I'm proud of this game.
First time i've see developers speaking so openly with theirs players on a big company.
Thanks. Days like this are some of the reasons I love working here. (Well, not the Colin leaving part.) I'm proud of ANet too.
I'm proud of this game.
First time i've see developers speaking so openly with theirs players on a big company.
Thanks. Days like this are some of the reasons I love working here. (Well, not the Colin leaving part.) I'm proud of ANet too.
What are the chances on bringing Courtyard PvP map back to the unranked selection list? If you already answered it I apologize as there was wayyyyy too much to read haha.
Our currently supported gamemodes are Conquest and Stronghold. Courtyard still has a place in custom arenas, but it won't be returning to Unranked or Ranked arena.
Read moreMust be weird questions to ask, but since we've got someone to talk about Creatures and someone to talk about narrative... /u/LeahLorer & /u/Anet_RoyCronacher .
1)Are we finally going to have tonics for the Mordrem Creatures from HoT (Mordrem guards + the three Mordrem commanders + Mordrem mounts, etc) ? And if not, why ? Seems weird that we wouldn't get those, when we got like 4 different mushrooms and chak tonics... pretty please ? :)
2) Was there a backstory for the Mordrem commanders like Staffmaster Adryn & Axemaster Hareth ?
3) Was the Nightmare Court storyline really cut off ? There's no explanation whatsoever about who is the duchess Chrysanthea and why we actually let her lead us against Mordremoth at the end of Dragonstand.
4)...What about the other Pale Tree mentionned in the Sylvari personnal story, and Malyck who came from it ? Are we going to know more about that someday ? Ho...
We've had many discussions here about most of your questions. The reality of making games is that we often have content that we love that doesn't make the cut because of scope concerns. We are discussing ways we might be able to delve further into some of these.
As to the Nightmare Court question, there are places in the game where we deal with the fact that, in the war against Mordremoth, we're pretty much on the same side. Nightmare Court don't want to follow anyone blindly...not the Pale Tree and not Mordremoth.
Mike, have you or any of the developers had a chance to actually sit down and play the game you've worked so hard on? Or has it been a constant "Go go go!" of trying to address/fix all the issues the community has brought up?
I also play on a regular basis. Mostly missions and WvW.
I hope your question gets answered. I'd be very interested to hear their responses! An honest answer here would be good communication to the WvW community :)
We can benefit from quicker iterations. As I mentioned in a different post, we are investing a lot of engineering resources to make the system easier for the team to try different ideas in the future.
Any plans for simple 1v1, 2v2 pvp queues where you just fight other players with no pve, point capturing stuff?
It's something we've discussed, but there are currently no plans for 1v1 or 2v2 PvP gamemodes at the moment.
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It is definitely our intent to build new maps for PvP for both Conquest and Stronghold. Before we dig into that, we are taking a pass on making some improvements to our existing maps. We've had some feedback from some of our top players on how some existing maps could be adjusted to be more competitive. Expect to see some adjustments along those lines first.
Which teams are in charge of class balance and how does internal testing for skills work?
What do you primarily look for when discussing changes to certain classes?
If you don't balance around Pro League or top level PvP, what do you use as a benchmark for balance?
Are there any plans to split skills between PvE and PvP?
We do have a team that works on skills. We focus on maintenance and balance of current skills, in addition to the implementation of new player skills down the road (I.E. H.O.T. Elite specializations). Internal testing is a mix of Dev/Q.A./tester Hands-on interaction, and some automation. When discussing changes for classes, we look to a variety of areas to determine what should happen. We use metrics from many areas of the game, feedback from a plethora of sources (yourselves included), along with our own spreadsheet comparisons and experiences. In addition, we have meetings with each feature team to discuss the issues in that we then investigate and come up with solutions for. We balance from many different perspectives, top tier pvp is included as well as Raids, Fractals, WvW roaming/group play, casual open world, huge map-wide encounters and a few more that I'm not thinking of at this moment. As for skill splitting, I'd suggest checking out Isaiah's answer in this thread.
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Read moreThe story in HOT left a lot of threads hanging. Can we expect these to be picked back up in the next LW season? Are there plans for expanding the amount of lore shared with players a la LW S2 optional conversations, inter-actable objects etc? I missed this in the HOT story. (Also farewell Colin, and good luck!)
Our LW season definitely picks up where HoT left off. You will certainly hear more about Rata Novus, the egg, etc. And yes, we always look for ways to put in bonus and optional story for the folks who really want it. We had a good deal of this in HoT, but it was probably in slightly different forms than we had previously. We're always trying new ways to get this info to the folks who love our story!
