Guild Wars 2

It’s in a good position honestly, because a Mesmer running Power Block can’t also have both Deceptive Evasion (quick clone generation) and Illusionary Persona (which essentially increases Shatter burst by 33%). You can also use Power Block to lock down leap skills and gap extenders.

Count me as someone who isn’t against the traits being initially locked. I’m not exactly for it, but because it’s horizontal progression I just can’t muster any righteous ire against it.

I think the main reason they’re removing the bouncy chests is because of that region transfer bug. You can’t get chests for a while if you transfer between NA and EU and have any amount of tournament wins.

Well, the last big balance patch was in December. So if we get one in April it’ll be 4 months. I think they’re trying to move to a big balance patch every 3-4 months.

Balance patch is the Feature patch plus more stuff. Or “Feature Pack” based on that recent interview. It’s all but definitely coming out in the next 5 weeks.

For people against solo queue because third party programs exist, you’d leave it out even for pug groups in solo queue or dungeons? Even when you could opt out? Or do you actually suggest that if able players should always invite the random people they’re playing with to some hosted program not everyone has on their computer? Or use commands like Smite does and hope it’s good enough for in combat situations?

scabrous.7835:

yski.7642:

Once upon a time I went 1v4 in WvW as a glass cannon. They simply iqnored me and revived each other every time I killed one.

This is the major issue. Downed state is a broken mechanic in general as it encourages bad-plays. It’s not only revival speed but also rally mechanic. Going down should be a punishment and not a free second chance. PvE parties would be more cautious if it wasn’t for banner rez. WvW would be more about spreading and avoiding death instead of blobbing into other blobs and hoping for the rally regardless of whether off the players or mobs.
I feel that downed mechanic was introduced together with the ‘casual friendly’ approach preached before the release.

Proven.2854:

I’ve mentioned it before but,

“One person can’t do it all.”

How you feel about this statement tends to decide where you are on the downed state debate. Rallying is a different issue.

I’ll also add that a stomper starting their stomp animation first will get the stomp before a single reviver can finish the revive unless the reviver is carrying a Warrior specific trait or Runes of Mercy. Oh, and I guess quickness, but how often do you see people carry that for reviving? Nothing else makes a single revive go faster beyond the the downed body trying to self-revive, but the stomper can do damage to stop that and use poison to slow down a revive further.

style.6173:

Shockwave.1230:

• The existing SoloQ and TeamQ split will always need to exist as long as there is no in game pvp voip
• When in game voip exists competitive casuals (and all players frankly) will be able to more seamlessly progress into higher tiers of pvp via the ranking system, and because there won’t be the environment shock of the skill level disparity between Solo Q and Team Q, because they should be merged after voip exists.

I disagree with this. The difference between high performance teams and regular teams is not just voice comms. A team that is together knows how the others play. Each has an assigned role and they perform it. They know how to do rotations. They know how to use combo fields effectively.

Voice chat with a bunch of randoms will not help. Actually it will probably make things worse since people would just be yelling at each other.

Not every game has a toxic voice community like Call of Duty or Dota 2. Voice comms won’t solve lack of experience or skill, but it helps a lot.

If not voice comms, how would you deal with the gap between regular and high performance teams? Or would you just cede the queue to high performance teams only?

Kagu.2015:

I wish there was party voice chat for dungeons, fractals and spvp.

Just make it voice chat whenever you’re in a party. In an sPvP match it gives precedence to your team over your party.

What I don’t understand is why solo queue doesn’t work like the random arena system in GW1. If your team wins then it keeps your roster together for the next round. If you lose, the team is disbanded. If you win enough games in a row then you get put into team queue automatically.

If the roster loses anyone at all between rounds the counter until your random team gets put into team queue resets. The more people you have in your roster the fewer won games you need to enter team queue. If you leave the roster you can’t rejoin it unless you want to go straight into team queue.

What do people think about that?

@John C If you wanted to remove solo queue and just allow people to queue up for team queue by themselves if they wanted to, you’d still need to have some kind of buffer against premades. And even then, the fact that many premades use voice chat gives them a huge advantage. So again I’d ask for in-game voice chat, or some other game mode to queue for where voice chat amplified teamwork doesn’t give such a huge advantage.

I agree with people that want the option to solo queue and try to play seriously. Solo queue as it is right now reminds me of TF2lobby and some IRC rooms designed to setup random scrims in other games. The biggest boon solo queue has over those options in other games is that it completely eliminates premades.

My two cents.

