Guild Wars 2

go to MMO-Champion and read the pages and pages of blue posts where “they” discuss balance decisions, upcoming changes and give examples of what the development process is like. That game is by no means perfect, but their communication is pretty astounding compared to Helen Keller here.

a company that refuses to give ETAs is a company that knows it’s not efficient enough to meet that goal.

SteepledHat.1345:

There’s already far too much UI obscuring my screen. How about making it so I can shift the location of the, already massive, UI we have first?

This may be the most minimalistic UI I have ever seen in an MMO. What are you talking about?

Evan Lesh.3295:

I would love to find of a solution to this problem. Its a big barrier for new players learning the game.
Brain dump:
How many of your own cooldowns must you know to be effective. Skills? Traits? Sigils? Runes? Attunements? Kits? Transforms? Everything?
How many cooldowns are too many cooldowns / whats the minimum number to know?
Same question for enemies. How much skill is involved with remembering enemy cooldowns?
Would this new piece of UI benefit PvE the same amount?
Where could this UI live?
First thing that pops into my mind would look just like the quick-loot tray on the right side of the screen with a scrolling list of ordered cooldowns showing name/icon.
I can’t think of any way this could work for enemies.

I don’t think knowing the internal cool down of an enemy player’s move is important. But having your own displayed somewhere in a UI element that you can toggle is essential. There is just so much guess work in so many things in PvP in this game. What is my MMR? What is my dps? What are my internal cool down? What is the healing that this trait provides? What is the health of the enemy I’m about to attack?

this game supplies its players with the least amount of information in any game. No enemy health, no proper tools to determine DPS, traits and skills with vague descriptions. they have dictator control over their info and won’t be sharing it. don’t expect ICD info…ever.

I think making custom Arenas as customizable as possible would be the best thing for the community and the devs. By putting the creativity in our hands we could make the fun things we want while Anet focusses on whatever it is they think is important.

Win win for everyone.

Anet has some very creative events for the holidays. Each monthly patch comes with some neat features and things like this 8- bit world are pretty creative.

But, for me it’s hard to get excited for all of these things knowing that it is happening “over there” while nothing happens in PvP land. The programming and game designing that stuff took could have been spent here. it feels like your parents telling you they are too broke to buy you braces and then the next day they drive home in a new Camaro.

Another thread and a sticky already discussing it.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

I always like buying cars without wheels

We are looking at how wheels will spin and which wheel size to install, but we can’t really talk about that yet. We’ve got a lot of things on our agenda and we’re not sure wheels are really that important quite yet. We think that installing on-star and giving you an opportunity to pay a monthly fee for road side service is better at this point. We are looking at feedback on the forums and we love the ideas in this thread!

forrae.6708:

usually i would complain about this too, but right now im just too furious at how awful temple of whatever storms is.

You don’t like that map? I think temple is a really well made map. Fun side objectives and the map layout is great.

JonathanSharp.7094:

NOW = no.

In upcoming patches will Warriors see some changes? = yes.

In the SoTG you guys said that you were no longer going to roll out big patches with all of the changes lumped together, and instead looking at releasing stuff on it’s own when it’s ready. Does balance also follow that philosophy or will those changes still be rolled out during the monthly updates?

Thanks

This post makes me sad. It’s one of the negative side-effects of not properly introducing a system at launch that would encourage growth, proper competition, and sustainability.

When the system first started, there was a thriving population that would support the things they are trying to do now. 7 months later, the changes are being added into a population that has been decimated.

Sorry you tried it, and sorry the system failed you.

I do appreciate the change, the only downside is that even more pre-mades will be in the single round. The solo experience is already a bit of an uphill climb facing pre-mades half the time. Anytime you add more pre-mades to the mix, the solo queuer is negatively affected.

Not complaining about the change, just the temporary side-effects.

chrisk.4320:

felivear.1536:

Create a character, have a friend invite you to a party, right click friend and choose “join friend in PvP”.

Problem solved.

Problem solved.

If I had friends. =(

Still, I can’t see how that is any easier. I would have to bug my theoretical friends.

lol ya, then that’s a problem. I do feel you though, my friends list is empty as well. But when I had friends….I was skippin that prologue!

Create a character, have a friend invite you to a party, right click friend and choose “join friend in PvP”.

