Guild Wars 2

Here it is, please feel free to discuss.

Xeph.4513:

Here it is, please feel free to discuss.

I think you forgot to post the link Xeph
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByqoWsnz-I

some points for those that cant watch:

opinions from top players:
- bunker eles and ele down state needs nerf
- aoe dmg too high
- they play every day 8 hours a day lol
-two people pulled off private servers for ladders/match making
-pvp/wvw patch some time in jan/feb/march ..
-big balance patch dec 14th for pvp

Pretty good stuff in here.. sounds like they do have very big plans for sPvP but you can’t hold your breath at all. We will be happy within a year with a ladder being the next implemented feature and a large PvP patch coming early next year. A lot of people won’t be happy with the timeline but I am very pleased with what I heard overall.

Sprawl.3891:

some points for those that cant watch:

opinions from top players:
- bunker eles and ele down state needs nerf
- aoe dmg too high
- they play every day 8 hours a day lol

-Ele attunement protection duration reduced from 5 to 3 seconds, evasive arcana heal removed. Keep it as a condition removal only or change it to a 1-2 second aoe chill.
-Ele downstate vapor form no longer resets health
-Have a game mode not centered around standing in little circles

I liked what I heard.

Sprawl.3891:

some points for those that cant watch:

opinions from top players:
- bunker eles and ele down state needs nerf
- aoe dmg too high
- they play every day 8 hours a day lol
-two people pulled off private servers for ladders/match making
-pvp/wvw patch some time in jan/feb/march ..
-big balance patch dec 14th for pvp

Correction:

- s/d eles "bunkers"are strong but nothing compared to guardians-
- aoe dmg while ressing others it’s a problem, nothing to to with aoe dmg itself-

All in all it’s funny how people consider themself “top players” while having such one-dimensional points of view, it’s hilarious how the only people to complain about bunker eles are :

1) Metor- necro ( typical bleed/chill/fear staff spammer) from estars
2) Lowell – thief roamer ( BS spammer or trap jumper) from SuperSquad

What a coincidence that those complaining are those who get easily countered by bunker eles at the very least I’m glad that Mr Sharp has mentioned how they watch closely the forum themself.

From people considered as an example by the community I’d expect no less than integrity and transparency, instead all I get is veiled whines with the appearance of genuine questions

Didn’t see it asked or answered but now I know DEVs read all this stuff. You don’t have to reply but please notice how important SPVP (aka hot-join) is to the game. SPVP should allow for progression for new players, a place to get their feet wet and learn conquest. A new player should jump into a hot-join, get an immediate feel for conquest and understand what will win the game. They should also get to know people that they can then take into TPVP when they are ready.

Currently, just because of a terrible glory gain system, none of that is accomplished. Glory gains give new players the impression that it’s TDM and zerg jumping from point-to-point. Also, since there is 0 incentive to win, nobody talks. I have played 400 hours in almost all SPVP/TPVP and have had less than a dozen conversations in hot-join because there is no need.

Adjust scoring. Doing so will

• Promote team play
• Teach new players the importance of holding points
• Get less people rolling thieves and mesmers because they aren’t too off balance in conquest, but hot-join promotes only roamers. Who are the best roamers? Yep
• Giving people the incentive to win promotes team-play and thus creates community.

Overall SPVP should be the entry point for new players and a quick stress relief / build testing for seasoned players. It does nothing for the former.

Also, although I am not a programmer, I can’t imagine augmentation to the scoring system would take that much resources away from the other “key” features.

Thanks

Edit: You also say things like “dueling is important but not as important as other stuff” then in the same stream you talk about the importance of people learning to play and counter classes. I’m going to guess that 95% of the players don’t jump into empty servers and duel because it’s cumbersome and not readily known to new players. So, how is it a new player is going to learn to counter that 100 blades if the only thing he has to go by is his death breakdown? Dueling is important to a new game that you are trying to build a community around.

