Guild Wars 2

Vena.8436:

JonathanSharp.7094:

They’d just Mist Form out of it.

Fine, fine: Singularity. I’ve seen Mist Form and I’ve seen RtL, neither move faster than light. Have them stuck in combat with Cthulhu for good measure so that they can’t waypoint, oh and overflow so that they can’t enter WvW.

Did I miss anything?

Don’t forget to tie their shoe laces together. If done correctly, no can defend!

Vena.8436:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hotfix incoming. It’s so hawt and lava-infused. It’s like molten sun magma is dripping into an ocean of flames. And then put it in the microwave on popcorn setting, but then push the “add 30 second” button like 400 times. And there are lit candles around.

It’s that hawt.

Did you hotfix eles too? Throwing them into the sun would be a great hotfix.

They’d just Mist Form out of it.

Eccentric Duck.7510:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hotfix incoming. It’s so hawt and lava-infused. It’s like molten sun magma is dripping into an ocean of flames. And then put it in the microwave on popcorn setting, but then push the “add 30 second” button like 400 times. And there are lit candles around.

It’s that hawt.

U wot m8

Totally concur. What does that mean?

Hotfix incoming. It’s so hawt and lava-infused. It’s like molten sun magma is dripping into an ocean of flames. And then put it in the microwave on popcorn setting, but then push the “add 30 second” button like 400 times. And there are lit candles around.

It’s that hawt.

Right now custom arenas, leaderboards and spectator mode are higher in the priority queue, but this is still something we’ll be dealing with later.

Also keep in mind that once custom arenas hit, you (the players) can decide what maps you’re playing on, so we think that’ll help when you organize your own games. But yes, for tourneys, we still want to get more map variety.

Sorry I can’t respond to everyone, but I’ll try to hit some other issues you’ve brought up:

-Words aren’t enough: Agreed. In the coming patches we have plans to give the Warrior: more resistance to movement hindering condies, the ability to punish boons, and we want to improve some of their specs that are out-shined by 100 b’s.

-Responding overall: We read a ton of things on the forums, but as you can imagine, we can’t respond to them all. When time allows, like today, I try to get on the forums as much as I can with actual responses – not just reading.

-Banners: We’re playing with some other ideas on how to make them stronger/a unique play style, while also trying to make sure they don’t “step on the toes” of similar abilities for other classes, like Ranger spirits.

-“Soon” vs. actual ETA’s: This is a fine point, but the reason I don’t give actual dates is because things can sometimes slip past those dates. When this happens, players can feel like we were lying or we didn’t fulfill a “promise”. I know it sucks, but it’s just safer for us not to use dates or ETA’s until we’re REALLY close to a feature or change being ready.

Gonna go hit some of the other sub-forums, thanks for all the feedback guys!

Atherakhia.4086:

JonathanSharp.7094:

We’re going to be working on a lot of Warrior stuff in the coming patches. But will we be changing things, in the OP’s words, “in a few days”? Nope. We have to wait for patches to move through the system of developing content, refining it, iterating on it, getting it tested, and then getting pushed to live.

Warriors are very strong in PvE, and they’re struggling in PvP – we know this. Contrary to popular belief, we play our game, in all formats, and we talk to player experts in all formats. We also read the forums.

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to throw knee-jerk/reactive changes based on any piece of feedback we receive. As we’ve said NUMEROUS times, we’re doing slow tweaks so that we don’t have to do whack-a-mole balance.

Just because things don’t happen “in a few days” doesn’t mean they’re not happening!

Jon, the problem is the complaints are piling up, the issues are blatantly obvious, and not once have I ever read a single person complain about banners. And for 3 patches now, the improvements were all related to banners. Not on mobility. Not on bunker builds. Not on conditions. And not on defensive options.

And what’s funny, seeing as I play(ed) a Ranger, is you’re making all these banner changes when your time and effort really should have been spent revising ranger spirits as they’re infinitely worse than banners and yet their functional use to the class and group are almost identical to those of banners for warriors.

I’m no novice to MMO’s so I know I’m probably not being fair in my criticism, but it really does seem like nothing of substance is ever changing in the right direction for Warriors (and Rangers…).

Good points, but the reason we sometimes adjust the “unplayed” specs is to provide build diversity. Banners are one of those specs that we’re trying to adjust slowly to provide a whole new build for Warriors. This doesn’t mean we don’t care about other specs, we’re just trying to do things slowly.

