing the game.

and just tacking this on, any leaderboard is completely pointless when there isnt a good match dodging penalty. Its not difficult. League of legends does not let you enter a match till everyone clicks (ready). if you fail to do so in a short amount of time it looks to replace you or just shuffled up the people and finds another combination (but theyr’e still top priority of the system). Right now, once you que and it finds a match if you went afk or logged off while waiting…its too bad for your team because it doesnt have this feature. Also, players can wait till the last second to enter the match, removing any chance to communicate with them. so heres what ya do.

1. force players to click a button to show they’re ready then move them directly into the game, if they’re not…let match making find another player.

2. once everyone is ready, put them in the match….this means everyone will be there and they can discuss strategy.

I dont know how difficult this is to code, but these are things that players coming back or new players, and current players would all find highly valuable.

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

As much as I think this situation prevails, not many or any top team currently plays. If they would it could frustrate more players than those being frustrated now already.
This actually helps others getting a more pleasent experience in tPvP.
There is no way around seperating the queues and ladders though.

I dont think this is the case. Sure the top teams from a month or two ago might not play much anymore. But chances are the new teams emerging will probably be better than them now anyway due to imrpoving whilst others have taken a break from the game. So I still think solo Q has the potential to be frustrating. In fact it is frustrating at times. Mainly off peak.

We need more things that let people communicate without voice chat. Things like “all clear here” emotes that are shown on the mini map and can be bound to keys much like in games like smite or battlefield 2. It used to be so cool in bf2 and even bf3 where you could communicate and good teams of players due to these features.

Lordrosicky.5813:

I dont think this is the case. Sure the top teams from a month or two ago might not play much anymore. But chances are the new teams emerging will probably be better than them now anyway due to improving whilst others have taken a break from the game.

Not playing tourneys with their team does not mean that top players cannot practice stuff.

J.Sharp I want to thank you for what you’ve been doing. Even though there are things that can be done better, I have to say that this game is in a decent state right now.

But I wanted to ask what’s the best way to deliver constructive criticism to you guys? I know the forum is a form of communication and then you guys will join in-game to hear some of the things from players. Although I think there is a bit of a disconnect as far as a common complaint or suggestion from players, and then what you guys view as something needing to be corrected or improved.

Overall things are getting better and I hope you guys add some great things in this upcoming patch. I hope you guys also add at least one different game type to PvP. It’s really something I think would be very beneficial to the game right now.

Sotg itself is the best way. When they have the next one post your questions. Hopefully someone will ask it.

daydream.2938:

Sotg itself is the best way. When they have the next one post your questions. Hopefully someone will ask it.

Yea it seems that way. Thank you Daydream

I liked Nero’s question about the trait pairings. They dismissed the question really quickly as “you would be dumb not to take it then” however all the traits for Power/Crit builds are paired perfectly. Usually Power/Condi Dur + Crit/Crit Dmg are together, Seeing as condition duration is the only thing a power spec really wants from conditions for longer poison, cripples, chills etc etc. It also didn’t address things like traps being in a Crit/Crit dmg trait line which is completely or other traits being in a line that makes no sense.

Besides that there were a few things that seemed like they were changing things that would scare me immensely. For example them talking about putting poison on more things for thief which I would be okay with if they had weapon cooldowns instead of initiative. The drawback of the thieves is due to their ability to bypass weapon cooldowns so I think any changes to their variety of condition application should be run through their utilities (similar in ideas to ranger traps)

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ solo-queue: Yes, solo-queue is something we think is important and it’s towards the top of our list! We have different proposals on how to handle this issue. It’s important to let new players and solo players feel like they can learn the game at their pace, against evenly matched teams. And there are also some players who just don’t have time/ (or the desire) to find a team and play with a team. We recognize that.

be sure to put solo/duo que on top of the list (next to leaderboards), or those people will quit the game before you implement that :P

I think everyone knows that a solo Q allows you to Q up with one friend. So thats its really solo/duo Q.

It won’t matter what they do to the queue if there is a small pool of players in it. I would work on incentives first. Find out why people don’t want to play sPVP.

Ask them. Why do you think sPVP sucks? Why? What would make it fun?

