Guild Wars 2

Recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEaXXKPuH3U

Oh, as a side note, if you haven’t caught the forum post announcing it, next year we’ll be opening up a new Profession Balance sub-forum for the entire game. The Balance team and myself will be a constant presence in the new forum. It will be A LOT easier for us to engage in balance discussion when we don’t keep everything in a vacuum (profession forums).

You can check out the announcement here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Guild-Wars-2-Forum-Moderation-Updates/first

Glenstorm.4059:

Well, Josh did say they were going to have devs from the Skills and Balance Team on their next stream in early January.

But a dedicated S&B stream would be great, with its own Q&A session.

The Skills and Balance team will be on the show sometime next month. I mentioned this during the show a few times. While John C works almost exclusively on the PvP “infrastructure”, my job as Community Coordinator allows me to be a bit more flexible. Starting next year, I’ll be embedded with the PvP team as well as the Skills and Balance team, essentially acting as the liaison between those teams and our community. This is a role I’ve a bit of experience in.

I spend an inordinate amount of time collecting feedback from players, be it on the forums, in-game, or in a teamspeak/ventrilo. When we come back from vacation we’ll jump right into things once again and let you know what’s coming.

Let’s keep discussion about Ready Up to one thread. Merged similar topics.

I’ll start responding to posts in a few minutes.

This is growing quickly! Thanks for the questions so far, folks. I’m about to head out of the office, but I’ll check up on the thread first thing in the morning.

Citizens,

This Friday, December 20th, at 12pm PST (20:00 GMT), we’ll be airing the second episode of Ready Up, the PvP team’s bi-weekly livestream that focuses on just about everything PvP. This will be our last show of 2013 – but don’t worry – we’ll be back sometime in January.

John Corpening, PvP Team Lead, will be on hand to talk PvP in 2013, review the December 10th update, recap what we’re working on for 2014, and answer a few questions from the forums.

Speaking of questions, feel free to respond to this thread with any questions you might have for John and myself.

You can find the livestream here: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2

If you didn’t see the last episode, you can catch it here.

Based on player feedback we decided to keep ranks. We’re still discussing internally what the new plan is going to be. Once we have something set in stone we’ll make sure to let you guys know what’s coming.

And yes, “Ready Up” (the referenced show) is super legit, yo.

I’ll try to get some of these points added to the stickied Guide at the top of the sPvP forum.

Thanks guys!

Responding to this thread with thinly veiled ‘bump’ posts is not doing your cause any good. We don’t make decisions based on how often someone bumps a thread.

We’ve responded with our current take on the matter – if something changes, we’ll let you know.

In the meantime, feel free to provide constructive and thoughtful comments.

I spent a few hours yesterday writing a bit of an introductory guide to sPvP. You can find it stickied at the top of this forum.

I’d really like for it to be a ‘living document’ of sorts, and would love for players to contribute if they’d like to. Feel free to PM me with anything you’d like added, or even if you have a topic you’d like to see expanded on.

I’ll try to flesh it out a bit more as I have the time.

It’s definitely a cool idea. Could work well for ladders!

I can confirm that Olrun’s build is one of the best bunker builds for warrior. Thanks for the guide, Olrun!

What now? Builds and beyond!

Now that you’re in Heart of the Mists, you need to setup a build for your profession. The Guild Wars 2 trait system allows for incredible customization, letting you to play your character exactly the way you want to. You can access the build editor by clicking the “PvP Build” button at the top of your UI while in either Heart of the Mists or a PvP map. From here you can quickly edit your build on the fly. New stat combinations, runes, and sigils can also be purchased from this panel.

Now that you know how to edit your build, here’s a quick explanation of the basic roles in conquest PvP:

• Bunker – As a bunker, your main role is to support your teammates and to keep control over capture points. Players accomplish this by building very defensively, either through large health-pools, high-healing power, or builds that focus on evasion.
• Roamer – The roamer is a mobile damage-orientated player, focused on moving between capture points and helping his allies where needed. He moves quickly and strikes quickly.
• Far-Point Assaulter – This player’s role is to constantly assault the enemy team’s capture point and to keep them distracted. This player is usually very defensive and can hold off multiple opponents at once. This player can also be very mobile, like a thief.
• Home Defender – The Home Defender’s job is to make sure that nobody takes their home capture point. I mean nobody! This is usually a very mobile profession or very tanky.

Grouch, give me a build, yo! (courtest of MetaBattle)

All up-to-date builds can be found at the community-run website MetaBattle.com.

Make sure to select the “Conquest” category on the right side and then find the profession that you’re interested in playing.

Now you’re geared up and ready to roll!

• Enter the PvP Panel by clicking the crossed-sword icon in the top left-hand corner of your in-game interface.
• From here, select “Unranked Arena” to queue up for your first match.
• You’ll need to accept the queue within 20 seconds or you’ll be kicked from the queue. Make sure to vote for your favorite map!

