Guild Wars 2

Discuss, be kind!
Please mention what could’ve been done to make it better!
Here is a link to the youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCUvIrH2BlU

Lets see….

-The class balance: they just described the classes back to us…..
-They still think conquest is fun….
-It really sounds like they have no idea whats going on
-No real changes coming eta:2015
-Spec mod for hotjoin???? what
-Buffing mes???
-Nerfing thief
-Banner buff……WHAT?

Im out guys.

Buffing mes? Did you not hear “we’re killing shatter, the only high skill play build variant available for mesmers”

Nero, Xeph, and Grouch did great. Thanks for the questions and also pressing for more details.

Overall, I’m still not 100% where we are as far as development toward esport because of so much ambiguity from the DEVS.

Also, nice drinking game references. I can tell when you guys talk that you are very approachable and down to earth devs, it’s a shame your “no talking” policy makes you seem otherwise.

Thoughts?

I thought the SOTG was decent. I dont know about the mes changes that sounded …unusual. It might amount to a buff or nerf.
Thief im not sure about it was very vague, like how long after coming out of stealth will a thief need b4 he goes back in. and what do they mean by additional mobility.

It sounded good for engies, getting buffs and what not Plus overall better condition damage

1 on ELE SCEPTER AIR will hit 3 targets.

D/D ele is now history.

I don’t think they can do anything about the no talk policy. It’s the company policy. They would get fired.

I hope this continues in future months. Must-see developers put in a substantial amount of time to speak with players.

Kids who troll with negative feedback need to be banned. Saying “Guild wars two socks PVP is dead” does not help the situation and developer – community relationships.

I didnt like the balance discussion, it was too long and not very interesting, since no one plays competitively anymore.

Id have liked more talk on whats coming in the future tbh

Yeah thoughts, you did very well imho, you askd the right questions.

“Xeph pls sum up your thoughts on forums. That will be lik 101001 times better to read than watch this sotg with devs.”

I kinda spammed that on twitch chat.

If nothing else, I felt like our team was better prepared this time. Karl was a little too fumbly / time wastey / stop telling me what professions do. Also; why does he not know if a skill is a blast finisher or not? Isn’t it…his…job?

You said more than things you thought were being done well and you emphasized what was important to you, which was reflective of the community’s concerns. I was really happy that right from the start Nero and Xeph challenged / inquired about the answers the devs gave instead of just accepting them.

Way to go team (all of you).

One thing I really was curious about was having player made maps, like the wc3 custom engine. I suspect it won’t be a reality, but it would’ve been nice for players to be able to answer a lot of their own balance questions / why isn’t this happening fast enough questions.

Well, first you guys did great. Really appreciated the pressing questions when they gave vague answers. Both of you guys pressed for details without being jerks. Grouch did great and I actually saw him physically restrain himself from saying “fair enough” lol.

Overall, with the DEV responses. Again, I walk away hating their ‘silence is golden’ policy. When they actually talk, you can tell they are down-to-earth and approachable guys, but then as soon as they SotG ends, because of the imminent silence, they go back to “seeming” like recluses.

I hated the leaderboard talk, because it basically means were still a few months away from the most important feature (imo) which is gauging your skill against others. Not only that, we’re still not going to know if player A is better than you or if player A is a team queuer. Can’t we get a stat that says “games won – games won solo” that way we can at least say, “OK, he’s a team queuer, I can disregard him.”

I liked how they mentioned multiple times and in the end how they cant promote their game cause it lacks massively in every esport section..
Nice to know their down to earth and..you can always wait you know.As long as they have money theres always chance they pull it off sometime

I missed it, is it uploaded? Although sounds like I didn’t miss much.

Balance changes sound mostly good (some sounded nuts).
If things are in testing that’s more reassuring than they’re usual “It’s in the works” so hopefully we see it soon. Progress still seems like it’s coming far too slow.

It was pretty well done on your side of things.
I think devs need to be more concise, and…well clear.
Balance comes up every Sotg, but it felt very improv on what was going on, be nice if they were pressured (or maybe they are) to just generally fire off “here’s the deal”.
Every month balance stuff happens, they should pretty much know at this point what is getting in, where they’re taking it and be able to deliver it concisely and with at least 70% clarity.

While i love that the devs are doing this, I feel that it should go back to what the first SotG where it was top players from different teams discussing what they felt that the state of the game was at. Its just that the devs don’t say much more that what will already be in a blog post or on the forums.

Balance discusscion was way too long, just some facts and go on with topics, like – spec, arenas etc. pp.

“In the Future” was mentioned too much in my opinion, after this discussion, nobody knows about what will come up in next time…(means next 1-2 months).

Mesmer definitely needed more buffs.

/sarcasm

Hey guys, we’re going to buff Mesmer Great Sword and Scepter because Minionmaster Necro’s can be a real pain for them grin

Everybody saying mesmers getting buffed, I guess your ears closed when they said “Oh and we’re nerfing shatter into the ground”

Where can I find vods of the SOTG that happened today?

