Showing Posts Upvoted By Oni Link.4621:

An option to disable "orb" buff on myself?

in WvW

Posted by: Luiz Swordbreaker.6547

Luiz Swordbreaker.6547

Topic says it all. Would it be possible to disable the buff on myself? Either
1) Have it so you can right click to remove.
2) Have some sort of item sold by the BL vendors that overwrites the orb buff.
3) Have an item that adds -50 stats to myself.

It would really be much appreciated.

[Scnd] Use Your Illusion

Skyhammer EXPLOITing need a Hotfix

in PvP

Posted by: Kensei.1495

Kensei.1495

Lol who cares?

Bad players will always be bad, and good players will always be good.

Rank means nothing.

hue

CC immunity buff

in PvP

Posted by: ensoriki.5789

ensoriki.5789

Stability.

The great forum duppy.

Warrior changes I foresee happening...

in Warrior

Posted by: Baltzenger.2467

Baltzenger.2467

Forum changes I foresee happening…

Forum Balance:
- Daecollo has a max amount of posts per month, the amount is capped at 1.
- Excalibur has been completly revamped, it now can’t post at all. On sPvP, Excalibur has his amount of posts doubled to compensate this.
- Warrior forum has been modified so it nows automatically sends QQ threads back to their original poster’s class forum.

anet, please

Warrior changes I foresee happening...

in Warrior

Posted by: Viking Jorun.5413

Viking Jorun.5413

I would LOVE to see adrenaline gain give health. Hello, offhand axe!

Warrior changes I foresee happening...

in Warrior

Posted by: Red Falcon.8257

Red Falcon.8257

Daecollo and Excalibur in the same thread, oh noes.
The king of terrible suggestions and the queen of “I’m too bad to counter this simple thing, nerf it plox”.

throws bags of Asuran Popcorns to everyone

what do you guys think of glass cannon eles ?

in PvP

Posted by: Writetyper.1985

Writetyper.1985

I think i’ve never seen an ele with 30 in fire in my life

Mortryde/Cold/Thugmentalist Bara
really bad engineer

Mechanics that are too forgiving

in PvP

Posted by: zencow.3651

zencow.3651

Problem: Currently there are certain mechanics that are too forgiving and thus could be abused. By making changes we can get rid of these exploit-like tactics and create more skilful play.

Warrior:
Currently, burst skills only go on recharge if the attack connects. If a burst skill is evaded/blocked or misses through blind or you misjudged the range, your adrenaline stays full.

Which is stupid since it makes dodging pretty much ineffective since you can just pretty much spam Earthshaker/Skull Crack until either hits after stability is down and one of the factors that’s making warriors easy mode. You can pretty much stun a target every 5 seconds with Earth Shaker or Skull crack which ever hits and the opponent won’t be able to avoid it.

It also allows Hammer/Mace warriors to use Earthshaker as a mobility tool as long as they don’t hit anything and overall this mobility is even better than the ele’s.

Solutions: Make burst skills expend adrenaline regardless of success + No cleansing ire proc on fail/ Make burst skills share a cooldown between weapon sets.

Thief:
Similar to above, a you can simply spam stealth and a Sneak Attack i.e. Backstab until it hits since you are not revealed if the attack misses or gets dodged or blocked.

Solution: Allow Thieves to execute only one Sneak Attack per stealth application/ Make the Revealed debuff apply regardless of whether an attack from stealth hits or not.

Mesmer:
Currently Shatter skills only go on recharge when they produce an effect, i.e. if you have no illusions up and are not taking Illusionary Persona, the shatter skill is recharged instantly bar global cooldown on shatter.

Solution: Make shatters go on full recharge. This will force mesmers to be more aware of their illusions as they go down.

Quasi-elitist dungeoneer and missing Gw1 GvGs greatly.
“GW2’s PvE is almost as bad as the PvP.”

(edited by zencow.3651)

Interviews with Top PvP Players

in PvP

Posted by: Sensotix.4106

Sensotix.4106

Hey guys I wanna thank you so much for a 100 subs so far and I will continue uploading videos everyday!
I am trying my best to provide you guys with the best content possible and therefore i had the idea to invite top pvp players in Guild Wars 2 to an interview to share their opinion about their classes, the game and also giving tipps for new players, starting off with Azshene the Top Guardian of Team Curse!

