PvP: Current Projects Status Update

Don't get me wrong.
I am all for fixing real bugs.
It's just that some things in Aspy are trashing the arena much more than the bugs that they seem to be going after. Or WILL be going after.
And those things aren't bugs.

Offline Wars, every player's dream.

Linsey published a huge devnote on August 28th where she laid the plan for the coming updates. Between April and August (4 months) they devised these plans (she explained in the devnotes that they considered different options and have a prioritised list of items), while I guess still looking carefully at the April update.

Are you seriously suggesting that it took them 4 months to come up with the list and just now they're starting to work on it? I highly doubt that.

The XTH, syncing in RA, bugs in JQ/FA, GvG tiebreaker, etc. have all been issues LONG before August....so to think that they're just now starting to work on it would mean you have very, very little confidence in the Live Team's competence (not that I have a whole lot).

Cool to know whats going on at least, but you need to prioritize PvP love. There is a dire need for skill balance, I don't want another R/A month but seeing the same 2-3 builds over and over is so boring. Different options would be nice.

Im 99% sure Robert Gee is Harold J Chow in disguise.

More like 90-95%. The ones who already have many ectos would not want other people to get ectos, as it would make their epeen comparatively shorter.

The 20% who don't want 7-hero parties are bitter PUG players who can't accept that we don't want to play with them, and thus want to stop us from having more fun.

I would Love to see a return to Balance in PvP and even if a-net needs to destroy a few professions or mechanics to do

On the idea of using old HB maps for HA i am aginst it guild wars needs less focus on shrine-cap style games

Having HB maps in RA for a while was extremely fun.

It'd be nice to have that back.

Regina just posted this about the XTH on her feedback page on GWW

So we're still getting the run-around on the XTH, basically.

sigh..I hope Linsey does have the time for some new Halloween content. If I hear the paragon pants joke one more time, I swear I'm going to give Mad Thorn a beat down..

Anyway..yay for the update..ty

A status update reflecting no real progress in the status update, is still a status update.
Thanks, Regina!

One way or another, my jokes always slay the audience.

...

I mean, agreed

It is good to be king, no?

(no one tells you what to do)

I hope for the skill updates you all will really look into the Ritualist, Paragon and maybe even Dervish skills and give them more PvP love. They're needing it badly.

your right, lets just buff everything up to the power of sf. i want to be able to clear uw in 7 minutes using flarespam.

Great News - Will this feature go live soon, since its finished?

Smart move on awaiting the test krewe before changing the tiebreaker, I 'hate' the tiebreaker at present but would much rather wait a little bit longer so you can collectively work on a better system.

edit: Also wondering if the amount of pvp skins (weapon/armor) you can hold in your inventory will also be increased with this update (the current limit isnt even enough to kit out a pvp character with all the relevent shields / weapon sets)

Hey, I hope someone up there reads this, but could you guys throw around the idea of releasing the PvE henchmen builds and stats BEFORE letting it go live?

As for the skill update, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say I'd like to see some buffs to a lot of skills this time along with some much needed nerfs (SF!)

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates/20090917

Sure it was just toning down things buffed the previous month, but not every skill update has to be 10 pages long and completely redesign a class.

Good to see that they're finally starting to keep their promise of being more open. WTB more update notes on this kind of stuff. Also I'm guessing the new henchmen (PvE and PvP) will both come out at the same time? That might be a while yet.

Updates that come only once a month (or once every couple months) should be that kind of update, yeah.

No, they should not be. They should be including things that actually make the game less horrible. If that means changing one skill will make the game perfectly balanced, then ANet should change one skill.

Yes, they should. An update that's basically been in the works for a month or two should be amazing, it should radically shift many skills and builds, it should add new game features, etc.

Please, oh please give paragon henchman stunning strike or something useful to the team and not b0rked motigon skills.
Fixing warriors might be good too. I'm all for more Earthshaker if Devona has it.


Also, replace dervish henchmen with critical-scythe

Or at least Zealous Vow attack spammers

First of all, I suspect that the Live Team is working on a lot more things that they tell us. In 4 months, they probably had to plan this work while working on current issues (April update), and prepare for stuff like henchmenbar contest, Test Krewe organisation, the PAX event, etc.

I do think that they're competent, to the extent that they're fighting against incredible odds (not only the amount of things to "fix" but how the PvP community react to their work). If you re-read Linsey's August 28th devnotes (available here: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:...urdock/Journal ) you'll see that they're working on many of these things, but also other stuff (like automation of holiday/weekend events and tonic change). And all that has to be synchronised with different people across Anet (CM,s QA, marketing? law?). And they're working OT.

You can always question Anet's decision to not expand the Live Team, but I think that given their size and the goals they set themself, they're doing a good job. Albeit one that requires time. I'll admit that PvP love was LONG overdue and I hope they can achieve their aims. Regina's update is encouraging (and very honest, I liked the description of how the network team found an idea to fix synching during an ingame chat!).

