Guild Wars 2

An update I just posted:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Update-Alliance-Supplies-Found-Items

As of March 18th, Alliance Supplies will stop dropping and you will not be able to receive any new Found Belongings or Found Heirlooms. Related to this, you will no longer be able to turn in Found Belongings and Found Heirlooms for items.

Adding some of the update notes for the 3/18 build to hopefully clear up some confusion.

• We’re adding small, medium, and large rank reward boxes based on rank achieved. This means that ranking up in PvP now gives different types of boxes than previously.
• We’re adding PvP specific back pieces to the reward glory vendor (guild tabards)
  • We’re switching them from rank vendors to glory vendors, and are keeping rank vendors.
• We’re moving rank points gained from the win chests from the win chests at the end of Solo and Team arenas. This means no more bounce chests. Rewards will go directly to the scoreboard now and will be rewarded at the end of the match.
• We removed the PvP armor/weapon chests received when you rank up to replace with the rank boxes mentioned above.
• Players will still have glory and some of their boosters but not be able to earn any more.
• All rank glory vendors will be staying in the game until the feature build.

Hey guys, we actually have an update that is very relevant to this and should hopefully answer some questions. I’ll be adding this to the FAQ sticky.

• We’re adding small, medium, and large rank reward boxes based on rank achieved. This means that ranking up in PvP now gives different types of boxes than previously.
• We’re adding PvP specific back pieces to the reward glory vendor (guild tabards)
  • We’re switching them from rank vendors to glory vendors, and are keeping rank vendors.
• We’re moving rank points gained from the win chests from the win chests at the end of Solo and Team arenas. This means no more bounce chests. Rewards will go directly to the scoreboard now and will be rewarded at the end of the match.
• We removed the PvP armor/weapon chests received when you rank up to replace with the rank boxes mentioned above.
• Players will still have glory and some of their boosters but not be able to earn any more.
• All rank glory vendors will be staying in the game until the feature build.

Let’s be clear, I am only talking about slight polish to sound effects, and not about the gameplay of the encounter whatsoever. I can’t, nor would I want to change anything about the tactics or strategies that players would use when fighting the boss.

Also, I don’t want this thread to be entirely about pets. We’ve seen a ton of great feedback about them, and I would like to hear more about utilities that need help (and aren’t viable unless spec’d into) as I haven’t seen as much on that front!

Thanks all

Ok guys, just wanted to clarify a few things.

Permastow is not impossible. I never meant to give that impression, so I apologize if I did. However, as far as priorities go for the Ranger, it is not high on the list. Why? Because it would require an entire re-balance of Ranger, but if we re-balanced, then the players that do play with the pet would be OP. See the dilemma there?

The reason why I latched onto the aspect idea was because it was an option that seemed we could maybe work around. Rather than having to rebalance the whole class, we’d just have to balance the aspects to be similar to what the pet does damage-wise. That seemed a little more viable.

Do keep in mind though, I am not a designer. I am a community coordinator. It is my job to help promote constructive discussion and make sure the devs know about how the community is feeling.

I will say this, though. I have seen some ideas blossom in the game that came directly from the community. We do listen to your feedback. Sometimes we modify and tweak the numbers a bit, but we definitely listen.

You guys really inspire us with your constructive feedback, which is why I’m always trying to emphasize the importance of it.

;)

Update of the ‘Six Minutes to Knightfall’ achievement: we’ve identified the issue and are currently working on a fix. Thank you for the information on only two people from the successful maps getting the achievement, that was the final clue we needed! I’ll keep this thread updated as we work on the fix.

You guys should hop into the Ranger CDI and say this stuff. Most of the Rangers feel that pets are actually not very helpful. It’s interesting how the feedback differs so greatly between this thread and that one!

Thanks for the feedback!

While the sounds of player combat is likely loud during these encounters, as designers we try to take this into account when mixing our boss battles.

Scarlet’s prime hologram does have an audio-visual tell for when it is going to do its close AOE attack (sounds like a laser beam charging up), which I know I could definitely hear during the fight, but that particular sound for the tell is not extremely intense or anything. Similarly, the Assault Knights have an audio-visual tell for the AOE pull as well (it launches up with a huge blast out of its jetpack).

