Guild Wars 2

Also, I don’t want this thread to be entirely about pets. We’ve seen a ton of great feedback about them, and I would like to hear more about utilities that need help (and aren’t viable unless spec’d into) as I haven’t seen as much on that front!

Thanks all

Ok guys, just wanted to clarify a few things.

Permastow is not impossible. I never meant to give that impression, so I apologize if I did. However, as far as priorities go for the Ranger, it is not high on the list. Why? Because it would require an entire re-balance of Ranger, but if we re-balanced, then the players that do play with the pet would be OP. See the dilemma there?

The reason why I latched onto the aspect idea was because it was an option that seemed we could maybe work around. Rather than having to rebalance the whole class, we’d just have to balance the aspects to be similar to what the pet does damage-wise. That seemed a little more viable.

Do keep in mind though, I am not a designer. I am a community coordinator. It is my job to help promote constructive discussion and make sure the devs know about how the community is feeling.

I will say this, though. I have seen some ideas blossom in the game that came directly from the community. We do listen to your feedback. Sometimes we modify and tweak the numbers a bit, but we definitely listen.

You guys really inspire us with your constructive feedback, which is why I’m always trying to emphasize the importance of it.

;)

You guys should hop into the Ranger CDI and say this stuff. Most of the Rangers feel that pets are actually not very helpful. It’s interesting how the feedback differs so greatly between this thread and that one!

Thanks for putting in the time to write this up! The designers spend a lot of time researching other games, so what you said is very similar to discussions one might hear internally.

I dunno if anything will come of it, but I’m going to point the guys in your direction since your post is so constructive!

Absinth.6917:

I posted the essence of this on another thread but I’ll get right to the point.

When will ,you, the Anet pvp dev’s grow some dang balls? (yourself excluded Allie)

By this I mean when will you shake up the current “meta”?

I’m not talking about slight changes to observable metrics. I speak of a complete overhaul. Give us something fresh! Obviously new game modes are out the window or at the very least on the distant horizon. IE. Mars….

So my true question would be this:

Can you effectively disrupt any current “meta” on a monthly basis?

If you dared to do such a thing you would cure GW2 of the current stagnation that we are all experiencing barring new game modes.

For better or worse if you could shake up the “meta” on a monthly basis; encouraging me to play unfamiliar classes or unused trait lines (builds) to be optimally effective then you have my attention. Perhaps you might come close to that gamer utopia that we call “balance”.

Or do we as pvp’rs not garner such consideration from Anet?

edit – oh wait this is a meet and greet BS session. I apologize. So my question would be this Allie….

Boxers or briefs?

We expect the feature build to sufficiently shake up the current meta. There will be lots… of fresh… stuff…

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before. We tried to bring you guys consistent updates, but as you noticed not all of them really shook up the meta. The upcoming build will do a better job at that for you. Hopefully in a good way.

I’m going to try to answer as many of these questions as possible, but keep in mind that some of this stuff we can’t talk about.

Oh, and I want to add to my last post:

Everybody can simply roll over their buttons and play a class well enough, but when you start to get to the higher tiers that doesn’t fly as much. You need to time your stuns/condis/stability/heals/etc. if you want to “play with the big boys.”

I know that there are some specs right now that are particularly spammy, though. We’re hoping that some of the changes we make in the feature build will help with a lot of that. One step at a time!

Nike.2631:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

I get frustrated by the simple lack of synergy between skills. When you play a condi-necro and can dance through your buttons to put a bleed on the target & yourself with utility, then use your off-hand to move your bleed to them, then use a utility to copy all those bleed to all enemies in the area while putting conditions on yourself, then use your heal to cleanse those conditions and gain bonus healing for doing so… you know that playing those out of order or having to respond to changing circumstances will affect your performance.

Compared to that, ranger gameplay is just dull. You occasionally can stack up a few ‘on next hit’ buffs to pump a single maul, but their weapon skills and utilities mostly feel like oatmeal. There is no difference in what happens if I cast my traps in different orders. there’s no combos, no special order or special timing for many, many Ranger skills.

As a general statement there are also far too many ranger traits that reduce cooldown and nothing else – in other professions we’ve seen a steady march towards combing the 20% cooldown with a secondary flavorful effect. Rangers have good effects but they are spread out across too many traits. A little combining or making certain effcts default behavior of the class would go a long way towards injecting not just raw power, but some cool into a class that sorely needs it.