Arheundel.6451:

Sprawl.3891:

some points for those that cant watch:

opinions from top players:
- bunker eles and ele down state needs nerf
- aoe dmg too high
- they play every day 8 hours a day lol
-two people pulled off private servers for ladders/match making
-pvp/wvw patch some time in jan/feb/march ..
-big balance patch dec 14th for pvp

Correction:

- s/d eles "bunkers"are strong but nothing compared to guardians-
- aoe dmg while ressing others it’s a problem, nothing to to with aoe dmg itself-

Thank you

I believe they said S/D ele bunkers are the strongest bunker atm but isn’t anything compared to the pre-“nerf” guardian. As in the guardian with block bug.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Arheundel.6451:

Sprawl.3891:

some points for those that cant watch:

opinions from top players:
- bunker eles and ele down state needs nerf
- aoe dmg too high
- they play every day 8 hours a day lol
-two people pulled off private servers for ladders/match making
-pvp/wvw patch some time in jan/feb/march ..
-big balance patch dec 14th for pvp

Correction:

- s/d eles "bunkers"are strong but nothing compared to guardians-
- aoe dmg while ressing others it’s a problem, nothing to to with aoe dmg itself-

Thank you

I believe they said S/D ele bunkers are the strongest bunker atm but isn’t anything compared to the pre-“nerf” guardian. As in the guardian with block bug.

That’s exactly what was said. They were saying they are THE STRONGEST currently, but not anywhere as bad as guardians were BEFORE the nerfs because they can still deal with s/d ele.

felivear.1536:

Didn’t see it asked or answered but now I know DEVs read all this stuff. You don’t have to reply but please notice how important SPVP (aka hot-join) is to the game. SPVP should allow for progression for new players, a place to get their feet wet and learn conquest. A new player should jump into a hot-join, get an immediate feel for conquest and understand what will win the game. They should also get to know people that they can then take into TPVP when they are ready.

Currently, just because of a terrible glory gain system, none of that is accomplished. Glory gains give new players the impression that it’s TDM and zerg jumping from point-to-point. Also, since there is 0 incentive to win, nobody talks. I have played 400 hours in almost all SPVP/TPVP and have had less than a dozen conversations in hot-join because there is no need.

Adjust scoring. Doing so will

• Promote team play
• Teach new players the importance of holding points
• Get less people rolling thieves and mesmers because they aren’t too off balance in conquest, but hot-join promotes only roamers. Who are the best roamers? Yep
• Giving people the incentive to win promotes team-play and thus creates community.

Overall SPVP should be the entry point for new players and a quick stress relief / build testing for seasoned players. It does nothing for the former.

Also, although I am not a programmer, I can’t imagine augmentation to the scoring system would take that much resources away from the other “key” features.

Thanks

Edit: You also say things like “dueling is important but not as important as other stuff” then in the same stream you talk about the importance of people learning to play and counter classes. I’m going to guess that 95% of the players don’t jump into empty servers and duel because it’s cumbersome and not readily known to new players. So, how is it a new player is going to learn to counter that 100 blades if the only thing he has to go by is his death breakdown? Dueling is important to a new game that you are trying to build a community around.

He answered that specifically with the spectator mode comment, which he said was higher up the list than dueling, but didn’t say dueling wasn’t going to be implemented. And he agreed with you that dueling was important… you sort of just answered your own argument.

It’s like arguing “yes, we need gas to make the car go but first we need to buy a car” and your response is “but how can you drive without gas?”.

aydenunited.5729:

felivear.1536:

Didn’t see it asked or answered but now I know DEVs read all this stuff. You don’t have to reply but please notice how important SPVP (aka hot-join) is to the game. SPVP should allow for progression for new players, a place to get their feet wet and learn conquest. A new player should jump into a hot-join, get an immediate feel for conquest and understand what will win the game. They should also get to know people that they can then take into TPVP when they are ready.

Currently, just because of a terrible glory gain system, none of that is accomplished. Glory gains give new players the impression that it’s TDM and zerg jumping from point-to-point. Also, since there is 0 incentive to win, nobody talks. I have played 400 hours in almost all SPVP/TPVP and have had less than a dozen conversations in hot-join because there is no need.