As for Giganticus Lupicus, it’s been a long time since that boss has been given any attention design-wise, and it’s on a list of bosses I have saved somewhere, a to-do list of bosses to spruce up, so I would say that one is a known-issue.

Thank you for your reports on this achievement. We are aware of the issues players have been having with ‘Six Minutes to Knightfall’ achievement not awarding and we are still investigating the cause. Please see this thread for updates on the issue:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/escape/Battle-for-Lion-s-Arch-Open-Issues-and-Tips/first

We have been tracking the reports of the issues with ‘Six Minutes to Knightfall’ not awarding and we are still investigating the issue… It is quite the elusive problem, even with the information and screenshots we’ve received from players. We have not, however, dismissed the issue and I will keep this thread updated as we work on a solution.

Where are you? I need at least a map name, and a waypoint/poi to pinpoint the location would help.

There have been far too many proposals here for me to directly comment on each of them, so I’m going to try and take a broader stab at things.

Firstly, something that I’ve seen in more than one proposal and something that we just can’t do in our game, is the idea of consolidating maps or making larger maps. It is a problem on multiple fronts, but the most obvious issue is that we simply can’t fit more players onto a map than we already have, so even if we were to make a larger map, we couldn’t have a corresponding increase in the number of players on that map. Proposals that rely on that idea are simply untenable.

The discussion point, proposal, whatever you want to call it, that I think is the most useful in terms of designing WvW maps and gameplay is the talk about how to build objectives that feel like they make tactical sense. I think that it is something that could definitely be improved in a new map or with a major rework to the current maps. Having logical and tactical objectives, like a tower guarding a canyon, is something that I think would greatly improve WvW in terms of moment to moment gameplay and longer term tactical gameplay.

That somewhat feeds into a larger issue that is outside the bounds of this particular topic which is defending objectives. It is absolutely the case that we have a hard time correctly tracking defense and rewarding players for it. It is something that we’d like to address on a system level and something that we hope to have a solution for across the board before we do any piecemeal changes. It ultimately comes down to a similar issue to that with the dolyaks, which is that the game isn’t able to track who is escorting a dolyak unless they do something like kill another player which doesn’t usually happen. Until we fix that gap in the game’s knowledge of what is going on, we can’t accurately reward players.

Both of the above things are ways to substantially change the necessity of tactics in the game and to make WvW more about well-organized groups. That’s something we still aim for when we make changes to the game.

One final note about the CDI generally, I’ve said it before and will say it again, the purpose of these threads is to discuss design not to create a work order. What we discuss here is not a promise but an avenue for us to discuss our views on aspects of the game with you all. That means we challenge each others assumptions and hopefully come to a better understanding of what will make GW2 better. Some times that manifests in things we talk about being made and sometimes it manifests in us having a better vision for other things we are working on. I hope that correctly sets expectations about things here. Thanks for contributing as it makes us better designers and hopefully means GW2 will be better off in the long run.

titanlectro.5029:

Devon,

I’d be really interested to get your feedback on the following:
1) any proposals that stick out to you, and what you do or do not like about them
2) our answers to your questions

I realize that you are getting useful feedback from us, but it would be nice for us to get some more feedback from you also.

Let me take some time to organize my thoughts about that, but yes, that is a good point.

Thanks for putting in the time to write this up! The designers spend a lot of time researching other games, so what you said is very similar to discussions one might hear internally.

I dunno if anything will come of it, but I’m going to point the guys in your direction since your post is so constructive!

Absinth.6917:

I posted the essence of this on another thread but I’ll get right to the point.

When will ,you, the Anet pvp dev’s grow some dang balls? (yourself excluded Allie)

By this I mean when will you shake up the current “meta”?

I’m not talking about slight changes to observable metrics. I speak of a complete overhaul. Give us something fresh! Obviously new game modes are out the window or at the very least on the distant horizon. IE. Mars….

So my true question would be this:

Can you effectively disrupt any current “meta” on a monthly basis?

If you dared to do such a thing you would cure GW2 of the current stagnation that we are all experiencing barring new game modes.

