Guild Wars 2

MarkoNS.3261:

how in the nine hells are guardians balanced again ? almost every single guard that runs ranked is a trapper guard , they can block almost anything kill you with almost no actual skill while other classes have to dance around them. traps in general need a rework for pvp as do many other guard skills, maybe have them seperated for pvp and pve ?

Ok, first off guards are entirely absent from high ranked SPvP, so if you’re seeing a bunch of them, we have a pretty good idea of what the game thinks your skill level is: Not high.

The majority of balancing focuses on skilled play because even the Devs themselves would tell you the first thing that needs to change about your experience is you need to get better at playing against them before they’re going to fret about nerfing them. Trap-heavy Guards are extraordinarily predicable and the counter-play against them is both well understood and available to EVERY profession.

Read over the last set of patch notes – Guards are getting buffed, not nerfed. That’s a giant billboard sign saying they’ve under performed for a while. Doubly so for the profession the Devs treat as the pivot point around which other classes rise and fall. “In a good place” has been the Guardian’s curse and glory for YEARS now. So instead of shrieking for nerfs that are unlikely to come for 6-9 months, maybe try asking “what am I doing wrong?” because the problem’s NOT the profession…

It would presumably be unlocked by getting all three of the invisible footwear skins.

Which tragically is about the right level of rarity for this amazing title.

“Sexy Shoeless God of War!”

Because Belkar RULES.

While my first choice will always be a 2h-terrestrial spear wielding Paragon, I’m also fairly partial to adding an off-hand sword…

I like the idea a lot, but there’s so much FX vomit on the screen when you turn it on that I’m waiting for a vastly simpler/cleaner version for my floaty and/or winged characters.

Its like someone there is allergic to simplicity.

Ok, let’s have some FULL disclosure here…

Elementalist
•Normalized the Conjurer trait’s aura duration by decreasing it from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.
•“Feel the Burn!”: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 20 seconds to 25 seconds.
•“Flash-Freeze!”: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.

Guardian
•Spear of Justice: This skill no longer hides the off-hand weapon when cast.

Mesmer
•Echo of Memory: The recharge of this skill will now begin when Time Echo’s effect ends.
•Persistence of Memory: The cooldown reduction of this trait has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second.
•Mental Defense: The recharge of this trait has been increased from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.
•Well of Calamity, Well of Action, Well of Recall, and Well of Precognition: The visual effects of these skills have been restored to their original state for the player. The previous effects are now used as the lower level-of-detail versions.

Ranger
•Seed of Life: The number of conditions removed by this skill has been decreased from 2 to 1.
•Lunar Impact: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 5 seconds to 7 seconds. Daze duration has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
•Ancient Seeds: Fixed a bug that allowed multiple triggers of this trait on a single target.
•Juvenile Smokescale—Bite: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 15%.
•Juvenile Smokescale—Takedown: Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from being blocked.
•Juvenile Bristleback—Spike Barrage: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to fire more projectiles than intended and reduced the overall projectiles to 10. Fixed a bug that caused 33% of the projectiles to deal 33% less damage than intended. Increased all projectile damage by 10%. Missiles are now fired directly at the target instead of at slight angles in the target’s direction. The missile launch point has been normalized, fixing a bug that caused some projectiles to fail if the creature was on an incline.

Revenant
•Precision Strike: This skill no longer targets enemies using stealth effects.
•Phase Traversal: The cost of this skill has been increased from 20 to 35.

EVERY. SINGLE. CHANGE. was either cosmetic (Guardian, one Mesmer point) or a NERF.

No one’s asking you to be pleased with the state Guardians are in, but at least learn to recognize when you dodged a bullet. The nerf bat was out in force, and it struck Guardian not at all.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Next I’ll talk about how we plan to achieve those goals.

