Guild Wars 2

I felt that this SotG was presented much better than the other two. Props to Grouch & the GW2 Guru guys for making it happen in the first place.

I want to start off by saying I didn’t walk away from this SotG knowing much more than I did when I first entered it besides a lot of “soon” features to be implemented sometime in the future. This is going to be my take on SotG and how I feel about it as a player and as someone who WANTS this game to take off in the eSports realm because for 6 months now I have been an advocate of being positive about it because I felt if they put in a little something here and marketed the pvp a little bit here it would start to take off. I am also a player that receives numerous whispers and mail everyday, so I try my best to help all the new players at this game improve.

I’ll start with positive things I saw from SotG:
- How passionate JP and JS were talking about the game (shows they care)
- The fact that once something was said that they were unaware of the devs let the players know they would “look into it now because we have notes” (at least they are planning to take action on things they were unaware of such as certain builds deemed to be “OP” i.e. eles)
- The fact that the devs had a plan for bringing PvE/WvW players into the mists, but first they want to “hold their hand” a little because they understand that there are a lot of players that have been playing in the mists for quite some time and will have an edge up on these new players. They don’t want them to be demoralized as soon as they step into the mists or be clueless on what is going on.
- They will look at keybind changes per class or per character (I feel the default ones are clunky and difficult to use) I believe players should be able to keep keybinds specific for each class they play or each character.

These positive things don’t have as much detail description in them because there’s not much more to be said.

Negative things I felt from SotG (with detailed explanations):
- ANet is afraid to implement a rating system because they do not understand how it will work.

I see this as having something would be better than nothing. I understand they want it perfect, but as we can see as a good example the 8 team queue system has been moaned about since after the first month the game came out.

This was because when the game first came out there was a substantial amount of people playing in the mists. Queues would pop frequently and free tournies were more competitive due to the fact that many teams were formed and ready to take this game to another level.

Unfortunately, the incentive to play the game at the time was almost non-existent because there were very few features implemented that made you give a care about pvping the mists.

The first week of 1v1 teams on Temple gave positive feedback immediately and negative feedback immediately. If only ANet would implement features, so that they can be given feedback on it then I think it would speed their process up much more easily. I understand the betas were made for testing things, but even if the game is out already…you can still test things with players that care about your game and you will receive your feedback, so you guys (the devs) can work easier around your problems.

Another example of this is paid tournaments. Paid tournies would pop at x time – y time. The very first queue of the night in NA would take a good 30 minutes sometimes more. This should have been seen as a problem in the first place because of the amount of time having to wait for a queue to pop.

I believe the 8-team queue system is an “end-game” feature where if you had the pvp community of let’s say WoW for example then this system would work, but as small as the community is now it is very difficult for this system to work because now we are stuck at a point where “Hey guys, queue for paids, X team is queueing now, and Y team will queue soon!” More or less it isn’t the system that is making players want to play it’s the players themselves wanting to play. But having a system that is difficult for a larger amount of players to access it immediately (such as 1v1 teams) is essentially “pigeon-holing” the players into ONE set way of doing something which is to queue only at x times and y times because at any other time, no other queues will be popping.

continued…

- There will be no solo queue plans.

I’m afraid to say that there has not been very many, if any, games that are team oriented that have succeeded e-Sports wise without a solo queue. I understand that they do not want to split the player base because it is already small, but the player base is only this small because of how little incentive there existed to play tournies and how because of not having MMR you could be queued against top teams and get beat down, and for what? QPs? A system/ladder that did not matter to hardly anybody because they gave no reward and was a poor measure of skill in this game. No offense to people who are at the top of the QP list. It’s just the truth.

Having a solo queue allows players to see where they are on an individual level and teams can form easier when x person sees y person and z person on a level that is equal to their own.

This also leads into my next concern

- How does ANet plan on bringing back players that quit the game already? Also, equally important, WHEN will ANet implement the features such as spectator, private servers, MMR, and a proper ladder?

Listen. I understand this is A LOT to push down the tube. And I agree, it is. But THESE are the features that will give incentive to a lot of people to play this game more hardcore! There has been no ETA which is understandable, but the faster these features get implemented the better the game will be. Period.

There are a few problems with this though which leads BACK to my other concerns. If ANet is concerned about not understanding how a system will work, they will not implement it until they believe it is COMPLETELY ready.

Now, we have seen game breaking bugs come into the game even when they would do big patches per month or two months for pvp. Load screen bug (several times), Block bug, Mist form revive bug, Vengeance not reviving people, and now the Necro not reviving bug. I’m sure there were some that I missed, but you get the point. Every game is going to have bugs that are unforeseen, but it worries me that if ANet is afraid to implement something because they don’t think it will work and want to keep waiting and waiting for it tagging a “soon” title on these big updates then at the same time you are having your pvp population dwindle down slowly.

This then brings in the issue that if you HAVE MMR, you HAVE a ladder, and you HAVE private servers, spectator etc, how many people do we have to make this thing work? You can’t have these beautiful things without having enough players to make it work. Which is why I am concerned on what their plan is for bringing players back into this game.

This then brings in, well Zoose, okay you can replace these players. Well, unfortunately with the tough barrier of entry that these tournies have without MMR and things of that nature, these new teams will form and disband because they lose to teams that are so much better than them.

Sure, you can replace the players that leave with new ones, but what is the plan on making the game have more incentive for these new players to play? At the moment there is not that much. There are titles that take a very, very long time to get to (seemingly impossible) and gear that can be attained through pretty much your first week of playing through spvp. There is no direct correlation between spvp rewards translating into PvE or WvW rewards, so you have players playing in these separate realms basically.

If these realms are going to be kept separate I believe there should be things like if you win this many tournaments then you are allowed to attain this type of gear. Or if you win this many tournaments in a row your team’s name is announced throughout all of the mists through every server. (Team X of Anvil Rock is on a 5 game winning streak!) Little things like that make a world of difference to some people, man. Titles that seem almost impossible to get and pvp gear that is easily attainable makes the game mundane over time.