Conquest is just too hard for competitive casual unless you already know a lot of strategy or you add voice chat. So either have another, simpler mode you can queue for (preferably unrated and with all maps like infantrydiv suggested) or figure out a way to get voice chat in.

Voice chat would also be a major, super, awesome boon to Custom Servers. Guilds could rent servers for PvP nights without having to rely on Mumble/TS shuffling for when teams get shuffled around between maps.

@sorrow The primary issue I see with this is voice acting. I don’t know how far in advance they record lines, but it may be hard to have lines changed at the end of a season. At the beginning of a season might be more feasible. If you don’t care about ambient voice acting, then it’d be easy.

@Iason Evan If only the players get the reward, then there’s no point to have the team be the guild. It’d just be like the current system we have right now with slight changes to window dressing. If there is any insistence on having guilds be the representation of the team, then the guild needs to also get some kind of reward to show reputation at the very least.

John’s idea of temporary rewards is a good one. A type of guild finisher, a type of cape/back piece, or an icon next to the player’s name like the World Completion star are all possible temporary rewards. The actual players who won could then get either better versions of those rewards or other permanent rewards. Say a certain type of permanent cape with a color representing you won in a certain season and a design representing that you won in a certain year. A special finisher only the actual winners get that lasts until the next year. And a special permanent glow or addition to your PvP icon that let’s people know you were at least once a big winner.

But the guild absolutely needs some type of reputation reward or else there’s no point in having guilds take any part in this system.

That’s also another option, but there’s also people discontent with Black Powder Thieves.

Lostwingman.5034:

Proven.2854:

I’m in the camp of keeping the current system. The issue I see with the suggested changes is that come down to, “I don’t want my teammates being a drawback to me!” But that ignores the fact that those same teammates are often trying to help you. It’s a coordination problem.

That’s silly, they aren’t “trying to help you”. They are trying to pull off their own combos in their own rotations because that is individually what their builds are made for. A hammer guardian is spamming light fields and canceling ele fire fields because it is part of his auto-attack. A staff ele is spamming fire fields (lava font) because that has his best damage against stationary targets. A pistol off hand thief drops smoke fields from black powder because it is how they maintain their survivability.

The idea behind combos is getting the most out of the limited number of skills we have to work with. Not necessarily teamwork as they require a huge investment of coordination and planning to pull off without stepping on each others toes.

Combos were originally called Cross Profession Combos, so their original idea was teamwork. And I don’t think a handful of skills and traits should be a reason to rework an entire rules system.

So what’s the outlier? If it’s just Elementalist fire fields (needed for damage) and a single trait, that’s what should be looked at first.

I don’t think they should let you swap skills on the same pet. I think the idea of each pet being a set of skills with similarities between pets of the same biome and same species (almost like what we have right now) works better for everyone involved. Even if you can’t find the perfect pet for your playstyle you can still get one that’s close until you travel to the required area. Balancing and build creation also becomes a lot easier.

Even on this very page I’ve seen people mention changing shouts and putting some of their functionality on F1-F4. I agree, honestly. Sic ’Em begs to be an F1 ability with a cooldown that helps either speed up or boost your pets damage on a cooldown. Guard could easily be made an F2 skill that tells your pet to stick to an area, without the stealth or protection. Protect Me could be F3 and would be like Mesmer’s F4, where the pet immediately stops attacking and sticks close to you along with the immunity effect. Ranger F4 would then be pet swap.

In fact, instead of having a single unique skill for each pet, F1-F3 could all be pet skills based on those three shouts. Many pet types could share a number of them, but say a snow pet might cause the F1 Sic ’Em skill to cast Chill on a hit. The F3 Protect Me would grant you Regeneration if you had a Bear out or Stability if you had a Boar. If pets still had four skills in this case, the one not on the Ranger’s bar would be the auto-attack. The F2 Guard could give an AoE boon, blast finisher, or combo field in the targeted area depending on pet.

I also like the idea of making one of the Ranger healing skills (probably Heal As One) able to revive your Pet.

Edit: Additional change. Make the F1-F3 skills have a base functionality that always works (target this guy, stay in this area, return to me) but then also have a skill attached that the pet uses if it’s on cooldown. The Ranger never sees these cooldowns directly but instead their F1-F3 icons glow when the pet is ready to use their particular skill in combination with each command. Alternatively, you can have the F1-F3 icons swap to a vanilla “just do this thing” icon when the pet can’t use the skill tied to that icon.