Changes to Match Structure:

• We’ll split the week long matches into 2 hour time slices we are calling ‘Skirmishes’

Here’s a thought that the math suggests and lines up with a lot of players’ initial reactions to the skirmish-block idea…

During each 24 hour day there are two periods~

• The first is a 6 hour “prime time” period that features three 2-hour skirmishes. This is maximum intensity get-in-get-out play.
• The second is the off-hours back and forth, broken into six 3-hour skirmishes.

By making the prime time skirmishes “tick” 50% faster you create rewards and intensity without having to apply hidden multipliers. A player coming in only needs to look at the clock to know how tight things are getting.

I don’t see more traps or Runes of the Trapper nerfs as being a priority unless something very strange happens in sPvP. The recent Trueshot nerf was framed as answering a WvW issue (where Dragonhunters are very, very good at not getting killed while they let fly from the back lines). I haven’t seen much complaining about DH trappers in PvP that weren’t well answered by the early DH trap nerfs, the Runes stealth duration nerf, and “learn to play”. …After all, a DH disappearing tells you EXACTLY where they dropped their trap.

I’m hoping they learned that “no armor in the gem store, only outfits” was a fantastic way to choke off a good revenue stream.

Ardid.7203:

On the contrary, I specially despise all the pseudo enlightened verses the Kodan spits.

Probably because the Kodan mistakenly call the status quo BALANCE.

The Elder Dragons are as much a part of the world as the seas and the sunrise. That the world moves in cycles doesn’t mean BALANCE has been overturned, only your short-sighted status quo. The World IS. Deal with it.

I want to see a band of “evil” Kodan who grasp the larger reality. Heretics with useful secrets/intel on the Elder Dragons because they’ve looked out across the larger wheel of events and seen into and through this season of Dragons to the hope beyond.

I like the ebonhawk greatsword.

I have Infinite Light – being able to clone the skin account-wide makes the effort pay off significantly more than when I finished it. I also put together a volcanus.

People with the full set of Guardian Spirit Weapons and the backpack that unlocks seem pretty rare.

Get over it. Plans change CONSTANTLY. Reacting to experience and feedback is this little thing called “growth”, it’s even occasionally called “learning”. If things are changing its because one side DOES know what the other is doing and recognized that it’s not working. Certainly plenty of people on this side of the fence knew that.

They thought they’d try it out. The level of commitment to that plan wasn’t exactly binding. They didn’t set a timeframe… guess what, that doesn’t mean forever. Maybe they’re just testing the waters to see if there’s still a market for cash store skins (hint: Oh yes there is) and not just the bi-weekly cavalcade of outfits.

Oh for pity’s sake! It’s not a PROMISE, its a policy. One that’s changing, thank the Six.

Seriously, not every word you ever hear in your life is a “promise”. And if you can’t distinguish promises from every other form of communication I pity the people around you.

They definitely open up some options for heavy armor professions who don’t have much in the way of gloves (as opposed to gauntlets).

And they work well if you were already using chaos weapons .

Not all investments are sure things. Or should be.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Nike.2631:

That hardly describes this latest patch and the Ranger Shortbow.

Sword you probably mean.

Haven’t actually read the patch notes, you mean. I didn’t stutter.

Spirit Weapons just need an identity that can be fulfilled by every skill and relation to appropriate traits. Every Gyro can take advantage of the gyro traits, but only 2 Spirit Weapons regularly attack, one only attacks on command, and the 4th doesn’t attack at all. It also helps that Gyros have two extra skills for that slight bit more variety and opportunity for utility that Spirit Weapons don’t. Spirit Weapons have potential, they’re just a few key changes away from having any appreciable role in the game.

Yup. The Spirit Weapons are weird in that they actually suffer for their diversity, because the traits keyed to them pretend they are all DPS skills and forgets they’re pet skills, some of which DPS.

I’m disappointed they continue to languish since they were eviscerated many years ago, but that’s a old would at this point.

I’m spoiled – playing other games and particularly some very large and successful e-sports, I dream of a patch on this scale being monthly, not quarterly. The GLACIAL pace of tuning in this game is very frustrating, even to people like me who largely appreciate the direction of what little we do get.

