Dev Updates Today!

Gaile I know you keep a close eye on this thread. So could you please anwser me this...

Why is the string length so limited in party search? If you could / would improve this, I think a lot of Traders will be happy. A lot of spam can be lost because the whole description would be in there not just some key words.
It would be even better for Buyers. Scroll through party search. Ah just what I wanted PM that guy, get my item. Win win situation. What is your official statement on this? Thx ^^

On another note I'll wait and see how the armor cap will go, but it promises not much good for HM and DOA.

More importantly than hexes, is Anet taking a new stance on smurfing?

I liked your reply to this, creativity, and it does make me think of all those unused insignias i dont have because well i didnt need them... maybe i should start looking into them now. Still dont know how this will effect the hard areas like DoA we shall see tho.

Devs, or the PR gal:

Change the Trade channel color code please

Its funny to see all people just relying on skill and other mechanical stuff
I mean for instance: the armor debuff
I wanna know whats the use of an 'earth tank'... well nothing rly, i mean he jsut stands there spamming stone daggers... who cares about him... if YOU play the game well, go behind a wall, kite away from him, anything.
farming... well i mean it sucs for the people who play earth tank... but GW isnt just made for things like farming... theres not a 'party list' for nothing... Invite other people, have fun... coz thats whats it all about, isnt it?

Second: the Soul reaping 'nerv'.
every1 with a brain know SR is just the most powerfull primairy attribute in the game... i mean: u actually get REWARDED for killing?!?!? (besides the faction/exp)... what more can you want? in some cases you can even control it (spirit destroy and stuff)...
if you count all the necros that ACTUALLY use the other attributes of a necro and the necros that mainly use the SR... well i guess from only that research u can conclude SR is 2 powerfull...

I agree the Rt spike is overpowered, and ofcourse not many people want to play it BECUASE its overpowered... Thats why i think something should b done with that... i mean: you can kill some1 without an afterspike. lets face it, were not all goku or vegeta who can press that 'infuse' button 0.000001 second after its needed

but yeah, i dont c much things changed after this update... i think Anet did a good job focussing on the things which arent used much atm, like smiting monk... and IMO, Cripshot WAS 2 much energy for that effect...

and again: its about how you play, not about the skills or build... keep that in mind... thats why the topguilds winn from people who play thesame build, its because how they play, and how they react to what you do.

well over all I feel these changes are for the best......obviously they know what they are doing there at a-net to bring us this game

The only problem I have is that I am mainly a PvE character and I hate when that takes the hits because of PvP and I know that it is the otherway around for PvP players.

The trade spam thing is annoying and I do feel that the party box just needs more space to be able to post whole description.

the only buff that upsets me is about the SS energy back up to 15 and the SR change.....but I can deal with that. ( I do like the wells though, they will help with PvE )

the ranger buffs are all good, always wondered why barrage took away glyphs

Good job on trying to encourage more build types though. Keep updateing the skills people don't use and there will be endless amounts of builds.(even though people don't want the skills they don't use updated, they will like the idea of being able to run multitudes of builds with one character with the same effectivness)

o well that armour buff didnt' really hurt earth ele's that much as armour of earth is a single skil that will get around the cap

You can strip spellbreaker/obsidian flesh/Shadow Form with it.

Aegis = Mirror of Disenchantment ; bulk Enchantment removal.
Defensive Anthem = unstrippable.

You got the words right outa my mind Wisper.... they really hate necros so that's why it keeps getting nerfed all the time.

Some might say... "but you can use all the new balanced Wells so its all good!!! " rrriight... be a wells spammer!! wow!!!! so fun!

SS increased is uncalled for indeed. I mean necros aren't eles!! With the SR lame "balance", most of its skills are now useless.

After giving us some candies, stop picking em back anet!
...............

For the other class, good update! Most skills are nicely buffed which is really nice. The armor cap will make stuff more challenging. For that, good job!

But for the nec...

Unless they attack. It also has a smaller range to affect party members than Aegis. And can't be extended by 20%.

Use an Attack skill, not attack.

Who uses attack skills?
-Warriors
-Paragons
-Dervishes
-Assassins
-Rangers

Who doesn't use attack skills?
-Monks
-Elementalists
-Necromancers
-Mesmers
-Ritualists

Who needs to be protected with blocking?
Casters with low armor level.

