Guild Wars 2

I think it’s safe to assume there will be additions to each of those areas at some point.

Citizens,

This Friday, December 6th, at 2pm PST (22:00 GMT), we’ll be airing the first episode of “Ready Up”, the PvP team’s new bi-weekly livestream that focuses on just about everything PvP.

In the first episode, we’ll be talking about the following things:

• John Corpening (PvP Team Coordinator) will joining me for a Q&A on today’s blog-post that details our development plans going through the end of this year and into the next. Feel free to respond below with any questions you might have on the recent blog post and we’ll try to answer as much as we can!
• Hugh Norfolk (PvP Game Designer) will be showing off the first wave of PvP reward changes going in with the December 10th update.
• Karl McLain (Skill and Balance Coordinator) and Roy Cronacher (Skills Designer) will be previewing eight brand new never-before-seen healing skills, available in PvP, WvW, and PvE!

For future episodes, we’ll be using Ready Up to preview upcoming changes, recap tournaments, get feedback on things in development, and much much more!

You can find the stream at http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2

We look forward to reading your questions, and we’ll see you Friday!

Edit: Here’s a link to the vod: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgbxrtCvJLk&feature=c4-overview&list=UUP_FgMqOxp_VsM0UfrL-DxA

Well, seeing as how this thread isn’t breeding any constructive comments whatsoever, I’m going to go ahead and lock it. Feel free to open up a new thread for conversation once we have something to talk about.

-Josh

Looking forward to this! The last one went really well – Supcutie and Reevzy too strong.

We should probably wait to start this discussion until after the blog.

-Josh

Patience, young Padawans.

Hey Sensotix,

Thanks for the write-up.

I’ve been seeing a lot of threads like this on the forums lately, often accompanied with an itemized list of suggestions or concerns. I think the reason we’re seeing them pop up so often is because people aren’t exactly sure what direction we’re heading in terms of PvP – and that’s understandable.

This thread is slightly ill-timed. I say that because, yet again, I have to say that we’re almost ready to release a ton of information on PvP, but we’re not quite there yet. Next Monday (after the long holiday weekend) we’ll be releasing a blog post that will road-map a great deal of things our team will be working on implementing through the end of this year and going into next year. This should address a lot of the concerns you’ve raised and answer many of your questions. Starting next week we’ll be able to engage in discussion regarding future changes like we’d like to.

After the blog post we’re going to take strides to keep you guys in the loop as much as possible. This is a big priority for our team. As I’ve mentioned in previous threads, we’re going to start running a bi-weekly livestream that will give updates on PvP, tournaments, balance updates/previews, and just about anything else PvP related. That should help fill the gaps. Plus, you guys will get to see my baby blues again.

As for the balance changes – I’m not a part of that team so I can’t speak on their behalf. I hop into meetings from time to time to give feedback on changes or to present feedback from the forums, but that’s about the extent of it. I will, however, pass the thread along to them in case they haven’t seen it already. (Hint: They probably have.)

Personally, I think the changes coming on December 10th will have a significant impact on our current meta. The full implications? I don’t think anyone can predict that quite yet. There may even be a few surprises in there…

Next year is going to be a great year and I’m happy that we have so many devoted and dedicated players that are coming along for the ride with us. For those of you that have drifted away from the game for one reason or another – I honestly hope we’ll see you in-game again.

GROUCH OUT!

Edit: Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Justin has been looking into ways to make rosters more balanced. He’s mentioned placing users with dishonored together in queue (what a terrible place to be!), spreading professions more evenly, and a few other things.

In theory, the idea sounds awesome! I’ve personally been on quite a few solo queue rosters of myself + 4 of the same profession – and it’s definitely not fun. The obvious downside here is that every filter he creates is going to extend queue times that much more.

Justin created a thread on this topic already and has asked what you guys feel would be an acceptable queue time, assuming the matches were more healthy and balanced based on these filters. You can check the thread out here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Poll-Would-you-wait-for-a-better-match/first

-Josh

Hey Felivear,

We may very well do something like what you’ve suggested the next time we feel the need to do a reset. It would certainly allow for a much less turbulent week following the reset.

For this past reset in particular, we felt it was best to take everyone back to square one and make sure there was no holdover from the previous iteration of our leaderboard system.

As a reminder for invited guilds, tomorrow’s test will take place between 2pm-6pm PST.

For those of you who haven’t received an invite, don’t give up hope yet – We’ve quadrupled our number of invited players since last week’s test.

My highest rank earned in was #10 in Team Arena. Right before the reset I was around #160 in both Team Arena and Solo Arena.

Tyler Bearce was top 25 in Solo Queue. Powerr is also up there, but I’m not sure where exactly.

As for the reset, everyone’s W/L record remains the same. Just your MMR has been reset.

The 6/6 bonus on Runes of Perplexity now have a 8 second cooldown. This was excluded from the patch notes, but we’re in the process of getting them added.

Thought you guys would like to know.

Also, as an aside, we really are taking the collaborative development stuff to heart. After we release our next PvP blog post we’re going to follow-up immediately with a preview of what we have going in before the end of the year. After that we’re going to run streams on a consistent basis to keep you guys informed of progress and preview stuff we have in development.

