Regarding the April 9 Game Update

Skill balance should be done by committee, with both community appointed players and devs together. should be an open process and be free from conflict of interests. but all thats a different topic.

I guess I'll go against the negative feedback flow here, and say that I am thrilled about this update, and I am even more thrilled about no skill update. Thank you ANet! I have too many character slots taken up by mules. Maybe I'm just a packrat, but I need a storage update. So I, for one, am happy and pleased at the current direction and balance of the game.

I do hope the HoM update will still be included...

Simple idea.... lets just stop demanding Anet do this and that and let them decide what to do? PvPers cry our for PvE nerfs... PVEers scream at PvPers for getting things nerfed nowt to do with them.

Hell we're lucky Anet even change a thing in the game... they don't have to..... they have the money and that is all they need.

I await GW2 but I don't care Joe Bloggs can do UWSC with CoP or anything... why do others? Because they want things done for their own benefit.

Can any person honestly say that they care about a skill balance in a skill they don't use/abuse ? I doubt it. As soon as they want a skill changed for their benefit they cry out all over and even more when one is balanced they can't abuse no more...

I'd say abandon all skill updates from now on... learn to live I say.

I wouldn't. I guess that most people who play GW play because there is no monthly fee.

Wow, that's new!
It's nice to hear you guys learned from mistakes made in the past!
*thumbs up*

Personally, I view the changes as A.Net being unhappy with a sucky product.
Once they stop changing things - they either achieved perfection or they are happy with having a sucky product.
Perfect, the game at this point in time, it is not.

Not really, if I didnt want to pay a monthly fee I might as well not play any MMORPG right?

I am sick and tired of ANET informing us about anything, making any kind of updates or skill changes, providing new content, addressing our concerns and problems and giving us more stuff for free. Quit it ANET right now!!! I have had it and just to spite you I am going to play your game!!! HAHAHA! that will teach you!

GW is one of the CORPGs that serves the PvE players more then the PvPers.

I see.

The whining going on in this thread is nuts - oh no skill update for a month....

Just stop and think for a second - this major update has been promised for months. Any idea what it is like to develop these changes, test them and make the update scripts (and test these) ready for a deadline? It can be a nightmare.

Anything database and server/client related HAS to be thoroughly tested, especially of the likes we are going to get today. People think "oh its only a couple of changes". While it may seem like that, the actual changes can have knock on effects to a variety of other areas. So, when releasing a major update to a game, system or the likes, you don't want to be adding further complications into the mix. Like a skill update.

In all honesty, I was expecting either skills or the actual update being postponed - we were never realistically going to get both together. I'm glad they are releasing the major update, this is something that has been needed for a long time in the game. And hats off to Regina and Anet Devs for coming clean early and stating what is happening.

Being a developer can be a very tough job indeed, especially when you have a minimal team because of company restrictions and newer projects (i.e. GW2). So please, give them a break. They are trying their best.

Since the Update to The Hall of Monuments was announced back in June of '08(I would give a link Regina, but you work at Anet so you know this is true) I am expecting something grandiose with this build. I am expecting game shattering here. It's been almost 10 months since that announcement. Throw us something to tide us over til that build comes out please. While you are at it, can you fix the Tyrian drops? I am sick of getting golds that look like this example: Req. 10 Fire, 19% HCT Divine Favor 20% HSR of Earth magic, +1(20%) Curses. Make farming in Tyria and Cantha fun again by making all of the weapon skins Inscribable.

They probably wouldn't fix LC and PnH anyway, so meh. Looking forward to see if any of the PvE goodness in the "big update" applies to me.

I know it's just your job, and I'm not bitching at you or anything, but I took the liberty to take out the bullshit, and shorten it up a bit.

I've also added some comments on the side, criticising on the yet again, same old lame excuses...

Small note on the skill balance testing:

As I said, I find it hard to believe that much testing needs to go into the skill updates. Face it, they suck anyways (Sorry for the hard use of words, but it's the truth), so you might aswell give us quantity instead of quality, as the latter has not been seen more then 3-4 times in GW-Skill-Update history.

And again, is there ANYONE in the staff that has extensive PvE-PvP experience? Because the more excuses I read (I know, it's simply your job to take over the message, but I'm directing this towards the skill balance team), the more I get the feeling these skill balancers have NO clue what GvG, OR HA even is. I'm pretty sure they are still under the illusion people form Cry-Way teams in Heroes Ascent.

