Guild Wars 2

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Nike,

I really don’t understand why you think i am defending or justifying anything. I am discussing and listening to the feedback and folding that into actions as necessary.

I’m sorry. Truthfully, I don’t want to dwell on Scarlet. I have much, much more fun when we’re talking about Dynamic Events. (Something you may want to consider calving off into a new Collaborative discussion thread to ease the reading burden of everyone – I don’t think we’ve established a rule yet that there can’t be two open and running at once . Among other things it would allow you to bring the two topics to closure separately.))

Because scarlet is largely dead to me, I’m on to the post mortem in my thinking. When I say things to the effect of ‘a great ending cannot be used to defend/justify a weak start’ I’m already looking forward to the next volume. NEXT TIME, I hope we see the lessons learned here applied from the outset. Then we can find all-new plot potholes to trip over .

My point is very simple, which is that i agree with much of the foundational feedback regarding the dynamic of story within the living world, but that there is a lot of info, plans, and goals that the discussion group is currently unaware of. Thus my point is it is better not to turn assumptions into hard facts and this will lead to less valuable discussion. My point isn’t about the performance of what happens as this arc plays out, it is about what we are learning based on the facts in hand. And of course we are listening.

I imaging that last section seems to you like a near-echo of things you’ve said before, but for me, just now, I get it. Finally. I think I missed the intent to shape discussion as we move forward. While I’ll try to rein in my urge to froth at the mouth when a certain ginger-topped anti-heroine comes up, we are a bit of a handicap talking about the future of the Living Story in any concrete fashion: we don’t know the future, and you can’t talk about it.

Analyzing highs and lows to date I get. I’m just not sure how to offer anything forward-facing other than “I hope to get back to wrecking face on the Elder Dragons.” Or “I hope that the scale of the Living Stories is ratcheted back, while the intimacy and the commitment I feel towards it improves.”

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I hope you can appreciate this as i appreciate your dialogue and understand that when it looks like a point has hit home, it probably has.

Chris

((puts down sledgehammer))

Oh good. Because it’s exhausting belaboring the point sometimes .

I’m sure you know from my fondness for ‘Second Chances’ as a narrative tool, I’m a big fan of the heroism embodied by persistence…

Your efforts here have been heroic. Thank you.

I think i can do better to explain. Honestly your response is excellent, but i need to remember that i have a lot more info than others and that i should provide more context when i make a high level point. I will do better to stay cognoscente of this.

Your input to the discussion has been great Nike,

Chris

Umrae — I have no idea why you were blocked, and you should not have been. The character was uncensored but the suspension was not lifted, for which I apologize.

You should be good to go now and again, I’m sorry for this mistake and thank you for bringing it to our attention. (I also responded to your ticket, just to tidy things up completely. )

Responded today and it appears your account has been reset by Support and you should be good to go!

We don’t randomly block accounts, because we do understand that people move, take vacations, visit family in a distant location, get deployed, etc. If an account is blocked it’s for activity related to the account, such as advertising gold sales, delivering gold, cheating, etc.

You might have been flagged in error for a disallowed activity, but as you learned, we will review and reinstate, when that is merited.

If you add authentication — and that’s always a good idea — you can approve or disapprove access through email or your smart phone from any location, and there should be no issues whatsoever with playing from wherever you are deployed or stationed.

Umrae — thanks for your detective work. I see that this answered AnAspieKitten’s question, and they will be able to sort out the decision of which server to choose between the two guild members.

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

That the story line around Scarlet has been flat, specifically no clear angle toward goal or resolution.

Ah! Thank you. I get it now.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

And in regard to your second question as it relates to my above point. It is safe to say that goals and trajectory toward resolution are not clear yet outside of Arena. There are clues however.

I miss clues sometimes, so maybe there will be a point when we’re looking back over the first… ‘volume’ lets call it, of the Living Story and all these little tidbits will fall into place. I’ve seen it done well in Doctor Who, but I’ve gotta warn ya, in my experience its a hard structure to pull off entertainingly.

One thing for sleuths better than me to ponder: In the Scarlet invasions, the portals shared graphics with the Steam-monsters portals. There is a Portal in Kessex Hills right now delivering Toxic Forces into an area SE of the Tower of Nightmares. It has a very different graphic, showing somewhere… new. You might want to hang around there and take a look. I’ll try to grab a screenie latter.

[sidebar]
If the Devs are still podering ‘rewards for participation in Collaborative Discussion’, I admit I’d take a laurel and about 2,000 luck credited to my account – I’ve spent a LOT of time typing when I could have been logged in with the spore-zergs .
[/end sidebar]

No worries Nike regarding your first comment, i could do a better job of explanation sometimes.

For example, when i referred to clues being there my point is that i believe that whilst clues are cool because they can instill a great sense of player engagement and theory crafting, we need to do a better job of exposition and context in relation to Living World storytelling. An area that we have been improving in and intend to continue doing so.

Chris

Jaken.6801:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi,

I do have opinions (-: however i have lost some time today that i thought i had. Basically i want to feedback on the DE discussion and get more time to read what people liked and didn’t like about the events they have played. With this is mind it would be awesome for these discussions to continue if folks still have anymore insights or discussion points?

And as soon as i get some more time i will get into the discussion again.

Chris

Which events are you talking about? Just to clarify, so we can answer more properly:
LS events or DEs?

There is quite a difference here, since the DEs are the ones we have always access to, while the LS ones are only temporary (for the most part) and have a different influence on how we relate to them.

As many are “grindy”, they need many people, however if the masses aren`t there, you might realize that they aren`t fun.