Lux.7169:

I wouldn’t call myself a pve player AT ALL but I have 4 lvl 80’s and I am at lvl 40 fractals. That being said you sound like I’m not allowed to have an opinion about this upcoming patch, at least not one that differs from yours.

I would much rather have our current, terrible, system where we can at least make dyes and collect armor sets rather than get lvl up tomes.

I can post a screenshot of my lvl 80’s, the 300 lvl up tomes I already have, and the x8 lvl 20 tomes I already have.

Where am I asking for the new system? Please quote me. I am saying that this ‘stepping stone’ is not only a waste of time and resources that could have been put to use elsewhere, but that the CURRENT system is FAR SUPERIOR to this one we’re going to be stuck with for an INDEFINITE length of time.

---

edit**** thanks for clarifying what I mean to say, Dosvidaniya

My issue with your previous post is that it didn’t come off as an opinion. It came off as ranting/whining without any understanding.

Dosvidaniya.3260:

You’re missing the point. Yes, the stuff for PvP players is “coming.” The issue is that PvP players are left without stuff until it does come. No, bug testing is not an excuse to leave PvP in that state. If it isn’t ready then wait to deploy it and wait to remove the old one.

In everything, the general rule is to have minimal system downtime. We currently will receive PvE rewards worth about 30 minutes in LA right now for a rank up! In addition, we won’t receive jack from the actual matches. Leaving pvp in this state is an atrocious software decision. Maybe they won’t make us go months. However, most of us are no longer optimists; especially when they still haven’t told us anything in regards to time or functionality.

TLDR: Leave the old or put in the new. Don’t replace the old with a worse version while the new one gets its bugs removed.

Yes, the aim is for minimal down time. What can you do when down time can’t be avoided? Yes, it makes sense to be a skeptic in this instance. It doesn’t make sense to go on a tirade about it. It doesn’t make sense to keep repeating questions that they aren’t giving answers to.

Akisame.9508:

RoyalPredator.9163:

Let’s make it clear then

Xaylin.1860:

RoyalPredator.9163:

Every class has 100% base player damage by itself, and their unique bar gives more dmg or special things.

While I didn’t read the original 70:30 post it quite obviously derived from a dev who said that Rangers are expected to bring some damage through their pet. But this also applies to other classes who have damaging class mechanics because the class mechanics are most likely not exlcuded when balancing their damage. Everything else does not make any sense at all. This means that the class mechanic has to be included for all Mesmers, all Warriors, at least power Necromancers, most Engineers and even situationally for Thieves. Comparing Ranger 70:30 to Warrior to 100:15(F1) is just inaccurate.

Okay, let’s make it clear then. As an average, classes have ~75% dmg of possible fully.
Then when they trait on it, they’ll have maximum of “100%”, + the F skills give additional dmg or features. It should matter what you trait on. If you go for damage, then go, other hands there are survivality, support, and beastmaster for us.

I am not sure if I understood you right, but all classes, with the exception of ranger’s from what I have understood from the dev’s, all classes start with 100% damage. I have not read any post’s or heard any statements from dev’s stating that mesmer’s damage is reduced because they expect clones to fill a portion of that damage. Or necro’s damage is reduced because they expect minions to fill a portion of that damage. So far the Dev’s have only mentioned ranger’s as having to give up 30% of their damage to pets. A level 80 warrior with no traits has 100% control of their damage and they have 100% of their damage. When traited, any bonus’s, 10% through this trait for using XYZ weapons, 5% this other trait, 15% for the adrenaline full trait, ect.. This is all added to the 100%, so the example I’m using above, he will have 130% damage which is a 30% buff to damage thanks to traits. That’s a given, that’s what traits are for and why some traits are for some weapons and not others.

Ranger’s on the other hand start at 70% damage instead of 100% damage with 0 traits. So you add the Bow percentage, or your traiting that way or you add the GS percentage when traiting that way and any other percentage from traits and you’ll see that you, the ranger part, does not come up to 100%. Now you have pet’s, which are suppose to be responsible for 30%, trait on them and their damage percentage is suppose to go up as well. On paper it should balance out to what warriors are doing. However, since our pets can’t hit moving targets and since are pets can’t scale walls and since our pets die in 2 seconds in zerg’s and since our pets are practically USELESS, we lose out of those 30+%. So while all other classes are doing >100+% damage, we are at <100+%.

So to recap, From the dev’s mouths as we know for sure right now, Ranger’s are the only ones that start <100% damage because of pets. Now, if a dev wants to come on here and say anything about Necro’s having the same thing or mesmer’s to clear the air on this matter that would be great. But until we hear otherwise, we only have confirmation of ranger’s having this handicap.

