Guild Wars 2

We (Anet) didn’t actually have anything to do w/ the brackets.

Congrats to RNG and AL for facing off today in the quarterfinals, and good luck to AL and all of tomorrow’s combatants!

The actual stream starts at 12:30 PST!

Bear in mind I’m not saying it’s ideal, but for getting a sense of what the PERCEPTION is, the forums are a good place to hear the VOCAL minority and their thoughts (but how many times are there huge opinion threads on a patch even before you guys have played the changes in question….theorycrafting isn’t very accurate…).

We have many other places where we get data, but when it comes to interfacing with a ton of people at once, we often go to the forums to get a quick “pulse check” on what people are thinking. It’s often hyperbole, but it still gives us a sense. We can make up our own minds, we don’t just go to the forums and start making every change we read…

Then the “sifting” process starts, and we separate fact from fiction, fact from opinion, etc.

Players are funny….they don’t want us listening to the forums….but then they can be mad when we don’t listen to their feedback.

WE CAN’T WIN!

1:30 am…long day at the show.

THe reason I quickly jump into the sPvP forums is because that’s usually the best place to talk overall game balance.

It’s honestly just easier for me to look at that 1 forum, and then the WvW base forum, and get a sense for those 2 game types. For PvE, there are many layers of balance, from story steps, to dungeons, to fractals, to events, to new content for the living world, etc.

For the class forums, it’s just looking at 8 individual forums, which, when you’re on trips like this with a slow wi-fi connect, is just much harder and slower.

It’s not that we don’t love PvE, or balance for PvE, it’s literally just easier for me (personally) to check 1 sub forum, rather than 8, when I have limited time and a “meh” wi-fi.

Don’t read too much into that.

Also, if I post in 1 class sub forum, then I feel like I need to be fair and post in the other 7…which adds up fast at 1:30 am. Heh.

Just being honest! Thanks for all the constructive posts and honest questions guys!!!

-Chap from China

Thanks for the post Fenrir.

As I’ve said before, we love talking with you guys, but we’re very busy. Most devs in the industry are….it’s not always a 9 to 5 job.

I’m heading to the exhibition halls now for China Joy, but thanks to everyone who’s been posting lately, and all your positive/constructive posts. I won’t have wifi on the show floor, but I’ll post more this week before/after the show as time allows!

We did an exhibition match yesterday against some of the guys from KongZhong! They were highly knowledgable about the game, and VERY nice! Maybe you guys can find it and check it out if it makes its way to youtube.

Lates!

Sheslat.6750:

JonathanSharp.7094:

We get to see how Ridley Scott made Blade Runner with a companion DVD special, but in video games, no one talks about all the complex processes that go into making and balancing a game as complex as GW2 (which is basically 3 games in 1, all using the same balance #’s).

Hope this makes sense.

With all my respect but it make no sense to me, if you guys are trying to balance the 3 parts of the game using the same balance, it’s seems crazy to me.

Even in some games like lol, they balance around a classic game type but the characters which are considered top tier in 5vs5 are totally diferent from characters which are considered top tier in 3vs3.

I remember some of the last SoTG you mention that you want to new players in spvp from pve or wvsw to know what their characters do, but I want you to know that everyday that I see new players on the mist i just listen the same question. where are the rings and other accesories apart from the amulet?

You guys split the game to make spvp competitive , I dont understand why you dont divide balance to the same reason.

As I’ve said, if we split EVERYTHING and maintained 3 versions of every skill in the game (PvE/WvW/PvP), we’d be adding a LOT of work for the balance team. As it is, we try to keep most things consistent, and only split where we feel it is needed.

It’s a work flow issue, hope this makes sense. It would also mean that players would have to learn 3 different versions of every skill, which is not good for new players.

@ Defektive: We give Endure Pain with a trait, would Berserk’s via trait be too strong?

Or, alternate idea, what about a trait that aims solely at resistance to blinds? Sorta like the Goggles for Engineer.

