Pyksel
Rasterizing . . .
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Hopefully it'll settle down the server hopping but it doesn't fix the underlying fundamental problems of WvW feeling like disposable content with the weekly resets.
Guild Wars 2
- Thread starter Tral_sl
- Start date
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
- 7,986
- 9,719
The original plan was every two weeks, if I remember right.
The reset is useful for two things: stopping the bonus from climbing forever ; making sure you don't end up all the time as the server with +10 pt per period for the entire duration...
Pyksel
Rasterizing . . .
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I understand the necessity for the reset due to the design of WvW, I just never liked it because in most cases (not all), the scores were determined within the first couple of days. I know that's not always the case as we ourselves have pulled out some amazing victories within the last few days of the reset which is why I believe in order for it to not feel as though it's completely disposable the system would need to be overhauled. I think the focus would shift from watching the scores tick long enough to see if it's mathematically impossible for the opponents to catch up or determine if you should just give up. I think that's part of the reason I would like to see complete removal of the scoreboard and then put up a Herald style website that would provide information such as up to date territorial coverage, orb status, highest badge collectors by player/guild, etc. More can certainly be done such as bringing back the orbs but swap the buffs they give with the current outmanned buff, double the effect, and put them in the Garrissons while fortifying the keeps with more guards and stronger walls. Adding that Tyria Falls dungeon under the entire map would certainly bring out more folks that might be on the fence about WvW since the only way to get it unlocked for your side is to participate in WvW. Even if folks didn't fight for the server to get it unlocked they would still have to enter WvW to get to it and that might increase interest.
I think the biggest challenge would be how to handle one side not completely dominating the other 2 while not having a reset to force the lower elo rated opponents out. I feel that the answer would lie somewhere in their guesting/overflow features but I just don't know enough about the technology to put forth a comprehensive idea about it. In reality though, the entire point to having a 3 faction system is to offset the imbalance that a 2 faction system brings with one side becoming too dominant. If that's not working then that might be a problem with the elo rating system itself in determining who gets matched up against who. What would be nice, is if they merged all the servers into 3 giant realms or battlegroups that would be pit eternally against each other so the scores wouldn't reset and you would have plenty of different opponents to go up against at any given time but again I just don't know if the technology is there and what other problems that might bring.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
- 2,383
- 276
I wish they had gone the EVE direction of only one world server with this game. Considering their PvE thrives on high player pop and they have very few barriers between realms anyway. Then we could have more persistant conquerables in WvW that draws players and it wouldnt seem so pointless.
Pyksel
Rasterizing . . .
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Dev livestreamon Twitch where they've already gone through some of their plans for the future and will be opening it up for questions in just a few minutes.
Summary
Summary
TL
R
Incoming AoE ability balancing (nerf) - they are too effective right now
Removing rez rushing in dungeons - i.e. can't WP if group members are in combat. Reducing difficulty on some of the more challenging encounters
New achievement system to encourage players to go back to the deserted zones & guilds stuff
sPvP: custom areans. leaderboards, 1 team vs 1 team winner stay in loser kicked out tournament (paid)
WvW - working on introducing progression, better rewards and fixing culling
Class balance to bring up the weaker weapons/traits, more viable builds, and reduce AoE effectiveness.
What is our long term focus for PVE and how we are bringing left back to deserted zones
New achievement system that plays into dailies/monthlies that adds new style of gameplay
New achievements to encourager cooperative play - i.e. rezzing, rallying) - things that will help players better at understanding the concepts of our game.
Allow players to filter back into some of the deserted zones (i.e. this month's monthly achievement for jumping puzzles was used as an example)
New content with the guilds - 4-5 different styles of content that show up in the world that guilds can go in to help kick off and pull other players into it as well.
Adding tiers to guild economy/ear guild tabs, adding in new rewards for guild members to show off.
>100 new rewards tied to the achievement system/guilds to allow players to show off some of the cool stuff they have done.
Framework rolling out next couple months
New Ascended items coming into play outside FOTM with the new achievement/reward system.
