Guild Wars 2

Bug Fixes

• Found and dealt with the cause of the dodge queue bug.

• Fixed a case where the downed state HP of the necromancer would be less than intended.

Rewards
[Work in progress]

Design

• Changed all elite skills to be more similar to build defining skills rather than add-ons. Elite skills from this patch onwards will generally have much lower recharge rates (less than sixty seconds) and will greatly impact the focus of a players build. For example, ‘Epidemic’ is now an elite skill and many of the previous elite skills have been changed to heavily modified utilities. In addition, the use of an elite skill is now optional and players may use a utility within the elite slot if they so wish. We feel this will allow players to make more practical use of elite skills and make more varied builds.

• Changed a few previously AoE type skills to single player targeted skills.

• Reduced the pervasiveness of AoE particle effects greatly.

• Started a general move towards reducing the number of evades, teleports, immunes and gap closers. This is intended to make gameplay less chaotic, but will be done over the course of the next few patches in order to both gauge community reactions and ensure that combat does not become too slow-paced.

• Greatly increased the effectiveness of conditions across the board and also greatly increased the downtime for condition application. Multiple auto attacks that previously applied conditions have had their condition application removed and their damage changed to reflect this. Greatly reduced passive as well as active condition removal to complement this change.

• ‘Passive’ condition removal has been changed to be both more active and give more control to the player. Traits that remove a condition every 10 seconds have been changed so that an extra ‘F’ skill(e.g F5) is added upon selection, which will have a cooldown of ten seconds. The UI for certain classes has been changed to accommodate this. The condition removal skill will appear at the end of your other class specific skills(Virtues, etc).

• Modified all classes in order to bring each class to the same level of overall battle effectiveness.

• Effected changes intended to make each class more unique and varied, as well as increase the number of viable builds therein.

• Increased the selection of non-RNG sigils and runes.

Quality of life improvements

• Added multiple banks, trading posts and merchants to the heart of the mists.

• Added a build save/load system which allows players to keep track of previously used builds via template codes. When loading a build template, the game will attempt to adorn each piece of saved armour and skill, leaving the slot empty if the player does not possess the armour piece or skill.

• Added basic voice commands to help with team communication. These voice commands will be added to at a later date, subject to community desires.

• Added a new hotkey that will cancel skills that are currently being used (casted).

• Added a ‘dishonor’ system to sPvP wherein players who leave during a ranked game or fail to participate will be first forced to wait for a variable time period before being able to enter another game and at worst, prevented from entering a game at all. The more that a player fails to participate in ranked games, the more severe the consequence.

Balance changes

• Changed the blind condition so that it increases the chance of missing an attack by 50% during its duration. Changed smoke fields to have generally longer cool downs but stack the duration of blinds each tick. It should be noted that durations will generally be short to begin with, with the duration increasing as necessary in future patches. We feel that this will make the use of blind more effective as a support condition.

New Game modes

• Added King of the Hill, Deathmatch, Capture the flag and Relic Run. More information about these new game modes will be outlined in an upcoming blog post.

Queue System Revamp

• Separated the solo and team queues. To complement this change, the leaderboards will be changed so that there is both a solo ladder and a team ladder. The current rankings will be lost, though your personal statistics will remain as they were before and will be viewable in game. No personal progress will be lost.

Tell me If I missed anything, I’ll edit this post and add it in. I don’t want to detail every change for every class which is why I won’t elaborate on the ‘bring in line’ stuff.

Edits(28/05/2013):

• Clarified AoE changes
• Changed reward system changes to “work in progress”
• Clarified the sigil and rune changes

Edits(29/05/2013):

• Added a skill cancelling hotkey
• Changed the elite system completely
• Added a build save/load system
• Added basic voice commands

All I got from this is you hate necros, and you probably play a thief because you get eaten up by AE, and you want your conditions to last longer. Lemme tell ya, whatever poison thieves are putting on me that lasts 20 seconds or so, pretty much needs a nerf.

There should be something called, out of combat condition removal, haven’t been in combat or attacked in 10 seconds you start healing up, none of this poison that lasts until you remove it bullkitten.

You want to nerf everyones AoE, stuff like 100b should get nerfed to only hit 1 thing too then, shortbow AoE should only hit 1 target too then. Have shortbow 5 skill use 3 addition initiative whenever you shoot at someplace that doesn’t have a target. I don’t like people trying to nerf other classes so there class is OP.