I don’t think anybody questions that some classes, or should I say specs, are easier to play than others.

I do think the ones that are easier to play shouldn’t be so rewarding, though. It’s hard to balance that correctly in our game right now, though.

I’ll make a note to bring up the trait discrepancies.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I just hope that we’ve made clear that the pet is indeed promoting the beastmaster playstyle, but criples all other playstyles.

Definitely valid! I’ll note that for our discussions.

DeceiverX.8361:

Sure, the ranger is designed to have a pet. That doesn’t mean it should be a constant requirement. Having so many utility skills and traits tied to the pet makes the class unique. Whether or not players wish to really explore this option for damage augmentation should be on them. Just like Warrior’s Adrenaline and Thief’s Steal mechanics, those can be built around, are always available, but are not REQUIRED. A 30% damage penalty at the cost of something players may not wish to build around is simply too strict, and honestly, is just bad design. This is especially because there are no alternatives to an archer. Longbow warrior/shortbow thief are simply inadequate archers from many perspectives and this leads into another fallacy.

A massive source of complaints revolves around the fact that there exists no viable archer role in the game, and has nothing to do with the pet dependency. Simply, the pet is a style of play and a flavor addition, just as is being a heavy warrior with a big weapon, a nimble assassin, a mage, or in this case an ARCHER. Yes, the issues with pets can be resolved by potential updating, but it doesn’t solve the inherent design flaw which forces a style of play upon players while denying them another. Pets being optional resolves both conflicts, especially if they are buffed such that beastmasters and pet users/pets in general retain their usefulness/utility while blatantly denying dedicated archer/DPS roles. The reason why pet removal has so much support is a combination of the notions that rangers in general want more viability/consistency, and players wanting to play a dedicated archer (or light/medium armor skirmisher in fewer cases).

I hope this helps explain the origins behind why so many players want the option to remove the pet. Simply, the alternative play styles need to be considered somewhere in the game, and that either means reworking thief to allow for a longbow/new weapon implementation while also reworking ranger to fix pets, or simply re-working the ranger class (which is obviously less work than both classes) to make literally everyone happy and resolve all of the current class problems.

Thanks for your dedication and I hope you take this post more seriously when trying to evaluate the credibility of the insight regarding pet removal/stowing.

All fair points. It seems a lot of people feel the same way. I have made sure, and will continue to, point out that the community wants a class that is like Ranger (archer) without pets, or even with more reliable pets.

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Fancy Fool.1743:

I have to wonder if people are serious about some of these suggestions or if it’s just an emotional reaction. You can’t suggest good design on an emotional, upset premise. You have to think about logistics and the developer’s core goal with the design. I think the problem Allie faces is that the OP didn’t draw the line solidly enough to curb posts born of bitterness and resentment instead of clear-headed design.

Having a CDR Ranger Balance thread chuck full of emotional outcries doesn’t help the Ranger profession, guys. The best way to have got results from this was to simply suggest great, REASONABLE design changes or buffs. Or playing the ball in the court they want and talking more about what you want from the pet AI instead of trying to kick it aside. There are many no-pet suggestion threads you could have gone to respectfully.

Please, this is no emotional uprise, atleast for the most part. The AI is broken and it will stay broken. There are many good suggestions about how to bypass the AI.
Fact is, that the AI will never be as potent, that the damage of the ranger will be
on a competitve level. An AI can serve many purposes. Dealing mandatory damage is none of those.

We’re generally pretty good at picking out the posts that are well-thought out feedback vs. knee-jerk or emotional reactions.

I do want to say though, just because it’s an emotional reaction doesn’t make it invalid. Some have been unhappy with the balance of the class for a long time, so I think reacting emotionally is very human and I don’t fault them for it.

A lot of my job actually involves “translating” how the players are feeling, and trying to read between the lines whenever they are heavy with emotion. We want to know the core of the issue so we can try to fix it!

cainejw.7142:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Think of it this way: You’re building a house and a 2×4 breaks while you’re trying to screw it in to something. Do you scrap the house and completely rebuild it because that one piece broke, or do you grab a new 2×4 and use that instead? Which do you think would be more efficient?

