Guild Wars 2

I hear your frustrations, Morf. In early December the PvP team will be able to preview what we’ve been working on and what we’ll continue to be working on in the new year. I think you guys will be happy with what we’ve come up with – I know I am.

Have a good weekend, all!

infantrydiv.1620:

It’s definitely nice to see red posts in the sPvP forum (which, curiously enough started happening right after the spam attack after Xeph quit haha).

Justin does a good job of responding like a human, rather than an excuse making autobot

We programmed him well, didn’t we?

Err, I mean…

I know Symbolic, unfortunately. I don’t know Tage that well, but everyone from EU keeps telling me how amazing he is.

#Tagehasfanboys

Hey guys!

@ Lack of red posts: First off, I understand the frustration regarding the lack of red posts in the Bug Forum as of late. As previously mentioned, I switched teams/roles recently and have not been a presence in this forum since. In addition, because of some issues with Kirk’s forum account he was unable to respond on the forums for issues he was escalating. The good news is that things seem to have settled down and Kirk is ready for mega awesome forum posting fun-times. He’s a great guy – go easy on him!

@ StinVec – Again, thank you for all of your efforts over the past few months. You’re a champion.

Thanks everyone!

These changes should be going live soon.

Let us know what you think.

NevirSayDie.6235:

New MM is a massive improvement! Had a 500-495 fight and no fight was further apart than 500-350.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying the changes! I didn’t get much of a chance to play tonight myself, but hopefully I can get some games in tomorrow. Sitting at 274 right now – hopefully I can crack top 200 in the next few days.

Thanks for participating in the poll, folks. Can’t say I’m surprised at the results so far!

Keep the votes coming.

docMed.7692:

Nice to see the random shake up (definitely noticing a difference). Still a bit of an issue though when u get 3-4 thieves on one team vs a well balanced team. Any chance of adding a little more criteria there?

Justin has been looking into adding additional parameters to solo queue like balancing professions between both teams. Every additional criteria we add increases the queue times, though. I don’t think we’ve decided on anything for sure, but we have been toying with the idea.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying the changes.

The Lesh Prince!

Looks like we’re going to be bringing it back up before the hotfix.

Should be coming back online…..now!

We’re going to be disabling the newly implemented roster shuffling until the next hotfix. Some players were experiencing issues with the system and we want to make sure we get everything completely ironed out before we bring it back online.

You may continue to participate in Solo Queue – it will match you the same way that it did prior to the update.

I’ll keep you guys updated.

Thanks!

These changes to decay aren’t exactly a ‘new system’ – we’ve just increased the speed and severity that someone loses ranking. Like I mentioned in a previous post, we’re looking to overhaul quite a few things in the New Year, and this system is on our list.

For the time being, if players are logging in to maintain their ranking because they’re decaying at a faster rate – then in a sense the leaderboard decay is working. Players who have afk’d for months will begin to drop down in the list. With the changes to MMR and roster randomization players will be far less likely to play in stacked games when they do come back to maintain their position.

We have increased the rate at which someone decays on the leaderboard. We were hoping to observe the change for a few days before making any sort of announcement, but you guys are too clever for that.

Justin has also changed the decay to update every hour, rather than once a day, so you should see movement happen a bit more often.

Let us know what you think!

If you jump into Skyhammer after the patch today you might notice some slight inconsistencies with its old appearance. These changes are the groundwork for a few tweaks we’ll be making to the map in an upcoming hotfix. The changes you’ll see in the first update shouldn’t affect your game-play too much, but we figured we’d let you know ahead of time in case you notice anything out of the ordinary.

Our main goal with these changes is to make the map less punishing in certain areas (most notably the edges of the map and the Hammer), while still providing the opportunity to skillfully aim knockbacks on players to launch them into gaps in the guard rails or floor panels.

I’ll update this thread with more information as it comes!

I think Blu means you can run Spirit Ranger or Minionmancer, you just can’t run Spirit Ranger and Minionmancer in the same comp.

I could be wrong, though.

If only there was a correlation between how often a post was bumped and how quickly we could implement things! The possibilities! We like the idea of combining Heart of the Mists quite a bit. Feel free to continue discussing the idea, and we’ll keep checking the thread occasionally.

However, just as a reminder, bumps for the sake of bumping are against forum policy. Especially if you’re not actually contributing.

@Lordrosicky – Thanks for the write-up. I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, and I know the team does as well. If we can get a relatively positive post out of you I know we’re moving in the right direction.

