[Dev update] Games Changes & Design Team Update

[Gaile Gray]

Hello, everyone,

I wanted to give you another of our Dev Team updates about all sorts of matters, both big and small.

First, I'd like to share some upcoming changes to the game:

• A new Challenge Missions Ladder is opening today (Tuesday). There will be a news post about this in a few hours, but we think you'll enjoy the special recognition and the means to see who's the best of the best on these missions.
• Up to 20 players per town will be able to show off their miniatures in town. I frankly didn't see this one coming, and I know it'll be really fun to be able to take your miniature for a walk through Ascalon City or Droknar's Forge. And can you say "Miniature Racing," anyone?
• You can now log out to the character selection screen, instead of the log-in screen. No need to enter a password every time you change characters. (I know a few people are going to cheer for the added convenience of this change. )
• Several changes have been made to the Skills and Attributes panel to offer you more customization options. Even little things like being able to swap the order of the skills in your skill bar will make things a bit easier, and there are several other functionality improvements beyond that.
• Two hero quests have been updated, Gain Olias and Gain Zenmai. Now, if you've done these quests, you'll not be able to redo them, but all character who have not completed these quests will find them new and improved.
• * Cantha New Year's Event – Details have already been posted, of course, but there has been a change that doubled the reward in the Roller Beetle Arena. Now, rather than the top 50 players getting a special prize in the rollerbeetle racing events, the top 100 will receive prizes

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Now, secondly, I have a message from the Design Team about changes to the team. Here's what they have to say:

After reviewing the play balance changes last week and looking over how players responded both in game and in forums, we made a few adjustments last week:

• We reduced the effectiveness of some Paragon defensive skills. In conjunction with the Paragon’s high armor, these skills were encouraging degenerate team builds.
• We reduced the effectiveness of Paragon skills that inflict Deep Wound. Outside of these skills, we have not decreased the Paragon’s damage output.
• We reduced the effectiveness of the Dervish form Avatar of Grenth. Even with our previous changes, this skill was overpowered compared to other Dervish elite skills and other Enchantment removal options.

We know that not everyone will agree with every change that we make, and more importantly, we know that every change we make risks hurting character builds that players enjoy using. Even so, it has become clear that the Guild Wars community as a whole has voiced support for us making changes more often than we have in the past and for having a game that supports diversity and encourages creative, active and intelligent play. With that in mind, we are beginning our next round of internal testing. Some of the things we’ll be looking at include:

• Paragon diversity and balance. Once we’ve had more time to see the most recent changes in effect, we’ll see if further changes are needed.
• Good PvE options for Mesmers.
• Bow skills for rangers.
• Ranger pet adjustments. We're pleased to say we have a rudimentary version of pet controls up-and-running on our test servers. We’re looking forward getting those into the live game as soon as we’ve examined all of the play balance issues this might introduce.

Depending on how things go, some or all of these might receive changes in the next play balance update. Let us know if there are other issues you’d like us to focus on in the next few months. We won’t always be able to make all the changes you ask for, but we always look into the suggestions and complaints we see on fan forums.

So, there's some news and... some more news! Hope you find this of interest, and naturally your comments and questions are more than welcome!

[Buttermilk]

Nice! Miniature Race FTW! Can't wait for the pet update either

EDIT: Could you specify the changes/additions for "Bow skills for rangers"? Thanks

[CagedinSanity]

Another paragon nerf? LOL! Seriously, I really did laugh.
My only deep wound skill is an elite, but i use it for the damage output so my spear paragon still remains somewhat unaffected.

Paragons aren't really that great, why do you people continue to nerf the bajesus out of them?

Still, That log out feature is very neat indeed.

[Ray]

Okay, cool I guess.

[Tiyuri]

Hi, thank you for the update, any information is always appreciated.

Do you have any news you could share in regards to how the dev team is feeling about the player count in Heroes' Ascent and the concerns over the kill count objectives limiting viable player builds?

Any information you're able to share regarding this topic would be very much appreciated, thank you.

[Esprit]

Awesome! Thanks for posting the info and for giving us information about some of the reasoning behind certain profession balances.

It'll be nice to be able switch characters without having to log out, it will make inventory shuffle less tedious now.

I can't wait to see what the PvE Mesmer changes will be, as well as the Ranger skills and pet controls. There's definately a bunch of stuff to look forward to in the future. I hope we don't have to wait too long.

[Chewbacca Defense]

Thanks for the update. I have to clean my drool after hearing about potetial pet controls.

dayam!

