Guild Wars 2

1) Will we see seperate and more frequent balance patches in the future, for instance once a week? (smaller tweakings)
2) Are you satisfied with the current meta, or will you work towards creating more viable builds for each class?
3) Observer-mode is important for the game to develop as an e-sport, what are your plans for such a system? Have you taken movie-making and shoutcasting into consideration? (Think of HLTV in CS 1.6 and note that the movie-making side made a huge difference in its success. Alternatively think of the saved replay-system in LoL and HoN)

just questions about the devs promises

-You know the actual state of pvp comunity? do you really think with the next path it will be save? Anet want to invest so much effort to save it without a insured benefit?

Xeph.4513:

Hey, firstly I would like to start with saying, that I understand everyone has a lot of questions that they would like to see asked in SOTG, but sadly there is a time restriction which means there is only a certain amount of questions we can get through; so what I am going to purpose to you in this thread, is to put in three questions that you would like to see asked in SOTG, what I am going to do just before the live cast is tally up what topics have the most interest. I promise then that those questions will be asked.

I am going to start with the questions that I would like to ask.

1. Contents of the march patch.
2. Balancing the game for casuals.
3. Solo Que.

Please refrain from writing large walls of text, if you have any additional comments you can leave them after the 3 initial questions, but please make sure that you keep that to a minimum as to make it easier on me when I have to tally those up.

Thank you.

1) Will there be anything else besides Node Capping? 7 months into development and all devs came up with are another 2 node capping maps…
2) class and skill balancing. Game is pretty imbalanced with lots of outliers on each end
3) Arenas – why are they not implemented yet

Reinhart.2703:

Xeph.4513:

Hey, firstly I would like to start with saying, that I understand everyone has a lot of questions that they would like to see asked in SOTG, but sadly there is a time restriction which means there is only a certain amount of questions we can get through; so what I am going to purpose to you in this thread, is to put in three questions that you would like to see asked in SOTG, what I am going to do just before the live cast is tally up what topics have the most interest. I promise then that those questions will be asked.

I am going to start with the questions that I would like to ask.

1. Contents of the march patch.
2. Balancing the game for casuals.
3. Solo Que.

Please refrain from writing large walls of text, if you have any additional comments you can leave them after the 3 initial questions, but please make sure that you keep that to a minimum as to make it easier on me when I have to tally those up.

Thank you.

1) Will there be anything else besides Node Capping? 7 months into development and all devs came up with are another 2 node capping maps…
2) class and skill balancing. Game is pretty imbalanced with lots of outliers on each end
3) Arenas – why are they not implemented yet

1) They answered that in the last SoTG. They want to perfect conquest and stretch the limits of conquest by adding other secondary objectives to conquest (no they don’t plan on adding any game modes for the time being)

Well since someone deleted the other topic and thus my question, here it goes:
Is ANet employing all the resources they can to PvP?

By the way, I really mean this as a critical question to pvp development. Imho, we have small chances of actually making it in the highly competitive and crowded market of pvp games. I wish this game nothing but the top tier of glory in said market, and I do believe it deserves it just for the engine innovation it brings to all the gaming community.

1) Duels-A map for it without interruptions from others
2)Balance the professions and the skills. A bunker ele can kill a person much easier than a bunker guardian.A less skilled player using thief can spam heartseeker and rack up so much damage and close the range fast compared to a skilled person using other profession.
3)An effective way to separate solo joiners and premade teams from encountering each other in tournaments

1) One question I would like to ask is what was the two Jon’s original idea of what high-level tournament play would be like, and how close or how far is the current meta from what they have envisioned?

How awesome would it be on a scale of 1-10 (10 being best) if you implemented Duels + 2 players versus 2 players?

My 3 questions:

Why are we left behind cosmetic-wise compared to PvE? Is that a particle balance issue? (rephrase: are you kittening kidding me?)
Why can’t we obtain weapons such as Vision Of the Mists, Whisperblade, Anomaly, Rogdor’s Eye and more…
Can you say something more than “Good suggestion we’re look into it”?