What I’ve been seeing a lot of is that you guys don’t necessarily dislike pets. What you dislike is how they act and how they are controlled. It seems to me that these are feelings that have been built up over time, and have culminated into “pets have to go” because you guys haven’t seen the improvements that should be made to pets to make them desirable. I certainly don’t blame you for getting to this point, but I do want to know the core of the problem before we start talking about rebalancing an entire class.

Not to be rude, but that analogy is horrible. The pet is not like a 2×4 breaking. As you’ve said, the ranger is balanced around the pet. This would be akin to a load-bearing wall giving way. The ranger pet holds up the ranger class and equalizes the load.

So what do we do? Replace the load bearing beam (here the pet) with a more functional beam, or do you just tell people to work around it and don’t look at it because you know it’s a broken beam, but you’ll get to it someday.

This is where rangers are. The load bearing beam has rotted. The structure is drooping. The foundation is not absorbing the load to continue keeping the house upright.

And you’re saying, “We’ll get to it eventually, but we won’t remove the beam. It’s a good beam.”

No, it’s a bad beam.

Fair enough. I don’t disagree with what you guys are saying, I’m just trying to help you understand the gravity of the suggestion. Didn’t mean for everyone to get so fixated on that part.

DarksunG.9537:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Also, you guys can’t see this due to the limitations of formatting on our forums, but a lot of these points were made by many of you guys. As such, they are much more emphasized in the email threads and discussions we have internally.

Allie Has there been any feedback from the team on making Pets more unique? Dyable, Armor, packs, something more about the visual customization?

I wasn’t a part of the discussions for initial design of pets, but I will ask about this. I can say that adding armor or anything visual for that matter can take a long time (think of all the pets there are, and the specific movement each of them have, it’s a long process!).

Next RU is this Friday at 12. I’ll be posting details on it hopefully tomorrow, if not by Wednesday.

We want to do an All-Star scrimmage and are still trying to get in touch with some of the players.

Hey guys,

If you don’t mind, could you keep this GW2 or Community Coordinator related?

Thanks

Hey all,

It’s come up a couple times now that a number of you don’t know me very well, or don’t know what I work on. So, for the next episode of Ready Up, I’m going to introduce myself and answer questions from you!

I have a bunch in my inbox already, but if you haven’t already asked, feel free to do so here.

Thanks!

Hey,

Sorry for any confusion, looks like the number was wrong on the table. It should be updated now.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/get-ready-for-wvw-spring-tournament-2014/

phys.7689:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Also, you guys can’t see this due to the limitations of formatting on our forums, but a lot of these points were made by many of you guys. As such, they are much more emphasized in the email threads and discussions we have internally.

First, thank you for your summary. What I think got missed in the pile was the idea that pet damage should be rebalanced so that they no longer draw 30% of our damage from us in the first place. All other classes core mechanics add to base damage where as rangers loose almost a third of our player damage in order to have an AI run around with us. If our pets hit every time and are never dead, we just get to 100% base damage of every other class capping us at 100% a warrior hits 115% with his/her core mechanic.

This does not take into account the loss of gear stats on the pet which is significant.

this is completely false, all classes are balanced with their class mechanics in mind.
A mesmer isnt doing high level dmg competitive with other dps classes without phantasms or conditions without its clones. Necro base power on skills is lower even on its dps skills because they consider condition/minions in their max dps. Elementalists skills are tied to swapping elements, and they specifically place finishers and AOE in different places to promote swapping. Theif inititative totally changes how and what skills get dmg, and its generally balanced around initiative costs. Every classes mechanic is figured into their DPS.

Also, what this guy said ^

Aidenwolf.5964:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Also, you guys can’t see this due to the limitations of formatting on our forums, but a lot of these points were made by many of you guys. As such, they are much more emphasized in the email threads and discussions we have internally.

First, thank you for your summary. What I think got missed in the pile was the idea that pet damage should be rebalanced so that they no longer draw 30% of our damage from us in the first place. All other classes core mechanics add to base damage where as rangers loose almost a third of our player damage in order to have an AI run around with us. If our pets hit every time and are never dead, we just get to 100% base damage of every other class capping us at 100% a warrior hits 115% with his/her core mechanic.

This does not take into account the loss of gear stats on the pet which is significant.

I’m not saying this isn’t possible, but I want you to understand exactly what that suggestion means. It would mean completely rebalancing the Ranger.

The Ranger is designed to have a pet. If the pet was taken away or didn’t do damage, then it wouldn’t be a Ranger anymore. Does that make sense?