Philosophy on the dungeons
Multiple phase change for the dungeons - first build - remove the idea of rez rushing (i.e. only way to beat some of the difficult encounters at the moment is to have dead players run back from nearby waypoints while players that are alive kite the mobs)
You can no longer able to rez (I think he meant waypoint here) if someone in dungeon is in combat
We are nerfing some of the encounters that are a bit more challenging
Phase 2 - go back and look at some of the encounters - retune and increase difficulty if necessary.
New rewards (no details)
LFG mechanics
We are working right now on a system that go across the board, not just for dungeons, sPvP. It is a bit far off.
sPvP
Working on custom arenas - need to make sure it is bug free, we are polishing them atm
Working on leaderboards - see your progress against other people
New player experience for PvP - better matchmaking system - play with players of your skill level.
Working on a new 1 team vs 1 team version of our tournament system , will be paid tournament (but reduced the cost and reduced rewards). Winners stay in, losers kicked out to the lobby. (Current tournament system require 8 teams for a single tournament with 3 rounds so it is hard to get tournaments started at the moment)
This new tournament version will be on Temple of Silent Storm map (this map has a lot of tournament potential).
Blog post coming up to talk more
Adding more some unique skins to PvP and WvW
WvW
Looking into progression in WvW to give you some kind of character development and rewards
Goal is to progression/rewards. Encourages more players to do WvW.
Recently tested culling - we are doing great things with culling - running a lot of different tests/tweaks.
Our WvW programmer talks about more on the official GW2 forums.
Adding more some unique skins to PvP and WvW
Upcoming AoE skill balancing (nerf)
One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.
For people that don't know - max targets for siege weapons is 50 while max targets for AoE is 5.
Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.
Major update coming to all the AoE skills - make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.
Same thing with dungeons - right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want.
Philosophy inside weapons and class balance
We want classes deal situations in an unique manner
We want to bring up all the weak weapons/traits in addition to reduce AoE effectiveness.
Some classes have 1-2 good builds while others have 5-6 builds , we want to bring up all the classes to 5-6 builds.
Incoming AoE ability balancing (nerf) - they are too effective right now
Removing rez rushing in dungeons - i.e. can't WP if group members are in combat. Reducing difficulty on some of the more challenging encounters
New achievement system to encourage players to go back to the deserted zones & guilds stuff
sPvP: custom areans. leaderboards, 1 team vs 1 team winner stay in loser kicked out tournament (paid)
WvW - working on introducing progression, better rewards and fixing culling
Class balance to bring up the weaker weapons/traits, more viable builds, and reduce AoE effectiveness.
What is our long term focus for PVE and how we are bringing left back to deserted zones
New achievement system that plays into dailies/monthlies that adds new style of gameplay
New achievements to encourager cooperative play - i.e. rezzing, rallying) - things that will help players better at understanding the concepts of our game.
Allow players to filter back into some of the deserted zones (i.e. this month's monthly achievement for jumping puzzles was used as an example)
New content with the guilds - 4-5 different styles of content that show up in the world that guilds can go in to help kick off and pull other players into it as well.
Adding tiers to guild economy/ear guild tabs, adding in new rewards for guild members to show off.
>100 new rewards tied to the achievement system/guilds to allow players to show off some of the cool stuff they have done.
Framework rolling out next couple months
New Ascended items coming into play outside FOTM with the new achievement/reward system.
Philosophy on the dungeons
Multiple phase change for the dungeons - first build - remove the idea of rez rushing (i.e. only way to beat some of the difficult encounters at the moment is to have dead players run back from nearby waypoints while players that are alive kite the mobs)
You can no longer able to rez (I think he meant waypoint here) if someone in dungeon is in combat
We are nerfing some of the encounters that are a bit more challenging
Phase 2 - go back and look at some of the encounters - retune and increase difficulty if necessary.
New rewards (no details)
LFG mechanics
We are working right now on a system that go across the board, not just for dungeons, sPvP. It is a bit far off.
sPvP
Working on custom arenas - need to make sure it is bug free, we are polishing them atm
Working on leaderboards - see your progress against other people
New player experience for PvP - better matchmaking system - play with players of your skill level.