That said. I prefer events that have a meaning, a story, a reason for me helping in the area. Better is if i not only get my little “bling, here is your money and karma” but actually see something happening afterwards.
It doesn`t have to be a new quest, but the person i helped actually doing something at the place i left him. Doing a little jiggle, starting to talk with someone to give some more information.
Maybe talk about the “adventure” he had, as i protected him from something.

there are events like this in game. Some don`t even give you credit, however you are able to experience them. Best example is the ghost Dolyak. I love this little bit.

Events are nice, loot is nice, however i also enjoy the little nuances sourounding the perpetual slaughter our heroes are commiting to get their shiny.

LS events feel cheap now, because they are mostly old events with “new mechanics” tossed in.
They started great though. One of my favourite is still the scavenger hunt for Mad King Thorns Book, or the (sadly buggy) one for the perpetrator with the first soutsun event….

However i just noticed… These “events” and our archievments right now are something very familiar…
These are traditional quests. We have a start, we get our “mission” in the archievment panel or from our flavor-story-character of the patch and then we do and like it.

And i don`t mind. So yeah, what do you mean by events?

Good point!

Continuation of discussions in regard to the Dynamic Event evolution discussions.

And secondarily continuation of discussion around the communities favorite and least favorite LW Events.

Good call,

Chris

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Also please also be aware that there is a lot of judgment around Scarlet when the arc has not completed yet. I agree with many of the points being made at a foundational level but please don’t assume that the direction of the arc is understood by all just yet.

You have to give up on that as a justification/defense.

It doesn’t matter if the ending is amazing if half your audience has tossed the book in the trash by the second chapter. Half being generous if the posted reaction to Scarlet is in any way representative. It’s like watching an M. Night Shayamalan flick – there is so much focus on ‘the twist’ that the fundamentals of storytelling get abandoned. You get a terrible movie in the first two reels and the third reel cannot reverse that no matter how clever.

We can already see the text portions of the dialogue in ToN – things you can change on a short lead time – trying to adapt to feedback. Believe me, I noticed. And I’m sure you’ll continue to struggle to salvage the credibility and improve impact of the Living Story as you work through those parts that are too far along to change course entirely. It is a learning experience. But sometimes the solidarity you are showing to past efforts makes it hard for us to be certain you’re getting the message. I will try to withhold judgment on the remainder of the arc – to come at it with fresh eyes. But please understand damage was done by what has gone before.

On the Epicness of the Living Story:

I think I was less than clear on how the ‘pursuit of Epic’ is derailing things in the Living Story:

Scarlet is never allowed to JUST BE COOL. Every time an NPC in setting opens their mouth about her, its to tell us she’s THE COOLEST EV-AR. Horribly horrible things have been done to try and build her credibility by brute force instead of organic progression.

I hate to say it, but for me it all comes down to one in-game piece of dialogue. “She graduated from all Three of the Asuran Colleges…” ((screeetch- car crash noise!)) Say WHAT??!? In that one moment the entire arc DIED for me. The ego-projection was strong in this one. Because if you’ve played the game – doubly so if you played an Asura – this is preposterous. And no amount of backpedaling or hand-waving in web-site fiction changes that. As offended as I am by it, I’m even more offended that apparently nobody in the writing bullpen raised their hand and asked the question “Isn’t that… isn’t that a little dumb?” Somebody’s enthusiasm for the new super-hero, this Dark Trahearne you got to building rode right over all common sense in the pursuit of EPIC-EPIc-EPic-Epic-epic ((echo effects)).

And what’s so sad, is if it had just been “She graduated from two of the Asuran colleges!” I think my eyebrow would have gone up, but I’d also be saying to myself, “…Ok, I guess she is supposed to be an incredible Engineer. Lets see where they go with this…”

Sometimes the line between awesome and absurd is just that narrow.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I think we have learnt a great deal from where we are now with the Scarlet Arc. I won’t talk about future plans for her i am afraid as this goes against the rules i set for this initiative. I appreciate all the feedback in regard to our current story telling foundations and look forward to seeing the game evolve from them.

I hadn’t gotten to this post when I wrote the above, so I’m folding it in here now.

As understated as this reply is, I choose to believe it is acknowledgement the message was received. While I can’t wait for Scarlet to exit stage left forever, I’ll try to look forward to what comes after with renewed enthusiasm.

Hi Nike,

I really don’t understand why you think i am defending or justifying anything. I am discussing and listening to the feedback and folding that into actions as necessary. My point is very simple, which is that i agree with much of the foundational feedback regarding the dynamic of story within the living world, but that there is a lot of info, plans, and goals that the discussion group is currently unaware of. Thus my point is it is better not to turn assumptions into hard facts and this will lead to less valuable discussion. My point isn’t about the performance of what happens as this arc plays out, it is about what we are learning based on the facts in hand. And of course we are listening.

I hope you can appreciate this as i appreciate your dialogue and understand that when it looks like a point has hit home, it probably has.

Chris

Nike.2631:

rizzo.1079:

I think the point is that her story so far is less an arc and more of a line.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yep i think this point is valid.

Normally I’m all for opaque geometry analogies (no, really!) but, um…?

What are you two trying to say?

Also…

Chris Whiteside.6102:

…but please don’t assume that the direction of the arc is understood by all just yet.

‘Understood by all’? Is it understood by anyone not inside the ANet offices? Outside of the foreshadowing imposed by the graphic for the next release (I lean towards that being one of her minions standing behind her, not a ‘mysterious master’ reveal), and the assumption that after handing over all those spores to Marjory I’m be able to go into the tower in a few weeks, I have Zero Clue what Scarlet Briar’s endgame looks like. Or how many more mix-and-match alliances she’s entitled to before moving to some sort of resolution. I mean, if we finally get the centaurs/oozes team-up I’ve been dreaming of, great . Otherwise, lets get to the final act, shall we?

Was there some big long-term hints in the Aether Path? Because I had real life those weeks and missed that block…

That the story line around Scarlet has been flat, specifically no clear angle toward goal or resolution.