Bold are the main questions I wish could be answered.

Lazarou.3745:

1. Why aren’t you listening when people tell you they want other game types, cause its been asked before and even though spvp is dying you keep blinding going on the same path.

Sorry to post off-topic, but I don’t understand this complaint. Every single game in the world has one game mode that they rank and balance for, and that tournaments use. There are some exceptions, for example Bloodline Champions has 2v2 and 3v3 ladders and tournies, and some Warcraft 3 tournament formats had a 2v2 match in them. But even then it’s still the same game mode, just with different numbers of players.

Games that have one ranked competitive game mode: WoW, Brood War, SC2, Warcraft 3, all the Tribes games, all fighting games ever, DotA and HoN and LoL (they don’t even change the map), the Halos, the Counter-Strikes, the Call of Dutys… the list goes on and on.

So what is the problem with GW2 PvP only having one ranked competitive game mode?

lettucemode.3789:

So what is the problem with GW2 PvP only having one ranked competitive game mode?

I don’t think the problem is having a single game mode only per se but the game mode itself.

Conquest is like women’s soccer, entertaining in itself, but never to become highly competitive.

Thats an insult to this games class mechanics, and if ‘towards the rogue’ is the axis the thief-regression will be approaching, I’ll gladly find myself a new curve.

ps. You don’t really want perma-stealth, I promise.

pps. Stealth builds where you spend a majority of time actively trying to maintain your stealth is not the same as clicking a single button once and being able to stay in stealth for the next 8 years.

ppps. How do we rid an entire gaming community of the self-entitled and finger-pointing norms that go with online gaming?
How do you teach them that their class is fine, and the reason they aren’t doing well in PvP is because they haven’t spent enough time / effort learning?
How do you teach people to approach PvP with less of a “I’m the best there is, let me throw some points in these trees here, and we’ll go stomp some noobs” and more towards evaluating strengths/weaknesses/quirks?
Because if this community wants to appear credible to the Development team who created it all for us, we’re going to need to be throwing more than poo.

Are class changes going to be more aggressive and involve a multifactorial approach? ie changing where a classes strength comes from to improve gameplay/counterplay.

Are traits ever going to get an indepth adjustment?

What are the devs perspective on extreme builds? Are the bounds too large presently?

1) Are you going to change thief stealth so that players cannot do things like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACOxV5CA52w&t=13s

Because this is not fun for anyone other than the thief.

2) What are your thoughts on sites like: http://www.gw2lfg.com/ that are all but necessary nowadays to get dungeon groups together?

1-3) Build Diversity

Maybe mention that conquest is trash since they haven’t seemed to grasp that concept yet.

1) WHEN can we expect the features that this game so desperately needs (spectator mode, custom arenas, etc etc), which leads me to my next question…

2) Once we DO get these features implemented, we need to answer the question of “now what?”. How do we attract new people to a 60$ game for what seems to be quite PvE-centric, how can we improve the learning curve for new players, and how can we get people to STAY (incentive to play, rewards, etc…).

3) Build diversity/balance. ’Nuff said. Read the posts above.

Battle of Kyhlo is a human map.
The new Spirit Watch and Forest of Niflhel are norn themed map.
Legacy of the Foefire is a Human/Charr map.
Raid on the Capricorn is pirate themed.
Temple of the Silent Storm is kodan themed.
Are you activelly working on a Sylvari and/or Asura themed sPvP map? There is a ETA? If no, is it on schedule?

(sorry for my crappy english and feel free to make corrections)

1. Why are warriors so good at WvW and so bad at Tpvp? How are you planning to round out the class?
2. Why are rangers so bad at WvW and so good at Tpvp? How are you planning to round out the class?
3. Are you looking into AOE boons/AOE condition removals/AOE damage/ AOE cap (WvW zergs stack)?