For better or worse if you could shake up the “meta” on a monthly basis; encouraging me to play unfamiliar classes or unused trait lines (builds) to be optimally effective then you have my attention. Perhaps you might come close to that gamer utopia that we call “balance”.

Or do we as pvp’rs not garner such consideration from Anet?

edit – oh wait this is a meet and greet BS session. I apologize. So my question would be this Allie….

Boxers or briefs?

We expect the feature build to sufficiently shake up the current meta. There will be lots… of fresh… stuff…

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before. We tried to bring you guys consistent updates, but as you noticed not all of them really shook up the meta. The upcoming build will do a better job at that for you. Hopefully in a good way.

I’m going to try to answer as many of these questions as possible, but keep in mind that some of this stuff we can’t talk about.

Oh, and I want to add to my last post:

Everybody can simply roll over their buttons and play a class well enough, but when you start to get to the higher tiers that doesn’t fly as much. You need to time your stuns/condis/stability/heals/etc. if you want to “play with the big boys.”

I know that there are some specs right now that are particularly spammy, though. We’re hoping that some of the changes we make in the feature build will help with a lot of that. One step at a time!

Nike.2631:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

I get frustrated by the simple lack of synergy between skills. When you play a condi-necro and can dance through your buttons to put a bleed on the target & yourself with utility, then use your off-hand to move your bleed to them, then use a utility to copy all those bleed to all enemies in the area while putting conditions on yourself, then use your heal to cleanse those conditions and gain bonus healing for doing so… you know that playing those out of order or having to respond to changing circumstances will affect your performance.

Compared to that, ranger gameplay is just dull. You occasionally can stack up a few ‘on next hit’ buffs to pump a single maul, but their weapon skills and utilities mostly feel like oatmeal. There is no difference in what happens if I cast my traps in different orders. there’s no combos, no special order or special timing for many, many Ranger skills.

As a general statement there are also far too many ranger traits that reduce cooldown and nothing else – in other professions we’ve seen a steady march towards combing the 20% cooldown with a secondary flavorful effect. Rangers have good effects but they are spread out across too many traits. A little combining or making certain effcts default behavior of the class would go a long way towards injecting not just raw power, but some cool into a class that sorely needs it.

I don’t think anybody questions that some classes, or should I say specs, are easier to play than others.

I do think the ones that are easier to play shouldn’t be so rewarding, though. It’s hard to balance that correctly in our game right now, though.

I’ll make a note to bring up the trait discrepancies.

Maintenance

• After some maintenance, Twilight Arbor’s story mode is now available again.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I just hope that we’ve made clear that the pet is indeed promoting the beastmaster playstyle, but criples all other playstyles.

Definitely valid! I’ll note that for our discussions.

DeceiverX.8361:

Sure, the ranger is designed to have a pet. That doesn’t mean it should be a constant requirement. Having so many utility skills and traits tied to the pet makes the class unique. Whether or not players wish to really explore this option for damage augmentation should be on them. Just like Warrior’s Adrenaline and Thief’s Steal mechanics, those can be built around, are always available, but are not REQUIRED. A 30% damage penalty at the cost of something players may not wish to build around is simply too strict, and honestly, is just bad design. This is especially because there are no alternatives to an archer. Longbow warrior/shortbow thief are simply inadequate archers from many perspectives and this leads into another fallacy.

A massive source of complaints revolves around the fact that there exists no viable archer role in the game, and has nothing to do with the pet dependency. Simply, the pet is a style of play and a flavor addition, just as is being a heavy warrior with a big weapon, a nimble assassin, a mage, or in this case an ARCHER. Yes, the issues with pets can be resolved by potential updating, but it doesn’t solve the inherent design flaw which forces a style of play upon players while denying them another. Pets being optional resolves both conflicts, especially if they are buffed such that beastmasters and pet users/pets in general retain their usefulness/utility while blatantly denying dedicated archer/DPS roles. The reason why pet removal has so much support is a combination of the notions that rangers in general want more viability/consistency, and players wanting to play a dedicated archer (or light/medium armor skirmisher in fewer cases).