I would say no.

The addition of the gold to the dailies has pulled me back into the game – the trickle of gold combined with the cultural armor now being available from a hybrid coin/WvW currency vendor means that the gold I earn for the next few months will go towards finally acquiring those costumes, not to inflating the player-to-player economy. And with the addition of hybrid cost WvW bags, I may even be putting a little less money into the market since I can now get bags that way too.

Prices will rise a little bit as the little guys get a crack at a big ticket item once or twice a month, but the influx of gold is pretty precisely targeted to go mostly to the little guys. They’ll have to stick with it many, many days to be in the running for anything of note.

More customers for the Trading post is a good thing, right ?

That hardly describes this latest patch and the Ranger Shortbow.

Yes, tuning is usually done in ways that the Balance Team doesn’t have to lean on the Art Team to make it happen. They adjust numbers and only numbers when they can. That’s the reality of ALL MMOs.

I have a bank tab full of superior runes and sigils I’ve gotten from mystic forging the little sigils that fall like rain from salvaging.

If you don’t want them, throw them away or post them on the Trading Post, but I’d rather not lose that steady trickle of gear.

Well, fortunately for you, Chronomancers got the bulk of their savage reaming last quarter so they may stay about where they are for at least 6 months.

I’d like to see them become minions with unlimited uptime as long as they don’t die – which would chain off of Battle Presence brilliantly.

There were some temporary versions of Scrapper gyros (which are fundamentally Spirit Weapons covered in scrapmetal) during the HoT beta that were amazing. If they’d stayed that way and ported those rules/ratios back to Guardian we’d have been set. Instead the Devs decided gyros needed to be less good — but still good — and Spirit Weapons didn’t get a fair review in light of the new playing field. Not unlike how Dragonhunter traps got tons of care and constant reworks while thief and ranger traps were left to rot.

Einlanzer.1627:

Mighty presumptuous of you. If there’s demand, it’ll happen. It’s that simple.

Because there’s nothing presumptuous about thinking demand has suddenly changed this week compared to the 180 weeks that preceded it . If mere demand was gonna do it, it would have already done it. Especially since it was easier to introduce new weapons in the past than it is now.

“Unarmed” is conceptually nice because it gets around the need for weapons skins, but it doubles down on other problems, namely needing new animations for just about everything. You also have to bridge the disconnect that you have something in that slot or you’re down a heap of stat points, but that something is invisible when you look at your character. Again it ends up being a theme that might be more easily handled as kits for an Elite profession – an in-place mechanic that lets them hide your “real weapons” while they still contribute to your total stats. If we get a full Thief → “Monk” or some sort of Elementalist → “Bender” able to swap to one of several bare-handed styles via kits in the next cycle of Elite Specs I will be not at all surprised. There’s demand for it and the tools already exist.

I want to point out to anyone who is sick of the preponderance of costumes coming out that the “Chaos Gloves” skin is about to be released in the Gem Store. This is the first new store-bought armor piece we’ve seen in ages. If ArenaNet were to see a huge outburst of sales they might be inclined to make more armor we can purchase.

If you really don’t like them, don’t buy of course, but if you’re kind of on the fence, maybe get them anyway just to shape those sale figures into something ANet can’t ignore. The Chaos Gloves are likely a test case for going back to releasing for-sale armor skins and you might want that test to come back positive .

Einlanzer.1627:

I think it’s rather obvious that they need to be encouraged, rather than dissuaded, and it’s frustrating that someone with as much clout with Anet as Nike (I won’t get into the merits of that) is a naysayer about it. I just flat-out think he’s wrong.

I’m not a nay sayer – I’m pointing out the amount of work actually involved, which will absolutely not be news to the people who actually make these decisions. I’d also suggest that just throwing up a list of weapons is probably something they’ve done themselves a few times so if you want to be persuasive to a Dev to give you what you want you probably need to focus a little tighter and go a little deeper.