Adjust scoring. Doing so will

• Promote team play
• Teach new players the importance of holding points
• Get less people rolling thieves and mesmers because they aren’t too off balance in conquest, but hot-join promotes only roamers. Who are the best roamers? Yep
• Giving people the incentive to win promotes team-play and thus creates community.

Overall SPVP should be the entry point for new players and a quick stress relief / build testing for seasoned players. It does nothing for the former.

Also, although I am not a programmer, I can’t imagine augmentation to the scoring system would take that much resources away from the other “key” features.

Thanks

Edit: You also say things like “dueling is important but not as important as other stuff” then in the same stream you talk about the importance of people learning to play and counter classes. I’m going to guess that 95% of the players don’t jump into empty servers and duel because it’s cumbersome and not readily known to new players. So, how is it a new player is going to learn to counter that 100 blades if the only thing he has to go by is his death breakdown? Dueling is important to a new game that you are trying to build a community around.

He answered that specifically with the spectator mode comment, which he said was higher up the list than dueling, but didn’t say dueling wasn’t going to be implemented. And he agreed with you that dueling was important… you sort of just answered your own argument.

It’s like arguing “yes, we need gas to make the car go but first we need to buy a car” and your response is “but how can you drive without gas?”.

I guess I differ with the priority (doesn’t make me right). Spectator mode is for the large community to watch the top players. Currently there is no large community and I feel small changes like dueling would help to build it. Also, most people learn by doing, not watching. But, agree to disagree I suppose.

THE LIST
matchmaking
ranking
custom arenas
leaderboards
spectator mode
daily and monthly tournaments
dueling
stats and scoring

And now we wait.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Arheundel.6451:

Sprawl.3891:

some points for those that cant watch:

opinions from top players:
- bunker eles and ele down state needs nerf
- aoe dmg too high
- they play every day 8 hours a day lol
-two people pulled off private servers for ladders/match making
-pvp/wvw patch some time in jan/feb/march ..
-big balance patch dec 14th for pvp

Correction:

- s/d eles "bunkers"are strong but nothing compared to guardians-
- aoe dmg while ressing others it’s a problem, nothing to to with aoe dmg itself-

Thank you

I believe they said S/D ele bunkers are the strongest bunker atm but isn’t anything compared to the pre-“nerf” guardian. As in the guardian with block bug.

That’s one of my reason regarding my comments on these top players, I dare you to find me right now a video of a top team using a s/d bunker on clocktower or graveyard rather than a guardian, that comment from Metor was kittening absurd…. a s/d ele stronger than bunker hammer guardian..I really heard everything now, that’s a “top player” for ya

To felivear since quotes isn’t working:

Look at it this way. At least in it’s current form, there is a way to duel, it’s just not ideal, and people tend to drop in a ruin it. With custom servers this would stop, and that’s near top priority as well.

But there is no way to do spectator mode at all. So you can still kind of duel right now, but nothing close to spectator mode at all. And I know for me trying to learn Engineer, watching streams of better players helped me a lot, though I still have a lot to learn.

I like the interview, I will wait.

There was a lot of good stuff said in the interview. It was light years ahead of that failed Reddit ama which was more fractals damage control than actual ama. I appreciated the specificity of the answers, as well as Jonathan’s willingness to publicly talk with multiple high level players who asked some fairly pointed questions.

I like what was said, but still, I wish it were faster. Personally I no longer play the game. I stopped when I realized I was logging in out of habit rather than actual enjoyment. But obviously I’m still interested; I’m here on the forums and reddit, I spent an hour listening to this. But I won’t be here forever. I’m still willing and even wanting to play, but if it takes too long, I’m going to get involved in another game or just lose interest in this one. I want to play this game, and I want these changes to come soon enough for my interest to still be here.