The only reason Rangers lose damage is because the AI is not currently what it ought to be. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we should completely redesign the Ranger and get rid of the pet.

Think of it this way: You’re building a house and a 2×4 breaks while you’re trying to screw it in to something. Do you scrap the house and completely rebuild it because that one piece broke, or do you grab a new 2×4 and use that instead? Which do you think would be more efficient?

What I’ve been seeing a lot of is that you guys don’t necessarily dislike pets. What you dislike is how they act and how they are controlled. It seems to me that these are feelings that have been built up over time, and have culminated into “pets have to go” because you guys haven’t seen the improvements that should be made to pets to make them desirable. I certainly don’t blame you for getting to this point, but I do want to know the core of the problem before we start talking about rebalancing an entire class.

Nike.2631:

Allie Murdock.8152:

So, it looks like some of you have already pointed out that not all the feedback was added to that summary.

Of course not. The thread’s 40+ pages, after all . Its just worrisome that the criteria for inclusion in the summary hints that its a head-count of repetitive posts instead of a reflection of what resonated for the developers.

Please read the first part of my post and note that I said this is only part of what has been going around, and not all of the information we have gotten out of this thread. We have been reading, after all.

Then I’ll just ask you to take a quick look at~

Sharing Consumables with Pets
Ascended Stats for Pets
Pets that can Dodge
Concentrating Pet Traits in the Beastmaster Line

~and see if anything there makes the grade for the next summary .

It’s not a reflection of what resonated from the devs. It’s what I sent to them. I send them the high level. They have been discussing other ideas too.

Like I said, the summary does not reflect every single thing we’ve talked about. If it did, it’d mean I’d have to be monitoring every discussion among the balance team members. They told me they have been reading and keeping up with the thread and discussing these things.

MMR is a different team. Justin works on MMR as a server programmer, while designers and artists work on new game modes.

Re: low pop
Reward changes and a few other things coming in the feature build should help with that.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Akisame.9508:

Thank you for the summary post, however, I did not see anything in there pertaining to WvWvW. We still have the problem of them dieing way to fast in zerg vs zerg. And we also have the large issue of us loosing 30% of our damage when defending or taking a keep/fort because pet’s will not scale up or down the walls. This includes the birds which will not fly up or down the wall to attack the targets. The only way I can see to combat this would be to have pets like all over class mechanics, an addition to our damage, not taking away from our damage. For instance, warriors get to do 100% of their damage and if they have full adrenaline they do an extra 15% damage. Ranger should be set up the same way with pets. Ranger’s should have 100% control of their damage and the pet, while alive, should be able to deal an extra 15% damage. If the pet is dead then it deals no extra damage like warriors with no adrenaline will deal no extra damage. We will still have the problem of the pets not being able to hit a moving target but at least the ranger will no longer have this handicap on them.

+1 #15characters

That’s because most of the suggestions I saw regarding WvW were either labeled PvX or WvW/PvE so I just put it under PvX.

So, it looks like some of you have already pointed out that not all the feedback was added to that summary.

Please read the first part of my post and note that I said this is only part of what has been going around, and not all of the information we have gotten out of this thread. We have been reading, after all.

Also, you guys can’t see this due to the limitations of formatting on our forums, but a lot of these points were made by many of you guys. As such, they are much more emphasized in the email threads and discussions we have internally.

Hey everyone,

I’ve tried to summarize most of the feedback we’ve been getting. Most of this are the big points that are being made and the high level with a few smaller suggestions and tweaks for inspiration.

Now, many of you might disagree with some of the feedback that others have been giving, but if you guys are going to take the time to write it, we’re going to take the time to read it.

These are some of the notes that I’ve been passing around to the balance team. Please know that this is not all of the feedback we’ve seen from you or from this thread.

PvX
General:

1. Remove spirits. They clutter up the map and provide less strategic value with target changes.
   1. Instead, apply an aura to the pet that does the same thing spirits currently do.
      1. Obviously, this would be a huge rework and would require changes to spirit traits.
2. More than any class in the game, Ranger requires a significant investment in traits before a large number of their utility skills are even work slotting.
3. Ranger heals should match their purpose more.
   1. Reduce cooldown of Troll Unguent/add condi removal
   2. Increase radius of Healing Spring & increase cast time
   3. Reduce cooldown of Heal as one or reduce cast time.