Any plans to have easy mode version of the raid? I'm a casual player, I can't find raid groups.
the raids team is working on solutions for finding raid groups
Leah Hoyer! If you're here:
How does one break into the industry of writing and narrative design for video games or, specifically, Guild Wars? I know you come from a background with other mediums, but I suppose the question still stands. I have a ton of experience in world-building and dialogue construction and all that jazz, but I get the feeling that the industry looks more for experience in live development than for talent in writing or dedication to a particular world/game. Would you say that's true? What led you to ArenaNet, is narrative for video games competitive, and what helps one to stand out?
Storytelling experience in any medium is going to be useful. The fundamentals of character and world building, conflict, structure, good dialog, etc all apply. But the awesome challenge of game narrative is the way that you take into account the player role. Making choices feel meaningful is hard.
A great tool that I would recommend to build an interactive narrative protfolio is Twine. It is mostly text based, which certainly isn't the ideal way to tell story in a game. But it really helps creators think about choice and the role of the player. We have a large group ANetters, both Narrative and folks from other disciplines, who are getting together next week to do a Twine Jam.
Play aorund with it. It is free and easy to pick up. If I'm looking at candidates for a position and they don't have professional game experience, I love seeing a Twine or two among their writing samples.
And also, a team-focused attitude is critical. Everyone who works on the game he...
Read moreSo no planned changes for S2?
It's very weird to have a double negative on losses - as your MMR drops your expected team is going to be worse - your chances of winning become lower - etc.
The only real way to go about that is waiting it out for people to pass by the league and hope worse players enter/stay... but that doesn't seem like a healthy state.
The way that matchmaking is set up for Ranked with PvP Leagues, you're definitely either losing or not gaining pips, but your MMR is actually not adjusting enough to bring you down to get matched with "even worse players." The matches in which you lose against opponents that are much higher rated than you do not adjust your MMR significantly. We're aware that there are frustrations with the initial starting period for Season 2 and we are currently planning to improve overall match quality for Season 3, particularly during the start of the season.
or just any info when you are going to start talking about it >,< Still wonder if any wvw questions will be answered in this AMA.
WvW has been a very complicated system. We are changing some of the core architectural components. It will allow us to implement some of the changes Tyler outlined, and also provide us a foundation for more flexibility moving forward.
I play the game daily.
Me too :)
What is the hardest part of developing the soundtrack for Guild Wars 2?
I'm gonna let Maclaine answer this one.
4D sense it spans time and space
The old table was in the shape of a Quaggan, but someone threw it out the window.
Uhhh. This wont end well. This comment will soon reach the maximum of characters and then no more links will get added. I'll try to fix this asap.
Some people just want to watch the bots burn. Mostly Chris Cleary.
Thank you for your answer!
I wasn't expecting any spoiler of course, but I recently started playing the original Guild Wars again and I was fascinated by the amount of mysteries and unexplored plots that are still out there. In fact I believe there is a little bit of beauty on some of them never being touched again and remaining a mystery, but I'm reeeaaallly craving for answers on some hahaha
Again, thanks for your answer :')
You are most welcome!
It's sad to see Collin go, but I'm sure Mike will do awesome as his replacement.
Few questions:
General: What's the atmosphere at the offices now that the expansion has shaped up and the holidays have passed?
WvW: How much input are you taking from players across all tiers and playstyles (ppt/gvg/roaming/etc) of WvW? A worry for people who enjoy mid/bottom tiers is that their input and desire might not be considered with the changes coming.
Living Story/PvE: I really enjoyed the quality of content and story that was brought along with LS2, but I kind of missed some of the epicness of the events of LS1. So, are there any plans to cross over both styles? Majority LS2 repeatable content, but also a few larger events that only last for a month or two (rather than 2 weeks) and can ben enjoyed by large groups? Also, start closing some plotlines before opening more! I love the stories in this game.
Thanks for the nice words about the story. As we continue, we absolutely have these as some of our broad story goals: -- Bring exciting content with every release -- Integrate story with gameplay to make a great overall experience...both in instances and open world -- Tie up important story threads as we can while advancing our story
I'm not quite sure why, but I kind of expected Colin leaving soon. It's sad to see him go. Best of luck to him.
Anyway, this AMA is a great idea and I have a couple of questions:
- General: What are the main issues implementing a template system?
- PvP Leagues: Why are pips and MMR updated separately instead of using a player's MMR to determine league position?
- PvE/WvW: Do you think that the current gear system (stats on items, fixed upgrades) is limiting players too much?
I can answer question #2. We use MMR for minor matchmaking considerations (like finding similarly skilled teammates), but it doesn't really work as a determiner of which division you technically belong in for our specific league system. There is a lot of things involved in the League progress system, but sufficed to say, we've explored the idea of using MMR as the sole means of determining player positions and we identified enough pitfalls that we decided to opt for a different system instead.