Guild Wars 2

Hey all.

Wanted to touch on a few issues brought up about the Warrior stuff.

@ Warriors in PvE using Berserk’s: Yes, we knew this would be part of it. Now Warriors can’t just run around with full adrenaline all the time doing bonus damage. If they want to use their burst skills, then they obviously lose out on bonus power. This is an opportunity cost they need to factor into PvE encounters due to the new adren change.

@ Warriors in PvP vs. a condie meta: Yes, there’s a lot more play now, and condie builds are less reliant on multiple stats than dps builds are. I expect we’ll see more Melandru/Hoelbrak in order to deal with the loss of condie clear the Warriors had before. I think this is ok though – no longer can 1 build (the Ham/LB) bring great damage, amazing condie resilience, a lot of sustained power and CC in one package. Every build needs to be weak to something, and I look forward to see what Warriors do in the coming weeks to deal with changes to adren. As of now, while watching games on live, I’m still seeing Warriors in pretty much every team. I think they’re still able to compete just fine, and bring a lot of great tools to a front line.

While I realize it can be frustrating to have your favorite specs toned down a little, I’m also receiving a lot of messages from non-Warriors who feel like they, too, are able to compete for spots in PvE, WvW, or PvP. Now that Warriors have to build up their Adrenaline due to losing it more often in-between fights, and have to be careful on when they’re using it, there is a lot more play and counter-play on both sides of fights.

Sorry for such a rushed reply, but I wanted to thank all you guys for the great feedback.

-Chap

Dand.8231:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chap might reply to this. I play a warrior (PVT Shout Heal) and to be honest and quite happy with the changes. He knows more than I about balance however so i will bring it up with him tomorrow morning.
Chris

So did anything come of this discussion?

See, Chris… PVT Shout build is probably near the top of LEAST impacted Warrior builds, as a result of this adrenaline nerf.

Running around spamming Shouts and swinging a hammer, as you hurl yourself into Zergs, is still fine after this adrenal change. And as a PVT shout heal warrior, I’d tend to suspect you’re zerging it up quite a bit in WvW, because… well honestly, that’s all they’re really good at. PvP it’s a fairly meh build, Guards/Eles/Engies bunker better.

You’ll never “miss” with your earthshakers in a crowd of 15 people. And Soldier runes wipe condi’s fast as anything. You can even trait to gain almost a bar of adrenaline per shout.

So, try a roaming build or competitive PvP build.

See how the adrenaline loss-on-miss feels versus an experienced player who can reliably avoid your bursts 75% of the time.

See how that 75% miss ruins your condi-clearing from Cleansing Ire, leaving you up to your ears in condis. You’ll quickly understand why warriors feel LOCKED into Longbows combustive shot.

Hey what’s up man.

Before this change, it was the case that the Warrior Dogged/Cleansing specs were able to pretty much just spam their burst skills and remove condies. We had a lot of players (on forums and in person, talking to them at Gamescom) talking about how they wanted to have more play/skill to this, and they also wanted (if they were players who played AGAINST this type of Warrior) to have more counter-play.

This change means that Warriors need to be thinking ahead to their condition cleanse, as they will no longer be able to get them without risk. It also means that missing a burst skill can hurt the Warrior more than it did before, so even if you’re not running Cleansing, an opponent making you miss your burst skill can be a really big, really impactful moment in a fight.

This change means that some Warrior specs will need to shift/adjust, and you’ll need to do more “setting up” of your burst skill (to give it a higher chance to land) if you’re relying on Cleansing for condie clears.

Apokriphos.7042:

What are your thoughts on current Class Balance in Dungeons, sPvp, and 5 man roaming WvW?

Are there any plans to make classes that lack group utility useful in these game modes? Perhaps more frequent balancing, as in GW1?

Hey Apokripho (cool name btw)!

@balance in different game types: Class balance for those 3 game types differs, based on class and the game type, obviously.

For instance, in WvW, swiftness is a very important tool, while being less crucial in Dungeons (if you’re in fights a lot of the time). What we usually talk about in balance discussions is how some class specs will be stronger in one game type than they are in others, and that’s ok.