We’re not happy with how leaderboard decay works currently, and we’re going to fix that. However, instead of fixing decay specifically – we want to fix the entire leaderboard system. I hate to say this, but we’ll be able to talk more about our plans for the New Year soon. One update at a time!

Gamn.4296:

Doesn’t that mean that you can have teams like that put together?
- rank 30
- rank 100
- rank 80%
- rank 900
- rank 150

Modrah

It does, but it also means that the team you’re facing is in the same situation. This will also affect top-end matches as well. Assuming the top 10 solo queue players are in queue at the same time (which is likely after the reset) – instead of having Rank 1-5 on a team and 6-10 on the other side, it will balance the top 10 into more even rosters. This will make matches much more even, assuming there is a discernible difference in skill between top 5 and top 10.

Nice job putting this together, Blu.

Having the duels held in the cave room on Temple is an interesting idea. Definitely a lot more obstacles you could use to LOS and kite around. Will be an interesting change up from the normal beach fights on Forest.

I’m also looking forward to seeing Sensotix cast. He’s a great player and could bring some good analysis to these types of events.

You’re doing Grenth’s work, Bear.

It’s worth noting that Tyler Chapman and I have tested a few variations of Hambow internally and it still does good damage. Like…really good. I think the main implication of the changes in PvP is that you won’t be able to run defensive runesets like Lyssa and do the same amount of damage as you did before – you’ll need to run offensive sets.

As someone who has been on both sides of the fence (player and dev), I’m genuinely excited for these changes.

I think we’ve tweaked enough things to shake-up the meta, and the work our team has been putting into the reward system means we now have incentive to play outside of owning people (which, to me, is still satisfying). Mixed in with the changes to matchmaking – we’re definitely headed in the right direction.

Is it December yet?

zhi.3918:

Snip

I think there’s some confusion here – the PvP Team is an entirely separate entity from the Skills and Balance Team.

The PvP Team’s main focus is improving the infrastructure of PvP – meaning features, rewards, etc.

The teams do often consult each other on various ideas, but they have separate projects.

If you’re lagging (latency, not graphically) please respond to this thread with the following information:

1. If you’re actively lagging, type /ip into your Guild Wars 2 chat. This will provide us with the current server you’re playing on. Write that number down and include it in your post.
2. Run a Trace Route to the IP address provided by /ip. You can do this via http://www.pingplotter.com or Command Prompt. Once you have the results, please screenshot the chart and include it as an attachment to your post.
3. Also, please include the time of day you experienced the lag, the map you were playing on, and what was happening on the map.

Note – this thread is NOT for crashes.

Thanks guys!

@Pedrst – Make sure to keep submitting the crash logs. Those go straight to our programming team so they can address issues as they crop up.

Feel free to paste the top portion of the error log into your post as well.

tichorum.2415:

Okay, makes sense. Obviously releasing information isn’t going to make the update come sooner, but it will stop the kittening about what is coming and will give us something to look forward to rather than wonder about for the next three months.

Agreed! This is why we’re working on a blog that will detail the changes. Rest assured, this information will be available before the updates hit the servers. Trust me, we want to tell you guys everything…and we will. =)

Hail mesmers,

Thy request for stickiness hath been granted.

Enjoyeth!

/sneaks away

Next Tuesday (Nov 12) we’ll be removing Trick or Treat Bags from PvP. At that point we’ll be awarding double tournament chests for wins. That should last for about a month or so.

Happy hunting!

alanis.6094:

Should the @Necromancers take this and Jon’s post as a “deal with it”?

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

I’m sure you accidently forgot to include Necromancers, but its a bit funny and telling that they are who was left.

That was my mistake! Necromancer was definitely supposed to be included.

Good thing I have a few thousand people spot-checking me.

@Rangers/Guardians/Engineers/Necromancers

Just because Jon didn’t include any changes regarding your profession in the above post doesn’t mean we’re done making changes.

Please continue to leave feedback – we’re still listening. We’ll keep you updated as things come up.

Thanks!

Here’s a compilaiton of recent dev posts within the sPvP forums. Hopefully you can find some answers here!

==Rewards and Incentive=

Justin ODell.9517:

The balance changes are being done by the Skills and Combat team. The rewards are being done by the PvP team.

I believe we are getting close to revealing more details about the reward changes, but I’m not certain about when that will be.

