Guild Wars 2

ThatNAESLGuard.6238:

Evan, these ideas are good and I like balancing sigils. However you have to realize how much this change impacts Balance. Removal of blood/air/fire may be a good idea in theory, but it will SIGNIFICANTLY reduce ALL damage in this game. That will inheritantly buff condi classes and sustain builds. These are the implications:
Druid and scrapper are stronger again due to direct damage basically not able to kill them any longer.
Guardians will be utterly unviable (rip me) since a significant amount of damage comes from crit sigils.
Necros, warriors, mesmers will be gods again.

Basically you might take thief since pulmonary is God mode, but besides that it’s all tank +condi builds.

I like the direction this ATTEMPTED to make but the effects on balance are far too significant for pvp to be healthy following a patch like this.

Oh well time to welcome the necro+warrior overlord meta.

We’re definitely aware of the impact of removing sigils that create free damage, and are looking at sustain nerfs that will ship at the same time as the sigil update.

oEnvy.3064:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Sigil of Compounding
Deal 1% extra damage per condition on your foe. Maximum 5%.

Sigil of Punishment
Deal 1% extra damage per boon on your foe. Maximum 5%.

Did it ever occur to you that no one ever took force in the first place. Adding an extra mechanic to reaching the same damage as force did by default doesn’t make it viable. LOL. Even with the removal of air/fire and hydro/leech this is still a horrible dps option, literally no justification for running this or any of the other dmg sigils as opposed to Lethargy/Revelation.

Everyone took force back when you could only take one proc sigil, so there’s probably some variation of a flat damage sigil that would compete for a slot in the new system.

For Sigil of Revelation, the purpose would be to pull people out of stealth, but not prevent it. Something like a 1/4 second reveal would accomplish that.

Sigmoid.7082:

Sigil of Compounding
Deal 1% extra damage per condition on your foe. Maximum 5%.
Sigil of Punishment
Deal 1% extra damage per boon on your foe. Maximum 5%.

@Evan

Question.
Are these per unique condition on a target? I would assume so but they may be fairly interesting if not.

Correct, they would be unique.

Arilin.8716:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Sigil of Geomancy
Your next attack after you swap to this weapon while in combat inflicts 3 stacks of bleeding (5 Seconds).
(Cooldown: 9 seconds)

Would that mean that the AoE part of the sigil is removed? Or would it affect however many people get hit by the next attack? The first option is a huge nerf, the second is very gimmicky and RNG-based.

It probably should be an AoE effect caused at 240 range from the target of your attack that hits 5 targets.

We would probably rename this sigil and consider it a different one. It would no longer apply instant AOE bleed.

TorsoReaper.8530:

Gaile Gray.6029:

TorsoReaper — it would be argued, I think, that any third-party program or system that expedites an in-game process might be seen as giving a player an advantage over another. If two players are farming, and one is going through the process as intended, and taking XX amount of time, while the second is using a bot or macro that free them up to resume farming, isn’t there an inherant “advantage” in that time-saving system?

I don’t use an auto-clicker. I clicked 10,000 times 2 in Guild Wars (the original) to gain two titles. I did that because while using an auto-clicker would have cut the time I spent by a huge amount, I figured spending the time was part of earning the title.

Just my two cents.

I always read that post as “don’t use macros to cast spells and slaughter people in PVP or auto farm instances” rather than simple QOL improvements to keep my carpal tunnel from flaring up. If you think I should stop, I will stop. You have access to better information than I do.

And see, you make a very good point. Time savings is very different, indeed, than having a combat advantage. I’m with you on the CPS situation — I thought my hand was going to fall off with the titles I got. I can’t say “go ahead” for the use of any third-party program, but we did expand the official messaging for clarity, which may address the differences here.

Sigmoid.7082:

Depends on if the damage bonus is universal between power and condi. If air and fire have been removed I can see the usefulness in these.