And yes, Ranger spirits are in the same boat as Warrior banners. They were VERY powerful before ship, but after changes, they are on the lower end of the power curve right now. So they’ll be slowly adjusted over time to bring them back up as well.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I think the solution is very simple for helping Warriors, because their “immense strength” in PvE boils down to exactly 1 skill, Hundred Blades. The problem isn’t with enemy AI, either; the problem is in the skill.

Solutions that aren’t knee-jerk:

• Reduce Hundred Blades’ damage output by 25%
• Reduce Hundred Blades’ cooldown by 1 second
• Decrease the time Hundred Blades takes to complete by 50%

What does this do? This results in a faster burst, but of less damage. In PvE this means that your net dps when smashing your sword against the foe is reduced because the damage is reduced more than the cooldown is. In PvP this means that you can actually connect with more of your burst because it executes faster, increasing the actual damage you inflict to an immobilized or stunned opponent. For bonus points, it would also look cooler because you’d be swinging your sword faster.

Of course other things such as main hand Mace, Swords, and so on need buffs as well to bring them in-line with other weapons. The only reason that Warriors are so strong in PvE, though, is Hundred Blades, and addressing that will significantly fix up those issues on that end while simultaneously helping PvPers. It’s win-win.

Agreed! 100 blades needs to be changed, but other things need to be changed to compensate.

As I’ve said, that’ll be happening in coming patches.

Laxuar.3504:

I agree with you Sharp.

But i don’t understand why you didn’t change ALL the skills, traits, runes and sigils that give quickness. And where is the trait that gives more damage against people with boons? or something for the constants movement controll that oppres warriors? Karl talked about that in the SoTG.
I was hoping in something like: XII strenght trait: you deal 20% more damage vs targets with protection.

That stuff is coming in later patches. We want Warriors to “punish” boons, which is going to balance out the quickness hits. Same with other classes. We’re going to slowly introduce those things to balance out what we’re doing to quickness.

And overall, we want to slow the game down so that new players aren’t dying to certain specs in 2-3 seconds. So the quickness change is one step towards that.

We’re going to be working on a lot of Warrior stuff in the coming patches. But will we be changing things, in the OP’s words, “in a few days”? Nope. We have to wait for patches to move through the system of developing content, refining it, iterating on it, getting it tested, and then getting pushed to live.

Warriors are very strong in PvE, and they’re struggling in PvP – we know this. Contrary to popular belief, we play our game, in all formats, and we talk to player experts in all formats. We also read the forums.

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to throw knee-jerk/reactive changes based on any piece of feedback we receive. As we’ve said NUMEROUS times, we’re doing slow tweaks so that we don’t have to do whack-a-mole balance.

Just because things don’t happen “in a few days” doesn’t mean they’re not happening!

NOW = no.

In upcoming patches will Warriors see some changes? = yes.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/8-Team-Tournaments-Disabled

Zinwrath.2049:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted to say this was awesome! We’ve seen this and we think it’s pretty cool to see some of your opinions on the current state of the game. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Thanks for taking the time to show us you read it.

Hope it was helpful in some way.

Ya! It really was helpful. The survey mirrored a lot of things we’ve seen on the forums – but had it all in one spot.

It was also nice to see we have a good “read” on the playerbase – some of the things you guys rated as big issues are things we also consider to be our top priorities!

Just wanted to say this was awesome! We’ve seen this and we think it’s pretty cool to see some of your opinions on the current state of the game. Thanks to everyone who participated!

@ solo-queue: Yes, solo-queue is something we think is important and it’s towards the top of our list! We have different proposals on how to handle this issue. It’s important to let new players and solo players feel like they can learn the game at their pace, against evenly matched teams. And there are also some players who just don’t have time/ (or the desire) to find a team and play with a team. We recognize that.

Skyro.3108:

One thing ANet should do though to accommodate solo q’ers is the match-making system should form your team first so that you can get people on TS, organize your team composition and roles, talk strategy, make sure people aren’t afk, etc. before you actually submit the team into the queue.

That’s actually a great point. That whole process is something we want to streamline/make better. Getting into tourneys, seeing your progress in them, etc.

It’s down the road, but it’s part of the plan.