The solo arena roster shuffling should be in the next update (11/12) unless we find a critical bug and have to back out the change. This change should eliminate the sync queuing, and do a great deal toward preventing lopsided matchups.

More significant changes to matchmaking will come sometime next year, and I’ve already been told I can write-up a blog post and start a conversation with you guys, so keep an eye out for that.

==Double Tourny Win Chests after Halloween Event==

Josh Davis.6015:

Next Tuesday (Nov 12) we’ll be removing Trick or Treat Bags from PvP. At that point we’ll be awarding double tournament chests for wins. That should last for about a month or so.

Happy hunting!

John Corpening.9847:

Trick or Treat bags are a temporary reward during the Mad King festivities. We agree that it would have been better to give both Trick or Treat bags and reward chests but the system involved can, at this time, only reward one type of item at a time. We therefore made the decision to allow PvP players to participate in the game wide festivities because it is only a couple of weeks. There is an achievement that you can earn by opening Trick or Treat bags and if you take a look at this page:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-guide-to-blood-and-madness/

You will see that the contents of trick or treat bags can be used to work towards bigger rewards. Rather than give PvP players no option to work towards these rewards we decided to temporarily give out trick or treat bags.

This is by no means the final reward update to PvP. There are many things in the works regarding PvP rewards that will be rolled out over the course of several months.

I do however understand your complaints and concerns. So I’d like to offer this to you guys, if you accept Trick or Treat bags until the Mad King festivities are over, would you be happy to have double PvP reward chests for the two weeks after the festivities are over? This way those players who would like to spend their time in PvP to earn their holiday rewards can continue to spend their time in PvP and those of you who don’t want the holiday rewards can sell them on the trading post and then collect double PvP reward chests for a couple of weeks to make up for it.

Does this sound like a reasonable solution?

==Balance Preview==

JonathanSharp.7094:

We just posted this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview/

Keep in mind that we can still change/tweak some of these things, so please don’t freak out. We’d love to hear your feedback! We’re currently playing with these changes and already making some small tweaks as we speak.

==Explanation of new glory gain system==

John Corpening.9847:

Today there were some changes to how glory and rank points are handed out at the end of a match. First off, instead of being based on personal score they are now based on win or loss. Secondly, rewards are now interpolated based on the duration of the match up to a time we have determined to be a little shorter than the typical match.

Laying the Groundwork for New Game Types
There are several reasons for these changes. The biggest reason is to lay the groundwork for new game types and map mechanics. By normalizing rewards we can be much more flexible with map layouts, game types and mechanics. Game modes will need to reward players equally without directing players to one mode or another based on perceived differences in rewards or encouraging players to play a specific way in order to maximize rewards. As an added benefit, we can also begin to be more flexible with Custom Arena settings.

Time interpolation falls into this category as well. If we introduce a mechanic that leaves the potential for the match to be over very quickly, such as regicide, we need to ensure that doesn’t lead to collaboration to farm rewards or encourage players to play this mode simply to maximize their rewards.

Team Based Rewards
The second big reason for this change is that we have seen that certain builds are much more effective at scoring points than other builds. For example, we see that typical bunker builds score lower than all other types of builds because they serve a vital role of point defense. All members of a team should share in the rewards equally. Again, this lays the foundation for new game modes. We don’t want to limit ideas for new modes because it creates one role that is potentially more or less lucrative than another role.

The numbers chosen for the rewards are based on the data we have collected. On average players who earn the most glory earn about 120 glory per match. We therefore set the minimum numbers to be on par with this number and scaled up from there. Along with this change you will see that Solo Arena and Team Arena both reward significantly more glory and rank points for winning. This is both to compensate for the queue times as well as to reward the higher risk that is taken in these areas.

As an added anti-AFK and botting measure players will need to score at least some points to get rewards. The standard AFK detection continues to be in place and players detected as AFK will receive no rewards.

Also, as before, players will continue to earn a small bonus for having the highest score personal score in each of the game stats.

Josh Davis.6015:

@Sudden – There’s a lot of great points in your response, and I appreciate you taking the time to put it on paper.

Like you mentioned, I come from the community – I’m a player. I don’t get to play quite as much as I’d like to anymore, but I do try to play as much as I can (much to my girlfriend’s chagrin). That said, the recent changes to glory and rank gain are the foundation on which we can begin to build a better version of PvP. Now that I’m privy to all of the ‘insider info’, I can say (as a player) I’m genuinely excited for our team’s vision for sPvP in the coming months.