Class balance looks good too me, only class I think that has a lot of loving right now is rangers. They can evade attacks while doing damage, great survivability, great range, great mobility, great conditions like immobilize, best downed state. I see them pretty much every game, I rarely see ele’s anymore.

uberkingkong.8041:

All I got from this is you hate necros, and you probably play a thief because you get eaten up by AE, and you want your conditions to last longer. Lemme tell ya, whatever poison thieves are putting on me that lasts 20 seconds or so, pretty much needs a nerf.

No. I play a guardian, necromancer, elementalist and warrior.

uberkingkong.8041:

There should be something called, out of combat condition removal, haven’t been in combat or attacked in 10 seconds you start healing up, none of this poison that lasts until you remove it bullkitten.

No. Watch your conditions, you shouldn’t expect to be able to completely ignore game mechanics. This is very much a ‘L2P’ problem.

uberkingkong.8041:

You want to nerf everyones AoE

No. Where did I say this? Do you have problems with reading comprehension?

uberkingkong.8041:

Class balance looks good too me

No. Both the developers and the best players in the game both feel like class balance is not finished. Are you delusional?

Your dream sounds like a nightmare to me…

Silferas.3841:

Your dream sounds like a nightmare to me…

How, exactly? Leaving a one sentence reply won’t exactly help me improve the change list.

You want to reduce rng and then go and suggest making the most active and situational condition ,blind, to an rng nightmate.
Also this
“Modified all classes in order to bring each class to the same level of overall battle effectiveness.”
could never be a patch note :P
Lastly aoe is good.This isnt pick a target and spike him to zero.Position matters, melee should cleave,you should be punished for being out of position and you should be able to punish people that carelessly jump on you
Of course some toning down especially to the ranged aoe wouldnt hurt but whatever!

kostbabis.8791:

You want to reduce rng and then go and suggest making the most active and situational condition ,blind, to an rng nightmate.

I’m not saying no RNG, I’m saying a more ‘measured’ RNG. For example, If I really wanted to get rid of RNG then I’d get rid of critical chance completely, which I’m completely against. What I mean is, if there is a chance for something to happen, it is generally high. Essentially, there shouldn’t be a situation where there is some 5% chance of some stupidly advantageous conversion of a condition to a boon (let’s say Fear > Stability). For an example, see: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Transmute

Now, the above is a trait, not a sigil or rune and I’ll clarify in the original post when I get time, but this is what I mean.

Also, am I really alone in feeling like having a SINGLE attack prevented is kinda weak for taking up an entire skill (Blinding Flash etc)?

kostbabis.8791:

Also this
“Modified all classes in order to bring each class to the same level of overall battle effectiveness.”
could never be a patch note :P

Yeah, probably. This is the dream patch though. We can dream.

kostbabis.8791:

Lastly aoe is good.This isnt pick a target and spike him to zero.Position matters, melee should cleave,you should be punished for being out of position and you should be able to punish people that carelessly jump on you
Of course some toning down especially to the ranged aoe wouldnt hurt but whatever!

Like I said to one of the guys above, I’m not even advocating nerfing AoE. It baffles me that people think this. What I mean is skills that have such an insanely small radius that they might as well be single player targeted will no longer be AoE. For an example of what I consider ‘small radius’, look up ‘Water Trident’. The only other thing I said about AoE was decreasing the amount of particle clutter, which I hardly believe people can disagree with.

I would just like to see them actually address class balance. As it stands there is none. Over all I rate the PVP in this game as a solid C. Egame? LULz

Laiboch.4380:

I would just like to see them actually address class balance. As it stands there is none. Over all I rate the PVP in this game as a solid C. Egame? LULz

talk about overstating… there is none? really? `none?

I am not expert in balancing, but there points I want to agree.

yes, separate solo Q.

Freaking Trading Post is a freaking must.

reduce particle effects (mid/low range graphics card user, try zooming right in when treb hits you, FPS RIP)

Dishonor system, yes please. Also /resign would be nice.

New game mode, yes please !

kostbabis.8791:

Lastly aoe is good.This isnt pick a target and spike him to zero.Position matters, melee should cleave,you should be punished for being out of position and you should be able to punish people that carelessly jump on you
Of course some toning down especially to the ranged aoe wouldnt hurt but whatever!

In conquest based game types, standing off of a point is considered “out of position” in most circumstances. I like the idea of toning AOE down a bit, either damage wise or changing some of the skills to single target instead. Anyone who says team fights aren’t insanely chaotic (cluster f***s) right now is kidding themselves, and AOE is one of the main variables contributing to that chaos.

