Guild Wars 2

Posted by: The Lost Witch.7601

Part 7
What GW2 experiences serve as an example? (Please let the devs know what you like!)

The bomb room in CoE path 1. Interrupts and pushback skills can protect someone who is triggering the switch. This makes for a nice unique interaction with mobs where killing fast is not the best tactic.
The queens gauntlet. I didn’t like all the bosses, but I really liked the npc that could change my traits. (Shame it wasn’t next to the repair kodan) The windcaller, deadeye and the pirates were the most interesting fights when it came to making a build. I also enjoyed the easier melee foes because they rewarded my extensive kiting manoeuvres. The one hit knock outs were as annoying as always though. Yet I can understand that a master of reflexes will not have respect for anything less than that.
The outlaws in Caudecus Manor. They can be tossed around, reflected and kited, yet they still pose a challenge. (Though they could use a leap skill)
The dredge fractal door bombing part. Where stealth, pushback and area denial have their place to shine. Being able to immobilize the boss at the end is cool too!
Mai Trin. If only we needed to pull her into the fields, that would’ve been great. The dodging part of this fight was actually well placed. The focus was on dodging and surviving instead of dodging and killing. Stealth was well used, as were teleporting skills. I feel that this dungeon rewarded me for bringing a build specialized for this fight. I actually really like the normal aetherblade mobs too. They’re challenging but not instantly lethal.
The army we have in the charr fractal. Keeping them alive is valuable, they’re strong. Healing and protecting them feels useful (if just a bit).
Fighting level 12 foes on my level 9 character. The foes are tough and deal a lot of damage, but never enough to one shot me. Every piece of better armour, every level I gain feels like it makes me a lot tougher. It matters.
Lighting the path in the Sharkmaw puzzle. I didn’t realize we could pick up torches until very late. Before that I just used all the skills that brighten up the surroundings to see where I would be going. We teamed up with a few people to more easily do this. Sadly, this wasn’t the intended way to do it. But food for thought.

I’ll add some more to these as I experience them in-game. It is about time that I post this topic to get some input! Thoughts benefit from good company.(That’s you, I hope!)

For everyone that just scrolled down to the end to save time…

GW2 has a large variety of combat moves. End-game PvE only utilizes dodging and damage to create difficulty. While this makes all content available to nearly every players build, it rarely if ever requires a specialized build.

To create a new type of difficult content, we can come up with different encounters. Foes that require some preparation. (Other than knowing where the ‘safe spot’ is)
Or we can change the balance of the way players fight monsters through changes in numbers. (Attack speed/health/damage numbers)

Preferably both.

Please help this game become a bit more about strategy and a bit less about reflexes. The balance in PvE is off. (WvW and PvP have entirely different issues, this is probably not one of them)

Thanks for reading!

Now go write your replies and please keep it civil

End of part 7…

Endgame PvE: Difficulty comes down to dodging

Posted by: The Lost Witch.7601

Part 6

What can be done in general?

Now to make all encounters like this would make this game feel very forced. And for that reason I do not recommend throwing all of these onto the players at once. A few subtle changes to existing content can go a long way in balancing out builds and gear against the current dodge + berserker mode.

The proposed subtle changes:

Make many of the bosses in end game content attack faster. Wherever their animation allows it. This doesn’t mean that there should be less response time, but that running out of dodges is an actual issue! This should be accompanied with a slight decrease in power though. Getting hit 5 times and recovering 5 times feels much more like a battle than not getting hit at all. This goes for non-bosses too.
Reduce the damage on big hits. As it is now, we may take over 40k damage from a hit in soldiers gear. Even with protection on in heavy armour with extra added toughness we will die from this. Investing maximally in protective gear should bear fruits. It is a very heavy sacrifice to go defence all the way. (I’m estimating at least a 75% damage loss) While very heavy attacks should be expected from the meanest of monsters, reducing the damage to say 25k in heavy berserker gear would make this surviveable with dedicated protection. (Even for light armours)
Do something about the defiant buff. If cc skills can’t be used on the bosses that take about 80% of the time in any dungeon then of course we need to stick to damage and damage alone.
Perhaps it could be replaced with stability that renews every 4 seconds and a sort of boss resistance that makes daze and stun last shorter. And of course it would be silly if we were able to toss around some of the big foes, but nudging them backward a bit and interrupting them while doing it… should be fine.
In the current version I’d say 3 stacks is plenty for all 5 man content and landing the interrupt should be worth it. (Put the skill on a long cooldown) Let’s punish Kohler for taking so much time to charge up his attack!
If you have good suggestion for this problem, please mention it, I have yet to find a truly wonderful solution.
Reduce the health on some of the bigger bosses. Good steps have already been made here, though some foes still feel like not bringing max damage is a huge waste. Any clever build I have planned may lose out to the damage requirement for bringing down some of those bosses in a reasonable timespan. This is more of a warning though! Most of the current bosses aren’t as terrible as they used to be.
Add more pressure. Lots of small hits, environmental damage and conditions make healing and defence desirable attributes.
Build templates. Yeah, in this topic too. Convenience goes a long way, not only for our own use, but also to send it to others.
Increase the toughness of some foes and decrease their health a bit. This makes conditions much more appealing. It would be good for condition users to shine in certain areas.
Increase the effectiveness of healing power. Don’t worry too much about the trinity, a dedicated healer is miles away. Seeing my 600 healing power result in an effective 120 extra healing per pulse on shadow refuge when I’m taking 7k damage in a matter of seconds… yeah healing power is a waste. Healing power should be more desirable if skills scale better. Making a few pieces of clerics gear worth picking up. At the moment power, precision and critical damage scale so much better, taking anything else feels like a poor choice.
If a foe is required to step into (or out of) a certain area, make it a forced move. If we can simply lure them to wherever we wish them to be, none of the push and pull skills really get to shine.