Problem solved.

gwawer.9805:

what game are you talking about? i would like to try it thanks. im guessing it’s chivalry. got boring for me unless it’s forge which looks very limited right now. plus assasin class looks very annoying OP in that game. and there’s no warrior class only a gaurdian/palladin

The game, I am assuming is Forge. I bought it the day it came out. It’s a very fun PvP only game.

With SPvP being segregated if you gave people gold or silver for wins, there would need to be something for them to spend it on in PvP. Currently, there is 0 reason to spend gold, therefor, given them 0 reason to give gold.

I like the idea of adding some extra incentives to winning the 3 round tournament, but gold probably isn’t one that’s needed.

Valkyriez.6578:

felivear.1536:

I like the patch; however, I am still just waiting for a proper solo queue. I ran 4 games today, won 3 of them in fun, competitive matches and then the 4th was up against a premade and we lost 500-200.

• I like the laurel change
• Leaderboards are pointless to me (a solo only player) because I’m lumped in with whole teams
• I’m fine with the quickness nerf as long as they buff the abilities that relied on it

I also play solo alot and leaderboards are very important to me. If the population gains a bit and the solo/team que is split, leaderboards will be the single most important thing about GW2. Ranking progression beats any other progression and that’s the exact reason games like MOBA’s etc are popular, the solo progression.

Based on what I read and how I interpret the leaderboards, it will be a website with the top X (starting at top 100 players) listed. You can filter the top 100 in achievements, PvP ranking and WvW ranking. Let’s say they eventually end up getting it to top 500. In a popular game (which clearly SPvP is not) you would really never break the top 500 as a solo-only player, because there will be almost all players that are team players ahead of you.

I could be misunderstanding the way this will work, but if this is how it will work, solo queuers will be left off completely.

The biggest issues I have with the way Anet designs stuff

• 1st – They don’t ask for any input from players (via a PUBLIC test server).
• 2nd – They don’t post their future changes on the forums for discussion and we end up with ninja nerf, patches, and game features.
• 3rd – Many of those changes are loathed by the community or they simply don’t work (some do).
• 4th – They then are very stubborn in changing those features into something that reflects what the community wants, most likely out of arrogance.

These 4 things are a disaster. I still can’t wrap my head around why they have no way to test or discuss future changes, and then drag their feet forever to change them when they find they don’t work.

forrae.6708:

LF 2’s partner to carry me for weekly cap

felivear.1536:

gwawer.9805:

yeah i wish PVE and PVP would sever ties. someone make a kickstarter game campaign for a PVP only MMO controls style game just like gw2 but without all the PVE junk

There is one hitting kickstarter in April. Camelot: Unchained.

looked at their website, immedietly got out because of comic sans

haha. Watch a video online of their design philosphy. It’s Mark Jacobs, the creator of DaoC. It’s a hardcore, strictly PvP game. Should be interesting.

I could be wrong, but I think that the PvP devs probably know that the warrior is very underwhelming in this facet of the game. I also know, for whatever reason, they are pretty reluctant to segregate PvE and PvP in regards to balance. They want “PvE players to feel comfortable when coming into PvP and having different skill effects and damage numbers would be jarring for a PvE player”.

I hear warriors in the WvW and PvE are like superheroes.

This takes me to one of my biggest gripes with GW2 in regards to what I thought it was compared to what it is: I was sold on “we have a completely different system for PvE and PvP where we can easily balance PvP and while not having to change the PvE aspect”. Wonderful that you have that technology, it’s a darn shame you refuse to use it.

e-sport? more like PVe-Sport

gwawer.9805:

yeah i wish PVE and PVP would sever ties. someone make a kickstarter game campaign for a PVP only MMO controls style game just like gw2 but without all the PVE junk

There is one hitting kickstarter in April. Camelot: Unchained.

I like the patch; however, I am still just waiting for a proper solo queue. I ran 4 games today, won 3 of them in fun, competitive matches and then the 4th was up against a premade and we lost 500-200.

• I like the laurel change
• Leaderboards are pointless to me (a solo only player) because I’m lumped in with whole teams
• I’m fine with the quickness nerf as long as they buff the abilities that relied on it

I hope this isn’t taken as offensive, but this is why games should never lump PvP in with PvE.
PvE players (often) want an easy slot machine. There is a title, a reward, an achievement, or whatever. They want it, but they don’t want to actually do the work for it.