1. Do you think that trying to make this game an e-sport before its PvP is fun to play is a good idea?

2. Are you planning to hear many of your PvP playerbase about their desire of having GvG and/or HA back to the game?

3. Why 7 months after release, we still don’t have 8 devs to have a look into a single profession(1 per profession)? This would serve people to know that someone is always working on their class especifically.

1. Will there be a balancing of down states?

2. When will there be a ladder?

3. When will the versatility tax for engineers be removed?

1. down state
I see 3 level in the ‘food chain’ when it comes to down states:
level 1: Thus who can chance position in while downed (Ele, Mesmer, Thief). This prevents a lot of stomping possibilities and to a certain degree also damage because most of it is AOE which is position based.

level 2: Thus who have AOE CC on number #2 (Guardian, Ranger). This is far less then potent then level 1 but it can give your team a short moment to breath. Also both classes have good heals on #3 which requires the other team to damage intensively or have one dedicated stability stomper.

level 3: The rest with only single target CC on #2. This gives their team the least support while downed and is almost a guaranteed stomp. Warrior is a little special due to Vengeance but most of the time he is already dead before it gets ready.

Down state damage seems also unbalanced when I think about thiefs or mesmers.

2. ladder
There is a strong need for an incentive to play for competitive players and casuals. I think a lot of people play pvp but relative seldom so not many are online at a time. MMR suffers from small amount of players being available.

3. versatility
This is a design flaw! The time when it exists is BEFORE you spend your trait points. Once you have done this the engineer is a bunker, support, cc-oriented, glass cannon or whatever, but not all at the same time. Also this problem was amplified with the patch that prevented weapon, utility and item swapping when the tournament started. So when the versatility is gone, why is there a tax for it?

Also there are other class like elementalist or mesmer with there big number of useful utilities, Null Field, Timewarp, Portal, Illusion if Life etc. Why aren´t they being taxed?

Sidenote:
I think the game could do better with all the descriptions given. When I read patch note or tool tips I never get the whole truth. I have to do a tol of try-and-error-testing to figure out what is going on which makes it time consuming for me (rank 35 with a mix of hot joined and tournaments) and totally confusing for a new player.

Why is people asking about pve & wvw?

Because they still thik wvw would be competitive ^^

1. Ladder system (When does it come, How does it work)
2. Balancing (D/D elementalist were nerfed but bunker eles were the real problem)
3. Rewards ( Motivation of all competitve is gone since January because skins + qp could be farmed and gems were abandoned. How they want to solve this)

1- When will a proper matchmaking system come out?
Since the join solo queues are quite dead, you get matched with the only people joining, that’s why you get a rank 43-27-11-30-15 team. You also get often matched against premade teams, who are probably on TS, Vent or such. That is extremely not fun :/
2- When will spectator mode come out?
New guys joining sPvP for the first time get destroyed by more experienced players in Hot Join, and they feel discouraged. A spectator mode would help them learn to use their classes, and learn how to counter their enemies.
3- If the answer to any of the above is soon/we’re working on it, do you still think GW2 can be an e-Sport?

Thanks ;)

Ryil.2106:

1- When will a proper matchmaking system come out?
Since the join solo queues are quite dead, you get matched with the only people joining, that’s why you get a rank 43-27-11-30-15 team. You also get often matched against premade teams, who are probably on TS, Vent or such. That is extremely not fun :/
2- When will spectator mode come out?
New guys joining sPvP for the first time get destroyed by more experienced players in Hot Join, and they feel discouraged. A spectator mode would help them learn to use their classes, and learn how to counter their enemies.
3- If the answer to any of the above is soon/we’re working on it, do you still think GW2 can be an e-Sport?

Thanks

This game won’t be an esport for sure. Gw2 so far has done everything wrong to be an esport.

It can become a good pvp game with some money rewards for sure, but not as big as an esport is.

“3. Solo Queue” care to elaborate on that one? I remember you supporting mixed queue that is in place now. Changed your mind or what?

I did not read the whole thread so maybe these questions were alrdy asked.

