Guild Wars 2

They test the heck out of everything for at least a month or two before release. You just don’t hear about it because all the testers are bound by non-disclosure agreements.

And like Wanze said, the high difficulty is intended.

Even the lowest population servers can easily fill up a single instance of the map with a little organization, and that’s all you need to start making attempts and learning the mechanics. All that the higher-pop servers get is an increased chance of fragmenting into a half-dozen overflows.

The Inquest Golem pre-event sometimes gets unnecessarily fouled up. A single person can run around and start up all the containers, without sticking around to defend them. The result is that the event fails, and nobody can fight the Golem.

At least on Fort Aspenwood, this is happening with increasing frequency. I don’t know if it is being done by new people who don’t understand the mechanics, or trolls who do. It should be easy to prevent regardless.

The first solution that comes to mind is to have failed containers reset after some time, but I’m sure there are other options.

Always-Visible Thread Status

Regarding forum tech, would it be possible to have something like a collapsible red-bar block of status text always visible at the top or side of the thread?

If such a message were made visible regardless of where a user is in the thread, it can be updated regularly by the CDI’s managing dev to keep us up to date on any combination of info:

• Summary (maybe via a link)
• Current sub-topic, question, and/or goal
• Desired post format

It could be minimized at most times, expanding when clicked or updated.

To me, this seems much more reliable than simply hoping everybody happens to have read the dev’s most recent guidepost.

Of course, people are still free to post what they want, but this would drastically improve visibility and tangibility of the dev’s guiding hand. It would also eliminate the need for Chris to constantly bump his own posts, creating a neat and permanent place for these things, and freeing up his actual forum posts for genuine discussion.

Behellagh.1468:

UKNightWatch.5742:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Q-Is-multi-boxing-allowed/first#post244389

Has a moderator answer.

In short, multi boxing is not allowed.

Read it again. It is allowed as long as you control each character separately.

EDIT: This post has been quoted in other forum posts, but it is inaccurate. ArenaNet does not prohibit Multi- or Dual-Boxing as along as the player is active on each account and is not botting or using other third-party programs to “play” the account.

The key words there are “on each account.” The OP was asking about simultaneously playing multiple characters from the same account, which is different.

(1)

If you can deliver your core thought in a couple of one-liners *&(#$^!@ LEAD WITH THAT.

This, but further: If you can make your point in just a few sentences, that’s all you need. If the rest is optional, make the choice and cut it out.

It works well when Chris asks for posts in a specific format. People generally fall in line. Also, we need to keep the thread community caught up and focused.

I suggest replacing the CDI thread whenever focus is changed by the dev.

For example, if Chris thinks we’ve covered the current base and wants to narrow discussion down to such-and-such, the old CDI X Phase Y thread would be closed and temporarily stickied. He would then create CDI X Phase Z. His opening post would summarize the current direction of discussion, then set goals and a desired post format for the new phase.

(2)
I like back-and-forth in topic selection. The final topic should have the approval of both sides.

FrozenStarRo.7240:

They changed the format/display of the Releases page https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/ so it no longer includes the sneak preview box linking to details of the upcoming LS. I don’t like the change either, but it looks like it’s staying this way for the foreseeable future.

Ooh, since when did the Living World have its own logo? I like it.

Nub.2391:

game like diablo 3 and many other MMo would introducing new class not longer than 1 or 1 and 1/2 year.
i remember we getting 2 new class after 1 year from GW1.

Dialbo III and Guild Wars 1 aren’t MMO’s. They’re CORPG’s. Think of the relationship between GW1 and GW2 less like going from Final Fantasy XI to FFXIV, and more like going from Warcraft I-III to WoW.

Regardless, most other online games don’t have systems like GW2 where they can introduce completely new play styles through the existing classes. Adding new weapons, traits, and skills can introduce roughly the same level of diversity as adding a new profession.

If you’re running full venoms, Steal is your stun breaker. Reserve it for when you need it.

They do have an ample testing program, which goes on for months before anything is released. The people involved are just bound by a non-disclosure agreement, so you never hear about it.

Warcry.1596:

At least try to play all professions before starting to suggest stuff to the devs to do

I do, which is exactly why I have come to think this would be fun as a low-frequency condition. There are currently no conditions that target crits or evasion. Glancing blows are also under-utilized in the game. These gaps have endless potential for being played with.

(Also, the devs generally don’t play all professions; they have preferences like everyone else.)

Note that if you’re asura or charr, there won’t be a change. Males and females wear the same armor skins.

Note: I am NOT suggesting this to nerf crits or evasion. I just think it could be a fun occasional counterplay.