Hmmm they look good, but I'm sure not a fan of Stoneflesh Aura nerf. Even thought it lasts the same as recharge time we won't have time to recharge it... Bye bye Earth Ele Farming

Hmmm they look good, but I'm sure not a fan of Stoneflesh Aura nerf. Even thought it lasts the same as recharge time we won't have time to recharge it... Bye bye Earth Ele Farming

EDIT: Plz lower the recharge time so it isn't 15 (same as duration) or make it .25 casting so we won't die once it's over

[quote]
* Participants in Daily GvG Tournaments no longer require 14-day guild membership.
* Teams in Daily GvG Tournaments now require only four guild members instead of the previous eight. [quote]

This is an honest attempt to let more people into the Tournaments. Last month's Champoinship tournament only had 30~ guilds in it, and when the rewards scale almost into the 20s - just showing up and not totally sucking got you atleast a bronze trim so of course Anet has to lax alittle on their no smurfs and such stance just to have enough competition.

This effect has widespread impact through many layers of the game and its hard to tell which one was the target and which were just unfortunate bystanders in the nerf. Through other updates it can be assumed that RA griefers ("terratanks") could have been in focus - using Armor of Earth, Obs Flesh, Stoneflesh, etc to just stand there and grief. PvE is effected in that most every tank build and many warrior farming builds rely on +armor stacking. GvG and high end PvP is effected the least in this change since only a few used builds even take advantage of this (Ala Watch+Stand).

Big changes for the class I play the most in PVP. Very little nerfs (like how they sneaked mantra of per in there) and great changes. AOE Con, Signet FastCasting, The already great Power interupts (well..some) countering chants now, just some cool stuff.

Well buffs make them good choices on Necromancers bars now, GJ there.

I'll have to play around with SR to see.

Little changes for my biggest used character in PvE again... Its sad that the only way they can think of to promote different rangers in GvG is to give us back an elite they took from us in a Previous season. Atleast Melandru's Resilience (an old fav of mine) got noticed.

When they say unstrippable they mean by the opponent, not by yourself. Unstrippable blocking is very strong. Being elite and shorter affect area doesnt by itself make it balanced. Especially since there arent many good paragon elites anyway.

if u think necros are always getting nerfed, just check paragons...

No you've got it all wrong as much as I hate D anthem;
- D anthem is an Elite
- Is only really worth while on casters but in most builds that use it, you have 2wars, minimum one to two paras, so you can spike those down during the 9 seconds the skill is up for
-with the upcoming change to mesmer interrupts effecting chants/shouts, any decent mes can grab the current 1 second cast time on the chant
-Is currently tied to a primary attribute

-Aegis isn't tied to a primary attribute
-Aegis has the benefit of not eating up elites, can be effected by fast cast, longer enchant mods
-Sure there is a counter to aegis such as mirror but most teams running the aegis run 2-3 of them, conjures, attunes, and when you need aegis stripped the most=building adren the mirror is wasted as next monk will cover it up

This upcoming update essentially puts the D anthem into the pile of worthless ELITES.

Armor Cap, interesting, it would be good if the characters in the game with the highest armor were actually the warriors. Of course in hard mode the monsters tend to run around the warrior for a softer target. Doesnt matter that the warrior initiated aggro, tried to step in the way, or even tagged the monster a couple of times. Heck i ignore warrior monsters and attack the weaker targets too.

I agree with an earlier post. There should be merchants for everything in the game. I would cut spam and it would cut gold farming bots. Prices would be capped by what the merchant would sell it for. For those who want to be different by having something almost unobtainable, well have the merchants lag the introduction of new skins by 2 to 6 months. Yes elemental swords are cool and i will pay dearly to get one now, but in 6 months the merchants , who see a good thing, will have them for sale for the masses. Also why are there no merchants for something as basic as weapon mods?

PvP skills should be separted from PvE skills. PvE seems to get the short end of the stick when balancing pvp. With 3 lands, soon to be 4, it must be a nightmare to re-adjust the monster groups in pve to reflect the balance changes that the pvp dictated. They are re-balanced right? Or are the PvE-only skills going to be large blunt objects that will make everything PvE ok? Hmm...that might work.

"Participants in Daily GvG Tournaments no longer require 14-day guild membership."


Wow thank you anet! Now that all high ranked guilds don't have to risk their rating points, we can have automated smurffest!!! HURRAY!

A good solution? Put the requirement somewhere between 3-7 days, so we can get rid of the smurfs but still allow more guilds in.

Correct except when combined with Enduring Harmony that makes chants last 50% longer. Then again Aegis can be made longer in multiple ways such as enchant mods and Divine skills such as Blessed Aura.

END RESULT of making an Elite skill worse or the same as a non elite is making that elite non usable in team builds. AND don't argue that you can't kill it, the new Mesmer buffs to PvP (I say PvP because there are no PvE related Mesmer buffs in this update) will make Defensive Anthem interruptible now.