A lot of us in the PvP community play this game because we believe it is fun and we believe the game can get somewhere because the gameplay is fantastic. But I don’t want this game to just be swept under the esport carpet because of a time issue or because of a skill barrier.

continued…

I really, really want to know when and what ANet plans to do on bringing in these new players or bringing back the old ones, both would be great, man. Because we need more people playing in the mists. This game’s pvp is great, but with the concerns of no solo queue, and the lack of players to make the features work, I wonder where ANet will go to market their mists.

Maybe ESL will pick up the mists? I heard that on Guru sometime ago. Maybe there will be prize pools dropped weekly for weekly tournaments? I don’t know, but the faster features like this get implemented the quicker the game can head into the direction of esports.

- The devs were unaware of Elementalists being really good, borderline “OP”

I sort of was afk at this part, but I heard JP and JS were not really aware that Elementalists were THIS good. That concerns me because almost everyone who pvps in the mists knows that Eles are exceptional. The fact that I play one and was offered “we don’t want to whack a mole things” as an answer is fine, but then again what are the plans to buff all these other classes onto the level of Eles? You’re right. Elementalists have a higher skill cap that can be taken advantage of by good players, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel the easier alternative is to nerf the sustain by a little bit.

Haha…this one will be up for debate, but tell me what you guys think of this:

Nerf the sustain of classes that have pre-set heals. You can do this by lowering either the base heal of their skills like water scepter #3 and #5 for eles or by lowering the healing power scaling of these skills. Because the truth of the matter is the ele sustain is so good because the base level of these heals are so good. Couple it with a cleric’s amulet it will let you heal to full from 10% AND it will heal your teammates AROUND you as well.

Now, eles have a low HP pool, true, which makes it look like it heals for a ton! But I’ve done the math for scepter heals and with #3 and #5 alone with a cleric’s amulet you are going to heal for over 5k HP with two buttons. With Arcana Elemental attunement trait (V) switching into water heals you for almost 3k. That’s 8k total now. Dodge rolling will also heal for another 3k. That’s now up to 11k total. You can see where this is getting ridiculous. 11k without pressing the actual heal button just yet?!? Come on, guys. I play an Ele. I know this is silly. Triple cantrips with the regen per cantrip trait will also heal eles over time for a huge amount through all 3 cantrips which all act as stun breakers or protection procs. That’s going to be well over 15k over a span of 20 seconds, and 11k heals in a span of about 4 seconds with the best eles being able to cast cancel INTO other things while they’re healing.

With a conquest style game the EU meta is seeing many, many s/d bunker eles. And I am taking one for you EU guys, but sustain for s/d eles need to be looked at. Period.

Hearts all around!

To close, thanks a lot for reading this if you read it all the way through. I would just like to know when the key features will be implemented, and hopefully I want to know if ANet would be ready to implement them to test even if they don’t believe it’s 100%. Because like I said, I believe something is better than nothing. I do like that they said they are testing MMR secretly and the system that is implemented where they can “boop boop boop. OK got it.” It makes testing things much easier I assume for devs of the game.
I would also like to have a separate solo queue and team queue. One that is ranked and another that is unranked.

Let me know what you guys think!

1team vs 1 team is the way to go for sure.

Addditionally this makes it more similar to other PvP games. Where you play a match, your rating goes up or down a bit usually.
Whether it be a match in league of legends or wow.

Good read.

I have a few things to add:

If they made an incredibly accessible and popular mode in 1v1, they should capitalize off their discovery, refine it and make it mainstream. There’s no use funneling players into the old paid tournament system. I really wish they would talk more about this.

If by “hand holding” I assume they’re going to look at making a better tutorial? The current one is so basic and doesn’t explain the intricacies of the game’s PvP. Think of how effective LoL’s tutorial would be if all it did was teach players how to press the four skill buttons.

TwoBit.5903:

Good read.

I have a few things to add:

If they made an incredibly accessible and popular mode in 1v1, they should capitalize off their discovery, refine it and make it mainstream. There’s no use funneling players into the old paid tournament system. I really wish they would talk more about this.

If by “hand holding” I assume they’re going to look at making a better tutorial? The current one is so basic and doesn’t explain the intricacies of the game’s PvP. Think of how effective LoL’s tutorial would be if all it did was teach players how to press the four skill buttons.

I agree with making the tutorial more intricate. I really, really want to see it happen, and for ANet to announce it like it’s some sort of new prophecy as well. YOU WILL LEARN ALL THE PVP THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW BEFOREEEEE!!!

Would be sweet, yo.

Zoose.1640:

continued…

- There will be no solo queue plans.

I’m afraid to say that there has not been very many, if any, games that are team oriented that have succeeded e-Sports wise without a solo queue. I understand that they do not want to split the player base because it is already small, but the player base is only this small because of how little incentive there existed to play tournies and how because of not having MMR you could be queued against top teams and get beat down, and for what?

This to me is the biggest shocker. They are worried that they will split a small player base, so they are omitting a feature that will GREATLY grow the player base.

At first, yes, clearly it will cause issues. But soon after, you will find more and more people flocking to the PvP because they have the option they have been looking for.

The lack of solo queue plans was my only disappointment personally. It’s pretty much the key in unlocking a massive sPvP crowd. My time is limited, I have children and a career. I can’t play as much as I used to. I don’t have the ability to run a 5-man team with any reliability, but I do have the time to play a game or two of what would be a solo queue a day. My competitive drive is still here, and I want to be able to release it reliably.

Do you feel ele healing is OP across the board (from 0 healing power up to max) or is it just imbalanced when it’s stacked with 30 water, healing runes and a cleric amulet?

If the latter, wouldn’t a diminishing returns system be a better fix than directly tinkering with the skills?

Caffynated.5713:

Do you feel ele healing is OP across the board (from 0 healing power up to max) or is it just imbalanced when it’s stacked with 30 water, healing runes and a cleric amulet?

If the latter, wouldn’t a diminishing returns system be a better fix than directly tinkering with the skills?

It is because of the latter, yes. And diminishing returns is what I suggested. That’s healing power scaling specifically.