Before you go, here’s a bit of advice…
PvP in any game has a fairly steep learning curve. Don’t get discouraged if you get owned the first couple of matches you play – you’ll get better!

Interested in competing in community organized tournaments?!
There’s a number of community tournament organizers out there that host events on a weekly basis – events that span the skill spectrum, from amatuer all the way to expert. Participating in these events could earn you prizes such as gems and Mini Llamas!

You can find more information on these events in our Community Tournament thread.

As the above poster stated, the bonus applies to rank gain and not glory gain.

Team Arena awards the most glory per win, followed by Solo Arena, then hotjoin. TA and SA are also theoretically more difficult to win, so take it with a grain of salt!

Make sure to use a glory booster!

The forums is not the proper place for reporting exploits. Please email all reports to exploits@arena.net.

Thanks!

Merged threads.

There is currently an issue with Spectator Mode causing crashes for some players, including those playing the match. Because of this we have temporarily disabled Spectator Mode.

When I receive an update on the situation I will let you guys know.

Hey guys,

This hotfix was originally slated to deploy in the downtime window right after reset, but due to an issue with the update we had to delay it for a short amount of time. We understand that this wasn’t the most ideal time to release an update, but the hotfix did contain several high-priority fixes that needed to be implemented.

Good luck with your match-ups this weekend.

Edit: Feel free to leave your feedback/thoughts in this thread as long as you remain respectful towards our staff.

Looking forward to this! Thanks for the reminder, Kensuda.

Good luck to all of the teams.

As a heads up, you guys need to drop the :0 from the end of the IP address in order to run the commands listed above.

I just wanted to stop by and let you guys know that we are listening. We’re looking at a few different ways to address the time investment it currently takes to get new skills in PvP, but it’s not something we’re able to talk about quite yet.

You’ll see a drastically different system in place in our next major rewards release that should address many of your concerns.

Hey guys,

As Tyler mentioned above, this is clearly an unintended change. Eagle Eye is currently attached to a script for an entirely different trait, and that needs to be fixed.

Not to mention that a trait with damage, range, and permanent fury seems sort of crazy. Ranger will see improvements, but this isn’t the way to do it.

Dahkeus.8243:

Wintel.4873:

Can someone please translate what happened in this round:

but guy at srat say ok gusy lisen plan
1 close 1 animal 1 far rest mid
ok ok i say i am mid coz far is noob
burt map say i am 1 mid rest animal no close no far
and i die hard lol
loost

But yeah overall this post made the entire Dec 10 patch seem insignificant XD

Translation:
“At the initial strategy phase of the game I joined, I presented the following plan to my fellow teammates: ‘Dear sirs, would one of you kindly cover the closest point, and then another person attack the nearest NPC type beast for the point bonus, and finally, would the rest of you accompany me to engage the enemy at the middle point?’

However, to my distress, I found myself bereft of assistance when I went to the middle point and when I looked to find where my team was located, I found them all attacking the NPC beast. Not a single person had even decided to attempt in capturing either the point closest to our starting point, nor the farthest!

As a result of this ill fortune, I stood no chance to the overwhelming odds I faced as the enemy advanced upon my position, and I was struck down. Sadly, the game ended up as a loss."

First off, I’d like to thank you for your efforts in broadening the cultural horizons of our day-to-day forum goers. That said, I believe that much of the raw emotion that lives within the original narrative is lost in this translation.

While your version is much more accessible for the everyday reader, I truly hope that they become captivated by the thematic undercurrents and take the time to fully understand the piece in its original form.

Nice guide, Super. Great to see high ranked players helping out.

I think Skullcrack is a good place now. Ideally, all of our high impact skills should allow for counter-play via a clearly telegraphed attack animation. It’s something we’re constantly thinking about when we look at existing skills, and doubly so when we brainstorm new ones.

Considering this thread is based completely off of conjecture and speculation (I mean, the patch wasn’t even out yet), I’m going to lock it. Feel free to make a new one after you’ve experimented with the changes.

I can confirm that perceived popularity is not factored into matchmaking.

Really cool idea, Countless. Looking forward to seeing what you and the community come up with.

This is live! Good luck to all of the teams.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2pvptv

I’m not at the office at the moment, so I can’t speak for 100% certainty, but here’s a snippet of the blog:

Once this new system is in place, glory will be retired as a currency, and gold will be the standard currency across the game. All existing glory vendors will be removed at this time. We will give advance warning when this is coming so you can spend all of your existing glory before that happens.

Essentially, the vendor being added on December 10th is a temporary outlet for you to spend your glory until our long-term systems are in place and glory is removed.

There will not be a direct glory to gold conversion.

We haven’t 100% nailed down our final plans for ranks, considering we were just persuaded to keep them in. We’ll be able to talk about it a bit more once we’ve had some additional time to discuss it internally. I’m assuming we’ll change them somehow – the amount of time a player would need to invest to hit 80 just isn’t reasonable.