1- Once there is a ladder, will the competition be in seasons like in WoW where you will get rewarded for ending high ranked with armor/weapons and/or cool titles?
2- new armor sets / sigils / runes / amulets?
3- Two handed axe???
4- Better pvp info at the end of a game. (Damage / Healing done etc)

1.) Talk about the future of sPvP and the direction the team is taking sPvP going forward. Stop talking about balance. Even if you get all of the classes perfectly balanced(which is impossible) it still won’t fix sPvP. Balance will not bring back older players or encourage current players to keep playing.

2.) Abandon the failed conquest + secondary objective game type. Create a new tournament that focuses on fun instead of eSport. Constantly remind yourself that “If we make it fun, the players will come!”. And by come I mean play.

3.) Never use the word eSport ever again. Let the players use that term when they feel it appropriate.

1) Are there any plans to revisit the minor/major traits, weapons skills, utility/elite skills in order to balance the least popular ones with the most popular ones?

2) Are there any plans to remove passive effects and boons from minor/major traits, utility/elite skills and replace them with a unique ability?

3) Are there any plans to introduce combo systems on weapon skills where a chain of abilities are used in sequence to inflict bonus damage? Example: Guardian Hammer Banish + Mighty Blow (Banish causes knock down, Mighty Blow does bonus damage to knocked down targets).

1. Are the devs happy with the current lack of viable builds variety, the really stalled meta and what are they gonna do about it?
Like almost all of the wars are glass hundred blades, the thieves use backstab, the eles are bunkers, the guardians are shouts, the necros are mark/vails, 100nade engies, glassy mesmers and crossfire autoattacking rangers.

2. Any plans to revive 8team tournaments?
Even in prime time, in EU servers the waiting is more then half an hour…

3. Will we see changes to the rewards like gems or more pvp specific items?
Anything really…

Rerroll.9083:

This game won’t be an esport for sure. Gw2 so far has done everything wrong to be an esport.

It can become a good pvp game with some money rewards for sure, but not as big as an esport is.

This is still one of if not the most (helpful) developer active sub-forum on these forums. It’s also home to some of the more engaged developers I’ve seen when it comes to PvP. Not starting as an e-sport does not preclude becoming an e-sport, but we have some of the more important things that it takes to become an e-sport worthy game: developers who engage in conversation and players who engage said developers in conversation.

Now… we just need to sort out some of the glaring issues with the game. >.>

how about questions about the actual state of the game, not just one part of it?

1) What is the sit-rep on ArenaNet’s development krewes? (who is working on what? [don’t need names obviously but “team A is here,” etc.] How are they faring? [focus, moral, progress], etc.)

2) How long until a PTR is made available? (a PTR is an excellent vehicle for player/developer interaction and an indispensable tool for developers to keep the game current, particularly since player-testers are willing to suffer bugs rather than cry sour grapes about them)

3) From the developer’s point of view, what is the biggest challenge they are currently facing? (that is, specifically, not just “managing profession balance,” but rather i.e., “finding a way to fix the Asura Engineer using Elixir S camera bug without breaking camera collision for everyone else” or sommat like that.)

Why are u still trying to balance the game for the dead horse (spvp) ? No offence intended, you failed, kitten happens in life, move on. Isn’t it a better idea to balance the game for pve and wvw, that some people still play ? And serioulsy, cut the esport crap, it isn’t funny anymore, too old joke.

Spvp designers should answer to all these questions.

1) When are you going to make GVG?

2) When are we getting new skills? There were so many implemented just for holiday events.

3) When are our weapons getting new skills? I think I’m tired of Hundred Blade on GS after using it 9999999999999999999 times.

Over six months and we haven’t seen a single “team-strategy” dominate the meta. In GW1, nobody would complain “the warrior is OP” or “the profession I play isn’t strong enough,” but things like “IWAY is OP” or “Balanced builds are underpowered.”
1. Why is your focus only on fixing individual professions instead of promoting whole-team-strategies? With cross-profession-combos being so underused, underpowered, and underdeveloped, do you WANT this to be a game where every player on a team “does their own thing”? Is this somehow supposed to “appeal to causals”?