Zoose.1640:

It is because of the latter, yes. And diminishing returns is what I suggested. That’s healing power scaling specifically.

I thought you were talking about directly changing the healing contribution of skills.

I.E. a skill heals for x + y% of healing power.

I was thinking more along the lines of a direct stat diminishing return system.

0-300 stat 1:1
301-600 3:2
601+ 2:1

(not being specific, just an example)

While you talk about ele sustain and healing power scaling being too good, you don’t say anything about attack power scaling very bad on the opposite side.

The devs have admitted that ele got many weak elements opposed to the good ones, I really hope they do take a look at staff/scepter skills and how hard is to actually land them, to have skills which take 3s to land(dragon’s tooth-phoenix-eruption-ice spike)…is wrong.

If going glass cannon, you’ve got skills like flame grab with a 80% miss chance despite being at 45s CD, long CDs and unreasonable casting animations are what force eles into try and win a battle of attrition, other professions can land huge burst skills much more easily while still having 3/4 of our CDs, furthermore having the lowest power coefficients for the auto-attacks doesn’t help either, luckily this is another problem that Jon Peter promised to solve a couple of months ago

Arheundel.6451:

While you talk about ele sustain and healing power scaling being too good, you don’t say anything about attack power scaling very bad on the opposite side.

The devs have admitted that ele got many weak elements opposed to the good ones, I really hope they do take a look at staff/scepter skills and how hard is to actually land them, to have skills which take 3s to land(dragon’s tooth-phoenix-eruption-ice spike)…is wrong.

If going glass cannon, you’ve got skills like flame grab with a 80% miss chance despite being at 45s CD, long CDs and unreasonable casting animations are what force eles into try and win a battle of attrition, other professions can land huge burst skills much more easily while still having 3/4 of our CDs, furthermore having the lowest power coefficients for the auto-attacks doesn’t help either, luckily this is another problem that Jon Peter promised to solve a couple of months ago

The ele’s base skill damage and aoe damage makes up for a lot of power scaling in my opinion. I’m not entirely sure how you can claim that going full glass cannon has a poor power scaling because I have hit fire grabs on 30 fire/30 air builds for over 10k. If you want to play a full glass cannon build and favor to not go in the direction of a more balanced build that’s up to you.

Your second argument with having an “80% miss chance” on fire grab is false. Just because you can’t specifically land it doesn’t mean other plays can’t. The spells are difficult to land because they require set-ups. Ele’s have a higher skill of entry than other classes…maybe? But you can’t go around pressing dragon’s tooth and expect it to land without setting it up in the first place. The same goes for phoenix. This is now a skill of the player argument rather than the class because the spells do a substantial amount of damage when they do land.

Unless you play against the most glassy thief out there, your firegrab will never go over 4k dmg and we’re talking about glass cannon ele, a glass cannon warrior does that damage with the axe auto-attack…..

My second argument imply that you’re not playing against some random guy who installed the game yesterday, listen I 1vs1 Phantaram while he was playing s/d burst, he’s better than me as he’s considered the best ele in GW2 no?!…still his burst didn’t land a single time because these “set up” are super easy to negate that you can’t do nothing but ask yourself if higher skill ceiling equals to efficiency in this game…to me definetely not.

Basically considering burst ele is : High risk=Low reward, hence people go the sustain damage way, and I’ve got a build with less sustain then yours and the damage is still pathetic compared to other professions that you start to wonder if going the more damage way on eles is even worth the time as most profession can deal 3/4 of your dmg with a single auto-homing skill for half the CD, because of this it seems that playing an ele is more because you like the elementalist concept rather than efficiency.

At this point I’d prefer to play a “low skill” profession where I know 90% of my attacks will land rather than a “high skill” profession where I know 90% of your attacks won’t land

I would usually answer with a long and beautiful post to try and match yours, but I’m lacking some serious sleep… so I’ll keep it short:

Extremly good read! I for one agree on every point you brought up and admire the well written posts. I take my hat off to you good sir!

Arheundel.6451:

Unless you play against the most glassy thief out there, your firegrab will never go over 4k dmg and we’re talking about glass cannon ele, a glass cannon warrior does that damage with the axe auto-attack…..

The first picture that I have posted links a 6.8k fire grab on an ele that has 2.8k toughness. The second picture is him typing out his stats. He is attuned into Earth.

Arheundel.6451:

My second argument imply that you’re not playing against some random guy who installed the game yesterday, listen I 1vs1 Phantaram while he was playing s/d burst, he’s better than me as he’s considered the best ele in GW2 no?!…still his burst didn’t land a single time because these “set up” are super easy to negate that you can’t do nothing but ask yourself if higher skill ceiling equals to efficiency in this game…to me definetely not.

I have 1v1’d Phantaram as well, and I have landed many a fire grabs on him as well as him on myself. If you think landing fire grab is the only type of burst an ele has then you are wrong. There is more than just fire grab. I just wanted to show you that you are able to do more than what you claim eles do on pure damage.

Arheundel.6451:

Basically considering burst ele is : High risk=Low reward, hence people go the sustain damage way, and I’ve got a build with less sustain then yours and the damage is still pathetic compared to other professions that you start to wonder if going the more damage way on eles is even worth the time as most profession can deal 3/4 of your dmg with a single auto-homing skill for half the CD, because of this it seems that playing an ele is more because you like the elementalist concept rather than efficiency.

I would argue with the damage shown in those screenshots that it’s high risk, high reward. The reason you don’t see people go deep into the DPS specs is because why should you when there is a class (thief) that can instagib better? Eles are far better at supporting their team through sustained heals than dealing damage. They also provide great aoe support through damage and sustain.

And yes, I do like the ele concept rather than the efficiency, but to say eles are not efficient is blasphemy. Ask about ele damage to other top tier players. They will tell you.

Arheundel.6451:

At this point I’d prefer to play a “low skill” profession where I know 90% of my attacks will land rather than a “high skill” profession where I know 90% of your attacks won’t land

If this is what you wish then you are free to do it. Ele might not be for you, but it is for me.