I wouldn’t mind different pvp ratings for different professions.

IE: I may be kittening amazing on my Necro but suck balls on my Mesmer. I would like ratings for each to reflect this. Isn’t a big issue, just something I would like should matchmaking ever become anything but a joke.

Dream sPvP Patch:
-Mist form & Stealth finishing removed

Balance-wise it would be:

Warrior

- Vigorous Shouts: Increased Base-Healing and gain from Healing Power by 20%
- Mobile Strikes: Removes all Movement-Impairing Effects
- Dogged March: Now gives 5 Seconds of Regen
- Kill Shot: Changed to an Instant, very fast flying Projectile that deals no DMG, but Immobilizes the Target for 2, 3 or 4 Seconds depending on the Adrenalin
- Adrenal Health: Now Scales with Healing Power
- Quick Breathing: Now added to the Warhorn by default

Necro
- Withering Precision: Double Duration and Proc-Chance
- Reapers Precision: Double Life-Force Gain and Proc-Chance
- Addition of 1 Minor Trait that make you regen Endurance when going into or while in F1-Form

Engineer
- HGH on the Throw Elexirs only procs for allies, not for yourself.
- Grenade-Range down from 1200-1500 with the Trait, to 1000-1200.

Ranger
- Stalkers Strike CD up from 10 to 15
- Hornet Stings CD up from 8 to 12

And surprise us with making some unviable Traits of any of the classes more intereseting – there are literally about 10 of them per class. :P

Ranger

Pets HP split from PVE

- Get rid of downed in sPvP should be there, or atleast a sped up “FINISH HIM” animation.

Some of your points are good. But then I see points like: Rewards. Winning a bigger amount of glory at the end of a bob-join match won’t force ppl to stop zerging as glory has no value in this game.

• Greatly increased the effectiveness of conditions
Have you ever played against an HGH? Conditions have their place in the game.

•Changed many previously AoE type skills to single player targeted skills.
Not good idea. It’s the dmg overall and the conquest-mode that makes AoE spells that effective. They just should slightly lower the dmg and the graphical effect (as you mentioned).

Also trying to get every class on the same level of effectiveness is really hard work. And a-net is allrdy in this process polishing the traitlines and stuff.

“New Game-Modes”: Not possible in this year (mabye 2014), as A-Net has the pace of a glacier with updates and patches.

Kaizer.7135:

- Get rid of downed in sPvP should be there, or atleast a sped up “FINISH HIM” animation.

The Downed Mode is one of the coolest Parts of PvP and has a huge impact on gameplay, build-creation, playstyle etc. – removing it would be completely senseless.

I’d love to see a bit more love towards “while rezzing” and “on rez” effects though. Especially the ones that trigger after a Rezz could be much stronger, because it’s quite a prerequisite for the Trait to Trigger.

i’m really surprised people don’t understand what good pvp looks like. paradoxine suggestions are 95% good ones. blind was a good one as well that i had been thinking about for a while now, current blind implementation is nearly useless as just an autoattack will clear it. 50% chance to miss with a stacking duration is interesting idea, another one may be to allow blind to stack as it is now but in intensity so that each stack makes an attack miss, and the general standard amount for skills to apply is 2 stacks.

as empathetic said, increasing rewards for winning matches is step in right direction, but the whole reward system is trash to begin with.

@ empathetic re: conditions
i think he just means each stack of condition will do more damage, but skills will apply fewer stacks so there is less condi spam, and more deliberate condi application and removal.

PowerBottom.5796:

Kaizer.7135:

- Get rid of downed in sPvP should be there, or atleast a sped up “FINISH HIM” animation.

The Downed Mode is one of the coolest Parts of PvP and has a huge impact on gameplay, build-creation, playstyle etc. – removing it would be completely senseless.

I’d love to see a bit more love towards “while rezzing” and “on rez” effects though. Especially the ones that trigger after a Rezz could be much stronger, because it’s quite a prerequisite for the Trait to Trigger.

Uhhhh no it’s not, it’s just an annoyance, especially considering other classes have MUCH better downed skills than others. I usually don’t even bother using the finish animation since it takes so long that their allies can come and revive them.

The only thing I liked about everyone’s post so far is, separate leaderboards for all the professions.