EDIT: Twitch automatically records VODs, found them.

EDIT2: Glad to see thieves are most likely getting a nerf soon, and not getting any buffs to any of their non-viable builds, and utilities.

No, they said they’re looking at shatter to see if its overpowered, which they won’t determine till after they buff Greatsword/Scepter…Then and only then will they nerf Shatter

Hi everyone,

We have created this merging of threads to have all your feedback organised so we can forward it to the team.

As always, we would like to ask you to be constructive and friendly towards each other and refrain from any kind of rudeness.

Thanks for your understanding.

Darnis.4056:

Everybody saying mesmers getting buffed, I guess your ears closed when they said “Oh and we’re nerfing shatter into the ground”

Seems like it.
Every time they mention they want to increase build diversity people seem to rage “oh they don’t need more buffs” as if a profession is supposed to stay with lackluster options forever.

Is there somewhere I can see the SOTG video, as I missed the live stream?

you can rewatch the sotgh here
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/377719641

I missed the live event as well and relying on people to summarize is both biased and incomplete.

Hopefully someone captured the video, or at least took good notes.

Honestly if you guys think balance is bad on gw2 wait till you play smite. It is dying almost entirely because of balance issues. And the company has no track record of balancing previous games. Seriously smite’s balance is so game breaking.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Honestly if you guys think balance is bad on gw2 wait till you play smite. It is dying almost entirely because of balance issues. And the company has no track record of balancing previous games. Seriously smite’s balance is so game breaking.

Dying? Today it had 8k viewers.

Gw2 has 40-50 pvp viewers in its best days

It had around 1.6k viewers, actually. Also, BEAMS SLICING EVERYTHING.

1.6k On state of the game. But not more than 50 people watching pvp gameplay

At the moment 16+4=20 people watching pvp

Rerroll.9083:

you can rewatch the sotgh here
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/377719641

Thank you very much!

My concern is the ele sounded like it isn’t getting nerfed at all which kind of shows how out of touch the devs are with pvp balance if true.

Although a sigil which does +3% damage for each boon on an enemy would be a good idea.

To me the most worrisome part is their lack of concern over population. They brushed off grouches question about incentives to playing SPvP with a diatribe about ranks and rank “progression”, something entirely meaningless. There is no reason for a PvE player to play PvP and therefore a very large majority of GW2 players may never go to the mists except for a free port to lions arch. The best way to get people back into the mists is making it so that your current majority playerbase has a reason important enough to them to be in the mists. Only then can you actually monetize and esportify the game.

Yea guys, that’s what we need, 400 ranks so that when we get a rank a day we feel like we accomplished something.

From what i have gathered:
- same “hush hush” style of talking by Anet
- rankings probably coming within the next 6 months from now
- balance changes happen each patch, whether they target the right thing and actually have an effect is a toss-up
- understaffed for pvp
- good suggestions on incentives given by players but only noted by devs not in actual works
- no real incentive for old players to come back
- no other real game modes besides custom arenas but still probably conquest based
- game will not be an esport<- due to pacing/development and negative experience since the beginning of spvp
- competitiveness and fun equation will take over a year and maybe two expansions to get down

So everyone that has left will still be gone. Everyone that is still playing have nothing to look forward to and should only play the spvp game with the mindset that it is “fun” and nothing else.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Although a sigil which does +3% damage for each boon on an enemy would be a good idea.

until one of those boons is protection.

Why don’t they have a larger chunk of the pvp community be part of testing? There’s like 100 of us. That sounds like an actual ok number of people to have.

1. They should speak more about the actual things that will come with the next patch and less about conceptual things ( which may or not be implemented in like 1 year or so ). I mean the future is important but kitten the point of MONTHLY SOTG is to talk about the current/next patch or in the NEAR future.
2. Devs sent to this show shouldn’t be introverted individuals. No point in having 3 guys if only 1 of them can explain the thought process behind their work. Or speak in general for that matter..
3. So thief is the only class that is nerfed and doesn’t get kitten back. Hello there elem and mesmers, nice to see you getting buffs besides nerfs. Stealth is broken in its current state but except d/d thief there isn’t any kittening viable spec to play as a thief. Mesmers have the same problem but you won’t nerf them UNTIL YOU BUFF THEM FIRST ( why not the same treatment for thieves )?! … Seriously? Thank you!

The balance discussion leads me to suspect no change to the meta will come soon. So bring your eles guys And the mesmer changes sounds OP to me. O dear.
Ele and mesmer = buffed lol. Although those confusion changes could mean the death of the ranger sb spammers so they actually have to use their brains.

Grouch, Nero, Xeph – Great job guys. You asked worthy questions and made us proud as community members.

Dev’s – Thanks for doing this monthly community interaction, we do appreciate you taking your time and being on the SoTG.

As far as the actual content, I think it’s fair to say that the developers have the game’s best interest at heart. It’s not right that so many people give you a hard time when you’re working as hard as that small team can. With that said, the progress for the sPvP side of this game is unacceptably slow. That’s not to say it’s your fault, I believe it’s a resource allocation issue.