Lowellollipop.5817:

I would usually answer with a long and beautiful post to try and match yours, but I’m lacking some serious sleep… so I’ll keep it short:

Extremly good read! I for one agree on every point you brought up and admire the well written posts. I take my hat off to you good sir!

Oh Lowell thank you. You are beautiful enough already, friend.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Great post, some great points in here.

We know a lot of this, but a lot of times we can’t speak to specific plans to fix things. We also know full well what’s good in the meta (or OP). We sometimes just can’t reveal what we’re thinking about balance until our lists go final.

A lot of people assume that silence = ignorance, and often times, that’s not the case.

Great read! Enjoyed it.

when will you add a public test server so you can get feedback and bug identification FASTER. Do you not feel your current speed of adding pvp features that should have been in game at launch is horribly slow? we have got one map skin and beta 1v1 yet pve has massive events with new features almost monthly. the size and speed of the pvp crew makes it seem like a joke and red headed step child of the anet corporate top dogs. ill be playing rift and likely won’t bother coming back since now you’re saying we won’t have anything this month. unreal.

Watched the whole thing and I’m happy the discussion was so open. It’s actually the most sincere I’ve ever seen game devs talk about what’s going on, not the usual marketing phrases at all. (I just hope Jon #1 didn’t make Jon #2 sick :p . Get well soon!).
If I was interested in team PvP I’d probably be optimistic right now, but being more of a solo and WvW guy I still get the feeling that every other form of PvP besides sPvP/tPvP has little priority balance-wise.

Zoose.1640:

Arheundel.6451:

Unless you play against the most glassy thief out there, your firegrab will never go over 4k dmg and we’re talking about glass cannon ele, a glass cannon warrior does that damage with the axe auto-attack…..

The first picture that I have posted links a 6.8k fire grab on an ele that has 2.8k toughness. The second picture is him typing out his stats. He is attuned into Earth.

Arheundel.6451:

My second argument imply that you’re not playing against some random guy who installed the game yesterday, listen I 1vs1 Phantaram while he was playing s/d burst, he’s better than me as he’s considered the best ele in GW2 no?!…still his burst didn’t land a single time because these “set up” are super easy to negate that you can’t do nothing but ask yourself if higher skill ceiling equals to efficiency in this game…to me definetely not.

I have 1v1’d Phantaram as well, and I have landed many a fire grabs on him as well as him on myself. If you think landing fire grab is the only type of burst an ele has then you are wrong. There is more than just fire grab. I just wanted to show you that you are able to do more than what you claim eles do on pure damage.

Arheundel.6451:

Basically considering burst ele is : High risk=Low reward, hence people go the sustain damage way, and I’ve got a build with less sustain then yours and the damage is still pathetic compared to other professions that you start to wonder if going the more damage way on eles is even worth the time as most profession can deal 3/4 of your dmg with a single auto-homing skill for half the CD, because of this it seems that playing an ele is more because you like the elementalist concept rather than efficiency.

I would argue with the damage shown in those screenshots that it’s high risk, high reward. The reason you don’t see people go deep into the DPS specs is because why should you when there is a class (thief) that can instagib better? Eles are far better at supporting their team through sustained heals than dealing damage. They also provide great aoe support through damage and sustain.

And yes, I do like the ele concept rather than the efficiency, but to say eles are not efficient is blasphemy. Ask about ele damage to other top tier players. They will tell you.

Arheundel.6451:

At this point I’d prefer to play a “low skill” profession where I know 90% of my attacks will land rather than a “high skill” profession where I know 90% of your attacks won’t land

If this is what you wish then you are free to do it. Ele might not be for you, but it is for me.

If they nerf the healing..your 0/10/0/30/30 build with valkyrie can as well be trashed just saying, the only thing that keeps you alive while running with 14k HP are the small heals all around, once that is gone you’ll be totalized by a single mind wrack.

The ele from strong 1vs1 profession has become the support/control only profession and once the heals are nerfed , they will nerf the controls as soon as some more thread pop out on the forums, so what next? ele best free kill profession?

They designed this profession in an horrible way, this whole versatility concept has been working more against us than anything, I really wonder if you’ll still talk like this once the ele become so gimped that your team will kick you out or ask you to change profession, guess you never played GW1 if not you’d know that once a profession get overnerfed…it won’t be used in PvP teams anylonger and kicked out of teams even in PvE…this happened to the ele in GW1 and it’ll be the same for the ele in GW2

P.S also pls there is no comparison between top tier players from GW1 and QP collectors of GW2, go read on GW1 guru forum to have an idea they don’t spend half time QQ about the profession they can’t counter with their single build but rather discuss about team compositions and strategies, and that was with real PvP( Guild vs Guild, Heroes Ascent) no with a glorified Alliance battle system, where you people have accumulated QP pts by running 2-3 bunker teams over and over again

JonathanSharp.7094:

Great post, some great points in here.

We know a lot of this, but a lot of times we can’t speak to specific plans to fix things. We also know full well what’s good in the meta (or OP). We sometimes just can’t reveal what we’re thinking about balance until our lists go final.

A lot of people assume that silence = ignorance, and often times, that’s not the case.

Great read! Enjoyed it.

What about what ISN’T good in the meta ?

Just sayin’

where is a link to the podcast?

here!

Great watch, came out of that feeling like I learned something…

Both Jons’ being passionate about the game is pretty evident…
it’s great that you took an hour to talk to the players feels like you really are listening!

I hope they fix fire grab and skills that misses a lot if they nerf ele if not im going to play other class

snip from zoose…

“Unfortunately, the incentive to play the game at the time was almost non-existent because there were very few features implemented that made you give a care about pvping the mists.”

i am not hopeful for this game on the spvp end at all because of the way the main features (professions and combat) were designed.

currently the professions set up and combat mechanics are passable for open world pve. wvw is mostly about zerg vs zerg tactics and not professions. dungeons and fractals are a die/rez, dps spam, do this trick at this time to win and bring anything experience. the oversimplified ways professions and combat were designed become somewhat acceptable while participating in the above activities. in spvp it is a whole new ballgame because the profession and combat system vs profession and combat system shows the fundemental flaws, limitations and shallowness of things.

imo, if the core of professions and combat remains limited to certain builds, capable professions and set ups, pressing #1 a lot, dodge rolls, heal thyself and using something on a long cooldown when you’re in trouble, no amount of nifty features or rewards will attract a larger crowd.

obviously improvements and additions will be made, but ultimately things won’t change drastically enough for professions and the way combat unfolds to make a much of a difference to spvp.