What you guys can do:
-Tell me what players you want me to interview
-Tell me what questions you think I should ask them

I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did and much more interviews with top players will follow!
As always leave a like and subscribe to my channel if you want more

Link to the channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialSensotix

(#1) Interview with Azshene (Team Curse Guardian):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyE4JhY7Jfk
(#2) Interview with Niah (Team Curse Ranger):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qltRZ3AqcA
(#3) Interview with Ningyou (Team Dopplers Effekt/Cheese Mode Thief):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR5OL9GB-VA

Sensotix (Team Read It Backwards [BooN])
http://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialSensotix
Sensotix’ Builds & Tutorials Collection

(edited by Sensotix.4106)

solo queue is just the worst system ever

in PvP

Posted by: Tyler Chapman.1832

Previous

Tyler Chapman.1832

PvP and Balance QA Embed

We are definitely aware of the issues surrounding PvP. We’ve been generating data since we released these features and I think it’s fair to say that each will be visited by us as soon as we can get around to it. (matchmaking, decay, dishonored, ratings, rewards)

We have a lot on our plate but what you can expect to see soon is:

  • Random map rotation should be working appropriately for Team Arena
  • New amulets for PvP
  • Temple of the Silent Storm map layout re-work (took out the water)

We started a query today for the Random Map Rotation bug on Team Arenas as this bug should currently be fixed on live. Please let us know if you are still experiencing playing one specific map much more often then the others though if the issue arises again.

Thanks,
-Powerr

in-game alias: Powerr
Skills and Balance/PvP Team Principal QA
Former active member of Team PZ

Simple but high impact gameplay fixes

in PvP

Posted by: Julius.1094

Julius.1094

AOE SPAM
1 - All ranged AOE abilities should have delays from when they’re cast to when they “land” and clear animation tells. Grenades are a good example due to the flight time and the visible projectiles coming towards you. Same for ele staff which has a tell ground effect before it goes off. You can’t land them on targets in motion unless they aren’t paying attention. Necromancer marks are an example of bad with instant cast and no discernible animation. There should be a 1/2 delay in which marks gradually go from ghostly to fully drawn and damage comes at the end and each mark type should have it’s own color so experienced players can easily tell what type it is. All long range AOE should be avoidable if the target is not slowed, CC’d and reacts quickly/has a dodge. This would go a long way to making players use AOE more strategically.

2 - There are too many AOE skills in the game and some should be converted to single target abilities to reduce the spammability of AOE while also not forcing players to use AOE so much for single target damage. Necro staff and ele staff are the main culprits on this issue (nade kit not so much since there is no CD on kit swap and most nades have a pretty short radius).

3 - Long range (900+) AOE should hit harder but also have a much longer CD. The idea behind long range AOE should be that they will really punish the enemy team if many eat it, but require prep and more of a “skill shot” that if misused without proper set up will punish you with a long CD. So as an example, the redesigned necro staff would have 2 sec bleed on auto attack and mark of blood would have half it’s current CD, same effect, but be a single target cast. The last 3 marks would all hit harder and be very punishing, but the CD would about 50% longer. This would change the weapon from “spam marks on target/point regardless of situation” to focus on wearing down single targets with your #1 and #2 and only use marks once they have burned their evades or are CC’d and you want to finish them off or in key moments during a team fight.

A necro who just jumps in and spams marks on fresh targets would have most of them evaded and not have them again for a long time, that’s how it should be. Grenades #1 should have a 8 sec CD, but hit a larger area and do more damage, all other nades would follow the same principle of having 50% greater CD and damage. Awesome when you land it, but punishing when you don’t, so spamming it and hoping it will hit something (the way it’s often played now) will not be viable as you’ll just end up putting the whole kit on CD and not having it when needed.

4 - Spammable close range AOE cleave (such as cleaving auto attacks most melee has) should hit the primary target for full damage but other targets for less (75% would probably work for this game) to tone down AOE. Guardian marks are an examples of AOE that’s fine as is because it’s not too big, requires very close range (risk) and generally won’t land in full without CC.

Vidallis – 50 Shades of Pink – Engi/Warrior

(edited by Julius.1094)

Simple but high impact gameplay fixes

in PvP

Posted by: Julius.1094

Julius.1094

Reduce hard counters
1- Increase duration of Berseker stance to 12 sec base and make the engineer’s Automated Response trigger at 33% health BUT make them reduce condi duration on you by 50%, not 100%. It should be a defense against condi not completely neutralize certain builds entire offensive ability with their current fairly high uptime. Specially if other anti condi measures previously listed were implemented.

2- Projectile absorption/reflection abilities such as: reflection wall, shield of absorption and the like should instead just reduce projectile damage by half and reflect half the damage (if reflective). Reflection Wall can gain a secondary effect to compensate (like swiftness for allies that run through it) and ele Magnetic Aura could also reduce melee damage by 25% for the duration to compensate. A couple of players with abilities like that can completely neutralize projectile based builds, they should help against it, not cancel it out. Some of those abilities are too one dimensional also which is why they’re underused, so toning down one aspect but adding a secondary use would kill two birds with one stone.