If you have more to add, please do mention these!

End of part 6

Endgame PvE: Difficulty comes down to dodging

Posted by: The Lost Witch.7601

Part 5
The beekeeper

During this fight, the boss will spawn several swarms of bees that each chase a single player. They’ll keep chasing that player and can’t be slain, they’re like target seeking projectiles. Stealth would break their chase, they’d just fly back to their hive until their target reappears. The stings are very poisonous (special unremoveable poison), so being stung is not a very pleasant experience.

The bees are vulnerable to cc but move a bit faster than players, so just kiting isn’t going to cut it. You actually need the cc to stay ahead of the bees. As soon as they get really close, you’re going to get poisoned, the attack cannot be blinded, blocked or evaded. (Simply too many of them)

During the fight you’ll need to damage the boss, who doesn’t have outrageous amounts of health, nor crazy aoe damage skills. Bursting, stealthing, bursting is a very good tactic here.

There could even be a pool nearby for players to hide in from the bees. In which case they could jump out and have a few seconds to try and get near the boss before the bees reach them again. Supermobile characters could get in a few hits before getting back to the pool.

The idea would be that unless the team has outrageous amounts of cc, bursting and fleeing is the only way of taking down this boss.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Slows, area denial, pushes, swiftness, teleports, stealth and healing (to counter the poison).

Run for the key

Like so many GW players, if we need a key, and we don’t need to fight to get it, we’ll run for it. Let’s make that the primary objective in this case.
So in this case there are 5 keys needed to open the chest. Each room has a key and different challenges to offer. Perhaps one is filled with traps, while another one doesn’t allow stealth (those cruel sentries from the stealth heart quest!), there could be one filled with monsters, one might be totally dark (maybe not even a torch, after all, we have loads of characters that can light up the area a bit with their spells effects). A final room might have all of these.
An encounter like this may make people search for builds that aren’t set on dealing damage, but on survival instead.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Stunbreakers, stability, condition removal, healing, protection, blocks, vitality, toughness, invulnerability, blinds, area denial, stealth, teleports, area lighting skills and swiftness.

The high ropes

In this encounter you and your party are way up on tin ropes. If you fall off you’ll plummet to your death. The boss is a melee foe with a long recharge obvious pushback attack and some general damage through rapid attacks. Players would have to take turns blocking/blinding or healing up the damage. Dodging is really hard to do because you’ll fall off before you know it. This allows for other ways of damage mitigation to shine.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Blinds, blocks, invulnerability, protection, defensive gear, healing and perhaps even interrupts (depending on how defiant this boss is)

Chaser lasers

This encounter is so much about dodging that it becomes something new entirely. There is a machine shooting laserbeams that drain power with every beam. The only way of defeating this machine is by completely draining its power and then destroying it.

The beams are fired at whoever is holding an orb. It can hit everywhere in the arena, but only the players holding an orb. However, if no one is holding an orb, the machines power resets immediately. It has no issues attacking several people at once. (Making holding all the orbs the fastest way to bring it down)
If this is too easy, make the machines own energy regeneration powerful enough to overpower just one or two people holding an orb.

The lasers should be unreflectable, or this will simply be too easy. They should also fire rapidly, so you have to keep dodging pretty much non-stop or drop the orb. Perhaps it would stop attacking if players were downed.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Dodging, invulnerability, evades, endurance regeneration, blocks (single blocks to a lesser extent) and perhaps even pets, clones & minions could help drain the machine?

Feedback on these encounters, prettier versions and entirely different ideas are very welcome. Perhaps some dev will come across this thread and draw some inspiration from these ideas.