Arheundel.6451:

If they nerf the healing..your 0/10/0/30/30 build with valkyrie can as well be trashed just saying, the only thing that keeps you alive while running with 14k HP are the small heals all around, once that is gone you’ll be totalized by a single mind wrack.

You make it sound like I want ele’s healing power to be nerfed from the 11k to like 2k. It doesn’t have to be as substantial as that. I’m suggesting healing power ratio to be lowered through healing spells since eles already have good base #s on their heals.

And if you get hit by a full mind wrack setup you should be punished for it.

And besides, there is more than just one viable build for an ele. The 0/10/0/30/30 build is not the end all be all of ele builds. It is what is effective in the meta right now, and at the moment it needs to be tweaked. I understand this because I play an ele I can SEE what it does. Even players who are not the best ele players can heal themselves from 10% to full by pressing a few buttons. That should not happen. 10% – 70% maybe, but not full.

Arheundel.6451:

The ele from strong 1vs1 profession has become the support/control only profession and once the heals are nerfed , they will nerf the controls as soon as some more thread pop out on the forums, so what next? ele best free kill profession?

The ele is still one of the strongest 1v1 professions in the game if not the strongest.

Arheundel.6451:

They designed this profession in an horrible way, this whole versatility concept has been working more against us than anything, I really wonder if you’ll still talk like this once the ele become so gimped that your team will kick you out or ask you to change profession, guess you never played GW1 if not you’d know that once a profession get overnerfed…it won’t be used in PvP teams anylonger and kicked out of teams even in PvE…this happened to the ele in GW1 and it’ll be the same for the ele in GW2

I don’t believe they designed the profession poorly because versatility = more options. You don’t want to be pigeon-holed into doing one build.

I will still play Ele almost regardless of what happens. It’s my class of choice, and I’ll probably still find a way to make them useful. That’s a very bold statement for you to say that I’m not going to be useful in any teams.

I’m going to give you an example of myself:

When the game was first released I made an open challenge for ANYONE to 1v1 me.

I played Ele at the start of the game when it was so bugged that Ride the Lightning would probably immobilize you for 3 seconds instead of actually doing its job. Fire grab felt like it had an angle of 10 degrees because if I didn’t pan my camera upwards and directly faced the enemies I would miss. Magnetic grasp would immobilize you potentially, and half the signets were unresponsive.

I dueled almost 100 people in best 2 out of 3 scenarios and probably only lost 6 or 7. I’m not saying this to be arrogant. I’m saying this to show you how even when the class was kitten poor bugged I was still able to do well. This is before the influx of 0/10/0/30/30 builds.

And no, I did not play Guild Wars 1, but that’s an entirely different game.

Arheundel.6451:

P.S also pls there is no comparison between top tier players from GW1 and QP collectors of GW2, go read on GW1 guru forum to have an idea they don’t spend half time QQ about the profession they can’t counter with their single build but rather discuss about team compositions and strategies, and that was with real PvP( Guild vs Guild, Heroes Ascent) no with a glorified Alliance battle system, where you people have accumulated QP pts by running 2-3 bunker teams over and over again

The people that “QQ” about professions in this game are mostly hot join players. I don’t need to read the guru forums because I too take time to think about strategies and ways to beat things instead of “QQing” over a profession. I PLAY the class. I’ve seen a trend in both the casual and high tier level of play where this class would be a little too dominant (especially on the EU server).

And you proved my point by saying this game is “full of bunkers” when it’s not really…and that bunker meta was busted a while back at least here on NA.

I watched it all and I felt like I learned nothing. It’s hard not to get mad, when you watch a show that lasts over an hour and has a few key issues pop up every now and then just watch them never be addressed directly.

There was no useful information in there.

The whole theme to pretty much every topic can be summarized like this:

Host and/or guest: “So matchmaking is in! We wonder, could you tell us what it is taking into account right now?”

Devs: “Sure! It’s pretty much what you can expect. I mean…it’s pretty…pretty much, well it’s going to pretty basic…say if you have 4 people that are good and one that sucks, your aggregate rating is going to be lower…we are also looking at cohesiveness of your team, right? Say 5 individuals queue, they are more likely to be matched against another 5 individuals rather than a team of 5 queueing, I guess?”

That part and pretty much every other topic that could have been remotely interesting was simply killed by answers that either made no sense (you guys realize that you can’t queue as an individual in paid, right?) or were not answered at all.

I didn’t hear anything concrete on:

- AoE damage. How it’s affecting the game (more below to that) and how it’s going to be reduced

- Downed state being more important than anything else in terms of fighting. Why is this acceptable?

- Rezz utilities. Do you realize what happens when an ally goes down? Instead of trying to revive your team mate, everybody just drops their AoE on him and use their rezz utilities. As a result, you have put lethal pressure on the enemy team who was trying to stomp and thus standing in the AoE and your previously fallen ally is back up with more HP than anybody else on the enemy team. Great design!

- Time Warp and Quickness in general

- Thief vs. Thief match within the match

As long as you don’t understand and address above issues/topics, you are always going to be seen as being out of the loop, Jons.

go play ele on offensive mode with staff and play vs a decent thief or any other good dps . I (600+qp)played staff offensive in svanir ninjas (free and paid tourneys) and it was unplayable vs very good teams… u wont have any chance. sry to say but if they take ele healing and aoe away the class will be crippled. the ele is atm best at his role : fast bunker,solo far point assaulter, best heal ingame. as a a roamer i will always prefer thief and mesmer above an ele…. so destroy ele… if they gonna destroy ele i will start playing thief .. from 14 buttons to effective 7 buttons…

Zoose.1640:

- The devs were unaware of Elementalists being really good, borderline “OP”

I sort of was afk at this part, but I heard JP and JS were not really aware that Elementalists were THIS good. That concerns me because almost everyone who pvps in the mists knows that Eles are exceptional.