Not saying we’d do that, just asking.

Jzaku.9765:

JonathanSharp.7094:

I meant Arcing.

Sorry, in a meeting. My bad.

That still makes no sense and has nothing to do with rush anymore, which is the topic at hand here.

Nods, that’s just an animation change, which is possible.

Just, while we’re talking about it, I’m also just thinking about the weapon overall, how it performs in all game types, strengths, weaknesses, what would happen with adjustments, etc.

Sorry to brainstorm w/ the community in an effort to be more transparent. My bad!

JonathanSharp.7094:

But actually, thinking about it more, Arcing/Rush/100b. All those could be moved, but what would it do?

What if the CD on 100B was reduced and it moved to 5? WHat would happen if 100B went to burst and Arcing went main bar? Trying to remember the bar + all the names from memory, sorry if I messed it up again.

But actually, thinking about it more, Arcing/Rush/100b. All those could be moved, but what would it do?

What if the CD on 100B was reduced and it moved to 5? WHat would happen if 100B went to burst and Arcing went main bar?

I meant Arcing.

Sorry, in a meeting. My bad.

I say play it a while and then see how you feel.

We did a big set of improvements to Necro recently, and we want to make sure we don’t over improve their defense capabilities.

We want to shift more focus to death shroud throug main hand skills, but, again, we don’t want to do this too fast, ESPECIALLY with a major Pax tournament right around the corner.

So death shroud gains may not be as high as you would like, but we’ll keep monitoring them and looking at further improvements to make.

pajamaboi.9534:

JonathanSharp.7094:

pajamaboi.9534:

Wow, I haven’t been playing this game for very long and did not play the first game very much, so I don’t know much about ArenaNet but this is amazing. It’s so great that you would write a response like this for the community. I think in all my time playing other MMORPGs, I’ve never seen such a detailed forum response.

Yes, you’re right. I think nearly all players, myself included, did not grasp the extent to which ideas had to be worked on before implementation. It’s clear that the company cares about the players, and it’s unfortunate that with the tournament coming bigger changes had to be made more quickly as opposed to slower changes. But I think a post like your reply would have been very useful pre-patch. Let the players know why you can’t just take their suggestions and do them. It’s great that you replied now, but if this had been known before, I think maybe some players wouldn’t have been so frustrated. Because it seemed like you guys heard their suggestions and then completely ignored it and did something else. That, I believe, was a big factor in the frustrated, hostile feelings.

Well, as I said, the gaming industry, overall, is still not terribly transparent to most of the world. I don’t think it’s anything secretive, it’s just not to the same level as, to use the example again, the “Making of” type stuff we see for so many movies.

Also, we try to reply as much as we can, but often times, it comes down to trying to get things done within our processes, or taking time away to talk to the players. If we get to that choice, we choose WORKING FOR YOU GUYS over talking TO you every time. We realize it may not seem like that on the outside, but game devs really bust their butts.

Haha yes of course. I’m not trying to take anything away from you here. Honestly, I think you should take the reply you typed, paste it in a new thread and sticky it. Then on half the complaint threads, someone can just reference the thread in response.

Nods, I agree. We want to be more transparent where we can be.

And the truth is, most of the time, it’s not that we don’t want to tell you guys these things, we’re just so freaking busy, we just don’t have the time. We’ll try to do as much as we can on that matter.

Allie has been helping us a TON by helping to explain things to players while we keep our heads down to design/implement changes.

Thanks for the thoughts Pajamaboi!

Maybe 100B becomes the burst and Rush moves to the main bar?

DISCUSS!

Arheundel.6451:

JonathanSharp.7094:

dillius.2531:

Bought this game on release, came back only recently. Already quitting again due to the terrible state of sPvP, primarily due to this function and solo queue being missing.

