Dev Live Stream Summary – Twitch Live Stream with Mike Zadorojny, Jonathon Sharp, and Matt Witter

During this live stream, a lot of questions were answered in regards to the 2013 update blog that Colin Johanson wrote this week. We got confirmation on a few things and there are a few others items that we learned.

The highlights concern a nerf to AOE damage across the board. Arenanet will attempt to rebalance the usage of AOE attacks. The example they gave was that if your single target attack did 10 damage, and your AOE did 8 damage to 5 targets; a player would most likely use the AOE all the time. They do not want this to be the case, so expect some major nerfs to this in the future.

The silver lining to this would be that different class builds will become more viable without any tweaking. For example, Necromancer minions, ignoring the AI problems, might actually be a bit more viable in large scale battles. This is another area of focus the Anet team will be focusing on with class balance.

The developers have always stated that their goal would be for each class to have 5 or 6 viable builds. Currently some classes only have one or two. The eternal struggle for class balance continues.

There were many other issues and plans discussed from Esport considerations, map balance, map creation, guilds, tournaments etc. A lot is in story for GW2 in 2013 and we’re pretty excited to see what Arenanet has up their sleeve. Below you’ll find a summary posted by Reddit user dulfy.

Part 1

TL:DR

• Incoming AoE ability balancing (nerf) – they are too effective right now

• Removing rez rushing in dungeons – i.e. can't WP if group members are in combat. Reducing difficulty on some of the more challenging encounters

• New achievement system to encourage players to go back to the deserted zones & guilds stuff

• sPvP: custom areans. leaderboards, 1 team vs 1 team winner stay in loser kicked out tournament (paid)

• WvW – working on introducing progression, better rewards and fixing culling

• Class balance to bring up the weaker weapons/traits, more viable builds, and reduce AoE effectiveness.

What is our long term focus for PVE and how we are bringing left back to deserted zones

• New achievement system that plays into dailies/monthlies that adds new style of gameplay
• New achievements to encourager cooperative play – i.e. rezzing, rallying) – things that will help players better at understanding the concepts of our game.
• Allow players to filter back into some of the deserted zones (i.e. this month’s monthly achievement for jumping puzzles was used as an example)
• New content with the guilds – 4-5 different styles of content that show up in the world that guilds can go in to help kick off and pull other players into it as well.
• Adding tiers to guild economy/ear guild tabs, adding in new rewards for guild members to show off.
• >100 new rewards tied to the achievement system/guilds to allow players to show off some of the cool stuff they have done.
• Framework rolling out next couple months
• New Ascended items coming into play outside FOTM with the new achievement/reward system.

Philosophy on the dungeons

• Multiple phase change for the dungeons – first build – remove the idea of rez rushing (i.e. only way to beat some of the difficult encounters at the moment is to have dead players run back from nearby waypoints while players that are alive kite the mobs)
• You can no longer able to rez (I think he meant waypoint here) if someone in dungeon is in combat
• We are nerfing some of the encounters that are a bit more challenging
• Phase 2 – go back and look at some of the encounters – retune and increase difficulty if necessary.
• New rewards (no details)

LFG mechanics

• We are working right now on a system that go across the board, not just for dungeons, sPvP. It is a bit far off.

sPvP

• Working on custom arenas – need to make sure it is bug free, we are polishing them atm
• Working on leaderboards – see your progress against other people
• New player experience for PvP – better matchmaking system – play with players of your skill level.
• Working on a new 1 team vs 1 team version of our tournament system , will be paid tournament (but reduced the cost and reduced rewards). Winners stay in, losers kicked out to the lobby. (Current tournament system require 8 teams for a single tournament with 3 rounds so it is hard to get tournaments started at the moment)
• This new tournament version will be on Temple of Silent Storm map (this map has a lot of tournament potential).
  
• Blog post coming up to talk more
• Adding more PvP specific armor skins – i..e skins that are available in PvE but not in PvP.

WvW

• Looking into progression in WvW to give you some kind of character development and rewards
• Goal is to progression/rewards. Encourages more players to do WvW.
• Recently tested culling – we are doing great things with culling – running a lot of different tests/tweaks.
• Our WvW programmer talks about more on the official GW2 forums.
• Adding more PvP specific armor skins – i..e skins that are available in PvE but not in PvP.

Upcoming AoE skill balancing (nerf)

• One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.
• For people that don’t know – max targets for siege weapons is 50 while max targets for AoE is 5.
• Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.
• Major update coming to all the AoE skills – make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.
• Same thing with dungeons – right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want.

Philosophy inside weapons and class balance

• We want every single class to feel like they have multiple options to deal with every situations, this doesn’t mean every class will have the exact same options.
• We want every single class to deal situations in an unique manner – we keep “purity” in certain skills/traits i.e. only mesmers and thieves have stealth to deal with some situations. Not everyone have stealth but every class have a defensive mechanism they can use if they don’t stealth.
• We want to bring up all the weak weapons/traits on par with strong weapons/builds/traits in addition to reduce AoE effectiveness.
• A lot of classes have 1-2 good builds while some have 5-6 builds , we want to bring up all the classes to 5-6 good and viable builds.