The Jons were making a joke when they acted like they didn’t know Ele was very strong. :P

JonathanSharp.7094:

Great post, some great points in here.

We know a lot of this, but a lot of times we can’t speak to specific plans to fix things. We also know full well what’s good in the meta (or OP). We sometimes just can’t reveal what we’re thinking about balance until our lists go final.

A lot of people assume that silence = ignorance, and often times, that’s not the case.

Great read! Enjoyed it.

Really?
How can you explain the fact, that it took you 3 months to fix the gamebreaking mace block bug on guardians? Svanir runes? The fact that elementalists have been overpowered for the past 4 months? Engineer viability? Gem rewards? Portal abuse? Ridiculous amount of useless traits and skills? Unnecessary nerfs (such as guardian spirit weapons. It was the only way for guardians to somewhat counter eles on a point fight. Try to lock down with a s. hammer out of the point while chaining CC’s with a hammer. Against mediocre eles you could even full cap the point (and the majority of eles who managed to get into the top50 QPs are actually kittenbad). But apparently, spirit shield was too op in fractals, that’s why you nerfed all spirit weapons to the ground. They are simply useless now.) It’s not that we expect you to say things, we expect you to DO things. And you’re doing neither.

@Zoose – you continue to debate with Arheundel.6451 but I will tell you it is a waste of time. He is the first player on the forums to tell others to L2P and yet when you clearly point on L2P issues to him, he goes ultra defensive. In my best Yoda, “Uphill battle, you fight.”

JonathanSharp.7094:

Great post, some great points in here.

We know a lot of this, but a lot of times we can’t speak to specific plans to fix things. We also know full well what’s good in the meta (or OP). We sometimes just can’t reveal what we’re thinking about balance until our lists go final.

A lot of people assume that silence = ignorance, and often times, that’s not the case.

Great read! Enjoyed it.

I’m just wondering, why do you approach it like this? I think the vast majority of the people, at least on the forum, think you guys aren’t doing anything because you guys aren’t publicly going into the details.

For example, the matchmaking system. You guys kinda just sprung it on everyone, and left everyone to figure out on their own that it’s being tested. People figure it out anyway, so I don’t get the point about being secretive about it. I know it’s not finished, but if you’re upfront with that I think it’s better than to one day in the future say “ok here it is.”

It was good that you guys sent a game-wide mail about the new paid tournament format with temple, but I think you should tell people “hey, we have been working on the matchmaking system, and we’re ready to test it out in paid tournaments!” or something to that effect. An email that gets sent out would be great as well because there’s a lot of pvp players and teams that want to come back when things are in place. However, if they don’t know then they won’t be coming back anytime soon.

When you say nothing about progress and just say things like “it’s coming soon!,” people will think the worst (that there’s actually no progress on it, and won’t be coming until everyone quits the game). When you start working on custom servers/spectator client you should give updates about progress: “Today we tackled the interface for the custom servers.” Even better if you then look for interaction with the community. “What settings/options would you want if you had a custom server?”

They will need to increase ele base damage if they nerf ele healing.

in short … in the future February March put a ladder or not?

Minoru.1237:

They will need to increase ele base damage if they nerf ele healing.

I would be down with that cause.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Great post, some great points in here.

We know a lot of this, but a lot of times we can’t speak to specific plans to fix things. We also know full well what’s good in the meta (or OP). We sometimes just can’t reveal what we’re thinking about balance until our lists go final.

A lot of people assume that silence = ignorance, and often times, that’s not the case.

Great read! Enjoyed it.

Clearly it’s your company philosophy and I know it’s probably not going to change, but I think it a terrible philosophy. You don’t say anything in fear of causing a stir on the forums, but your silence (at least on the SPVP boards) causes one of the biggest stirs.

Here is the best way I can describe it:
Let’s say that you had decided to come to the forums and tell the players “We finally have our PvP system in place and it’s going to be an 8 team tournament system where you need 40 people to start and it will be 3 rounds.”

I can assure you if that was discussed during the initial implementation, it would have never made it in and then had to be changed 6 months later because it clearly was a bad idea.

My fear is, you guys are being so secretive about stuff because it may or may not be fully ready, but what if it’s a terrible idea? It doesn’t matter how good of DEVS you guys are, there are few of you and exponentially more of us. We can quickly pick out flaws and give positive constructive feedback….for free.

I am in no way saying we are better at developing a game than you guys, we most assuredly are not; however, we play the game non-stop, and we have very good ideas about what would be great for the game, and what would be terrible. Just go look at SWTOR to see examples where DEVS were completely silent on features and when they were rolled out, they sucked…bad.

Case in Point

• WoW, for all its flaws, is actually pretty open about what they are planning. The perfect example: Blizzard was going to implement a feature where your real ID along with your real name would be displayed on the forums with things you posted: a terrible terrible idea. They were dead set on it and people voiced concerns about how our privacy would be at risk and how we could be attacked in real life by players that didn’t like what we posted. Bashiok kept stating that we shouldn’t have any concerns and were being paranoid and your real name can accomplish nothing from someone trying to find out who we are. Someone challenged him to say his real name if he didn’t care. He did. Next, they found his address, his salary, a picture of his front door via street view of Google maps and even facebook pages of his parents.
• That feature never saw the light of day. Had they secretly implemented it, someone could have been killed by some crazy forums stalker.

Food for thought

Zoose.1640:

continued…

If these realms are going to be kept separate I believe there should be things like if you win this many tournaments then you are allowed to attain this type of gear. Or if you win this many tournaments in a row your team’s name is announced throughout all of the mists through every server. (Team X of Anvil Rock is on a 5 game winning streak!) Little things like that make a world of difference to some people, man. Titles that seem almost impossible to get and pvp gear that is easily attainable makes the game mundane over time.