This game has done more good for MOBA’s than anything the MOBA developers have ever done. One of if not the most popular MMO outside of WoW has treated its PvP with such insane disregard that it absolutely boggles the mind. I do not think I have ever so quickly decided to go back to DOTA/LoL from “taking a break to play another game” in the many years I have been a gamer.

Err…if you want Solo Q…you should…um…how do I say this….“check back” ….. “soon”.

You like to tease people heh? ^^
Anyway, I can assume a soloq leaderboard will come along with soloq mode…can’t I?

Ya, those features go hand-in-hand, so we’ll release them together.

Pinkus.2860:

While I appreciate the thought process here Jonathan, what works for one part of the game, doesn’t always work for the others. Finally we had a structurally strong build which only needed some damage tweaking (aka the fear damage and possibly the burn damage also) to fix the fotm 30/30/10 build. Instead, you ruin it completely by moving greater marks to the master tier. There was already a serious lack of condition build diversity and now we’re left licking our wounds. WvW was finally seeing Necros again but I guess people will just bench them again.

We’ll have to see. Keep in mind that the base size for the marks has gone up now, so the trait isn’t as “needed” as it was before. Unblockable is great, but in WvW, having a large “base” size for the marks should help relieve the “need” for that trait.

Again, we’ll have to see. Thanks for bringing up that point Pinkus. It’s something we considered, and we’ll just have to see how the meta handles the new changes in WvW. We also keep changes in mind for PvE Necros as well.

pajamaboi.9534:

Wow, I haven’t been playing this game for very long and did not play the first game very much, so I don’t know much about ArenaNet but this is amazing. It’s so great that you would write a response like this for the community. I think in all my time playing other MMORPGs, I’ve never seen such a detailed forum response.

Yes, you’re right. I think nearly all players, myself included, did not grasp the extent to which ideas had to be worked on before implementation. It’s clear that the company cares about the players, and it’s unfortunate that with the tournament coming bigger changes had to be made more quickly as opposed to slower changes. But I think a post like your reply would have been very useful pre-patch. Let the players know why you can’t just take their suggestions and do them. It’s great that you replied now, but if this had been known before, I think maybe some players wouldn’t have been so frustrated. Because it seemed like you guys heard their suggestions and then completely ignored it and did something else. That, I believe, was a big factor in the frustrated, hostile feelings.

Well, as I said, the gaming industry, overall, is still not terribly transparent to most of the world. I don’t think it’s anything secretive, it’s just not to the same level as, to use the example again, the “Making of” type stuff we see for so many movies.

Also, we try to reply as much as we can, but often times, it comes down to trying to get things done within our processes, or taking time away to talk to the players. If we get to that choice, we choose WORKING FOR YOU GUYS over talking TO you every time. We realize it may not seem like that on the outside, but game devs really bust their butts.

dillius.2531:

Bought this game on release, came back only recently. Already quitting again due to the terrible state of sPvP, primarily due to this function and solo queue being missing.

This game has done more good for MOBA’s than anything the MOBA developers have ever done. One of if not the most popular MMO outside of WoW has treated its PvP with such insane disregard that it absolutely boggles the mind. I do not think I have ever so quickly decided to go back to DOTA/LoL from “taking a break to play another game” in the many years I have been a gamer.

Err…if you want Solo Q…you should…um…how do I say this….“check back” ….. “soon”.

Volrath.1473:

JonathanSharp.7094:

I just think it’s cute that we have this thread going concurrently with a thread that’s saying Necro’s have no survivability, death shroud is horrible, and that Necro’s, in order to be viable, need to start PvP with life force.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/So-you-want-us-to-use-Deathshroud/

:)

Have you seen the video?
Have you played the game for more that 5 min in the last month? and i mean PLAYED not logged in to run some “tests”…
Can you share the number of players that stopped logging in in the last 3-6 month?

No, I can’t see the video in China (DID YOU READ MY FIRST POST???)

Yes, I actually play with a lot of the players on the forums, and see them in queue.

Our numbers are actually on the rise.