As for balancing, yes this game is balanced.
Whose the best bunker? Guardian
Whose the best melee team dps? Warrior
Whose the best ranged team dps? Engineer
Whose the best melee solo dps? Mesmer
Whose the best ranged solo dps? Ranger
Whose the most mobile? Thief
Whose the best with conditions? Necromancer

Elementalist sssucks, well you could consider them the best condition removal if you’d like.

Theres more you could compare with, but looking at it, not 1 class is truly the best, because balancing isn’t perfect (nothing is) but its looking pretty balanced right now.

If they added a bank or blt to hearts of mist, that would be the new hub for pve because basically you go play pve, your in some zone like frostgorge sound, you got stuff you need to put in bank? Click on hearts of mist, goto bank, click hearts of mist again and your back in frostgorge sound, you didn’t have to pay anything and you have a free bank now, those bank and blt express would be worthless because going to hearts of mist and clicking on hearts of mist again doesn’t reset you in pve, however going to hearts of mist then to LA resets you in pve.

They need to do more PvP stuff then worry about PvE stuff. Your just lazy if you cant run to LA for the bank and back, it doesn’t take that long, 15 seconds really worth complaining about?

Kaizer.7135:

PowerBottom.5796:

Kaizer.7135:

- Get rid of downed in sPvP should be there, or atleast a sped up “FINISH HIM” animation.

The Downed Mode is one of the coolest Parts of PvP and has a huge impact on gameplay, build-creation, playstyle etc. – removing it would be completely senseless.

I’d love to see a bit more love towards “while rezzing” and “on rez” effects though. Especially the ones that trigger after a Rezz could be much stronger, because it’s quite a prerequisite for the Trait to Trigger.

Uhhhh no it’s not, it’s just an annoyance, especially considering other classes have MUCH better downed skills than others. I usually don’t even bother using the finish animation since it takes so long that their allies can come and revive them.

By that logic, you should remove being able to do DMG, because some classes can deal more damage than others.

The Downed-State is one of the Events in a game which requires quick thinking, good preparation and Teamplay. People that want it removed are often solo-q’ers that can’t grasp that concept of teamplay, making a Teamcomp that can control downed Players, stomp them well and are able to revive Teammates.

And I can completely understand your Problem, but that’s why many Teams specifically create Builds that can damage and Poison downed Players to make it possible to stomp them before being revived.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Rewards. Winning a bigger amount of glory at the end of a bob-join match won’t force ppl to stop zerging as glory has no value in this game.

I do agree that my rewards system suggestion is probably a band-aid at this point, I’ll change the original post to a “work in progress”.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

• Greatly increased the effectiveness of conditions
Have you ever played against an HGH? Conditions have their place in the game.

I’m by no means saying that conditions are useless, far from it, my only issue is that they are…I don’t know…trivial? This is a point which is hard for me to explain because I can’t say that conditions feel ‘trivial’ and in the same breath say that they aren’t useless. Maybe I’m going overboard with this but I look at my guardian that can remove 2 conditions per shout (of which I usually have three) + one every 10 seconds and It doesn’t seem very balanced considering I didn’t exactly have to give up anything to have such strong condition removal. Of course, then I have to explain why I don’t simply advocate nerfing certain condition removal options.

I just feel like I want conditions to play a larger role in the mind of the player specifically. Once again, I’ve probably butchered my explanation of this but I can’t really think of how to explain it. In any case though, my suggestion isn’t ‘nerfing’ conditions, nor ‘buffing’ them. It just changes how players will have to approach conditions.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

•Changed many previously AoE type skills to single player targeted skills.
Not good idea. It’s the dmg overall and the conquest-mode that makes AoE spells that effective. They just should slightly lower the dmg and the graphical effect (as you mentioned).

Many is probably an exaggeration. I can only think of a handful of skills off the top of my ahead. I’ll revise the original post to ‘a few’.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Also trying to get every class on the same level of effectiveness is really hard work. And a-net is allrdy in this process polishing the traitlines and stuff.

I can really agree with this one. I think part of the problem is ANET deciding what role they want each class to play. I mean, they’ve said what role they want for each class in the past but I think that there is room for improvement. I think a large part of this will be increasing the number of viable builds. By increasing the number of viable builds, niches inside each class will become more used and we (the players) should be able to see more clearly how best to use each class in a battle. I do give ANET credit on this part though, they are making a genuine effort to balance the classes.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

“New Game-Modes”: Not possible in this year (mabye 2014), as A-Net has the pace of a glacier with updates and patches.

