ArenaNet Studio Update: June 2022

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Here is the ArenaNet studio update for June 2022! Settle in and read all about what we've been up to! 

 

[Gibson.4036]

So it looks like, "Moving forward, we’ll be publishing a regular 'State of the Game' blog post to keep you informed on the latest development news, address top concerns within the game and the community, and give you an inside look into the studio and the development of Guild Wars 2." means quarterly by the fact that we have a new one 3 months to the day after the first. Can we expect that we'll be seeing these on the 22nd of September and December as well?

Hm, 22nd of December seems unlikely... somewhere there about?

EDIT: I see at the end of the article there is mention of more info in July, so nevermind.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[BlankHearts.8216]

I have a friend who is interested in playing Guild Wars 2 when the Steam version launches.

From the sound of things, steam launch isn't on schedule?

Edited June 22, 2022 by BlankHearts.8216

[bthomas.3605]

4 minutes ago, BlankHearts.8216 said:

I have a friend who is interested in playing Guild Wars 2 when the Steam version launches.

From the sound of things, steam launch isn't on schedule?

 

On an adjacent topic, are we getting Latam servers prior to the Steam launch?

[Rauderi.8706]

'ey! I appreciate the upcoming Echo Emboldened update. 

 

But, uh, it's still going to be meaningless when groups can be taken over by trolls who vote-kick for the slightest reason. 

We need better grouping tools and rules!

[Rauderi.8706]

18 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

So it looks like, "Moving forward, we’ll be publishing a regular 'State of the Game' blog post to keep you informed on the latest development news, address top concerns within the game and the community, and give you an inside look into the studio and the development of Guild Wars 2." means quarterly by the fact that we have a new one 3 months to the day after the first. Can we expect that we'll be seeing these on the 22nd of September and December as well?

Hm, 22nd of December seems unlikely... somewhere there about?

 

Quarterly is a good cadence for a road map. I hope they keep it up!  

Game development doesn't move fast enough to justify much more than that. Alliances definitely haven't lol

[Gibson.4036]

Can other super-rare drops get the Imperial Everbloom infusion treatment, and drop an account bound version for doing a certain amount of their related content?

Can dungeons get the Emboldened effect, to smooth the way for solos and duos to do them as part of the story?

Edited June 22, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[RyuDragnier.9476]

I'm hoping the Emboldened option will have reduced rewards. And I mean massively reduced, like no gold reward, no higher chance of ascended (meaning lesser chests and loot), and far less raid currency than normal. All in return for no weekly cap on the Emboldened, allowing you to keep doing the fights until you master them. Because otherwise people will use it for easy weekly clears on raids, and that is not something we want.

Maybe also a lock on raid achievements in that mode, outside of possibly a brand new achievement called "Emboldened: (raid wing name)". Perhaps a title for doing them all called, "Emboldened Raider," letting people know you've actually done all the raid bosses in Emboldened mode, so you at least know somewhat what to do.

Edited June 22, 2022 by RyuDragnier.9476

[Labjax.2465]

Quote

Now that the cat is out of the bag, we can also give this team the credit for the Special Forces Training Area and dungeon reward changes that were released on June 7.

Can you ask them to get rid of the goofy vendor lock before they get shuffled away and the feature is never revisited again. Also, unless I missed it and it was addressed since, I seem to recall some reporting issues with the Special Forces Training Area change. Bugs and it not being consistent with the different areas you can enter it from.

Please don't shuffle them away and leave this abandoned or it'll end up as "improvements" that fixed one thing and broke another.

Edit: Also, credit where credit is due, emboldened mode sounds like a clever way to address the problem of this game not having gear progression that a raiding game does. Maybe a tad heavy-handed, but if it makes the content more accessible, I'm all for it.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Labjax.2465

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

57 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

So it looks like, "Moving forward, we’ll be publishing a regular 'State of the Game' blog post to keep you informed on the latest development news, address top concerns within the game and the community, and give you an inside look into the studio and the development of Guild Wars 2." means quarterly by the fact that we have a new one 3 months to the day after the first. Can we expect that we'll be seeing these on the 22nd of September and December as well?