2. Anytime I hear “GW2’s PvP community is small,” someone tries to come up with ways to appeal to the “PvE causals.” But have you considered that PvP isn’t successful NOT “because causals don’t give it a chance” but because there’s not enough lasting depth for competitive gamers?

3. Why do you think GW2 is significantly less successful than GW1 was 6 months into the game, even with the entire past GW1 playerbase? Do you think changes like locking skills actually helped you “properly balance game”? Or that homogenizing all the classes with very little focus in team-synergy or support was a good thing?

1) Is there any plan to create incentives for SPvP? Currently the population is very low in large part to the lack of decent rewards, nothing gives us bragging rights. We would like something cosmetic to set us apart in the normal PvE realm.

2) How do you plan to improve matchmaking quality? mostly for casuals, and how do you plan to protect the integrity of your rating system? (IE premades farming solo queuer’s and 4v5s)

3) when can we expect punishment for leaver’s and AFK’ers in tournaments? these are meant to be competative.

This is not a threat, but your answer to #3 will make or break this game for me.

Im out of questions, I need to see action

1 / apparent ladder
2/ event tourny // spectator mode // Save build
3/ Plz up focus elem, maybe nerf dash war and up or balance weapon skill like : Axe/axe necro / hammer war / add heal for guardian / and delete all skill on elem like spirit of bow, sword, shield… very useless skill in pvp, i prefer skill like “sudden thunder” or “shock wave”

Nice idea, thk xeph.

1)
Do they balance classes 1vs1, 2vs2, 3vs3 or 5vs5?
I almost never see 4vs4 or 5vs5 in sPVP its most 1vs1 or 2vs2.

2)
Are they happy on how the classes are balanced atm when they only release patches 1 time each month?

3)
Do they think that stealth, clones and really good escape abilitys makes the game fun for everyone?

The answer to those 3 questions should make it easy to make a decision to stick around or not.

The fact that this thread goes past page 1 very quickly and there are only 3 pages of questions (most of which ask that same questions) really says something about the state of the game lol.

1.) Any thoughts on the matter of teleport-spells? Are you fine with some classes being able to teleport onto all kind of objects and through walls?

(some examples: Infiltrator’s Arrow onto the roof of the clock tower, blink through the wall of the clock tower, Lightning Flash from the side-path of the keep up to the balcony, [lowell aired some videos of different teleport spots] or simple by using Judge’s Intervention onto a marked target, you were not able to see, but due to the game mechanic, you are able to port to, even through wall)

I think the new map made this subject even more concerning.

2.) A lot of people are talking in this thread about solo-queue, but what’s about groups ranging between two and four members, unable to get a full five man group?

Assuming these are all for PvP concerns here are my PvP questions:

1. Would you consider adding more incentives for PvP? (experience, gold, armor tokens for armor outside of PvP, etc)

2. Do you think it was a good idea to balance on team-play rather than a 1 versus 1 aspect? Do you feel that there was no better way?

3. Are there any plans to better integrate guilds into PvP or WvW (Excluding what already exists for WvW)

As for my PvE concerns:

1. Do you feel that the concept of DR is a positive influence on the player base?

2. Will there be more elementally inspired armors such as received from Citadel of the Flame?

If any of these got answered I would love the devs forever.

1. Will there be GvG with rankings ladder in game ?

I no longer play , but would of this was implemented

thanx

1. Why don’t you remove runes/sigils that are broken from the game so at least people know the options that show up actually work? And why are they taking so long to straighten out?
2. There are some traits and abilities that are severely underpowered. Are we going to see a greater effort to change out these traits for something different to open up more possibilities anytime soon? Same for abilities.
3. Thanks for nerfing ele, it was OP. But, is a proper ranger nerf coming? Because they need it.

milo.6942:

Ruufio.1496:

Here is an important topic I’d like them to talk about.