I hope this helps explain the origins behind why so many players want the option to remove the pet. Simply, the alternative play styles need to be considered somewhere in the game, and that either means reworking thief to allow for a longbow/new weapon implementation while also reworking ranger to fix pets, or simply re-working the ranger class (which is obviously less work than both classes) to make literally everyone happy and resolve all of the current class problems.

Thanks for your dedication and I hope you take this post more seriously when trying to evaluate the credibility of the insight regarding pet removal/stowing.

All fair points. It seems a lot of people feel the same way. I have made sure, and will continue to, point out that the community wants a class that is like Ranger (archer) without pets, or even with more reliable pets.

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Fancy Fool.1743:

I have to wonder if people are serious about some of these suggestions or if it’s just an emotional reaction. You can’t suggest good design on an emotional, upset premise. You have to think about logistics and the developer’s core goal with the design. I think the problem Allie faces is that the OP didn’t draw the line solidly enough to curb posts born of bitterness and resentment instead of clear-headed design.

Having a CDR Ranger Balance thread chuck full of emotional outcries doesn’t help the Ranger profession, guys. The best way to have got results from this was to simply suggest great, REASONABLE design changes or buffs. Or playing the ball in the court they want and talking more about what you want from the pet AI instead of trying to kick it aside. There are many no-pet suggestion threads you could have gone to respectfully.

Please, this is no emotional uprise, atleast for the most part. The AI is broken and it will stay broken. There are many good suggestions about how to bypass the AI.
Fact is, that the AI will never be as potent, that the damage of the ranger will be
on a competitve level. An AI can serve many purposes. Dealing mandatory damage is none of those.

We’re generally pretty good at picking out the posts that are well-thought out feedback vs. knee-jerk or emotional reactions.

I do want to say though, just because it’s an emotional reaction doesn’t make it invalid. Some have been unhappy with the balance of the class for a long time, so I think reacting emotionally is very human and I don’t fault them for it.

A lot of my job actually involves “translating” how the players are feeling, and trying to read between the lines whenever they are heavy with emotion. We want to know the core of the issue so we can try to fix it!

cainejw.7142:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Think of it this way: You’re building a house and a 2×4 breaks while you’re trying to screw it in to something. Do you scrap the house and completely rebuild it because that one piece broke, or do you grab a new 2×4 and use that instead? Which do you think would be more efficient?

What I’ve been seeing a lot of is that you guys don’t necessarily dislike pets. What you dislike is how they act and how they are controlled. It seems to me that these are feelings that have been built up over time, and have culminated into “pets have to go” because you guys haven’t seen the improvements that should be made to pets to make them desirable. I certainly don’t blame you for getting to this point, but I do want to know the core of the problem before we start talking about rebalancing an entire class.

Not to be rude, but that analogy is horrible. The pet is not like a 2×4 breaking. As you’ve said, the ranger is balanced around the pet. This would be akin to a load-bearing wall giving way. The ranger pet holds up the ranger class and equalizes the load.

So what do we do? Replace the load bearing beam (here the pet) with a more functional beam, or do you just tell people to work around it and don’t look at it because you know it’s a broken beam, but you’ll get to it someday.

This is where rangers are. The load bearing beam has rotted. The structure is drooping. The foundation is not absorbing the load to continue keeping the house upright.

And you’re saying, “We’ll get to it eventually, but we won’t remove the beam. It’s a good beam.”

No, it’s a bad beam.

Fair enough. I don’t disagree with what you guys are saying, I’m just trying to help you understand the gravity of the suggestion. Didn’t mean for everyone to get so fixated on that part.

DarksunG.9537:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Also, you guys can’t see this due to the limitations of formatting on our forums, but a lot of these points were made by many of you guys. As such, they are much more emphasized in the email threads and discussions we have internally.

Allie Has there been any feedback from the team on making Pets more unique? Dyable, Armor, packs, something more about the visual customization?

I wasn’t a part of the discussions for initial design of pets, but I will ask about this. I can say that adding armor or anything visual for that matter can take a long time (think of all the pets there are, and the specific movement each of them have, it’s a long process!).