And in regard to your second question as it relates to my above point. It is safe to say that goals and trajectory toward resolution are not clear yet outside of Arena. There are clues however.

Chris

bradderzh.2378:

Chris,

Any opinions on nike’s TIDES dynamic map idea?

Hi,

I do have opinions (-: however i have lost some time today that i thought i had. Basically i want to feedback on the DE discussion and get more time to read what people liked and didn’t like about the events they have played. With this is mind it would be awesome for these discussions to continue if folks still have anymore insights or discussion points?

And as soon as i get some more time i will get into the discussion again.

Chris

Hm. Odd.

I’ll take a look at the boots.

Lily, could you screenshot what you’re talking about on your armors for me? That may or may not be a texture bug. It may be a tangent viewpoint thingy (that’s the technical term, sure. ;}). If it is, nothing to be done about it. If it is texture, I’ll get to it when I fix the sets.

By difficult, I mean time consuming from either a technical or testing standpoint.

This is a common error, and I’m sorry that your “join-up” experience was delayed by the confusion. I’ve just sent an email to our entire production team to see if we can tweak our log-in page to make it clear it’s an e-mail address we’re seeking, and not the Display Name we also ask you to create. It may be very difficult and unproductive to make an interface change of this nature, but I thought I’d ask, just to check.

I do agree that the 5 point minors need looking at. I think the Earth and Water ones are in an ok place right now but Fire and Air need work.

Jon

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

Yes, as we start running out of easy changes we can start addressing those that are more difficult. I will say the notes we posted are balance changes and there are bug fixes coming both Nov 26th and Dec 10th that hopefully address some other concerns. We will not get to every bug but we are focusing on ones we think have the most detrimental impact to gameplay.

Jon

Anymras.5729:

A typo is entirely possible, but I also can’t help but wonder if there’s a footnote hidden somewhere; just how I work, that’s all.

Also: I’m not sure adding anything to Accelerant-Packed Turrets would be a good idea, especially if it’s being dropped from a 20-point to a 10-point; it’s one of the best traits available for Turrets as it is, in my opinion.
Autotool Installation, though, even after it’s been improved…well, let’s just wait and see how effective it really is, but if it’s not good enough even after the change, then it’d certainly be a good place to cram some secondary Turret improvement effects, I think.

It was a typo.

I think this trait needs better wording. I hope you all understand why that trait would be wildly overpowered if it carried over everything particularly all 10% damage bonuses. You could simply slam through all attunements and then get 50% bonus damage. Similarly making other things work with this would requires those traits get lowered in the base case as well. I think this is a fine 15 point minor trait on its own and we can reword it and then discuss the merits of the other traits on their own.

To me, that is a better starting point for discussion than attempting to balance all of these effects with how they might work with a minor trait in Arcana. That would predicate the entire profession around that trait which is not what we want out of our minor traits.

Jon

Tovey.1283:

I’ve sent 6 e-mails over the past 2 hours, evidently, they cannot be bothered to contact me back.

(1) Please do not send a bunch of emails to Support. Every mail you send takes time to review, and I assure you, the first and only email sent will be attended to. In the meantime, the flood of mails slows our ability to help others.

(2) What is your ticket number and when did you submit the first contact?

Glad to hear all is well. We appreciate that you updated the thread and are grateful for your support of our Gem Store!

Sure, those devs are free to post on the weekend if they want to!

Keep in mind that some devs have families, or may have prior obligations/plans on a weekend, while some other devs may have a lot of free time on a given weekend!

Darnis.4056:

I lag every time someone uses Grenade Spam x2.. on point, we had grouch and one other guy spam nades and I would lag out every time; most of my settings are on Lowest and my fps jumps around from 60 to 120

You’re describing graphical lag likely from the overdraw caused by the grenade particle system. You could try turning on effect LOD. Poorly created particle systems always have the potential to bring down even the best of systems. Just go stand in some smoke to confirm This thread is specifically about network lag causing skill delay, rubber-banding, and disconnects.

Here’s some info from a quick google:
http://www.heroesandgenerals.com/community/13440/overdraw-an-effects-dudes-worst-enemy

gidorah.4960:

minbariguy.7504:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Perhaps it would have been more accurate if I’d stated that you were prioritizing release dates over quality. I get that you guys have every intention to release quality content. You’re all very passionate and committed to what you do, and you obviously want to create things that people enjoy.

However, allow me to make an observation. I’ve noticed that when you discuss future content or features (other than Living Story), you never commit to a release date. My understanding was that this is because game design can be unpredictable: things change, features may not work exactly as you intended, bugs may pop up, or it may simply take more time to polish a feature for release than you intended. And you don’t want to release content before it is ready, hence…you never commit to a release date.

Except for when it comes to Living Story.

Suddenly, every two weeks, just like clockwork, there it is. Right on schedule. How, then, can it be that your priority is on the quality of the release, when you are committed to releasing it on a specific date no matter what?

If you are saying that you now have the ability to make sure that content is ready by a specific date, then surely you have the ability to commit to dates for all your releases (not just Living Story). But of course, we know that this isn’t the case.

So while you may want quality, it certainly isn’t your priority. It can’t be. Not on a specific release schedule. It’s impossible.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.

I would be really interested to know what you guys are doing to meet my concerns regarding the cadence. Because I honestly have no idea how you can do that while simultaneously stating that the cadence will continue unaltered no matter what any of us says.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The cadence is something we discuss frequently. We are a very collaborative team and do our best to never sweep anything under the rug (-:

I’m curious as to what these discussions are like. When you are having these discussions, does it ever come up that many people are vigorously opposed to it? Or is it the impression of the team that the current cadence is both popular and desired? If so, do you have any metrics to back this up?