3- Chain CC is too strong against certain classes. Remove sigil of paralyzation, not nerf it, remove it. Stuns are very strong as is and you should not be able to increase their duration with a sigil. Beyond that, cap stun duration to 2 sec for all abilities (skull crack is a big culprit, reduce max duration to 2 sec and increase dmg by 50% to compensate). Condi duration should not increase fear duration, get rid of it there is a trait and rune set that increases it, if they want long fears they should have to invest in them. This alone pretty much fixes what’s wrong with necros and warriors atm.

AI clutter/gameplay too easy
1- Polish tab targeting so it prioritizes players, tabbing through all players until targeting minions (would treat mesmer clones as players, but not phantasms).

2- Make spirits 50% smaller (except spirit of nature), necro minions 50% smaller, turrets and flesh golem 30% smaller. These simple changes would make them less obtrusive to vision with no impact on their function.

3- For both spirits and necro minions, make active abilities more powerful/relevant and reduce strength of passive bonuses and damage. Make it more about the actives, with passives being just a small bonus, so it’s less brainless.

4- Phantasms damage should go down for each subsequent attack and expire after the 4th attack (60% dmg, then 30% dmg, then 15% dmg). CD on cast could be reduced to compensate.
The idea is the big damage should be on active cast, that needs to be targeted, the problem with phantasms (mesmers are suffering with condis right now but this will be a problem again once it’s toned down) is that the phantasm mesmer can put a few down then and run off and LOS, on 1v1 killing each AI takes a long time thus leading to some really stupid on point pressure plays that involve little risk for the attacker.

Animations and Visibility
1- Long range abilities (not #1) should all have animation tells, make more use of glow on hands or the ground beneathh the caster if you don’t want to redo a lot of movement. No class should have more than one instant cast long range ability, those should be used in a pinch but sparse and not spammable as they don’t allow response. Close range abilities don’t require it quite as much (if you a warrior is running towards you with a mace in hand trying to get on top of you, that’s a tell) because they are hard to land as is but it could use a little help too.

2- Interface option toggle: Normalize Height. Makes asura appear 50% larger and char and norn appear 50% smaller. Only looks that way to the player with it toggled, changes nothing about look and feel of the game. This cannot be that hard, please just get it done.

Vidallis – 50 Shades of Pink – Engi/Warrior

(edited by Julius.1094)

Simple but high impact gameplay fixes

in PvP

Posted by: Julius.1094

Julius.1094

I made a post a while ago about some of the key core issues with the game, today I’m going to add a list of specific suggestions for changes I believe would fix many core game issues. I’m not going to include new features that everyone knows are needed (new map types, build saves, rewards, ICD tracker, etc.) but rather focus on tweaks. Feedback and your own suggestions welcome!

Too much dodging
1- Reduce passive (unbuffed) endurance regeneration in half. Really that’s about it. It would change dodging from it’s current state of being able to dodge often, sometimes timing it, but mostly just spamming it and you’ll dodge something to, hold on to it for when you really need to dodge something. What it should have always been.

2- Dodge on weapon abilities are fine but should be a bit shorter, Blur should be 2 sec from 2 ½, all ½ ability evades should be just 1/3 sec. It should be about a short defense at moment of cast, not a spam of chain dodging.

Anti condi stacking and healing
1- Vitality should be the anti condi stat, but it’s under budgeted in pvp items. The issue is that unlike all other stats vitality quickly loses it’s value in a fight as you take damage because a larger health pool with the same amount of healing means heal as a percentage of health becomes weaker, so you have no sustain, that doesn’t mean it’s not useful but it does mean you need more of it for it to match up point per point to most other stats. There is a reason Knights Amulet is so underused even on a condi meta when vitality should be the stat of choice to counter them.

Vitality item budgets should be about 25% higher to make it a worthy stat. So berserker amulet should have 355 vitality for example instead of 284, Knights Amulet should actually be 798 power, 712 vitality with new budget and 569 precision so it’s actually viable for damage dealers (current iteration is too low damage for roamers regardless of vitality value) while being a great condi counter. This should also apply to vitality runes (which no one uses other than soldiers and that’s for the 6th bonus). This would have the pleasant side effect of making the game a bit less bursty.