The end of part 5

(edited 2013-09-05 17:31:15 by The Lost Witch.7601)

Endgame PvE: Difficulty comes down to dodging

Posted by: The Lost Witch.7601

Part 4

The lethal dose

Have a boss with attacks that are exactly lethal (well ok, downed state) + a (little!) bit more to players with full berserker stats. In melee lethal to the heavy variant, at 900 range lethal to the medium sort and at 1200 range lethal to light armour. The attack should be singular and undodgeable (perhaps too large an AoE, or too sudden a move). There would need to be a fairly long recharge time so people can heal up in between blasts. Of course there should be some regular attacks also to keep people busy in between, but make it possible for them to keep their health relatively high.
The amount of damage taken with high toughness and heavy armour is reduced greatly so those people shouldn’t have too much trouble surviving. The Protection buff will also reduce the damage enough for it not to be lethal. The same goes for players with a lot of extra vitality.
This doesn’t have to be a very hard boss. But it would go a long way in showing how effective defensive gear is in a fight. (Which it isn’t at the moment, but this thread might help change that) It could actually function as a way of checking your effective defence.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Protection, toughness and vitality.

Swarm it!/Spam it!

This regenerating monster has fast ranged attacks that only have a small AoE that mainly targets players. This allows for players to use summons and pets more effectively. The fight takes place in an area where all attacks deal +500 (?) bonus damage. This stimulates the use of multi-hit attacks. The big hits lose some effectiveness while chained attacks, summons and pets become really good. (Necessary even, to beat the boss in time, or to overcome the regeneration).

Key utilities used in this encounter: Rapid attacks, summons, pets and turrets.

How low can you go?

This vile nightmare just doesn’t take damage from players at 100% health. In fact, the lower the attackers health, the higher the damage. At 90% health the damage output is reduced by 90%, at 20% the damage output is reduced by 20% etc..
A mechanic like this requires players to put themselves in danger. The nightmare should use many quick small attacks so that it is possible but still risky to go down to low health. Throwing rocks from downed state would actually deal more damage than an attack from a player near full health.
Of course players in berserker gear would still deal more damage at 25% health, but they should have much more trouble staying alive at such low health. This battle would still be very dodge dependant, but if the boss is well designed, it should feel quite a bit different.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Blocks, blinds, protection, invulnerability, toughness, vitality, healing and low life & downed state traits.

The maze keepers

The players here have a maze to defend. Monsters will try to get to them from within the maze (they know the way, which they will stick to unless someone comes in melee range, then a single hit kills) while players try to slay them before they’re through. The upper layer of the maze is for players to manoeuvre on and eventually the monsters may get there too, which should generally mean failure because they hit so bloody hard.
The main task is to prevent the monsters from reaching the end of the maze alive. This can be done by immobilizing and slowing them wherever possible and by staying ranged at all times. Melee weapons are just not going to cut it here.
There could be a couple of environmental traps that have to be triggered like those used in the obsidian sanctum puzzle in WvW. A very mobile character (talking swiftness + teleport/leap here) can set multiple defences on his own. This could slow the monsters from different directions enough to allow the other players to focus down one monster at a time.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Leaps/teleports/swiftness, pushback, immobilize, slowing skills (especially from traps), area denial.

End of part 4

Endgame PvE: Difficulty comes down to dodging

Posted by: The Lost Witch.7601

Part 3

Outlaws with flamethrowers

A bunch of outlaws will come at you with flamethrowers. Because flamethrowers attack regularly and fast. There will be no big blasts to dodge out of, although you will be able to dodge some of the attacks by evading them, there will always be more hits coming. Like in the test of endurance, healing is very effective here. And because none of the hits are instantly lethal, you’ll get to see the effect of having a high toughness on every hit.

In addition to this, your enemies finally start to attack at a reasonably fast pace. This is where confusion and retaliation will shine. While, because they’re flamethrowers, the wall of reflection doesn’t get all the credit.
Splitting up and running in all directions with snares will probably save you a lot of damage, so no more balling up in a corner and then bashing them all up. I’ve picked flamethrowers here as an example, but anything with a relatively fast non-projectile attack could work.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Protection, toughness, vitality, confusion, retaliation, chills and cripples.

You’re in the army now

Rarely do we get an army inside a 5 man instance. The charr fractal one is pretty awesome though. We could have some more of these, preferably where the foes and soldiers are both very strong compared to us. We could set up combo fields (or abuse theirs?) to support the fight. Or grant the army might and protection. This battle would be all about support. Due to the sheer number of npcs and the strength of them, our own damage output can be neglected. The support we can grand through area weakness, poison (if they heal), protection, retaliation, chill, reflects, stability, aegis and banners would be great though.
The players would have to manoeuvre behind the lines, because this is a battle among giants. (perhaps a Jotun fractal?) It would be a battle that is so balanced that it takes quite a bit of time before it’s done but it would inevitably end in a loss if it weren’t for the players presence.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Support skills of all sorts.

Retribution

A branded monster with mirrors so sharp they reflect half the damage back to their attackers. It’ll force people to look for a new balance on offense and defence. This would also be a big plus for condition users. I guess the programming for this effect may not exist yet, but that could be a worthy investment.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Healing, vitality and conditions.