Maybe promote only 1-2 weapons along with which professions you’d add them to, and what kind of holes in their existing choices those weapons could flavorfully and thematically fill. Describe the new play styles your candidates might bring about when combined with the tools those professions already have. And be prepared to answer questions about why that couldn’t be done with an existing weapon. In other words refine you proposal a bit so it can excite a Dev reading it.

I think we can all agree that at some point the Balance Team has already had the exact conversation “You know, boomerangs would be cool…” and talked it through and finally dismissed it. You need to say more than “Boomerangs! Make it so!” You need to show them a rich vein of cool that they overlooked .

Its the same story as always – the logistics of preparing for the raid ARE NOT FUN so the Devs over incentivize the raid to try to get people to do it anyway. Usually its irrationally steep gear advantage… here it’s unique skins and stat swapping convenience on your armor slots. The Devs put those things in and boom, now you’re getting raid groups composed of folks chasing the shiny instead of reveling in the gameplay… a behavior more commonly known as “work”.

I enjoy raiding. I’ve been a raid “caller” (the guy on the voice channel that keeps all the pieces moving in sync) for 4 different large MMOs. I’ve downed raid boss in three more MMOs. I absolutely love seeing when a team of people can work together in a complex and reactive dance. I love researching, learning, or developing boss strategies. I’ve done crazy stuff getting ready for ‘raid night’ like spending days learning phrases in Tolkien’s black speech because there’s a raid boss that calls out its moves in the language of Mordor. The LotRO devs put in that level of effort for their part and I wanted every advantage for my team. I’ve also done less crazy but still necessary activities like stocking up rare and time consuming to acquire consumables so I can hand them out to people that didn’t do their homework.

I’d rather gargle with broken glass than be the guy who has to deal with the scheduling beforehand. Usually the best I can do to help the poor saps that take that job on is have fully geared and prepped character for every role and offer to change to whatever is needed, depending on who flaked out/no-showed this week.

Raids are great. Its the drama before hand (and after) that people who’ve been there/done that frequently never want to do again.

Jaken.6801:

You know, looking at their Gem-Store Black Lion rate, that might not really be true.

I mean, how many do they put out every two weeks?

Heh. Any new weapon would also require a new Legendary and they’ve managed 4 of those in three-and-a-half years…

On a more serious note the skins they would have to do are scattered across the entire range of styles already in game – potentially a lot more challenging than taking 2-3 core elements and smearing them like peanut-butter over 17 shapes done as a batch job. Plus new weapons would also likely require new animations and then the minor trifling detail of new skills for N many professions (or, you know, 4 times as many skills if you give it to Elementalists…). Then the balancing act where you’re torn between getting the maximum return on your art effort vs. having some classes already overloaded with weapon choices. Then you have to go back and re-rig every loot drop table in the entire game to include the new weapons, re-work all the weapon vendors, all the dungeon reward vendors, the PvP weapon loot boxes, decide if any NPCs need to be reconfigured to use them, and probably ten other things I can’t think of right off the top of my head…

Or they could just not.

Palador.2170:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but those look to be an armor skin, not an outfit of any kind. And they’ve said that all new armor skins will be in-game, not gem store. Yes?

Its unclear if they meant full sets would only appear in-game or if they just came to their senses about a policy that was infuriating no small number of people.

Believe me, I’m voting with my wallet and I hope the trend continues.

RoseofGilead.8907:

The text datamined with the gloves says “Chaos Gloves Have Arrived!”. The fact that it has text with it heavily implies that it will be a gem store item. And the ecto comment is because in GW1 you got the gloves by trading in a stack of dust and 75 ectos; the ecto-skritt likely won’t have anything to do with it.

Cool. given the historical context that makes more sense.

Looks like an insta-buy for me after trying it out in the preview panel with a few characters. Assuming it’s not 20 bucks or only in a bundle that’s 20 bucks.

If you think other classes are so amazing… Go. Play. Them.

First, because nothing we tell you about how grossly provincial your comparisons are will convince you as thoroughly as your own first hand experience. ((Rangers are awesome? That’s just funny.))