I know I’m just one person, but at the same time, I know I’m not the only one waiting. I’ve been keeping an eye on twitch since I like to watch streams, and both the streamers and the viewers have practically disappeared. There used to be tons of tournament players streaming at pretty much all times of the day, as well as a relatively solid 500+ viewers. Now, there are very few pvp streamers and the total viewer count is so low that GW2 is always on the third page of games on twitch. It takes time to improve the game, but there is a limit.

One major question I was hoping would be asked of Jonathan was about game modes in Spvp.
I hope you read this Jonathan and give us a response.

So it looks like february/march is when ratings/matchmaking should be ready. Having these features will obviously be good for the game, but that’s still a long way away.

I’m puzzled why ArenaNet is choosing not to separate solo queues and group queues. Communication is so important in this game that even if your team is much better individually than an opposing team which is using voice communication they will still have the advantage.

I also don’t understand why ArenaNet is choosing to launch their rating system with the current tournament system structure. Although Jonathan hinted there will be some sort of queued single match-up matchmaking in the future it is clear that the tournament system will still be used initially. Since there is normally only 1 paid tournament running at a time there will be no “matchmaking” involved, and even if there was matchmaking to ensure the better teams were seeded into the same tournaments that means you would have paid tournaments running with “lesser” teams winning and taking home QPs because they got seeded into the weaker tournament.

I like the idea of the larger daily tournaments, and it looks like monthly tournament wins will get you entry into what sounds like will be a large yearly tournament, I would assume with something substantial for winning but Jonathan said the info would be revealed later.

I think the players overall held back tough questions too much. Although Aaron of Chieftain Ninjas asked a couple good ones and Xeph asked some of the community posed questions. Also I don’t understand the love for the current meta. I feel like there is very little diversity in team comps and build diversity for classes. Just by seeing the class of an opponent you know build they are running a vast majority of the time. It feels like a MOBA with a very limited number of hero’s instead of an MMO with complex classes.

I think its pretty bad that the Svanir rune and guardian block bug weren’t judged as game-breaking enough to warrant a hot-fix.

Overall I would say I’m at least happy to know that the important features are a fair amount of time out and it isn’t really worth putting time into the game currently. If this game has any chance of becoming an E-Sport there will a lot of class changes in the next few months and becoming masters of today’s meta will be meaningless for when it “matters”.

Travee.8492:

THE LIST
matchmaking
ranking
custom arenas
leaderboards
spectator mode
daily and monthly tournaments
dueling
stats and scoring

And now we wait.

Been waiting for those since the first or second Beta Weekend.

Don’t hold your breath. ArenaNet has lost their opportunity to create a competitive PVP game in my opinion.

No one is going to come back to a game that they haven’t played in a year because features that should have been implemented at launch are FINALLY in place.

ArenaNet dropped the ball HARD with GW2. Shouldn’t have launched in August. Hell, if this is the pace that PVP features are being developed at, I’m not sure if GW2 should have been launched until 2013!

I don’t want to hear about how you can’t just throw more people at a problem, PVP in this game was (and continues to be) a CODE RED emergency. Once PVE was done (or at least in the state that it was on August 25th), EVERY SINGLE programmer, artist, and designer at ArenaNet needed to drop what they were doing and work on PVP.

There were (and are) no systems in place that they needed to learn, because we don’t have ladders, we don’t have matchmaking, we don’t have spectator mode, we don’t have private servers, we don’t have multiple game modes! They would have been starting from scratch, and any programmer worth his paycheck should have been able to help.

Then the game should have been launched in October or November, WITH core PVP features ALREADY implemented.

Seriously, what’s the point of even working on PVP features now if you don’t even have enough players to field one tournament at a time, let alone matchmaking that would sort teams by skill?

Sorry, ArenaNet. I was a huge fan, and I stuck with you for a LOT longer than I should have. But we have to move on, the PVP community can’t wait forever. And there are plenty of other games out there that are ACTUALLY COMPLETE. Competitive PVP players don’t just play MMOs, your competition had such a head start that slow as molasses development like this is SUICIDE.

Bye.