A charging crystal

To light up the darkness, a crystal needs to be charged. But as it is charging up, we can see a shadow sneaking up on us in the dim light. This Aatxe is extremely tough, the only goal it has however, is to crack that crystal. If left alone, it’ll creep up to the crystal and shatter it instantly as it is about 25% charged. Maybe one strike is enough to destroy the crystal. (You’ll have to get a new one somewhere) So it is vital that the monster is slowed, immobilized, pushed back or otherwise held from progressing towards the crystal. Another strategy would be to protect the crystal by interrupting the attacks or blocking them. Or perhaps both are necessary.
Once the crystal is fully charged the creature is blasted away and the darkness is cleared. Mission complete!

Key utilities used in this encounter: Immobilize, blinds, slows, area denial, interrupts, aegis, push/pull and knockdown.

Exhaustion

In this fight, we can only dodge twice. There is simply no endurance regeneration. (Or extremely slow, like GW1 exhaustion slowed down energy regeneration)
The boss would still throw out plenty of AoE rings and obvious big slow swings. But some of these hits will just need to be tanked, blocked or teleported out of. Players will either have to put those mobility utilities to some good use or find other ways of preventing the damage.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Blocks, blinds, protection, teleports, invulnerability, stealth?, endurance refills, evades, toughness, vitality and swiftness.

End of part 3

Endgame PvE: Difficulty comes down to dodging

Posted by: The Lost Witch.7601

Part 2.
I have been working on this post for a while so that I could include a couple of examples of what could really spice up GW2 for build crafters.

Warning: a lot of text, feel free to read a few and then skip on to the next bit

The spike room

This would be a room with poisoned spikes on the wall. The monster(s?) in it would use pushback skills or explosions to try and land players into the spikes, while the players must try to do the same to the monsters. These monsters try to stay well clear of the spikes and frequently return to the middle of the room. They might have stability that can be removed, which they’ll get again after their stability skill has been recharged (takes some time).

Players will take damage from both the monsters and the spikes, while the monsters only take damage while they are poisoned by the spikes and they lose a lot of health from landing in the spikes. This would make it possible for teams with a lot of pushes to take out the monsters quicker than a team which only has a few. Although both will be able to kill the monsters eventually.
Alternatives to the spikes could be fire pools, poisonous layers of water (for some sinking/floating), or to make it really deadly: be able to push foes off a cliff/get pushed off the cliff.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Stability, push/pull and boon removal.

The fire shamans

Three mighty flame legion shamans are capable of blasting everyone to bits with their meteor shower. They have probably sacrificed a number of helpless victims to charge up their power and are now able to destroy a party of 5 with ease. However, the casting of the spell is a delicate ritual on its own and interrupting it is a very doable task. The shamans are very healthy and take a while to bring down. They’ll try to complete their grand spell all the time, but any interrupt works. Once it is unleashed, no dodge will save you, only invulnerability might… for whatever the duration.
There might be other flame legion foes trying to bash your skull in while the team tries to keep the shamans from ever delivering one meteor shower.

Key utilities used in this encounter: All interrupts.

A test of endurance

Jormag has turned part of the world into a desolate icy waste. Unfortunately, this is where the loot is at. Cold winds deal damage to everyone over time, similar to the winds that are found in the Lieutenant of Jormag dragon event. The icebrood minions you face here are not of the one hit k.o. variety but just add to the pressure. There is no way of lifting the pressure except slaying the monster at the end. There a few spots in the dungeon where the wind doesn’t blow. At these waypoints the team can strategize or afk before going back into the cold. Regeneration + more = a must.

Key utilities used in this encounter: All sorts of healing.

Hard to kill

At the moment, mobs in instances tend to go down, fast or slow, but rarely back up. Let’s have a bunch of foes with regeneration and healing abilities. Preferably with some evades and blocks as well. A few strong key figures in the mobs would have shouts and area bound heals for the team. Disabling these for a while makes it possible to take down the rest. Perhaps in a dungeon setting it could be made so that all other foes must die before the healer can go down. That would make it necessary to disable the healer but impossible to just put a target on it and bash away.
To disable the healer perhaps interrupts can be used, or just pushing it away from the rest of the mob. There would have to be a rally point for the foes so they’ll try to get back together and the foes can’t just be pulled one by one. The separation must be forced. The difficulty would lie in balancing this so a berserker team doesn’t steamroll over them without using tactics and still make it beatable without berserker armour.

Key utilities used in this encounter: Poison, weakness, push/pull, interrupts.

End of part 2

(edited 2013-09-05 17:32:39 by The Lost Witch.7601)

Endgame PvE: Difficulty comes down to dodging

Posted by: The Lost Witch.7601

in Account & Technical Support

Let me first mention that I really like GW2. A game with great potential. The game is still young and Anet has proven to be very ambitious, which is why I feel that this post is worth the effort.

It is rather long, for the lazy people, or those short on time there is a very short recap near the bottom of part 7.

Endgame PvE: Where difficulty comes down to dodging

Lupicus, Liadri, Mai Trin, and Subject Alpha are just a few of the more difficult encounters we can find in GW2. But I’ve found that pretty much anything that is difficult in GW2’s PvE involves either a lot of dodging or frantic jumping against a time limit.