Don’t know about this one. In the last SOTG (IIRC?) they said they were working on some new game modes. It seems unlikely that they still have seven months of work left before they can release it.

milo.6942:

@ empathetic re: conditions
i think he just means each stack of condition will do more damage, but skills will apply fewer stacks so there is less condi spam, and more deliberate condi application and removal.

Yes, this is correct

I just want to change how players approach and deal with conditions, It’s not a buff or nerf either way. Think of it as the difference between “death by a 1000 cuts” and ‘death by 100 cuts’ or something.

uberkingkong.8041:

If they added a bank or blt to hearts of mist, that would be the new hub for pve because basically you go play pve, your in some zone like frostgorge sound, you got stuff you need to put in bank? Click on hearts of mist, goto bank, click hearts of mist again and your back in frostgorge sound. Your just lazy if you cant run to LA for the bank and back, it doesn’t take that long, 15 seconds really worth complaining about?

I see what you’re trying to say but:

1. I don’t feel like it would become a PvE hub. LA would still be more convenient due to the crafting stations, etc. You could even disallow the placement of player owned crafting stations within the mists if it was that much of a problem. Even if it did become a PvE hub, it wouldn’t exactly be a massive problem. You wouldn’t be prevented from joining games.

2. Many quality of life improvements are ‘unnecessary’. It’s easy to say that you can simply find other ways to do things but the game isn’t improved that way. Also, I somehow doubt that adding a handful of vendors will take up weeks of testing and design.

Really appreciate the feedback guys.

PowerBottom.5796:

Kaizer.7135:

PowerBottom.5796:

Kaizer.7135:

- Get rid of downed in sPvP should be there, or atleast a sped up “FINISH HIM” animation.

The Downed Mode is one of the coolest Parts of PvP and has a huge impact on gameplay, build-creation, playstyle etc. – removing it would be completely senseless.

I’d love to see a bit more love towards “while rezzing” and “on rez” effects though. Especially the ones that trigger after a Rezz could be much stronger, because it’s quite a prerequisite for the Trait to Trigger.

Uhhhh no it’s not, it’s just an annoyance, especially considering other classes have MUCH better downed skills than others. I usually don’t even bother using the finish animation since it takes so long that their allies can come and revive them.

By that logic, you should remove being able to do DMG, because some classes can deal more damage than others.

The Downed-State is one of the Events in a game which requires quick thinking, good preparation and Teamplay. People that want it removed are often solo-q’ers that can’t grasp that concept of teamplay, making a Teamcomp that can control downed Players, stomp them well and are able to revive Teammates.

And I can completely understand your Problem, but that’s why many Teams specifically create Builds that can damage and Poison downed Players to make it possible to stomp them before being revived.

What the heck? You comparing damage classes can deal vs downed skills was completely kittened. 1st off, I can EASILY finish a downed player with Blackpowder and a stomp. Except for a Mes and Ele, Mes can vanish into stealth and summon illusions that deal an INSANE amount of damage (for a downed skill) and not to mention their illusions are still active from BEFORE they were downed. The Ele can mist form to RUN back to their allies, I’d like to see your teamplay stomp an INVULNERABLE ele.

All the downed system is is a time waster to troll your opponents after they already defeated you once. It belongs in PvE only.

Kaizer.7135:

All the downed system is is a time waster to troll your opponents after they already defeated you once. It belongs in PvE only.

spoken like a true hotjoin hero

for a while i though u copy/pasted from the real patch note and i though i did read it wrong and assumed anet was going to do a nice job with this patch….then i read it would be your suggestions..and it made me sad.
you should feel bad .

nice dream btw

Added a “Clear skills queue” / “Abort current skill” button which does not interfere with target selection and does not pop a Menu. Amen.

timecookie.8570:

Added a “Clear skills queue” / “Abort current skill” button which does not interfere with target selection and does not pop a Menu. Amen.

This a thousand times. I was actually thinking about this last night. What is the actual reason for this not being in the game? Must we be forced to use a dodge or whatever to cancel? I’ll add this among some other things to the original post in a while.

Paradoxine.8192:

Design

• Changed all elite skills to be more similar to build defining skills rather than add-ons. Elite skills from this patch onwards will generally have much lower recharge rates (less than sixty seconds) and will greatly impact the focus of a players build. For example, ‘Epidemic’ is now an elite skill and many of the previous elite skills have been changed to heavily modified utilities. In addition, the use of an elite skill is now optional and players may use a utility within the elite slot if they so wish. We feel this will allow players to make more practical use of elite skills and make more varied builds.