Beastmastery & Pets:

1. Pets need stat scaling.
   1. Stats could scale based on the Ranger’s stats and the pet’s family, with a weight on specific stats based on the individual pet
   2. Beastmastery should improve the pet stat scaling.
2. Pets should take less damage from AoE and one-shot mechanics.
   1. Pets should take 30% damage from AoEs, be immune to one shot mechanics and take 25% damage from cleaves when not the selected target.
3. Pets can’t keep up in combat.
   1. Melee range should be increased to 600 to accommodate the “run>stop>begin attack>cancel attack>run>stop” type mechanics you see throughout the game.
   2. Increase pet movement speed by 10-15%. Replace Agility Training with Vigorous training
   3. Pets have a hard time sticking to their target because they can’t attack and move at the same time. Increasing their speed could help increase their damage by just allowing them to keep up with their target.
   4. Allow pets to attack while moving.
4. General QoL changes.
   1. When the pet is stowed, the Ranger should gain “aspect of the <pet name>” effect which provides unique buffs based on the pet family and specific pet.
5. BM trait changes
   1. Signets should always affect the Ranger and require a beastmastery trait to also affect the pet.
   2. Use new UI symbols for each pet type and combine Rending Attacks, Stability Training and Intimidation training into one trait.
      1. With these traits the way they are, it discourages mixing pets and hurts build diversity.
   3. New trait: Master: Cleansing Swap: When you swap pets, you lose 2 conditions (ICD of 10 seconds).
      1. Counterplay – when ranger swaps pets, the pet loses boons
      2. Gives Rangers a good option for mobile condi removal.
   4. New trait: Grand Master: Camaraderie: When you swap pets, the inactive pet gains the same boons as the active pet (boon values are capped).
      1. Counterplay – if you swap when your pet is dead, there are no boons to copy.

Weapons:

1. Ranger weapon sets are currently lacking in focus and should be redesigned so that weapon selection synergizes with specific playstyles.
   1. Longbow: Reward max range and synergize with pet.
      1. Vulnerability instead of damage increase with range (s1), cripple (s2), immobilize (s3), knockdown (s5)
      2. Pet might (s3), swiftness (s2), regen (s5)
   2. Shortbow: Condition Damage
      1. Burning (s3), Torment (s4), s3 should be s5 w/ leapback + confusion
   3. Sword: Power
      1. Dodge overrides animation (s1), s2 jumps reversed (first goes in, second goes out), s3 cast time reduced to better time evades
   4. Warhorn: Group/Pet buffs
      1. s4 gives Protection, Regen and Vigor to nearby allies
   5. Torch: Condition application
      1. S4 sets location of target on fire (small aoe), s5 causes burning and blindness
   6. Axe: Multiple target/power
      1. Base damage could be increased slightly
      2. S3 causes chill at target location (small aoe), s5 shouldn’t cancel movement, but speed could be reduced

Skirmishing:

1. Remove traps from this line.
   1. They simply do not make sense here, because they are largely condition based but skirmishing is the crit line. That, or swap the stats of the skirmishing line altogether.
2. Improve traps in terms of utility, damage and group oriented play.
   1. Give Rangers the option to fire off traps manually.

Wilderness:

1. Wilderness experts should be the masters of poisons. Therefore, Rangers should have the most potent poisons available.
   1. Rangers should be given some trait options to improve poison in various ways (extended duration, improved healing suppression, higher damage values, bonuses against poisoned foes, etc.).

PvE
Beastmastery & Pets:

1. Pets die easily in dungeons because they can’t dodge telegraphed skills.
2. New Grandmaster minor: Companionship – Pet gains +7% stats bonus from the player.
3. IV. Compassion Training – Heals for 30 at 300 range when you activate your pet.
4. VIII. Stability Training – Urcine, Porcine, Devourer, Armor fish provides 3s stability at 300 range when activated in combat

General:

1. Rangers need more group utility. Particularly in the upper tiers of dungeons
2. Give them something similar to shouts.