Think SotG, but much more official.

savov.3712:

Snip.

I’ve mentioned multiple times on these forums that we’ll be releasing information on just about everything we’re doing in early December.

It’s not December yet.

As a reminder, this thread will stay open until Monday, December 2nd.

After that we’ll move onto another topic of discussion.

Hey Blackhawk,

We agree with your points on rewards, progression, and especially the bit about ‘standing out’ with titles/gear, etc. These are all things we’re working on addressing. Next week we’ll be giving out a ton of information on what we’re going to do in the short-term (think up to the end of the year) and what we’re going to be implementing next year.

I had no idea this existed.

Hello fellow PvPers,

This is a friendly reminder that we’ll be resetting the leaderboard for Solo Arena and Team Arena with tomorrow’s updates.

We decided to reset the leaderboards because of the matchmaking changes we put in on November 12th. Those changes, along with the leaderboard reset, should allow for a much more competitive environment going forward. Because the matches will be more competitive, players should also be placed in their correct rating much more accurately. I’d like to make it very clear that this reset does not mark the end of an official ‘season’, and as such, we will not be rewarding players for leaderboard placement. I know that this may be a tough pill to swallow for our more hardcore players, but we hope you understand our reasoning behind this.

That said, we’re not opposed to giving players rewards based on ladder placement in the future. Next week we’ll be able to give more details on our plans for the leaderboards, rewards, and beyond.

That’s where the PvP team’s evil lair is.

Time to relocate!

Moving this to Structured PvP for the duration of the tournament. Feel free to discuss.

This tournament is live at: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2pvptv

Well, this seems like a great place to ask!

• What runes/sigils would you like to see added to PvP?

• And for any adventurous readers, what different stat combinations on amulets?

Hey Zietlogik,

That’s a pretty cool sketch! Some of the aspects of it are similar to something we’re working on.

Thanks for taking the time to design this! I hope this catches on and people post more ideas.

Marcos.3690:

Josh Davis.6015:

Bringing the game closer together is something we’re actively working on accomplishing. We’ll be able to spill the beans on everything early next month. (I feel like a broken record at this point.)

But seriously. Beginning of December. All shall be revealed.

reveal it NOW dont toy with us!!

Trust me, it’s killing me that I can’t! But right now I don’t have much else to say on these things besides we have a great plan and part of it is already being implemented. You should see the first wave of changes very soon.

Bringing the game closer together is something we’re actively working on accomplishing. We’ll be able to spill the beans on everything early next month. (I feel like a broken record at this point.)

But seriously. Beginning of December. All shall be revealed.

BenKenSven.4256:

Probably the best livestream i have seen so far including, pve and wvwvw streams. Simply awesome.

Glad you liked it. The PvP team is currently putting together a new show that will take place a few times a month on the official Twitch channel. Should be a cool way to keep you guys in the loop on development and anything else that comes up.

Thanks for watching, and we look forward to doing this more often!

Stream is live now! – http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2

Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone who has contributed to the thread. It’s pretty exciting to see a lot of the stuff you guys are mentioning are things we’ve already been working on.

Keep posting and I’ll keep reading!

As a note, if your guild hasn’t yet applied you can submit your guild’s information here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GW2_WvWCommunityTest

Greetings Citizens,

On Tuesday, we successfully completed our first test session for the new “Edge of the Mists” WvW map! To all of you who were able to attend: Thank you! We gained a lot of insight from our first day of testing, and we’re really looking forward to seeing what advancements we can make on the map with your help.

As a note, we’ve invited a very small amount of guilds to the first week of testing as we want to ensure that the map is stable before we start pushing it to its limits. In the coming weeks we’ll begin to ramp up our testing by inviting additional guilds, so if you signed up, keep an eye on your inbox for an invite!

We’ll be running another test today between 2pm-6pm PST. Keep an eye on the official forums and other Guild Wars 2 communities as players relay their experiences with the new map. Even if you’re not currently involved in the test program, we’d love to hear your feedback on what you have seen from videos/streams.

We’ll see you on the battleground!

JonSnow.5610:

Josh Davis.6015:

Playing with the tag on is completely optional, though. When I do use it I like to call it WvW: Tribulation Mode.

Be nice to the little green engineer.

Just gonna leave this here…

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2pvptv/c/3145599

Like I said, Tribulation Mode!

Merged a few threads on the topic. Thanks for the suggestions/comments so far.

A lot of us participate in WvW! Myself? I tend to hop around. I’ve played on AR, SoR, JQ, BG, SBI, IoJ, CD, FA, and a few others.

Playing with the tag on is completely optional, though. When I do use it I like to call it WvW: Tribulation Mode.

Be nice to the little green engineer.

If people can keep this constructive, I’d be really interested in what you guys come up with.

Bullet points preferred!

Edit: As a note, it’s reassuring to see some of the things we’re working on included in the lists.

katniss.6735:

This will probably get infracted, but here’s mine:

You’re going to have to try harder than that.

Note: Try harder at your own risk.