This is so true man. I remember in the old days of GW1 when you had this…. It made a lot of people try their best to win in a group… Right now finding people that want to be competitive, no matter how much time to play they have, is almost impossible…

None even cares about free tournaments anymore, they go in and act like if they were farming hotjoins…

Minoru.1237:

They will need to increase ele base damage if they nerf ele healing.

Not even that, they should simply add more evasive moves to the eles and remove the healing skills ALL OF THEM and I’m not joking at all.

Just remove the healing from:

1) Water trident = replace with a knockback ( with reasonable radius)
2) Cleansing wave = leave the condition removal or remove it, don’t care but replace the healing with pushback and reduce CD
3) Evasiva arcana replace the healing dodge with chill dodge( 3s)

This should be the kind of changes we should get, the trident is great because you’ve got many ways to deal with mele and ranged attackers and quick evasion moves

The fact is by having the lowest HP and armour I’d rather not get hit at all instead than simpling heal myself…but alas…those kind of changes will never happen and they’ll most likely just nerf the numbers making those skills completely useless as they won’t any purpose.

E.G they nerf cleansing wave from 1.4k healing to 600 healing at that point I’d rather have a push back or roll back and have not heal at all

felivear.1536:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Great post, some great points in here.

We know a lot of this, but a lot of times we can’t speak to specific plans to fix things. We also know full well what’s good in the meta (or OP). We sometimes just can’t reveal what we’re thinking about balance until our lists go final.

A lot of people assume that silence = ignorance, and often times, that’s not the case.

Great read! Enjoyed it.

Clearly it’s your company philosophy and I know it’s probably not going to change, but I think it a terrible philosophy. You don’t say anything in fear of causing a stir on the forums, but your silence (at least on the SPVP boards) causes one of the biggest stirs.

Here is the best way I can describe it:
Let’s say that you had decided to come to the forums and tell the players “We finally have our PvP system in place and it’s going to be an 8 team tournament system where you need 40 people to start and it will be 3 rounds.”

I can assure you if that was discussed during the initial implementation, it would have never made it in and then had to be changed 6 months later because it clearly was a bad idea.

My fear is, you guys are being so secretive about stuff because it may or may not be fully ready, but what if it’s a terrible idea? It doesn’t matter how good of DEVS you guys are, there are few of you and exponentially more of us. We can quickly pick out flaws and give positive constructive feedback….for free.

I am in no way saying we are better at developing a game than you guys, we most assuredly are not; however, we play the game non-stop, and we have very good ideas about what would be great for the game, and what would be terrible. Just go look at SWTOR to see examples where DEVS were completely silent on features and when they were rolled out, they sucked…bad.

Case in Point

• WoW, for all its flaws, is actually pretty open about what they are planning. The perfect example: Blizzard was going to implement a feature where your real ID along with your real name would be displayed on the forums with things you posted: a terrible terrible idea. They were dead set on it and people voiced concerns about how our privacy would be at risk and how we could be attacked in real life by players that didn’t like what we posted. Bashiok kept stating that we shouldn’t have any concerns and were being paranoid and your real name can accomplish nothing from someone trying to find out who we are. Someone challenged him to say his real name if he didn’t care. He did. Next, they found his address, his salary, a picture of his front door via street view of Google maps and even facebook pages of his parents.
• That feature never saw the light of day. Had they secretly implemented it, someone could have been killed by some crazy forums stalker.

Food for thought

This is probably one of the best responses in this entire thread.

I wholeheartedly agree with this idea 100%.

Something I’m looking forward to in the update is how they stated they planned on making more builds viable. I’ve played all classes and have 8 character slots to consistently check on class updates and such, and as far as elementalist taking a higher skill level to play, is that a joke? Maybe for new players?

I play a warrior, and from my standpoint everyone is OP but me. Lately even engineers have made a comeback with the hundred nades build. I feel as if warrior is one of the only classes that require ridiculous amount of support just to be viable. Trust me if I could go a shouts/banners build and be effective I would, but they just don’t work in PvP.

Well my take on sotg was that it was bad..for all my opinion is worth.
They spent so much time talking about eles and whatnot and left things most people care like solo queue at the end..
But thats a problem of bringing players like java and lowell who probably dont care that much about actually making the game casually friendly as much as fixing the meta in a way that their team and their class has a better advantage..
No seriously..“ele op,im a thief and i get owned by frost aura..preposterous!!! aaa and btw we want solo queue”
My god even i could do a better job at explaining them the communitys concerns and whats important at this time.Apparently anet think esports start from the hardcore side of things when in reality its the other way around…
But yay we got from them that they plan on nerfing ele..My life is fulfilled now that i know that!

Zoose.1640:

felivear.1536:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Great post, some great points in here.

We know a lot of this, but a lot of times we can’t speak to specific plans to fix things. We also know full well what’s good in the meta (or OP). We sometimes just can’t reveal what we’re thinking about balance until our lists go final.

A lot of people assume that silence = ignorance, and often times, that’s not the case.

Great read! Enjoyed it.

Clearly it’s your company philosophy and I know it’s probably not going to change, but I think it a terrible philosophy. You don’t say anything in fear of causing a stir on the forums, but your silence (at least on the SPVP boards) causes one of the biggest stirs.

Here is the best way I can describe it:
Let’s say that you had decided to come to the forums and tell the players “We finally have our PvP system in place and it’s going to be an 8 team tournament system where you need 40 people to start and it will be 3 rounds.”

I can assure you if that was discussed during the initial implementation, it would have never made it in and then had to be changed 6 months later because it clearly was a bad idea.

My fear is, you guys are being so secretive about stuff because it may or may not be fully ready, but what if it’s a terrible idea? It doesn’t matter how good of DEVS you guys are, there are few of you and exponentially more of us. We can quickly pick out flaws and give positive constructive feedback….for free.