Sanis.1096:

Jzaku.9765:

I was pretty happy with the questions asked by both non-anet guests. Nero did try to force them to specify what they meant by “we’re looking into it”, which made me feel this perverse sense of vindication when they couldn’t properly answer it (because it’s their catch-all phrase that means nothing but takes pressure off them). What I would have a problem with is how both of them are Mesmer mains. It would make a lot more sense to have the weaker pvp classes get more in-depth talk-time during interviews like these.

if you didnt know ppl who play mesmer are extremely skilled and know more about this game than other profession players

hahahahahahah

Expansive.3716:

J.Sharp I want to thank you for what you’ve been doing. Even though there are things that can be done better, I have to say that this game is in a decent state right now.

But I wanted to ask what’s the best way to deliver constructive criticism to you guys? I know the forum is a form of communication and then you guys will join in-game to hear some of the things from players. Although I think there is a bit of a disconnect as far as a common complaint or suggestion from players, and then what you guys view as something needing to be corrected or improved.

Overall things are getting better and I hope you guys add some great things in this upcoming patch. I hope you guys also add at least one different game type to PvP. It’s really something I think would be very beneficial to the game right now.

Cannot agree with this statement. For now PVP is in a horibile situation. (Nearly) all competitive guilds left the game and after the last sotg even Hotm of Desolation is more or less a ghost town (compared to previous months). As a result MMR is not working properly and the motivation of a lot of players was crushed by the statements J.Sharp gave. Also ladder will not come soon (John said “We dont know when its ready. This might be before the patch , during or after it” – Right…they dont know if they can finish this project within 12 days based on the time they already spent (5 months!)) – Same is true for the custom servers.
I feel like they want to do so much right that they start to make it wrong. Best examples are the combined solo+team leaderboard or the spectator mode.
Also alot of people I spoke to were shocked by how the devs were prepared. Karl “The balancer” should not search for skill descriptions in his notes and should not talk the situation of certain classes down. Otherwise I loose the trust that he is able to make the right balancing decisions.

It is also a shame that something like sotg is necessary to get a connection to the devs. 1 or 2 forum posts on various topics per week are not enough in my opinion.

P.S. I like the game and the playstyle. I enjoy it since day 1. However for now I play the same map on and on and it gets real boring. This will not hold me another 5 months (or atleast 1)

totally agree with that! The PvP-Part is nearly dead in my eyes…
And thats sad, because this game has so much potential. I love the playstyle but the devs are not able to create important new stuff for their community.
My motivation is gone now too.

And Karl is a kittening Joke!!!

Clostridius.2415:

And Karl is a kittening Joke!!!

Having watched the SOTG I think this is actually one of the main things that worried me from it in terms of the future of class balance decisions.

Just give Xeph a job and he will fix it.

Karl’s judgement and knowledge just didn’t seem up to scratch, so he needs to just take the advice top end players are giving and leave his own opinions out of it.

I mean seriously, even I don’t need to refer to notes when it comes to discussing GW2 class balance, even for abilities of classes I don’t play like engi and ranger.

It really is sad how ignorant the developers are of their own game.

If you guys think that every developer on a team is supposed to know every single ability, then you haven’t played any MMOs before this one or just haven’t been involved enough.

Med.6150:

If you guys think that every developer on a team is supposed to know every single ability, then you haven’t played any MMOs before this one or just haven’t been involved enough.

I expect the PvP developers to know the classes they are balancing. I apologize if this is an outrageous and unrealistic expectation.

Med.6150:

If you guys think that every developer on a team is supposed to know every single ability, then you haven’t played any MMOs before this one or just haven’t been involved enough.

He’s a balance specialist (their words) so i think he out of all ppl should know what he is balancing. I also think it takes more then just numbers and timing abilities and such to balance, they should spend some time playing tournaments, hotjoins, and watch streams of top teams playing to get the feel of what the balance is like ingame. From what i saw they dont have a good enough understanding of it.