Second, because the fastest way to get a profession nerfed isn’t to throw a tantrum on the boards, its’ to be part of a flood of players rushing to the flavor of the month.

Lets see… not a single new weapon type in 3.5 years and the Elite Specializations system is built around letting them use and even reuse existing weapons to bring new skills to the 9 professions (i.e. a future Mesmer Elite spec could offer the shield again just with new skills and a different theme than the Chronomancer).

Tomes have been discussed by Devs… as KITS, another way they can bring new weapons into play without having to deal with the ever growing skins issue.

They could introduce new weapons, but they’ve got a lot of other avenues they can pursue while still growing the game’s options.

Sorry.

…And each one of them would need at minimum 40 skins and better if there were 90-100 because of all the sets that need to be supported.

This ship has sailed long ago.

The description once you preview them strongly implies it’ll be something new with the ecto-skritt. Or possibly the forge. But mostly the ecto-skritt.

Given their description I think they may be a mystic forge recipe. Or the Gambling Skritt.

“These gloves glow with memories of dust and ectos” if you preview then mouse over it in preview panel.

Looking at them in game these may be the first heavy armor glove-not-gauntlet available in the entire game to non-Sylvari. Plus they look good with my chaos weapons.

Looking forward to seeing how these are made available.

It’s reapportionment – the new reward puts a lot of coin into the system but it spreads it very, very thin… With the vast preponderance of it going to the casuals who only log on for 30-40 minutes a day.

Personally I think it’s going to give a lot of those casuals hope. It lets them chase some of the games fixed prices like 100 ice runestones in a length of time that’s tolerable to them and good for ANet’s log in numbers.

Arnath.2319:

…but hey according to some “we are okay so such your mouth and dont complain”.

The amount of selective reading required for that to be your take away is tragic.

No one is happy about Guardian lack of diversity/paltry range of competitive grade tools.
No one is pleased to see Spirit Weapons ignored again.
No one thinks Guardian or Dragonhunter are top teir in PvP.

But this ‘end is nigh’ hysterics is pathetic. People are letting their reflexes answer for them – pure knee-jerking because some tool they leaned on is getting nerfed and ignoring all the good in this patch to completely fixate on it. If you’re running a longbow and don’t see the possibilities in a 25% harder-hitting #4 then I’m unconvinced you’re all that good at Dragonhunter’ing. While #5 is tricky to use, the thought of every person you’ve ever successfully caged getting hit 33% harder has got to make your eyes twinkle just a little. That delivered alongside a 5 second shorter cooldown. There must be some medi-guards absolutely chortling about the virtue cooldowns. If you ran shouts you read today’s patch notes and asked “really?” but in an entirely different tone of voice because Christmas just came 8 months early.

No one said don’t complain. But a few of us are asking you to think and take in the whole and maybe go actually play it a bit before Two Whole Sentences send you screaming for the hills.

Do you not SEE THE BUFFS? Stability changes do more for us than most. We’re getting a sprinkling of damage buffs on 60% of the longbow skills specifically to offset the one spike skill that’s getting toned down. We’re getting cooldown reductions on the core mechanic every Guardian has (f3 on a 60 second base cooldown? seriously where’s the hallelujahs?).

No. It’s all hysterics over a skill getting nerfed that has always been under the watchful eye because it’s built kinda different than most of the game. The most popular/best trap got a shave. Every profession got some caps put on how many things get thumped by walls.

This. Is. Why. They. Ignore. You.

No perspective at all.

You want to talk realpolitik? Let’s get real. Yes: Revenant/Herald is grossly out of tune. NO ONE who actually pays attention to the design style of the individual members of the Balance Team thought the profession lead who brought us corruptly overpowered Warriors for over a year was going to deliver anything else with their new golden child. If history is any guide it’ll be another 6 months before the mounting evidence in the metrics FINALLY overrules the relentless protectionism. So if you have to measure everything about the game’s most stable and consistent performer against broke-as-heck Revenants, then expect some disappointment. Guardians: In a good place. That Revenants are manifestly more powerful DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE IN A BETTER PLACE.