• Changed a few previously AoE type skills to single player targeted skills.

• Reduced the pervasiveness of AoE particle effects greatly.

• Started a general move towards reducing the number of evades, teleports, immunes and gap closers. This is intended to make gameplay less chaotic, but will be done over the course of the next few patches in order to both gauge community reactions and ensure that combat does not become too slow-paced.

• Greatly increased the effectiveness of conditions across the board and also greatly increased the downtime for condition application. Multiple auto attacks that previously applied conditions have had their condition application removed and their damage changed to reflect this. Greatly reduced passive as well as active condition removal to complement this change.

• ‘Passive’ condition removal has been changed to be both more active and give more control to the player. Traits that remove a condition every 10 seconds have been changed so that an extra ‘F’ skill(e.g F5) is added upon selection, which will have a cooldown of ten seconds. The UI for certain classes has been changed to accommodate this. The condition removal skill will appear at the end of your other class specific skills(Virtues, etc).

• Modified all classes in order to bring each class to the same level of overall battle effectiveness.

• Effected changes intended to make each class more unique and varied, as well as increase the number of viable builds therein.

• Increased the selection of non-RNG sigils and runes.

Balance changes

• Changed the blind condition so that it increases the chance of missing an attack by 50% during its duration. Changed smoke fields to have generally longer cool downs but stack the duration of blinds each tick. It should be noted that durations will generally be short to begin with, with the duration increasing as necessary in future patches. We feel that this will make the use of blind more effective as a support condition.

New Game modes

• Added King of the Hill, Deathmatch, Capture the flag and Relic Run. More information about these new game modes will be outlined in an upcoming blog post.

Quoted just what I want to address. A lot of your design suggestions just reflect a different game that isn’t this one.

AOE is just fine as is, nerfing it would have many unwanted consequences: rezzing teammates would become too easy, stealth would become too strong, multi target builds like minion necro, mesmer and ranger would become a lot stronger when they are already fine, etc. All of which would require their own changes. Plust AOE forces players to be aware of where they are standing which adds depth.

Teleports, evades and immunes are fine, they all require people to pay attention to hit a target (you can’t just spam, u need to watch the animation and hit at the end of the immune and evade etc.) only thing i would change is the mesmer teleport CD is too low.

The suggested change to condition would change the game and not for the better, just different. Different for different sakes is a waste of development time.

Most condi removal is active, the passive ones add a different flavor, what the game needs is an UI for procs and other passive effects (so you can see whether the condi removal is about to tick) otherwise the mechanic is fine.

“Modified all classes in order to bring each class to the same level of overall battle effectiveness. Effected changes intended to make each class more unique and varied, as well as increase the number of viable builds therein.” These are just really vague and an obvious goal, you don’t make any specific suggestions.

That change to blind would make it OP, change its purpose and force devs to revise every blind ability in the game. No.

That’s way too many game modes and would spread the community too thin. Fairly soon Anet should add ONE unique new game mode so there is a bit more flavor. A third one shouldn’t be added until the community is a lot larger and much further down the line.

Julius, this is a false concept about splitting te community.

More gamemodes bring in more players, more attenton, more time spent and more fun and diversity.

Without spliting the PvP playerbase players will get bored, mostly if they don’t like that only existing gamemode.

Without splitting the playerbase there won’t be anything that could be split nor keep.

More modes (content)-> More attention -> More players -> More profit -> Everyone is happy

GW2 is founded on some great ideas.
It has a wonderful base.

The only problem is behind the scenes.
They can’t turn those innovations into a great game, even if you just entirely forget about the idea of esports.

No dream patch will fix that unless it involves layoffs.

This patch is amazing, especially this

• Changed all elite skills to be more similar to build defining skills rather than add-ons. Elite skills from this patch onwards will generally have much lower recharge rates (less than sixty seconds) and will greatly impact the focus of a players build. For example, ‘Epidemic’ is now an elite skill and many of the previous elite skills have been changed to heavily modified utilities. In addition, the use of an elite skill is now optional and players may use a utility within the elite slot if they so wish. We feel this will allow players to make more practical use of elite skills and make more varied builds.

Julius.1094:

A lot of your design suggestions just reflect a different game that isn’t this one.

I don’t think this is helpful in the least. The same argument could be made for indeed any change and ultimately If we’re going to just say that any changes we don’t like are turning it into a different game then we won’t get anywhere.