Ineptitude: Outgoing critical hits become glancing blows. Attacks you dodge become glancing blows instead being evaded.

As with weakness, you still get your critical damage bonus, applied alongside the glancing blow reduction. 250% damage becomes 125%, for example.

The duration would be short, reapplying would only refresh instead of stack duration, and it wouldn’t be widely available. This could replace weakness on a few skills, to make that condition less universal.

Sadly, the current state of PvE would make this useless there, but I still wanted to toss the idea around for discussion.

Also, the (soon-to-be derived) Crit Damage Bonus could be replaced with the total multiplier, (base being 150 instead of 0). So, the OP’ kitten would show 248% instead 98%.

Rehk.6574:

the jackalope achievement has many spawning areas, as do all the transformation achievements from the skritt burglar chests.

check Dulfy.net they have lists of all the possible locations of the chests if your achievement hunting.

The jackalope achievement is unrelated. They were asking about this event:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Protect_Linnea_as_she_hunts_for_the_yeti

Ren.5842:

I’m not a lore buff so forgive any ignorance here but:
Cat people (ala FFXIV)?
Something like the Castanic or Aman from Tera would be very cool!

We have cat people. While developing the charr, (especially the females), the devs decidedly went as far as they could from the stereotypical human who just happens to have cat ears and tail.

The races in Guild Wars use archetypes, but avoid stereotypes.

Leuca.5732:

I was hoping they would release the sigil/rune changes sooner so that they could get a feel for the balancing impact.

That’s what their harem of internal testers is for

Yes, blue highlighting means those values are affected by your traits.

Interesting theories, but this thread should probably be moved to the Lore subforum.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

(snip)

There are some good ideas here. They fall somewhat in line with things I’ve been considering for a while.

I have a critique to offer on how it is presented, though:

• Macro over micro. At this point, the details don’t matter. Things like balance and exact rewards have to tie in with other projects and schemes, and it’s much better to let those chips fall into place later. Readers’ eyes will skim past these parts, trying to find the top-level concepts.
• Hide the archive. We don’t need to see both old and new versions of points when you edit. The unnecessary information is confusing.

I recommend cutting it all down to a couple paragraphs and few bullet points. Briefly tell us the problem, (a sentence would do), and outline only the critical points of your solution.

You have an interesting central idea, but it’s hard to see the tree through all these leaves.

The ideal solution to Teq-like battles for me would be if they found a way to share the fight across multiple instances on a server, (main + overflows). First off, let everyone who shows up contribute to taking down the same health bar. They could modify the tech used for the bar from the Tower, (unless that bar was all smoke and mirrors).

Create some interesting cross-instance mechanics so that people on a ten-man overflow can feel as useful to the overall fight as those in the eighty-man main. Yes, the less populated instances will have a harder time managing aggro and incoming damage, and they might not be able to get in and do much direct damage to the boss, but that doesn’t mean they can’t somehow be useful to the greater fight.

If they fight just as hard as those in higher-population instance, they should get something out of it in the end. (And the high-pop fighters should get some benefits in the fight from what the low-pop folks are doing.) Players should not, however, be able to throw in a few whacks, wait idly for everyone else to beat it, and reap the credit for victory.

It requires some creativity and tech wizardry, but it seems better than leaving people out in the cold entirely just because you can only win on one instance.

It’s good to see everyone making such good use of their Jump To Conclusions mats. That is the game everyone here is playing, right?

Gambit.8425:

Gulesave.5073:

(snip)

Other MMO’s tie together new gear tiers with new, harder content. Not in GW2 though, they made ascended gear grind so we got something to strive for, which add about the crit damage they’re now removing cause it’s too strong for CoF p1.

I assure you, the devs are not redesigning an entire core attribute solely on the basis that the tiny subset of players who both have ascended armor and grind CoF1 are going through that one piece of content a few seconds too fast.

Tweaking CoF or ascended crit damage would have been much, much, much easier.

Tman.6349:

I would like to see F2-F4 added to the their as ‘stolen item slots’ and for steal to immediately go into cooldown while adding the stolen skill to the next slot. This would allow thieves to use their stolen skills in a more opportunistic fashion and get rid of the need to waste a ‘currently useless’ stolen skill just to access their CLASS MECHANIC once again. I think this would be a fair balance with the mechanics of the other classes and also make the thief steal more user friendly as well as making the use of it more strategic. Perhaps adding a 1-2 second global cool down on the f2-f4 stolen skills to avoid some spamming abuse that I could imagine. This really wouldn’t be hard to implement and would make stealing much more viable IMO.