Hm, 22nd of December seems unlikely... somewhere there about?

There's this:  We’ll be back in early to mid-July to share our development roadmap through the end of summer.

[ceanonmurchadh.1368]

As someone that refuses to partake in raids because of the toxic elitism (and other factors) I am really happy to hear about the "emboldened" thing.  While I agree they cannot have the same rewards as regular, I do hope you don't make them just a "training" aid with minimal rewards.  They will not have the intended effect you think they will if so.  I myself (and quite a lot of people I know) would gladly play easy mode raids as long as we are able to make progress towards legendary gear in some or another way.

[Izzy.2951]

Thx, ill give a try to raids before i thought! 

[Gibson.4036]

11 minutes ago, RyuDragnier.9476 said:

It's the effect on the ingame economy I'm worried about. I help new players almost every weekend learn the raids, so I like Emboldened for helping them learn the content and potentially getting them the confidence to step into raiding proper. But I do NOT want the problems it'll cause the ingame economy if you get the full rewards for playing the easier mode.

Can you elaborate on this some more? What items are you worried will crash? Do you think a significant number of new poeple will start raiding for gold and cause inflation? What things are bought for raid currency and then sold on the TP?

Edited June 22, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[Ogwom.7940]

59 minutes ago, RyuDragnier.9476 said:

I'm hoping the Emboldened option will have reduced rewards. And I mean massively reduced, like no gold reward, no higher chance of ascended (meaning lesser chests and loot), and far less raid currency than normal. All in return for no weekly cap on the Emboldened, allowing you to keep doing the fights until you master them. Because otherwise people will use it for easy weekly clears on raids, and that is not something we want.

Maybe also a lock on raid achievements in that mode, outside of possibly a brand new achievement called "Emboldened: (raid wing name)". Perhaps a title for doing them all called, "Emboldened Raider," letting people know you've actually done all the raid bosses in Emboldened mode, so you at least know somewhat what to do.

I agree in regards of rewards, but disagree in regards of achievements.

They said they will prevent you from getting some achievements, like Slippery Slubling.

Also, allowing more players to complete Legendary Raid armor or ring collections to me sounds like a benefit. The more people who have incentive to at least try raids, will have a certain percentage that will stay in the raiding scene once they do get their legendary goals.

[soulknight.9620]

26 minutes ago, RyuDragnier.9476 said:

It's the effect on the ingame economy I'm worried about. I help new players almost every weekend learn the raids, so I like Emboldened for helping them learn the content and potentially getting them the confidence to step into raiding proper. But I do NOT want the problems it'll cause the ingame economy if you get the full rewards for playing the easier mode.

Its 1 wing a week. And what exactly are you refering to? As far as i know the most valuable things are acc bound (rare minis/gadgets/infusions/chairs/ets). The gold gain is laughable, i can easily make more money by plain fishing (that nets around 30g an hour is u do it right). Magnetite shards-clovers? you are limited to 10 per week, and you can easily get them by mystic forging the gold you get from other sources (like fishing!) or fractals for example. 
So what is that great economy threat?

[Zyreva.1078]

"Thief: The Shadow Arts trait line has been updated to provide better support options to synergize with specter, as well as updated options for stealth and defensive gameplay."

I hope this means nerfs to stealth accessibility and uptime - otherwise, do we really need to push every single thief spec into playing what is the most kittenous traitline in existence? As if 99% of thieves in WvW (including specter) aren't already playing SA.

Also can you please already stop treating WvW like a PvE game mode and causing collateral dmg due to PvE updates carrying over for absolutely no reason?

Ultimatively it reads kinda like " we will keep simplfying and dumping down the combat - that one thing that makes gw2 stand out - until every single ultra casual pve noob who can't be bothered to figured out even the most basic game mechanics is somehow able to "compete".

Edited June 22, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Saharo.5381]

Is there a reason why playing on Emboldened mode should yield the same rewards as playing regular mode?