The team’s top priority right now is to work on providing better incentives for playing in PvP. We want players to not only enjoy playing in matches, but also feel adequately rewarded afterwards for doing so. Meta obviously has a role in the ‘fun’ factor of PvP, and that’s something the Skills and Balance Team has been focused on as well. (Stay tuned.)

While we’ve been working on the above, we’ve also been working on prototypes of new maps and gametypes. Having these rank/glory changes in place is going to ensure that one game mode/map isn’t more rewarding than another, and you won’t feel compelled or required to participate in a certain gametype simply because it’s more profitable/rewarding than another.

On the topic of hotjoin, we hope that once the dust settles, players will drop the farm mentality and start playing to win. The existing system has been in for quite a while, so it may take some time for the entire player base to adapt. We’ll be rolling out additional changes in the future that should incentivize playing to win even more.

==Glory Gain Numbers==

Josh Davis.6015:

To clear things up, below you’ll find a list of the glory/rank points you earn in each queue. These numbers include the bouncy-chest bonus you get after you load out of the match.

Custom Arena / Hotjoin

• Win: 200
• Loss: 125

Solo Queue

• Win: 400
• Loss: 150

Team Queue:

• Win: 500
• Loss: 175

Being auto-balanced provides you with an additional 25 glory, and each top-stat you earn gives you another 5.

You can also use a Glory Booster to get even more glory (650 in a tournament win, for example), but those do not apply to rank points, which is why I excluded those numbers.

==Allie Murdock AFK for a while==

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey PvPers!

I just wanted to let you all know that I will be AFK for a few months to handle some personal things. It’s been an absolute blast (I mean it!) promoting all of your awesome content and feedback, and I’m positive that I will miss these forums and all other aspects of my job until I come back.

Don’t worry, we are not abandoning you! I’m happy to say that Joshua “Grouch” Davis will be taking over while I’m gone. I’m extremely confident that he will be an incredible asset to the PvP community, and will keep things moving. Please be nice to him!

Feel free to ask any questions if you have them here.

@Tichorum – Things change on a daily basis. We’ll be able to release details on the system when we have everything finalized. Releasing the information sooner than later isn’t going to make the update come any quicker.

That said, we’re working on a blog post to explain the upcoming changes.

Thank you for your patience.

Hey Ostrich,

Thanks for compiling the list! As long as you keep it updated I’ll keep it stickied.

It’s definitely a possibility. We can try to nudge the meta in certain directions with changes, but ultimately it comes down on the players to establish it.

Guards, for example, have less access to condition removal than they did in the previous ‘bunker meta’ because of the fix to Pure of Voice. That said, with the proposed changes in the Dec 10th patch, I think we may see even more teams opt for bunker support outside of guardian. Not because guardian is sub-optimal, but because other professions will be able to fill that roll with varying flavor. (Engineer might be able to debunk points easier than other bunkers, but provides little AoE stability. Engineer support is seeing a buff so we could see some interesting things there as well…)

Also, S/D thief is taking a hit, which was the main build keeping mesmer and elementalist out of the meta for a long time. It’s hard to predict, but I’d like to personally see a more power-orientated meta surface.

/Grouch rambles on a Sunday morning…

Nix.3152:

Snip

Going for the ol’ Ostrich Eggs look, I see. Well done.

Arena is definitely something that gets brought up quite often in the office. I watched the FML 2v2 Tournament this weekend and it was a heck of a lot of fun. Some of the most exciting fights in conquest is when you’re doing small skirmishes on side points and the tournament on Saturday emulated those situations extremely well.

The good news is that players can create psuedo-2v2/3v3 Custom Arenas already, and there’s already a few rooms setup like that. I’d like to see more 2v2 type tournaments with prizes pop up in the future, and I’ve had a few people approach me saying they’d be interesting in organizing something like that.

Like John Corpening mentioned in a previous forum post, we’ll be awarding double tournament chests after the Halloween event is over to make up for the missed chests.

My engineer.

infantrydiv.1620:

Nice tournament, we should have weekly 2v2 tournaments

I agree. Was quite a bit of fun. The last games were really intense.

I’m interested to see if anyone is willing to run something like this on a weekly basis.

Two hours to showtime!

If you’re posting link to a video or stream on the sPvP forums, make sure to read the following directions to ensure that it isn’t sent to Linksville!