:) We had fun with it too! Thanks for the idea! Mm…..apple juice…

Should happen shortly.

xehn.3420:

Hugs.1856:

Monitor the speech time, 20 minutes for each player and 20 minutes for Anet (the 2 devs). Notify people by private messages when their speech time is running out rather than aloud as it breaks the pace of discussion though.

This is especially true for J Sharp. If you’re reading this, please keep it concise.

Noted.

Great thread guys. Some awesome questions/ideas on here.

I’ve already read up to this point, so I’ll check back tomorrow to see what new stuff has come up.

Pyrial.2917:

More Jon Peters and less Jon Sharp

+1

Great post, some great points in here.

We know a lot of this, but a lot of times we can’t speak to specific plans to fix things. We also know full well what’s good in the meta (or OP). We sometimes just can’t reveal what we’re thinking about balance until our lists go final.

A lot of people assume that silence = ignorance, and often times, that’s not the case.

Great read! Enjoyed it.

As others have said, splitting the queue’s entirely can be bad. But it also means solo’s always play solos, and teams always play teams.

There are pro/cons to both options. We’re watching your debates/points and in the end, we will try to make the best system for the game’s health.

Jon’s summation is a pretty good approximation of the general goals we have for this. We’d like to devise a system that allows good solo queuing while also helping to form teams and build the playerbase. The system Jon outlined means that most solo queue players are usually fighting against other solo queues, and only go “up” to 2 and 3 man queue’s when their bracket is empty. Same thing with 5 man teams – they will usually fight other 5 man teams.

With this system, it also means that we couldn’t track solo queue rating vs group rating. This is a drawback we know about.

We’re not entirely opposed to a solo queue system, it just comes with many pros and cons, and we’re being careful to make sure we do what’s best for the player base and growing the game (both for new/casual players, and hardcore players).

As with everything else we’re doing, we’re looking to do the best thing for the game – if something’s not working, we will fix it if it’s better for the game to do so.

@ Oni: Not your fault, we talked about so many things, and I didn’t explain it well.

I’m watching all the threads right now about solo q.

@ Felivear, something like that.

We won’t show your rating #, but you’ll know your rank position.

I think you may have misunderstood.

We are not planning on showing your RATING, but you will know exactly where you rank in relation to other players – you will know your rank, but you will not know the actual #. Other games have done something similar.

You will know your “worth” or how “skilled” you are, you just won’t need a # to show it, you will have a placement in relation to other players.

Sorry I didn’t explain it better in the SOTG.

gwawer.9805:

well i think if J sharp or J peters showed up in anvil rock they would get mobbed so badly that they would probably be traumatized and not want to design PVP anymore.

I’m transferring there today. We’re not afraid to talk to you guys.

@ Raid: We do not consider Raid to be a tournament map at this point in time.

@ # of maps?: Right now we will do one map per week, so that teams can adjust to the new maps and get their builds ready. This will also allow us to see the meta shift week by week, based on the map. This is very useful information for us.

Biggest thing to take away – the format is moving from 8 teams to 2 teams. Other changes will also be coming. Watch for the blog.

Hey guys!

Just letting you know that our testing of Temple of the Silent Storm ( and 1 team vs. 1 team) has been a great success!

We’re pleased to announce that we will be extending this test another week, as it has proven to be very popular among players.

Watch for more information about this in an official blog post later this week!

zone.1073:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Correct, the lobbies themselves are not merged, they only meet up when you go to play. You can still invite people across lobbies for games as long as they’re on your server though (Na or Eu).

I’m on Stormbluff now, and people are coming in/out of paids.

Don’t you see the problem with that?

Because Heart of the Mists are not merged, it is difficult for players to find and set up teams. If the lobbies were merged between Homeworlds, people can organize together more easily.

Totally see your point, I’m just explaining how it works so that everyone understands.

We have solutions to this coming down the pipe.

Correct, the lobbies themselves are not merged, they only meet up when you go to play. You can still invite people across lobbies for games as long as they’re on your server though (Na or Eu).

I’m on Stormbluff now, and people are coming in/out of paids.

The lobbies are merged for game matching = when you play a match all players on the same server (NA/EU) go to the same place.

:) You repeated what I said, and you’re correct! GJ!

Yes, the lobbies are merged for game matching. Also, a lot of the lobbies I’m in seem dead now because a lot more people are playing paid tournaments. So they’re not waiting around in lobby for tournaments to start, they’re in game, so the lobby feels more empty.