@class group utility: I hope I’m reading your meaning correctly on this one. We try to make sure that we spread this stuff out into different “buckets” for each class. So if you have a ton of damage in a spec, you probably won’t have as many ways to dole out tons of CC as well. If a spec does have that, we try to bring down one of those aspects of the spec. For instance, the new Ranger specs we’re seeing dish out a TON of damage at range, but they are relatively squishy if you get right on them (compared to say, a defensive Guardian’s ability to tank damage), and they have no way to really deal with enemy boons effectively.

@more frequent balancing: We do 2 major “modes” of balancing – one is the feature pack balancing, which just happened this week. We try to put out a lot of new stuff for the classes, and try to spread out the changes. Once that happens, we watch the game for a while and listen to the players. This can happen in game, it can happen in VOD’s, Twitch, Youtube, the forums, etc.

After we give a patch a few weeks to settle, we then look at our second mode of course correcting, which is done by making smaller changes if we feel they’re necessary (shaving down something that feels way too powerful, or bringing something up that feels way too under powered), while also scoping out balance changes for the next feature release!

Hope that helps!

-Chap

You guys know how we do it!

“When it’s ready”, indeed.

@ balance and splitting skills: Splitting the entire game into 2 (or 3, if you want to be technical: PvE, WvW, PvP) sets of #‘s creates a LOT of overhead in maintaining 3 sets of numbers. As most skills are fine across game types, it’s more efficient to split off problem skills and leave the majority of skills consistent across game types. It also means that people have a general sense of relative balance across all game types, and don’t have 2-3 sets of numbers to learn.

@:“Is sPvP ever going to be more than Conquest?”

Yes.

@: Balance: it’s something we’re definitely keeping in mind as we experiment with different game types. Some things carry over just fine from Conquest, others become weaker, and others become stronger. It’s inherent/to be expected in having different goals in different game modes.

I can’t give out too much info, but I can let you know that we are working on a new game mode.

This is a good point. We’d like to revisit this system at some point.

What types of specific stats do you want to see (keep in mind combat stats vs “gamemode” stats)? How much info is too much info?

I think it’s good to show more info for these types of things, but keep in mind that if we add too much, it can be overwhelming for some players. Due to that we’d want to find a nice balance between too little and too much.

Just wanted to say thank you for being so constructive in this thread guys. We’re watching threads like this one, and we really find peaceful debates to be highly useful for us when gathering balance perception data.

We know food is an issue that definitely gets people passionate, so thank you for staying calm while voicing your opinions! I can’t make any promises on fixes, but I can say we’re debating this issue internally just like you guys are, and we use your points/counterpoints as reference in our discussions.

Thanks for being awesome!

It’s 2 TOTAL, not 2 per track.

Custom arenas only allow 2 tiers per day, but solo and team have no limit. They are tracked separately.

Hey guys,

As some of you have noticed, reward tracks are capped at TWO TIERS a day if you are playing in custom arenas. This is intended to prevent botting in custom arenas. There is NO LIMIT to how much progress you can make on reward tracks if you are playing in solo or team arena. Just wanted to clear this up!

PvP team

Ya, sorry to post it on April’s fools.

This is 4 realz.

Hey guys.

I just wanted to give you guys a quick update. Based on your feedback, we’ve decided not to add Runes of Perplexity to PvP in the 4/15 Feature Pack. We’ll be monitoring the balance of runes closely, making more tweaks if necessary, and revisiting the possibility of adding Runes of Perplexity to PvP at a later point.

Thanks again for comporting yourselves in such a cooperative and constructive manner – you guys had some great points and counterpoints regarding this issue.

We had a lot of texts/phone calls over the weekend on this, as many of us have been watching this thread.

I just wanted to thank you guys again for keeping it civil and constructive.

Great job arguing your points. It makes it much easier for us to look at your points/counterpoints when you guys do such a great job communicating.

I probably shouldn’t be reading the forums at 10:45 on a Friday night….but I am.

1) Thanks for talking about this in such a constructive manner. A lot of you guys are bringing up great points with highly cogent logic. I like. I like how you’re bringing up possible issues in multiple game types as well, kudos for espousing a holistic point of view.

2) There are going to be a lot of changes, as we’ve stated before on the 15th. The meta will probably shift a lot for many areas of the game, so we’ll have to see how things shake out.