1. When posting a video or stream, make sure your thread title gives a clear, yet succinct, description of the video’s contents. Avoid titles such as “PvP Video” or “I’m the Best”, no matter how true they may be.
2. When posting a video or stream, the main thing to keep in mind is this video should generate discussion within that thread. This is what the PvP discussion forum is for, after all! To facilitate this, we recommend leading into your video with an introductory paragraph. This way, the other players can respond and create the discussion.
3. Avoid posting videos that may lead to inflammatory or unconstructive discussion. Those will most likely be removed from the forums completely. If the videos violate the Forum Code of Conduct, they will be handled appropriately.

Thanks!

Phoenix.5047:

I can understand why you’d move Unsuspecting Foe around, but does the direct damage on hammer really need to be nerfed? It already hits like a soggy weenie, and about as slowly to boot. Add in other class’ damage mitigation and hammer doesn’t seem to do much anymore.

We’ve tested what we assume will be the new meta hambow build (dropped burst mastery to keep unsuspecting) and it still does a ton of damage. You’ll need to drop defense to maintain that previous level of offense, ie dropping Melandru runes or Lyssa runes in favor of Ogre or something similar.

We’re making improvements to the way matchmaking works to prevent ‘stacked’ rosters from occurring. I’ve been on the receiving end of these rosters in top 500, and it definitely impedes your ability to win a game.

I think that once we roll out our rewards improvements we’ll see players taking all queue types a bit more seriously. When time equals worthwhile rewards, you’ll want to spend your time in-game efficiently (winning).

To prevent 4v5 and other mismatches, we’ll also be lowering the amount of dishonored stacks a player is able to get before being penalized. The current limit is too high. I don’t think that’s the only change we’ll make to prevent mismatched games, but it’s a start.

@Sudden – There’s a lot of great points in your response, and I appreciate you taking the time to put it on paper.

Like you mentioned, I come from the community – I’m a player. I don’t get to play quite as much as I’d like to anymore, but I do try to play as much as I can (much to my girlfriend’s chagrin). That said, the recent changes to glory and rank gain are the foundation on which we can begin to build a better version of PvP. Now that I’m privy to all of the ‘insider info’, I can say (as a player) I’m genuinely excited for our team’s vision for sPvP in the coming months.

The team’s top priority right now is to work on providing better incentives for playing in PvP. We want players to not only enjoy playing in matches, but also feel adequately rewarded afterwards for doing so. Meta obviously has a role in the ‘fun’ factor of PvP, and that’s something the Skills and Balance Team has been focused on as well. (Stay tuned.)

While we’ve been working on the above, we’ve also been working on prototypes of new maps and gametypes. Having these rank/glory changes in place is going to ensure that one game mode/map isn’t more rewarding than another, and you won’t feel compelled or required to participate in a certain gametype simply because it’s more profitable/rewarding than another.

On the topic of hotjoin, we hope that once the dust settles, players will drop the farm mentality and start playing to win. The existing system has been in for quite a while, so it may take some time for the entire player base to adapt. We’ll be rolling out additional changes in the future that should incentivize playing to win even more.

Evan Lesh.3295:

It is unintentional. I can’t give you a hard date for when it will be fixed because we’re between hot fixes and patches right now.

My main man Lesh-the-Fresh knows about it.

To clear things up, below you’ll find a list of the glory/rank points you earn in each queue. These numbers include the bouncy-chest bonus you get after you load out of the match.

Custom Arena / Hotjoin

• Win: 200
• Loss: 125

Solo Queue

• Win: 400
• Loss: 150

Team Queue:

• Win: 500
• Loss: 175

Being auto-balanced provides you with an additional 25 glory, and each top-stat you earn gives you another 5.

You can also use a Glory Booster to get even more glory (650 in a tournament win, for example), but those do not apply to rank points, which is why I excluded those numbers.

Looking forward to seeing even more streamers on the channel! Already a great group of streamers on the channel – playing solo queue, team queue, and even WvW. I even stream there occasionally myself.

Thanks for the update, Ostrich.

The extra glory bug only happens in certain scenarios. As you can see in the screenshot above, the player picked up 650~ glory from a single tournament queue. That’s a bit high. The changes will ultimately make games feel more rewarding, but within reason.

As some of you may have noticed, PvP matches are currently awarding more glory than intended. Feel free to ‘test’ it for the evening.

We’ll probably have a fix out for it sometime tomorrow.

Happy hunting!

Hey guys,

Just stopping by to let you know what we are aware of this issue and we’re working to get it cleared up as soon as possible.

Sorry for the inconvenience!