Damage bonus is for strikes.
All other sigils not listed would be removed.

Krysard.1364:

Not worthless when all alternatives are worthless LUL, I wouldnt discard thief using one of them cause weapon camping

You mean…. BALANCE?

Sigmoid.7082:

Does it have the standard 5 target limit?
Standard 4s?

Nothing is set in stone, but standards are assumed.

Offair.2563:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

This is being changed. The jump pads inside the keep will work without owning the shrines.

Why are such changes NEVER posted in the patch notes? It’s not like you have to write a whole wall of text when it comes to wvw right.

It wasn’t in today’s patch.

Brockolosso.8316:

Sigil of Lethargy
Your next attack after swapping to this weapon while in combat slows your target (2 Seconds).
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)
Sigil of Revelation
Reveal nearby foes when swapping to this weapon while in combat (240 Radius).
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Are you for real? You were supposed to stop the power creep, not join them…

Are you saying you would always take those two sigils for every build?

Recovery.4602:

Just curious, what will happen to the sigils that are being removed/modified which were purchased prior to the incoming changes ? Any chance on getting refunded for those ?

They would be refunded in the same manners as amulets have been.

Windwalker.7421:

I’m probably misunderstanding something, but I’m having a hard time making out any “goal” from these changes, aside from drastically reducing the available options…and thus continuing down a road of less build diversity.

Shaking my head in disbelief here…

O Captain! My Captain!

These are the goals from the other post:

Our high-level goals include reducing RNG gameplay, promoting counter-play, reducing raw damage output, and removing ineffective choices.

Right now we have the illusion of diversity. There are plenty of sigils that nobody uses.

TorsoReaper — it would be argued, I think, that any third-party program or system that expedites an in-game process might be seen as giving a player an advantage over another. If two players are farming, and one is going through the process as intended, and taking XX amount of time, while the second is using a bot or macro that free them up to resume farming, isn’t there an inherant “advantage” in that time-saving system?

I don’t use an auto-clicker. I clicked 10,000 times 2 in Guild Wars (the original) to gain two titles. I did that because while using an auto-clicker would have cut the time I spent by a huge amount, I figured spending the time was part of earning the title.

Just my two cents.

drunkenpilot.9837:

They’re worth the effort to me. I’m sure I’ve probably vendored thousands of major and minor sigils over the years. Even at 1 silver each for the major sigils, that’s a good chunk of gold.

For me, I find I get quite a bit more selling the Majors and Superiors on the TP — even if some languish for a while or don’t sell — than I would with a system that auto-vendored them. And it takes me about 2 seconds to vendor the Minors. If I can’t spare 2 seconds, I shouldn’t be taking time to play.

BlooDyliCious.5824:

Some stuff is hard to code in, some stuff is extremely easy. This can be done in a day.

You really have no way of calculating the time required for such an implementation within our game code, nor do you know our prioritizations. Please avoid stating an opinion, speculation, or guess as a “fact.”

costepj.5120:

You forgot the Auto Play mastery. Just build a golem that plays the game for us. We can then login once a year to see how we’re doing.

You made me smile, but there’s a nugget in truth in there.

This is being changed. The jump pads inside the keep will work without owning the shrines.

The team has looked over the list of PvP sigils and applied our goals aggressively. We heavily reduced the available options, removed random chance, balanced existing sigils, and added some new options. Let us know what you think!

On-Hit:
We initially did not think on-hit sigils we have a place in the game given our goals, but after feedback from the forum, we decided it makes sense to have some consistent-effect sigils for classes that may not want to weapon swap as often as possible.

Sigil of Earth
On hit: Inflict Bleeding (5 Seconds)
(Cooldown: 3 Seconds)

Sigil of Frailty
On hit: Inflict Vulnerability (10 Seconds)
(Cooldown: 3 Seconds)

Sigil of Strength
On hit: Gain Might (10 Seconds)
(Cooldown: 3 Second)

On-Swap:
Most on-swap sigils we felt were in a good place, but we wanted to emphasize them as burst-effects in contrast to on-hit sigils. Some effects are shortened, but intensified. Strikes are removed from sigils like Hydromancy and Geomancy to fill our goal of less direct damage.

