Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to create a thread giving Allie a shout out for her activities on this forum. We really love transparency from the devs and are really grateful that Allie’s been writing out some great answers for us recently.

For the sake of Allie’s unfinished lunch (due to writing essays on forums) we’d love to see other devs get involved and help her out.

Thanks again!

I think active communication with the community is the key to a happy community because it feels heard, especially in pvp where balance is such a picky topic. So more comments from arenanet are always welcome.

So, while you’re here actively discussing, could you answer one quick question?
How do the devs think of current Ride the Lightning? It was so immensely fun with lower cooldown and what brought a lot of people to roll an ele at launch (it was the deciding factor for me between ele and engi at least). It looks awesome, it sounds awesome, it was awesome.
But then pvp balance came and killed it.
Now that bunker eles aren’t anything close to OP anymore, how about some love for RTL? Cooldown reduction? Going from 15 seconds 1550 range to 40 seconds 1200 range is the most severe nerf to a single ability in any MMO I’ve ever played.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Aether McLoud.1975, thanks for your input! As we just shipped a patch today, I suspect we will want to wait and see how the meta adapts before thinking about making any changes. Maybe with the changes we put out, bunker eles will feel better to play. Give it a little time, and maybe we can revisit this.

Thanks for the reply. Have the devs thought about only using the double-cooldown-if-not-hit feature in pvp? I feel 40 seconds is barely… bearable… in pvp because the maps aren’t as big, but in pve and wvw where maps are HUGE 40 seconds out of combat RTL really hurts the fun of playing a dagger ele. Getting around the map faster equals less downtime and more action time, so more fun overall

I don’t think having out of combat RTL be 20 seconds base cooldown, and only using the 40 seconds when you’re in combat and not hitting something would be unbalanced (even in pvp).

Aether McLoud.1975:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Aether McLoud.1975, thanks for your input! As we just shipped a patch today, I suspect we will want to wait and see how the meta adapts before thinking about making any changes. Maybe with the changes we put out, bunker eles will feel better to play. Give it a little time, and maybe we can revisit this.

Thanks for the reply. Have the devs thought about only using the double-cooldown-if-not-hit feature in pvp? I feel 40 seconds is barely… bearable… in pvp because the maps aren’t as big, but in pve and wvw where maps are HUGE 40 seconds out of combat RTL really hurts the fun of playing a dagger ele. Getting around the map faster equals less downtime and more action time, so more fun overall

I don’t think having out of combat RTL be 20 seconds base cooldown, and only using the 40 seconds when you’re in combat and not hitting something would be unbalanced (even in pvp).

Would be nice if they got rid of it completely. 1 cd for the skill, having a 600 range engage that never hits and always has a 40 sec cd is just annoying.

Inb4 “Constructive Feedback”
Move cleansing wave to focus, reset all RTL cd to 20 seconds. Seriously, the focus needs some love. If it is used by maybe 3 people in pvp then it needs to be made more viable.

What about focus..focus is fine,staff is fine.They see their uses in other game types!!
Ele is fine the dominant builds are now balanced and probably heading towards the mesmer way..everything is fine ..Lol

I don’t what the other devs to post in the forum, there are community coordenators for that.

I want devs to PLAY THE STUPID GAME and realize how broken it is. THEN i would like the devs to FIX IT before my THIRD guild disappears from the game….

Volrath.1473:

I don’t what the other devs to post in the forum, there are community coordenators for that.

I want devs to PLAY THE STUPID GAME and realize how broken it is. THEN i would like the devs to FIX IT before my THIRD guild disappears from the game….

We ported our PvP Aion guild to Guild Wars 2, only me and my friend left now. Funny, they played Aion PvP religiously but wouldn’t give sPvP a go, only played WvW all the time. My current guild I joined due to it being mostly oceanic and PvP based, yet, they all seem to be PvE now.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Aether McLoud.1975, thanks for your input! As we just shipped a patch today, I suspect we will want to wait and see how the meta adapts before thinking about making any changes. Maybe with the changes we put out, bunker eles will feel better to play. Give it a little time, and maybe we can revisit this.

Bunker eles? How about glass eles? Have the devs already forgotten they destroyed glass d/d as collateral damage when nerfing the bunker build? All the talk of build diversity, and yet you guys ruined a niche yet viable build just because you couldn’t be bothered to treat it separately from a build that played completely differently.

All these months since the d/d nerfs, and you’ve done virtually nothing to fix glass d/d. Is this you taking it slow so you ‘get it right,’ or do you simply consider two builds (dps s/d and bunker d/d) a sufficient amount of build diversity for one of the most complex classes in the game?

It’s been a long time since I have seen multiple red threads on one forum page, let alone multiple dev postings in any given thread. Pretty impressed.

swiftpaw.6397:

It’s been a long time since I have seen multiple red threads on one forum page, let alone multiple dev postings in any given thread. Pretty impressed.