If you live in constant need of chasing the greener grass, yes, go flock to the Revenant and load the scales that much deeper that something is WRONG with that profession vs. any measure of reasonable performance. Because the tide will turn for Revenants and the sooner the better.

The 2 gold per day plus cheap cultural armor in the WvW maps is EXACTLY the right incentive to get me to log on daily until I’ve unlocked every piece of cultural armor in the game. No inflation there – that money flows in and out of the system without ever passing through the Trading Post. Along the way I’ll likely make good strides towards collecting the WvW armor.

Well played, ANet.

I’d say today’s patch moved me from not planning to buy the second expansion AT ALL to being prepared to at least look at the pre-launch hype train… with a highly critical eye.

They’ve got a ways to go making up for past miss-steps and demonstrating today wasn’t just a fluke but the beginning of a actual direction the company is moving in.

Quozex.9430:

I feel as a class we’ve just been neglected for the past 3 years.

Eh, its not so much neglect as its the ONLY profession in the game that consistently works right and turns in use/success numbers that hover around the midrange. They nerfed one over-performing skill hard and handed out a huge number of small buffs that make you more involved (more buttons off cooldown more often, more willingness to punch the big buttons early). That’s the profile of a class that’s mostly on track. Beyond that we’re on the exact same page about reviewing our forgotten underperformers.

Mikau.6920:

Guys, GIVE UP. There is no reason to even try any more.

Would you? Would you PLEASE? If you don’t have the wherewithal to operate a Guardian/Dragonhunter under these terms then yes, absolutely: GET OUT. GET OUT NOW. because nothing will do a better job of getting some other profession nerfed than a mass exodus to the flavor of the month ((looking at you, Herald)) and I’m sure all the people over in the class you migrate to will be so happy to have a pack of turn-coats stinking up their boards.

And maybe if a few of our more cheese-reliant brethren for whom having to use the whole tool bar is just too hard step out, then maybe the Dev’s will bump the Guardian up the que to look at our diversity (and the lack there of…) issues because there won’t be this cloud of no-talent trap-monkeys skewing our numbers.

Treat is as what it is: The top 1% of PvPers and the 5% that raid DO NOT dictate changes to the game as a whole. Any argument the game is being changed solely on their account is between 99% and 95% wrong.

Please try and grasp that the people making these decisions make them with access to summary metrics from the ENTIRE length and breadth of the game. Some of those decision can be a little weird but they aren’t ignorant.

If you’re a Dragonhunter, leverage the added benefit of more 25% more #4 damage and 33% more final tick damage on #5 along with shorter cooldown. Press your enemies with that instead of revealing yourself to be the one-button wonder all the other professions have been accusing us of being.

If you’re a Guardian, revel in nothing but sweet, creamy BUFF.

…Instead of making whiney one-note threads like this one. Which really ought to be beneath our collective dignity.

Actually I’m largely pleased.

First it’s easy to overlook we got some SUBSTANTIAL buffs in the way stability works now.

The nerf to True Shot is harsh, but it also reflects what I said all along about the skill during HoT beta: while people are flipping out about being required to pick a good spot, once people learn how to use the skill it will be terrifying. A -20% nerf says the Devs were terrified by what they were seeing . And as nasty as it is, the other longbow buffs are going to smooth out and spread around the threat we pose.

Final Judgment on the Longbow changes: Let it play out and see how it goes.

I’m glad base Guardian got some love on the Virtues (all guardians) and the shouts (my guardians). You may not use these things, but there are people who do, and they will be stronger for it.

If there’s anything that annoys me, its that Spirit Weapons are once again COMPLETELY IGNORED. A ton of work put into the things that a ton of people use is fine, but that line of utilities has been a seeping wound in the profession that’s been left to fester a long, LONG time now.

Buran.3796:

I’m surprised about the nerfs, I didn’t expect a single buff, but this is like the third nerf in a row in the single trap I use.