3) Please keep the talking open, rational, and with as little salt as possible – you guys are rocking. We are listening, and I’ll check this thread next week to see how the conversation goes.

Thanks for keeping it civil.

/Chapout

Justin had the crux of the reasoning correct – it’s a small tweak to your build that a lot of players could do without. It’s a very small stat change in exchange for another aspect of a PvP build. By removing it, it’s one less thing a new player needs to learn. With runes, sigils, amulets, weapon skills, slotted skills, minor traits and major traits, making a build is a pretty hefty process. Jewels were a very, VERY small % of that overall build.

Trust me, doing focus tests and watching new players play the game, our builds can be very overwhelming. You guys are experts by now, but you have to keep in mind that other players are not as advanced as you are, and removing pieces to the builds allows us to slightly lower the barrier to entry.

Yep, next RU will be this week on Friday!

Sorry I didn’t call that out explicitly. My bad.

Hey guys! We’ll be talking more about this stuff in the weeks to come in our April 2014 Feature Pack info roll-out! Tune in to Ready Up! and watch the GW2 main site for more details. We have info coming that will address a lot of these questions.

Thanks for keeping it civil and constructive in here guys. It always helps us when you guys proffer facts/theories as to why something’s not balanced correctly, and then offer proposed solutions as to how you think it can be fixed. You guys are also doing a good job of honing in on where it’s most used, how it’s used, what you feel is too strong about it.

One recurring theme I’m seeing here is people feel that the initiative work lately has helped to benefit this skill.

Thanks for keeping it constructive.

Awesome post Olli. Especially the points on new game modes. Definitely some cool ideas in there.

Hugh is also a Warrior IRL.

Did you know?

Tryndamere (LOL) is actually based on Hugh. So is Akuma….or any “all in” character, in any game.

Ever.

I have 1 of each class, just to keep tabs on how they feel in general.

But if I’m actually trying to hold my own, I run:

• Sword/Sword + Bow Warrior
• Hambow (to keep tabs on how it feels in the meta)
• Various Necros
• Various Guardians
• Various Mesmers
• On internal servers, been playing around with a few new Ranger specs

I don’t get as much time to play as I used to, but when I do play, those are the specs I gravitate towards.

The idea we’re operating under:

If you want AOE CC, bring a hammer. If you want burst or DPS, bring an axe or a greatsword.

@ multiple people who commented on progression, ala moba games: We agree. While I think that leveling up and acquiring items/skills/gold is core to moba games, I think we can do something different which fits an MMO. I think we can give you guys the cool aspects of an MMO + the some aspects of a moba which fit our game well.

RockSteady.7123:

I don’t like MOBAs nor do I wish to play them again. It is just something that does not sit well with me but I think that if the devs find ways to make it a Guild Wars 2 MOBA-style pvp mode, instead of a MOBA Guild Wars 2-style mode, I suppose it wouldn’t be too bad. Just be careful not to stray too much from what makes Guild Wars 2 what it is, which can really be said for any mode that is decided on really. I think the flow and intensity of the GW2 combat system is really what makes this game unique and I would hate to suddenly be thrust into a pvp mode where the combat suddenly becomes secondary to some overarching objective.

Either way I have confidence in the devs and I can’t wait for whatever it is you guys decide to release! Yay for pvp!

Nods Good point. We want to retain that feeling that you currently get in GW2’s combat in any new game mode we introduce.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Hi Jonathan,

I agree 100% regarding CTF. Push is far superior than pull. Rift had a CTF map and I had repeated to them that they needed to change the format from capture the flag to push the flag.

The analogy I used is this: how much fun would it be if, in football, the ball was snapped to the quarterback and he ran away from the line of scrimmage to score?

Hah! We use the same analogy internally….because in american football, you have to take the ball THROUGH the other team, you don’t run away from them.

Jayce.5632:

Capture The Flag

Win Conditions:

• Capture 7/7 Enemy Flags (Includes 1 Hard Flag or flag located closest to spawn )
• Most Flags Captured When Timer Expires
• Most Flags Saved > Capture Draw
• Most Kills > Save Draw > Capture Draw

p.s. Map terrain and thoughtful flag placement makes all the difference. Can provide more details to the above if necessary.