GG!

RE?

Oh, also, to the Op’s point (sorry, I’m about to present in China, my mind is elsewhere, didn’t mean to ignore the OP):

The reason we did a “big” change for the Necro, as I’ve stated before, is that we had the Pax tournament coming. We knew we wanted to get Necros and Warriors up with the other classes, and that’s why we had big changes.

Also, a lot of our changes happen VERY far ahead of what you guys see on live. What do I mean?

• It takes us time to get our changes to editors for writing (any text/trait change has to be edited). This can take a week or more.
• We have to then get changes to writers.
• We then have to make sure we work with artists for any visual changes
• We also have to work with sound to make sure we have sound for any changes
• We have to work with icon artists for icons if they’re needed (in the case of Death Shroud 5)
• We have to make sure the changes get through multiple stages of QA testing
• Then with the changes in, we get time to play them before we do final changes
• While doing all this, we have to take the current meta, be it in dungeons/wvw/pvp, and from that, try to extrapolate what we think needs to be done a few months in advance.

This process can take a LONG time, as you can imagine. It’s not as simple as, “Oh, let’s change this to a 2, and change that to a 7.”

I know the video game industry in general is not very transparent when it comes to how things actually work, but I wanted you guys to know that a lot of times, there is a LOT of process for even the SMALLEST balance/content changes.

We get to see how Ridley Scott made Blade Runner with a companion DVD special, but in video games, no one talks about all the complex processes that go into making and balancing a game as complex as GW2 (which is basically 3 games in 1, all using the same balance #’s).

Hope this makes sense.

Oh, also, the reason we can’t give Necro’s too much disengage has to do with the point of “purity of purpose”.

In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

Example: In PvP, the Necro and Engi both vie for the position of condition pressure. The engineer has more physical alternatives, the Necro has more boon/condition manipulation, the Engi has more escapability, and the Necro is a little squishier. If we gave the Necro too much mobility or escapability, then all of a sudden their “tools” start to line up exactly. If this is the case, one of them will simply be better than the other, as far as efficacy goes, and thus, one will push the other out of the meta for that “role” on the team. This class would then be the “apex” predator for that role. So, in order to prevent this, we try to make it so that the classes don’t have all their tools overlap perfectly. This means you have to say (following our example), “Well, if we take a Necro, we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage…..but if we take Engi, we lose some DPS and control (depending on utils), but we get someone who can stand up to a spike better”.

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

This is the same reason that Red doesn’t get interrupts in Magic, the reason that Zergs, normally, have much more mobility than Protoss (since Toss are usually stronger unit-by-unit), and why Karthus has no escapes. By denying tools, you create choices for the players. We sometimes do a poor job of this, sorry. But overall, we try to make it so that all classes have choices, and teams have choices in which classes they bring.

Also, keep in mind we’re trying to get 8 classes to fit into 5 slots, for PvE, Dungeons, and PvP.

This is all high level, and I’m in a rush, but I just wanted to explain this real fast…..

It’s funny, being in China, I have more time to post on the forums than I do while in the office. That’s irony or something….like 10,000 spoons….

-Chap from China

Just wanted to jump in and say I’m watching this, but I didn’t want to derail this thread.

I think the “high level” and the “casual” are equally important to the health and life of the game.

The truth is that we need to balance for both, and we need to use 1 set of #‘s for THREE game types, which all have “high” and “casual” markets. So, in a sense, the balance team is balancing for 6 different types of players, all while trying to keep the #’s as consistent as possible for all game types.

Keep the other game types in mind and thanks for being cool/calm/collected when discussing such a volatile issue.

ensoriki.5789:

Take the medium of the two.
Necro’s are eating up quite a bit of damage, and putting out a significant amount that well still feels somewhat absurd for how long they’re maintaining themself with shroud.

Without that lifeshroud however it’s not really a biggie and they go down fairly quickly. So sure at the beginning of the fight they’ll go down easily after that it’s a pain.