"Note: After reviewing the comments and feedback we are going to move forward with the allowing guests in Daily Automated Tournaments, but we are going to keep the 14-day restriction on the 4 guild members"

OR they could fix the times so people don't have to come home early to play or stay up late to play.

if nothing else in this skill balance was addressed other than this id be happy... I doubt id be the only one. Yes there may a few brand new HA'er that wont like it but its a build that only hurts them and HA in the longrun.

prove they are broken!?

gfg

The GvG guilds have had to suffer how many months of the Reapers mark Nec, Migraine mes, Apply burning arrow ranger build?

Heart of Ashes and Dust [HAnD] reached no1 position on the ladder before ATS came into action. Guess what build they had run nonstop to pass all other seasoned guilds like vD, eF etc... yes HEXES.

futile discussions regarding the terrible state of play regarding hexes has culminated in the collapse of top level gvg. How many top 30 guilds from before the massive hex update are still playing? Soooo many of the top GvG guilds are inactive because of this issue. Are you not concerned that so many of the older top level gvg guilds have made way for the newer less experienced ones? The integrity of GW GvG hinges on the commitment of the guilds to play season after season... its such a shame that so many guilds have decided its not worth playing anymore. It might be natural for the old to give way to the new... but its almost as if this change has been forced onto these guilds... they moved on because they no longer felt gw was about skill... but about the build. Run a hex build or run its counter... anything else just fails.

It was forseen... in the massive january update that for some reason you guys were encouraging a hex meta. The update boosted so many hexes and the following skill balance a few months later did nothing to address the new meta you had forced onto us.

It is such a slap in the face that you can come here and ask players to use this week as the time to finally prove that things are as bad as they claim. Look at whats happened to the pvp community, look at the state of gvg... go talk to the players in the top 20. The GWP on MiRC has been a great source of feedback about the impact of skills on pvp... have you ever personally visited that chat channel?

Its no longer the time for us to SHOW you whats wrong and whats broken... its plain obvious and there are countless posts on every main GW fan forum stating clearly the problems. I personally am quite tired of repeating the same mantras over and over again. Hexes are imbalanced... solve the problem! You very rarely listen to the opinions of the most respected posters for this game so why would any of them feel motivated to provide yet more feedback... about issues they identified almost 4-5 months ago!

sigh

you have got to realise that the amount of time that this issue has been left to rot has had a lasting impact on peoples minds about this game.

its too little too late

good job youre all working on GW2 now... cos you need all the time you can get to work on that before its release.

its all down to broken promises

the biggest promise i can think of is the promise of more frequent skill balances as the ATS are introduced. You explained the slow balance updates was due to your reluctance to balance mid-ladder season.

Now that ladder seasons dont really exist in the same sense... what explains the same cumbersome and frustrating amount of skill balances that were promised to come more frequently and were the NO 1 concern of pvpers?

unfortunately the answer many a player has formulated in his/her head regarding this is not favourable towards you guys one bit.

Take a look at the gw forum that is mainly frequented by gvgers... that place is a sad indicator of things as the pvp community see it.

Just concentrate on GW 2...

this is all a too little far too late

and if the pitiful amount of published skill changes you have posted already are an indicator of anything

heaven help gw 2

I used Warrior's Endurance well before this update. So it's a win for me. I like the change to spawning power. I hope that one stays since there are no other ways to extend the duration of a weapon spell.

There certainly has to be 1-4 tournaments that you're able to attend in a week. Its not the same times everyday.

I guess now any "good" guild would have two guilds now. One for the ladder and one for tournaments. Thats the only way you can compete with the soon to be implemented smurffest!

While everything you've said is true, I believe the perspective Izzy is coming from is that he can't find hexes on obs mode lately. Neither can I. Why is that?

Because everyone is running rit spike.

if you dare try anything else but the ritspike counter you get rolled by a mob of unranked people hitting "t" and "spacebar" every few seconds. so of course no ones going to try anything new you get *absolutely* rolled by noobs if you do. lol try to stand in a ward or well vs rit-spike, or hex-degen vs rit-spike in kill count. ;p get rid of the overpowered rit build and people might just pull out all the stops for some good builds.until then rit spiking it is too fast and too overpowered to justify attempting something else.

Make people learn to play a good build and if you take it away they will still have their skill. If they do finally do something about rit spike your gonna have a lot of people who will have no clue how to play in HA anymore.

I lol'd.