Speaking of which, why is it that necro’s with all of their minions don’t have balancing issues when they can spec to not use minions and not lose DPS? What’s the difference between them and us if they also have pets and theirs is optional?

I’d argue that Engineers also have problems with damage if they don’t slot in a specific utility skill while traiting heavily for it, or traiting heavily for profession mechanic combo.

I’d also argue that Mesmers have problems with damage if they don’t make use of their profession mechanic, which also involves AI, for extra burst damage.

It’s probably been mentioned, but I’d like a change to Remorseless and the Opening Strike traits.

The primary issue with the traits are that they all combo with each other, but become useless in a more protracted battle. The secondary issue is that the traits feel like they’re approaching a really cool class feature, but stop just half way there.

If Remorseless stays based off stealth, it’s frustrating to see one Ranger weapon skill, one shout for your Pet, and one single trait. But I don’t think people want Ranger to have more stealth.

One option would be to change the meaning of the “Opening.” A change like, “Regain Opening Strike whenever you successfully evade an attack.” Although this now feels more like a Skirmishing trait…

I also dislike that an entire minor trait slot is wasted with Alpha Training. Considering Ranger’s mechanic is their pet, the original Opening Strike trait should automatically give it to both you and your pet.

So to summarize, here’s a proposed change log:

• Combine Marksmanship 5 Opening Strike with Marksmanship 10 Alpha Training.
• Move Marksmanship XII Remorseless to Marksmanship 10, either unchanged or removing the stealth portion.

From there you can do something like:

• Move Skirmishing XII Moment of Clarity to Marksmanship XII.
• Change Longbow skill 3 to something that can cause an interrupt.

Or even:

• New trait Sniper, “While your endurance is full, you have a 50% chance on a crit to regain Opening Strikes.”

And as suggested above:

• New trait Make an Opening, “Regain Opening Strike whenever you evade or interrupt an attack with a weapon or utility skill.”

The primary worry is that this is a power creep suggestion.

Personally, I view Ranger as a class that’s low on burst but high on pressure. Often like a more direct damage based Necromancer. Marksmanship is a trait line that emphases this by focusing on letting the Ranger give constant damage output from range. Like the Necromancer, the primary counter to this is to rush down the Ranger and CC when able.

Edit: A friend caused me to notice that I didn’t place any internal cooldowns on the new traits. That along with tuning down the Vulnerability stacks are great points of balance I didn’t consider.

I’m in the camp of keeping the current system. The issue I see with the suggested changes is that come down to, “I don’t want my teammates being a drawback to me!” But that ignores the fact that those same teammates are often trying to help you. It’s a coordination problem.

As for the case of that particular Elementalist trait, you could make an interesting change where you add a drawback to it. Something like, “your blast finishers now only combo in fire fields,” or, “all your blast finishers act like fire field combos regardless of field.” A hardcore drawback would be something like, “fire fields you create always have top priority for blast finishers done by you or your allies.”

It used to be ground targeted in beta. Now it’s not.

Hey, I’m a PvP player. I also play the other parts of the game. I’m sorry they’re trying to get you to participate in other parts of the game too. I’m one of those people that want level up tomes for the classes I’ve gotten used to playing at full capacity, but can only play a crippled version outside of the Heart of the Mists. And if you really don’t want the materials then just sell them on the trading post.

But the stuff that’s coming for PvP players that refuse to leave the Mists is coming too. But that stuff can’t arrive without the new reward system. How can they give you a new PvP specific reward if they don’t exist in game yet to be given? Don’t you want them to take their time so we don’t get stupid bugs like the EU<→NA transfer bug that makes you lose out on tournament reward chests?

If the issue is that you’re scared or angry about being in the dark, well I’m sorry. But ranting about it here isn’t changing anything.

I’m of the opinion that there should be a balance patch every 3 months if able. So a season should either be short (6-8 weeks with another 4-6 weeks as off season) or be long with a mid season patch (4-5 months with another 1-2 months as off season). If you went with the mid season patch, then that would be the minor shaving patch. The off season patch would be much more major with the mid season patch adding a couple of corrections for the run up to the season finals.

I just want to jump in and mention that we really need a Borderland change up. In the past, they were designed with keeps that had the primary purpose of holding Orbs of Power. But with that mechanic changed, we have the issue with the Borderlands not making much logical sense. So next we’d need to decide what’s the main and important point of the Borderlands.