2- Healing scaling for primary heal is too low by default, the base should be 2, not 1, (other heal abilities heal scaling is fine as is, this is only in regards to primary heal slot) healing as a stat in spvp is very weak for anything that isn’t going pure tank, it should be more worthwhile to add some healing power to damage classes or create hybrid builds. This would also help slow down fights a bit and counter condi pressure.

3- The engineer trait that makes elixirs remove a condition is a great model for condi removal. All elixirs have a cast time and remove just one, so it makes you think about when to use them for their effects and when to use them to remove something particularly nasty. The thief’s shadow return is another great example removing a condition but forcing a resource expenditure from offense and forcing the thief to pop something they may not want to otherwise. There should be more traits and weapon abilities like that spread out among the classes and every class should have a weapon set with a remove one condi on use ability. I like the warrior condi removal on adrenaline skill for example, and the mesmer condi removal on shatter is also great but currently too far down the trait line.

Guardian and ranger passive trait condi removal needs to be removed and replaced by traits/weapon skills like those previously listed. Removing condis should require thinking, pressing a button at the right time, and sacrificing a CD for it. Or not having that CD if the ability is used for other purposes.

4- Add this set of runes to the game: PVP Runes of Superior Clarity 1-5th +15 to all base stats (minus crit dmg), 6th piece: your heal removes a condition on cast. To give players another option for a small condi removal/a multi stat rune.

5- You had the right idea with the Incendiary Power but you should take it a step further and make it and the necro’s duhmfire last 6 seconds but have a 15 sec ICD, to make it less “sticky” if removed in a timely manner.

Vidallis – 50 Shades of Pink – Engi/Warrior

(edited by Julius.1094)

Open Alpha, Dishonor Math, Leaderboard Rtngs

in PvP

Posted by: puggernaut.5348

puggernaut.5348

… cont

#5, #7: Dishonour and Uneven Matches
he tPvP scene is for your competitive players and dishonor is the single most frustrating thing in soloQ. My estimate is that 1 in 4 of my tPvP matches involve a person leaving early as a lower bound. A single player is able to leave at the rate of one match per 15 hours. A single disconnection incorrectly affects the rating of 9 players. Consider that for a second and the variance. Are you expecting each player to average over many hundreds of matches so that regression towards the mean kicks in? Make Dishonor penalties harsher and more aggressive at at least 3 penalties, over 1 week.

#6: A Simple Easy Reward
I’d personally be satisfied with rewards if it was just easy to make dyes… seriously. As it is, I can’t even be bothered to make them. This won’t satisfy everyone of course, but I hope the point gets across: there isn’t even a simple and easy reward right now. While we’re waiting for the new, shiny reward system, even money making dyes would appease a large portion of the playerbase.

#1: Finding Players, #4: Build Swap I don’t want to get into these as they get away from the theme of the post. However, I do believe other than gameplay/balancing, these two will tremendously help the growth rate of tPvP.

Ok, my post has gone on for way too long. I’ve purposely left out gameplay issues or larger systems as I think they’re not simple fixes. Although the content isn’t new, I hope I’ve presented it in a different manner and reinforced some of its importance. Please take time to consider implementing some simple, faster changes, much like how you shaving is your new lingo for balance. Likewise, if you have a larger, complex system or powerful dhuumfart planned, maybe you could talk to your community openly about it.

Thanks for your time,
Sokal Voral

Open Alpha, Dishonor Math, Leaderboard Rtngs

in PvP

Posted by: puggernaut.5348

puggernaut.5348

And the Perception of tPvP

I applaud ANet’s (Chaplan’s especially) recent community-facing posts in addressing current PvP issues in a more upfront manner. PvP is a competitive activity; tensions and emotions can quickly escalate. Simple corrections in the perception of your product/service can avert increasing discontent in the community. Chaplan’s posts especially acknowledged the community voice, identified the points with due effort, and responded about how they are addressing them. Relatively, what he did was a simple fix to the perception of the product.

Below, I wanted to present what my gaming session looks like and list the common frustration points. Then below that, I suggest a few simple fixes that could address these points and imo, help the daily perception of the product.
———————————————

My daily gaming tPvP session looks something like this:

- I log on, go to HotM and apply a PvP booster. Many of my friends are not on at the time (or no longer play) and well… meeting players through forums/chat is a hassle and hit&miss. No pre-mades for now.
Hurdle #1: Finding Pre-Made Players

- I jump in YoloQ instead. While waiting, I open up the leaderboards. Hmm… so many of those Spirit Rangers at the top haven’t played since they got nerfed. What’s worse the same 14-3 or 11-2 guys ranked in the top 50.
Minor annoyance #2: Leaderboard Rating Decay

- I’m looking at the leaderboard and half the guys never play or have played under 30 games. How am I supposed to get an accurate perception of my ability from a leaderboard like this? Whatever. Queue pop.
Annoyance #3: Leaderboard Effectiveness and Minimum Games.