Sigil of Agility
Gain 5 seconds of swiftness and 1 second of quickness when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Sigil of Battle
Gain 4 stacks of might (5 seconds) when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
(Cooldown: 9 seconds)

Sigil of Doom
Your next attack after you swap to this weapon while in combat inflicts Poison (5 seconds).
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Sigil of Energy
Gain 25% of your endurance when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
(Cooldown: 9 seconds)

Sigil of Exposure
Your next attack after you swap to this weapon while in combat inflicts 5 stacks of Vulnerability (5 Seconds).
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Sigil of Geomancy
Your next attack after you swap to this weapon while in combat inflicts 3 stacks of bleeding (5 Seconds).
(Cooldown: 9 seconds)

Sigil of Stagnation
Cripple nearby foes when swapping to this weapon while in combat (3 seconds, 240 Radius).
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Sigil of Hydromancy
Chill nearby foes for when you swap to this weapon while in combat (2 Seconds, 240 Radius).
(Cooldown: 9 seconds)

Sigil of Intelligence
Your next three attacks after swapping to this weapon while in combat have a 100% critical chance.
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Sigil of Nullification
Your next attack after you swap to this weapon while in combat removes a Boon from your target.
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Sigil of Revelation
Reveal nearby foes when swapping to this weapon while in combat (240 Radius).
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Sigil of Escape
Remove immobilize from yourself when swapping to this weapon while in combat.
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Sigil of Lethargy
Your next attack after swapping to this weapon while in combat slows your target (2 Seconds).
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Sigil of Cleansing
New: Remove 1 condition when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
(Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

Passive:
We felt all the existing passive sigils were too niche, or would never be as good as the other effects. However, we felt non-condition damage builds were lacking some viable options, so we added some situational damage increases.

Sigil of Compounding
Deal 1% extra damage per condition on your foe. Maximum 5%.

Sigil of Punishment
Deal 1% extra damage per boon on your foe. Maximum 5%.

03/07/2017 – March 7th Release Notes
BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

• The new Raven’s Spirit Glider is available in the Style category of the Gem Store for 500 gems.
• The Storm Bow is available for a limited time in the Style category of the Gem Store for 600 gems.
• The Harbinger of Mordremoth Outfit is available for a limited time in the Style category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
• The Mini Chieftain Utahein and Mini Svanir container is available for a limited time in the Toys category of the Gem Store for 700 gems.
• March Madness sales continue with a new one-day sale each day! The Verdant Executor Outfit is available today in the Style category of the Gem Store for 560 gems—a savings of 20%.

Bug Fixes

• An issue in which a small number of hairstyles displayed incorrect accessory colors in the Total Makeover Kit preview window has been fixed.

Hah yeah the aftercast is embedded in the animation data as well, as are the precast duration and the evade duration (though I think some of the evade durations are hardcoded skill facts — otherwise they wouldn’t show up in the API at all).

Once I find the time to do the necessary refactoring it should be possible to expose all four values (precast, aftercast, total cast time, total evade time).

Love him. Love his story!

That is simply lovely! I admit to getting a tear in my eye with all the lovely shots. And the music is very nicely played in the Part 2 video. Are you also the guitarist?

Anyway, thank you for a lovely “look back.” I would love to feature this for an April show, if not this year, in the future, for April is the anniversary month of the original Guild Wars release.

Honestly, has there ever been a more beautiful area in a game than Pre-Searing Ascalon? ~sigh~

Suuuper cute, I agree! But what’s this rumor I hear about nibbling carrots while others are fighting off the baddies, hmmmm?