^ What Swift said.
……
Don’t Stop.

So Allie, can we have a thread were we can ask you questions directed at you and you just try to answer them if possible?

Sure Allie is great now, but long before she was PvP forum famous, she was responsible for destroying one of GW2’s greatest features…. the /plane emote.

Allie mercilessly bugged it to extinction from from her evil QA fortress, then trolled the GW2 community on Facebook about it.

Why Allie?

Why?

Allie Murdock.8152:

Appreciate the kind words, but know that the other devs would post more if they had time! Technically it’s more of my job, being a community coordinator, to communicate with you guys. When the designers and programmers post on here, it means they are going out of their way to talk to you. Try to give them a little more credit.

I know you guys would like to hear more from them, but they really need to spend their time implementing. The truth is that I should be communicating with you guys like this on a more regular basis, which is what I’m trying to do.

Is there a PvE community co-ordinator? I know PvE is a huge part of the game and it’s very diverse, but I feel like there is a black hole in terms of communication when it comes to PvE skill/trait/class balance. These things are covered heavily in the PvP forums because they are so central to PvP, but it seems like there isn’t much in the way of communication or participation when it comes to PvE.

Shiren.9532:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Appreciate the kind words, but know that the other devs would post more if they had time! Technically it’s more of my job, being a community coordinator, to communicate with you guys. When the designers and programmers post on here, it means they are going out of their way to talk to you. Try to give them a little more credit.

I know you guys would like to hear more from them, but they really need to spend their time implementing. The truth is that I should be communicating with you guys like this on a more regular basis, which is what I’m trying to do.

Is there a PvE community co-ordinator? I know PvE is a huge part of the game and it’s very diverse, but I feel like there is a black hole in terms of communication when it comes to PvE skill/trait/class balance. These things are covered heavily in the PvP forums because they are so central to PvP, but it seems like there isn’t much in the way of communication or participation when it comes to PvE.

Sure would love to see someone in the dungeon section every once in a while.. When you factor out all the screaming and complaining, crying and fist fights.. it’s tumbleweed town. Perhaps that’s why the CC’s don’t go there anymore :/

Allie, could you please tell the persons balancing the thief to show up now and then in our forum? I have yet to see anyone working on balancing in the thief forum. Would be great to have some answers for everything the messed up :/

She’s good at attempting to communicate with players but I’d rather have an equal measure of devs that fix things and devs that do forum PR.

That said It would be great to have more PR reps for other sections of the forums addressing player concerns. on such a regular basis

Brutal Arts.6307:

She’s good at attempting to communicate with players but I’d rather have an equal measure of devs that fix things and devs that do forum PR.

That said It would be great to have more PR reps for other sections of the forums addressing player concerns. on such a regular basis

I agree as well. It can’t be that hard. Just pay some college kid minimum wage to stay on forums and social media, answering questions.

Brutal Arts.6307:

She’s good at attempting to communicate with players but I’d rather have an equal measure of devs that fix things and devs that do forum PR.

That said It would be great to have more PR reps for other sections of the forums addressing player concerns. on such a regular basis

‘Tis true. I can’t fathom how some classes (ele for example) still have bugs that have been in the game since launch or even before that. How can you ever truly balance skills and classes if half of them are still buggy as hell?

You can follow Allie at her Twitter! She’s a fantastic community dev =D

TGSlasher.1458:

Volrath.1473:

I don’t what the other devs to post in the forum, there are community coordenators for that.

I want devs to PLAY THE STUPID GAME and realize how broken it is. THEN i would like the devs to FIX IT before my THIRD guild disappears from the game….

We ported our PvP Aion guild to Guild Wars 2, only me and my friend left now. Funny, they played Aion PvP religiously but wouldn’t give sPvP a go, only played WvW all the time. My current guild I joined due to it being mostly oceanic and PvP based, yet, they all seem to be PvE now.

spvp in this game is a glorified series of successive duels.

No healers: Lack of group synergy=boring pvp and OP classes that can do everything.

I don’t blame them since wvw small scale adds a bit of unpredictability to the game though not enough to counter the zerging.

XII.9401:

TGSlasher.1458:

Volrath.1473:

I don’t what the other devs to post in the forum, there are community coordenators for that.

I want devs to PLAY THE STUPID GAME and realize how broken it is. THEN i would like the devs to FIX IT before my THIRD guild disappears from the game….

We ported our PvP Aion guild to Guild Wars 2, only me and my friend left now. Funny, they played Aion PvP religiously but wouldn’t give sPvP a go, only played WvW all the time. My current guild I joined due to it being mostly oceanic and PvP based, yet, they all seem to be PvE now.

spvp in this game is a glorified series of successive duels.

No healers: Lack of group synergy=boring pvp and OP classes that can do everything.

I don’t blame them since wvw small scale adds a bit of unpredictability to the game though not enough to counter the zerging.

No healers is the best thing this game did for pvp.