While I don't question this need, Linsey said (in the same August devnote I quoted before):

Hi, I'm posting to inform you that I'm one of the handful that did understand your joke :P

(Harold wasn't that bad though, at least he tried).

Thanks for the update, Regina!

Is it possible to get the pvp skins for pve characters too?

Right, my 2 cents on this.

The PvE henchman thing sounds like a very time-consuming job. Don't know if it's worth all the effort, since PvE is already easyway with the current Sabway/Discord hero builds. Either way, hopefully these AI tweaks you're talking about also apply to the GvG & HA henchmen, so they can at least somewhat use their new builds properly, as we all know they wouldn't be able to now.

All I can say is, great news, I've been waiting for this. As long as the ZCoin prices aren't unreasonably high as mentioned. Maybe 1 gold coin per 10 reward points needed to buy a skin? (so basic weapon skins 1 coin, fancy weapons & basic armor 2 coins, exotic weapons & fancy armor 5)

To be honest I see no real need why this is implemented in the post, other than the fact that there has been no explaination given for it yet. I feel that there's no need for one though, as it was basically self-explanatory. One remark though: I can verify that it is still very easy to synch in RA if you know how to do it.

In my humble opinion the whole mathimatical equation here is really annoying :P I have yet to see if it's win, so I'm hoping much but not expecting it. Fair enough that the project is taking longer, happens. The only thing I can say is, you guys need to plan this stuff better. Taking away 2 entire PvP formats and implementing an entire new one is not an easy job. Either way, it's nice to have an update on the progress.

As long as you'll have enough skilled GvG players in the test crew, I'll have confidence in it that it's gonna be fine. As long as it doesn't turn out like crap, it's no problem for me to wait for it to happen.

I don't see how the fact that it's a code issue affects the priority of the issue, then again I'm not a programmer. Still, it doesn't bother me much, since I don't play these formats, but I can imagine the die-hards in this format would like to see a bit more detailed explaination for putting it on hold.

As long as it's gonna be good, I have no problem waiting. If it's gonna suck, people will be upset, since it would mean time spent inefficiently. Same goes for the GvG Tiebreaker.

People who play the AT's will be pleased to hear the rotation has changed.

You haven't started production on this? Hang on, I thought you changed the skill update frequency to every two months, just so you could deliver bigger and more meaningful skill updates when they're there. The fact that you haven't started on it, will just mean that the next skill balance is going to be either delayed, as small/bad as a monthly update, or even smaller/worse. Not good news. If by "until Halloween is set", you mean late October, then we can't expect much from te November Skill Balance, which is not good.

Please, don't have Linsey put too much effort in this year's Halloween, as she's appearantly already swamped with work. In terms of priorities, I'd rather have her working on the PvP content, Skill balances, and whatever she can contribute to getting the XTH back up. A new skillset for Costume Brawl and a new mask or two is all most players need for a happy GW Halloween.

No good news. In fact, no real news at all. Although my opinion on what your priorities should be is irrelevant, XTH has just been laying around for too long. Then again, with the new Zquests in place for PvP, and the prospect of buying skins with Zcoins, I guess we don't really need XTH anymore. It would be a shame, or even a waste to see it go though.

All in all, thanks for the status update. The news handed out was fairly positive, which is good, as I'd probably be losing faith in ArenaNET if it wasn't. Just make sure you guys spend your hours developing efficiently, with meaningful results. As long as that happens, the goals don't have to be too difficult to reach.

Meridon

Guess what happens when that kind of update gets released?

That's like saying that PvP players suck because RA players suck.
They WERE on the right track with their idea. Rework trash nobody wanted.
It was the execution that failed. But the execution can NOT get better if they refuse to learn how to do it properly.

Not a whole lot that I observed, aside from irritating Shadow Form.

Something like this, on the other hand...

Great update Regina, thanks.

Perhaps for a game with a $30+ monthly subscription. Not even WoW does that, and a free to play game like Guild Wars certainly couldn't afford to.

That update was only "good" because it was toning down things that were insanely overpowered due to previous buffs and weapon spells, which people had been bitching about for a long time.

thanks for the status update. don't overrate those events, please.

Also, I will never buy a PvP Skin until it becomes a one-time purchase system for unlocking the skin rather than simply upgrading one item's skin once.

You can't do that in pve, so you shouldn't be able to do it in pvp.

Seconding this.

Frankly, I'm somewhat irritated at the hints that EotN skins might become available for PvP characters. Particularly armours, with no need to grind rank 5 rep title.

I don't think he was asking them to spend more time or more ressources, he's just asking them to make decent updates...

It could if they'd not made the decision to start a sequel rather than continuing to release campaigns. After all, we used to get quite frequent updates that were comparable to a lot of the updates we're getting these days.