If it’s the keeps and the points they represent, then towers should be placed in such a way to help defend major paths to the keeps. They can then work as proper outposts and watch for zergs/militia/whathaveyou.

If it’s the middle area and getting the new version of the Orb of Power buff, then that entire area needs to have more ways of interacting with the rest of the map, even if it’s just better routes into each of them from the outside. Just like towers used to be necessary as they made great staging points for sieging a keep, a keep would then become more necessary as areas to deploy troops into the Borderland center by using their waypoints.

Personally, I’d prefer if keeps were the primary reason. But there’s merit to having something else be the major focus so that you can get a balance excuse to keep waypoints in keeps and cut down on travel time to parts of the battlefield. But then I’d also like better routes to keeps from spawn (for when they’re taken) ala Eternal Battlegrounds.

I’m suddenly having deja vu… maybe I did post in this thread before?

I’ve mentioned it before but,

“One person can’t do it all.”

How you feel about this statement tends to decide where you are on the downed state debate. Rallying is a different issue.

@Blood Red Arachnid, there’s a third caveat. You’d lose the mechanic of applying a condition and then boosting its damage via Might stacks. Worth can also be debated and etc. etc.

I picture a system that would take all of the damage you would take from bleed+burn+poison for their combined durations and grey out that part of the health orb. Confusion gets no change, and I think Torment should be added but a decision has to be made on whether you’d have the greyed orb section dynamically change for when you’re moving or not.

As for long duration small stacks of bleed vs. short duration high stacks of bleed, you still have your regular UI telling you how many bleed stacks you have. An indicator on the orb would just be in addition to the current system.

Sunshine.5014:

• Grey out the HP bar portion to display how much future condition damage will take.

The one thing about your post that I want to pop in and highlight. This would be a really, really great idea. It would give more clarity over how much danger you’re in so you don’t pop a bunch of cleanses or heals if you’re not actually going fall over if you don’t. It reminds me of the health pip system in GW1, lol.

Edit: Looking at the thread linked, I see that there are some ideas and variations that I don’t completely disagree with. I was picturing a system that would take all of the damage you would take from bleed+burn+poison for their combined durations and grey out that part of the health orb. Confusion gets no change, and I think Torment should be added but a decision has to be made on whether you’d have the greyed orb section dynamically change for when you’re moving or not.

Some type of “Beginner’s League!” would be great in addition to an unranked queue.

KarlaGrey.5903:

ColinJohanson.2394:

I will add a fun fact: When rewards were updated in December, PvP saw a 40% growth in player numbers that has stayed solid ever since, the largest single jump in player participation in any game content type as a result of an update we’ve ever seen. This growth was almost entirely players who didn’t play PvP before, who suddenly became interested once it was rewarding, and I’d argue it’s not even that rewarding yet. To discount rewards as meaningless might be true to you as a player, but we consistently hear very different feedback from other players, and they make this very clear in their actions. We need to make sure players who truly care about prestige and being the best are catered to, and we need a way for players who aren’t that yet can become excited and invested and someday potentially become part of the first.

The quoted post below answers your argument of numbers perfectly.

style.6173:

I will add a fun fact: When rewards were updated in December, PvP saw a 40% growth in player numbers that has stayed solid ever since, the largest single jump in player participation in any game content type as a result of an update we’ve ever seen. This growth was almost entirely players who didn’t play PvP before, who suddenly became interested once it was rewarding, and I’d argue it’s not even that rewarding yet. To discount rewards as meaningless might be true to you as a player, but we consistently hear very different feedback from other players, and they make this very clear in their actions. We need to make sure players who truly care about prestige and being the best are catered to, and we need a way for players who aren’t that yet can become excited and invested and someday potentially become part of the first.

First, I do think rewards are important, but I wouldn’t say that was the main reason for the increase. In December, it was a perfect storm of :

1. a lackluster holiday update (the one from a year ago was much more exciting given the newness and the multi day event)
2. WvW burnout. This was as a result of the league ending and people taking a break. I’d bet that if you reported the WvW numbers between the december update and the eotm launch, those numbers would show a big drop off
3. People trying to use their glory boosters

That said, I do think that rewards need to be increased. I’m actually VERY worried about removing glory in another 2+ weeks. I don’t think that is a very good idea to remove glory prior to the new rewards being ready.