That is looking so good! I can’t wait to see the finished product, but I can tell it’s going to be really great.

I actually have half an implementation lying around somewhere. I don’t remember what was wrong with it that caused me to pause working on it; will have to revisit it. IIRC there was some weirdness with emitting packages (or maybe it was the interplay between packages and discounts, I don’t recall).

Hey, this sounds like a ton of fun. And thanks for doing this “cross-region” so that even more players can join in one of your fun events!

There’s an existing issue for this, but the short story is that this is pretty difficult to expose (since activation times are stored in the animation data), but I’ll see what I can do to pull it out.

EDIT: so the long story short is that the cast time is actually stored in the skill’s animation data and the code that extracts the value displayed in-game is fairly coupled to the UI. Pulling that out is a pretty significant undertaking; not sure when I’ll have time for it.

Fluffball.8307:

Does this mean sigils are going to do different things in different game modes? In WvW sigil of blood will be as is, and in PvP it will leech life on weapon swap or something?

We haven’t yet decided on whether we should create new sigils or revise the old ones in PvP only. All together new sigils brings some extra overhead. New icons, new names (editing, localization, etc.) But it makes things a lot more clear.

OriOri.8724:

Question. When you say this do you mean reduce raw damage output in general, o reduce raw damage output that comes specifically from sigils? Because its an important distinction.

Regardless I do want to see some sigils removed. I think that sigils like hydromancy/geomancy that damage enemies purely for swapping weapons is an outdated concept and doesn’t add anything except damage spam to the game mode. I really would love to see them removed. Swapping to a weapon happens when you want to gain an advantage in the current fight, whether that is more pressure, more defense or more mobility. You shouldn’t gain an extra advantage of dealing potentially several thousand damage from weapon swapping. And they just make it absolutely trivial to add cover conditions. You don’t even have to think about it and do it intelligently.

We mean raw damage from sigils. You are spot on in your thinking as we feel the same about sigils like hydro and geo.

Allarius.5670:

An important distinction to make regarding the stated high level goals would be clarifying the replacement for RNG gameplay. Do you mean “X% chance on-hit(crit) apply Y effect (Z cooldown)” becomes:

1) Like RisingDusk suggests, “Apply X effect on hit (Y cooldown)”

or

2) “On weapon swap, your next X hit(s) apply Y effect”

Option 2 gives us the most counter play and predictability. There may be room for having consistent effects such as (1) “on attack, every 2 seconds”, but sigils like that will likely always be best in slot. They would have to balanced by their cooldown, which would then blur the distinction with next hit after swap. That being said, there may be some awesome sigils ideas that can use on hit mechanics we haven’t thought of (that also wouldn’t be OP)!

Another note: It is very unlikely we would ever add a form of CC to sigils.

Stormcrow.7513:

Gaile, the chat filter in the forums always makes me giggle

Yes, me too. And I’m fixing it right now. I feel it’s blocking a more common term for a marginal need. Thanks for pointing it out, and sorry I missed it until today.

The PvP team is investigating opportunities to update the sigils available in the game mode. This means removing, adding, balancing, and reworking. Our high-level goals include reducing RNG gameplay, promoting counter-play, reducing raw damage output, and removing ineffective choices. Some example changes would be removing on-kill stacking sigils and changing proc sigils to on-next-attack effects.

We are looking for feedback on these goals and potential changes. Feel free to suggest new sigils, sigils that exist in other game modes, or feedback on current sigils.

Due to technical limitations, we will likely never be able to add a delayed observer mode to Gw2.

Bug Fix:

• Fixed a bug in which the Looking for Group tool would not display all postings.

Exciton.8942:

Yeah, you can say that we should just go play unranked and I agree with that. But saying the current custom arena structure is actually decent for some sort of casual experience is just lying.

When I say casual, I don’t mean new players. I mean players who don’t care much about rules or rewards because they use the platform for things like dueling and trying new builds against something other than dummies.