There's at least a minor incentive to play Challenge mode over regular mode for achievements, etc., so....

 

Also, does Emboldened mode need to be a permanent fixture? Why not a one-and-done, so if you've cleared a boss/raid on Emboldened mode once (or X times), you can no longer receive the buff. That way people will eventually wean off of it. If there's a new player in your group, the entire squad can still get the buff regardless. That way it encourages groups who want the buff to seek out new players if they've already aged out of their own. If people below the "experience benchmark" accumulating KP is an issue, that would also be solved.

 

I got into raiding 2 months ago, no prior 10-man content experience, and am now experienced on Wings 1-4 and run my own groups here and there. I've seen multiple training LFGs every night, multiple raid training guilds/discord ads every night. I was able to pick it up easily. I don't really think the hurdle to raiding is that high. Not to say there aren't elitists/toxic players/etc. that can be mean to new raiders, but the resources to succeed are there. Many people simply don't look or don't want to take a chance.

 

I've encountered many "new" players who haven't even bothered watching a basic walkthrough video of the boss/mechs and join a semi/exp group and expect a carry through the entire wing. Even in training squads, someone people refuse to listen to kind, easy, patient, clear instructions. When they keep griefing the squad and get inevitably get kicked, they whisper the comm/squad members to yell about raid toxicity.

 

Not sure this [Emboldened] thing is a good solution to raid  "accessibility" issues.

[Poki.8235]

Quote

We’re also making a few small changes to the existing Looking for Group categories to create separate spaces for new and experienced players: Looking for Group (Training) and Looking for Group (Experienced).

Hello. I like this change very much, but if it isn't too late can I suggest adding a category for people that are advertising as well? I have mixed feeling on the advertisements on lfg personally, but if developers are OK with them I'd like it if they could not take up slots from people actually LFGing.

[SlateSloan.3654]

regarding the new mousecursors:

will external mouse cursor tools like yolo mouse still be tolerated or can its use lead to a bann when the game  delivers an own solution now?

i think an statement regarding this is necessary and helpful as lots of people in competitive modes play with yolo mouse etc.

Edited June 22, 2022 by SlateSloan.3654

[Wolfey.3407]

Lot of interesting things in the notes:

 

Raid Thoughts: 

Emboldened is an interesting idea. I don't know if it will really fix the root problem which is more of a community issue and the game fostering that toxic environment unpenalized. The idea to get them into it, to learn it I really like. I think it's a good way for them to see the fight and eventually cross the finish line and hopefully get them into the raid pool to do normal clears. 

 

My big concern, is that this will just be like every other MMO where the normal raid pool gets smaller as people just flock for the easy 1 wing clear. A lot of training and casual groups are only doing 1-2 wings a week anyways. I think it's fair to presume that they will leave normal raiding and stick with Emboldened raiding especially if the rewards are the same.  After all, why do more work for equal rewards on normal? Legendary Insight is a Legendary Insight.. Magnetite Shards are Magnetite Shards. If the #'s break even between each mode why put it more effort?

 

The economy portion I agree with a few people above, there is really nothing to be gained financially from raiding to flip on the TP. Maybe the ghostly infusions if you're lucky on drops but even then that's just small chunk change. 

 

I think one reasonable compromise, is to disable achievements earned while Emboldened is activated.

End of the day, it's all about the prestige anyways, that's all achievements are.  Maybe add an Emboldened meta achievement for killing every boss with emboldened on.

 

Ranger:

Spirit skills have been overhauled to provide boons and allow rangers to opt in to providing alacrity with the trait Nature’s Vengeance.

 

I like this, although... i'm curious on the wording "Spirit skills have been overhauled to provide boons" they already apply boons... so i'm curious to note if the boons have been shaken up again? Will Storm Spirit actually be useful outside of Niche Situations?  I find that wording interesting because anyone who plays or knows ranger... knows that spirits provide boons. So why the mention of this in context with overhauled. 

 

 

 

 

[yagiza.5301]

13 minutes ago, Saharo Gravewind.5120 said:

Is there a reason why playing on Emboldened mode should yield the same rewards as playing regular mode?