For the record, I'm not flaming here, but I'd like some of the following concerns to be at least considered:

1) Is there any particular reason you're making Arcane Conundrum better than Migraine but leaving them backwards as far as Elite status? Mantra of Persistence+Arcane Conundrum (this new aoe version) is suddenly much more attractive than Migraine, as you can then use your elite for something else... like Ineptitude. Throw in the new buffed Clumsiness and Imagined Burden and Conjure Phantasm and you've (NICE) buffed hexes. It really is, as another poster put it, a slap in the face to serious PvP players when you say that you're buffing many of these skills for better use in PvE, when it's affect on the high end PvP metagame is obvious.

2) You're leaving Searing Flames alone because you "expect a lot of destruction from Fire Magic?" Hmm, well I expect to get wet if I go outside while it's raining, but that doesn't mean I don't bring an umbrella. Getting wet is a problem, so I fix it. Searing Flames is a problem, so fix it... something simple, such as lowering the area of effect maybe, would go a long way.

3) * Agonizing Chop: decreased activation time to .5 seconds. <-- Oh, sweet! So this is like pre-nerf Critical Chop except... better? I love Euro-spike! <3 Evisc-->Executioners-->Agonizing, I can't wait to run it.

4) You're keeping the Monk changes small as to not upset the current playstyle of the Monk... that's cute, except the current Monk meta is stagnant and can't actually deal with everything it comes against as it is. Has it occured to anyone over there at ANet that maybe the problem isn't the hexes themselves... it's a lack of viable hex removal compared to viable hexes? WTB Viable Party-wide Hex Removal OR Stack Hex Removal, 100k+xxEcto

5) Lol, Crippling Shot buff... and then your reasoning is that you're trying to put it on level with Burning Arrow. It's difficult to describe how silly that is... first of all, Crip Shot as it is is still viable and is what you think of as "balanced".. you know, "balance", that word that you mutter occasionally with a glazed and distant look in your eye, like you've let slip the name of a powerful god. Buffing it like this makes it overpowered... again. Secondly, Burning Arrow shouldn't be compared... people aren't going to run Crip Shot over Burning in the situations where they're running Burning. Burning is used as additional pressure or spike damage, Crip Shot is an entirely different type of skill.. and it isn't going to be used over Burning in the prevelant hex builds that it's seen in (for example), where you've already got Water Magic for speed debuffs.

6) Oh man, buffing Weapon Spells. I'm so excited to know that the most over-powered, impossible to remove character buffing skills in the game are going to be even better! Seriously, I'm extremely happy to see some Paragon countering skills for the Mesmer now, but would it really be such a bother to maybe make it so there's some possible way of removing Weapon Spells? Somehow? Maybe? Weapon of Warding isn't nearly so much a problem as Splinter Weapon or, worse, Vital Weapon.

Those are the primary issues I see. The whole Chat thing is kind of a joke to me, after two years it's such an ancient problem there's no point in fixing it anymore... I would prefer you cracked down on the OBVIOUS botting going on (as in, you see groups of 5 low level Mo/W in some town with the leader of the group a level 20 Mo/W, and all of their names are like "Wgojodi V". Ban please? Or if you want to play Bot Ban Tetris go to somewhere like Rhilon Refuge or Granite Citadel, and just watch them run to the sign by the door, and then out.)

I was going to go off on the whole change to ATs, as they completely invalidate one of the primary reasons to switch off the original ladder system in the first place (i.e. avoiding smurfing) but... whatever ANet, I have no idea what you're thinking about for GvG anymore.

Also, to be fair: Props on the Mesmer interrupts now affecting Chants, that helps A LOT. Props on that ammended Soul Reaping fix, it's much more well adjusted to reality in the way you describe it here. Props on the Recall fix, Recall gank as it is is just.... lol.

Peace

Hehe, I lol'd at this comment.

Migraine has a longer duration, half cast time, -3 degen, and causes spells to take longer to cast than Conundrum. Making Conundrum have a TINY AoE effect does not make it better.

They're both 100% longer. Sure you're not thinking of Frustration and its 50%?

well, most of the skill changes were good... the change (again) to soul reaping is fairly lame... they are making it way too complicated.

The problem with the spam thing (besides that they didnt really fix anything) is that if you are trying to buy or sell something, using the trade channel is worthless, and we all know that. Because 90% of players keep the trade channel turned off nearly all the time. So, why would I put something in trade chat if I want to sell it or buy it as fast as possible? There is absolutely no incentive to.

The spam problem is created and perpetuated by the player base... It really is nothing A-net can fix.

The day I see "GLF Mesmer for mission" in a joking manner then I might believe spam in local can be fixed.

two words for the spam problem. Auction House.