Finally, a simple question:

Why are you unwilling to adjust the release cadence? What is the reason that it must continue, no matter what anyone says? Can you at least help us understand that?

everyone keeps bringing up the release schedule even after you have said it is non negotiable this is the best written post expressing our concerns and questions about it.

At no point did i say it is non negotiable . I said that currently we have no intention of changing the plan, however if we feel that we cannot reach the quality bar we and the player’s expect under the current cadence then we will evolve to ensure we are giving player’s the best possible experience. We have a lot of areas we can improve in to meet this goal and I personally would like to see us continue to work in improving in these areas.

Note: I have specifically laid out these areas in my posts.

Chris

Zelyhn.8069:

JonPeters.5630:

Lingering Elements
All passive bonuses for that attunement should linger. This means Flame Barrier, Stone Flesh, Soothing Mist, and Zephyr’s Speed.

These are not all passive bonuses.

But thank you for taking the time to reply.

Edit: and thank you for making a trait that could be the highlight of the class be so pathetic.

Give me a list of what else you think might be considered a passive benefit of these attunements, and I am happy to discuss the merits of this stuff working with this trait. However, posts that say things like “this isn’t everything” are just not constructive.

gidorah.4960:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Also please also be aware that there is a lot of judgment around Scarlet when the arc has not completed yet. I agree with many of the points being made at a foundational level but please don’t assume that the direction of the arc is understood by all just yet.

Chris

do you think you can still save the arc from the poor opinions of scarlet? will you continue with scarlet even if the player still hate her? will you ever give us a poll so bobby can stop calling the people who dislike scarlet a small amount?

I think we have learnt a great deal from where we are now with the Scarlet Arc. I won’t talk about future plans for her i am afraid as this goes against the rules i set for this initiative. I appreciate all the feedback in regard to our current story telling foundations and look forward to seeing the game evolve from them.

Chris

Red.3572:

Evan Lesh.3295:

We can’t make any headway on this unless you get a chance to post more information. If you are actively lagging, type ‘/ip’ into chat to get your current server’s IP address, and use the tracert command to gather more information. If you do post again, please include the server IP, the time of day you’re lagging, and the map that you’re on.

Here is how to use a trace route:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/162326

Here is a program that will actively do a trace route for you, graph it, and show packet loss:
http://www.pingplotter.com/

I can’t stress enough that just saying “I’m lagging” will not get us any closer to finding a solution. I wish there was more we could do, but we need more data.

Ok lagging here also…

Server address is 206.127.146.49:0

Installed the program you specified. I live in the UK. I’m apparently experiencing a consistent 10-20% Packet loss between London and Frankfurt. I occasionally lose an additional 10-20% just before the PlayNC server hop.

Not sure what else I can provide info-wise that you’d be interested in.

This kind of stuff is great! How does your ping relate to lag and packet loss? The info I’ve seen shows ping being relatively fine, but packet loss corresponds to in-game lag.

Telling us which map you’re in helps too, and whats happening in the map. For instance, are you in the middle of a scarlet invasion? Or are you in a fractal?

rizzo.1079:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

rizzo.1079:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Also please also be aware that there is a lot of judgment around Scarlet when the arc has not completed yet. I agree with many of the points being made at a foundational level but please don’t assume that the direction of the arc is understood by all just yet.

Chris

I think the point is that her story so far is less an arc and more of a line.

Yep i think this point is valid.

Chris

Cool…well that’s honestly my biggest personal gripe with the story so if we’re on the same page here I, for one, am happier than I was before:)

We are on the same page.

Chris

rizzo.1079:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Also please also be aware that there is a lot of judgment around Scarlet when the arc has not completed yet. I agree with many of the points being made at a foundational level but please don’t assume that the direction of the arc is understood by all just yet.

Chris

I think the point is that her story so far is less an arc and more of a line.

Yep i think this point is valid.

Chris

Keep in mind that weekends are a thing. Now that we’re all back in the office, caffeinated and ready to go, we’re gonna jump back in the threads.

Having said that, when you guys get going and are having good discussions, we sit back and make sure we give you guys room to debate/discuss. Just because there isn’t a dev response every X posts, it doesn’t mean we’re not watching the thread.

Also please also be aware that there is a lot of judgment around Scarlet when the arc has not completed yet. I agree with many of the points being made at a foundational level but please don’t assume that the direction of the arc is understood by all just yet.

Chris

I’m going to lock this thread as it is absolutely not the case that this is happening. We’ve investigated it and there is no truth to these claims. It can certainly appear that way, especially if players are not responding to in-game chat, but that is no substitution for our very accurate numbers which indicate this is not happening anywhere.

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yep the story needs to more ‘Epic’, meaningful and better at evoking emotion.

Chris

I think this exact quote is what’s really hamstringing your writing team and the direction of the Living Story in general.

You don’t need to chase after Epic – epic is a natural outgrowth of scale.

What you need to focus on is ‘Compelling’.

In Kessex Hills there is a little stand-alone escort event in the Destroyer caves. A child from the nearby town has fallen into the caves and can’t get out. Lead her to safety.

Ok, first off, it’s a little girl and she’s surrounded by monsters that want to eat her. If you’re not a complete sociopath, you’re already committed to the endeavor just to put an end to this outrage. Second, I empathize with her: I fell down that same kitten crack while looking around – that’s how I found her in the first place. The monsters aren’t just after her, we’re totally in this together (yes, I realize I could just waypoint away, but that’s for chumps). Is time to hero up.

The fact that I’m on my rifle-toting engineer and I’m practically screaming lines from Aliens at the screen as we shoot our way out of there ("You want some of this? And you? How about that, come on! blam-blam-blam-blam!) is just a nice bonus.

And did you notice how I said ‘we’ there? She doesn’t do a thing except cower or follow along doggedly, but we are a party now, making our way out of the cave. Because I care.