So a few things on CTF:

We found that CTF works best as a “push” the flag, not “cap it by bringing it back to my base”. This means you have to push through the enemy team, and since you need to push it into their spawn, it means they can more easily defend a cap.

If it’s “cap” it by bringing it back to your base, there are often cases where the capturing team gets a flag past a certain point on the field, and no one on the defending team can catch up with them in order to prevent the cap.

We tried various mechanics, like making it so that the flag carrier couldn’t use skills, or they had to use “flag” skills, or they were just slowed down greatly, but in most of those instances, players didn’t have as much fun when carrying a flag. You can see some of this carried over to Spirit Watch and some of the issues it has.

Just some things to think about.

@ 2on2/3on3: A lot of you guys really seem to like this idea. So do we. We’re looking at game types which encourage this style of play. Another thing we’re looking at it combining the size of fights with larger tactical/strategic implications, so that there is something fun going on the micro level (the actual fight) and the macro level (the map overall).

@ Moba: This plays into another idea you guys seem to be hitting on, which is a moba style game. We think the layout/flow of a moba style map could be really fun, especially when combined with something like killing enemy captains or guild lords. We’re also looking at testing something like that!

@ GvG/castle sieges: I think these can be combined in some pretty cool ways. You guys had some great points/ideas on these, so thanks for those.

@ Lords and protecting them/not protecting them: Players seem to be pretty split down the middle on this one. Some players want the “play” of protecting their Lord and keeping it alive, while other want it to be more like a MOBA nexxus – something you can’t actively heal/protect. We’ll have to try that one both ways to see what has better play to it. I suspect it’s the former.

@ Not having RPG elements in our game when compared to most MOBAS: Keep this in mind. It’s what gives the mobas their flow/pace. We need to build mechanics that change the pacing/feel of the map in a similar way, without hampering the fun players have. I think you get the same thing out of an RTS, but in a different way. Both sides start off with few resources and weak units. Over time they build up in both areas, and the middle/late game are very different than the early game.

I’ll keep looking for other things to respond to in this thread. Thanks for all the feedback/ideas guys.

Rising Dusk.2408:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

A lot of these considerations, unfortunately, don’t make a lot of sense.

We should consider the following realities:

• A damaging condition in the Power line both hurts condition builds that want it and limits power builds that don’t want it
• Having it force power players to use LB to get the burn may have some validity in PvP, but drives this trait further into the mud for PvE where LB is inferior DPS to Dagger

Consider the following instead, Jon:

• Move Withering Precision from Curses to Spite Grandmaster
• Move Dhuumfire from Spite to Curses Grandmaster and DON’T change it
• Move Terror up to Grandmaster
• Drop Lingering Curses down to Master
• Move Weakening Shroud up to Master and DON’T change duration
• Move Spectral Attunement down to Adept

Withering Precision: Deal 15% more damage to foes suffering from Weakness.
Siphoned Power: Deal 10% more damage when you have over 90% HP or 90% Death Shroud.

This does the following things:

• Conditionmancers are forced to take either Terror or Dhuumfire, but they can’t have both
• Dhuumfire is a cover condition for other conditions and can have longer durations depending on condition duration investment, but fear doing damage is also very powerful. From this position, you could possibly even buff Dhuumfire to bring it into line with Terror since they occupy the same trait spot on a bar.
• Weakening Shroud is kept valuable with its new synergy with the new Withering Precision, which is now in the Power line
• Withering Precision goes to the Spite line and actually provides a dps boost comparable to Close to Death with different conditions, which actually helps PvE necros too
• New Siphoned Power has synergy with Death Shroud because you can activate it when health is over 90% and keep it there safely, and this trait significantly helps power Necros in both PvP and PvE to actually be worth packing over condition variants

Some great ideas in here. We’ve talked about moving Dhuumfire up to Grandmaster in the Curses line, and moving Terror as well.

We also like the idea of making Terror scale with # of conditions on your target, so there’s more “play” to trying to load your target up with a lot of condies before you hit them with Fear. Your opponent can try to keep condies low, so that Terror won’t hurt as much.