The problem here is simple:

The skill update is below amount of quantity asked by the community, it's FAR BELOW the standard of quality and it simply takes WAY TO LONG to react to PvP-problems. PvE is "dead", it doesn't matter as much if overpowered stuff gets abused (SF, RoJ, Cry, ursan, etc), but PvP is the "alive" part of GW. If the balance is bad, the game isn't fun for 1 side of the match (The one not abusing gimmick/borderline exploit trash builds), and people will quit. People have quit to proove this.

The solution is simple, yet Anet refuses to react in a proper way:

Player made/voted skill updates. Aside from the usual, sometimes amusing, dartbord buffs/nerfs, allow the community to update/balance skills aswel.
Either have an in-game feature, such as Xunlai Tournament House, or use the official Guild-Wiki with promotion in game to allow players to propose skill updates.

Heck, for all I care, "hire" costless "player"-skill balancers, people who know the game, or the format they play like the back of their thumb. Restrictions will have to be made (Such as they can't join mATs), and there will be small amounts of abuse, (People "paying" to suggest skill updates to these player skill updaters) but it's not like that already isn't the case: [ dR], [rawr], ... have more than once abused Izzy's personal skill-balance forums for personal guild-benefits. Most known being the famous skill update a week before the mAT, in which [ dR] finally got their gold-cape.

I'm sure the delay is because they are still coding the 4th year BDay Mini Pets.

Because as we all know, Mini Pets are the "Be all/End All" of this game.

Pardon me but I really do not understand the need for this announcement Regina. NO where anywhere has it ever been stated that the "SUPER LEET APRIL BUILD" will be on april 9th. Sure the typicall Skill balance is done at the begining of the month but it has also never been said that a skill balance WILL happen EVERY month.

I think if you had not made this announcement at all everyone would continue to assume that the will be 1 big update later this month.

Though I guess when you do come back and say "no skill update at all in April" you kind of rake yourself over the coals.

IMO RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO the 4th yr minis, ALL mini's are a WASTE of dev time and server storage space. Balance the skills, fix the HA maps so anhilation is not the object of the first 3 maps. Also make TA viable.

Sadly none of those suggestions seem to of any relavance to ANet.

hi, I am not very active person on this thread however I have been playing guild wars for 3 years now and I have an idea for an update I know that me and many other people would love to see. In my time of playing guild wars I have made some terrible looking characters, and have even gone through the trouble of starting over because of it, perhaps you could make some sort of NPC that allows you to change the appearance and even the sex of your character? However dont make it free, have it similar to the Guild Emblemer but instead you change your characters visual appearance for a price. I personally would pay up to 50k just to change some of my characters, and it would save starting over on a character just because it is ugly. Another request which Im sure applies to many other people as well is having the ability to change your characters name. I started playing guild wars when I was 13 and Im now 16 years old, and my oldest characters have some very childish and rubbish names, perhaps you could also release a name changing NPC. My final request, is that of Tyrian character creation. It has been many years since the release of guild wars prophecies and the hairstyles, colours, faces and skin tones are very minimal and dull. Perhaps you could add a slightly larger range of skin tones, faces, hairystyles and hair colours to the prophecies character creation. It doesnt seem fair that factions and nightfall get such a varied selection in most of these and prophecies stays the same, dull and basic. I hope you consider my requests for they are all things im sure a large proportion of guild wars players would love to see. Thankyou for reading

Hmmmm.... I am a (mostly) PvE player and I very much agree with part of what you are saying here. I love skill updates. It was worrisome to me when they started separating some of the PvE skills from PvP skills simply because I enjoyed adapting and playing with the changes to the skills even in PvE. They make the game more interesting. I just see no reason to be insulting to others while making your own, very valid, point.

If there are going to be new red dots to eliminate -- red dots that we have never seen before -- then waiting for the next skill update isn't that big of a deal. MOX was interesting; even though they used the same areas/backdrops/scenery there were new monsters and quests to enjoy, and that was great. I'd take more of that. I'd take a Lyssa's realm with new quests built entirely within an existing zone, under the lore that she is the Goddess of Illusion and once given true-sight the players can see more of what is what is really there.

Giving me either skill update or content update is enough to keep me interested. Storage update isn't all that great to me personally, but they've said over and over again that HOM changes and Storage is just small parts of what they have in the works. Let's see what they roll out before the bitch-fest starts.