There is NOTHING in the Scarlett Invasions that comes close to that. Nothing is under threat. Nothing says ‘step up, hero’. It may look EPIC-EPIc-EPic-Epic-epic-epic ((echo effects)), because it’s Big… but it has no heart. It’s a safari for big-game hunters, not a chance for heroism.

Give me a reason to care. I’ll suspend disbelief (no way pointing out just because), I’ll buy in if you let me. But don’t confuse scale with relevance.

Some of the finest victories are small.

Like seeing a little girl make her way home.

Hi,

Just to be clear by epic i am referring to more mature (in some instances), more meaningful, more relevant. Please forgive me for the use of that word it seems to have derailed the conversation somewhat.

Chris

Moon.7310:

JonPeters.5630:

Hammer
We are taking damage away from the hammer skills that do CC, because we don’t think it is ok for skills to do both of these things. I see a lot of comparison with Greatsword damage, but the Greatsword has no interrupts and a single cripple on the Bladetrail. We left the skills that do not do hard control alone such as Fierce Blow and Hammer Shock, as we are ok with those skills hitting hard because they do not actually disable. We also left Backbreaker alone because it has a long cast time and a long cooldown. The standard hammer build is still going to be very strong after this change, but it will open up options for mace to make a comeback as the control weapon.

What about us pve hammer warriors. It is not like groups appriciate us while playing since our damage is lower than greatsword and most of the time knockdown is not needed or on bosses is useless. When lowering damage now, this will make groups even more wary of hammer warriors.

For this I would refer you to what I said about Defiant in the Mace section.

Lingering Elements
All passive bonuses for that attunement should linger. This means Flame Barrier, Stone Flesh, Soothing Mist, and Zephyr’s Speed.

Phew,

Ok, I made it through all of my notes on the 8 professions. Today will be a busy day here on the balance team talking through those notes and continuing to comb through this and other threads. I am certain there will be some adjustments that come out of today and as we compile those we will get back to you (in this thread) to update what has come from our discussions.

Thanks so much for all of your time and effort providing us with this feedback.

Jon

Here are my comments on what we have seen discussed so far with the warrior changes.

Unsuspecting Foe
I’ve seen some concerns about moving this to master tier. This comes down to the core philosophy that drove the warrior changes for this build. Warriors by nature have a lot of survivability, and we need them to make a choice between heavy control and heavy damage. This trait is a way for them to circumvent that and is therefore build defining. In many ways it exemplifies what a grandmaster trait is all about, however we felt that moving it all the way to grandmaster was overkill, but that placing it at the master tier allowed warriors to still run this with other traits, but have to make some sacrifices to do so.

Thrill of the Kill
I’ve heard some concerns about this being permanent max adrenaline in WvW zerg fights. We understand that, but given the fact that this trait competes with Warrior’s Sprint, Vigorous Focus, Signet Mastery, and Inspiring Shouts, we feel like players that take Thirll of the Kill we be giving up a sufficient amount of effectiveness to counter this. There are so many other reliable ways to gain adrenaline as is that I can’t imagine this tipping the scales as much as one of the other adept traits in this line.

Hammer
We are taking damage away from the hammer skills that do CC, because we don’t think it is ok for skills to do both of these things. I see a lot of comparison with Greatsword damage, but the Greatsword has no interrupts and a single cripple on the Bladetrail. We left the skills that do not do hard control alone such as Fierce Blow and Hammer Shock, as we are ok with those skills hitting hard because they do not actually disable. We also left Backbreaker alone because it has a long cast time and a long cooldown. The standard hammer build is still going to be very strong after this change, but it will open up options for mace to make a comeback as the control weapon.

Longbow
A lot of thought went into the change to combustive shot. This skill was simply too effective at renewing itself. One of the drawbacks of the burst skills needs to be losing your adrenaline, but this skill was easily able to restore all of the adrenaline it lost. Rather than reduce the burn duration we reduced the # of attacks this skill creates because we felt it made it more counterable in PvP and less reliable in PvE as an adrenaline builder.

Mace
I highly suggest being patient with this change. I understand this skill did not need an increased cast time in PvE, but this change just makes this skill feel a lot more impactful, and a change of 200 milliseconds of cast increase is not going to impact its use against creatures, but will greatly make this skill more counterable in PvP and WvW. Some discussion here revolved around defiant, which is causing a lot of control builds to be neutered in PvE. We agree and we will start making strides towards solving that in the future.

Sorry I got to you guys last, I truly did just go through these in alphabetical order.

Thanks,

Jon

Link to warrior sub-forum
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/December-10th-Warrior-Changes/first#post3149139

Here are my comments on what we have seen discussed so far with the warrior changes.

Unsuspecting Foe
I’ve seen some concerns about moving this to master tier. This comes down to the core philosophy that drove the warrior changes for this build. Warriors by nature have a lot of survivability, and we need them to make a choice between heavy control and heavy damage. This trait is a way for them to circumvent that and is therefore build defining. In many ways it exemplifies what a grandmaster trait is all about, however we felt that moving it all the way to grandmaster was overkill, but that placing it at the master tier allowed warriors to still run this with other traits, but have to make some sacrifices to do so.

Thrill of the Kill
I’ve heard some concerns about this being permanent max adrenaline in WvW zerg fights. We understand that, but given the fact that this trait competes with Warrior’s Sprint, Vigorous Focus, Signet Mastery, and Inspiring Shouts, we feel like players that take Thirll of the Kill we be giving up a sufficient amount of effectiveness to counter this. There are so many other reliable ways to gain adrenaline as is that I can’t imagine this tipping the scales as much as one of the other adept traits in this line.

