Have you guys been tracking the accounts primarily associated with these regular suspicious behaviours? Cause these hotfixes on recipes feels a lot like a band-aid to the problem.
I attempted to hire a mercenary company to teach the last group a lesson and set an example, but was told that the expense report would be unceremoniously rejected. :(
For the raids team /u/CrystalRAID
Are there any plans to rework raid rewards and making Challenge mote more worthwhile to do? (akin to WoW heroic/mythic raids)
What do you think of unforeseen player behaviour and strategies that you could consider bizarre becoming the defacto strategy to beating some encounters? (ie. Dragon stand circle method, Triple trouble egg blocking/destroying)
We don't have plans to go back and change previous raid rewards, including the Challenge Mote for Keep Construct. However, the Challenge Mote rewards for BotP are all significantly better than KC. They're still one time achievements and there are no plans to change that.
I won't mention any names but there's a gravestone in the new map. It's in kind of a dead end area among some cliffs. Is it a tribute to anyone?
If you're talking about Soren's Rest, I suggest speaking with a certain NPC in the area for details of recent tragedies. Life in the wilderness is hard!
This one! https://i.imgur.com/9gEctF1.jpg
Huh...imagine that. :)
How long is the typical production cycle to develop a fractal?
We have only released 2 new fractals with the current team so there isn't really a "typical" cycle time yet. Each time we go through the process and refine it a bit more but in the end we put them out when they are ready :)
What chest? :)
No idea.
Hints for that hidden chest in bottom right of map?
What chest? :)
On The topic of raids:
I haven't gotten to play the new Raid myself yet unfortunately, but it seems like the new raids bosses aren't terribly hard in normal mode (the last one seems to be tough but the first three were cleared rather quickly).
However, they all have a Challenge Mote. Is your approach to raids leaning towards making the normal encounters reasonably easy (in order to make them clearable for the less hardcore part of the PvE community), while adding challenge motes to, well, make it challenging for the hardcore players? If yes, are these Challenge Motes rewarding enaugh to make them interesting enaugh to do regularly?
The Challenge Mote on KC looked like a cool idea at first, but ended up being a "once for completion" kinda thing, so I'm wondering if that will be different for BotP.
BotP follows the same model of the Challenge Mote on KC. It's a "once for completion" kinda thing, but we spent a lot more time examining how we wanted to do them for this release. We liked the Challenge Mote for KC, but felt that we could improve on that. There are more noticeable changes for the Challenge Motes in this release like new mechanics to solve.
Are all recipes which use Mystic Coins considered balanced?
I know a pain point for a few recently was the amount of Mystic coins required for recipes used in Winter's Presence. I presume it was intended that these recipes become more expensive so to increase the prestige of these skins?
Might we expect a change to some recipes that are perhaps less prestigious as a result of Mystic Coins being more prestige? (e.g. creating a masterwork recipe like this)
There's definitely some natural imbalance from the changes to the game over time. I can't say whether we'll do an update to all the recipe prices, but this does come up when we're reviewing mystic coins.
A question for the raid team: Do you play/research other MMOs raids to get idea for mechanics that would work in GW2?
Pretty much everyone on the raids team has raided at some point in time in other games. And really, you can get ideas from anything, not just specifically raid content. Sometimes all you need is more of a feeling or vibe you're trying to get and then you can build a mechanic from that.
I wonder if his apartment smells of rich mahogany...
He has many leather bound books.
A note about mystic coin prices. We’re continuing to monitor them but aren’t taking any action at this time. I know the question of the moment is: why increase supply of leather but not of mystic coins? Mystic coins are a currency that all players get in small quantities and then can sell to wealthy players who want to use them to craft aspirational or luxury items. Seen in that light it’s not inherently bad for them to be expensive, nor is it unnatural for them to increase in price as wealthy players continue to accumulate more wealth. We can measure their success more in terms of their use: are they actively traded between players and actively used? And the answer to those is a resounding yes. John will fill in some details. Mystic coins are doing their job. Having said all that, there are arguments on both sides, and I don’t mean to imply that there aren’t, but there isn’t a compelling case at this time that would make us go in and change the supply or sinks.
Mo
Looking at total sources and sinks of mystic coins, we've reached a stable state with sources being about 10% above sinks. Trading post prices also have reached an equilibrium even in the face of multiple manipulation attempts. Still, we're going to keep an eye on them to make sure the pattern remains stable in the long run.
On the topic of raids; are there any plans for practice versions of any sort? I've personally not raided but may be soon with some guildies, but I know a huge number of people who want to raid but just can't get easy access due to lack of experience and find it difficut to find teachers. There are many mentors out there, yes, but they can't help everyone and I feel an in-game method would help.
For example; WoW has a "pug" group version of raids with reduced rewards but is easier because pugs typically lack as much coordination as a dedicated team.
We don't have any plans for that at this time.
Will you release the patch as soon as it it ready or wait until the usual patch time?
Unfortunately, I can't speak to that, because it's not really in my wheelhouse. But, I can say that all relevant personnel have been working super hard on this since HQ's power came back on (at the latest), and continue to do so.
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The last couple days have been pretty bonkers.
/shrug... Shit Happens. Part of daily life. No control over the weathers. Stop being babies.
Skritt happens, indeed.
Oh hey, it's me.
I thought I'd just float on over to check out the party. I was like, 'Water you all doing, this craft seems overcapacity.' Then everyone just went Hamm! The hype seemed through the rafters.
*No devs were drowned in the making of this raft party.
So good. I have a new wallpaper.
The thing is people will always cheat, especially when it's for titles only a handful of players will get, and if your not gonna police the game mode then you shouldn't have limited titles and go back to how it was in season 1-4. Also there's no way to really report cheaters as the right click report function is quite useless outside of reporting gold sellers.
If you're in a PvP match, there are options for idle player and match manipulation. These were added not too long ago.
Evan Lesh ignored and denied it, and other season issues, until the last week of the Season. People told him week 1.
I'm glad they finally listened...but holy kitten did it take so long. Terrible turn around if this is going to be the practice for PvP development going forward.
Taking action against individual accounts is always a last resort. We absolutely have taken feedback into consideration and have built two systems during this season that will help prevent abuse in the future. The minimum games feature we even pushed early in a hotfix to remove some of the accounts from the leaderboard.
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