- I random’ed Skyhammer. I don’t mind the map, but kitten , I have to switch chars or do the two minute hustle to change my build. I’d actually change builds according to each map, but I usually don’t bother.
Annoyance #4: Build Swap

- I play a few matches but WTH!! A guy on my team left in this match when the score was 80-180. Do meditation and youtube “cute kitten plays piano” to relax.
Major frustration #5: Dishonour and Uneven Matches

- While waiting for next queue pop, I think I’ll make some dyes from the winner chests as it’s my only reward for PvPing. If I want AP, I have to hop outside HotM. My fingers start to go numb from the amount of clicking and I stop.
#6: Simple Easy Rewards

- In the next match, a guy disconnects again. Looking at the Leaderboards, I’ve actually managed to lose some ranking even though I’ve won more matches today. I log off.
#7: More of #5

- I head to the forums so that I may take comfort in the tears of my fellow PvPers. Chaplan has posted some good bandaid threads – a major plus. But how come it seems there’s always only bandaids and no Open Alpha?
#8: Prevention is Less Costly and More Efficient than Bandaids
———————————————

By the end of the gaming session, I’m probably a bit frustrated and doubting ANet’s claim towards the tPvP scene. I reckon this cycle describes a good percentage of tPvP’ers.

Let’s quickly address them, with what I think are the easiest and most important on top.

#8: What happened to Open Alpha?
This is one of the most basic tenets and popular concepts in software engineering. We always hear, “we’re planning on giving necros a type of burning next patch” or “we’re going to be shaving the beards of necros next.” How about, “We’re considering adding a trait called Dhuumfire, 100% chance to inflict burning for 4 seconds on critical hits (2 in PvP) that is a GM trait in the Spite line. It’s basically the equivalent of Engineer’s Incendiary Powder as a GM trait. We’ve also provided a sandbox server for you guys to come and test it and give us feedback before we launch it.”

Clearly the focus groups have been hit and miss thus far.

A healthy lifestyle is less expensive than doctor visits. Investing in insulation will save you money compared to utility costs. This is the most cost-efficient, patch time-saving thing you can do for yourself and your players. If it is ANet policy not to reveal, you should go to your bosses and argue with them and show them this post. When software companies don’t do this, it boggles my mind as it is easily one of the most time-effective development resources (and it’s not like you have some IP or content privacy needed here).

#2, #3: Leaderboard Effectiveness, Decay, and Min Games
As is the theme of this entire post, how things are perceived are key. As it is, a player questions the value of the Leaderboard and has to use a fine comb to analyze it. Make decay occur at a faster, accelerating rate and increase the number of Min Games to 30 or higher. Both are fixes that can be done fast and will not affect the base rating algorithm.

…cont

Bugged Trait Skill

in Warrior

Posted by: Ajaxx.3157

Ajaxx.3157

You don’t need to run Balanced stance with Last stand.

Last stand does what it says on its own.

Ajaxx – Warrior – [JuG] – Desolation [eu]

http://www.twitch.tv/irajaxx

Stance Mastery needs a -20%.

in Warrior

Posted by: Fiorrello.8126

Fiorrello.8126

i wouldn’t worry about replying to Daecollo’s threads, he’s fairly well known for posting suggestions to the warriors forum about ideas that would break any semblance of balance.

Competition and Rewards.

in PvP

Posted by: Evan Lesh

Previous

Evan Lesh

PvP Gameplay Programmer

Next

These are all great ideas! They are very much inline with our direction for the game. The one thing I have to disagree with as-stated is #1: “Remove hot join.” Removing hot join means removing all custom arenas, which we will not do as they have many benefits. I understand why the community wants this; to have the majority of the player base shift to a more structured format like an unrated solo arena. The best middle ground I can see is removing all ArenaNet custom arenas.

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

making a free to play client for the mists

in PvP

Posted by: Kline.9561

Kline.9561

I think this would be an amazing addition to the SPVP section of Guild Wars 2.

make a free to play client for Guild Wars 2 that only allows players into the mists, while still having access to the cash shop and the ability to purchase the full game if desired

Guild Wars 2 will have competition from other eSports games. and one of the biggest barrier of entry for new players is the 60 dollar price tag.