You see a PvP achievement, that is for winning a PvP match and you want to buy it. These are the same reasons why PvE changes to a PvP game stink. They are often to cater to individuals who just want every reward handed to them.

Again, I know I’m making a generalization and I don’t want to be offensive, but I don’t think any PvP game can thrive with PvE as the main element. Sorry again, it’s not you, it’s this game.

forrae.6708:

obviously troll is obvious.

He’s not trolling. He’s a highly skilled player. Having said that, I play a thief and I run a bursty build with high regen, condition clear stealth. I don’t use quickness, but I can see how it does really hurt some builds that rely on it. I don’t mind that they removed quickness, they just need to either A) lower the TTK for all by lowering the efectiveness of defensive builds or b) buff the abilities / builds that required quickness as a component to make it successful (ie GS warrior, pistol whip thief, etc).

And yes, it is very difficult to land 100b burst or pistol whip burst on good players. Any move that requires quickness was mostly used to coordinate focus burst on a target. I am pretty glassy as a thief, and I always have my finger on shadow step or blinding powder to be able to quickly negate incoming burst. If those are on CD and I get hit, that’s bad play on my part.

Anyway, I’m not partial one way or another on the removal of quickness, but I do see many builds that will become useless until they buff the abilities that relied on haste to make them effective.

Zikory.6871:

Think about this, In PvE you can kill mobs solo over and over for little XP or your can farm group events for bigger XP. Which one would you do if your trying to farm XP? As a zerg you can cover more objectives faster. WvW has always been this way but that doesn’t mean killing yaks and camp flipping aren’t any less important.

Another way to look at it is when a new MMO comes out (say the release of GW2) Everyone rushes to get to cap level and farm the hell out of everything, at some point most people die out of that and find more fun ways to spend there time. This will be the same…everyone is farming WXP and zerging is the best way…at some point people calm down and it will go back to how it was (to a point) zerging will always be there but you’ll end up finding more roamers once everyone gets to ranks they feel happy about.

I guess I just misunderstood some of the points of the new patch. I may have heard it from somewhere other than the devs, but I thought this patch was going to implement changes that would discourage zerging. Again, I may have made that up in my mind.

So, I just started to WvW today. I was excited for the changes and I am looking forward to getting WXP. I was under the impression that doing small camp flips, dolyak kills, and sniping stragglers would grant me decent WXP, but I am finding that my guildmates earned almost 3 times as much as me by joining the zerg and just running from point to point.

Maybe this is the design of WvW and my naivety is shining through. Is WvW a “zerg or get out” game mode?

Serendipity.8326:

On the topic of laurels, apparently people are getting 10 laurels from completely the PvP Monthly now. I wonder if anything will be done to reward those who completed the PvP Monthly before, since 10 laurels (and another one for completing today’s daily after the update) is quite a significant amount.

felivear.1536:

Won’t this entice PvE players to come join us?

Probably not, since they can still get their laurel from PvE. Still a good change though.

I hit my monthly before the patch, does that mean I miss out on 10 just because I was playing before this hit?

So, it has kinda flown under the radar, but isn’t this a huge change? I already earned a laurel today after only playing for around 20 minutes. Won’t this entice PvE players to come join us? To me, this is a great change. Good job Anet, I think this is a great step in the right direction.

So, I see we earn laurels in pvp now. Since I don’t PvE I don’t know much about them. Is it 1 laurel per day, per account?

Someone buy one of these and report back with what exactly you can customize in the arena. I would, but I’m at work. Go!

jkctmc.8754:

playandchill.3908:

kerona.3465:

So basically we’re getting access to what we already have.

This.

Anet could add ascended/WvW exclusive stuff. It´s not that hard technically and they had more than half a year to do so.

I think they dont want it. Because they dont want PVE players forced to play in WvW (or they QQ+quit).

It´s a terrible thing.

WvW in Gw 2 ll never be as rewarding as a pure WvW game.

Well at least we have fun.

I know a lot of people who have been holding out, waiting for this patch, and will quit if they are forced to PvE, to get gear that should also be available in WvW, doing nothing but WvW. It’s sad that in sPvP they don’t have to level, or take the time to get gear, yet WvW players have to leave WvW to farm for gold to buy upgrades for keeps, or to run dungeons to get equal gear. It’s sad really.

lol, well said from someone who doesn’t SPvP. This quote kills me “in sPvP they don’t have to level, or take the time to get gear”.