I want you to consider the possibility the reason you use the trap is because it’s overpowered.

I’m not sure if I’m delighted, but I AM favorably impressed.

My desire to log in and play some WvW has skyrocketed after reading this, and my general disdain for the new maps won’t stop me from at least looking in them again to see if it’s become more appealing to lone wandering.

Because the idea of grinding out 2,000 t6 mats makes me find other games to play.

I have most of the other stuff including 2 precursors.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

Two weeks ago I posted that we were starting integration and final testing for the Spring Quarterly Update. It’s been two busy weeks. The quarterly update is through QA and looking good. We’re going to announce the release date tomorrow.

As we prep for release, you’ll notice that we’re not doing the series of advance blog posts that we had done for some prior releases. Hopefully that’s not too surprising; I’ve written a few times since taking this role that I think our job is to delight you with what we ship, not with talk and promises.

With everything prepped now, let’s have some fun together and see some hints of what’s coming, and then we’ll see you in the game on release day.

So, your take away from all the previous release day mishaps like changing how karma potions work without forewarning, having to change them back so people could cash out properly, then changing them AGAIN is that “really, my team can do no wrong.”

You want to find out about all your problems face first when it hits Live instead of giving your content even a brief review by the larger playerbase… Strap in, cause I’m MASHING THAT “COMMIT” BUTTON.

Ok. Sure. I’m game. Lets see how this plays out.

History says “Badly, duh.” But what does history know?

Bottom Line: the moment you put the words “Full rework” in your title you blew this thread’s brains out. Grey greasy stain all over the wall.

This is LIVE game. There are literally MILIONS of player hours invested into the Guardian as it is. There will be no “Full rework”, EVER. Not even guys with the title Lead System Designer get to do things like that once the ball is in play.

If you want to keep scripting a profession for some other game that will never be except in your imagination, carry on. If you want to influence the course of GW2, let me give you some much more practical advice.

Pick three small, specific differences in what actually happens during play that you’d like to see. We’re talking flavor and theme here. Not numbers. Not win/loss ratios. Feels.

Stop. No, really, stop right there. Now ask yourself if you have the breadth of perspective to be sure some of that’s not already happening. Ok, self-check over. Back to the fun parts.

Figure out how to bring about those differences in real play with the FIVE smallest changes to mechanics you can think of that encourage and support the feeling you’re after.

Got five really good ones? Cool. Throw away the one that took the most words to describe. It doesn’t matter how good it is, its too complex. Pitch it. The rest had better be three sentences or less or we’re gonna repeat this step until they are.

Great. Now I want to see your four best small but flavorful tweaks. Along with what you hope they’ll accomplish.

Now your tuning a LIVE game.

Take a bite out of it and your pareidolia should clear right up.

Umm… have people forgotten already that it used to be trivially easy to “buy” level 80?

Crafting all the professions up to 400 used to do it and it cost a pretty modest amount of real money to get the materials to do it. Plus you had full crafting ranks when you were done so you could crank out best-in-slot gear too for your new 80. You know, until the Ascended tier came along and they cut way, way back on XP from crafting.

So we’re a week into April and still not word one about balance changes. a.k.a. “we may tell you about them, but we haven’t left ourselves enough to react when the players point out some ridiculously broken new interaction it’s going to cause. Again.”

The problem is the names and faces change but the company DOESN’T LEARN. You have habits in your corporate culture that lead to repeating the same easily avoidable miss-steps over and over and yet you just can’t close that feedback loop to stop doing those things most of the time.

Go back and look at your population curves for Orr for the six months following launch and see if you don’t see something spookily familiar with what’s happening in the HoT maps…

At the end of the day they thought they’d get more money by putting them behind ridiculous grinds in the new zones with people making incidental gem store purchases while chasing after the shiny. I’d like to think they’ve learned otherwise at this point. Possibly to the tune of people got bored/frustrated trying to get the armor and stopped buying anything.