I am in no way saying we are better at developing a game than you guys, we most assuredly are not; however, we play the game non-stop, and we have very good ideas about what would be great for the game, and what would be terrible. Just go look at SWTOR to see examples where DEVS were completely silent on features and when they were rolled out, they sucked…bad.

Case in Point

• WoW, for all its flaws, is actually pretty open about what they are planning. The perfect example: Blizzard was going to implement a feature where your real ID along with your real name would be displayed on the forums with things you posted: a terrible terrible idea. They were dead set on it and people voiced concerns about how our privacy would be at risk and how we could be attacked in real life by players that didn’t like what we posted. Bashiok kept stating that we shouldn’t have any concerns and were being paranoid and your real name can accomplish nothing from someone trying to find out who we are. Someone challenged him to say his real name if he didn’t care. He did. Next, they found his address, his salary, a picture of his front door via street view of Google maps and even facebook pages of his parents.
• That feature never saw the light of day. Had they secretly implemented it, someone could have been killed by some crazy forums stalker.

Food for thought

This is probably one of the best responses in this entire thread.

I wholeheartedly agree with this idea 100%.

Quoting for emphasis. The philosophy you guys have about releasing information is really frustrating.

@felivear
Great post, and I agree wholeheartedly. It feels a bit like the old windows-vs-linux-security-approach.

I don’t post much on the forums, but I decided to sign in just to add another voice to this discussion. I agree with a lot of what is being said here. They said it themselves in the show, they had a feature(8vs8) that they went with, and it didn’t work out, and now they have to change everything to fit the new 1vs1 style we’re going with. They hide all the coming features because they want it to be perfect, but in doing so, get no feedback on it, so once it’s implemented, if the playerbase absolutely hates it, they have to completely redesign it, and wasted even more time.

They just need to give us the info on features being worked on, let us give feedback, and then sort through it to try and find what makes sense and work on it from there, as to not waste their and our time. It’s not like we’re trying to rush it, we just wanna know where it’s at, and what the features are so we’re able to give feedback so that it’s less time wasted. To me, this is the biggest thing that is needed to be fixed.

I know all this has pretty much been said, but again, I want to get this out there so there’s more people saying it, so they realize what we actually want. I probably have more to say, but it’s late, and I can’t think as well when tired lol.

@felivear
You are so right. As long as the devs keep things that they plan to do with PvP a secret, the game is doomed to fail. Right now we don’t need to be secretive about featured plans cause PvP is dying and don’t pretend that it’s not(I’m looking at you Jon Sharp). They need to tell us what they actually have in mind cause the PvP community won’t last another failed attempt. If they don’t trust their own playerbase to decide what’s good and what’s bad for the game I don’t see it thriving then.

That’s my 2 cents.

Its worth mention that Jon sharp and the ones who appear on the podcast are probably not the ones who decide what they can and cant say.
That decision is made higher up.
Nor are they probably even able to comment on that.
So i commend them for being as transaparent as they are able to.

It would be nice to get more information and make this more of a conversation with the community however.

Minoru.1237:

They will need to increase ele base damage if they nerf ele healing.

Based on?

Currently the issue with ele healing is that he’s got too much of it to be coupled with his defense, movement, and damage. Something needs to change.

In my opinion, being able to self-combo and keep 4-5 boons active for an entire fight is the issue. Not the number or power of his healing skills.

Keep players from being able to self-combo. Then see whether or not the ele needs a buff/nerf.

felivear.1536:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Great post, some great points in here.

We know a lot of this, but a lot of times we can’t speak to specific plans to fix things. We also know full well what’s good in the meta (or OP). We sometimes just can’t reveal what we’re thinking about balance until our lists go final.

A lot of people assume that silence = ignorance, and often times, that’s not the case.

Great read! Enjoyed it.

Clearly it’s your company philosophy and I know it’s probably not going to change, but I think it a terrible philosophy. You don’t say anything in fear of causing a stir on the forums, but your silence (at least on the SPVP boards) causes one of the biggest stirs.

Here is the best way I can describe it:
Let’s say that you had decided to come to the forums and tell the players “We finally have our PvP system in place and it’s going to be an 8 team tournament system where you need 40 people to start and it will be 3 rounds.”

I can assure you if that was discussed during the initial implementation, it would have never made it in and then had to be changed 6 months later because it clearly was a bad idea.

My fear is, you guys are being so secretive about stuff because it may or may not be fully ready, but what if it’s a terrible idea? It doesn’t matter how good of DEVS you guys are, there are few of you and exponentially more of us. We can quickly pick out flaws and give positive constructive feedback….for free.

I am in no way saying we are better at developing a game than you guys, we most assuredly are not; however, we play the game non-stop, and we have very good ideas about what would be great for the game, and what would be terrible. Just go look at SWTOR to see examples where DEVS were completely silent on features and when they were rolled out, they sucked…bad.

Case in Point

• WoW, for all its flaws, is actually pretty open about what they are planning. The perfect example: Blizzard was going to implement a feature where your real ID along with your real name would be displayed on the forums with things you posted: a terrible terrible idea. They were dead set on it and people voiced concerns about how our privacy would be at risk and how we could be attacked in real life by players that didn’t like what we posted. Bashiok kept stating that we shouldn’t have any concerns and were being paranoid and your real name can accomplish nothing from someone trying to find out who we are. Someone challenged him to say his real name if he didn’t care. He did. Next, they found his address, his salary, a picture of his front door via street view of Google maps and even facebook pages of his parents.
• That feature never saw the light of day. Had they secretly implemented it, someone could have been killed by some crazy forums stalker.

Food for thought

Blizzard’s forum fk-up is a really bad example.

How often does blizzard announce GAME-RELATED information that is changed by people complaining on the forums? Cite a few of those if your going to compare them to Anet in that realm.

The only reason they didn’t go ahead with their moronic real-name forum idea was because the forum coordinator had real harm brought to him in the form of stalking. In other words, they’re so dumb that they need to be stalked and taunted by forum/internet geeks before they realize that being anonymous on the internet is important. Man…the children that work at bliz…amazing.

Yeah, lets all NOT take a page out of the fktard (blizzard) handbook.