GW2: Update Notes Thread

[Sci]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...tream_summary/

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 PvP specific armor skins – i..e skins that are available in PvE but not in PvP.

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 PvP specific armor skins – i..e skins that are available in PvE but not in PvP.

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 every single class to feel like they have multiple options to deal with every situations, this doesn’t mean every class will have the exact same options.
We want every single class to deal situations in an unique manner – we keep “purity” in certain skills/traits i.e. only mesmers and thieves have stealth to deal with some situations. Not everyone have stealth but every class have a defensive mechanism they can use if they don’t stealth.
We want to bring up all the weak weapons/traits on par with strong weapons/builds/traits in addition to reduce AoE effectiveness.
A lot of classes have 1-2 good builds while some have 5-6 builds , we want to bring up all the classes to 5-6 good and viable builds.

[Corrderio]

Eh, not too bad. I just hope these changes to WvW give support some much needed love.

Curious what classes they're scoped on for what are considered weak. I haven't seen a lot of viable builds with Guardian other than a supportive for cures/condition removal and a burn build. That and the new currency. Curious where that's from.

[Arcana]

Its likely going to come from daily/monthly achievements, they pretty much suggested as such.

[Aevis]

Daily gives 1 crown, monthly 10: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...verted/1213503

Just want to quickly point out to get out ahead of it since those numbers are wildly off. You receive 1 crown per daily, and 10 per monthly. (We’re also still tweaking the costs of the items shown in the screen shot, and will continue to adjust them until until the system is released.)

[Katlan]

not being able to rez during combat in dungeons is fucking retarded. Shit like Lupicus is easy to get floored on by pure RNG factors. And if you can't run back that's just stupid as shit

[Cjskater]

Incoming AoE ability balancing (nerf) - they are too effective right now

Oh my god hahahaha

[Corrderio]

not being able to rez during combat in dungeons is fucking retarded. Shit like Lupicus is easy to get floored on by pure RNG factors. And if you can't run back that's just stupid as shit

That's one of my biggest annoyances to. I haven't done much for explore modes but I remember having to rely on kiting that 2nd boss in TA because of how fast people dropped from the spiders he summoned.

[Aevis]

Man, good thing I'm a certified scuba diver. Those AoE nerf tears will be flooding everything. On another note, I'm not sure what to think about that no waypoint usage while someone is still in combat. First thought was that they are gone mad. Maybe they can pull it off with the difficulty nerf, so there's really no necessity to waypoint zerg certain encounters anymore. On the other hand, I always took kiting as an intended way to survive and buy time for your party to refresh. Could be the old FFXI player in me speaking tho. "Guys I got Faust!" - "Hang on, we'll be there in 10".

[Sci]

Well they said they are nerfing encounters that are too tough right after mentioning the no waypoint rezzing during combat. Personally I hated BS that groups insisted on doing like zombie-ing Magg's bomb setting in CoF. If anything this will just encourage people to use more skills that insta-rez others in the downed state. Regardless if you're constantly waypoint rezzing, then your group has issues.

[Arcana]

I asked them if we're gonna see new story soon and if we'd see some effects of the story in Orr. Atleast i slightly got an answer to the second part of my question.

[Churchill]

I'm just curious what AoE skills people said needed to be nerfed, and how such a nerf is going to make the game better or make more builds within classes viable. I don't know anyone complaining about this except terrible people who die to dagger storm.

If anything, AoE should be made stronger so that more classes can be utilized at range or when fighting groups. In PVE, this is a no brainer - tons of trash mobs with more HP than a full tank Warrior and higher level fractals with Lv82 Veteransx25. In WvW, it discourages turtling/stacking and zergs and encourages action based game play - group is stacking up? Probably getting healed or buffed, use meteor shower and send the hammers in. On top of that, AoE and cleave AoE should hit more targets and receive some sort of damage nerf after say 10. A small group of people at Panglos should be able to control larger groups through solid gameplay and strategy, not just go cap it and get pushed out by a zerg. (The terrain is ideal for small groups, 2 narrow entrances) Not to mention, CC effects don't really do shit in PVE at the times they are important. Cripple/daze lands, everything else is just RNG.

[Corrderio]

Well I can sorta see their logic in which AoEs should be for crowds and not single targets.

[Kuishen]

I have to wonder if the AOE nerf is mostly aimed at mesmers. They mention stealth and how it's what thieves and mesmers use to deal with situations, well AoEs are what all the other classes use to deal with stealthed thieves and mesmers. Their logic doesn't make sense.

[Takiwaki]

I have to wonder if the AOE nerf is mostly aimed at mesmers. They mention stealth and how it's what thieves and mesmers use to deal with situations, well AoEs are what all the other classes use to deal with stealthed thieves and mesmers. Their logic doesn't make sense.

I think they were talking about balancing classes and how each class even though they do not have the same abilities they use these abilities to tackle the same encounters in different ways. I do not think it had anything to do with the AOE nerf, which is not exactly what they said, since they also hinted about the option of making single targeted skills more viable and not necessarily nerfing aoe. I doubt it had much to do with PVP only also when they were making that statement.

[Prothescar]

Trying to figure out which class they think has 5-6 viable builds atm

[ronin sparthos]

My first guess was Guardian.

[ronin sparthos]

Also, I don't see why they're using Fractal rules for standard dungeons when deathzerging is already punished with repair costs that eat into profits or long walks due to places like HoTW and TA have huge walk backs if you happen to die and release.

LFPs after this change are going to get more elitist which runs contrary to the game. I hope those difficulty nerfs are potent or you're gonna see 80 onry, exotics, kicks if you die once type runs.

[Corrderio]

My first guess was Guardian.

I'd really like to see some of these. Most people I know go Support only.

[Churchill]

Guardian has:
Hammer/AH - Symbols
Hammer/AH - Might stack
GS/AH - Might stack
Staff/Scepter-Focus - Support
Mace - Support
Hammer can go pure DD or more tanky healing and can go pure DD using other weapons as well with high crit rate. With multiple Guardians it doesn't make sense to all to do the same thing, especially with 4-5s blast finisher on Hammer and near full time protection for the group and another going pure DD or pure healing.

Warrior is similar, though the options are really full tank/shout heal, CC/shout heal, middle ground CC/DD with high armor, or pure glass. All work for different scenarios.

From a PVE perspective, the options for other classes are a lot more limited but in WvW they branch out a bit more though they depend on your group. Hammer Warrior is amazing in WvW but since nothing you really need to CC in PVE can be CC'd by the Hammer (reliably) it's simply not as good as a greatsword even if you don't spec/gear for it.

[Corrderio]

Probably an obvious question, but what is AH? Any hand?

And good point. Never thought of buffs/stacks like that. Might have to give Staff more credit than I do so I hardly use mine anymore.