Ok, I watched the video, and this wasn’t asked:
In-game VoIP Communication

So, Jonathan said the match-making will still face PUGs vs. a pre-made(full/partial) group, only that they will be on the same experience level(newbies vs. newbies/pros vs. pros).
But what about the communication?
That pre-made team will most likely have (almost) all it’s members on Mumble/TeamSpeak/Ventrilo(etc.), compared to the PUG that will not have this due to the random factor.
PUGs would benefit from it, making communication better, improving their overall performance.

So:
Are there any plans to include a VoIP communication system into GW2?

I wanted to do a quick post on the interview itself.

First off, thanks to everyone that participated. This was probably the best communication Anet has done since launch, and it was made possible by both Jonathan Sharp being willing to put himself on the spot as well as the pros asking questions that were pertinent and important without being overly antagonistic. The thing with interviews like this is that the public always wants more, but if the interviewee gets grilled hard and has a miserable time, they aren’t too likely to do a repeat, so temperance is necessary.

To the host, I liked what you did with just letting people go and only posing questions when things started to die down or wander, but at the beginning, you were speaking so fast that I could barely understand you. I had to really concentrate to keep up, and I’m not usually one to make a complaint like that. Overall you did well, but it’s something you may want to keep in mind.

To the pros, I thought you guys did really well. Most of the questions and feedback you guys gave was really good. They were professionally asked, and when necessary, you guys were able to temper each other to keep the interview friendly and on track. It was especially impressive that you were able to achieve this while speaking in English.

To Jonathan Sharp, I really like the interviews you do. You’re the only person at Anet that seems to give straight forward answers with real details that aren’t excessively bogged down by the PR department. I have no doubt that at some point this will come back and bite you in the kitten but I hope that when it does, you can remember that there are a lot of people who appreciated it along the way.

Overall it was a really solid interview and I hope there can be more in the future.

cool. looks like i may be reinstalling on the 14th if the balancing is decent. thanks for your time Jonathan.

dreztina.4820:

I wanted to do a quick post on the interview itself.

First off, thanks to everyone that participated. This was probably the best communication Anet has done since launch, and it was made possible by both Jonathan Sharp being willing to put himself on the spot as well as the pros asking questions that were pertinent and important without being overly antagonistic. The thing with interviews like this is that the public always wants more, but if the interviewee gets grilled hard and has a miserable time, they aren’t too likely to do a repeat, so temperance is necessary.

To the host, I liked what you did with just letting people go and only posing questions when things started to die down or wander, but at the beginning, you were speaking so fast that I could barely understand you. I had to really concentrate to keep up, and I’m not usually one to make a complaint like that. Overall you did well, but it’s something you may want to keep in mind.

To the pros, I thought you guys did really well. Most of the questions and feedback you guys gave was really good. They were professionally asked, and when necessary, you guys were able to temper each other to keep the interview friendly and on track. It was especially impressive that you were able to achieve this while speaking in English.

To Jonathan Sharp, I really like the interviews you do. You’re the only person at Anet that seems to give straight forward answers with real details that aren’t excessively bogged down by the PR department. I have no doubt that at some point this will come back and bite you in the kitten but I hope that when it does, you can remember that there are a lot of people who appreciated it along the way.

Overall it was a really solid interview and I hope there can be more in the future.

well put. my sentiments exactly.

Fantom.9217:

Been waiting for those since the first or second Beta Weekend.

Don’t hold your breath. ArenaNet has lost their opportunity to create a competitive PVP game in my opinion.

No one is going to come back to a game that they haven’t played in a year because features that should have been implemented at launch are FINALLY in place.

If this was a few years ago I’d agree with you.

But League of Legends has been a massive curve ball to the e-Sports scene. It’s shown that even if you don’t have those things, as long as your development team gets them into the game and people are still behind you, the game will persevere.

LoL went from having none of those at launch to becoming the largest e-Sport out there. So it shows that as long as your game is fun to play, people will eventually come back. And GW2 is fun to play.

Unfortunately this probably means at least a year before the needed infrastructure to the game is implemented.

Watched the whole thing, liked some parts, disliked some, too.