In case you missed it, we’re currently awarding wins 3x the normal amount of rank points in Solo Queue, and 5x the normal amount of rank points in Team Arena.

This was buried in another thread, but I figured a lot of people probably haven’t seen it.

Happy hunting!

Fixing thread. Again, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgbxrtCvJLk&feature=c4-overview&list=UUP_FgMqOxp_VsM0UfrL-DxA

You can find the VOD of the livestream here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgbxrtCvJLk&feature=c4-overview&list=UUP_FgMqOxp_VsM0UfrL-DxA

Harbinger.8637:

I just want to say this was one of the best livestreams so far. It was very well made and informative.

Thanks! Glad you liked it. Next stream will be December 20th, but we’ll take a bit of a break for the holidays afterwards.

As another update, we’ve extended an additional 1000 guild invites as of a few hours ago.

Have your guild leaders check their inboxes!

Citizens,

We have invited 1000 additional guilds to the public testing of Edge of the Mists. Please have your guild leaders check their email inboxes! If your guild didn’t make it in this round, don’t lose hope! We’ll be adding more guilds in the coming weeks.

For those of you already invited, we’ll be running two tests today:

9AM-11AM PST
5PM-9PM PST

Thanks again everyone! We look forward to seeing you in Edge of the Mists.

Jax.5261:

Snip

From the blog:

With gear unification we will also introduce a system that allows players to set goals for rewards in PvP and work towards them. We are not ready to discuss this system in detail yet, as it is still being developed, but more information will come as we get closer to being able to release this system.

Gold will be the universal currency, but that doesn’t mean it’s how you will acquire gear. We’re not ready to talk about that system quite yet, but rest assured, you will need to PvP to acquire PvP rewards.

Oprah.1347:

John Corpening.9847:

Regarding new skills, PvP will continue to have all existing skills unlocked for players. Only new skills will require unlocks. The number of skills currently in the game can be intimidating for new players. We would like to allow them some time to learn the base set while they work towards unlocking the new skills.

Maybe my reading comprehension is lower right now because I’m tired, but you’re saying that as new skills are added to the game – they will no longer be unlocked by default in sPvP ? If this is the case, are you able to detail what we will need to do in order to unlock them? I feel that if you require skills to be unlocked in sPvP you run the risk of creating a disparity between new and old players as the older ones will have more skills unlocked as time progresses, giving them access to more build diversity which could set newer players at a disadvantage. I felt this disparity when playing GW1 for the first time earlier this year for HoM points – not being able to unlock crucial skills for particular setups really put me at a disadvantage and I would hate to see that come here – as in my opinion sPvP’s equitable playing field (class balance aside of course) is what truly sets it apart from almost any pvp mode I’ve played before.

New skills being added to the game will be unlockable via skill points. This also applies to new utilities and elites. For PvP specifically, this means you’ll need to purchase Tomes of Knowledge to level up your character and unlock skill points.

Just wanted to hop in and mention that we’ll also be talking about a few of the balance changes for each profession in addition to looking at the healing skills.

eekzie.5640:

Josh Davis.6015:

Team Arena will provide the most gold, followed by Solo Queue, followed by hotjoin.

I believe we’ll be giving specific numbers on Friday’s livestream.

I understand that the team arena format is a higher competition format… but that leaves me lingering with a question.

Are the rewards for playing solo / tournament arenas going to be linked to your rating?
If not the whole argument of rewarding a more competitive scene kind of goes to waste, as really bad people would still get rewarded more in low rated matches.

Skill level is relative. Ten equally skilled players in the lower end of matchmaking are playing just as hard as the top ten players. Their game experiences are identical for their skill level.

This isn’t about rewarding people for being better at the game – that’s what the ladders are for.

tichorum.2415:

HOTJOIN is getting gold? Lol this will be good.

I’m not at the office so I can’t look it up, but if I remember correctly, you get more gold for LOSING Team Arena than you’d get for WINNING a CA/hotjoin match.

Edit: It’s the same amount. There’s an updated table in the “New to PvP?” guide at the top of the sPvP sub-forum.

Team Arena will provide the most gold, followed by Solo Queue, followed by hotjoin.

I believe we’ll be giving specific numbers on Friday’s livestream.

From the blog:

Of course, rewards is just one aspect of the projects we’re working on over on the PvP team. We’ll go into detail with other projects like new game types as we get closer to having those further along in production.

The projects listed in the blog are not exhaustive – we’re working on other things simultaneously. As John mentioned, we’re still working on game modes and new maps. As Justin has mentioned in another post, we’re also looking at ways to drastically improve the quality of matchmaking. This includes harsher penalties for afk players and leavers.

Keep posting questions, folks. We’ll try to answer as many as possible on stream Friday.