Hey folks,

Just to clarify – we don’t have any immediate plans to remove 8v8. Justin is looking to make changes so that servers prefer to be 5v5 rather than 8v8, but they wouldn’t be removed completely.

We may revisit that decision in the future, but for now, 8v8 is safe.

I’m quite partial to the ideas above regarding bots and training NPCs. There’s quite a few games out there that use them to great effect. Personally, I’d rather have my butt handed to me by an NPC for a few hours rather than a player while I’m learning. Much less embarrassing.

Thanks for keeping it civil, folks. Looking forward to future responses.

Why am I locking this thread? So many choices…

A.) Baiting
B.) Trolling
C.) Nonconstructive
D.) All of the above

I pick D!

If you guys want to discuss elementalist in the current meta, feel free to post your feedback in a constructive manner in a new thread or an existing thread. Thanks.

Just wanted to pop in and say we haven’t forgotten about this. The good news is the change should be coming sooner than later.

Thanks for your patience.

We’ll be reducing the maximum amount of immobilize stacks in the near future.

/goesbacktolurkingWvWforums

Nice post, Infantrydiv. I knew you weren’t all that bad.

We haven’t announced anything regarding Legendary weapons in PvP. As such, everything in this thread is pure speculation and conjecture, which so happens to be against our forum Code of Conduct.

For now, tuck away the tinfoil hats. We’ll be releasing information on the changes we’re making to PvP and PvP Rewards in early December.

Thanks.

Thanks for the responses!

Most of the responses here seem to revolve around actual combat, builds, and lastly conquest.

With these three things in mind…how would you redesign the tutorial to cover all of these points? (As a thought, when we introduce new game modes our current tutorial is going to seem fairly of outdated, considering it only shows you how to cap points.)

Thanks guys. Hope you’re having a good weekend!

Thanks for the post, Jonnis.

Imagine you just made it out of the introductory tutorial – in your opinion, what’s the most confusing thing for a new player, right off the bat? Traits, builds, items, conquest? How to get into PvP? Feel free to mention whatever.

Mrbig.8019:

Snip.

We absolutely agree with you, Mrbig. The transition into PvP for a completely new player can be fairly jarring until you get acclimated. Making PvP more welcoming is something we want to do.

For now, we’re going to be focusing our resources on reworking rewards and other infrastructure. After all, if we bring these new players in and there’s no reason for them to say – what was the point?

I’d love to see a thread on tutorial/new player ideas, if someone is up for it. We should keep that discussion separate from this thread.

@Average HP – Stats on amulets are heavily weighted to make up for the lack of gear-stats and jewelery. This will vary based on spec and profession. You’ll generally see builds that range from 14k-22khp.

@Cosumables – The only consumables usable in PvP are limited-use finishers and glory boosters.

@Objectives – The points themselves work just like the ruins. Each map has three points. Each point gives 1 point every 2 seconds. Here’s a link to the wiki: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conquest

@Gear – All gear in PvP is cosmetic! You will have the same stats as someone who has been PvP’ing since launch.

For super basic information, the sPvP wiki might be a good place to start: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Structured_PvP

Here’s the first video in a series from WoodenPotatoes that might be a good start as well:

PvP for Dummies, Pt1

Jayne.9251:

Wow fantastic guys! Thank you.

Was browsing the builds and didn’t see anything close to mine (I’m terrible, I covet it like Gollum and his ring) … Will be interesting to see how it translates.

Make sure to check the replies to the thread I linked in my original response. I know Supcutie has an updated variation of his build listed in a reply.

We’ll be doing a few things to reduce the amount of players who AFK in matches.

• We’re going to reduce the amount of dishonored stacks a player needs before they’re prevented from queuing for tournaments. The amount we have set right now is too high, and it isn’t weeding out enough people. At the same time, we want to make sure we’re not harshly punishing players that are not intentionally AFK’ing out of matches.
• We’re going to reduce the amount of time someone can be AFK in a match before they’re kicked for inactivity. This won’t prevent 4v5 games itself, but it will give the player dishonored stacks more consistently, hopefully preventing them from ruining future games.
• We’d also like to add a category for reporting players in PvP. For the time being, like Justin has mentioned previously, report the players for botting.

Personally, I think 4v5 matches aren’t caused as much by people wanting to grief, but rather because people get frustrated in a loss and try to find better things to do with their time. Hopefully with our upcoming reward changes we can increase our player base, thereby evening out the distribution of players across the ratings spectrum, thus reducing the amount of lopsided ‘rage-inducing’ landslide losses.

/Goesbacktodoingweekendstuff

Hotjoin is your best bet if you’re starting off. I’d recommend jumping into 5v5 rooms rather than 8v8 as this will ease your transition into Solo/Team Queues later on. Once you’ve learned the map layouts and objectives you’ll be ready to graduate into Solo Queue.

As a note, many of the rune and gear options you were accustomed to in WvW will not be available. I’d recommend taking a peek at this thread to find something suitable. I’m sure your WvW build will work well enough, but that link should help you find the runes and sigils that will work best.

If you have any specific questions, ask away!