The sPvP side of the game is NOT worth $60. We know that eSport games don’t necessarily launch as an eSport. But most games that are going for the eSport status DO NOT require so much money to play. DoTa 2, LoL, Smite, Natural Selection 2, all come to mind when I think of eSport games/hopefuls. Not only does each one have a cheap if not free cost, but some of them give out accounts & keys like water. SC2 is a whole different monster with its past.

I am not trying to complain about the current state of sPvP, I just want the game to prosper and grow to be an enjoyable game like its predecessor. With that said, I feel that the sPvP side of the game needs a complete rework. Redesign the heart of the mists to be a cheaper or free standalone which can be self-sustainable via gem store PvP-only skins, features, or something completely unique to GW2. The options are limitless, however, I do feel that balancing/designing classes for WvWvW, sPvP, and PvE all inclusively does not work.

To finish this up, I want to apologize for the length of this reply and for stepping on any toes. I do feel that this SoTG was better than the last one and it was a small step in a better direction. Thanks again to the devs for being real with us about how you ARE aware that sPvP is in a bad spot. I do understand that these ideas are not something that can be worked out over night. But I think it’s clear that it’s going to be a very long time before we get any where near ‘eSport status’ either way.

“That is something we are looking at”.

Xsorus.2507:

No, they said they’re looking at shatter to see if its overpowered, which they won’t determine till after they buff Greatsword/Scepter…Then and only then will they nerf Shatter

So essentially give one of the two or three most powerful and played classes another OP ability then MAYBE nerf there other OP ability a month or five down the road. Meanwhile everyone playing rolls mesmer and loses there kitten when the nerf does come about leading to them re-buffing it the following patch.

i’m sorry guys, but i stopped when i got to this part:
nero: “So what do you mean when you say you’re ‘looking’ at something? are you seeing which classes with certain skills have a higher win/loss ratio, or what?”
anet: “we ummm look at how many people umm complain and how many angry pms i get in game…”

That’s what I took away from it:

-nothing is being done to increase the pvp population until the “core game is solid” whenever that may be.
-leaderboards will not distinguish between solo queuers (3v5) and premades. Basically, they track the win/loss ratio which means solo queuers = bottom feeders. This might kill what’s left of the population.

Thanks for asking good questions, guys. I wish there had been a polite way to interrupt Karl whenever he tried to explain the classes or other basic stuff. First rule of public speaking: know your audience.

Ulalume.9584:

That’s what I took away from it:

-nothing is being done to increase the pvp population until the “core game is solid” whenever that may be.
-leaderboards will not distinguish between solo queuers (3v5) and premades. Basically, they track the win/loss ratio which means solo queuers = bottom feeders. This might kill what’s left of the population.

Thanks for asking good questions, guys. I wish there had been a polite way to interrupt Karl whenever he tried to explain the classes or other basic stuff. First rule of public speaking: know your audience.

The leaderboards are going to be a joke like QPs. O so your top of the leaderboard? Great! That means you just are super selective and always play with your guild on ts. Whereas those of us who solo or duo q alot (I do and I know alot do) will have bad ratings.

End result = leaderboard is a joke.

Before they add leaderboards, they need to add a system that will punish people who desert their team in TPvP. It’s starting to get rampant now. “Oh we’re facing a premade, bye” “We’re losing by 200 points, bye” There’s no point in people taking the leaderboard seriously if a person can just leave a team knowing they won’t get punished whilst at the same time, affecting 4 other peoples ratings.

As Lordrosicky said, the leaderboards will be a joke if they don’t have separate ones for solo players and teams.

CrossFire.8037:

Before they add leaderboards, they need to add a system that will punish people who desert their team in TPvP. It’s starting to get rampant now. “Oh we’re facing a premade, bye” “We’re losing by 200 points, bye” There’s no point in people taking the leaderboard seriously if a person can just leave a team knowing they won’t get punished whilst at the same time, affecting 4 other peoples ratings.

As Lordrosicky said, the leaderboards will be a joke if they don’t have separate ones for solo players and teams.

Ya, they said they want to wait till player population increases before splitting them, but what i dont think they understand. Is by NOT splitting them they’re hurting player population and by splitting them they would regain interest and have more players. Its kind of a closed minded way of thinking they got going on the subject. You want more players? put in things they want. cant keep putting in things people dont want and expecting things to change.

ALso i was kinda upset Rally’s health to SPVP wasnt brought up. When all the talk about how frusterating it is to deal with people who are hard to take down and then suddenly they’re rezzed, i thought rally woulda been brought up.

Slippery profesions especially like mesmer/theif/ele can dart away to heal up and come back into the fight, and tankier ones like gaurdian/ele can just go back to full health again upon being rezzed I think ressurects should be left around the tactic of having to channel on a downed player. It offers appropriate counter play in the fact that player is essentially stunned while ressing, and forces them to have to use stability (or invis) to prevent someone from stopping them.

lol they mentioned a thread i “necro’d” in the necro forums