I just want to say that outside of possibly the glory booster answer, none of these point to why that PvP population boost has stayed consistent. And even then, the purpose of using glory boosters at this point is to accelerate the obtaining of PvP rewards, which ties back into rewards being a big reason for the population boost. Even if they were just trying to grab 18/20-slot bags, level up Tomes, and Living Story rewards then it points to rewards that are useful to all sections of the game, and not just PvP only, are valued by a significant portion of the playerbase that like PvP enough to continue to play it.

Basically, while the quote does point to the reasons for the uptick, it doesn’t really disprove Colin’s point (which I assume you were trying to refute).

What if you changed the contesting mechanic? If you outnumber the enemy on the point, you slowly capture it anyway. You leave your other points at risk though.

Or change the capture/contesting mechanic in some other way?

I made a post about adapting the Starcraft 2 system here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Collaborative-Development-Ladders-Seasons/3683284

But I also want to add that the main reason why I prefer the Starcraft 2 system is because of a blog post I read years ago here: http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2010/7/24/analyzing-starcraft-2s-ranking-system.html

@Dekar, I believe they already posted in their FAQ that when it comes to Glory Boosters, you’re going to have to delete any leftover ones. And they’ve been saying for months now to blow your glory savings before “glory is phased out,” which I believe is also the wording used for the upcoming patch.

The one thing they haven’t answered to my recollection is what happens to any leftover glory, but that can be solved by just blowing all your glory right now instead of waiting until after the patch.

From what we know, we are not getting anything beyond the glory removal on March 18th. The big pvp patch will happen later.

There are a number of games with league systems that we can rip from and tweak. Here’s one, but this may not be the one that best fits Guild Wars 2.

Proposal:
Make a League similar to what’s currently in Starcraft 2.

Attributes of Starcraft 2’s League:
Ranking:

• The detailed explanation can be found here but I’ll provide a quick summary: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Battle.net_Leagues
• There are two primary details about the SC2 system that I feel should not be overlooked. First is the fact that there is a public rating system that is separate from but informed by a private MMR system. There are seven levels of ranks named off of alloys. Each of these levels represents a percentage of the active ranked playing population. The top level, titled Grandmaster, doesn’t follow a percentage however and instead is only given to a flat number of the highest rated individuals. In SC2, that becomes the top 200 players in a region (the regions being NA, EU, and Asia). To rank up, you must consistently keep your rating points above a cut off level for several matches. Each rank level has a cutoff, and rating is gained and lost from playing against other players, so the fact that there’s a total number of points in the system helps to preserve the percentage of players in each rank.
• The second detail is a bonus pool that works off the public rating points system. Normally, you gain and lose rating points with every win and loss. But in addition, every X number of minutes you get points added to a pool that maxes out after a week. Whenever you win a match on top of the rating points you normally get you also get bonus points from this pool. Whenever you lose a match your rating points are first deducted from this pool. This serves three purposes: players that play often get to see numbers go up, this effectively acts as a global decay system for ratings, and players that don’t play very often have a buffer so they don’t completely lose their rating while getting warmed up and reacquainted with the game.

Rewards:

• Beyond having a new rank level symbol, the only other rewards to consider are the ones already voiced by the playerbase: unique skins and finishers. Getting skins would have to be from a process that never went back down; achievements and achievement tracks. Certain skins can be tied to things already implemented in game, like winning a certain amount of ranked games with a specific class. You can give armor skins for certain types of tracks, and weapon skins for others. Achievement skins can also be given out for reaching a certain rank level for the first time in your account, even if you lose that rank level during the next season.
• Finishers are better tied to your rank symbol level; if you lose your rank, even because of a reset for the next season, you lose that finisher until you reobtain that rank symbol. I also personally think that you should only have access to the finisher of your rank level, so if you reach Master you can’t at all use the Bronze, Silver, or Gold finisher. The game already seems to be placed in this trench with certain finishers like the World Champ and WvW Season finishers but I wanted to reiterate the point.
• Almost forgot, rank levels should get a badge next to your character name (like a title) that shows across all areas of the game. When players disable titles from appearing on screen they can also disable the badges.

Issues:

• Starcraft 2’s system works well for a 1v1 game. But Guild Wars 2 is a team game where players will complain about losing points due to bad teammates (the bonus pool system will help alleviate this). The easy way to do this would just to keep the current solo queue and team queue system, but I and many others find that unsatisfying for those in groups under five players.
• Starcraft 2 goes through the trouble of having a different queue for each team size and whether you enter the queue with a specific team or go solo and get a randomized group. Starcraft 2 also remembers each and every team combination you queue up with and rates them each differently while keeping in mind that certain teams can never face each other since their rosters each share a player (for the purpose of rank level population percentages).
• The direct comparison solution would be to have a large variety of queues for different player sizes (and therefore, different modes that accomadate these different sizes), but that could easily turn into a mess. An easier solution would be to at the very least add one more mode and three small maps designed around a team size of 3v3. Then you’d have four queues: solo conquest, team conquest, solo 3v3 mode, and team 3v3 mode.