I found the “Quickness 100 Blades” example quite disturbing, because the way Jonathan talked about it left the impression that the devs don’t see burst as a big problem, more as a L2P issue. Is it a L2P issue having to have a stunbreaker equipped and off CD and press it in a split second or just die? If a profession has trouble being competitive without instagibbing then by all means give it the tools it needs and remove the binary BS.
I also remember Anet guys saying during development that they do not want GW2 to be about twitch gameplay etc.. Well, it sure is a lot about that currently.
But maybe I’m misinterpreting things here and the comment about “bringing everything more in line” also included over the top burst, because if burst is toned down (and respectively bunkers), then all of a sudden many more builds will become viable that right now have a negative answer to the “Does it live through spam and burst before it starts working?” question.

Besides burst and spam, Downstate is my least favorite part about GW2 PvP. Why? Because I’m not playing in an organized team, nor do I want to. What was said about Downstate in the video left the impression that the primary goal is to make it work well in organized high level 5v5 tPvP play, and in these circumstances DS might actually be a fun mechanic. Too bad that it severely cripples much of the rest of PvP that’s going on: Looking good in a group fight in WvW despite being outnumbered? Tough luck, cause all the damage, interrupts and quickness stealth executes in the world are not enough to avoid endless near instant resses. Do you happen to have enganged in a 1v2 and are you actually having chances of winning? Better have that quickness stability stealth execute ready! Or are you just merely about to win a normal 1v1 battle, which might have been going on for a few minutes, just to have a random team mate of your opponent walk up and finish you off while you deal with the other guy’s DS damage, immunities and interrupts, which can take longer than most fights, and /snap, the guy you just took minutes to take down stands up as if nothing had happened, and you gain nothing but feeling like an idiot wasting his time.

My tone might be a bit harsh sometimes and I really do believe that you devs work hard all day to get things right and fun, but as a burned out former WoW PvP maniac I really really wanted (and still want) GW2 to be the next game that provides the tools for skill-based PvP, but Downstate, too much burst and spam, and sPvP maps that prevent tactical play through arena-style hyper-vulnerable cap points and very short travel paths keep it from being that.

/opinion

Xolo.3580:

Watched the whole thing, liked some parts, disliked some, too.

I found the “Quickness 100 Blades” example quite disturbing, because the way Jonathan talked about it left the impression that the devs don’t see burst as a big problem, more as a L2P issue. Is it a L2P issue having to have a stunbreaker equipped and off CD and press it in a split second or just die? If a profession has trouble being competitive without instagibbing then by all means give it the tools it needs and remove the binary BS.
I also remember Anet guys saying during development that they do not want GW2 to be about twitch gameplay etc.. Well, it sure is a lot about that currently.
But maybe I’m misinterpreting things here and the comment about “bringing everything more in line” also included over the top burst, because if burst is toned down (and respectively bunkers), then all of a sudden many more builds will become viable that right now have a negative answer to the “Does it live through spam and burst before it starts working?” question.

Besides burst and spam, Downstate is my least favorite part about GW2 PvP. Why? Because I’m not playing in an organized team, nor do I want to. What was said about Downstate in the video left the impression that the primary goal is to make it work well in organized high level 5v5 tPvP play, and in these circumstances DS might actually be a fun mechanic. Too bad that it severely cripples much of the rest of PvP that’s going on: Looking good in a group fight in WvW despite being outnumbered? Tough luck, cause all the damage, interrupts and quickness stealth executes in the world are not enough to avoid endless near instant resses. Do you happen to have enganged in a 1v2 and are you actually having chances of winning? Better have that quickness stability stealth execute ready! Or are you just merely about to win a normal 1v1 battle, which might have been going on for a few minutes, just to have a random team mate of your opponent walk up and finish you off while you deal with the other guy’s DS damage, immunities and interrupts, which can take longer than most fights, and /snap, the guy you just took minutes to take down stands up as if nothing had happened, and you gain nothing but feeling like an idiot wasting his time.

