Skill update this weekend

Testing Weekend #2 30 January 2007
This weekend, starting around Noon PST on Friday, you'll have another opportunity to test updates for Guild Wars. We're rolling in a significant number of skill changes along with updates to Heroes' Ascent, as well. We'll be leaving the changes in place this time, but will assess player feedback to help formulate future balance changes and updates, so we hope you'll try out these changes and provide your feedback on the fan forums.
http://www.guildwars.com/

Looks like they are rolling it out wethere its "ready" or not...atleast something is gonna change and sounds like they will be making adjustments on the fly as well...i think its a good thing...but they should just call it a skill balance and leave it at that since its going to permenant.

I don't understand it. Why is it called a testing weekend when the changes are permenant?

Because "Testing" gets you high. In a balancing emergency, you're taking giant panicked damage. Suddenly you become euphoric, docile. You accept your fate. It's all right here. Reconnecting to server - 30 frames per second. Blank faces, calm as Hindu cows.

A special thank you to Tyler Durden!

Maybe they'll do tweaking based on player feedback during the test, like they did with divert hexes and that rit skill, and then leave it in place at the end...

They're turning permanent skill change updates into weekend events now (even though they're not), when will the fun stop?!

This is gonna be so utterly pointless. They won't do anything useful with this testing weekend. All thats gonna happen is skill changes that people really hate or are completely unbalanced get changed in the next few days. Ones that become abused will get looked at for the next skill change. Ones that made absolutely shit or always were will never get a look in and will remain unused.

Basically its the same as every other skill change. Only this time they cast Illusion of Interaction (for 1 weekend event, all players assume there comments matter with regard to skills not used by High end GvG or HA teams).

Because their in-house testers apparently can't get the job done, and we are debugging their game for them (a form of no-cost outsourcing?)

When people like me can usually only play during the weekends, and we have no idea what the skills are going to do now, it diminishes the value of playing for me.

Thanks to Klaus for pointing this out for me:

http://guild-hall.net/forum/showthre...480#post544480

It's not really a bad way of doing things.
They have already tried changing the functionality of skills and have seen if the player base likes those kind of changes, while at the same time have seen where they dropped the ball clearly on buffs or debuffs.
I think these skill testing before releasing are ways to see what types of skill 'functionality' changes players would like.
Some skills were made very different in the last weekend and it was really cool that we got to comment on their new use.

Yeah, that's a bit of a mis-communication. Perhaps it should be called a "Tweaking Weekend".

What nonsense, honestly! You're invited to share your thoughts. We're perfectly capable of rolling out the best changes that we feel are appropriate and needed, but we'd rather have you involved in the process, to contribute your thoughts and have a real influence on the game that you love to play. This is something that players have asked for since the Beta Weekend Events prior to Guild Wars' first release. It astounds me that you can find room for criticism in our responding to player request, and being more, and not less, inclusive and responsive. Frankly, I'm disappointed.

Yes, that's it exactly! Now, I appreciate the attraction of conspiracy theories and pop culture references. But it's really very simple: The weekend updates will remain, but will be adjusted, possibly more than once, based on your feedback, input, suggestions, and general observations. The team will be observing numerous game matches for imbalance, and will also be carefully following forum threads to give consideration to what the players share as far as valuable feedback.

I have to say that I am actively reading forums every waking hour during these weekends, as are many others on the team. Designers note your responsees and exchange emails over the course of the weekend, and sit down and appraise the overall feedback at the end of the weekend. Now, again, it could be a arm's length, "We know what's best" update. Or we can include player feedback, with the admission (shameful, it is not) that players are a great source of input, and that having 100,000 bashing on an update provides us with a ton of good input that makes the tweaks better, more grounded, more deeply analyzed, and therefore more appropriate. I'd say "It's all good," but at the least, I'd like to ask that we not disparage the process until we've seen how it works. Deal?

i hope evade is going bye-bye for good.

"Because their in-house testers apparently can't get the job done, and we are debugging their game for them (a form of no-cost outsourcing?)"

What?!!?!? You have No idea what your saying do you.

The problem isn't that Anet doesn't look at the forums enough to look at the suggestions that we box in.