Julius.1094:

AOE is just fine as is, nerfing it would have many unwanted consequences……..

I’m going to have to ask you to read through the thread. I have already addressed this point.

Julius.1094:

Teleports, evades and immunes are fine, they all require people to pay attention to hit a target (you can’t just spam, u need to watch the animation and hit at the end of the immune and evade etc.) only thing i would change is the mesmer teleport CD is too low.

I don’t agree, I feel like combat is too chaotic at the moment. I think teleports, evades and immunes are used (or available?) too often. It’s to the point where they aren’t used sparingly because they don’t need to be. To fully address this point I’d have to write a very, very long reply with numerous examples, numbers etc but suffice to say I think we won’t agree on this point.

Julius.1094:

The suggested change to condition would change the game and not for the better, just different. Different for different sakes is a waste of development time.

It is not different for the sake of being different. If you really can’t see how changing the way players approach conditions to the way I propose would change the game for the better in any way then I don’t know what to tell you. Fair enough If you think the disadvantages of the change outweigh the advantages, but do you really believe there are no advantages to be gained?

Julius.1094:

Most condi removal is active, the passive ones add a different flavor, what the game needs is an UI for procs and other passive effects…..

Most condition removal is active. Your point is? I propose that the ‘passive’ condition removal be changed. Please address the advantages and disadvantages of the change rather than just telling me status quo is fine.

Julius.1094:

“Modified all classes in order to bring each class to the same level of overall battle effectiveness. Effected changes intended to make each class more unique and varied, as well as increase the number of viable builds therein.” These are just really vague and an obvious goal, you don’t make any specific suggestions.

Again, I’ve said to both the developers and in a note at the bottom of my post that I realise that it is idealistic. This is the dream patch. Some suggestions will be less feasible than others but that doesn’t mean that we don’t still want it.

Julius.1094:

That change to blind would make it OP, change its purpose and force devs to revise every blind ability in the game. No.

Blind would not become overpowered. Like I’ve already said, the duration would be lowballed to begin with and increased over the course of multiple patches. Secondly, ‘change its purpose’? Blind is most definitely underpowered at the moment. To have an entire skill (e.g Blinding Flash) that merely prevents ONE measly attack, that can be cleared with an auto attack is underpowered. Your third point, about the need to change each and every blind skill is irrelevant, but additionally it irks me because you seem to imply that the developers should not change conditions and mechanics in need of reworking purely because it would take too much work.

I’ll give an example. The developers (not me) have said themselves that they’re looking at weakness. This might mean that they have to change every skill:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakness
as well as a few traits. Ultimately the developers are in the business of ensuring game balance. If they need to completely rework something then that is what they must do.

Julius.1094:

That’s way too many game modes and would spread the community too thin. Fairly soon Anet should add ONE unique new game mode so there is a bit more flavor. A third one shouldn’t be added until the community is a lot larger and much further down the line.

The community would be spread too thin if and only if such a massive patch brought 0 new players. I somehow doubt that would be the case. You can’t simply wait until the community is large enough and then introduce game modes. At the very least, not with the current state of affairs. People are tired of conquest and a new game mode is just what this game needs to attract more people to try sPvP. If really necessary, the game modes I suggested can be introduced one by one, but this isn’t ‘The multiple sPvP patch’ thread. That is something for the developers to decide, who have access to statistics I don’t.

wow power, you really worked kitten this. i have the feeling you spent more time on these notes than arenanet has on balance decisions to date. good luck with the implementation.

Gandarel.5091:

Julius, this is a false concept about splitting te community.

More gamemodes bring in more players, more attenton, more time spent and more fun and diversity.

Without spliting the PvP playerbase players will get bored, mostly if they don’t like that only existing gamemode.

Without splitting the playerbase there won’t be anything that could be split nor keep.

More modes (content)-> More attention -> More players -> More profit -> Everyone is happy

So if we add 3 new game modes the pvp population will quadruple in size? Ok. Good luck with that. New game modes can attract new players but they also do split the community as each mode requires a separate queue. So it has to be done gradually and carefully not just go all balls in and add 4 game modes in a game less than a year old.

Julius.1094:

Gandarel.5091:

Julius, this is a false concept about splitting te community.

More gamemodes bring in more players, more attenton, more time spent and more fun and diversity.

Without spliting the PvP playerbase players will get bored, mostly if they don’t like that only existing gamemode.

Without splitting the playerbase there won’t be anything that could be split nor keep.