Hammer
We are taking damage away from the hammer skills that do CC, because we don’t think it is ok for skills to do both of these things. I see a lot of comparison with Greatsword damage, but the Greatsword has no interrupts and a single cripple on the Bladetrail. We left the skills that do not do hard control alone such as Fierce Blow and Hammer Shock, as we are ok with those skills hitting hard because they do not actually disable. We also left Backbreaker alone because it has a long cast time and a long cooldown. The standard hammer build is still going to be very strong after this change, but it will open up options for mace to make a comeback as the control weapon.

Longbow
A lot of thought went into the change to combustive shot. This skill was simply too effective at renewing itself. One of the drawbacks of the burst skills needs to be losing your adrenaline, but this skill was easily able to restore all of the adrenaline it lost. Rather than reduce the burn duration we reduced the # of attacks this skill creates because we felt it made it more counterable in PvP and less reliable in PvE as an adrenaline builder.

Mace
I highly suggest being patient with this change. I understand this skill did not need an increased cast time in PvE, but this change just makes this skill feel a lot more impactful, and a change of 200 milliseconds of cast increase is not going to impact its use against creatures, but will greatly make this skill more counterable in PvP and WvW. Some discussion here revolved around defiant, which is causing a lot of control builds to be neutered in PvE. We agree and we will start making strides towards solving that in the future.

Sorry I got to you guys last, I truly did just go through these in alphabetical order.

Thanks,

Jon

Thank you for bringing this up! Our new players should not have to deal with the added difficulty that Hallucinations provide while they are learning the game, we are looking in to getting this fixed.

In order for this achievement to count, you have to stay until you get your rewards at the very end, so lets make sure you got everything. The order of what you have to do is:

Did you complete all the above steps and still not get the achievement?

Here is a summary of what I have seen discussed on the thief changes and some more clarity into what our initial thoughts were and where we stand currently.

Initiative changes
We believe this is one of the most controversial but important changes this patch. The important thing to understand is that we have been and will playtest this a lot more before we push this change. The default rate of initiative regeneration was simply to low and was causing players to either take traits to suppliment it, or to have their effectiveness suffer. This is something that has to change. What these changes intend to do is to increase the power of every single thief build that is not running these traits, and to ever so slightly reduce the maximum amount of initiative you can have per second if you min/max those traits. I know its easy to theorycraft what is going to happen here and there is a lot of danger in that. It is hard to get a sense of this change without playing it, and believe me if I could I would let everyone test a change of this magnitude and gather some more empirical and data driven feedback, but currently our resources are limited, but we still believe that this is a change whose time has come. We will monitor it very carefully when we do release it to make sure it is working as intended.

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

Infusion of Shadow
For basic use this trait’s functionality is not going to change. By many players it was being used to grant some initiative when going into stealth. However there were some abusive builds that were using this to maintain very long stealth uptime without having to use their utility skills. The problem with this is that it lets them recharge those skills while in stealth, which takes away the risk associated with using them. We are ok with thieves blowing their cooldowns to have longer stealth, and we are ok with theives bouncing in and out of stealth, but we were not ok with thieves maintaining long duration stealth through abusing a single trait.

Flanking Strikes
I agree that this move may be overkill on the thief. We are currently discussing undoing it. The main motivation was that we really wanted to move Trickster to adept tier to encourge use of those utilities, and the most obvious candidate to move up was Flanking Strikes. This isn’t how we should be making that decision, so we will discuss this and get back to you.

Vigorous Recovery & Bountiful Theft
I’ve seen a lot of talk about this as well, and discussing this already this morning the current vigor is a bit too high, but we may have overdone the reduction. I was thinking about going back to 5s or 6s on Vigorous Recovery, and going back to 10s or 12s on Bountiful Theft.

Thanks,

Jon

Link to thief sub-forum
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Dec-10th-thief-changes/first#post3149311

I couldn’t find a thread to place this in. Here is a summary of what I have seen discussed on the thief changes and some more clarity into what our initial thoughts were and where we stand currently.

Initiative changes
We believe this is one of the most controversial but important changes this patch. The important thing to understand is that we have been and will playtest this a lot more before we push this change. The default rate of initiative regeneration was simply to low and was causing players to either take traits to suppliment it, or to have their effectiveness suffer. This is something that has to change. What these changes intend to do is to increase the power of every single thief build that is not running these traits, and to ever so slightly reduce the maximum amount of initiative you can have per second if you min/max those traits. I know its easy to theorycraft what is going to happen here and there is a lot of danger in that. It is hard to get a sense of this change without playing it, and believe me if I could I would let everyone test a change of this magnitude and gather some more empirical and data driven feedback, but currently our resources are limited, but we still believe that this is a change whose time has come. We will monitor it very carefully when we do release it to make sure it is working as intended.

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

Infusion of Shadow
For basic use this trait’s functionality is not going to change. By many players it was being used to grant some initiative when going into stealth. However there were some abusive builds that were using this to maintain very long stealth uptime without having to use their utility skills. The problem with this is that it lets them recharge those skills while in stealth, which takes away the risk associated with using them. We are ok with thieves blowing their cooldowns to have longer stealth, and we are ok with theives bouncing in and out of stealth, but we were not ok with thieves maintaining long duration stealth through abusing a single trait.

Flanking Strikes
I agree that this move may be overkill on the thief. We are currently discussing undoing it. The main motivation was that we really wanted to move Trickster to adept tier to encourge use of those utilities, and the most obvious candidate to move up was Flanking Strikes. This isn’t how we should be making that decision, so we will discuss this and get back to you.

Vigorous Recovery & Bountiful Theft
I’ve seen a lot of talk about this as well, and discussing this already this morning the current vigor is a bit too high, but we may have overdone the reduction. I was thinking about going back to 5s or 6s on Vigorous Recovery, and going back to 10s or 12s on Bountiful Theft.