Dhuumfire moving would also open up a gap for a new GM trait in Spite, so we’d need to figure that out as well.

Great suggestions!

Nickface.5984:

I’m not saying it’s a good idea, mind you. Just a random thought.

Nods, it’s something we’ve talked about internally.

A lot of times, we’ll preface ideas with, “I’m not saying this is a great idea, or something we’d do, but I’ll throw it out to see if it sparks a brainstorm for anyone else…<insert idea>.”

These types of ideas (and this whole thread) are still amazing for generating ideas. Even if an idea might have a lot of problems with it, still toss it out! Maybe it’ll lead us to the eventual answer!

jsu.4370:

I’ll be rocking a d/d ele next patch.

+ s/d thief nerfed
+ stun warrior nerfed
+ Tempest Defense 60 cd to 25 cd
+ 5% to 10% increase dmg fire line
+ 16 attunement cd to 13 w/ no arcane traitline

30/30/10/0/0

Nods. We’ve actually seen some pretty interesting Ele builds crop up internally, based on the changes we’re trying.

Some great ideas in here!!!

We’re reworking how a few things in sPvP function, and I think, based on the sentiments expressed in this thread, that you guys will be pleasantly surprised!

Can’t give all the details, but the team really liked the ideas in here, and we’ll be using them for inspiration as we revamp some PvP systems!

Hype.8032:

Can someone from Anet answer this question: do you plan for sword thieves to be tourney viable after this patch?

If the answer is no then please just come out and say it.

Yep, we do!

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!

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.

mini.6018:

Now they leave the hambow meta almost unchange while they completely kill the mace.

“Unchanged”:

For Hammer and Bow:
• Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
• Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.
• Combustive Shot – Increased pulse duration to 3s. Increased burn duration per pulse to 3s. Normalized damage per pulse. Updated pulses per tier to 2, 3,and 4 respectively for tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3.

“Completely killed”:
Mace:
• Skull Crack. Increased the cast time from 1/4s to 1/2s. Updated the animation and effects of this skill to be more clear.

:)

Berullos.6928:

The mark of blood change is another 33% nerf to our damage with staff. Just like it was a nerf with scepter. I don’t understand their reasoning for these nerfs. Its like they want to kill the builds that dont utilize fear or dhuumfire for condi damage. And because of these nerfs that dont favor builds who dont run those traits, it actually emphasizes and supports going for those traits in order to remain viable.

Things they could’ve done to fix it. Fix fear damage scaling. Or make dhuumfire proc poison or torment. And lower torment stacks. And if you nerf the damage with weakening shroud procs or mark of blood at least give us sustain like all necros want.

Currently the sustain is still bad as we require being near things in order to gain life force. IE: I need to hit you with marks or my attacks in order to gain life force. A smart player can already just engage disengage until you run out of life force and then kill you as you cant build the life force without somthing to hit.

People still get away from necros plenty easy if you wanted us to be hard to get away from. And siphons don’t work in shroud which is a major downside. Healing still doesnt work while in shroud either. And scaling for siphons is a joke.

The strongest builds currently are still going to be dhuumfire even after the nerf and fearmancers. And builds that don’t use those are basically nerfed harder than those specific builds.

Thanks for the feedback. A lot of times, when running standard Necro condie builds, the bleeds actually do a large portion of your damage if they are allowed to stack on a target. Burning is nice, and Torment can be decent, and of course Poison brings down opposing heals. But the Bleeds are where a large amount of the sustained damage comes from.

We want to bring down that raw dmg but still allow the Necro the ability to “shut down” targets. Notice we’re not bringing down Chills much, or Vulns, or Blinds. We don’t mind the Necro shutting targets down, we just don’t want them also doing a ton of condition damage on top if it.

For Dhumfire and Terror: we have plans on reworks for those down the road, but they won’t make it in for this patch. We have plans for those, but they’re a little further down the “balance” road.

Thanks for the feedback!

Sauncho.8076:

John,

Could you please explain the symbol of swiftness change, I am not fully understanding it. Is it a nerf, and if so, why. Guardians need buff in the mobility department, not nerfs.

Also, can we please buff spirit weapons some how. Thanks for your time.

