Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 Dev Tracker




28 Nov

Comment

Originally posted by JessicaLPrice777

Cozy and sweet is actually a pretty good description of our common area. I thiiiiink we have hot cocoa in the kitchen, but I'm a tea drinker so I'm not sure. :-)

With hamster-hoppers full of M&Ms, Skittles, Reese's Pieces, chocolate-covered raisins, and Jelly Bellies in the kitchen, emphasis on the 'sweet' part of this. RIP my waistline the last few years... :(

Comment

Originally posted by BobMosses

To hitch hike off of this question, how are buffs and nerfs determined? And how do they get balanced between wvw PvP and pve (fractals and raids)? Does the balance team look at each class and arbitrarily they are in a good spot, or do they take community perspective into account?

Pre PoF, there was a fairly vocal group discussing the ease of certain dps classes (Condi thief) to output high dps which was mostly ignored by the balance teams, meanwhile other builds which required much more effort to play and hot comparable numbers were faced with nerfs, or felt as if they were straight up ignored.

And what will the balance team do so that all classes have at least one viable build from a community perspective on each game mode.

I would personally love to see the balance team engage the community to get a feel for where they should apply changes instead of changing some random trait that didn't see use before or after a change and calling it a day.

We look at each game mode and watch for constructive feedback from Tyrians in-game, the official forums, and other internet communities. Community perspective makes a difference on where we'll look to make changes.

The viability of each profession in each game mode is a goal we are moving toward. What will we be doing? This is an incredibly broad question, so I'm left to answer it in a very broad fashion: Updating professions to create space for each to be desirable and fun in each mode; such changes varies from profession to profession and mode to mode. e.g. In competitive modes we look at improving or creating counters to top builds to bring less played professions into greater use.

Comment

Originally posted by KarenSoxolkin

Hey @mikezadorojny, what's your favorite profession? (If you have one)

My main is an asura thief. I love the mobility and stealth while exploring.

Comment

Originally posted by Kashti_Gauvain

What is your go to comfort when playing the new story releases? I personally go full on bear onesie with a cold drink.

A free evening (all too much a rarity these days!), a slab of reheated apple crumble, a mug of rooibos (caffeine in the evening is a bad idea for me) with cream and honey, and my husband joining me from his own computer ten feet away.

Comment

Originally posted by Commander_Freir

In previous AMAs, you've mentioned reviewing the economic impact of sigil swapping of legendary weapons. Is sigil swapping something you are still looking into? If so, what obstacles are you facing to get it done? If not, why not?

As we looked into how to support sigil swapping on Legendary Weapons it opened up the investigation to larger issues with the system as a whole. It is something I still would like us to address, but I want the design team to take the time to do it right.

Comment

Originally posted by Charrikayu

Over the past five years Guild Wars 2 has slowly built up an arms race of effects and styles that have, in the opinions of some, begun to harm the artistic identity of the game. Daniel Dociu, your former art director and one of the most important visionaries behind the look of both the original Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, describes the essence of GW2's style as handcrafted and artisanal.

However, the game has built up a cornucopia of auras and infusions, humongous backpacks, and mount skins, many of which clash with the visual style of Guild Wars 2. Even before Path of Fire's launch, players expressed concerns about the possibility of further harm to GW2's artistic style.

While players, ...

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We are conscious about not trying to add visual noise to the game, but at the same time we don't want to reduce players' abilities to recognize the investment of characters. It is something that we are balancing "visual epicness" vs "visual chaos". We do hear what players like you are saying and will continue to keep a close eye on this.

Comment

Originally posted by Overlord_Odin

Will that be looked at in the future?

And will you continue to add older keys to the wallet?

If we have the resources to address that in the future I will certainly be advocating for a change like this. As for older keys, if the community feels strongly about adding other keys to the wallet with large-scale acquisition and use I will be keeping an eye out for that feedback!

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Originally posted by Lishtenbird

Not a question, but since there's an occasion, shout-out to /u/GaileGray (or was somewhere else responsible for it?) for making Kormeerkat a reality ;)

The credit for realizing the Kormeerkat goes to Chelsea (who also worked on the Legendary Focus that was released today). She took pieces of the Spearmarshal Kormir outfit I worked on and added them to the meerkat, and the result is perfect! :D

Comment

Originally posted by rcbaylor

there are currently a lot of partners who dont even play the game anymore or make content on a consistent basis. twitch.tv/dyeingaming twitch.tv/royfromash twitch.tv/gregorpayne These are three people who consistently stream WvW content and deserved to be looked at.

I hope you look into maintaining current partners as well and give those that are still working hard to produce content a chance.

If they applied to the Partner Program and if we feel they would be a good fit, they will hear from our team.

We are in regular communication with our Partners and you may have seen us promoting their content on our social media channels and on our Twitch channel.

Comment

Originally posted by Captain_Ozone

Hi Regina!

Thanks for your reply, it's good to see the program is still maintained.