Where to begin. First of all, we get gear there that can only be used there. It is only a skin and has no statistical advantage. If you played WvW from the time the game launched until now, you could quit and go play PvE and still have good gear and a level 80 to play with. If you did the same thing in SPvP (which is what I have done) you will be starting at level 1 in every other aspect of the game.

Also, your statement that we basically get gear for free. There was a post where it broke down how long it would take to get skins (the good ones) in WvW, compared to Pve, compared to SPvP. It takes roughly 40% longer to get the same gear in SPvP. Again, keep in mind, once we get that gear, it magically disappears as soon as we exit the Mist. I understand you want features, but please don’t start comparing things you know nothing about.

Mesmers are good in 1v1s in that they can prolong a fight long enough to get support if not outright win the 1v1. They have many tools to mitigate or otherwise evade burst. But where a mesmer really shines is in group fights. They have so much group utility while having a myriad of abilities to drop target and slip out of the fight for a moment (which is all you typically need in a group fight to evade focus). Not to mention many of their builds have great AoE damage and conditions.

Controlling of the stats and gear is one way they’ve been able to achieve pretty good balance. I too like more customization, but in a game that is striving to be an e-sport (whether it gets there or not is still TBD), limiting your variables is a must.

I do wish they were add 1 or 2 more amulets that covered a few more desired combinations, but for SPvP, I’m fine with having pre-set stat combos.

But, where we should get a trade-off for this statistical control is more freedom in the trait choices, but I feel the pre-picked 5-15-25 traits coupled with the way some traits are needlessly in trees that you typically wouldn’t want to go in for some builds, adds too much limitation.

manveruppd.7601:

Some very cool suggestions here, hope one of the devs takes a look at this!

felivear.1536:

All you have to do as a Dev for Anet is incorporate positive mentions, or “POS-MENS” of GE products into your program. For example you could create a game mode where one of your character purchases, and is satisfied with one of GE’s direct current drilling motors for off-shore or land-based projects.

Product integration; setting a new standard in upward revenue-stream dynamics.

Sir, you win the thread for your impeccable 30 Rock referencing! I think all other comments are superfluous, and if ANet know what’s good for them you’ll get a phone call from Mike O’Brian offering you a job as the head of their microwaves division tomorrow! :p

Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming

I cannot express how much I love that you got my reference.

All you have to do as a Dev for Anet is incorporate positive mentions, or “POS-MENS” of GE products into your program. For example you could create a game mode where one of your character purchases, and is satisfied with one of GE’s direct current drilling motors for off-shore or land-based projects.

Product integration; setting a new standard in upward revenue-stream dynamics.

waka.9826:

Most satisfying kill is letting warriors go into vengeance and just running away so they die on their own.

On my thief, I just shortbow #5 back and forth and watch them run around frantically on life support while I watch them die.

ensoriki.5789:

felivear.1536:

So, technically you’re right, but they worded it brilliantly for folks like yourself.

Lol @ attacking the guy based on imaginary perception.

I just be waiting for dem Custom Arenas and for them to shift Mugs damage over to Tripwire and Needle trap for teh Trap Thief meta (lol wot). To counter the future Turretmeta and Mesmer beam meta.

I’ve already got my Mesmer name saved for the new beam meta. I won’t spoil it, but on march 26th, prepare for dem lazerz.

guza.6170:

they already said there is no big patch.

They said Feb or March would be the big patch, and then on the state of the game, right before this patch that people were expecting was to be released, they said “oh, well, we no longer believe in rolling out big patches, we’ll just release stuff when it’s ready”.

So, technically you’re right, but they worded it brilliantly for folks like yourself. They made it sound like a cool new feature and a way to get content out faster, in fact, it was a clever way of saying “um…ya…it’s not ready, we didn’t get it ready for this time frame we set out, so we’ll just release it when it’s done, which we can never talk about before it’s done.”

I expect a ninja patch in June that adds some stuff.

Well, it’s 2 days before the patch, and like every other patch since November, here is my obligatory “Will this be the patch that decides your future here” thread.

After each patch, the numbers are cut into fractions. Currently we are all but extinct, but for the few masochists remaining, we are still waiting for this mythical patch that will bring about harmony.