Respectfully,
Sauncho

It’s actually an improvement in a lot of cases. But, having said that, we don’t want the Guardian to be TOO mobile. Guardians are a very strong presence on any battlefield, so we want to make sure we don’t give them too much mobility + defense.

Rufy.6093:

LordByron.8369:

•Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
•Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

Another nerf to D/D to the level of RTL 200% nerf.

GG if you want all players enjoyng D/D gameplay to quit at all cost you will be sure this time.

RTL was one of the most unfun nerf i ever seen in a game.
This is even worse…for PvE and WWW.

I hope you are happy of how much you destroyed those in the sake of your terrible PvP.

If this arrives in PvE i think i ll find the final reson to quit this great game ruined since day 1 patch after patch.

I already quit PvP…i quit WWW and now its time for pve.

Relax man, learn to adapt and try new things. They ain’t trying to ruin any class. They are balancing all over.

:)

It’s true. And again, none of this is final, we could pull things or adjust things still. Just trying to get a sense of what you guys feel with these changes, they’re not set in stone.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

/grumble

Confounding Suggestions.. Ugh. I’d rather the stun. The daze duration synergizes beautifully with Runes of the Mesmer (which also needs a buff)

All of the changes are kind of awesome, but Confounding Suggestions barely merited Grandmaster as it is. What makes it so good is that the 50% stun chance makes it MUCH easier to chance down fleeing opponents as well as escape crappy situations. Increasing daze duration takes that away, but gives us the potential (w/Mesmer runes) for a near 2-second daze, making the DazeMantra -> OH SwordDaze -> DazeMantra combo into a beastly 6-second daze… assuming they don’t just run away from you.

I’d much rather them make the 25-point in Domination grant a 20% daze duration increase. The Confounding change is still barely grandmaster-worthy IMO, if its an addition to the stun chance, then it becomes freakin’ glorious and totally worth the 30 points.

Thanks for the feedback. We had the same discussion internally on that one. Back in alpha/beta, there were lockdown Mesmer builds that COULD keep someone down for 6-7 seconds…and it was brutal.

We’re afraid to go back to that, but as you can tell with these changes, we do want to augment the current Mesmer’s efficacy in regard to shutdown. It can just be scary if we go too high with it…..so we’ll think this one over some more.

Sepreh.5924:

Hey Jon, just wanted to echo everyone who has already said thank you for the preview and for explaining the reasoning behind some of the changes. Is much appreciated by many of us and a great step towards collaboration

No prob, that’s why we wrote those out for you guys.

We’ll try to do more of that going forward!

We just posted this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview/

Keep in mind that we can still change/tweak some of these things, so please don’t freak out. We’d love to hear your feedback! We’re currently playing with these changes and already making some small tweaks as we speak.

We just posted this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview/

Keep in mind that we can still change/tweak some of these things, so please don’t freak out. We’d love to hear your feedback! We’re currently playing with these changes and already making some small tweaks as we speak.

Thanks for all the feedback all. Please keep your ideas constructive (as many of you are!).

As we said, we can still make tweaks to these changes, and nothing is in stone. We have time to adapt to your feedback, so please try to be civil, constructive, and terse (walls of text are hard to read)!

:)

DiogoSilva.7089:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Yes, we’re also looking at the other classes in relation to the current iteration of the Warrior and how they vie for spaces in the meta.

If we bring down Warrior slightly, we’ll also need to adjust other things to make sure they’re also not too strong.

Also, we want to shave most things down, instead of just running around with a “buff” stick. That’s how you get a lot of power creep, and it’s something a lot of you, very astutely, have pointed out – we need to avoid that.

Keep your eyes peeled for another post later today where we expound on a lot of this type of stuff.

I agree with this. I think buffs should only come to skills that are clumsy or inefficient. Even though the elementalist is currently the worst class for pvp, I would actually wish for its instant-burst damage to be toned down (which, in my opinion, should be done by adding a " damagedelay" to arcane skills, so that they wouldn’t be nerfed outside of pvp or even outside of this build). It would be interesting to see all classes have their strongest options “shaved” in the next balance patch.

BTW, when can we except the next wave of changes? In 2 weeks?

December. I’ll give out more details later.