Looking on the page, there are no requirements or minimums to be accepted into the program.

Could you maybe state what criteria you or the team look for in accepting someone?

Thanks again

We don't add content creators into the program based on an inflexible set of boxes that need to be checked off one by one. We are looking to support all kind of content creators and each application is carefully reviewed. If we feel a content creator could be supported by being a member of the Partner Program, we will respond to their application.

Comment

Originally posted by [deleted]

[deleted]

Thanks for the kind words! This release was actually huge for us musically with between 8 and 14 new tracks depending on how you count variants and cinematic pieces. If I'm not mistaken it's the most new music in a single release outside of GW2, HoT, or PoF launch!

Comment

Originally posted by Stormdancer

I really appreciate finally getting a place that's pretty RP-friendly... even if that may have just been an accidental side-effect. Was it purposeful, or did we just get lucky?

We always strive for our maps to be immersive and feel "lived in" which I feel is an important part of RPing, and a lot of folks worked hard to accomplish that on this one. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying your time on Istan. :)

Comment

Originally posted by PseudoOAlias

Question for anyone on Weapon Design: Love the new Scythe skins!! Very Glad they're in the game. It's a wonderful cosmetic addition & their style is awesome especially considering the -spoilers- you run into in this episode! ... Why aren't they greatsword skins or why isn't there a greatsword version...?

The spear and scythe weapons were built as staves when they were created for the NPCs that use them. We may be able to add some non-standard skins for other types of weapons, but it often doesn't work well as different weapon shapes often have significant clipping issues or look unnatural with certain class/race animations.

Comment

Originally posted by HPetch

Alright, I have a couple.

Firstly, what would you (any of you) say is the hardest/easiest part of designing and/or balancing content for GW2? As an aspiring dev, I'm always interested in opinions.

Secondly, I was wondering how many people (if any) are focused on game balance, particularly skills, at any given time? PvE MMOs generally require less balance than PvP games in my observation, but GW2 seems to need more than most, and every three months can feel like too little, too late at times. I'm aware this is a sensitive topic, feel free to pass it over.

For balancing content, I'd say one of the biggest challenges is scaling for large groups, like in Palawadan. There is a limited number of times you can ask everyone to drop everything to help you test a group event with critical mass, so you have to be able to take the data from one play test and make a bunch of adjustments between sessions, then test it again a few days or even weeks later. It gets easier the more experienced you get with our event and scaling system, but there are variables that always make it a challenge, and something of a math problem you have to solve.

You know, like our laughable DPS compared it to y'all. ;)

Comment

Originally posted by Aldorion

I'm kinda sad they didn't add the Key of Greater Nightmares since I have more of those keys than I will ever have the patience to open chests with. Would be a solid contender for the list.

The design goal for this change was to take keys that are used mapwide out of the inventory and put them into the wallet since it's common that players will be collecting them in large quantities. Keys that are for specific events or any other small scale content like hearts or jumping puzzles will remain in the inventory.

Comment

Originally posted by Rozanata

So... I'm gonna ask my favorite question, that i never found an official answere to: What is up with the waypoints in timberlandfalls and brisbane that got destroyed during scarlets ls? They were never repaired, yet remain waypoints that are always contested. I was just wondering if it was overlooked or if there is actually a reason why they are neither repaired nor transformed into a POI :)

Btw just tried the raid and its fantastic work so far!

I can't speak to why they weren't 'repaired', but as far as turning them into a POI goes, AFAIK that would be essentially impossible; part of the character record for a player is a list (informally) of what specific points they've hit — waypoints, POIs, etc. — and changing a point from one type to another would involve the kind of change to everyone's database records that would give any DB dev the heebie-jeebies. :-)

Comment

Originally posted by TyroneTyreseJamal

Domain of Istan is the best living story map so far, gj everyone who worked on it

Frosty, Kirk, and the entire team did such an amazing job with this release!

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Originally posted by MyPatronusIsABigCake

Just finished playing the story for this patch, you guys have done a great job as usual.

What was the best part of your job this patch (favourite thing you worked on for example or really anything you enjoyed) ?

Also, how many different voice recording for any character (ennemy, friendly npc, player character, really any character) do you have saying "Praise joko" ?

So glad you enjoyed it! My favorite thing I worked on for this release was the look of a certain Awakened Champion. :)

Comment

Originally posted by rude_asura

just to clarify, can players who only own PoF and not HoT craft any legendary weapon from set two or just the new focus?

All of the "pure crafted" gen 2 legendary weapons can be crafted with the Gift of Desert Mastery. That includes:

Eureka

Flames of War

Sharur

Shooshadoo

The HMS Divinity

The Shining Blade

and of course, The Binding of Ipos and the rest of the set going forward

Comment

Originally posted by anet_jason

Slowly. Hoping for more improvements now that Underworld is released. Who's with me?!

I'm a member of three separate raid training discords. I need a lot of training. :(