Razor.6392:

Sanis.1096:

Jzaku.9765:

I was pretty happy with the questions asked by both non-anet guests. Nero did try to force them to specify what they meant by “we’re looking into it”, which made me feel this perverse sense of vindication when they couldn’t properly answer it (because it’s their catch-all phrase that means nothing but takes pressure off them). What I would have a problem with is how both of them are Mesmer mains. It would make a lot more sense to have the weaker pvp classes get more in-depth talk-time during interviews like these.

if you didnt know ppl who play mesmer are extremely skilled and know more about this game than other profession players

hahahahahahah

what’s so funny?

Sanis.1096:

Razor.6392:

Sanis.1096:

Jzaku.9765:

I was pretty happy with the questions asked by both non-anet guests. Nero did try to force them to specify what they meant by “we’re looking into it”, which made me feel this perverse sense of vindication when they couldn’t properly answer it (because it’s their catch-all phrase that means nothing but takes pressure off them). What I would have a problem with is how both of them are Mesmer mains. It would make a lot more sense to have the weaker pvp classes get more in-depth talk-time during interviews like these.

if you didnt know ppl who play mesmer are extremely skilled and know more about this game than other profession players

hahahahahahah

what’s so funny?

your joke i guess.

Panda.1793:

Sanis.1096:

Razor.6392:

Sanis.1096:

Jzaku.9765:

I was pretty happy with the questions asked by both non-anet guests. Nero did try to force them to specify what they meant by “we’re looking into it”, which made me feel this perverse sense of vindication when they couldn’t properly answer it (because it’s their catch-all phrase that means nothing but takes pressure off them). What I would have a problem with is how both of them are Mesmer mains. It would make a lot more sense to have the weaker pvp classes get more in-depth talk-time during interviews like these.

if you didnt know ppl who play mesmer are extremely skilled and know more about this game than other profession players

hahahahahahah

what’s so funny?

your joke i guess.

no joke

guza.6170:

Med.6150:

If you guys think that every developer on a team is supposed to know every single ability, then you haven’t played any MMOs before this one or just haven’t been involved enough.

He’s a balance specialist (their words) so i think he out of all ppl should know what he is balancing. I also think it takes more then just numbers and timing abilities and such to balance, they should spend some time playing tournaments, hotjoins, and watch streams of top teams playing to get the feel of what the balance is like ingame. From what i saw they dont have a good enough understanding of it.

I am not defending them, I just know that it’s not realistic expecting any developer (perhaps I worded it wrong in the post above), regardless of who it is, to know every single ability off the top of their head.

Take any other MMO and you will see the same level of competence (in regards to classes) and knowledge, so that it’s definitely not the issue or reason for the poor choices they have been making or the slow progression.

Med.6150:

I am not defending them, I just know that it’s not realistic expecting any developer (perhaps I worded it wrong in the post above), regardless of who it is, to know every single ability off the top of their head.

Take any other MMO and you will see the same level of competence (in regards to classes) and knowledge, so that it’s definitely not the issue or reason for the poor choices they have been making or the slow progression.

I can do it, and I have another, unrelated full time job.

Of course we have to expect the class balance developer to know every single ability inside out. That is his job.

And it’s not a hard one if that’s the only metric, which it isn’t. He has more than just that to do.

Karl doesn’t know as much as I do about the game that it is his job to balance. That is a cause for concern because I am 100% sure he can’t do my job as well as I can either.

Wheres a link to the most recent sotg video again?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_799&feature=iv&src_vid=zCUvIrH2BlU&v=zCUvIrH2BlU#t=4m50s

No problem.

What do you think about letting people join the tourny q from outside of the mists?

I know the argument that this would depopulate the mists could be made but I actually think this would be good for pvp. It makes it easier for pve centered players to at least look at the options and choose to go in without having to leave their world.

The only time people go into the mists is to test builds / switch stuff anyway so might as well let us queue from outside with our current setup that is currently being held in the mists?

I agree with idea of queing from anywhere.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there was an option to join game from anywhere in the world in beta (at least hotjoin). Not sure why it was removed.

Harrier.9380:

I agree with idea of queing from anywhere.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there was an option to join game from anywhere in the world in beta (at least hotjoin). Not sure why it was removed.

Yes, there was a Play Now! button on the PvP panel. It looks way different than it does now. I think they removed it so people wouldn’t think they were stuck with that default build and they were forced to go through the tutorial.