We do care about PvP. A lot more than you know actually.

Thanks for the ideas/suggestions/ constructive feedback! It means a lot that you guys are so passionate and fired up about the game – it means that you care and want it to succeed!

We’re here and we’re watching the forums. We’ll keep looking for ideas/suggestions.

We have a lot of other stuff planned, but we’re looking forward to the results from this test!!!

Great thread. We’d love to hear some feedback from you guys. Just wanted you to know we’re watching the forums and looking for feedback!

Wow, another great community building thread. Thanks to all of you who have contributed with this!!!!

I’ll watch to see how often you guys update it, and if we need to, I can sticky it.

@People asking about 1on1’s: For now it’ll function like the current tourney system, but instead of 3 rounds, it will be 1. So both teams join, go in, play a game, come back out.

We also toyed w/ the idea of the “winner stays, loser pays” mentality, so it’s something that has been tossed around. As this will be a “beta” test of the system we’re going to be open to iteration and listening to player feedback on it very closely.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

JonathanSharp.7094:

And as I said, once we feel we have a strong core of “normal” conquest maps, I think it’s totally fine for us to branch off and try some other things that may not make it into tournament play.

I think you have a very very stroong core of “normal” conquest maps.

I really love your sPvP, especially the fact that you have such a great training-area for new players (the Mists lobby); It’s great to create a new profession and almost immediately are able to try out gameplay with all skills and traits against NPC-bots of each profession. Thanks for that! No more starting as a clueless player in sPvP.

Thanks! I still feel like there is improvement to be made there though! I’d like to help new players and casual players even more than we do now, which is something we’re planning to improve down the road.

Mirta.5029:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Just wanted to let you guys know that we’re reading this thread.

Your logic, reasons, anecdotes and ideas are being listened to. Also keep in mind, that as I said yesterday, a skill can be a balance problem in one area of the game, but underpowered in another. That’s the nature of using one set of #‘s to balance across all areas of the game. So we’re keeping that in mind as we look at this. We may need to do different tweaks in different areas of the game.

We’re also not going to make a knee jerk reaction to this. We’re still gathering data, watching player trends, and having meetings on all possible ramifications from possible changes.

thank you for the answer, it calmed me down. If you think there’s a problem with AoE in WvW, nerf it in WvW, but not PVE, because nerfing AoE in PVE when some classes already have problems would effectively kill off engineers and staff builds of mesmer, elementalist and necromancer.

No prob. Some classes have a ton of AOE, while others don’t have as much. So we’re not just going to do a blanket nerf to all AOE – that’s not fair to all classes. We’ll go on a class by class, weapon by weapon basis.

And as I’ve said, we may need to tone something down in one area of the game, but it may be totally fine in another area.

For some weapon sets, the AOE options may be too strong compared to the single target options, which is what we aim to address.

Just wanted to let you guys know that we’re reading this thread.

Your logic, reasons, anecdotes and ideas are being listened to. Also keep in mind, that as I said yesterday, a skill can be a balance problem in one area of the game, but underpowered in another. That’s the nature of using one set of #‘s to balance across all areas of the game. So we’re keeping that in mind as we look at this. We may need to do different tweaks in different areas of the game.

We’re also not going to make a knee jerk reaction to this. We’re still gathering data, watching player trends, and having meetings on all possible ramifications from possible changes.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. We’re looking forward to the 1 team vs 1 team test coming up and seeing your feedback.

We plan to do other tests down the road, depending on how it goes. So that’ll be a great place for us to try some new ideas! And as I said, once we feel we have a strong core of “normal” conquest maps, I think it’s totally fine for us to branch off and try some other things that may not make it into tournament play.

butch.8136:

^Conquest will be here to stay. ‘cus they want it newb friendly, spectator friendly, ’easy to understand, hard to master’,etc.

But I do think they can work on the secondary objectives or make some more ‘complex’ twists.

They could do a king of the hill at mid point, if that’s capped it opens up the two side points or something catchy like that.

They can incorporate a flag into the three-point stuff.

I don’t mind for the conquest mode, they should just shake up things a bit more.
I find Kyhlo the most ‘complex’ one to play, foefire most ‘boring/easy’ one.

I agree. We’ve done some of the core stuff we wanted to nail w/ the conquest format, so now we’ll start getting into different secondaries that provide new types of gameplay.