/discuss

And before says my build doesn’t work, when Ele’s get nerfed it will be -Schwahrheit

(edited by Kline.9561)

Warrior Discussion

in Warrior

Posted by: BurrTheKing.8571

BurrTheKing.8571

There has been a LOT of forums posted recently pertaining to Warrior. I’m wondering what the balance team feels about Warrior as it is currently. Most of the “information” presented in these forums is just downright wrong. It’s a lot different than Spirit Rangers where it was apparent that there was very few exploitable weaknesses. The current Warrior meta to me is only strong because it aims to counter the condition heavy meta, which I feel was an attempt to allow the players to shift the meta on their own without directly nerfing said builds in the current meta. The builds we run have several counters, you just don’t see them frequently because they aren’t popular currently. If Warrior remains how it is we may see a shift in the game so that for example Mesmers come back into the fray to counter the Warriors that are Countering Rangers and Necros.

I just pray that you do not listen to these forums filled with incorrect information and “shave” Warriors back into mediocrity so shortly after we were made useful after a year of being the punchline of every PvP joke.

Just an angry old man…

Old Man Burr (War), Bad Hat Ben (Engi), Manly Manny Manson (Guard)

Rangers deleted from pvp, again

in PvP

Posted by: alcopaul.2156

alcopaul.2156

so when spirits die, ranger is left defenseless for 25 seconds? wow. lol

sPvP, balance, a little philosophy, and life.

in PvP

Posted by: JonathanSharp.7094

Previous

JonathanSharp.7094

Game Design Lead

Next

The 3 different game types and splitting skills. Splitting skills between all 3 of our game types (PvE, PvP, WvW) is very costly – it takes more time to split the skills, and then upkeep the split skills. Instead of upkeeping 1 version of a skill, whenever you make future changes, you now have to make sure all 3 are appropriately balanced for their respective game types. This is very powerful, and something we did in GW1 when we felt we needed it. We just need to be careful not to do it too much, or it means the balance team is literally balancing 3 entire games. As Freamon (from “The Wire”, btw if you haven’t seen “The Wire”, stop whatever it is you’re doing and go watch it. Unless you’re giving birth. In that case…wait until you’re done, then watch it immediately afterwards. Oh, and get your new son/daughter to watch it when they’re old enough.) usually reminded the other members of the cast, “All the pieces matter.” The different pieces of GW2 all impact the other pieces, and it’s something we must always bear in mind.

Chap’s woefully ill-conceived attempt at a metaphor on why we don’t spilt all skills off the bat: Imagine you’re in school, and in order to make sure you learn languages at an even pace, you have to split everything you do into 3 languages. For me, let’s say it’s English, Japanese and Latin (No, Greek, I liked learning Greek more than Latin). You start off answering a question on a test in 3 different languages. You rock. But then you do it more and more often. For every note you take in a lecture, you have to write it in 3 different languages. For every paper you write, you have to write it in 3 languages. For all homework, you have to do it in 3 languages. Every test. Every quiz. It may seem small at first, but if you’re not careful, you’re doing three times the work as normal.

Game types
So a lot of you want new game types. We’ve heard you. We’re prototyping more of them right now. But, as Colin said at the panel, we have to be careful. We learned a lot from GW1. We learned that having too many game types can split up the player base. But, if you’re not careful, just having 1 game type may not be enough variety. You’ve got to find that perfect spot.

Deathmatch. I like DM, but I’m much more interested in objective based DM. “Go in a room and kill a dude” was fun when I was playing Doom/Quake/Unreal, but even those, as simple games, still had map control and buff/armor control. Just giving two players the same guns/armors, putting them in a room, and saying “Ok go” just isn’t as fun to play. Those other elements add a lot to the game. The most competitive/successful games in recent history all share these “secondary” objectives as well (they aren’t STRICTLY Deathmatch):

  • In CS, that was the bomb/hostages. CoD (and similar games) still retain similar objectives to this day. Killing your opponent is still integral, but the secondary objectives “force” action.
  • In RTS, it’s the resources (micro arena is fun, but it’s not nearly as fun to play or watch as having to also manage resources/scout/build the right tech, etc.). The resources force action.
  • In Mobas, it’s all about controlling lanes, pushing towers, and controlling the jungle. It’s not just “go in a room and shoot a dude with your skills”. That’s fun, but I think the other elements add more strategy and tactics to the game, and make them more fun to play.

So for us, when we’re designing game types, we’re thinking about these things. DM is still a fun and exciting part of conquest, but I know you guys want more – we’re working on it.

IGN: Chaplan
“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer

(edited by JonathanSharp.7094)

sPvP, balance, a little philosophy, and life.

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Posted by: JonathanSharp.7094

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JonathanSharp.7094

Game Design Lead

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Balance
So during the shoutcast, Grouch and I kept joking about the “petting zoo”. It was funny. A lot of people laughed. But in the back of my mind, I knew we already had some balance changes coming to address it (you’ll see those tomorrow). My mentality was: let’s just have fun, and make it as enjoyable as possible for the viewers. I’ve seen posts saying we like that style of play, we want to have tons of AI builds in the meta, and we don’t care at all about balance or how the game looks/plays. I’ve seen posts stating that I think the petting zoo is funny and that we want nothing but AI driven-builds to be played in the meta (or some other crazy stuff). That’s simply untrue.

So the Ranger will be seeing some changes to the spirit build. We’re being very mindful to carefully shave it so that:

  1. We don’t hurt other areas of the game where the build may not be a problem, as it is in PvP, and
  2. We’ve already seen counters to this build showing up (there’s a thread talking about the Warrior countering this build, and to what degree) in the meta.

So, we will be “shaving” the build a little (we don’t want to over-correct the issue) and seeing how the meta adapts.

Here are some other things we keep in mind as we’re balancing things:

Perception of balance. Perception (there’s that pesky word again) of balance is very important. The last major update saw the Warrior getting some tools that we, the balance team, perceived to be enough to warrant their inclusion in the current meta. At first, a lot of people felt they still weren’t good enough. But now, with no other balance work, people are starting to figure out that the Warrior DOES have the tools to help a team, even in a heavy condition meta. The perception of the Warrior changed. This is why we try not to “whack a mole” balance – we like to give you guys time for your perceptions to mature in any given meta, rather than over balancing the game. Are we perfect? Hell no. We try our best to predict where our changes will take the metagame, and then let you guys flow with the game as the meta evolves.

“Bad for the player, but good for the game”. Alright. Story time. The game dev community is a pretty small place, and a lot of devs know one another. We are lucky enough to have game nights with guys from WOTC (they make Magic:TG) and I got into a great conversation with one of their devs. I was talking about balancing an MMO vs a CCG, and we were swapping lessons/ideas back and forth on the things we’ve learned. I asked him about the mana system, mulligans, and how much I hated them as a player. I hate winning because my opponent mulligans, and I hate losing because of them. I asked him what he thought about that. His answer, in a word, was amazing. He said (paraphrasing), “Ya, that random sucks. Mulligans, mana floods (getting too much mana, but not enough “action” cards) and mana screws (not getting enough mana) all suck. But they add this element where anyone has a shot in any game. Basically, those things are bad for the player, but they’re good for the game.” I thought it was a great way of summing up what happens when we, as devs, have to balance various classes in an MMO. It may suck to have YOUR build and YOUR class slightly brought down in power, but, here’s the thing, it’s good for the game at large. So don’t think that we hate X class. We love all the classes. But sometimes we need to adjust a few things in order to protect the health of the overall game.

Shaving vs Whack a mole. We want to “shave” as much as possible, and not do massive improvements/reductions to classes. This means making slight tweaks to classes, rather than massive changes which can upset the balance of the game. A lot of times we use spreadsheets, generate the baselines for a given type of skill, and then bring the outliers up or down, depending on where they hit. Sometimes very slight tweaks can have massive implications.

IGN: Chaplan
“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer

(edited by JonathanSharp.7094)

sPvP, balance, a little philosophy, and life.

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Posted by: JonathanSharp.7094

JonathanSharp.7094

Game Design Lead

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“Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.” -Soren Kierkegaard

Sup! + Pax
Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to the Pax finals!! It was a blast and getting to meet both of the teams (and a ton of other players) was really fun! It was a lot of work, but the program went pretty well overall. Sorry to both of the teams about the tech issues we were having/sound issues. Those things happen, but I’m still sorry about them.

There’s been a lot of…”fire/passion” on the forums lately so I wanted to take some time to address some things. As I’ve stated before, we’re usually really busy trying to get things (like Pax) to happen, but we love to post when we’re able. We read MOST of what’s on the forums, but we seldom have time to reply to each individual thread.

So, I thought I’d try something. I’m gonna try to address a multitude of issues that have been raised on the forums in this post, rather than responding to each of the threads individually. As you can imagine, it’s much easier to respond to everything in one post/thread, rather than trying to keep up with multiple threads.

I’ll break it up into sections so it’s easier to read, as walls of text have a habit of not being very reader friendly.

LESSGO!

For the love of the game
Some have said that we (the devs) just don’t care about the game. This, I can tell you, could not be further from the truth. We LOVE this game like crazy. You guys may be frustrated that a feature isn’t in, or that something’s not perfect, but it DRIVES US NUTS. It keeps us up at night. We wake up thinking about them and writing “to do” lists in our heads as we drive to work every day.