Thanks,

Jon

We can’t make any headway on this unless you get a chance to post more information. If you are actively lagging, type ‘/ip’ into chat to get your current server’s IP address, and use the tracert command to gather more information. If you do post again, please include the server IP, the time of day you’re lagging, and the map that you’re on.

Here is how to use a trace route:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/162326

Here is a program that will actively do a trace route for you, graph it, and show packet loss:
http://www.pingplotter.com/

I can’t stress enough that just saying “I’m lagging” will not get us any closer to finding a solution. I wish there was more we could do, but we need more data.

I’m looking into this right now, but I can’t see any indication that this is actually true. All 3 worlds are capable of having the same number of people on the green borderlands. Baruch Bay in particular, currently has exactly the same number of people in the Green Borderlands as do their 2 opponents. I’m not sure why people are under the impression this is happening, but I can assure you it is not.

Some ranger discussion.

Natural Vigor
Starting here because I think it requires the most discussion. This, simply put, was a wildly overpowered trait. I tell people not to compare one profession to another, but Engineer has this trait as a major grandmaster. It was simply too easy to put 5 points in this line and then be able to dodge every 6.67 seconds. As it stands after the change this still allows you to splash 5 points and dodge every 8 seconds. I don’t think this will ruin survivability, and I think by buff other traits further down this line it will encourge rangers who are looking to survive to go further into this trait line.

Spirits Unbound and Nature’s Voice
I think the biggest change of moving spirits unbound is it allows you to take this trait along with Nature’s Voice. Internally we have done some testing where you bring stone spirit, guard, and then still have a open third utility slot to make some truly good support ranger builds. Spirits have always had that feel and I think this brings that to the forefront.

Power Rangers
No pun intended. As many have said these guys are in an interesting position. In some ways they can be very strong, but everytime I play my ranger this way it feel like it comes up a little bit short. I think this is because they are lacking a few things as either additional tools for greatsword or as utilities. Signets are the somewhat obvious utility choice but their effect is too varied to run a strong full signet build here. Conversely all traits associated with signets tend to increase in power the more you bring. What signets need is a good trait that synergizes with bringing a single signet, like Nature’s Voice does for shouts. This would let you bring maybe one or two signets and suppliment them with something else. One idea we talked about for Greatsword would be to take the evade off of the 3rd attack of the auto-chain and put it on swoop. This would give you a second on-demand defensive skill and instead we put something less timing based (for example a whirl finisher) on that third attack to empower it.

Main-hand sword
I just want to clarify for good that main hand sword is currently working as intended. All movement skills cannot be interrupted by dodging and this is currently intentional. It has a very specific play style, and I would like it to remain. I understand that rangers want a one handed melee option that is more mobile, but that will have to wait, as I know there are a mix of players who also like how this weapon plays and I do not want to take away one of the more unique playstyles that we have and replace it with something that is fairly common.

Thanks,

Jon

Link to ranger sub-forum
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/December-10th-Ranger-changes/page/5#post3149107

Some ranger discussion.

Natural Vigor
Starting here because I think it requires the most discussion. This, simply put, was a wildly overpowered trait. I tell people not to compare one profession to another, but Engineer has this trait as a major grandmaster. It was simply too easy to put 5 points in this line and then be able to dodge every 6.67 seconds. As it stands after the change this still allows you to splash 5 points and dodge every 8 seconds. I don’t think this will ruin survivability, and I think by buff other traits further down this line it will encourge rangers who are looking to survive to go further into this trait line.

Spirits Unbound and Nature’s Voice
I think the biggest change of moving spirits unbound is it allows you to take this trait along with Nature’s Voice. Internally we have done some testing where you bring stone spirit, guard, and then still have a open third utility slot to make some truly good support ranger builds. Spirits have always had that feel and I think this brings that to the forefront.

Power Rangers
No pun intended. As many have said these guys are in an interesting position. In some ways they can be very strong, but everytime I play my ranger this way it feel like it comes up a little bit short. I think this is because they are lacking a few things as either additional tools for greatsword or as utilities. Signets are the somewhat obvious utility choice but their effect is too varied to run a strong full signet build here. Conversely all traits associated with signets tend to increase in power the more you bring. What signets need is a good trait that synergizes with bringing a single signet, like Nature’s Voice does for shouts. This would let you bring maybe one or two signets and suppliment them with something else. One idea we talked about for Greatsword would be to take the evade off of the 3rd attack of the auto-chain and put it on swoop. This would give you a second on-demand defensive skill and instead we put something less timing based (for example a whirl finisher) on that third attack to empower it.

Main-hand sword
I just want to clarify for good that main hand sword is currently working as intended. All movement skills cannot be interrupted by dodging and this is currently intentional. It has a very specific play style, and I would like it to remain. I understand that rangers want a one handed melee option that is more mobile, but that will have to wait, as I know there are a mix of players who also like how this weapon plays and I do not want to take away one of the more unique playstyles that we have and replace it with something that is fairly common.

Thanks,

Jon

silentk.3586:

For mesmer’s, if illusionary Invigoration recharge is being reduced from 90s to 60s and is moved to the master tier. Are you going to reduce the recharge on Signet of Illusions also?

I think the thing to do is make this trait actually fire off signet of illusions thus giving it some synergy with other traits.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

So I’m taking most of these with a grain of salt. Ele (staff) is my main, we’ll see how some of it works out. Essentially I’m reserving judgement on a lot of it (still need to digest much of what I’ve read) until I can play with it.

However, this one bothers me a little:
Shadow Return on Sword. Renamed to Infiltrator’s return. Added a 1/4s cast time.

Shadow step and shadow return are something both my husband and I utilize a lot when playing thief in pve. We like having the ease of mobility, and don’t mind sacrificing the initiative to be able to pop in and out of battle. (We’re squishy, it makes sense). I think the additional 1/4 cast time to get out of dodge could very easily mean life or death for our chars, which I don’t particularly like. I don’t see why this one is being changed. If it’s an issue in pvp, then separate the skill versions please.