My tone might be a bit harsh sometimes and I really do believe that you devs work hard all day to get things right and fun, but as a burned out former WoW PvP maniac I really really wanted (and still want) GW2 to be the next game that provides the tools for skill-based PvP, but Downstate, too much burst and spam, and sPvP maps that prevent tactical play through arena-style hyper-vulnerable cap points and very short travel paths keep it from being that.

/opinion

As someone who plays a bunker, a squishy sustained-DPS bunkerbreaker, and one of the suspect haste-burst builds (namely Haste/Pistolwhip) in equal proportions, I can confidently say that avoiding a burst is really a matter of skill.

That, and Assassin specs like the 100b Warrior and the Backstab or Pistolwhip thieves are designed inherently to destroy squishies or die trying. In higher-level tournament play, it’s almost impossible to land a nasty burst like that effectively, which is why the results are so rewarding.

Really glad they bumped match making and ranking up the priority list.

Perfect.

This Q&A was much more informative than I had hoped. I thought that Jonathan Sharp did an excellent job of presenting the Developer’s view on the current state of the game. February and March are still a long ways off, but I honestly feel better with a rough timetable in mind as opposed to the previous veil of “When it’s ready.”

As far as community interaction goes this was great! I’m not asking that Mr. Sharp sit down for a 50min discussion with players every week, but as I said in another post, brief biweekly updates (nothing has to be written in stone) about what is going on at Anet would go a long way to making us players feel that our opinions are being heard.

Thanks to everyone involved in setting up this discussion!
“… soon = 82 years …” -Jonathan Sharp

Daays.4317:

Fantom.9217:

Been waiting for those since the first or second Beta Weekend.

Don’t hold your breath. ArenaNet has lost their opportunity to create a competitive PVP game in my opinion.

No one is going to come back to a game that they haven’t played in a year because features that should have been implemented at launch are FINALLY in place.

If this was a few years ago I’d agree with you.

But League of Legends has been a massive curve ball to the e-Sports scene. It’s shown that even if you don’t have those things, as long as your development team gets them into the game and people are still behind you, the game will persevere.

LoL went from having none of those at launch to becoming the largest e-Sport out there. So it shows that as long as your game is fun to play, people will eventually come back. And GW2 is fun to play.

Unfortunately this probably means at least a year before the needed infrastructure to the game is implemented.

It might a year until it REALLY takes off in terms of population, but I think we’ll get a lot of the features we want earlier. Custom servers, and matchmaking/ranking will probably come at the same time or very close together which will coincide with aggressive marketing to their playerbase and potentials. I hope spectator mode comes somewhat soon, as that would definitely help with the release of custom servers, but functionality and infrastructure come first IMO.

If the balance patch coming up on the 14th addresses key problems and opens new doors, the pieces could be in place for a revitalization. I know the kneejerk on these forums is for doom and gloom, but I’m more positive about the future.

nurt.5401:

Really glad they bumped match making and ranking up the priority list.

If there’s no new map type or game mode in the next couple of months then I think sPVP is done for.

It was a mistake to go with Conquest only. All this talk about high end meta is meaningless if the mode is not a draw itself. You need to have something many people care about first. Even the people playing everyday will have no audience to play for and no new blood to care about.

The top two issues are the lackluster traits and the lack of variety in game modes.

etiolate.9185:

If there’s no new map type or game mode in the next couple of months then I think sPVP is done for.

It was a mistake to go with Conquest only. All this talk about high end meta is meaningless if the mode is not a draw itself. You need to have something many people care about first. Even the people playing everyday will have no audience to play for and no new blood to care about.

The top two issues are the lackluster traits and the lack of variety in game modes.

I’m not going to worry about new maps anytime soon. All I’m concern about is how they’re going to handle the classes and ranking system. As of now I’m just practicing on my alts to see what spec is good in Spvp and Tpvp.

@ Xeph I do have one question though…are condition warriors acceptable in tourneys or not?

LB warriors always had a place on good teams.

yea conquest is getting really stale.
just a aoe zergfest on mid point every map.

No GvG questions?