To many players, this reflex based play style must appeal, otherwise GW2 wouldn’t be the success it is today. But to many of the players that have enjoyed its prequel, the focus on reflexes nowadays is tiresome. Encounters barely (if ever) require you to change builds, it feels as if no encounter is problematic as long as you dodge in time.

This focus on reflexes as the way to define difficulty has a few terrible disadvantages.

Berserker gear. Hard foes often kill you if you get hit once (or by several AoE fields at once), no matter what gear you wear. So it’s basically dodge or die. We might as well sacrifice all sorts of healing and armour for more damage then. While the damage reduction from toughness is quite effective mathematically, it doesn’t matter at all if a missed dodge or bad positioning still kills you in one second. In fact killing faster is the best defence, it reduces the chance of someone missing their dodge.

PvE Builds. While GW2 has lots of options when it comes to builds, a large part of it is only appealing in PvP. Pulling foes is only done once, by a guardian, to pull the mob together with a greatsword. Pushing is actually a hindrance most of the time, since it throws foes out of any AoE damage your friends have brought. And in the few cases where a pull might be useful, like getting Mai Trin inside the electrical storm, it is not really required. (She’ll just follow you over there)
Getting an interrupt on a huge boss attack is also something that I have not yet been able to do. (Or felt the need to)

My character has nothing unique to offer to the fight. This is put a bit harsh, but apart from bringing my guardian for reflects and party wide aegis (so my team can miss a few more dodges). I only feel uniquely useful if I’m using portal or shadow refuge. After all, anyone can dodge and hit. And that’s all we need.

Smart players with bad reflexes. There are plenty of bright people in my guild that managed to do the hard content in GW1 that are struggling with the terrors of GW2. Bringing protective gear and some extra healing just doesn’t help. If you don’t have the reflexes, you’re going to fail. And since difficulty is for a large part defined by the amount of time you can keep going without messing up a dodge…Yeah you’re going to have to miss out on all the challenging stuff.

What can be done to make this game less dodge dependant?

All professions have similar things to offer. This was probably done to get rid of the trinity and I can see the value of that. However we have a lot more to offer than just damage and dodges. The following skills are not available to all professions, but common enough to more frequently be required (not just useful) in a difficult team based encounter. Adding an environmental weapon that completely replace these is often unnecessary, the fact that we need these makes coming up with a build interesting and difficult. (For instance, pulling the oozes in Detha’s path in AC requires pulling, but no clever build at all.) An extra quest to get an npc/weapon to help should take some time to make it a suboptimal strategy.

Interrupts
Knockdowns
Knockbacks
Slows
Immobilizers
Pulling skills
Teleports
Leaps
Movement speed enhancers
Boon removal
Healing
Protection
Blinds
Blocks
Reflects
Invulnerability
Projectile absorption/destruction
Retaliation
Stealth
Summoned creatures
Stability
Area denial (Line of warding for example)
Combo fields
Conditions
Floating
Sinking
Traps
Quickness
Stunbreakers
Condition removal

Many of these are already being used, but on the side, rather than as the main course. (With the exception of stealth, reflection and condition removal in some areas of the game.) Yet they can easily be the centrepiece of a players build. In a dungeon someone could take it upon himself to become “The boon remover”, which is ridiculous at the moment.

Now some of these could be required with a very straightforward approach, such as setting the tar boss on fire in Arah path 1. Others can find their way in a more subtle manner. Such as the bomb room in CoE path 1. Pushback and interrupt skills can shine there for example.

End of part 1

(edited 2013-09-09 15:17:31 by The Lost Witch.7601)

Collaborative Development

in CDI

Posted by: Chris Whiteside.6102

Chris Whiteside.6102

Studio Design Director

Arnath.2319:
The big question still remains, how will these new feedback features and collaboration differ from the feedback that has already been constructively and maturely given over the last year?

The problem has never been poor communication between developers and players, it has been developers not acting upon feedback. Over the last year constructive, mature feedback has been given, developers have responded, developers acknowledge and promise to do something about said feedback, then developers fail to deliver on said promise.

I feel like this thread has achieved nothing.

Hi,

As detailed in the thread the point of this initiative is to get us back to a more constructive dialog. We have been super super busy all this year and with the help of the community we are trying to create a sustainable process in which we can have constructive discussion and brainstorming around specific areas of the game without hampering the output or quality of the GW2. We hope that this process works out and that we will see 2 way discussion from the community and devs on a daily basis across all the areas of the game.

To be clear though the goal of the exercise isn’t to be asked to do something and then we go of and implement it. Many community members have already explained in the thread why this isn’t a good approach. Instead we discuss areas of the game, brainstorm, challenge each other and in so doing, this Collaborative Development process will have a meaningful impact on the game. Much more so than anything we have done together in the past.

I hope this makes sense?