It's something that has been talked about before, most recently here.

this was such a good game 4 years ago

Hey Regina, I think everyone, even most PvPers, are looking for the BIG update with the storage and HoM then anything else... if you cant do skill update, you cant do one... its not gonna hurt anything... I am sure everyone understands... the ones that give a hard time are the ones just flaming and dont care about the game anyways, so dont worrie about it. People who truely care about this game will not mind a pass on a skill update. I wasn't looking for one anyways since the current meta is still being tweaked...

When someone asked me whether they would like the update, or whether the update would be "worth waiting for" I told them that they would have to decide for themselves. I can't decide for players what value to place on the update. It depends on what people personally consider worthwhile and valuable. Just look at the different responses on the forums here. Not everyone has the same feeling about the information in the OP.

For me personally, yes I like the stuff in the upcoming content update. But I'm not going to make up your mind for you on whether you should like it or not. I do think that there is a lot in it that many players will be excited about, but at the end of the day, different people will have different reactions.

I really hope the will make a separate skill balance update, because another MAT with Lingering, WE and P&H will be retarded.

I disagree let them get it out now. It amazes me that when ANET gives us exactly what a majority of people complain about, they still bitch. I cannot remember all the times I have read on this forum that ANET is not telling us anything/not giving us information/ignoring the community, blah blah blah. But when ANET does explain something they take a high hard one with no lube right up the rear from the community. Same thing goes for any new content released, piss and moan for something additional or new and then crucify them when the do put it out. Must be that Easter spirit going around.

Maybe this link will help some of you out: http://www.midol.com/living_with_ur_period.html


@ regina really enjoyed your visit to pre searing on april 1st thanks for taking the time to answer our questions!!!!!

That guy made me laugh my ass off, "Well why can't we have fireballs!, we like Fireballs!".

DING! See this is the reason Regina is working there... she gets it...

This game has a lot of facets... it has a lot of different agendas for different players... some want to title farm... some want to gvg, some want to money farm and some want it as a chat room (pre-searing)... So not everyone will have the same out look on the update because it may or may not touch your area of the game... but we all must agree that the HoM update, combining the entire account to one HoM is worth it to EVERYONE...

But as one person said earlier, be glad you are playing a game that is owned by a company that cares about its players playing it to keep changing and tweaking the environment to make it more enjoyable for its consumers (aka players). There are a lot of games/companies out there that have no update content at all unless its a bug fix. And they already have your money by buying the game... they dont have to cater to our wants/needs... BUT THEY DO! If they didn't, they wouldn't have community managers and skill update tests, ext ext...

So be happy that we have a changing environment and be happy that we get any changes at all. I have been looking foward to this April Update since around November when it was announced... No skill update? Who cares, this update is big enough to not worrie about 2-3 skills getting messed with...

The funny thing about this logic is, what if the tables were turned? What if every month there was a PvE update that shifted the way PvE was played. One month comes along and there's a PvP update, and the monthly PvE update was canceled for that month. There would be the same amount (if not more, seeing as the majority of this forum are PvErs) complaining about it. You can't simply tell them to "stop bitching and to grow up" seeing as they have a very legitimate reason to complain. The PvP meta is shit, and it's going to continue to be shit for (at least) the next month. So please, look at it from both sides before you start telling people they don't have the right to complain.

Now, here's my opinion on this. Playing mostly PvE for the past 3 and a half years, this disappoints me. Skill balances are needed to, well, balance the game. It's something most PvE players don't understand (or forgot) because they run the same thing over and over. Without skill balances, the game would have died a long time ago. Seeing as the PvP meta is currently quite shitty, I do believe that the skill balance has a higher priority than additional storage and other random things. PvE players can survive without the additional storage for a bit, but when the PvP meta is shit, PvPers don't want to play. I don't exactly know what goes on with ANet, but I believe they planned this poorly. They shouldn't have to cancel something important that happens each month for this kind of update, especially when PvP needs balance right now. This better be one hell of an update. It's impossible to please everyone, but it's not hard to piss off everyone. PvErs and PvPers are getting screwed each month, and it's eventually going to catch up.

She gets it cos she's actually one of us already and part of the community herself

have you ever read any of her blogs? she is pretty cool to read

I would say I wouldn't be bored with PvE anymore...

If you know where every nook and crany and pop up and patrol pattern and ect and ect... it gets stale... I would welcome changes to PvE... Ergo why I had 1,000 people say yes and 2 people say no to a new Lyssa or Merlandru Relam like UW and FoW... CHANGE IS GOOD! It keeps the game interesting.

Thanks for the update Regina.

/agreed

If we had consistent changes to PvE as often as the PvP side has then most likely you'd have far less people bored with that part of the game (and often find themselves moving onto other games, not that that's a bad thing).