More modes (content)-> More attention -> More players -> More profit -> Everyone is happy

So if we add 3 new game modes the pvp population will quadruple in size? Ok. Good luck with that. New game modes can attract new players but they also do split the community as each mode requires a separate queue. So it has to be done gradually and carefully not just go all balls in and add 4 game modes in a game less than a year old.

Like I’ve already said in my reply above, whether they release the game modes gradually over the course of a few updates or not isn’t really my concern. I was simply suggesting game modes that I’d and I believe other players, would like to see eventually. It honestly seems to me like you’re making much out of nothing here.

My point is that your design suggestions are extreme, not adjustments but broad changes. People that play this game play it because they like it, if you refine it you’ll get them to stay and bring more players, if you make extreme changes to it you may attract some new players but you’ll also lose players who will find they don’t like what the game turned into. If you think, as you seem to, that your design suggestions are all decidedly improvements and everyone will love it let me point out to you that is your opinion.

We just don’t agree there are too many evades/teleports, I think it makes the game more exciting than having people just running around spamming buttons at each other and adds an element of timing when to hit skills better.

My point is when most condition removal is active your complaint that the few ones that aren’t need to also be active seems odd to me.

New games modes would bring new players, but not enough new players fast enough to accomodate the various queues that many game modes would require. I want more game modes but they should would be added one at a time over long stretches of time as the pvp population gradually grows.

Weakness should change, it’s UP and people don’t care about it. Blinds on the other hand are used all the time. The problem is new players just spam it, blinds should be used in anticipation of a big attack, example, on my engi with flamethrower if a thief goes stealth near I wait a moment than pop AOE blind often resulting in him getting hit by it just as he goes in for the backstab making it miss. You can get a stomp on some classes by using an instant cast blind right before they cast their cc downed ability, etc. The examples are many but the point it’s to be used strategically to stop an important attack and it works for that purpose. Your suggestion would make it not a sure thing, so it could no longer be used reliably in that manner, it would make it overall stronger and be best used by just putting up w/e you can thus changing the nature of the condition entirely. I happen to think it is fine as is, so yes if they need to rework something entirely and change a lot of abilities to do so yes they should.

Julius.1094:

Weakness should change, it’s UP and people don’t care about it. Blinds on the other hand are used all the time. The problem is new players just spam it, blinds should be used in anticipation of a big attack, example, on my engi with flamethrower if a thief goes stealth near I wait a moment than pop AOE blind often resulting in him getting hit by it just as he goes in for the backstab making it miss. You can get a stomp on some classes by using an instant cast blind right before they cast their cc downed ability, etc. The examples are many but the point it’s to be used strategically to stop an important attack and it works for that purpose. Your suggestion would make it not a sure thing, so it could no longer be used reliably in that manner, it would make it overall stronger and be best used by just putting up w/e you can thus changing the nature of the condition entirely. I happen to think it is fine as is, so yes if they need to rework something entirely and change a lot of abilities to do so yes they should.

I’ll address your other points in due course but to begin with I think it would be good to talk about blind for a bit. As far as I have experience, blind is borderline useless unless you are using smoke fields. Funnily enough it gives credibility to your AoE blind point.

Regarding spamming blind: AoE smoke fields are already basically spamming blind. The only time in all my hundreds of hours on this game that blind has ever caused me to do anything other than simply clear with an auto attack is when I’m fighting NPC’s, specifically, those pesky scouts in WvW. It’s no surprise that it is only a problem there because they.. well.. basically spam it.

You said that new players would just spam blind to an even greater degree if It got buffed. This may be true, but apart from the fact that the cooldowns could simply be adjusted, If they just activate it as soon as it comes off cooldown then they aren’t playing at a high level. In high level play and even for just good players, they will use blind when a warrior starts hundred blades while they’re immobilized, or they’ll use it to help your squishy thief who is getting bursted down by a guardian’s GS. As it stands right now, stopping one auto attack generally doesn’t cut it. Sure, in 5% of cases you might be able to pull off a clutch save but at this point it is more luck than high skill seeing as all the classes in GW2 can output dozens of attacks in very short time intervals.

Activating blind on a warrior who isn’t in range of you won’t help you. Activating blind on a mesmer who primarily uses phantasms won’t help you. It will still be a situational skill but it will be more viable.

I wouldn’t be against changing the change to ‘Blind now makes the target miss X attacks’ where X > 1, but surely something needs to be done.

Thanks for the feedback.