The Problem is that they just end up making completely different changes opposite to our suggestions.

We tell them that Necromancer Hexes and energy management is over-powered, yet they end up buffing the normal Necromancer hexes and only make slight nerfs to really over-powered Spells ( i.e. Reaper's Mark-only nerfing the energy gain by 1..2 ...)

The community posts why certain builds are imbalanced yet no change is made( yes, I am mentioning Steady Stance>Desperation/Drunken Blow>FearMe and Bone Minions>Jagged Bones>Death Nova recipes)

Also, we have taken Anet's word for it when they stated clearly that they will listen to us, but it always ends up the same.


HOWEVER, I am not being fair, jumping to quick conclusions. If Anet has learned from the past, then they would do their best to pay close attention to the forums more than ever.

I have faith in Anet that their final decisions will be rewarding( especially since they removed Scarred Earth and reintroduced Burial Mounds )

Umm. They're letting US the customers give them feedback with OUR opinions and you still complain about it? And congrats on getting a second of your idiotic quotes getting a response from Gaile. Your first quote of how ANET was simply being lazy for not implementing reconnects still is a classic.

Gaile Gray, Is there anything that you can let us know about the list of the skill balance for this weekend test? or Is there anything about the skill balance that we can know it before Friday? Because there r many people want to know it, we all knew there are a lot useless skill that haven't touch in the preview test weekend.
So we want to know is there will be more buff to the skill that Anet hasn't touch it yet or it just to tweak the skill from the January-19th-updated?

So, Steady Stance, Grenths, Melandru (possibly) nerf and uhh.. 15s crippling shot, 5e/bugged exhaustion gale, 10% OoB sac? I'm in!

Gaile, do not let comments like that get to you.
Not everyone can see how nice it is to get to give feedback on the mechanics of the game they get to play. It is very cool that this is happening and many people appreciate that a game, they get to play for free, is offering an avenue for helping to shape the skills within.

I like the skill testing weekend idea, but....my only problem was that I was not very motivated to play the game after the weekend until the time comes that the skills would be changed to their new incarnations. I feel that I may not be alone on that. It is just a feeling of being in limbo and not knowing if the skills I buy or builds I put together are going to work out in the end.

I am a long time fan of Everquest 2 and I play on both a live server and test server, and was wondering if it would be possible to somehow set up a test server to test skills before rolling those changes onto a live server.
It might require a different method of logging in to that server though.
I do not know how it would work, but in EQ2 it was a very nice way for continuous player feedback on future ideas/changes without being disruptive to the general population.

Do you all happen to skip over threads and posts regarding skills that are currently completely useless? I'm *almost* certain that nobody actually asked for Arcing Shot to be buffed, damage wise. It was a quota meeting/enemy only skill, no-one actually uses it. People have been wanting skill buffs to the currently useless and underpowered skills for a long, long time, the only 1 i really saw was Incendiary Arrows (which was a nice change in all honesty).

Its not a case of simply saying you addressed the problem with DoTAoEs been useless by upping the damage, that was a no brainer and was echoed throughout the entire DoTAoE line. Its actually attempting to make something worth using.

I wish that we could "preview" the skill balances, but as I understand it, the team is still working on them, and given that it takes at least 2 full days (48 hours) to allow time for Localization, there's no way that we can give a sneak peek at the skill changes.

I tried to get that two weeks ago, but there was a flurry of activity towards the end, and it wasn't possible to present a list of changes. We don't really like to post in English and leave our players who speak other languages without the information, so we have to plan carefully and leave enough time for complete and thorough localization in a large number (10 and growing) of languages.

The good news is that we're already moving forward on a page about the Canthan New Year event and we will be able to provide information about that in advance of the event. For the skill balancing, well, I'm sorry that such a preview of the changes cannot be offered this week, but I'll continue to advocate for us to present lists early, whenever we can!

Thats a pretty big if.

Considering they've been constantly buffing never used skills with useless changes since the game came out despite critisism from the player base. Pair that with Anets aparent disregard for the overwhelming stream of players giving them the "constructive feedback" that 6v6 simply dosen't work, and you've got one very gigantic IF.

