Guild Wars 2 Dev Tracker

/u/anet_connorf so very very very much wants to make this happen. at one point he might have even written lyrics. all i know is "genuflect peasant!" was key to the chorus line.

I always enjoy seeing UI ideas that the community comes up with! (and that_shaman's mock-up for a radial menu was prettyyyy nice, not gonna lie.) To answer your question, we actually did look into a radial menu. Early in expansion development we explored several options for quick mount-selection, including a radial menu, and we went with the skill-select style menu because it would be the most familiar/friendly way to introduce mount selection. That said, a radial may not be available in the game now, but if there were enough player requests for it... ;)

Town clothes provided non-combat appearance, and tonics provide non-combat appearance, so that's why they got translated that way back in the day. I agree it's weird. It's one of those things that I'd love to improve, but probably won't, because it's not worth derailing a team that could otherwise be making great new content.

Another one that drives me crazy is that you lose the visual sense of your armor breaking if you wear an outfit over it. You have to know to look at the armor status icon; otherwise you'll start taking a lot of damage and not know why.

It's a big game. There's no end to the improvements we could make to these older systems. ^{^}

Mo

I do not understand the question; it implies there are times I am not praising Joko in all his glory.

Champion Chupa Chup the Choya Champ chided skritt kits for skritt kit kilt quilting quickly quashing skritt kit kilt crafting.

Spoiler

So, I (Trevor) was in a bit of an interesting position where I'm an engineer by discipline, but was given the opportunity (and burden) to do some design work for this expansion. I was pretty much the end to end owner of the random skills system being used by the bounties. That said, I was not in it alone. The open world team took my system and plugged it into the world (and provided a ton of valuable feedback). The always awesome James Showecker helped with almost all of the messaging and effects. Duncan Kay did the icons. I was embedded in the creatures/mounts team so I leaned heavily on the expertise of Roy, Ben, Rick, and Hugh. Hugh also saved me by taking on the final balance and fine tuning work necessary to bring the skills up to our quality standards.

So yeah, all that to say, every aspect of the game is a team effort. I'm the owner of the random bounties skills, but I was not alone.

My artwork is completely accurate (and also fabulous). Even without any altitude buffering system, your speed plus the climbing wing flap will let you get back to around your starting height after flying for a while, so long as you pulled level out of the dive right at the moment you reached maximum speed. The altitude buffer is just there to give you some slack so that you're not penalized for continuing to dive after reaching max speed. And yes, there is a limit on the buffer, though it is fairly generous.

We were very careful to present the name "Gleam" as something poets/bards coined to describe the first scion. When it came time to present Vlast in PoF, it was clear "Gleam" didn't fit his personality. We chose Vlast because it's sharper, more percussive, and closer to his mother's original name (Glaust) to highlight his wilder, rougher edged nature.

Awesome to hear you've been a fan and have enjoyed playing in the world going back that far. It means a lot to me, as someone who has worked on GW since Prophecies.

Power vs. Condition.

There are a a number of factors coming into play here and it could easily take up all the time available to this AMA. I'll try to reply with some of the theory behind what is going on.

Power is intended to be more spike damage-centric. Condi more ramping sustained damage. Currently there are some issues with how quickly condition damage can be spiked up, negating the benefits of power damage.

If I presented you with a power skill that dealt 1,000 damage instantaneously and a condition one that dealt 1,000 damage over 4 seconds there wouldn't be a question about what build to choose; you'd go with the instant option every time. Not counting other effects, condition skills must inflict more damage over their duration in order to make power vs. condi into a real choice.

Moving forward we'll be aiming changes to bring a bit more parity between the options through the ramp time and using that to emphasize some of the differ...

One of my favorite things about working here is that we are encouraged to interact with the players as ANet employees in the game (and on reddit, etc.). Nearly all of the interactions I've had with players while tagged have been very positive.

I usually tag up if I'm just running around doing events or map complete, and only turn it off if there's something very specific I'm trying to achieve and want to focus.

We take inspiration from a lot of different places. Life, movies, games (video and other!), anime... a lot of concepts, presentation and styles can help shape the things we make. Thus, I can’t say that Full Counter has been inspired by the anime. I can, however, say that everyone on the team has seen the Seven Deadly Sins. :)

Thank you! It's always a pleasure to talk with players who've been with us since GW1. You love Tyria as much as we do, and your support makes this all possible.

Mo

You speak as if this was a problem. Once you have shown your loyalty to our glorious god-king by undertaking his divine pilgrimage, make the ultimate statement of commitment to him by joining his Awakened army! Feel secure in the knowledge that you'll be praising our father-king for the remainder of your unlife.

Happiest: Watching the announcement live with all of the players. There's something special about getting to finally show off all of your hard work after pouring so much passion into it. It's even more special when you get such a positive reaction like PoF did.

Biggest heartbreak: Spoiler

Glad you noticed and enjoyed all the call backs to GW1 we put in. Just like when we planned the maps for original release of Core Tyria, we would look at the GW1 worldmaps and ask what was memorable and what could've survived 250 years and how would it be changed. As Tirzah said, we try to keep landmarks in the same locations. I'm one of a handful on the team who helps make sure locations line up pixel perfect if possible. That said, perceptive players will notice that we had to shift landmarks around, such as Augury Rock, which is slightly south of its original location.

All our environment artists are amazing in how they have translated Crystal Desert maps and Elona 250 years into the future. Some like Justin F, Jesse C, and Darrin all worked on the original GW1, so they know those areas well.

Yes, in a way of speaking. Glint was created by Kralkatorrik as his scion. (While "scion" technically means "son" the story team is using it to mean any offspring, son or daughter).

Thanks!

Pssh, that's not weird at this point Clay, it happens all the time!