Part 2 – Q&A (Part 2 is in super rough draft format, some things might be inaccurate, makes no sense, editing it when i get to rewatch)

Q: How close do you feel each class fulfill the class philosophy

• We use one set of balance numbers for wvw, pve, and spvp. We do this because people get acclimated to characters – we want people to play a class in a certain situation and feel comfortable in another
• Some classes are filling their roles, some are not
• We are brining up the weaker builds to be on par with the good builds.
• So yes they are but there are more work to be done.

Q: Expain what you mean by progress in WvW

• We are encourage people to defend, to get involved, to break away from large mass mentality of zerging
• Reward the individual player for what they are doing rather than contribute scoring via server

Q: Culling fixes available in WvW, sPvP, or PvE, when?

• Depends on testing – WvW atm is bad, PvP is not an issue, PvE affected for large scale events (i.e. Lost Shores, Shatter event)
• We are testing the system in WvW and hopefully it will affect all across the board.

Q: Fractals

• Adding reconnect to fractals, and coming up a solution for the level restrictions – those are coming up in the next build.
• Able to start at the highest fractal level achieved by any group member – it will advance everyone who is eligible for advancement up one tier
• You will be rewarded based on your personal level, not the level of the fractal you are in (i.e. if you are not 10+, you can’t get ascended rings by doing higher fractals etc)

Q: Dynamic system in open worlds – how will it evolve – make it more understandable, more rewards

• Changes to Orr at end of month – adding some new effects, environment zones, rewards
• Continue building lore/story – between content patches we will add in new events, new guild stuff.

Q: Stance on allowing people to see enemy nameplates in WvW

• Mixed feeling – we want server to viewed as a whole and not introduce bitterness to individual players
• Not completely opposed to the idea – be interesting to get bragging rights, more competitive nature
• Not sure how to design around that at the moment
• Need to make it voluntary, prevent harassment issues
• WvW is about large scale massive battle mentality where individual players are not as important

Q: Advancement/prestige design for wvw

• We want to keep things consistent – similar to some other stuff in the game. Can;’t talk much

Q: How does dev priorize development time – new content or old content bug fixes?

• We want to to do bug fixes first then add in new content.
• We looked at dungeons across the board, fractal bosses are more interesting – environment affect them etc. * We want to do the same to the original dungeon bosses.
• Specific teams to focus on different areas of the game to make sure no area is left behind.

Q: Do you think classes will have more weapon combinations sometime in the future? (i.e. Eles using greatswords)

• Great question, you might be able to see it in the future – can’t comment more

Q: Examples to make boss more interesting

• Different mechanics when bosses get to a different health stage etc like some of the fractal bosses.
• We now have more better tools to develop boss scripts.

Q: WvW and ascended gear?

• It is an idea being tossed around – use the badge system perhaps.
• I am hopeful that it will.

Q: Custom areans – new game modes? cost to host?

• Yes, cost money to host, you rent server from us.
• You can’t create an entirely new gamemode but you can turn some features on/off.
• I know you guys want new gamemodes like CTF

Q: GvG – Guild vs Guild

• Guilds battle in guild halls – you had a flag, a guild lord etc in GW1.
• We see it more as the team 5vs 5 stuff in GW2 and in custom arenas

Q: New game modes?

• We want to use conquest as the base and develop around it, we are talking about deathmath, CTF and see if they can fit out game.
• We can maybe we can implement some elements from other gamemodes.
• Why do we keep to conquest? If you want something to grow, to do Esport, you want something that people can pick up.
• New mode – pushing the boundaries of what conquest can do arriving sometime before the death of the universe.

Q will GW2 become a ESPORT?

• Yes, we are working on things that GW2 needs to be an esport – i..e custom arenas, Spector mode, better streaming support
• Releases later in the year.

Q: Do you agreee with the statement the current metagame is boring

• Current metagame is boring, could use some expansion
• Bunker – a class is a class that hold down a position, has a lot of healing and self-suvability (i.e. a tank). We don’t want the bunker to go away completely. Bunkers give you an anchor in the map.
• We don’t want to be case that every team needs a bunker.
• Bring builds to all classes to what the bunkers are currently.
• Eles are tough, guardians are tough, mesmers are hard to take care of, so are thieves.

Q: Do you find any profession to be out of balance? Like Ele bunker, roamer, thief one shot combo, mesmer portal?

• Ele bunker is really strong, on our watchlist
• Mesmer portal is giving us problems –giving that tool onto other classes

Q: Reward screen for the new crowns for the achievements

• If you are playing a specific class, you have a reward that can be tailoring to your class
• A chest containing stuff that your class that you can use.
• Not class specific armor etc.

Q: Get crowns for achievement we already have?

• First build only have crowns for daily and monthly achievements.
• Later phase will have crowns are other achievement.
• New daily and monthly achievements tied to new content – allow to pick specific rewards you care about.
• Feb’s monthly will reward crowns
• Crowns are a new type of currency

Q: Elaborate your plans for changing AoEs

• This is not a quick fix, we are getting a lot of data.
• If your skil does 10 damage to a single target, if you have another skill that have the same opportunity cost but deals 8 damage to 5 targets, the AoE skill is better – we don’t want you to use AoE skills on single target mobs.
• Maybe add a new mechanic where mobs are resistant to AoE damage.
• In PvP and WvW we see people using AOEs on enemy players rezzing other etc

There was much more discussion