Nods. I’m simply illustrating the fact that we often hear things from the players that are diametrically opposed. And thus, if it’s hard to do “what the players want”. This is a good example of that.

Also, a Warrior with an OH Shield can block all of this, but I’m not sure that makes Warriors OP in tPvP.

Just an aside.

We just increased the death shroud for the main hand skills this patch, which therefore should therefore reduce the Necro’s reliance on spectral skills for sustainability……?

Did you read the notes RonPierce?

So how does this relate to this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Truth-and-justice/

Are Necro’s easy to kill and need life force at the start of the game, or are they unkillable death machines?

These two threads seem to be entirely disparate and diametrically opposed.

I just think it’s cute that we have this thread going concurrently with a thread that’s saying Necro’s have no survivability, death shroud is horrible, and that Necro’s, in order to be viable, need to start PvP with life force.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/So-you-want-us-to-use-Deathshroud/

:)

Having a hard time seeing the vid (I’m in China).

Is it showing a Necro tanking a big hi IN death shroud, or using spectrals?

We want all weapon sets to have their uses, but it’s not necessary that all weapon types be equally viable in all given scenarios. In Starcraft, League, any shooter, etc., it’s not expected that ALL units/weapons/heroes be equally strong in ALL scenarios.

As different game types demand different “tools” from the classes, it stands to reason that some “toolsets” will perform better than others in a given game type.

:)

People keep asking for mobility on the Necro, and again, by design, this is something we’re going to keep to a minimum. We will continue to make sure they get more attrition tools (Deathshroud is a main point here), the ability to manipulate boons/conditions, and the ability to control opponents.

The current patch is an attempt to do small “shavings” to bring the class into line with these goals, in the same way we tried to “shave” the Ele numerous times, rather than “nerfing it from orbit”. Are all Ele specs equally viable in all game types? No. Is this ok? Yes. Staff can see play in one game type while D/D or S/D see play in others. As we’ve said, we’ll split skills/weapons more and more in the variuos game types, but each time we split a skill, it gives us more update work down the road. We have to be very prudent when we split skills.

Same thing with the Necro. They have a few different viable builds in different types of content, and we’re trying to make sure they continue to see play in various roles spread throughout the various gametypes.

But seriously, OP, wait until you play the patch and THEN update this. I’d love to know what you think….but as Allie posted theorycrafting is pretty hard for us to make informed decisions with. Let us know how they feel in game.

With much love from Chinajoy,

Chap

So, I thought I’d take a moment to say that I love this idea….

We’ve been toying around with something very similar internally. As some of you have said, it can be implemented as new game type, or just a secondary for an existing map. There’s also a question of “how many npc’s do you allow in a PvP map before some players get upset that PvE is encroaching on their PvP?”

We want to introduce some more strategic “layers” to a new PvP map, and you guys are proposing a lot of the ideas we’ve talked about internally in order to do just that.

Obviously I can’t give an ETA, but I can say – we’re looking into trying to do something similar to the ideas suggested here. Will it definitely make it in? I can’t say. But I can say that we’re toying around w/ a very similar idea internally. Can’t promise anything, but we also love the general concept behind this idea!

Thanks for the positive ideas and for keeping it constructive!!

We also agree that we need more PvP achievements. I can’t give any details (I’m sorry I have to say that so much), but this is something we’re seriously looking at internally.

Also some great suggestions in this thread, thanks for keeping it positive and brainstorming ways to improve this system!!!

AWESOME THREAD, I LOVE IT! MORE THREADS LIKE THIS PLS!!!!

We know the game isn’t perfect, but the team does the most it can with the time and resources it has. We love the game and put our hearts into making as many positive changes as we can.

Solo que revisions are on the horizon guys, hang tight. I can’t give an exact date (that gets me in trouble), but it’s is on its way.

Pretty awesome ending!

Hard not to smile when you guys hit 500 and vent exploded.