Marksmanship:

1. III. Keen Edge – Critical hits do +1% damage.
2. IV. Signet Mastery – Grant power similar to Necro Signet Mastery.
3. VII. Spotter – Should be moved to Skirmishing as Gradmaster minor.
   1. Rework to 5% crit chance & 3% crit damage
4. Change VII to Hunter’s Tactics – +3% increase damage on disabled enemies (stun/daze/knockdown/fear/immob)
5. IX. Beastmaster’s Might – pet does +1% damage for every boon on enemy
6. X. Eagle Eye – Include shortbow. Provides 200 range and +5% damage on longbow and harpoon gun. (no range bonus for shortbow)
7. XII. Remorseless – Next attack applies 3 stacks of vulnerability for 6s. 16 sec cooldown

Nature Magic:

1. VIII. Evasive Purity – Dodging removes 1 conditions from you and your pet. (10s cooldown)
   Skirmishing:
2. Should focus on weapon swapping, stuns, dazes and mobility in combat.
3. Tail Wind – Provides +20% movement speed while in combat.

PvP
General:

1. Some changes to Axe should be made to make it a more desirable weapon.
   1. Ricochet – Bounce your axe between foes, dealing heavy damage to the first target, and reduced damage to subsequent targets. [Vulnerability x2] 5s (With a buff to the base damage)
   2. Splitblade – Throw a spread pattern of five whirling axes that bleeds foes and grants swiftness if foes are hit. [Bleeding x5] 6.25s and *[Swiftness] 5s
   3. Winter’s Bite – Throw an axe that removes a two boons. Your pet’s next attack inflicts Chilled. [Chilled] 3.25s (Increase the base damage by a bit)
      Beastmastery & Pets:
2. Pets are overpowered in condition builds
   1. Cats give condition builds high direct damage burst, while direct damage builds don’t get stronger with different pets.

Hey everyone,

I know we haven’t been as responsive as some of the other CDIs, but part of that is because we have double the amount of posts as the next one down and we’re spending most of our time reading and discussing the issues internally.

Given that, I’m going to lock the thread for now so that the team and I can catch up and discuss/summarize the feedback we’ve gotten.

Thanks so much for keeping it going!

Hey everyone,

I appreciate all of the great feedback. I think the 5 pages we have here is a good representation of the various feelings on the current state of Thief and Pistol Whip, so I’m going to go ahead and lock the thread.

Thanks all!

It’s not gone yet. Will be in the March 18th build, though. You still have a little under 2 weeks to use it up!

I’ll be releasing information on the next episode next week. We’re still ironing out some of the details.

The show isn’t only about sPvP, so I expect you will be disappointed occasionally when we feature other areas of the game that you are not interested in.

We try to announce a few days in advance what the plan is, so you will know ahead of time if it’s something you want to watch.

The next Ready Up will be on the 14th (Friday next week).

Youtube link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srIg7bLSmFQ

Thanks so much for keeping this constructive, guys! This has been incredibly helpful for me.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been seeing a lot of threads pop up with varying feedback about this skill. I’d appreciate it if you guys could toss some feedback in this thread about the skill, and try to be as concise as possible.

Also, try to answer these questions:

• Do you main Thief?
• When do you feel that Pistol Whip is unbalanced? (scenarios would be great)
  • How does it feel unbalanced compared to other class mechanics?
• What would you do to change Pistol Whip to better fit the class/game?

Additionally, if you feel Pistol Whip is exactly what it needs to be, I would like you to say so in this thread.

This thread is for me personally so I can properly communicate to the designers how you guys feel about it.

Thanks!

FYI, we don’t think it’s balanced. That’s why we’re still balancing it.

The OP actually makes a good point, though. For this particular feature build, we have not shared much about what’s going on, we get that. Don’t mistake that with we’re not doing much, though.

Thanks for the feedback

If this is something someone actually wanted to do, let me know because I’d like to support it.

Otherwise, cute thread

Tyops.5894:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Re: “Shot down” ideas

• The only thing we are not open to is a real permastow option that would essentially take away the pet completely (ie an option that said always stow).
  • We kicked around the idea of giving the ranger an “aspect of _______” which we moved to a new thread because it is elaborate and should be a single topic in itself. The idea is that it would give the pet more utility with swapping/stowing, but it wouldn’t retire the pet completely.
    • We want to fix issues with the pet AI and general usability before we consider doing something to this extent.
• We acknowledged that Pet AI does need help, but we did not say we would not be doing this. You will see some changes in the coming feature patch that should help with the pet’s usability.

Respectfully, I think you have this reversed.

We are 18 months into the game’s lifespan and the pet command (F2) still isnt even at an acceptable level of responsiveness. Pet AI is still monstrously bad. I am skeptical that working on AI is a more productive avenue than looking at the aspects or other stow option. Putting other solutions on hold until you fix the AI seems misguided.