I like this idea. In most world boss fights, I only use F1 for its stun break. At least I wouldn’t have to remind myself to burn the item before I can do it again.

Nerfing vs buffing isn’t just about balance between builds. If they only buffed and never nerfed, we would have crazy power creep. Everything else in the game would need to be scaled up every few months just to keep up with the damage inflation.

I agree that Ferocity is not a great name, but for the same reason that Prowess and Malice are no longer used. It’s not very descriptive or intuitive. “Critical Power” would have been a sensible transition from what we have now. Unless, of course, Ferocity has a secondary function they haven’t told us about yet…

They weren’t put up there because they know how to talk to people. They were put up there because they know what they’re talking about. Which isn’t to say that the prior skill can’t be learned, nor that a little PR handholding wouldn’t help in the meantime.

These same guys have presented themselves better at other times, so it seems they were particularly jovial at this time. Honestly, that’s what most of the Seattle area feels like right now. Having a sportsball team in the playoffs tends to do that to people.

At times in the video, it almost sounded like they were implying Ferocity would replace both Critical Damage and Precision. The dialogue was really unclear.

They also stated that there was another huge change to be announced at a later date. So there’s a small possibility that the above could be true, and we would presumably see another new attribute alongside Ferocity.

I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes/curiosity/rage up too much, though. That’s just one of many conflicting impressions I got during the vague discussion.

The flip side to these answers is that if your character will mostly be fighting world bosses, precision and crit damage are useless, so power and might stacking thus become much more important.

I just set AoE Loot to Shift+F, and it works pretty dandy.

Venoms, when traited, are wonderful if you need mid-grade control, support, and damage all at the same time, while surrounded by allies and numerous foes. Not so great in every other situation.

A full venom build is only great in certain circumstances, and individual venom skills mixed into other builds feel underwhelming. What venoms need is some versatility:

1. Venom sharing needs to be automatic. The free version would be lesser, (fewer allies, fewer stacks, and/or smaller radius). The traited version would be as it is now, but would also give you a short-lived boon, (maybe Might), for every ally you share venoms with.
2. Apply venoms specifically to the weapon(s) you are currently wielding. Swapping your weapon set also stashes the venom stacks aside for a while. This gives you some control on staggering out applications. The stacks would keep their timer running, so you can’t cycle around and build up extra.
3. Replace the Might stacks you get from Venomous Strength with a boost to only condition damage. This won’t turn venoms into a damage build, but merely acknowledges that they tend to have more use for condition damage than power.
4. I love the idea of spilling some venom on the ground, creating a combo field. This would be a fun second-cast ability: clicking on an activated venom that has unused stacks would remove the stacks and create a combo field at your feet.

This all could make venoms rather complicated, I know. But let me wish.

Quick reminder: this thread is now focused on narrowing down guidelines for a general proposal to the development team. Once that is done in the next day or so, the whole thread will be closed and stickied.

For any topics that have been bumped out—such as subclasses, fractal levels, skin locker, &c.—it is recommendable to find or open a new thread in the relevant sub-forum.

Gameplay-wise, I think it will be a lot of fun. At least, for the first week or so.

Lore-wise, it could be interesting: we get a new character joining Destiny’s Child. (What? Can you think of a better name for them?)

Aesthetically, I’m mixed. The marionette seems cooky and neat, but the wurm is disappointing. Couldn’t they at least give the old model a new skin?

Tom.8029:

angelpaladin.7921:

I am little worried this will be like Teq. where you have to be in a special guild and basically glitch (create a overflow for just certain people to join) the game to be able to complete the content.

They didn’t create the overflow so only certain people could fight Tequatl. They overflowed the normal server to create the overflow and then ferried people into that overflow. In doing this, they could avoid afk players taking up slots so that they would have more people fighting Tequatl.

It also makes the fight invite-only. And I’m sorry to inform you, but it is certainly not only AFK players being excluded.

A group of players should never be able to determine whether or not other players can experience content that was designed for everyone.

Quick notes on animals:

1. Mounts. Have you been inside that classroom-like chamber inside the Priory headquarters? Imagine that nonsense, but with animals instead of desks. As for horses, they did exist, but as far as we know they went extinct prior to GW1. Their presence in concept art for the current era is probably a simple mistake. And given the world’s advancement, riding a mount would be seen as archaic, used more for recreation than actual travel.
2. Pets. Pet acquisition is a fitting, (if late), topic for this thread. However, as this CDI is about progression, I recommend that further discussion of any perceived problems with current mechanics or balance would do better in the Ranger subforum.