FrownyClown.8402:

I think you guys need to stop this notion of 1 class can only fill a certain roll. If I want a necro that can tank as well as aa guardian it should be allowed. You guys limit builds this way. An example where I think you fell short is siphon builds. It gas great tank potential but doesn’t heal enough with healing power. Another example is a ranger. It’s build diversity and viabily falls short because its constrained into a no burst type class.

Watch for an upcoming post…..both of these are addressed.

Yes, we’re also looking at the other classes in relation to the current iteration of the Warrior and how they vie for spaces in the meta.

If we bring down Warrior slightly, we’ll also need to adjust other things to make sure they’re also not too strong.

Also, we want to shave most things down, instead of just running around with a “buff” stick. That’s how you get a lot of power creep, and it’s something a lot of you, very astutely, have pointed out – we need to avoid that.

Keep your eyes peeled for another post later today where we expound on a lot of this type of stuff.

@ team sizes over 5: I know some people really like the idea of having games of 8v8 → 15 v 15, but in reality, these games are often hard to set up. I think that 5on5 is much easier to organize as a player. When I was a GW1 player, playing competitive GvG, we had many nights where we had a hard time getting all 8 people on, night after night, in order to train. A lot of competitive games have settled on the 5 person team (CS, all mobas, etc.), and it’s an easier # to organize than 8 or 15 person teams.

I think 5 is the biggest team size we’d want for organized play, and we could try smaller teams, but due to multiple reasons, teams greater than 5 would probably be too large for GW2.

@ game modes vs. other features: We can do both. It obviously takes time for both, but we don’t have to choose a new map or game type versus new features. Having said that, the way the work breaks down sometimes means that a designer is needed for a game type, with a little programmer support, while a new major feature (like new rewards), may take a lot of programmer time and designer time.

@ SHOULD WE EVEN TAKE THIS COLLABORATION THING SERIOUSLY!?!??!?!?!?: That’s up to you. We are.

@ King of the hill: We’ve actually tried it a few times internally. It usually devolves into a stalemate in the middle of the map, or one big cluster of bodies. Imagine: the middle point is the only point on the map, and both teams just run right to it…..10 people pop their elites….. there’s a 5on5, and then the game is over. Are there things you’d like to add in order to spice it up a little? IT SOUNDS GREAT…and then you play it…and it leaves a little to be desired.

@ GvG: There’s a lot of equivocation around "GvG’. Keep in mind that when we’re talking about GvG here, we’re talking about a GAME TYPE. Don’t get this confused with two guilds fighting each other for positioning on a ladder. That’s something else we can do (and want to do), and that would work for CTF, or KOTH, or GvG, or conquest, etc.

For the GAME TYPE, people seem to be asking for:

• 2 lords. If you kill their lord you win.
• There are obstacles in the way (a lot of people use the MOBA analogies of having NPC’s or towers in the way…you defeat these in order to get to the opposing guild lord).
• I assume there’s a time limit?
• Do we do VoD again to stop people from turtling?

@ Giving you guys the tools so you can just make game types yourselves: I wish we could do this. I really do. This is how counsterstrike and dota were born. I was there when it happened, as a player, and I loved it. For GW2, it takes a LOT to make a map. It takes design, scripting, a map artist, programmers, a prop artist, a sound engineer, voice over, etc. It’s not as simple as “give us your tools and we’ll do it”. It takes a lot to make a map in an MMO.

Keep posting such amazing thoughts! As John said earlier in a post, we’re here, listening to you, but we love letting you guys talk among yourselves. We don’t want to butt in and interrupt you when you guys are producing such productive conversations!

The current thinking is that a tournament could be decided by something like (using your examples):

1st game: Capture the Flag (not saying we’d do that, but it’s an example).
2nd game: One of the Conquest maps.
3rd game: King of the Hill (not saying we’d do that, but …you know the drill).

That way there’s variety, which means teams need to be strong in multiple game types.

@SinDen: Yep, we have a lot of cool features that are being worked on right now for PvP. A lot of them are really big, and take a lot of time to develop. That’s just how things are unfortunately when it comes to those new systems. I do think that new game types, in addition to the new features, would be good though, and that’s what we’re aiming at!