Chris

What's in the box guessing thread!

in Blood and Madness

Posted by: Quarktastic.1027

Quarktastic.1027

Peter Molyneux….holding another box.

Those armadillos would be a lot cooler if they looked more like real armadillos. mmm armadillos
-BnooMaGoo.5690

What's in the box guessing thread!

in Blood and Madness

Posted by: Siphaed.9235

Siphaed.9235

Wait! WAIT!

I know, I know, I know!

It’s Scarlet’s Body!!!!!!!! Because then Scarlet will show up in the middle of Lion’s Arch, and pull a Scooby Doo on us by pulling off a fake rubber mask to reveal that she was in fact Mad King Thorn the whole time!!!!!

banned for 70 hrs?

Posted by: Gaile Gray

Gaile Gray

ArenaNet Communications Manager

Three chat strings. Four curse words. And all directed at other players, too. You cannot be unaware of your language, and the fact that we offer a tool that players can use to try to block offensive language does not mean that offensive language is A-Ok. It is not, as explained in the UA and the RoC.

Serve your time-out and please make better choices in the future.

Gaile Gray
Communications Manager
Guild & Fansite Relations; In-Game Events
ArenaNet

30 balloons is too much

in Living World

Posted by: Vol.5241

Vol.5241

It’s your fault for trying to rush through an achievement when it isn’t even a week old

[Permabanned on Forums]
[Currently Inactive, Playing BF4]
Magic find works. http://sinasdf.imgur.com/

Too Much Temporary Content Can Only Harm GW2

Posted by: ColinJohanson.2394

ColinJohanson.2394

Game Director

We’ve said it a few times before, but I want to just re-iterate we’ve heard folks feedback on this and will be doing a much larger mix of permanent, recurring (content that can occur again in the future), and more world impacting releases as it relates to living world in the second half of the year. There will still absolutely be some amount of temporary, in particular story-driven moments to help drive the narrative forward. You’ll also see some of the content previously noted as “temporary” return permanently to the game in the 2nd half of the year.

Three additional notes ->

As we recently announced, we’re up to four living world teams now, which means they will have a much longer development cycle later this year to build more polished content, and content that can be more impactful.

The Living World teams are only a small chunk of the total developers at ArenaNet, we’ll be going into details on what many of those other teams will be doing in a blog later this month.

We also have teams working on much longer term projects, which we will discuss when they are closer to arrival.

We’ve said all of this before, but I think it’s good to just put that message out more frequently so everyone understands where we’re going. Thanks very much for all the feedback folks, as always we continue to listen to your feedback and course correct as we try new things in the live MMO space.

WebSocket location server/client map thing

in API Development

Posted by: zeeZ.5713

zeeZ.5713

As of right now, what’s being sent is basically this:

Client output:

{
“map”: int map_id,
“continent”: int continent_id,
“name”: string character name,
“face”: float face direction in degrees,
“elevation”: float adjusted elevation,
“position”: [float adjusted x, float adjusted y]
}
encoded in Base64.

map_id is bytes 27 and 28 from context as uint32 (counting from 0), I believe
continent_id is from https://api.guildwars2.com/v1/maps.json?map_id=… (cache that thing on every map change)
name is identity
face is -(atan2(fAvatarFront[ 2 ], fAvatarFront[ 0 ])*180/pi)%360
elevation is fAvatarPosition[ 1 ]*39.3701
position is fAvatarPosition[ 0 , 2 ]*39.3701, then transformed from map coordinates to continent coordinates

Server output:

[{client 1}, {client 2}, …]
unencoded…

Client connets to: ws://host/publish/key
Map connects to: ws://host/players.json/key

There is no other fancy stuff being done on connect other than what simple WebSockets do.

The server will accept more data than the above minimum, but will simply discard it.

(edited 2013-07-02 20:47:16 by zeeZ.5713)

"... Four Winds"

in Bazaar of the Four Winds

Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

hamsteak.1368:
the gate to the dominion of the four winds is in lion’s arch as well

Dominion of Winds*

And not really. The Shuttered Gate is dislocated from the wall. It may be a blunder on Anet’s part, but if you look at the Kessex Hills map you can see the wall heading south before reaching Garrenhoff, which matches the novel map perfectly. Besides, if the Shuttered Gate was directly connected to the Dominion of Winds, then Garrenhoff is a huge kitten lore flaw. Why? 1) Karka invaded there, wouldn’t be possible if the wall extended to the Shuttered Gate, and 2) Garrenhoff is an active trading port where ships come and go, which wouldn’t be possible if the wall extended to the Shuttered gate, and 3) we don’t see a wall in the distance.

So despite common belief, no, Lion’s Arch does not lead straight to the Dominion of Winds.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

Newb looking for guild in sorrows furnace

in Looking for...