Instead of relying on "nerfs" to be able to kill something, u can acutely counter these builds very easily.

Jaged bones:
kill the minions with a grenth derv with banishing strike
Distract jagged bones with a ranger
Diversion on the jagged bones (but hey, who takes mesmers if u can take a other elementelist!)

Steady stance:
Fear me = shout, so bring vocal minority and some other anti-warrior hex so they have a hard time building adrena
Earth ele with ward against melee
Bring a trapper so u can put blind on them
Steady stance = stance (dheuuuh). Bring wild throw, wild blow (grenth with wild blow are very common), wild strike,...
If u manage to end their stances they will knock them selves down, I know a certain ranger sprit that causes bleeding when u get KD (brambles?)

Congratulations, if anyone from Anet is reading this the above is a perfect example of why 8v8 worked and 6v6 dosent.
6v6 you need every skill slot you can get just to make your build work without heavily gimping it.
8v8 you can bring your damage dealers, your backline, and your utility metagame counter skills which made the difference between a bad team and a good team.

Gaile,

I'm not astounded that you are criticizing one of your customers for expressing his or her opinion as it is a force of habit to defend oneself, yet are you right in doing so? The opinion may be as obtuse as all hell, but is it your job to be disapointed by the customer? The customer is always right, until you are ready to sever ties with them. Are you ready to sever ties with any customers who do not share your views?

Customer Service is a function of how well an organization is able to constantly and consistently exceed the needs of the customer. PR is The art or science of establishing and promoting a favorable relationship with the public. In the real world it means you take in up the BLEEP and smile to keep sales revenue flowing so you get a nice paycheck.

I like ANets attempt at supplier-customer interaction on HA and the Skill Changes. I think that the interaction is more spin than substance on the balancing issues, but more substance on the HA changes.

This is a good start for supplier-customer interaction, hopefully you have the overhead and business sense to continue with this effort on the GvG Ladder and Tournament project.

Thanks

Just don't make any drastic changes on SoH for PvE please.

I hate it when people sugarcoat everything. It was a ... ... disappointing comment. Why not say so? More insulting to ignore, more insulting to patronize. Honesty is a good thing.

The open testing seems like a good idea in theory. It will be interesting to see the results.

(insert snide comment concerning GvG ladder)

I agree in part with what you say, but her getting the crap keeps the flak off the devs, so she'll get *more* flak for insulting her customers.

I'm sorry, but I have to say something here. You're out of line. Have you ever even worked customer service or PR for anyone before?

The customer is not always right. A lot of jerks in this world need to learn that. The company offering a service or product and the customer buying it are equal parters in a transaction and should be treated as such. One party shouldn't be treated better than another for any reason.

As such, Gaile was merely expressing her opinion on behalf of A-Net as an equal party. Last I heard, responding to someone else's opinion with your own was called constructive interaction.

Please don't tell Gaile how to do her job. I can tell she's been doing it longer than you and she doesn't need your criticism.

The customer is always right, or at least, he is right until anything else is proven. That's because sales are the most important goal. The best course is not to argue with dissatisfied customers, but give them neutral information and let them judge again.

More reading in, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

I'll have to agree with Gaile on this one, it's astonishing some people are still finding a reason to complain about this: I don't think Anet can win with these specific folks really - invite them to directly take part and provide feedback on how things change, and Anet gets accused of using everyone. Don't have these open sessions, do their own thing, and I bet the same people will accuse Anet of not caring about what the customer wants. No pleasing 'em either way.

Well if the customer is being completely unreasonable and spouting things that are untrue then yes you should correct the customer and tell him how it really is. Gaile was in the right.

It's probably not going to get heard, but I'll make a final plea to leave SF/GG alone.

It's not affecting the PvP metagame to any great extent, and it makes PvE for a lot of eles more enjoyable.

I don't want this to descend into a pro-v-anti fire ele skills discussion ( there have been plenty of those). It's just my 2c.

This thread has really derailed from it's original topic. The Testing Weekend will be open Feb. 2-4. We all ready have the new testing forum in the works for this. We'll see the changes in a couple of days and you'll all be able to express your thoughts then.