There's at least a minor incentive to play Challenge mode over regular mode for achievements, etc., so....

 

Also, does Emboldened mode need to be a permanent fixture? Why not a one-and-done, so if you've cleared a boss/raid on Emboldened mode once (or X times), you can no longer receive the buff. That way people will eventually wean off of it. If there's a new player in your group, the entire squad can still get the buff regardless. That way it encourages groups who want the buff to seek out new players if they've already aged out of their own. If people below the "experience benchmark" accumulating KP is an issue, that would also be solved.

 

I got into raiding 2 months ago, no prior 10-man content experience, and am now experienced on Wings 1-4 and run my own groups here and there. I've seen multiple training LFGs every night, multiple raid training guilds/discord ads every night. I was able to pick it up easily. I don't really think the hurdle to raiding is that high. Not to say there aren't elitists/toxic players/etc. that can be mean to new raiders, but the resources to succeed are there. Many people simply don't look or don't want to take a chance.

 

I've encountered many "new" players who haven't even bothered watching a basic walkthrough video of the boss/mechs and join a semi/exp group and expect a carry through the entire wing. Even in training squads, someone people refuse to listen to kind, easy, patient, clear instructions. When they keep griefing the squad and get inevitably get kicked, they whisper the comm/squad members to yell about raid toxicity.

 

Not sure this [Emboldened] thing is a good solution to raid  "accessibility" issues.

Agree with everything you've said, especially the one-and-done thing for the Emboldened mode.

 

I used to think raids were exclusive and elitist, but as I just got into raiding myself a month ago with no issues, that really isn't the case. Reason why people get kicked is for not knowing mechanics; I've seen plenty when people join experienced groups when they're clearly not experienced and refuse to listen to instructions. Also seen and joined plenty of training groups up for raids with super patient commanders, so the tools are there to get into raiding. That's how I got into them. It's up to the player to at least know their class a bit, get proper gear, and take the time to read a guide or watch a video. It's a no-brainer why people want specific things for content that only allow 10 people. If you don't want to bring certain roles into someone else's group, make your own.

 

57 minutes ago, ceanonmurchadh.1368 said:

In fact, go look at LFG for strikes.  Most of the time all you see is people advertising CM and requiring Li or Kp or some such.  I am 99.99% sure that the majority of players would like to play strikes too but struggle to find groups.  (Specifically referring to the EoD ones).  Some of us are just not remotely interested in hardmode content because of the attitudes that come with it (not only here but in every game, it is a human thing).  I started playing GW2 because it let me have casual fun and the idea that I can partake in content that otherwise would be locked away for me, appeals to me very much.

 

Surprised to even see people complaining about CM strikes or having LI and KP requirements. Where are you struggling to find groups on LFG for strikes lol? Groups asking for certain roles on normal mode just want to have a smooth, fast clear through strikes, but there are often many "all welcome" groups, especially for daily runs. Been in and led plenty of IBS Fast 5 strikes, as well as helped people learn the mechanics. There are waaaay more groups up without LI or KP requirements; I run IBS Fast 5 daily and see daily groups up without reqs, many at reset. Again, if you don't like what's up on LFG, or don't want to bring roles asked for, take the time to check out the content yourself, get a group of people who want to learn as well, and make your own group.

 

People who want to complain about raids being inaccessible and toxic aren't making the effort themselves to put together their own group, join a training group, or take time to learn raids themselves. It's not that difficult, but no one in exp groups is going to want to carry people who don't put in any effort themselves. 

[Linken.6345]

I hope the bouncy house got a roof so people dont get yeted out of Hearts and Minds anymore

[Labjax.2465]

2 minutes ago, yagiza.5301 said:

People who want to complain about raids being inaccessible and toxic aren't making the effort themselves to put together their own group, join a training group, or take time to learn raids themselves. It's not that difficult, but no one in exp groups is going to want to carry people who don't put in any effort themselves. 