Posted by: licht.4053

licht.4053

hey guys im looking for a decent-sized friendly and helpful guild that focuses on pve but likes to WvWvW now and then so basically

guild that is of decent size,
Friendly, decent, and helpful,
Focused on PvE and dungeon running,
newb friendly

i was looking at WRTH but since I’m sorrows furnace and not darkhaven i thought it would be more of a hindrance to them if i wanted to join, any help regarding a guild to try would be awesome

If you ever feel sad, just remember……
you have as many Oscars as Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp. :)

(edited 2013-06-27 07:08:35 by licht.4053)

An option to disable right click targeting

in Suggestions

Posted by: Evan Lesh

Evan Lesh

PvP Gameplay Programmer

While the bugged targeting behavior is getting reverted in PvP, our stance on the issue is the same. A lot of us here have similar feelings; I hate losing my target and then warrior greatsword rushing off a cliff! Some features and polish just slip through the cracks and/or we don’t have enough developer time to address every concern. We appreciate all the feedback and I’m sure these issues will be addressed soon

Bluxgore (80 Warr), Xilz (80 Necro), Ivo (80 Eng)
Bra (80 Guard), Fixie Bow (80 Ranger), Wcharr (80 Ele)
Xdragonshadowninjax (80 Thief)

An option to disable right click targeting

in Suggestions

Posted by: milo.6942

milo.6942

Evan you’re cool guy, but
what is Anet’s stance on a 9 month bug, exactly?

Guild Missions [merged]

Posted by: Matipzieu KyA.9613

(2) Ensure that the ACTUAL guild missions are capable of down-scaling to small guilds (3, 4, 5 players) so that small guilds are actually physically able to complete the objectives. It’s okay to scale down rewards slightly so that there is an incentive for epic snowballing with dozens upon dozens of players, but do not create a “haves”/“have-nots” situation. Right now, the perception is that small guilds have NO ability to either access or complete the content.

(3) Immediately open strong, transparent dialogue that actually engages the real concerns of the community. It is crucial to accept that the way consumers will use the product will vary from how developers intended it. Ultimately, developer expectations that stay in Washington are irrelevant to the experience and dignity of players around the world who are having tremendously different experiences.

(4) Engage the community in a constructive, serious manner to seek input and solutions. Do not discount the community’s ideas because they are different from notions during development of “how things should pan out.” These are irrelevant. The customer experience is.

I sincerely hope that one or more persons in positions of influence or power within ANet will take the time to read through this analysis and consider its points seriously. I have made the decision to take the developers seriously. I hope that they will extend the same courtesy to their player base.

Best regards,

Matipzieu SilverSmash
GM of KyA since 2002
DAoC, EQ2, WoW, LOTRO, RIFT, GW2

(post 4/4)

Matixvieu (et al) | Blackgate – WvW, PvE
GM of [KyA] Established 2002

Guild Missions [merged]

Posted by: Matipzieu KyA.9613

Core problems:
(1) This mechanic has created a disparity between large and small guilds.
(2) This disparity is that large guilds have better, faster, easier access to large content.
(3) The consequence of the disparity is that there is extreme pressure on small guild players to leave their small guilds and join larger guilds.
(4) The practical effect of this disparity is that it creates an unfair and unfun tension within small guild players: they must either sacrifice their friends, their guild, or their ability to enjoy content as first-class players. (Options: (1) Have the entire guild merge into a larger guild, the small guild dies and the special relationships they have are diluted in the big guild, assuming they are all folded into one and can find one that suits their taste, culture, habits, language, environment… this can be a destructive process. (2) Splinter and join large guilds separately, losing the friendships. (3) Endure as a small guild with unequal access to content.)
(5) Players in large guilds, whose incentive maximizations are already satisfied, do not have this problem. They both do not have any incentive or structural reasons to understand why small guild players are “whining”, “qqing”, etc, and do not see any reason that the current system is wrong.
(6) It is uncertain that small guilds will even be able to complete their guild missions at all under any circumstances, or if so, that they will only be able to do so under reduced circumstances, effectively meaning small guilds are barred from guild content, or that small guilds are not legitimate/acceptable under ANet policy. If this is the case, it is EXTREMELY offensive to small guild players, like myself, who believe that our guilds while small are just as legitimate as large guilds.
(7) All of the above are destructive to many guilds and communities. In effect, this patch has done harm to the community that it sought to promote friendship and playing together within. It has had the opposite effect for many players.

Problem-Solving Goals:
(1) Erase disparity between large and small guilds.
(2) Find a way to lessen the disparity between how quickly large and small guilds can access content. (Use per capita math tools that track membership.)
(3) Reduce the pressure on small guild players to leave their guilds for larger guilds.
(4) Remove the tension that is placed solely on small guild players to choose between their friends and maintaining equitable access to content.
(5) The system is working fine for large guild players. Do NOT attack or drag down the large guild play experience. This is EXCELLENT! Instead, focus on AIDING small guild players by equalizing using per capita mechanics to bring them up to the level that large guilds have. Do not take action that will force a political backlash by satisfied large guild players.
(6) Ensure that small guilds are able to actually physically complete missions. Incorporate scaling to allow missions to be completed with few players when guilds are small. Small guilds include groups of 3, 4, and 5 players. Small guilds must be taken seriously, as they are a nontrivial portion of MMO guilds and are worthy of the same dignity and respect as any other guild in the game.
(7) Stop doing damage to the community by creating classes, wedges, and incentives that force some players to choose between content and friendships.