Age restrictions: The reason for the 18 is due to travel/hotel requirements.

For regions: we hope to expand those as we go forward with future tournaments.

More details: There will be additional details/rules coming in the near future, as mentioned in the last section of the announcement.

Balance: We are being VERY careful w/ balance between now and the tournament so you guys don’t have builds changing every patch. This is why we did the larger balance patch last month – we wanted to do smaller and smaller changes as we get closer to the tourney. We know there is a perception that a few things are too strong right now, so we’ll be looking at those between now and the tourney.

Thanks for the feedback. We intend to watch things in the meta and make small adjustments accordingly for ALL classes, including the Necro.

Just wanted to come out of my lurk mode for a bit and let you guys know that we are watching this thread on the balance team.

Keep it constructive, but keep going, we love reading the debate!

We post when we’re able. We read pretty much ALL the threads on here, but we have time to respond to very few of them.

It’s not that we favor any profession over the other, even though that seems to be the belief for some players – it’s not true.

Glad you’re enjoying it!

Yes, we care about the forums. We also care about all the classes equally.

If it’s your custom arena:

• Buy some custom arena time tokens from the gem store (services tab).
• Press the PvP icon in the top left corner of your screen (crossed swords).
• Click on the second tab (called “My Custom Arenas”).
• At the bottom of that tab, click “Add Time”.
• Select the custom arena you want to add time to, decided how many tokens you want to use, and then hit “apply”.

If it’s someone else’s custom arena:

• Buy some custom arena time tokens from the gem store (services tab).
• Go into their custom arena.
• Open your inventory.
• Double click on your custom arena time token.
• Apply the time to the arena you’re in.
• You should see then a message telling you that time was added.

This has not yet happened, but will be coming in a patch next week.

Thanks for inviting me guys, I’d love to jump in there w/ you sometime.

-Chap

Paradoxine.8192:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted you guys to know that we’re watching this thread here in the office. The results are a great way for us to see (even if it’s a very small sample size) how some of the players are feeling about what they’d like to see improved.

Could you watch my ‘The Dream sPvP Patch’ thread? Much of the stuff in there will require months to implement or is idealistic (e.g “Bring all classes to the same level of overall effectiveness”) but it is also true that some of the stuff in there should be easy to implement (quality of life stuff). I’ll be updating it regularly and will bump periodically to add to it.

Yep, I’ve been watching that one too. I totally agree on bringing all classes to the same level, just want to make sure we do it correctly/over time and not do wild improvements/reductions everywhere and then have to revert them.

Quality of life stuff is always going on, it just also takes time.

Just wanted you guys to know that we’re watching this thread here in the office. The results are a great way for us to see (even if it’s a very small sample size) how some of the players are feeling about what they’d like to see improved.

Thanks guys, we’ll fix it.

-Chap

Should be fixed. Gonna close this thread once it is.

Oni Link.4621:

JonathanSharp.7094:

We think that Warriors need more sustain in sPvP. You’ll see this reflected in upcoming balance changes.

Traits are huge in this, and just like you saw trait reworks recently for Warrior, we’ll be doing more trait changes to help to this end.

It’s Sunday, but I still wanted to jump in here to let you guys know we’re not ignoring you!

Finally an answer That may be the start of the Warrior “new era” :P
Everyone here hope for some nice improvements in next 2 patches.
And if you need ideas, GW2 forums are full of them

We read the forums a lot more than you know. Karl/Peters and I actually print out threads sometimes and bring them to balance meetings.

We’re not ignoring any of the classes, I’m sorry if people feel that way. We simply don’t have time to personally post in all threads, on all our sub-forums.

Real fast, it’s Sunday, so I’ll keep this quick:

Yes, Warrior needs more help in PvP, but is already strong in PvE. Due to that you may see some new splits happening between the gametypes as far as balance goes, and you may also see new traits to help Warriors find a way into team comps.