To be clear, this is not impacting the utility skill, just the sword #2 toggle. The reason is because of risk vs reward. This is a very rewarding skill with currently little risk associated.

Phew made it to page 26. I’ll be at work in about 20 minutes at whih point I’ll address some of the bigger Ranger, Thief, and Warrior discussions.

Let me reiterate 2 thing before I do that.

1) This is not a token exercise. I spent all weekend reading this stuff so that we could gather the feedback, compile it, and take actions where necessary.

2) please reread the OP. It talks a lot about how to give feedback, and if you follow it you help yourselves by helping us.

Jon

Jaken.6801:

How will you try to rectify the messed up turn the delivery of Scarlet has gotten since the Queens Speech?

For starters, I’m devoting more time for script reviews. Our aggressive release schedule means that our VO needs to be ready for recording a full two months before each pair of updates, which can sometimes be tricky if the design changes along the way or we find out that certain tech or art requests cannot be satisfied in time for the scheduled build.

We’re also looking into ways that we can better communicate backstory and lore inside the game.

Jaken.6801:

I personaly have no real idea how you want to with it.
You allready started making some “changes” to her story in interviews. Trying to calm down the angry mob by explaining your intentions (before, or the ones who are now needed. Since you decide the story you can say whatever you like, because we don`t know anything), or what we misunderstood.
Nevertheless, you really f***ed up here, because now everything you will do, feels like nothing more then trying to save your hides.

You’ll just have to see how it turns out. Remember that our releases take a full four months from concept to completion. While our overall plan hasn’t deviated much from the initial outline, we’ve made a few adjustments along the way for a variety of reasons. Any changes we’ve made to the story presentation were based on a number of factors: internal feedback, postmortems from the LW teams, fan feedback on the official forums and elsewhere (e.g. Reddit), and design audits.

So while we’re definitely listening to feedback and looking for some creative ways to impart story with our available systems, we’re not writing the game based on a small sample of opinions from our player base.

Jaken.6801:

Everything you do will not be enough sadly.
- Revealing her “real” backstory in any way (like beeing a puppet herself to someone, beeing delusional (the current story at least)), won`t work, because you would just retcon for the sake of pleasing everyone.
- killing her off would bring joy to a lot of people, but will feel like: “kitten we made a mistake, quick lets bury her and hope she will be quickly forgotten.”
- making her a decent character? unlikely. The mistakes are in the past (her as a character and yours, because the failed delivery), so pulling her out of that hole right now really requires a miracle, since right now many people won`t listen or care about anything related to her.

If some folks “won’t listen or care about anything related to her” then they’ve already made up their minds. For the rest of the people playing the game, I would imagine that they’re curious as to where her story is going because we haven’t revealed as much as people have wanted. The truth of the matter is that we’ve been planning an epic conclusion to Scarlet’s story for a while now. I really wish I could say more but that would spoil what’s to come.

Jaken.6801:

So yeah. I don`t really care about the restirctions of: “we can`t say our future plans”, because this is just PR. Saying things like: “we have plans, or we allready discussed it.” doesn`t satisfy anyone, because we heared it again and again.
This goes for all developers here. We like to hear statements about where YOU thought you went wrong. Where you were suprised to here: “hey, the audience doesn`t like what we did.”

I think I’ve been pretty open in discussing the story challenges and areas we can improve. If you disagree, you’ll have to give me more specific feedback.

You have to understand that developers are not at liberty to discuss specifics regarding upcoming releases until we’re absolutely certain that they will make it into a build. Also, we have to be careful not to get in the way of Community or Marketing initiatives. It’s a delicate balance.

Jaken.6801:

Say why they liked certain content, or answer problems that are present? How about having them give backstory to past events. Explain why they did certain things. What was the reasoning behind the watchknights for example.
This here could be the chance to give us information about your inner workings, about your developement, about the way you are thinking and evolving this beautifull world.

I’ll have to consider that for future posts. These are usually reserved for project postmortems but may make for interesting discussion topics.

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

—snipped for brevity—

Post like this Cesmode really don’t need to occur. Many of your questions can be answered by keeping up to date with the thread and understanding what the stated goals are of the initiative. I appreciate your feedback and some of your commentary but please understand that this slows the process down and can also derail extremely valuable discussion.

I hope you understand,

chris

Chris,
I do not feel that I am combative in my responses. I have encouraged other folks to be patient with arenanet’s involvement in this thread early on. However, now that it has been 5 days, some of us are wondering when arenanet will become a bit more involved in this collaborative discussion. We just dont want this to become a one way street and turn into every other thread on these forums.

With that said, apologies if it at all detracted from the purpose of the thread. My intent was to try to get your attention so we can have more collaboration in this thread, rather than the players speaking their minds, to which we do every day. If there isnt going to be a lot of discussion between developer and player, then the initiative itself fails and this just becomes another thread. Which, in case, we can refer to the countless threads on the Living Story debate to get the players’ pulse on the subject.

I did see your responses to the numbered items in my post that you previously touched on in the thread, I was simply hoping for a little more back and forth to the main issues

Edit: It looks like theres been some real discussion today(I have been out all day). Good stuff.

Hi Cesmode,

I just got back and caught the end of the Seahawks game!!!

I really appreciate your response Cesmode. Perhaps combative wasn’t the right word and it is great to see such a mature reply. I am reading through yours and the other posts from this morning and am going to spend some time mulling the discussion over. It is very intricate and insightful currently.

I have freed up my early afternoon tomorrow and am looking forward to getting back into the discussion and now i am likely going to jump in game and do a dungeon or two!

Chris

P.S: Go Hawks! Note: I apologize up front for any derailing of the discussion this may cause (-: