StriderShinryu.6923:

I suppose what it boils down to with me is a question of why the content needs to be an elite level challenge in the first place. Would it really be all that bad if an average group of players could win?

Not at all. The Marionette was not designed to be beaten only by “elite” players. We have an idea of where the average player is skill-wise, and placed the bar where we hoped would just a tad above that, in the hopes that they would have to stretch a bit. That stretching creates tension, which is the sweet spot in event-type content as far as I’m concerned. (as opposed to the abnegation style smooth sailing content that most of an MMO needs to be.) Without the tension new things get boring faster. Too much tension, (as seems to be your case) and people give up and the content is wasted on them. That seems to be your argument about this event.

Because the player base is a diverse lot, ANY amount of tension will frustrate SOME amount, causing them to be turned off. So fundamentally we have to ask ourselves if we want to ever ask the player to stretch, or keep them all in a happy abnegated state of chillaxing. Does the benefit to those who want some tension from time to time outweigh the frustration of those who don’t?

The other question that I hope is answered in the positive is this: Can the average player skill be raised by challenging content like this? We know that X% of players don’t know about traits. We know Y% never swap out their 7-0 skills to accommodate specific challenges. And there are probably dozens of other systems that go unused by some portion of the player-base. If even 10% of that group hits a challenge like the Marionette and the subsequent tension causes them to look into these systems and they learn a new depth to the game they otherwise never would have, I think that’s a win for everybody. The average skill level rises, and in turn, we devs can make more interesting events that utilize the depth of the systems we have.

Having said all that, if after a week the Marionette is still only being beaten 1 out of 10 times, then I would say we may have tuned it a bit too difficult. On the other hand, we don’t know how long it takes for the aggregate skill level of the player-base to grow. I don’t know how long it takes for information about traits and builds to disseminate to those who had previously never looked into them. As with all our content, we are closely watching and noting these things so that every future project can learn from it.

P.S. Because several people brought up the idea of buffing the other platforms when one succeeds, I thought I ought to let you all know that this has always been the case. When one platform’s power regulator is destroyed the players on the platforms adjacent get Electrify Aura which gives 60 seconds of protection, swiftness, regeneration, fury, might, vigor and retaliation.

Thanks for the thoughtful comments and honest criticisms regarding the story instance. We tried something new this time by putting a lot of character moments into a single area, but also by allowing folks to advance their LW progress while making the scenes available as optional story bits. We realize that for some players who haven’t met these characters before, there was a lot of “catching up” to do, but we hope you found it entertaining. The fact that many of you are speculating about where these characters are headed in the future makes me smile. Thanks for that.

I’d like to shed some additional light here since I actually made the change to the summoning items.

First of all, I’m sorry that you guys are disappointed with the change. Unfortunately, we knew this was going to happen and we tried to come up with a solution to mitigate the disappointment as much as possible.

Here’s some facts about the circumstances you may find interesting:

• the change was made mostly to address the Fire Elemental Powder and the Ogre Pet Whistle since they cause the most problems. Other items were modified because they had the potential to become problems.
• these items are not the same as pets that the player professions can summon, for these reasons:
  • the items had no cooldown, meaning that the summoned creatures are effectively invincible and can always be alive assuming the player has more items
  • there’s no limit on how many different items you can use at the same time. Meaning you can have both the elemental and the ogre pet simultaneously
  • unfortunately, the creatures were not specifically designed to the constraints we have on pets in general. They are way more costly than your average ranger pet. In fact, they are exactly the same as the versions you fight in the open world which is what makes them so powerful.
• regardless of balance, the change was definitely made to address the various performance concerns that arise from allowing unlimited uses of the item by everyone in a map. Both the client and server are affected by having the extra creatures around.
• the need for the change was identified months ago. Many members of the team were adamantly against making the change because they knew it would destroy a popular strategy.

Given all of that information, and the introduction of two brand-new world events, something had to be done. Ultimately we decided with the cooldown approach because:

• we did not want to debuff/rebalance the potency of the creature resulting from a single use
• we did not want to completely eliminate the use of the item in large events
• it was not possible to clearly and cleanly message why the item would not be usable in large events or when there are too many nearby

The end result was a hefty cooldown, which honestly could have ended up being a lot longer.

Although we do our best to anticipate issues with various rewards designs, occasionally something goes unnoticed until it becomes a large problem. As customers, you probably witness less than 1% of these rejected designs. Of that small percentage that slip by, an even smaller percentage end up needing to be changed. Nothing ever gets removed because it’s fun. It just happens that fun things can sometimes get in the way other people having fun—like an item that cripples an entire server and causes everyone to have skill activation lag.

Tons of ideas get filtered out by discussion, data validation, quality assurance, and performance reporting on development branches. Most of them are good, fun ideas that we just can’t reasonably support. We’ll have to share some stories in a happier thread someday. For now I’ll be happy to answer any additional questions you might have on this topic.

The fact that most of these items ever existed is just blatantly a bug. The decision to throw cooldowns on them were for server performance/stability as the patch notes said, not for balance. Period. This was something that was long overdue.

Think of it this way: Between the embers and whistle, those items were effectively doubling/tripling the amount of players active in a map.

As for the Charrzooka, I’m not sure what the reasoning behind that change was. That wasn’t part of the change to summons, or at least that I’m aware of.

The bringer of bad news,
-Bill

In order to complete these achievements you have to succeed the Warden event (the entire event up on the platforms) without being hit by the Marionette. If you are hit, you don’t get it. If you fail the event, you don’t get it. Stay sharp and break that chain and you’ll have it.

Quick update:

Happy new year everyone! Now that we’re back from holiday vacations, we’ve got more improvements that’ll be rolling out soon. A handful of client improvements will also be making their way (soon hopefully), that should see a drastic memory usage drop and client frame-rate improvements, especially for lower-end hardware.

I’ll make sure to update once I have a better idea of what release you can start seeing these changes trickle in.

-Bill

As to terminology, yes, it can be confusing. Here’s the skinny:

Account name = log-in game = user name = An email address at account creation and used to log in to the account. Your account name can be changed through a support ticket.

Display name = A rather generic (in most cases) alias that identifies you in the game and on the forums but protects your e-mail address/user/account/log-in name. After all, Fred@ThisEmailProvider.com is part of your account credentials. No one can or should be able to hack or assume your identity using LittleFreddyFooFoo.1234.

I have put in a request to make a change to our interface that would greatly aid this situation, but UI changes take time. I will check on that request this weke.

Bug Fix

• Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause players to experience excessive lag in Lion’s Arch.

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is the proposal:

Ooof. Nothing I wrote was usable to improve the proposal .

Other people have said they feel like they have a good grasp of what you’re looking for. Hopefully you or they can provide further examples. I’m evidently on the wrong track.

Nike your proposal was excellent but was to micro in my opinion for the CDI. Proposal to the team should be more goal oriented with micro examples to reinforce the goal.

The formatting, verbiage, details were all excellent. The delivery focus however is not quite right.

Let’s talk on Skype so I can explain in more detail.

Chris

We will be conducting maintenance on the game on Friday, January 17th, starting at 12:01 AM PDT (08:01 UTC / 09:01 CET). This maintenance period will last up to 4 hours.

The following systems are being worked on and could experience issues for the duration of the maintenance:

• Guild Wars 2 : players might experience issues logging in to the game as well as slight interruptions to chat, guilds and parties.
• The Gem Store, Currency Exchange, and Trading Post may respond slowly
• Buy.GuildWars2.com may respond slowly
• Register.GuildWars2.com may respond slowly

We appreciate your patience and understanding and hope that you find something fun to do while we conduct this maintenance. : -)

Very apt timing for this thread to appear as I’ve recently been enlisted by the WvW team.

What does this mean for you guys? I’ll be working closely with Devon and crew to act as the liaison between our development team and you – raising community concerns with the team, finding answers, being the good/bad guy, and whatever else!

For those wondering, I play engineer, I prefer to roam, I’m currently on JQ, and yes, I take bribes in the form of cookies.

Nike.2631:

Snip

Horizontal Progression CDI: Our Proposal

PRINCIPLES
- Where possible new content should refresh and evolve the existing world.
- Players need multiple paths when pursuing mechanically significant rewards, respecting all major modes of play and play-styles within those modes (i.e. jump puzzles vs. combat).
- Secondary cosmetic rewards (titles, weapon skins, mini-pets, town cloths, furnishings) can be tied to unique feats to enhance the prestige to those feats. Primary cosmetic features (armor, faces, hairstyles) are not advised in this role. Example: The mini-Liadri the Concealing Dark specifically announces the player’s mastery of the Queen’s Guantlet.
- Be inclusive, respecting all in-games choices such as character race, profession, Personality, and Order. Example: if new Racial Dances are introduced, make sure all 5 races have a new dance to seek out.
- Consider Quality of Life improvements that communicate progress to the player, organize goal selection, and showcase the results of their effort. Example: The PvP Locker allow players to quickly review what they have, what they might still want, and enables them to flaunt what they have already accomplished.

REWARDS and THE JOURNEY

— Building Identity: Giving players more say in how the world of Tyria and their fellow players see them.

• Trophies & Recognition. Unique Skins, Ranger Pet Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the player’s individual feats or the completion of major multi-stage tasks in the world of Tyria.
• Choice & Consequence. More NPC dialogue that responds to the player’s Personality, Race, or Profession. Alternate animations or utterances that convey Personality. May also unlock ‘shortcuts and side-paths’ with minor opportunities to simplify challenges or reap additional rewards based on these choices.
• Player Housing. Customizable personal spaces displaying ‘furnishings’. Furnishing can be acquired across a wide range of activities, including most existing currencies, but particular emphasis on Open World activities (critter drops, Event rewards)
• Guild Halls. Shared, large-scale spaces which can house personal furnishing and special guild-specific items. These items reflect success in mass-play activities or pooling huge amounts of currency beyond the means of most individual players.
• Order Progression. Strongly thematic rewards based on repeated service to the Order’s Goals, including titles, skins, lore, emotes, furnishings, utterances (“For the Vigil!”), and NPC dialogue. Order progression also allows players to unlock new large-scale events for themselves and others, reflecting the order’s interests & with flavorful rewards.
• Public Monuments. Permanent or rotating open world sites for recognition of players. Populated by server-specific competitive achievements like server firsts or potlatch-challenges.
• Personal Resources. Continuing growth of the Home neighborhoods as a ‘private garden’ of crafting nodes and possible cheap/fast travel hub.

— Role Diversification: Giving players more options when creating their build.

• Grail Quests. Personal rights of passage through open world adventures, testing the player in combat, discovery, and puzzle solving. Once activated by the player others can join in the activities for basic rewards, while the central Hero earns New skills/traits, previously locked weapons/new weapon skills, or new Ranger companions.
• Item upgrades review and expansion. Rebalancing unpopular Runes, Sigils, and Infusions to promote greater variety of builds. Introducing new upgrades as both specialized rewards and new crafting opportunities.

FOR FUTURE DISCUSSION

— Sub-classes will be discussed in a later CDI, timed for maximum advantage in light of currently ongoing Skill and Balance changes.
— Entirely new end-game activities like Polymock and their supporting progression systems.
— Fractals. where we are now, what can be improved, new shards to conquer, redressing inequities from the transition to the new scaling system.
— More personal customization options regarding armor and weapons. Includes pattern dyes, texture options (other types of wood and different metal polishes), customizable features like long sleeves vs. short sleeves, emblem design.

Hi Nike,

Thanks for taking a crack, it is certainly well formatted and easily digestible.

I am still thinking in regard to how you have built/focused your proposal but my initial thoughts are that it is to much like a design document from a micro standpoint.

The proposal should allow room for maneuver from a design standpoint and should be more goal focused from a macro standpoint.

I will think on it more and am excited by your show of initiative here.

Chris

Nnz.2430:

Hello.

My friend lost password and tried to recover it. (request 255438)
Support does not answer 3 days.

He must stop submitting tickets immediately. We cannot and will not help him until he desists from flooding our support systems. After we can establish that he is the account owner — and we cannot do that now because agents are being required to close all his duplicate tickets — we will assist him.

Nnz.2430:

He checked junk email folder, there no e-mail.

Oh yes, he is getting our replies. We simply need time to read his, and wade through the dozens of tickets that he appears to be submitting. He is being helped

DiogoSilva.7089:

Personal question: Will a balance overview thread be posted in the forums?

They will be. We’re still fleshing out the exact changes which is why we’ll mostly be giving a high-level overview of where we’d like to take things. I don’t expect we’ll have the proposed notes posted until next week at the earliest.

citizensway — I am so sorry this happened. I hope that your guild, which sounds wonderful, rebounds from this situation and that you are able to play a leadership role in that effort. I suggest a very small number of leaders, and frequent communication between all of them. In my guild, no one is promoted without a vote of the leaders. This really helps prevent nefarious activities. Anyway, all the best to you and your guildies!

Sola.7250:

Wow, never heard of anything like that.

Your right, the founder, the original person who spent money to create the Guild should not be allowed to be kicked out!!! Some one needs to have ownership of a Guild and that shouldn’t change unless the owner transfers the ownership of the guild to some one else!

Anet should have procedures in place for that, otherwise the whole Guild creation/ownership is just broken.

Not necessarily, Sola. Consider someone who creates a guild and then decides that he no longer can manage the guild, so asks one or more of his officers to serve as guild leader. Say that person leaves Guild Wars 2 entirely. Should the guild be unable to perform certain functions because, long ago, an person who is no longer around created the guild?

There are no guild “owners.” There are guild leaders, and they should be chosen with care. There are rights ascribed to each rank, and those, too, should be chosen with care.

Too, very, very few guilds are “paid for” by a single individual; rather, they receive their upgrades through the concerted effort of the entire guild membership.

We’re always very sorry to hear about situations where someone abuses the trust that others place in him and does mischief to a guild. But this is preventable with the carefully monitored use of the guild rank and rights/privileges already built into the guild system.

VOLKON.1290:

I’m going to toss a new idea in here even though the proposal is already out there because… well, because I just thought of it… sorry Chris. It may seem a little strange (and feels a little strange to me to be honest) but it feels like a potential horizontal progression path…

Right now with the Living Story we’re seeing a changing of the guard as far as the heroes of Tyria go. Destiny’s Edge is settled back into non-guild, non-adventurer life with some influence and we’re seeing the latest quintet of Braham, Rox, Marjory, Kasmeer and soon the new Asura who seems about to become significant as well. To me, this could be the beginning of a new guild similar to Destiny’s Edge. I think that I think it would be interesting if, through the Living Story, players could also become a part of that guild and somehow through their actions and accomplishments in the LS progress along a path to possible rewards, unlocks, etc.

Conceptually it’s still a bit vague, I just thought of it, but possibly there could be skills or traits unlocked, unique weapon or armor skins, minipets, items to display in a housing environment (guild emblem or crest for example), etc.

It’s a fledgling idea, but there you go.

Yep this is a really cool idea. Something we have been thinking about and something I am unable to comment on.

Feel free to explore it among yourselves though.

Chris

LittleLepton.8915:

Hi Chris, could you comment on this? It would be very helpful ^^

J Eberle.9312:

Hello Chris.

…

So in all seriousness, we could use some feedback. It’s great that you are willing to discuss fractals, but could we possibly include all dungeons in this discussion? Along with possibly the discussion of new/upcoming dungeons?

One point I want to ask the CDI group for help in is just the size of the threads and their accessibility in regard to this. The larger the thread, the harder to engage properly and the lower the value impact on the game.

With this in mind I am worried that having any CDI topic be to big is that it is going to lead to dis-economies of scale. Therefore this is something we should discuss in the Process Evolution CDI. On top of this it is not OK for me to just pick the topic of discussion currently and therefore whilst I would like to discuss Fractals next, that doesn’t mean that this will be the case.

We can discuss further in the next CDI. Meanwhile let’s concentrate on finishing of this CDI topic please.

Chris

darkace.8925:

I’m going to throw a final post in this monstrosity before it’s closed forever. I’m glad to see the latest proposal is worded in a way to include the Orders as mechanisms for delivering meta-events. I do hope, however, that these events are flavored in a way that captures the personality of the Order they’re tied to (large scale battles for the Vigil, etc). And with that, I’m out. See you all next CDI.

Please note items in a CDI proposal are not a promise of inclusion in GW2.

Chris

Romo.3709:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

darkace.8925:

I’m going to throw a final post in this monstrosity before it’s closed forever. I’m glad to see the latest proposal is worded in a way to include the Orders as mechanisms for delivering meta-events. I do hope, however, that these events are flavored in a way that captures the personality of the Order they’re tied to (large scale battles for the Vigil, etc). And with that, I’m out. See you all next CDI.

Please note items in a CDI proposal are not a promise of inclusion in GW2.

Chris

I was also wondering since apparently the team members are following the CDI (at least in general) what do you do with the said proposal?
I mean it’s not a promise list or a wish list. Is it more of a discussion list? And if so, how much discussion do you guys bring to the table? Is every member prepared with some kind of basic background information about the topic before the discussion starts? Or do you guys sit down and bring it up and brainstorm? If that’s the case, isn’t more detailed proposal needed to show what has been discussed and how it was met with others responses?
I’m not questioning you guys or saying that you do not follow CDI, I’m just interested who’s the proposal for and how does the whole thing work.

Hi Romo,

This video answers a lot of your questions as long as you have the time to spare (-:

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/interviews/exclusive-video-interview-chris-whiteside-cdis

Chris

darkace.8925:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

darkace.8925:

I’m going to throw a final post in this monstrosity before it’s closed forever. I’m glad to see the latest proposal is worded in a way to include the Orders as mechanisms for delivering meta-events. I do hope, however, that these events are flavored in a way that captures the personality of the Order they’re tied to (large scale battles for the Vigil, etc). And with that, I’m out. See you all next CDI.

Please note items in a CDI proposal are not a promise of inclusion in GW2.

Chris

I know. My post was “if it’s done, I hope it’s done in this way”, not “I fully expect to see this in game”. Apologies if that wasn’t clear.

No need to apologies Dark and thanks for clarifying.

Chris