Working on a new 1 team vs 1 team version of our tournament system , will be paid tournament (but reduced the cost and reduced rewards). Winners stay in, losers kicked out to the lobby. (Current tournament system require 8 teams for a single tournament with 3 rounds so it is hard to get tournaments started at the moment)
This new tournament version will be on Temple of Silent Storm map (this map has a lot of tournament potential).
Blog post coming up to talk more
Adding more some unique skins to PvP and WvW
WvW
Looking into progression in WvW to give you some kind of character development and rewards
Goal is to progression/rewards. Encourages more players to do WvW.
Recently tested culling - we are doing great things with culling - running a lot of different tests/tweaks.
Our WvW programmer talks about more on the official GW2 forums.
Adding more some unique skins to PvP and WvW
Upcoming AoE skill balancing (nerf)
One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.
For people that don't know - max targets for siege weapons is 50 while max targets for AoE is 5.
Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.
Major update coming to all the AoE skills - make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.
Same thing with dungeons - right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want.
Philosophy inside weapons and class balance
We want classes deal situations in an unique manner
We want to bring up all the weak weapons/traits in addition to reduce AoE effectiveness.
Some classes have 1-2 good builds while others have 5-6 builds , we want to bring up all the classes to 5-6 builds.
This might turn it around for GW2, if these issues had been addressed months ago. I left the game after the Halloween event, and I'm more inclined to wait for something else than return to the game after a significant break. It seems that being F2P does little to ameliorate this effect.
Looking forward to some of their balancing things. The rest was pretty much expect though from their blog posts.
Grim1
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 4,867
- 6,822
For more traditional mmo's what you say is true. But GW2 has a different business model. They expect their players to drop out and come back later. That's what happened in GW1. My friends, guildmates and I would play for a couple months, go do something else for a few months, come back then drop out, over an over again during the years. And even though I rarely played for more than a couple months at a time, I eventually managed to get a ton of play time invested in the game. GW1 was very successful for ANet with that business model.
I haven't played GW2 in a month or more. Logged in a couple of times but didn't do much. My guild is mostly mia, some in planetside, or mechwarrior, etc. When the update comes some of us will play again for a few weeks and then drop out until the next update. And the cycle repeats itself. Somewhere down the line I'll have a legendary and a row full of level 80's with a ton of time played.
kaid
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 4,647
- 1,187
Curious about what the elementalist changes will be. Most of the specs for elementalists are aoe to some degree. Staff which already is lowish on the damage level is nearly all AOE dps curious if they will change some of it to single target to balance it out. Otherwise instead of adding more viable builds it may condense it even more to the dagger/dagger builds you are seeing people use. And they are using it not because of any massive damage but simply durability.
Pyksel
Rasterizing . . .
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They lost during new years week, that's about it. But balance has been close with jqq and sos since prx left... probably not anymore... bad move imho should have went to a t2 or 3 server and move some fresh blood up. I"m sure sos will have some extra motivation now anyways.
As for the game, long wishlist, let's see how long it takes for them to implement it. Only care for wvw changes which I'm sure will be next to last to implement, other than that the achievement changes sound interesting, do achievements to get additional rewards, my god who was the genius that "finally" thought of that.
As for the game, long wishlist, let's see how long it takes for them to implement it. Only care for wvw changes which I'm sure will be next to last to implement, other than that the achievement changes sound interesting, do achievements to get additional rewards, my god who was the genius that "finally" thought of that.
RobXIII
Urinal Cake Consumption King
- 3,711
- 1,856
Well dammit, PRX moved to JQ, but it's been listed as FULL literally 24/7. Does it list population by accounts registered to the server, or actual active people online? They start charging on the 28th, so hopefully A) I can eventually move to JQ and B) the guild stays there for good 
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
- 7,986
- 9,719
Pyksel
Rasterizing . . .
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I'll find the dev quote but it's registered accounts, not current folks online. Which means the only 2 ways to get in would be after folks have transferred off or the pop cap is raised.
Unless it's been changed, here you go.