[Redfeather1975]

Oh Gaile this is wonderful!
Thanks for coming here and posting this. There is lots of fun things to look forward to in the months to come.

Oh, a quick idea to toss around the office about the mesmer elite Signet of Illusions. The community has made some suggestions to make this skill more useful. Right now it's very hard to make builds using this elite. A suggestion was to increase the recharge and make it work on the next x number of spells used. Currently you almost always need to have symbolic celerity in your build to cast spells stolen with arcane larceny. It's very easy to shutdown a Signet of Illusion mesmer with all that signet using required. Very easy!
It might be as simple as doubling the recharge and making it work on the next 2 spells.
Or perhaps changing it so that it doesn't get used up if you use an illusion spell. This way a mesmer can prime the Signet and use it's effect after using their illusion spells up.

[Charqus]

Yeah cool....
Pet update sounds good

[Franco Power]

HA?


(12 characters)

[TheRaven]

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

[*]You can now log out to the character selection screen, instead of the log-in screen. No need to enter a password every time you change characters. (I know a few people are going to cheer for the added convenience of this change. )

Let the cheering begin!!!

WooHoo!!!!!

(Yeah, it's the little things that make me happy)

[VitisVinifera]

it all sounds good but really I can't get past what I *think* I saw, which is yet more paragon nerfs? If there are more coming, why not just delete the class? I mean seriously

and how about throwing us a bone about the status of CH 4?

[Stormlord Alex]

R.I.P. Paragon, we knew thee well. Well, not really all too well.

[Tiyuri]

I believe the notes on the paragon and dervish are referring to the last changes and why they were implemented, they're not going to be changed again. I mean look at the mention of grenth, it's already been lowered to 40 seconds, I very much doubt it'll be touched again after that. So it seems these are just explanations of the previous paragon changes. Which incidentally I agree with.

[Zinger314]

Don't like the minature change at all. No point, really. In instances, it's showing your friends. In outposts, it's showing youe e-peen.

And I'm confused about the Challenge Missions ladder. Isn't there one already? (And will the rewards from those missions actually become worthwhile?!)

[lyra_song]

Degenerate team builds = having a full team of AL 80 with shields, good DPS, constant chain healing buffs?

Poor paragons. They are doing their jobs all too well.

Hey Anet, psst~~ *gestures devs over*

Dazed - Condition. While Dazed, you take twice as long to cast Spells and to use Shouts, Echos, and Chants, all your Spells, Shouts, Echos and Chants are easily interrupted and your Shouts, Echos and Chants end 33% sooner.

[boxterduke]

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

[*]You can now log out to the character selection screen, instead of the log-in screen. No need to enter a password every time you change characters. (I know a few people are going to cheer for the added convenience of this change. )
[*]Good PvE options for Mesmers.
[*]Ranger pet adjustments. We're pleased to say we have a rudimentary version of pet controls up-and-running on our test servers.

Triple wootage.
TY ANET

[dargon]

Originally Posted by CagedinSanity

Another paragon nerf? LOL! Seriously, I really did laugh.
My only deep wound skill is an elite, but i use it for the damage output so my spear paragon still remains somewhat unaffected.

Paragons aren't really that great, why do you people continue to nerf the bajesus out of them?

Still, That log out feature is very neat indeed.

Changes != Nerf

They could just as easily decide that some of the previous changes went a little too far and buff them and/or other skills.

[Redfeather1975]

I am going to start some threads in the mesmer forums of both gwguru and gwonline for ideas to tweak mesmer skills to be more useful in PvE, yet hopefully not have an impact on PvP use. It's going to be tricky, but there are lots of creative people whom I am sure are eager to get the ideas out there.

[Zinger314]

Originally Posted by lyra_song

Degenerate team builds = having a full team of AL 80 with shields, good DPS, constant chain healing buffs?

Poor paragons. They are doing their jobs all too well.

Hey Anet, psst~~ *gestures devs over*

Dazed - Condition. While Dazed, you take twice as long to cast Spells and to use Shouts and Chants, all your Spells, Shouts and Chants are easily interrupted and your Shouts and Chants end 33% sooner.

You missed the problem of Paragons by a mile.

Paragons are (or should I say "were") balanced when there were only 1-2 in a group. The problem with Paragons is that they are only degenerate when there are 5-6 in a group.

Limiting to 3 per class per group in PvP would fix that easily without completely breaking a class for all other types of gameplay.