Also, I think it’s ok to have some “just for fun” maps and “competitive/serious/tournament” maps. So let’s say we come up with a secondary that may appeal to more casual players, but not as much to hardcore players. I think that’s ok. It will just be known (and other games do this), that some maps are more for casual audiences, and others are for the hard core players.

Awesome thread. It’s getting passed around here at the office and we wanted to make sure others could see it as well! Gonna sticky it!

Hey all, hope you guys had a great break!

There are so many things to talk about, so instead of quoting individual people, I’ll just make a post outlining things that people have mentioned.

New features: As I said in the Guru state of the game, January won’t see any big updates. Everyone is getting back from vacation, so it’s a small patch. We’ll see bigger updates in later patches, etc.

I plan to write out a full blog for these features as they’re closer to being ready. But I can give a few details now:

• Custom Arenas. This is still our top priority for the time being, as it allows the playerbase to do so many things. You guys can set maps up in the ways that you want, and it you can set up your own servers to allow you to practice with your friends. It also allows custom tournaments, etc. It just gives you guys a lot of control over the game, so we’re pushing hard on it.
• Ratings/matchmaking/leaderboards. These are being worked on. I’ll give more details on this later, but quickly: We will be using our MM (matchmaking) system to match teams up against one another. Each player has their own rating, and these ratings are used when 2 teams are fighting one another. MM obviously won’t be used in public matches (because people are jumping in/out all the time), and instead will be used in tournament formats. We will be using the MM system in the background as you play, and then we will be showing player ranks via our official leaderboards. These leaderboards will show things like player ranks, wins, losses, qualyfing points, etc.
• New player experience/teaching the game better. We want players of all experience levels to enjoy the game, not just the hardcore. We’ll talk more about this stuff later, but we want to make sure all players enjoy the game. Custom Arenas will help here as well, because players can find arenas where they feel comfortable, and play the game with the same players every day while they learn the game, etc.
• 1 team vs. 1 team. Like with other things, I was going to do a more robust blog on this later, but we are doing this. We will be testing out Temple of the Silent Storm for tournament rotation play by doing a 1 team vs. 1 team setup (as opposed to the 8 team setup we use in tournaments). This will mean only two teams play, one wins, one loses. It will cost less to enter these 1on1 matchups than tournaments, but rewards will also be scaled down. You won’t have to go multiple rounds, and once a match is over, both teams can jump right back into the pool. So overall, compared to tournaments, it will have less rewards, but it’s quicker to play and easier to get into/out of. We’ll be testing this system in the near future to see how it works, and if feedback is positive, we may look at trying to incorporate the 1on1 format into PvP. We know that free tournaments are going almost all the time, but we recognize that paid tournaments are having some issues right now, so have been listening to you and have made plans to improve the experience. You guys have made some great suggestions, and a lot of your ideas are in alignment with the things propounded in our internal meetings. So thank you for all your passion and suggestions!

That’s all I can say for now on that stuff for now. I’ll try to jump back in this thread during the week as time allows.

Cheers,

-J

@ Mesmer: We’ll be addressing the current Mesmer build that’s spiking for insane damage. Sorry that change got through – it is something we’ll be fixing.

@ Macros: Macros are against the user agreement. You can be banned for using them, so use them at your own risk. I would also advise against using them, because in live tournaments, you won’t be able to use macros. So it makes little sense to learn “bad habbits” you’ll just have to retrain later.

We adhere to the same “one keystroke = one action on one character/account”, which is used by a lot of MMO publishers when defining botting/macros.

Just wanted to clear that up – be careful w/ those macros, they can get you banned.

tOss.9024:

JonathanSharp.7094:

We’ll be doing RANKING ladders in the future. The QP system is used for tournament entry. I’ll talk more about how these systems work together when the new system is ready to be brought on line!

I’m glad to get a response. Perhaps I overlooked these details somewhere. Looking forward to the ranked matches though.

No prob. The new system will use rating/matchmaking. The Qualifying Points will still exist, but they’re different systems for different needs. QP shows some skill (it’s not easy to win a paid tourney if there are other good teams), but at the same time, it’s not a true rating/ranking system (as many of you on the forums have stated).

We know this. It’s not intended to replace a rating system. Both can exist in the same world.

We’ll be doing RANKING ladders in the future. The QP system is used for tournament entry. I’ll talk more about how these systems work together when the new system is ready to be brought on line!