If you have multiple venoms on your skill bar, you are running a venom build. It’s important to know what that is and is not.

Fully traited, a venom build involves pinning down enemies, supporting yourself and allies while being a little bit tanky, and flanking foes’ defenses with a mix of high-power/no-crit attacks and minor but sustained condition damage.

Venoms are pretty well balanced between control, support, and damage. If you want them to do just one of those at the expense of the others, I think what you really want is a completely new group of skills.

However, I would like to see the option of replacing some of the attack power and maybe toughness with condition damage. Simply put: melee thieves use power, but ranged thieves depend on conditions to get the same moderate output. That’s not so much a venoms thing, though.

A new trait could, for example, make it so that a thief using ranged weapons gets all condition damage from stacks of might, instead of half-cd/half-power. If placed right, this could be a big help to ranged venom-users.

Overkillengine.6084:

Another way to help make the cap less an issue is to tweak the stack amounts either by duration or magnitude; but pare down either the duration or number of stacks handed out accordingly.

For example; instead of dealing 5 bleed stacks at .05 coefficient, instead deal one bleed stack at .25.

Or, instead of a 10 second bleed stack at .05, replace with a 5 second one at .10.

Fewer stacks output to get the same damage means more latitude for multiple condition users in a group, as does shorter duration but more intense bleeds, since it becomes harder to max out the cap of 25 as often.

Interesting idea, but bleeding is a very abundant condition. It would still reach the cap easily, even at half duration. The only impact from this would be doubling the damage dealt by the those 25 stacks over the course of the fight.

Ideally, we shouldn’t need any changes to the condition system—not even the one I suggested. If strong mobs had access to condition cleansing, our stacks would be wiped away before they could cap in the first place.

To make one thing clear: they cannot simply remove the condition cap.

It’s reason for being there has less to do with balance, and is much more of a technological limitation. This has been pointed out repeatedly by the devs in the past.

Conditions and boons are much more complicated code than they appear, and running too many stacks at one time across a map would bog the servers down and make the game nigh unplayable.

Removing the condition cap altogether just isn’t feasible. What they might be able to do is scale the cap according to unit.

Trash mobs can make do with a very low cap, since they don’t survive long enough to accrue many conditions in the first place. Replace their per-condition caps entirely with a single cap such as “25 stacks total, between all conditions,” and players shouldn’t even notice the change. Veterans would have a bit more, and upward from there. On higher tier foes, the per-condition cap can remain in place to encourage a balanced spread of multiple conditions.

This shift would leave room for plenty of stacks on champions and world bosses.

Sometimes a narrator is just a narrator, folks.

I really want to see weapons used differently than they are now:

• Melee staff for warrior; control and boons, like a pseudo-banner
• OH harhorn for engineer; “noise:” aoe confusion and torment
• Rifle for thief; bullet paths create linear combo fields
• Shield for mesmer; reflection, retaliation via signets on weapon bar
• Greatsword for necro; minion wields it in your place while you channel
• OH pistol for elementalist; piercing shot summons elemental briefly behind foe
• MH shield for guardian; aoe push/pull combo, and ride shield as skidding closer
• MH warhorn for ranger; critter autoattack? yes, please!

Yoh.8469:

Try this, go up to a natural mob and run through it a couple of times.
No body blocking for naturals or allies, but as soon as you attack it, boom body blocking is in full swing.

That’s Melee Attack Assist. You can turn it off.

Every person who has posted here deserves a pat on the back for helping to hit this milestone in the CDI. We have seen a lot of good assessment and creativity in this thread, and it has stayed (mostly) positive and fun.

Good work, and keep it moving forward everyone! I can’t wait to see what we come up with in the next phase!

Here’s one tweak that might encourage defensive builds in PvE: tie endurance regen to current health. It would recover slowly at full health, but accelerate as your big red orb depletes. The rate we have now would be somewhere in the middle. A small variance could have a big impact.

The goal here is for evasion to keep you from dying roughly as well it does now, but for dependence on it to maintain you at an average health level that is lower and feels riskier, thus making defensive attributes, traits, and skills more attractive.

Varying endurance recovery would work best when paired with a bridging of the game-mode damage gap, (shifting away from slow, powerful attacks to make monsters fight a little more like players). All this would have to wait until the current balancing project is complete, but I just wanted to toss the idea into the arena.

I think an OoC speed buff could easily be worked as a trait, but it can be done in a lot of different ways. It can even be worked into an existing trait.

