Guild Wars 2 State of the Game February (Part 4)

Another State of the Game streamchat round table has taken place. In this part the players and devs discuss the way PvP fights are split, incentives to attract new players to PvP, some random thoughts on PvP, and answer questions from Java.

The fourth part of our Guild Wars 2 State of the Game streamchat round table breakdown begins by discussing the reasons PvP is so focused on teamfights.

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Two Fights

Java followed up his comments on Warriors by pointing out that there are generally two battles going on in a three-point game, one large one in the middle and then a smaller one on one of the side points.  Jon Peters confirmed that was the desired intention and was a conscious design choice on Arenanet’s part.

He specifically points out that the reason that central fight is larger tends to vary by stage, using Legacy of Foefire as an example.  The large central point at the graveyard provides control over most routes between the two side points and all of the quick routes, making it an extremely important location to control even if there wasn’t a capture point there.

Regarding teamfights, Java specifically pointed out that certain classes are not rallying downed characters when defeated and asked if it was being fixed.  Both Jons definitely confirmed that as soon as they can figure out why it is happening (or rather isn’t happening) that it will be patched in to be fixed immediately.

PvP Incentives

Grouch asks about what sort of incentives there will be to pull people from PvE into PvP.  He said that PvP numbers are going down, but Jon Sharp immediately interrupted to say that since the most recent changes have gone into effect, the number of people playing Guild Wars 2 PvP has actually begun increasing.

Continuing on to address the question anyway, Sharp noted that they are working on several ways to get people into the PvP who are already playing PvE.  The main thing they are trying to do being making it easier for people to get into PvP by making things easier to understand and pick up.  Peters pointed out for one thing they are changing the PvP default builds, which are awful in the current meta.

Arenanet is also looking for more ways to have crossover between the PvE and PvP by possibly doing things such as having dailies in PvP give laurels for PvE or having a few PvE achievements that grant glory.

PvP Musings

Glory will also have new ways of being spent, with one way hinted at using a huge amount of glory that Sharp could not yet say anything about and also in the form of incentives, giving more things to spend the PvP currency on.

Sharp and Peters both assured the players that they will be going back and finding where to place the rewards for the paid tournaments back in, since the new two-team tournament does not have access to the highest tier of reward chest.  They will be proceeding carefully, not wanting to break their own in-game economy, but the gold chests are not gone for good just because the two-team tournaments are sticking around.

QP was brought up just long enough to be assured that it would not be sticking around once they are able to better establish their matchmaking rating system.

Java’s Questions

Java got to ask his questions, starting by asking about the February patch.  As it had been said that it would be a large PvP patch but the only thing currently announced for it in PvP is a single map, he wanted to know if that was it.  Sharp and Peters both confirmed that the large PvP patch is coming, but that they cannot give any more information than that, even though they wanted to.

He also asked if the issues with teams facing each other repeatedly would be resolved with the February patch.  The answer: probably not, as the 1v1 system is still new enough that they don’t have much infrastructure.

We’ll finish up in part five!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5


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