What you are missing here is that this is so not how raiding works in games that have progression raiding as their core end-game and those games are the standard for raiding. In those games, it's pretty standard to join a raiding guild, i.e. a guild that tries to progress on raids over time. You learn from showing up and experiencing the fight, as well as from any mechanics explanation that the raid leader(s) will probably do and/or refer people to online. Most people don't have the time, energy, or interest to be a raid leader or start a raid guild themselves and it would be odd to expect them to. Leading a raid is hard enough with a guild of people already there in voice chat, it's harder still with pugs. Learning a raid can only be done part of the way if you don't get the chance to play it (a video will only tell you so much).

Furthermore, plenty of people are fine with putting in more effort than others, at least for a time. Otherwise training groups wouldn't exist. Those are a form of carrying.

It's unrealistic to simultaneously want a group of experts at all times, while not wanting to teach anyone. Teaching other players is how you get more people who are experienced. They can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

[HotDelirium.7984]

13 hours ago, RyuDragnier.9476 said:

I'm hoping the Emboldened option will have reduced rewards. And I mean massively reduced, like no gold reward, no higher chance of ascended (meaning lesser chests and loot), and far less raid currency than normal. All in return for no weekly cap on the Emboldened, allowing you to keep doing the fights until you master them. Because otherwise people will use it for easy weekly clears on raids, and that is not something we want.

Maybe also a lock on raid achievements in that mode, outside of possibly a brand new achievement called "Emboldened: (raid wing name)". Perhaps a title for doing them all called, "Emboldened Raider," letting people know you've actually done all the raid bosses in Emboldened mode, so you at least know somewhat what to do.

God forbid you let us disabled folk get this buff and earn the same rewards. Stay classy!

Edited June 23, 2022 by HotDelirium.7984

[yagiza.5301]

  

9 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

What you are missing here is that this is so not how raiding works in games that have progression raiding as their core end-game and those games are the standard for raiding. In those games, it's pretty standard to join a raiding guild, i.e. a guild that tries to progress on raids over time. You learn from showing up and experiencing the fight, as well as from any mechanics explanation that the raid leader(s) will probably do and/or refer people to online. Most people don't have the time, energy, or interest to be a raid leader or start a raid guild themselves and it would be odd to expect them to. Leading a raid is hard enough with a guild of people already there in voice chat, it's harder still with pugs. Learning a raid can only be done part of the way if you don't get the chance to play it (a video will only tell you so much).

Furthermore, plenty of people are fine with putting in more effort than others, at least for a time. Otherwise training groups wouldn't exist. Those are a form of carrying.

It's unrealistic to simultaneously want a group of experts at all times, while not wanting to teach anyone. Teaching other players is how you get more people who are experienced. They can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

 

Dude, to be honest, I have no idea what you're talking about. Did you read my post? We're talking about GW2. lol.

 

You can learn how to raid by joining the training groups on LFG. I'm not asking for anyone to make a raid guild? You can literally make your own group on LFG without a raiding guild. The resources are there to learn how to raid, as I said in my post. You keep mentioning how it's "hard," but the point is that it's challenging and REQUIRES effort. Effort to go read a guide, watch a video, or join a training group. If you don't learn by reading a guide or watching a video, obviously joining a training group is your best route to get the experience you need. Like I said, there are plenty of training groups up on LFG for raids. And they're PUGs. I don't think anyone besides you considers proper training groups to be a form of carrying. They're literally training, they don't always get clears.

 

8 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

It's unrealistic to simultaneously want a group of experts at all times, while not wanting to teach anyone. Teaching other players is how you get more people who are experienced. They can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

 

Where did I say anything like this or imply it? Who said no one wants to teach anyone? Read my post again.

 

18 minutes ago, yagiza.5301 said:

It's not that difficult, but no one in exp groups is going to want to carry people who don't put in any effort themselves.

 

EXP groups are not okay with carrying people who have no idea what they're doing for any time at all. Nor should they have to, as they've explicitly stated EXP. Train in training groups, EXP in EXP groups. Not that hard.