Unfortunately we can’t just snap our fingers and fix everything. We have to take all known issues, prioritize them, and then start dealing with them an issue at a time. That process looks something like this: we do a design of the feature, requisite resources are requested, the feature is implemented, iterated upon, tested, polished, and then released. For a game the size of an MMO, these things take time. We’re not a small game that can move/change/adapt quickly. An MMO is more like a massive ship – it takes time to change direction. Many systems/pieces/features in the game also impact one another, so we have to be very careful in what we change and how.

We’re very passionate about the game, and we want it to be the best game possible. We love the players and we love the game. Just because you don’t get what you want, right when you want it, doesn’t mean we don’t care. We’re just very busy doing a LOT of things, because a TON has to happen behind the scenes to get an MMO built and updated.

Sometimes it may seem like we aren’t listening, or we don’t respond to your posts. But a TON of things could be at work. Don’t assume that just because we don’t change things exactly when you want them changed that we’re ignoring you or don’t care about your opinions and thoughts.

We aren’t Data
We get tired. Emotional. Fatigued. Excited. You name it. Ask any dev from any game, and they’ll tell you – they’ve been through it all in order to ship a game. And just like you (who are also not robots), we take vacations. We hit caps where we’re just so tired that we need to back off, recharge, take a vacation, and then come back to the project.

We have tough skin when it comes to taking criticism, but an overabundance of negativity on the forums can still take a toll on anyone. This is simply natural. It’s the same for the president (who I’m sure hears a TON of opinions about how he’s doing his job), any athlete who plays in the public eye, any artist, any performer. You want criticism so that you can improve, but you also have to develop a tough skin so that negative feedback doesn’t keep you from being functional. Sometimes this means you take a break from negative sources of feedback.

The Pax event took a TON of time/planning/prep from many people, and due to that, a lot of us are taking slight breaks right now. If you don’t see as much activity on the forums for a bit, that’s why!

IGN: Chaplan
“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer

(edited by JonathanSharp.7094)

Bite the bullet already, ANet...

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Posted by: Konrad Curze.5130

Konrad Curze.5130

GW2 will never be an ESport. never. ever. not happening. not today, not tomorrow, not the day after.

and if it makes you feel better, it isnt entirely your fault

see? people nowadays just dont give a crap for ESports in GW2 fashion. not even Blizzard can pull it with WoW, and if they cant, God knows you wont either.

hell, not even starcraft 2, which not long ago was a frikin religion, matters anymore in the grand scheme of things.

the name of the game is DOTA. LoL. HoN. etc etc etc. not even BF/CoD can cast a shadow on them. you are not a moba nowadays = you are nonfactor and you will get less viewers than FOX news.

well…..obviously, having a beyond pathetic balance, an utter lack of anything ressembling a healthy and lively meta and counter-meta, and just one gameplay mode that nearly everybody hates wholeheartly, didnt really help your case that much.

but even if everything you did had NOT been wrong (which it was), you wouldnt have pulled it off anyway.

so please, bite the bullet, lick your wounds, and start working on adding all the things that you sacrificed till now in your insane quest for becoming ESport.
more meta, more balance, more variety, and please, many more modes.

oh, and the higher up guy that kept telling you all that it would work, just wait, we’ll make it…yep, you know who…fire him. seriously. that will be the best thing you’ll do this year. get rid of that muppet.

Thank you for the best PvP e-sport ever :)

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Posted by: Gandarel.5091

Gandarel.5091

Tamyr.3271:

Is jumping off skyhammer esport?

Absolutely. I’d even start to consider PvE an e-sport given how competitive mobs are.

Captain Deutschland, Ozzy The Insane, Hanz Limbchewer – r40+ mes/nec/engi Desolation
Fear The Crazy [Huns]

Thank you for the best PvP e-sport ever :)

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Posted by: Lynie.6437

Lynie.6437

You forgot the [sarcasm][/sarcasm]

Clarity

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Posted by: TGSlasher.1458

TGSlasher.1458

butch.8136:

So actually… we have been posting on the wrong forum.

Does NCsoft have any forums we can ask for more resources?

I think it’s the suggestions thread

Slasher Sladorian – Charr Warrior – [DECM] | Sea of Sorrows
Sophea Sladorian – Charr Ranger – [DECM] | Sea of Sorrows
Sophea Of Elements – Human Elementalist – [DECM] | Sea of Sorrows

Clarity

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Posted by: Conan.8046

Conan.8046

This is for Xeph = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f3Br3BKRqI

I am going to name my Ranger’s pet after you!