So, I ask: if this patch isn’t the one, are you done as well? I think from the patch notes, this one is less of a “big PvP patch” than any other, even though it has been touted as the big one. At one point, Colin Brohanson, or Co Co BroChocho, said that Feb and Mar will be the time for PvP to get major updates and he equated it to “an expansions worth of content”.

Anywho, thoughts?

It’s just another example of how PvP is botched. New players need a simple, self-explanatory way to get into PvP and yet there are examples like this spread all over the Mist.

Pro-Tip: Don’t use that button, manually search for a server that has 2 or 3 less than full (sometimes if you queue for one with 1 spot left and someone beats you to it, instead of saying the server is full, the query to the server just times out, but it takes like 1 minute before you get the message).
Pro-Tip 2: Don’t stay in hot joins long, get in there, learn your moves and some basic fighting tactics and GTFO. It’s a cesspool and you will learn terrible habits.

Jeknar.6184:

You can level up and gear yourself in WvWvW…

OFC your character, even tho it’s upleveled, you won’t match the level 80 full exotics out there, but as soon you hit 80 and the exotic gear from the badges of honor, you will be able to compete in equal footing…

When I said equal footing for that, I meant we all start at 0 progression on March 26th right? So even though I’m only 40, I’ll be able to start at the same place a level 80 in full exotics is starting.

So, since Structured PvP (saying S PvP is censored here???) is still in beta, I am going to try WvW. I have sampled it many times, but it wasn’t my flavor. I am now interested in the progression being introduced in the March 26th patch, which is what left me wanting more on my previous attempts.

So, since I don’t fully understand what is going on here, help me out.

I have a lvl 40 character, because my 600+ hours were spent (wasted?) in SPvP. I now have nothing to show for it. So, when I start in WvW, will I be on equal footing (progression-wise) with everyone else that also plays after the patch? Also, since I detest PvE, will I have any chance of getting the top tier gear from my WvW progression? If not the pinnacle of gear, can I at least get something close?

I’m going to start leveling now to get as close to 80 as possible before patch, but I guess I just don’t fully grasp what I can achieve by just doing WvW.

Thanks for the advice!

incoming hot join heroes:

" I am the greatest alive!"

This post was just weird. Truly, this game has the best PvP ever and that’s why it is a thriving SPVP community where 1000s of active players fight nightly and 3 round tournaments pop without waiting.

The only problem is the community and the naysayers and we need to do more. I’m not sure what more we need to do, maybe QT wants us to do some programming code for ladders, visible ranks, custom servers, spectator mode, etc. and then send our lines of code in a submission in a private message to the DEVs. Clearly, the game is in a great shape and we’re just whiny brats. 7 Months is not enough time to get features in to support the game mode. I don’t care that other games have them in during beta. THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVA!!

This post was a either a joke and I don’t get it, or you are delusional since you haven’t’ been playing the game and you’re missing it like a girl you dumped, forgetting that she was crazy and only remembering the great love making.

Either way, enjoy Korea.

Yep I agree. Doubtful it’ll happen anytime soon but would be nice.

I enjoyed the drinking-game banter, DEVs. You are so lucky I didn’t add “we’re looking at that”, “in the future”, or “on our plates”. ….hic!

Well, first you guys did great. Really appreciated the pressing questions when they gave vague answers. Both of you guys pressed for details without being jerks. Grouch did great and I actually saw him physically restrain himself from saying “fair enough” lol.

Overall, with the DEV responses. Again, I walk away hating their ‘silence is golden’ policy. When they actually talk, you can tell they are down-to-earth and approachable guys, but then as soon as they SotG ends, because of the imminent silence, they go back to “seeming” like recluses.

I hated the leaderboard talk, because it basically means were still a few months away from the most important feature (imo) which is gauging your skill against others. Not only that, we’re still not going to know if player A is better than you or if player A is a team queuer. Can’t we get a stat that says “games won – games won solo” that way we can at least say, “OK, he’s a team queuer, I can disregard him.”

Nero, Xeph, and Grouch did great. Thanks for the questions and also pressing for more details.

Overall, I’m still not 100% where we are as far as development toward esport because of so much ambiguity from the DEVS.

Also, nice drinking game references. I can tell when you guys talk that you are very approachable and down to earth devs, it’s a shame your “no talking” policy makes you seem otherwise.

Thoughts?

Also, take 2 shots when jsharp looks at another dev and says “I think we can talk a little about that”.