For example, Compounding Power (Illusions III) could be changed to this:

• Illusory Momentum: Gain increased movement speed, which is converted to increased damage when you have illusions out.
  • 0 Illusions: +21% Movement speed
  • 1 Illusion: +14% Movement speed; +2% Damage
  • 2 Illusions: +7% Movement speed; +4% Damage
  • 3 Illusions: +6% Damage

It’s just to represent differing stylistic approaches used by the groups in Tyria.

1. Tengu
2. Maybe kodan
3. That’s pretty much it

zamalek.2154:

Those points are a summary of only your suggestion, suggestions (regarding subclasses)

As you point out, multiple summaries of ideas have been done, but that’s not what I was doing.

I was attempting to pinpoint a broader near-consensus the majority of the community seems to be developing throughout this long discussion, concerning elements and methods the myriad posters have said they will or will not find desirable or even acceptable in a specialization concept.

The three listed components are of course not expressed parts of that perceived consensus itself, but serve as prime examples of pieces that do not go against it. Yes, two of them were also used in my own recent suggestion. Others have used them before and since, and that suggestion sprouted from a mental draft of these very same community-originated pseudo-guidelines, instead of the other way around. After removing everything people have roundly said they don’t want changed, these are a few of the most obvious and effective existing pieces of the game that are left available.

(I know I also reused the word “archetype,” but “subclass” tends to get a negative reaction in this thread, and the former is my favorite alternative.)

This whole CDI has been a great font of creativity, and I am eager to see what else people come up with!

Current state of the “subclass” discussion:

1. Any specialization mechanic, (I’ll use the term “archetype”), needs to affect only those things that the player does not already control. This forbids any gating of or overlapping with the selection of traits, weapons, skills, or upgrade components.
2. The pieces we have come up with that fit this guideline so far are:
   1. Aesthetic theme
   2. F1-4 abilities
   3. Unique attribute (the bottom part of your fifth trait line)
3. Changes to those pieces can easily be bundled together into cohesive and functional archetypes. That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss the possibility of mixing and matching, or leaving one or two of them out altogether.
4. Unlocking an archetype should not be restricted to a single mode of content. PvE and WvW players alike should have access. Using the orders seems popular, although forces players into doing personal story up to a certain mission.
5. The process of unlocking should be mostly done in the open world, using existing lore and possibly character story. The events leading to the unlock should show the story and purpose of the archetype, while also teaching its functionality to the player.
6. Swapping unlocked archetypes should be feasible: either freely like equipment and skills, or at a cost like traits.

DaMunky.6302:

I had to log in just to +1 the OP.

Thanks! I’m glad that people are enjoying my ranting.

Lyndis.4653:

If forums are changing then it’d be nice to have a PvE section. It fills odd to have PvP, WvW but no PvE which is just mixed in general GW2 and not completely covered : no fractal and no open world sections…

This is a big issue, and I would love to see it discussed more. We all prefer to post things in their related areas, but several of those areas don’t exist. Not everything belongs in General.

I’m starting to think the forums could use their own CDI.

I think barely half the ideas in the Suggestions subforum fit comfortably into other subforums. Posting much of that in General Discussion would be unlikely to spark the productive discussion we’ve gotten used to. Great ideas will get lost in the tidal wave, miss their target audience, and get the negative responses that tended to be absent in the creative safe zone of Suggestions.

I feel that many of the awesome creative discussions that went on there simply won’t happen anymore. That is a huge shame.

Certain subforum groups, (Professions, for example), need a General/Misc area of their own to help counter this and other problems. The Living Story group is a perfect example of having both specific subforums and general subforum, and this model needs to be emulated elsewhere to avoid stifling out-of-the-box discussion.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I’m sorry to disagree but both the short duration and the long cooldown of the venom makes it a horrible choice for condition damage build.

Agreed. Venoms are a rounded hinderance, pressure and maintenance build using a touch of condition damage among several other factors. Currently, the condition damage is just too small, especially since the two damaging venoms are intended to exert passive control via their damage.

Add all the non-venom damaging conditions such as the abundant bleeding and even extra poison in many ranged builds, plus anything you get from sigils or runes, and condition damage will indeed help apply some pressure to your slowed opponent between all your mid-power attacks.

Also, this is about flexibility. Venoms should be useful with every weapon type. A melee thief can make better use of the power attribute we get from traiting, while a ranged thief instead needs condition damage just to make their weapon skills half as effective as they’re intended. This becomes a gross missed opportunity for build diversification, and a problem in promoting venoms as a viable build outside the single function of extended lockdown, which is of limited use outside PvP.