I’m guessing Warrior nerfing or Elementalist buffing will be the profession picked if left to the PvP community.

I’m personally interested in changing Mesmer so it doesn’t rely entirely on Deceptive Evasion.

I’ve been wondering if it might be necessary to make alterations to the amulet, like having Healing Power being the major stat instead of Power, or replacing one of the stats with Vitality.

But there isn’t really a good way to test if altering Zealot is necessary other than crafting a bunch of gear and going to town in WvW with a bunch of classes/builds.

I actually made a thread about Retaliation ticking damage for conditions in the Profession Balance forum not too long ago: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Retaliation-retuned-for-Condition-Damage

Mostly went ignored. Alternatively it’d be cool if a new boon was added (or this effect was added to a current boon) that used the same 33% condition duration reduction effect that you get from Guardian’s Purging Flames utility.

I’m personally of the side that conditions are mostly fine and the meta just needs some tweaks to condition removal and application, but if enough players are complaining about it I’m willing to work with them for a solution that makes everyone happy.

First, I said it was part of the reason. Not the primary reason or even close to the top of the list. I’m just noting that almost every build that has entered the meta since last summer has been a build that can take out a Guardian or bunker near as well as a Guardian while still being able to have an effect on a team fight. The closest thing to an exception I’ve seen is decap Engineer, which can still at least take a point out from under a Guardian. The point is that no build makes it into the meta unless it can do something about Guardians or is guaranteed to do something about the other 4 players no matter what they’re playing.

Second, just because healers and tanks in every other holy trinity game may have been harder to play than other roles didn’t mean you couldn’t have a healer that outshone every other healing build or a tank that made every other tank spec looks subpar. I never said Bunker Guardians were easy. I only said that they were OP for their role. If you want to disagree that they’re OP at Support because of their added survivability then you can at least admit they’re in the “apex predator” position like Phanta did above.

Survivability doesn’t equal Support. That’s what half of the other classes in the game are forced to learn. But Guardian’s level Survivability + Support mean that I can’t see any other class, or even any other combination of classes ever becoming a viable alternative to running a Guardian + other guys.

I can’t even append “at least in conquest” to the end of that last sentence because their only real weakness seems to be swiftness. But if some other team mode required Guardians to be more mobile then between Staff and teammates they’d easily be mobile enough. People would just adapt the rest of their team’s comp to keep the Guardian. They’re just that good at what they do.

What is the definition of something being overpowered? When it can do a job better than anything else can even when that job is supposed to be accessible to others. Warriors are overpowered because they can bunker + kill too well. Some people are calling Thieves overpowered because their mobility + killing power pushes Mesmers and Elementalists off the table. And I’ve always considered Guardians overpowered at the role of Support. Being overpowered doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be nerfed, but usually a nerf is chanted about because the alternative is power creep. At least in the case of everyone else’s Support ability power creep wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

I didn’t say it was the be-all end-all reason. I’m just saying it’s part. There has been power creep in all sorts of builds but the main ones that make it into conquest are the ones that can have an impact on the mode, of which Guardians are a staple.

The fact that Skyhammer asks you to adapt a bit isn’t a bad thing in itself. It’s just that the reward/punishment involved is too large. It doesn’t just bring up the effectiveness of a certain part of the game; it raises that part of the game to be the most effective strategy and by too large a margin.

If getting knocked off the map didn’t kill you but, let’s say, immediately warped you back to spawn without any respawn timer it would be a lot less problematic.

I guess I just find it distasteful to have any class be so hard to kill while also putting out so much support. It feels unbalancing for the game mode and is part of the reason why the meta has shifted to what it is now (more classes running tankier builds so they can approach the point holding ability Guardians have, and more classes running conditions to help deal with both Guardians and other tanky builds).

Edit: To put it another way, when a build is made to maximize offense and therefore its effective potential in a fight, you want it to be easy to put down. The inverse should be true; becoming more tanky/survivable should lower your effectiveness in a fight. But Guardians get to be survivable and keep a high effectiveness in fights (albeit team fights) because of their support ability.