Well, I'd like to start off by saying I am a pve player 98% of the time.I don't do alot of pvp related activities except when necessary to help fill out guild teams.

I would like to address the issues of the "bot" and "spam",as I will not speak on pvp issues that are mostly irrelevant to me.

To Anet:
The spam in local chat.......
Why stop at the "want to buy or sell" spam?Lets just fell the axe on it all.The "looking for people/group" or the "My guild is recruiting" spam is just as bad.There was and is a search button that was given to us to help us find parties/guilds/teams/ect. and it is wholly UNUSED.To single out 1 and not the rest is wrong.If you could address all the spam with 1 effort ,I may turn my local back on, to chat with other players.Spam is spam is spam end of thought. STOP ALL THE SPAM.

The "Bot" issue....
The real Bot issue is: the buying and selling of in game gold for real world money/goods,Which is a direct violation of the EULA.You have gone out of your way to discourage bot sweat shops IN GAME and in the process hurt many honest players.The gold is getting tight.If you REALLY wanted to stop the Ebaying of gold it would take less than 1 week.You could set up a sting buying/selling some gold on ebay or have an employee's child do it. (which you would have to pay for but 5-10 dollars isnt much and lol you can make the money back from the buyers) and when the player "completes" the deal in game WHAMMO!!!!! account deleted and why stop at the account? Take out the Whole guild/alliance,as a guilt by association clause. In less than 2 weeks all the bot shops are gone or broke or are at least no longer apart of Guildwars.The spam bots are just as bad, but to prove they are bots, you will need to remove the up/down arrow key function out of chat,or over zealous players will accidentally feel the wrath.


Well Im off to play my favorite game.See ya there.

I agree with you 1000%... but I wonder how they could do it. Although, it would be beneficially for both the PvP, PvE and any doubts the game devs that must have so many migraines balancing the game.

I'm a PvE b!tch and I dislike alot when some good skill gets "rebalanced" badly because it is too employed or too strong on PvP.

If they coulda seperate PvP and PvE skills, I'm sure they woulda done it right away. It's something I badly hope they gonna incorporate into GW2...

TREAT PVE AND PVP DIFF!

Thank you very much!..... just my 2cents

-Targa

Ah, I love the attempt at getting rid of trade spam in local channel. It's there because there's too much spam on the trade channel that it spills over into another one. So let's shove it all back into one channel, that'll help!

Why not solve the problem with the trading system rather than trying to pretty it up so that you can ignore the problem? It doesn't go away just because you take it off local channel.

LFG and recruiting messages go on the All Channel because there is no recruitment messaging channel. The only time this is spam is if it is repeated multiple times in succession unnecessarily.

No its there because people dont have the discipline to put it where it belongs. Its easy enough as a buyer to scan the trade channel and find what you're looking for and buy it. Always has been. Same for selling without the need to actually spam. Taking it off of the All channel is indeed an improvement. Cheers to Anet for an effort in that direction.

Improving the trading system would have been nice, but its not going to happen for GW. That's already been stated. The fact that there will be no auction house has no bearing on players "needing" to abuse the channels.

What is it with you people trying to justify All Channel trade spamming?

I've added comments on this from a Hero Battles perspective here, the Hero Battles forum:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...76#post2904676

Overall though, a few things stand out.

There are a small handful of things they could do to really help the situation with Rits:
-Tie any spirit-dependant skills to rely on a Spirit directly under your control, not just ally spirits. This would make killing specific spirits a viable tactic to weaken certain team aspects (offense, defense, etc).
-Reduce the duration of uber-long weapon spells, like Splinter Weapon from 60 seconds to 12, and Vital Weapon to no longer than 25 seconds. This will stop Splinter-Barrage spike and be the first step in nerfing Weider's Strike spike. The +15 armor from Ghostforge doesn't help things either.
-Slightly nerf specific spike spells, like reduce conditional damage on Weilder's Strike from 60 to 30, and the cast time on Rift from 1 second to 2.

Paragons need to be re-though and rebuffed. I still maintain that chants should be changed so that gaining Chants from a paragon would remove all previous chants from other paragons, but not cause them to trigger Echoes. From that, Chants and Echoes could be buffed a decent amount, especially offensive ones like Anthems of Envy, Flame, and Guidance. Command needs a buff overall, because half the skills there are way outclassed by "Charge!".

Not a bad update, but hexes, Rits, and Paragons really need a solid look at for the next update.

Tbh i'd rather have the skills changing in PvE... using the same thing for years would just get boring, at least if things get changed because of PvP we have to do some thinking ourselves.