I think there should be some pretty strong thought put in to proverbially stop the bleeding with issues with pets, pet AI and all pet related gameplay by providing rangers with some form of an out while you take the time and put in the appropriate amount of effort to fix AI and other issues.

Pets are really really bad.

That is perfectly valid feedback. Like I said though, we do have some changes coming that should help with this. Particularly with the one you noted (F2).

Thanks for your constructive thoughts!

Hey all,

Sorry I haven’t had time to comment in here. I went through the past 10 or so pages and tried to grab some of the issues that have come up and address them. The balance team has been keeping up with the thread, but they haven’t had as much time lately to comment on specific ideas.

Re: “Shot down” ideas

• The only thing we are not open to is a real permastow option that would essentially take away the pet completely (ie an option that said always stow).
  • We kicked around the idea of giving the ranger an “aspect of _______” which we moved to a new thread because it is elaborate and should be a single topic in itself. The idea is that it would give the pet more utility with swapping/stowing, but it wouldn’t retire the pet completely.
    • We want to fix issues with the pet AI and general usability before we consider doing something to this extent.
• We acknowledged that Pet AI does need help, but we did not say we would not be doing this. You will see some changes in the coming feature patch that should help with the pet’s usability.

Re: Lack of participation

• I apologize that I had been absent from this thread for a few days. I had to produce Ready Up last week and a number of other things came up that took priority (including getting a virus that meant I left early for the week). Also, I don’t work on the weekends.
• Just because we’re not responding doesn’t mean we’re not reading.
  • Sometimes we just don’t get the time to respond, but we’ll try to get better about this.

Re: Fear that we will only work on pets

• Don’t stress about this. We wanted to look at the class as a whole with you. We didn’t make this thread specifically to get feedback on the pets. It just happens to be one of (if not the biggest) the top issues with Ranger right now.

The bags are full of loot from the newest Living World release, so you wouldn’t have to break off to play the content if you don’t want to.

Starting today, we have added Bags of Alliance Supplies as a reward for winning PvP matches. Solo Arena winners will get 20 bags, and Team Arena winners will get 40 bags.

I answered this question
here, and also commented on these concerns in a number of other threads that are now locked.

Thanks for the feedback, all!

This question should be answered the in FAQ that I posted. It is stickied on this forum.

For those that spent cash on glory boosters and have not used them, they are welcome to submit a ticket through support for a refund. We are not denying refunds to those who have not used the item.

If you guys want to pretend like the notes are real, that is your prerogative. Don’t act like we didn’t say anything though when the patch comes and you don’t see some of the fake notes from this in it.

Guys,

We simply cannot answer this question. Telling you guys specific release dates for these things has never been something we have done (unless we know everything is bug-free), because if something comes up that means the build needs to be pushed back, everyone gets super upset about it. We’ve seen that it actually hurts the game more to make promises like that.

However, if you read the interview from Colin that was done by Eurogamer, he gives a ballpark time frame if you think about it.

lordkrall.7241:

When [Living World Season One] ends [on 4th March], we’re going to take a break for a little bit and then we’re going to do one really big feature patch that is more akin to what people see from some of our [MMO] competitors,

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

Due to the size and scope of the final four story releases in season one, the next round of major features will be bundled together into a large “feature only” release that will come after the first season of the Living World 2014 has finished.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/living-world-2013-the-year-in-review/

Oops, I meant backpacks :P edited!

They should still be there at the very bottom (just above backpacks). You can also use the dropdown menu at the top right of the locker and select “PvP Salvage Materials”.

If they aren’t there, then perhaps you have hit a bug or forgotten to deposit them (if you salvaged on a different character).

Since there isn’t much in the way of constructive discussion in this thread, I am going to go ahead and lock it.

Guys, I’m not seeing anything good coming from this thread so I’m going to lock it.

I realize you are all frustrated that we have not been talking about dates and updates, but this is a very specific strategy that perhaps you guys will understand more when we do start talking about what’s happening.

In the meantime, you should all pay very very close attention to what your friend lordkrall.7241 has hinted at in his posts. I will say no more….

Thanks for the feedback all, I’m going to go ahead and close the thread!

All, I’m fine with you asking questions in the thread for the show, but please don’t use this thread as a place to discuss other topics.

Thanks!