Support should be considered on that balance scale. Building for support should limit both your damage and survivability rating.

Poxheart.2845:

styx.7294:

Dynnen.6405:

I would like to see links on where Anet said they wanted this for a specific reason. People say “Anet wanted EotM for X or Y reason” and I don’t remember them saying any of that

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Edge-of-the-Mists-FAQ/first#post3050508

Grotesque.6479:
“Q11: What do you view under ‘We want the best WvW experience’? What is the goal of WvW and what would be the best WvW experience with the addition of this map?”

DevonCarver
“11) The goal of this map is to provide a place for the thousands of people who queue daily to be able to experience the WvW experience rather than being left out. There will be massive battles, epic sieges, stirring defenses, and crushing defeats on this map. We want as many people as possible to be playing WvW and as we expand into other territories we want to make sure they don’t experience the massive queues that we saw at launch in NA/EU.”

The problem with Devon’s response is that EotM is about 3 or 4 months too late. There hasn’t been queues in NA T1 servers since the leagues ended (dunno if Euro T1 has queues). Last week I could join any map at any time w/o a queue. That’s the thing people at ANet should be looking at.

Well, yeah. You don’t rush it into the game during the middle of a season. You prepare it before the next season starts.

Personally, I dislike bunker Guardians just because they’re too good at what they do. Healing + Condi removal + Stability and all AoE. They’re overpowered for the Support role but no one seems to mind because they don’t kill anybody. But having such a difficult to kill spec with zero pressure damage-wise just seems like a bad design choice to allow in a control point type of mode. Then again, the capture rules have also felt like a bad design choice from the beginning since it enables low damage bunker and decap playstyles to help with the score rather than just help their teammates get the score.

They’d be better in a mode that focused more on killing for the win rather than killing leading indirectly to capturing for the victory condition.

It takes what I like about WvW: a PvP battleground that involves large objectives going around. Combined with interesting geometry to get into fights around. I was actually surprised how rarely I got into situations where I could fall off a ledge. You don’t need always need to go below to avoid zergs.

They took out all the random mobs and so the only enemies around are related to objectives, and they made their AI smarter so when players aren’t around it isn’t a 100% bore. As it is, I’m pretty happy with it. It feels like WvW distilled.

Cannons didn’t feel that bad to me, tbh. They never seemed that difficult to rush and while they have decent range they never cover an entire area. But I should go and check just how much it covers.

I also like the fact that the AI will build up defenses in towers while you’re away.

It takes what I like about WvW: a PvP battleground that involves large objectives going around. Combined with interesting geometry to get into fights around. I was actually surprised how rarely I got into situations where I could fall off a ledge.

They took out all the random mobs and so the only enemies around are related to objectives, and they made their AI smarter so when players aren’t around it isn’t a 100% bore. As it is, I’m pretty happy with it. While the zerg wasn’t eliminated, it also felt much smaller.

Cynz.9437:

lemme guess you play aoe spamming engi

Nope. Never once played Engineer in PvP. Guess again.

Well, in any game the first step to becomming better is learning how to stay alive longer. Whether it be through positioning defensive abilities, or by learning how to properly CC or trick their opponent.

Foefire is my second most disliked map. (Skyhammer the worst by far)

1. It’s too snowbally.
2. Mid is too large, favoring ever lasting bunker specs.
3. Its secondary objective/mechanic is only a factor at the end of a game, if at all.
4. Waterfall.

And from all the tournaments I’ve been watching lately, it’s also the most boring map from a spectator perspective.

Honestly, if I was going to increase the point per kill to 10… I’d also disable the side nodes, making it effectively King of the Hill with some side objectives you can use to keep in the fight. That would create a more kill centric game mode where holding a cap would give you a marginal advantage.

And yeah, custom arenas could use more toggles for this kind of stuff.

Are people thinking that you get a retal for each bleed tick? That’s not what I wrote.

I’ll explain again: You get one retal tick, total, maximum, no more than that, for every opponent that has any number damage per second condition. If you place one bleed, you get one retal tick per second. If you place 5 bleeds, you still only get one retal tick per second. If place 10 bleeds, 5 seconds of poison, and 8 seconds of burning, you still only get one retal tick per second maximum.

Retal damage would probably need to be lowered. In the case of PvE you’ll do some damage to mobs that poison or bleed you as long as they don’t have a condition damage stat as ridiculous as most mobs have in power. It’ll still be overall not very useful unless you add extra functionality to it.