• Every class currently has an ability to stomp opponents, which is nice. Are mechanics such as shroud-stomp or mistform-stomp intended?

this would be a waste of a question. of course they are intended. what gives you the impression they aren’t?

The fact that you have to press F1 and F at the same time for DS stomp to work, makes it feel like a bug. Since u cant just walk up to someone in DS and press F.

But on topic:

1: Any plans to balance downed states a little better? Ele’s Vapor form is OP as hell in sPvP and WvW, mesmer isn’t too far behind and thieves are also un-stompable one the first go without another thief doing the stomping (Yes i know an ele/guard/mes can also stomp a thief, but if the thief properly stalls his tele its next to impossible for ele/mes.

2: And plans to make boons worse then they currently are. Maybe longer duration longer Cd’s to make strips more meaningful in a fight. And so they can’t reapply them instantly after every strip.

3: How come necros can no longer wep swap in DS? And while were at it while doesn’t death shroud work like all the other instant cast skills where it doesn’t cancel your current action? I think it’d be awesome if we could channel up dagger 2 or axe 2 then pop into DS. This would also make shroud stomping feel less like a bug.

3. add more incentive to do early solo q pvp, such as allowing experience to be gained through each battle, could be a small amount such as a quarter bar of xp each fight, and you would have to earn a certain score to prevent abuse of this idea.

SwickHobo.5096:

2: And plans to make boons worse then they currently are. Maybe longer duration longer Cd’s to make strips more meaningful in a fight. And so they can’t reapply them instantly after every strip.

This is it right here. Long duration, long CD. Boons shouldn’t work like conditions. It would make boon stripping far more useful and make classes and builds that can’t rely on boons to be viable.

I’d love to hear some honest answers about the position of PvP in relation to the rest of GW2, which seems marginal at best. Are there any plans of structurally reinforcing the PvP community in terms of developing manpower/resources and overall attention/finetuning? If they would just be honest about this, and say admit that for the next half year or so it won’t receive any structural upgrades in how it’s being managed, that would prevent many of us another disappointment after another!!

I haven’t spent as much time in sPVP as I was hoping to before the game was launched. So count me as someone who was looking forward to the pvp of this game and had all his beta fears come true when it sort of fluttered out.

So as a GW1 pvp fan, my questions sort of pertain to the issues I saw in beta and the sort of things that would attract folks like me back to this part of the game.

A major draw for me in the first Guild Wars was the multitudes of ways to play each class and the way builds were made, tweaked and grew over time. GW2 is stuck in a meta of bunker v burst, with a touch of roamer, but roaming is normally tied to burst as well.

My questions then!

The two things that I saw getting in the way of build diversity and playstyle diversity was the singular Conquest mode featuring a Capture Point ruleset that made only two things vitally important: Staying on a point and Killing/Getting someone off a point.

The new map features a bit of CTF playstyle that moves away from this, so it’s good to see the game brancing away from Capture Point.

1. Will we see more variety of rule sets? Will there be more movement towards scenarios that allow greater build diversity? Will a map like Foefire be remade into a more pure GvG type map?

2. The other thing getting in the way of build diversity are the lackluster and uninteresting traits. I have felt a trait overhaul has been needed since beta. How far down the road is this change in coming? Will we see less vertical increase traits and functionality traits, and more traits like “bombs heal” “such and such reflects projectiles” which offer new ways to play with the class?

3. sPVP’s Conquest mode felt like the product of a compromise. It felt like you guys were trying to please casual players, pvp fans, esports companies, esports broadcasters, and esports watchers all at once. Do you feel the early e-sports focus was a mistake? It seems a better approach would have been to offer a pvp that wasn’t trying to please so many different needs and instead offer more variety of pvp, and then allow the community to become an e-sports tradition on its own terms. Did the e-sports focus get in the way of the joy of the sPVP design?

i would love to hear a statement to the promises in this thread
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/s-tPvP-Support-Is-it-coming/first#post53495

or discuss it at least