Well you seem to forget that not too long ago, a change to skill balancing at PvP would mean a change to PvE too. Back then, PvP people would tell PvE'rs to stop QQ. Same here.
Just stop the QQ and be happy you are playing a game that does not charge you a monthly fee and that developers are still developing content and skill balances.

Regina is right, you will always find people that will always complain about something. It does not matter what. So please stop QQing because there is no skill update during this month. I'm sure that if there was a skill update the same people (and i"m being sarcastic right here) will be complaining because the skill changes did not conform with what "They Perceive" as just or worthy.

Has there ever been a time when it did not need balance? Beta perhaps?

yay, no skill updates means no nerfs

Yes, PvP players would tell PvE players to stop QQing. Does that make it right to tell them to stop QQing? No, it doesn't. While for the most part I don't think the PvErs should have been complaining about it, they had a right to complain. No one stopped them. Same with PvPers. If something upsets them and they have a legitimate reason to complain (which in this case they do) they have every right to.

Again, turn the tables. Would you be telling other PvErs to stop complaining if you guys got screwed over for an important update? I doubt you would. Same with every other PvEr telling PvPers to stop complaining. Seriously, cut the crap and stop separating the community based on what they play, and think of them as players. Every player has a right to complain. Every one. Telling others to stop complaining about something legitimate like this is accomplishing nothing, except making you look ignorant.

I'm sure there were months that the game was fairly balanced, but good point.

Linsey recently listed a bunch of people who are working on this update. Most of them work on GW2 full time. Several people have not only worked on this update during their spare time at work, but also have worked on it during non-work hours. A few people, including Linsey, have worked overnight and on weekends to help get the April Content Update ready.

Now, when people see the final product, they might wonder what was so difficult or why it was so time-consuming. On the surface, maybe people will think that it looks "easy" but game development is actually very complex, as we referenced in the original message. When you change one thing, a lot of other parts of the game are affected, and sometimes unpredictable bugs crop up. That's the nature of the beast. We are sorry that we don't have the testing resources to devote to the skill balances this month. We know that many players are disappointed and upset about this. We had to make this decision to ensure the stability of the April Content Update.

You know, the complaints that skill updates make the game more interesting because you have to change up what you use and etc. make me wonder.

Do people never try out new things just for the fun of it? Why do they need a skill update to force change? I mean, when I get bored with something, I don't wait for something else to make me change what I'm doing - I just mix it up on my own.

Maybe that's just me, though.

And what makes you think that I'm only PvE? I never said that no one should complain. As you said, all of us have the right to complain but at a certain level. The April update had been announced for a long time and GW community have been waiting for this update for a long time.

Regina gave a very good explanation of what the developers considered important. They choose to go with one update instead of two since both of these are time consuming.
If you look up my messages I supported both PvE and PvP when the complain was just. This time I'm taking the side of the developers, I'm not going for PvE at all because the skill balances would not affect PvE. But the majority of the changes for this major update will affect all players the same with the storage and the armor wardrobe....

And please stop lecturing and cut your own crap....

No offense but all i can see in Mrs Buenaobra post is :"blahblahblah" that is to say she's doing her job: she communicates with us, she posts what we want to read and what is plain and obvious. Instead of cooling down the debate, it fuels it again, all the more that she is bringing forth the problem of people working on updates and thus fueling the classical yet annoying debate about whether people balancing skills are qualified for this task.
Well done !

PvP is competitive. Most play to win. You win by running the most effective skills, not by trying new things for fun. That's what PvE is for. That's why PvP needs skill balance.

Because if you PvP'd you'd realize the importance of skill balancing, and understand why people are complaining. Yes, there is a good explanation of why there is no skill balance, but that doesn't mean people can't complain when it not only negatively affects them, but the game.

And I'm not lecturing you, thanks. If you don't like my replies, feel free to not reply.

I hope that the PvP reaches that balance soon and everyone is happy with it. I might dive in at that point

This is just me but, honestly, i dont care about a skill balance. ok the HA meta is gay, but its always been that way, theres always some imba build that your all bitching about. its never going to change. theres always going to be those innovative builds(Mathway, IWAY, Contagion Pressure, Sway, Hway, bspike, kappa-spike). innovation is good. imagine how boring HA would be if everyone ran the same cookie-cutter balanced.

people use the best things to win. if you dont forcibly take it away they will just keep using it. and theres no guarantee the group youre going up against would be so willing to "mix it up lulz".