Because this thread has veered away from polite, respectful feedback, it will now be closed.

Next RU is this Friday at 12. I’ll be posting details on it hopefully tomorrow, if not by Wednesday.

We want to do an All-Star scrimmage and are still trying to get in touch with some of the players.

We are currently working on the difficulty of the Assault Knight fights; I realize that sometimes its hard to get a full overflow or that there are non peak hours where server populations will be lighter. Hopefully with the difficulty changes, it will also make it easier for a good server to get ‘Six Minutes to Knightfall’.

Thank you for reporting this, we realize that is is difficult to get full maps during non peak hours or that it is hard to get a full overflow to coordinate for these fights, we are currently working on easing the difficulty of the Assault Knight fights to better allow servers to participate in the Hologram Fight.

Hey guys,

If you don’t mind, could you keep this GW2 or Community Coordinator related?

Thanks

We welcome all forms of feedback, both positive and negative, as long as it is respectful and constructive. You are welcome to re-post your feedback in a respectful, constructive manner. Want to know how to give good feedback? Read this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/How-to-Give-Good-Feedback

Quick note: I am up to date and am finding most of the posts valuable as is the team.

Note i am still recovering and reading in between being asleep and awake.

I will be closing the thread soon and providing a summary. Probably Wednesday.

Chris

Accusing players of being abusive is not allowed on the forums. If you feel a player is abusive in-game, please report them using the in-game ticketing system so our Customer Support team can properly investigate the issue and take any appropriate action. Thank you.

Temporarily stickied for great justice! But seriously, this is great information and helpful to the community.

As Colin mentioned in this blog post, “Due to the size and scope of the final four story releases in season one, the next round of major features will be bundled together into a large “feature only” release that will come after the first season of the Living World 2014 has finished.”

More information on this feature release will come available after the current living world arc wraps up.

Hey all,

It’s come up a couple times now that a number of you don’t know me very well, or don’t know what I work on. So, for the next episode of Ready Up, I’m going to introduce myself and answer questions from you!

I have a bunch in my inbox already, but if you haven’t already asked, feel free to do so here.

Thanks!

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

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

Odds are you’ve already completed it and been rewarded, but when a new POI was added during the November Living Story, your map completion dropped below 100%. Completing the map a second time does not give you another reward chest.

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

Hi Flash,

Most laptops with a discrete and an onboard graphics card will usually show the Intel card in the DxDiag first. However, if you scroll down to where it says “System Devices” in the DxDiag you should see the Nvidia card listed. This does not mean that the client is not using your Nvidia card, and so is there some other reason why you think your Nvidia card isn’t being used?

Imperios.2543:

I shall also note that bosses also need to speak as well so that they would have actual personalities. I mean, no Toxic or Molten Alliance member has so much as a name!

This is actually feedback for the Living World writing/design teams. There’s nothing that the audio department can actually do to address this. Please head on over to the Living World subforums and offer some suggestion feedback when you have a moment.

Hello Mad Queen,

Not all attacks made by bosses need to be audibly telegraphed ahead of time in order for players to know they need to react to them. For instance, bosses can use instant skills and there is no telling when they may fire. Another example is the case where there is nothing visually to tie the sound to since something has to sensibly make the sound, it can’t be placed in arbitrarily just before a boss uses any of its skills.

However, bosses sometimes have a strong visual tell for their attack (such as a warmup of some kind). We agree with you, that often these types of attacks need audio tells to coincide with them—and in so many cases they do already have one.

Which boss were you fighting that didn’t have a clearly audible tell for a warmup-type attack? Unless your report is made specific, there is very little chance of audio-tell bugs getting a fix.

Hey everybody,

The Twilight Arbor dungeon Story mode will inaccessible until further notice due to maintenance operations.

Thanks for your patience and apologies for the inconvenience.

Ah ha, you brought me to my next question xantosnightwish, when should balance patches come in relation to the season? If we had our perfect world, how often would balance patches happen and how would that affect the duration of a season? Some people have suggested fairly lengthy seasons which is at odds with more frequent balance patches. If a balance patch comes out should there be a waiting period before the season begins? If so, how long?