Specific Solutions:
(1) Implement a mathematical scaling system similar to level downranking to allow smaller guilds (measured per account) to have smaller influence requirements to gain access to new content. Obviously, this would need to be designed in a way to prevent exploiting by “everybody quit the guild, we’ll complete it fast, then have everyone pile back in again.” This would be even worse and would negatively impact large guilds. Have better returns to scale with large guilds so that there is an incentive for guilds to grow. Force the rate of benefit to be more favorable than the rate of scaling down, such that there will always be an economic incentive to be in a large guild, but not a prohibitively massive one. It needs to be a gentle push, like taking an 80 out into a level 20 zone, not like the current hard wall. This should also allow upward scaling so that large guilds have the ability to work towards large goals the same way that small guilds do as well. If the content lasts a week in some guilds and six months in others, neither section of players has benefitted. Unfortunately, now that many players in large guilds however expect access in time measured in days to weeks at most, converting this upward now for this content is dangerous. This scaling system should have been thought out in advance, and needs to be implemented in future content.

(post 3/4)

Matixvieu (et al) | Blackgate – WvW, PvE
GM of [KyA] Established 2002

Guild Missions [merged]

Posted by: Matipzieu KyA.9613

Unfortunately, a simple mechanic added to the game to foster feelings of guild cohesiveness, because it was not run past people with their “economist” hats on who could recognize that people can, will, and always have maximized rewards for absolute minimum effort and thought through what this means for their incentive structure design.

It’s crucial to understand that this is not a cynical argument; it’s a practical common-sense amoral point. Translated into the context of having fun in an MMO, it runs like this: "If another player can get access to the same content or accomplishment for less effort than me, or faster than me, or if it seems impossible that I will ever see it whereas others can by virtue of some random different variable like guild size will have access to it tomorrow, I feel like I’m a second-class citizen, that this isn’t fair, and that I’m not having fun. " It’s important to recognize that this is not just an entirely reasonable and valid sentinment, but that the fact it’s appearing means something in the macro-level structure of the game environment and its driving incentive structures has gone horribly wrong.

Summary:
- This mechanic has created a spectrum of guilds where the larger, the easier it is to access the content, and the smaller, the less easy it is to access the content.
- This feels like a “haves”/“have nots” system. This is not fun and it is not fair. Many people play MMOs to get away from dealing with this system in real life. It has no place in a fun game world.
- Many MMOs have died because developers have refused to deal with the “haves/have nots” problem in useful ways. Until this patch, GW2 did not have this problem.

- Practically, this is because of differences in guild size (how much influence can your guild create per week) compared to content unlock requirements (which are static across all guild sizes.)
- Players in small guilds are encouraged to leave small guilds and join large ones.
- Putting this pressure of “Do I want to be effective but leave my friends, or stick with my friends but be ineffective” is a burden that unfairly falls ONLY on players in small guilds.
- Players in large guilds do not have to make this tradeoff or feel constrained.
- There is no solution given existing game mechanics of this patch that reconciles the issue for small guilds without leaving them feel like they have LOST something (either their friends, or the ability to access content competitively).

It is crucial that someone in a position of power or influence understands that these are the perverse incentive structures that have been created.

Problem 2: Can small guilds even meaningfully DO the content?

It is unclear at this point whether a small guild like mine, consisting of four to five players, should we at some point that we estimate to be 4-6 months of fairly constant play down the line, be able to spawn the guild events… can we even complete them?

Right now, the perception is that not only are small guilds, like mine, barred from playing with the new content, but that even if we somehow manage to push through and gain access to spawning them (something that will take us months, whereas large guilds will be able to do starting within days)… is this a type of content that we can even access?

This is not just a problem endemic to my guild. It is a problem endemic to EVERY small guild.

It is crucial that ANet understand their mechanic is DEEPLY divisive in the community and creates a structural environment that is fiercely pushing for the destruction of small guilds, and far more valuably all of those relationships, because the entire gameplay incentive structure rewards participating in large guilds and punishes participation in small guilds.

It is crucial that someone in a position of power and influence near the development team working on these mechanics understand that the impact this is having is doing damage to the community where the spoken intent of the mechanic is to do the exact opposite.

+ Problem-Solving Goals and Potential Solutions: +

Before getting into potential solutions, it is crucial to understand both the problems and the goals that are to be accomplished by any proposed solutions. This seems trivial, but is a very common place where this kind of thing goes horrifically awry.

(post 2/4)

Matixvieu (et al) | Blackgate – WvW, PvE
GM of [KyA] Established 2002

Guild Missions [merged]

Posted by: Matipzieu KyA.9613