Custom arenas are a tool that allows players to self-regulate and I would personally like to remove all of the baked custom arenas from the browser. People who own arenas would just turn off auto-balance if they don’t like people abusing spectator team swapping or use the ban feature.

I personally don’t see the benefit of spending time trying to make hot join a different experience when we’ve already done all the work in unranked and ranked arena. Custom arenas support a casual, low-restriction experience and blending that more with the rated arena experience will only appeal less to the intended audience.

ThatNAESLGuard.6238:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Why no sigil suggestions

Boons on crit. Specific boon duration increase passively. How about a cripple sigil. Sigil that provide damage boost for a specific skill type? You guys might as well just finish up all the current sigils that are lacking counterparts like condi duration for every condi.

Would anyone really run a blind duration sigil?

Why no sigil suggestions

We also think automated tournaments would be neat. For viewership, we would have to re-implement the authorized shoutcaster program to allow certain people to stream the tournaments.

Shaogin.2679:

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

OriOri.8724:

But you need 2 hands to shoot a bow

http://i.imgur.com/vcJfmIc.jpg

Dev just confirmed, dual wielding longbows coming to the game! You saw it here guys, it’s real! No take-backsies!

I literally just told McKenna that this was going to be a response. Thanks.

OriOri.8724:

But you need 2 hands to shoot a bow

http://i.imgur.com/vcJfmIc.jpg

I’d vote pendant, so she doesn’t get smacked by some rough-edged keys. She’s too cute to risk that damage.

That is extraordinary! Thank you so much for posting it here! I <3 that little guy!

Glad you’re enjoying those. It’s fun to see what pops up, isn’t that true? I finally popped for the Royal Terrace Pass a few weeks ago… after putting that off for a few years.

Aury.1367:

checked all, got nothing in WvW.

EDIT: ah kitten , the main checkbox wasnt activated, just the smaller ones -.-

Oh cool, I’m glad you got that working for you. I think I’ll edit the topic so it’s a question, not a bug.

Saaskje.1264, Ravelli.8159 – you should be unstuck now.

It’s an interesting idea. I wonder if it would be one of those things where one person would want things organized a certain way, where someone else would prefer a different sorting. I know how much I appreciate the “compact” option, so sorting is an intriguing idea.

Using exp boosters does not affect play hours and thus does not affect world sizes.

Update 2/28/2017: A few days ago, we became aware that Play for Free accounts were inadvertently being given access to a Level 80 boost and a shared inventory slot, content normally reserved for players who purchase Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. We temporarily disabled these features in order to work on resolving the issue. Now that we’ve ascertained that the features are functioning as they should, we are re-enabled the Level 80 boost and the shared inventory slot for players who purchase Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. The Play For Free accounts that were given the untended features will be allowed to retain them. We appreciate your patience as we addressed the situation, and extend our thanks to those who reported it.

Oops, good point. Tracking issue.

Okay, pushed some changes today that should fix

• /v2/wvw/matches was erroneously being cached for 5 minutes; it’s now back to a 1-second cache (hooray for complicated cache code).
• /v2/wvw/matches.scores (and .map.scores) no longer count the current skirmish twice. The scores should properly represent the total scores.
• /v2/wvw/matches.map.objectives.last_flipped should be properly “null” when it’s never been flipped (rather than 2001-01-01).

As always, let me know when you find further issues

To clarify further this is the first week we are using this new algorithm. So some of the complaints that are being brought up were problems with the old algorithm.

We use play hours to determine the size. Rank gains is tracked for comparison purposes since they usually follow a similar curve, but isn’t actually used to determine the world size.

We have simulated other algorithms to measure world size and ultimately found that player hours gave us more accurate results because we are mostly comparing active WvW play. The past algorithms weighed more heavily on individual players, so we ended up with situations where JQ was ‘Full’ because they had a lot of players, just not necessarily ones that played as much as Blackgate.