Why does this have to wait until the end of the month?
I understand that not everything can be fixed quickly, but since you already have a fix what’s the hold up? This kind of imbalance is very annoying, especially for more casual players without teams, and having to wait two weeks for a simple fix like this is disheartening.
Whenever we put out a new patch to the live game, it’s a big process that most of the staff is affected by. So an issue generally has to be really critical for us to justify putting out a hot fix outside of our normal build schedule.
I figured that would be the case. The problem with that is that you lose the ability to iterate.
As players we have to wait for a balance change that we hope is the right one. If it’s not we have to wait a long time for a subsequent change. This is especially important in SPvP where these balance changes directly affect the essence of the game. I’m sure you iterate and test them in house, but having the players involved can give more reliable results (if used correctly) and absolutely raises the moral of players because we are able to see direct progress being made. It means players don’t have to suffer through the poorly balanced, but not broken, aspects of the game for an entire month.
I was working on a list of suggestions for GW2, and though I’m not sure I’ll ever finish it (polish wise, not because there are too many things) incorporating a faster update cycle is the number one thing on it for that reason.