Guild Wars 2

Correct! There is no risk, aside from loneliness, of being the sole member of a guild.

AP is correct. We know it’s not ideal; but sending us a ticket is the absolute best way to get us a bad guild name.

Did you get the auto-reply email? If yes, you’re all set.

If not, resubmit using an accessible email address for your contact address (The first question on the support request form).

The idea about the enrage timers is fairly interesting. This map is going to play a lot differently than the 2v2 or 3v3s you see in Forest/Foefire. There is a lot of terrain to LoS on, and it’s fairly easy to disengage and reset. Tyler Chapman and I have had some extended duels on the map, but there’s definitely more flavor in it than just going head-to-head on a flat plane.

When it comes to feedback (after you guys have had a chance to play it), I think the scoring is going to be an interesting subject. Is this going to be a one-life type of deal, or solely based on timer? First option gives you much more of an arena feel, second is more deathmatch. Good news is you can replicate a lot of these options with the existing custom arena settings.

Anyways, I look forward to seeing what you guys think once you get into the map. I’m sorry to hear that you’ll be gone for training, Cheri. We’ll see you when you get back.

As broad as some of the suggestions have been, I’m seeing a recurring theme echoed in this thread and the other ones that have been linked. I think I’ve got what I need.

Thanks, all!

We team up and play every Tuesday with our tags on. We swap between WvW and PvP, and will swap servers occasionally as well.

This is an equal opportunity tournament. Those that focus on PvE and WvW are absolutely welcome to sign up. This is not a PvE vs. PvP situation. What’s good for PvP is good for everyone.

And to clarify on a few things:

This tournament is being hosted by Mistpedia, similarly to the way PAX was done with Mist League. I have faith that Sireph, Blu, Shadowplasm, and their team will do a fantastic job, and we will be supporting them throughout the tournament. In hindsight, I should have emphasized that in the blog. Sorry about that!

There are going to be two tournaments. One for EU, and the following for NA. This means five Legendaries per region.

For those that don’t think they can compete in the tournament, you can also just tune in for a chance to win some shinies. No, we’ll not be giving viewers Legendaries, but it will definitely be worth watching.

Let’s hug it out!

I don’t like playing with my tag because it’s a beacon for targeting.

I’ve been in solo arenas, turned my tag on, and become the instant target for coordinated play. I’d play more with my tag on if this wasn’t the case.

Solo Arena:

• Hugh, 178
• Roy, 272,
• Evan, 428,
• Grouch, 876

Team Arena:

• Grouch, 67
• Roy, 309,
• Allie, 353 (wut?)
• Tyler B, 92%
• Hugh, 91%,
• Evan, 91%

I have seen Tyler and Hugh much higher (<500), they must be slacking. I’ve also seen Evan get into the top 1000 before as well.

Me, I suck… only in the 80%s, so :P

So, let’s say we wanted to look into decap engineer, where would we start? I’ve heard a few different opinions on the topic, and I have a few opinions of my own as someone who has played against decap in top 100 rated solo/team arena games and also played the build myself.

In the same way that it was difficult to look at the September ’13 Hambow warrior and point out a single specific key to its strength, I think decap engineer is much the same.

I think it’s important to understand the areas in our game where decap engineer is strong, and then go from there:

• Conquest
  • Situations where communication is difficult (solo arena)
  • Against teams that have difficulty rotating appropriately

So, with the above in mind, what are some ‘low-hanging fruit’ type of suggestions for changing the way decap engineer works, without affecting existing builds unrelated to decap? That is to say, suggestions that would not require significant amounts of development time to implement.

We’ve already seen a few threads on PW, so I’ll focus on decap for now. ^^

the sober ninja.6539:

Evan Lesh.3295:

This could be a couple of things: The default starting rating in comparison to the populations rating curve i.e Default rating is above/below average. Or the nature of the Glicko algorithm in how it tries to place you as fast as possible i.e you win your very very first game, you’ll shoot up in rating and face tougher opponents.

How long does the volatility last?

Just curious because it’s changing anyway(?).

There are a lot of variables. For instance if you don’t play for a while, your volatility will go up. With a big enough population, a new player can get a pretty stable rating very few games.

Sounds like a ladder
Did you participate in the Ladder CDI thread?

This could be a couple of things: The default starting rating in comparison to the populations rating curve i.e Default rating is above/below average. Or the nature of the Glicko algorithm in how it tries to place you as fast as possible i.e you win your very very first game, you’ll shoot up in rating and face tougher opponents.

Fanta.8049:

Evan Lesh.3295:

There are still 2 more Ready Up episodes before the patch, so that’s a thing.

Can i may ask any rework on ele’s scepter skills ? Fire AA is slow and terrible , Dragon Tooth is hard to land and easy to dodge ,Water 2 is totally useless . May Air 3 got some Dps and aoe blind like signet of air and staff air 2 ? Plz say yes , im dont want to stick with Fresh Air anymore ,when it is the best way to play scepter.

Maybe make a new thread for this.

clint.5681:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Malcastus.6240:

Amulet suggestion:
How about making the amulet and jewel each share the same capacity of stats (50% each, instead of 90/10 ratio), so more variations can be achieved? Currently the amulet is determining too much, some amulets only work properly for specific classes.

If the amulet and jewel have 50% of the stats each, it would open up for build diversity. WvW and PvE has it, but not SPvP. It’s the easy alternative to the combinations of jewelry and armor you get in WvW/PvE.

Its an interesting idea. I honestly don’t know how we came up with the standard distributions of stats we have. I know there was a thread a while ago about new stat combinations after ferocity was announced, maybe you could necro that thread.

Fluffball.8307:

Are you and Justin playing games on Anet servers late at night? Your posting suspiciously close together.

Programmers have secret telepathic links that less us share posting power.

Evan, not to be critical but it is an idea that has been brought up atleast 200 times since launch. I would at least hope you guys had looked into it by now

#Evanlesh4PrezandCeo2014

I’d say combos already in the game but not PvP should get priority, then we can start trying new hotness.

Nabbo.2845:

Evan Lesh.3295:

It’s an interesting idea to visually show selection areas, I can’t think of a game that has done this off the top of my head. However with any amount of overlapping characters that can be on the screen, this may not look so hot.

Is there a way we could better visually show who you would target if you clicked while hovering character models?

Simple – when the “O” goes over a player you could create a thin glow all around the target to create a distinction between the non-targeted ones. If there are multiple players within the circle, allow for tab selection between characters in the circle/approximate to the circle.

We definitely already glow targets when you hover them. I cannot describe the number of iterations of targeting we’ve gone through. It’s incredibly hard to get something that stand out in crowded fights that is still aesthetically pleasing. The two concepts are at odds

The comment I like most from what you said is that the scoreboard would only show a single match, while rank is a stat that comes from outside the match. It’s a worthwhile distinction.

Fluffball.8307:

Evan Lesh.3295:

It shall be done. If I can remember when I’m at my desk on Monday. Maybe.

Fluffball, can you think of some iconic way of showing health state in the UI?
The healthbar is pretty tiny, but it miiight be able to fit some text over it like “Downed”, “Defeated”, or “Deathshroud”. Though for other languages it may not fit. That could also make the actual health value hard to see.

Yup. No matter what type of color blindness people have, we can see shades really well (better than “normal” people.) So if a health bar is 100% white in one case and 40% white in a death shroud case, there is no mistaking it.

But pure color like the wurm pheromones or the WvW map is just not readable for many of us (BTW thanks to whoever upped the contrast on WvW colors several months ago.)

That’s pretty interesting. So how well can you read the shades of green used for the double healthbar while targeting a necro in deathshroud? The deathshroud color is a more desaturated green.

lol at the wvw colors. That partially an accident because wvw and pvp shared team colors. I quite like the newer blue. (maybe because I was the one that updated it)

Cons.7694:

That sounds good, but might be difficult to see if there are buffs on the player. What if we moved the icon to the left of the health bar?

You know, we don’t have to show level under the profession icon in PvP, we could hijack that screen space.

It’s an interesting idea to visually show selection areas, I can’t think of a game that has done this off the top of my head. However with any amount of overlapping characters that can be on the screen, this may not look so hot.

Is there a way we could better visually show who you would target if you clicked while hovering character models?

Cons.7694:

Rather than place the information inside the health bar itself, why not add some sort of frame around the character portrait (or class icon in simple mode)? It would be similar to the way veterans, champions and legendary NPCs have different portrait frames.

With the ‘Simple Party UI’ option turned on, I can’t imagine there being enough room between the text, health, and icon for a visually distinct border (if we’re trying to avoid colors).

We coooould however use the icon that shows up on the map and put it at the end of he healthbar. Skull for defeated, ankh for downed, something(?) for deathshroud.

We know all about how cool the scoreboard could be. Though as I’ve said before, it’s just not a high priority at the moment :/ I’d really like to see a live scoreboard for spectators like you see in other competitive games.

I also want to bring something up that is related as I’d like to see some discussion about it. We intentionally shipped the scoreboard without showing things like k:d ratios because it put unnecessary emphasis on certain aspects of the game and can lead to ridicule from other players. Just look at what putting ranks on the scoreboard at the end of the match has done. Almost every day there are posts about bad matchmaking where the complaint is purely speculation based on rank numbers when we know for a fact that it has nothing to do with matchmaking. I’m not taking a stance for or against showing more information, but I would like to hear some feedback on the subject.

It shall be done. If I can remember when I’m at my desk on Monday. Maybe.

Fluffball, can you think of some iconic way of showing health state in the UI?
The healthbar is pretty tiny, but it miiight be able to fit some text over it like “Downed”, “Defeated”, or “Deathshroud”. Though for other languages it may not fit. That could also make the actual health value hard to see.

Maybe the player name could change to add health state afterwards like:
“Bluxgore (Downed like a scrub.)”

We still have more announcements coming, so stay tuned.

Malcastus.6240:

Amulet suggestion:
How about making the amulet and jewel each share the same capacity of stats (50% each, instead of 90/10 ratio), so more variations can be achieved? Currently the amulet is determining too much, some amulets only work properly for specific classes.

If the amulet and jewel have 50% of the stats each, it would open up for build diversity. WvW and PvE has it, but not SPvP. It’s the easy alternative to the combinations of jewelry and armor you get in WvW/PvE.

Its an interesting idea. I honestly don’t know how we came up with the standard distributions of stats we have. I know there was a thread a while ago about new stat combinations after ferocity was announced, maybe you could necro that thread.

Fluffball.8307:

Are you and Justin playing games on Anet servers late at night? Your posting suspiciously close together.

Programmers have secret telepathic links that less us share posting power.

Believe in Evan. He’s the one’s that might be able to make this happen.

There are still 2 more Ready Up episodes before the patch, so that’s a thing.

glaphen.5230:

???You won a 4 vs 5 from the start? Was this hot join and not a queue or another failure in matchmaking putting a bunch of level 1-38s in a game of 40+s?

YoloQ. The teams were pretty even rank-wise. We were all 20-30s, they 20-30s with one in the 40s. We just had better point control. They got their act together near the end of the game, but by then it was just too late.

I had a match that started 4v5 today, we won but it’s still annoying.

We’re working on a solution that is both fair and, hopefully, doesn’t waste people’s time. Not ready to talk about the details yet, but I will say we have definitely incorporated a lot of the community’s feedback. Unfortunately, it won’t be in this feature build because it’s part of a major refactoring of our back-end systems.

DEDEN.2870:

There is no such thing as “horizontal progression” in any competitive environment. The very notion of such a concept is fundamentally naive.

Any complex system with so many interlocking mechanics will always have “better” or “best” options. Either they’re more powerful in terms of raw numbers, they’re more useful in a wider array of situations, they’re more tolerant of sloppy mechanical play, or some combination of all three.

snip…

I disagree because your argument seems to be that, essentially, that since perfection is impossible we shouldn’t even try.

The distinction between horizontal and vertical here is critical and I believe some people misunderstand it. When we say the progression is horizontal what we are really saying is that we will give our best attempt to balance things so they are approximately equal.

Yes we have and will make mistakes, but we will also try to correct those mistakes. I know people don’t like the current rate of balance changes, and we hear you, but that is another issue entirely.

Yes, high level players will find the best combinations. They already do, and have this advantage over new players. It’s one of the skills they’ve learned that makes them so effective.

DEDEN.2870:

I wouldn’t be surprised if this increased “barrier to entry” drove away many of the casual players completely. Even if it doesn’t, I expect a lot of them to become fairly bitter about being beaten by “op vet builds” or the like.

I don’t know what the outcome will be, but my intuition is that this will help. That said, we’re not so married to this idea that we wouldn’t change it if it wasn’t working. That is one of the things I love most about this company, we’re willing to shake things up to continually try to improve.

Rezz.8019:

Justin can you please explain what exactly is the point of having those unlockable traits?

Why is it so important to have that? Why do you think it is so necessary for the game?

I’m sure the designers have lots of reasons why they took this approach over others. They have to factor in other game modes, impact on the economy, new player experience, and more.

Personally, I like setting goals and working toward them. The rush of excitement when I finally reach a goal is one of the things that drives me, not just in game but in real-life as well.

So this sort of progression really gels with me. This one system (traits) by itself probably wouldn’t be enough to satiate players like myself, but when taken as part of the broader whole, its just what I’d like to see.

I understand not everyone feels this way, and I truly hope that it isn’t so much an inconvenience to those players. That said, I’m really glad they put something in for people like me.

isolatedchimp.2510:

Can you explain the reason for these unlocks to be character bound rather than account bound for PVP? In PVE I can understand but PVP I just can’t think of why you’d do it that way.

I don’t know the reasoning behind it. Personally, I would prefer account-bound unlocks, but I know there is a segment of the community that prefer character unlocks… strange as that may seem.

We do listen, so do share your thoughts (perhaps in another thread) on why you believe account-bound unlocks would be better for the game and better for players.

Update: 21 March 2014

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464071 – An agent responded yesterday and this ticket is still in the queue for review.
461911 – Under review. We apologize for the delay in responding.
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Update: 21 March 2014

453596 – We want to help, but your friend has not written back to verify his ownership of the account. Please have him respond to the e-mail of March 14th.
434729 – So sorry, this was misrouted. We’ve updated the ticket internally and pressed for as swift an answer as possible.
464071 – An agent responded yesterday and this ticket is still in the queue for review.
461911 – Under review. We apologize for the delay in responding.
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462231 – Under review. We apologize for the delay in responding.
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460821 – Three tickets. Do not submit duplicate tickets. Final answer: This has been reviewed multiple times and having been given a second chance, the account will not be reinstated.
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clint.5681:

Do you guys honestly not think of stuff like that on your own or do you just agree to please people?

Honestly? No, I don’t think of stuff like that. I’m not a designer, and I’m not on the team that is doing this work. My work day consists of figuring out how to get all the 1s and 0s in the right places at the right time.

I can’t speak for other people, but I would not be surprised if they already have thought of this. We have a very talented bunch of people here, and they’re constantly debating ideas. It’s hard for me to keep up with it all.

runeblade.7514:

ANet already catered to the people who wants progression in PvP, and it has been there since launch. It is called WvW. I don’t like the progression in WvW, so I rather go into sPvP instead.

A few things:
1) WvW has both vertical and horizontal progression. sPvP will never have much of what you see in WvW. That isn’t our target because it just doesn’t work for sPvP.
2) WvW isn’t there to cater to those that want a sense progression and attainment, (the whole game serves that purpose,) it’s there for those players that love grand-scale combat with large groups.
3) I hope the changes we’re introducing don’t make sPvP unenjoyable for you, but please keep in mind we have to consider a wide range of preferences and play styles.

Pyriall.5027:

Justin…why are there no unlocks through pvp content. Why is it always a one way street in favor of pve?

I’m all for that idea! Traits or what-have-you being only unlockable through PvP (or through coins) sounds like a great idea. Will have to mention it to the Skills and Combat team.

Lord Kuru.3685:

…but it doesn’t matter whether you call it horizontal or vertical progression. If new players start out kitten relative to veteran players, then you are violating your former philosophy of level playing field for all.

I agree with you, but will say that it is our stated intent that this be horizontal only, which means everything new must be balanced against the existing. It is something we will need to be vigilant about.

Proven.2854:

It’s being run by Mistpedia and Blu is involved. If it doesn’t get livestreamed it’ll be because a meteor landed on him.

This made me laugh out loud. Very true. ^^

Jamais vu.5284:

Fallacy. That is because GW2 frankly isn’t even close to being a (s)PvP centered game, there’s very little to do and it’s very barebones, and due to that there’s only a tiny hardcore PvP scene left that plays only or mostly PvP.

This is the exact demographic you’re scaring away with changes like this.

This is not a fallacy, but I get what you are trying to say. That we only have so few competitive players because we aren’t catering to them, which in turn causes us to focus on them even less, and so on and so forth. The data just doesn’t fit your argument though. Players that play all game-modes have always vastly outnumbered PvP-only players. The trend between the two groups is nearly identical.

We can certainly do more to attract competitive players, and we plan too. We also don’t try to exclude our PvP-only players. I understand it may seem that way right now because we are trying to broaden the base with these changes.

Geniekid.2645:

unlocking a trait in PvE should also unlock it in PvP, right?

Correct. Unlocking a trait in PvE will also unlock it in PvP, and vice versa.

evilapprentice.6379:

The problem here is that Anet is saying “Trust us, this will be awesome”, and Anet has set a very poor precedent for trust. Nearly every time they’ve asked for the playerbases trust, they’ve betrayed it.

I’m truly sick of Anet telling me as a player “Trust us, this is what you want”, when the vast majority of players have made it clear that No, this is NOT what we want. In fact, more often than not its the EXACT kittenING OPPOSITE of what we want. It’s like being in an abusive relationship, and I’m looking forward to getting out of it.

That isn’t aimed at you personally Justin – thanks for always taking the time to respond calmly and politely, it is appreciated – it’s just unfortunate that Anet’s position is so consistently opposite the desires of the majority of the community.

Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m sorry you feel that way. Do keep in mind that this is just one more additional progression system. This may not be exactly what you are hoping for, but it may be what someone else enjoys.

We will have more to talk about regarding rewards soon™.

EverythingEnds.4261:

snip

1. Yes, this is somewhat of a pivot on our part, but I believe we are still holding true to our philosophy because this is a horizontal progression system. Every player is still equal in potential power as it is only the range of choice that is variable between players. Though, I will admit that there is potential for mistakes that cause temporary imbalances, but this is concern that goes beyond the scope of just this system.

If you’re worried about imbalances, hold us to our word when we make balance mistakes.

2. I disagree, but I do believe I understand where you are coming from. You have to understand that different people have different values and that we can’t cater to everyone, though we certainly try to do the best job we can.

3. I do not know the current plan, but the changes you suggested would be the same in kind.

4. A legitimate concern. It would be a worthwhile to debate (in another thread) just how expensive these unlocks should be. As I understand it though, we try to tune the price by the time it takes, so that paying in gold takes just as long as obtaining it through PvE.

Do you think PvP doesn’t make enough money? That’s fine, lets talk about that in another thread.

5. Another valid point. We will be in a better place to discuss this once the details of the new reward system are announced.

Please note that we do not allow Match-up threads on the Guild Wars 2 forum. You can read about our forum changes here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Guild-Wars-2-Forum-Moderation-Updates
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Upcoming-Forum-Changes-to-WvW-Match-ups-Sub-forum

Constant.7498, These questions can be answered in next weeks Ready Up.

Yes, please. Do report anything you think is a bug. You can do so via the Game Bugs forum: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs .
Or, you can report them in-game from the Support Menu. Thanks!

Hey all,

So I sent this thread to the dev team to get some answers for you, and here’s what we’ve got!

When the tournament starts, world ratings are used to sort the initial matchups. This will include the results of the match ending on March 28th.

Matchups will not function in the same manner as they did in Season 1; The initial round of the tournament will match the worlds in each league according to their world rating. After that round has ended, worlds will be matched up according to how many points they have in the tournament. This will continue after each round, which means that the matchups are not predetermined but are dependent upon the results of the previous matchups. If two teams have the same number of points, the team with the higher world rating will be considered the higher seed for the purposes of the matchup. Matchups will continue to match worlds that are close to each other in performance, rather than following a predetermined schedule – which will make for much more exciting and competitive matches. (I stole that from Devon’s blog :P)

Match-end bonus world chests will continue to exist on a weekly basis; 3 for 1st, 2 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd. Additionally, every unlocked achievement in the WvW Tournament category will yield a reward. The overall tournament rewards (tickets), however, will not be distributed until the conclusion of the Tournament.

Hopefully that clears up some confusion!

Those were the high level changes, meaning we didn’t get into all the details for each profession (each and every # change), each weapon, each skill, etc. We were just trying to move through a lot of info in the Ready Up, so we didn’t get down into each and every # change for every class. That would be more of a detailed list you’d expect from game release notes for a release, for example.

Some of you have asked why we haven’t focused on fixing the issues already in the game. A lot of things have been fixed, but some concerns you guys have like with PW, HS, decap engi, etc. we decided to wait and see how the new traits will affect the meta.

This does not mean that we aren’t open to adjusting them.

Ultimately, we knew we wanted to add some more traits, so we wanted to focus on trying to make those good and then we can revisit them if they are still an issue. Does that make sense?

LOL! Stinky warriors.

As we explained previously, those notes were a conglomeration of the balance preview previously released and things made up by other people.