Evo.9180:

Seether.7285:

I’m puzzled why ArenaNet is choosing not to separate solo queues and group queues. Communication is so important in this game that even if your team is much better individually than an opposing team which is using voice communication they will still have the advantage.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. In a very close match for example the full team that has communication and a synchronized build will always have an advantage over a team of very good individual players. This is especially true given how hard it is to understand what is going on in the game without voice communication with the limited tools it provides. For example, I think you should be able to see the enemies that your teammates see and their professions as icons on the minimap instead of just green dots of your allies. Also when you are fighting someone you can’t just stop and type out that you need help defending or taking a node during a fight. Your teammates will have to just guess you need help by looking at your health bar and following a mindless ping on the minimap. Really, this game needs more ways to signal your team about stuff like this and even then it wouldn’t be fair to match a closely ranked organized team and a random pick up team.

He used the example of how in GW1 a team in Random Arenas was sometimes a lot better than most teams in Team Arenas. And while that was true, the gametype there was essentially a 5vs5 death match, which really didn’t require that much communication, while conquest does.

I am very glad that ranked matchmaking is coming next and it will certainly make me want to play this game more, but I hope ArenaNet designers really think this through.

+1 on this. I think solo queues are really essential for new players who want to try out tournies and it’ll be a good avenue for new teams to form.

Hopefully they do matchmaking right. A regular ELO ladder won’t do anything to address the concern Jon raised about new players getting stomped in their first game, or in fact their first thirty to forty games. I’m pretty sure anet knows that from the GW1 GvG ladder though.

Why use LoL as an example ? Dota 2 is ten times more a better Esport equip game than LoL.

Lol shouldn’t be the comparison at all.

Diablo 3 should be. Blizz shipped an incomplete product (not saying anet did this) and then took too long to fix the endgame. By the time 1.04 patch came out to fix alot of things, droves of people had long since quit and didn’t care to come back. You really only have a small window of time to really hook people to your game before they move on to the next, new thing.

Its already happening in gw2 tbh. Alot of the members of my guild quit after the addition of the fractal dungeons (and ascension gear treadmill). For people that don’t want to grind gear, the PvP needs to be what hooks them; and while i enjoy the sPvP, it feels well……. really CASUAL, and not at all competitive which is bad in the long run.

I think this interview helped a lot to relieve peoples fears, but i think in the future we need a host or guests who can ask the hard questions and not be intimidated. For example the guardian block bug was not judged urgent… how is that not urgent when it dominated tPvP for a solid month?

Another fact id like to bring up is the lack of NA players. Lowell brought up a good point of how dead our (NA) paid community is, but the other guys shut him down, not because they knew what they were talking about, but out of ignorance.

TL;DR i would like a mix of both NA and EU players who are not afraid to ask hard questions and push our key issues without being blown off.

nice informations but until February/march is a very long time…I hope its not already to late

The discussion was decent, but it really feels like a lot of the more difficult questions were either dodged, sidelined, or omitted altogether.

I particularly liked when Xeph asked why the decision was made to launch the game without ratings and Jonathan said it was because ratings would be useless without free or paid tourneys – which was funny, because free tourneys have been up and running since the betas. Although, for whatever reason, nobody bothered to point that out and the question was effectively dodged.

Well played.

@ Noctred

Your right of course. Thats the one thing that irked me the most; too many questiosn were blown off. Another example is ‘No paid ques unless in prime time’. That question was totally blown off.

The player representatives need to be more aggressive.

Pretty good but would have been nice to talk a bit more about :
1) Balance and representation of classes ( guardians being in every team, yet almost never rangers ) .
2) Quickness

This discussion gave me some kind of comfort feeling somehow.:)

i think we’ll be in an excellent shape by Feb next year. this interview has certainly reinvigorated me, GW2-wise.

Was a good watch tbh i found Jonathan sharp very honest , even tho he called us noobs lol

I think it was newb not noob (not the same atleast as i think)

I’m very happy they decided to bump matchmaking up to priority #1. Great video