Guild Wars 2 Studio Update: Spring 2023

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Here's the latest studio update--let us know what you think!

[stormemperor.3745]

Thanks,

[Dr Meta.3158]

The focus on no more new elite specs and instead refining the existing classes is good.

[Randulf.7614]

Some very promising information here including what I’m reading as updates to main EOD maps? If I’ve read that correctly, that gives me pause for hope.

Concentrating on “core” is also great news. Some content, maps and world bosses could use updating to play as designed/intended (claw of jormag) will welcomed if part of that.

Theres still a lot of vagueness, but it’s good to see things being worked as part of general feedback and the thought you may finally be fixing visual noise is a relief 

Thanks for the update

Edited May 1, 2023 by Randulf.7614

[vares.8457]

Wow thanks, this sounds really good. 

[Spittinglama.5287]

Glad to see more detailed information. One thing I have been actually dying over though is the game's post processing. Can we please, please, PLEASE get a way to disable the awful bloom while maintaining the wonderful unique color grading that the developers have intentionally added within each zone?

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

34 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

[...] the thought you may finally be fixing visual noise is a relief 

Thanks for the update

Not gonna lie, I thought of you when I first read that section. 😄 

[Myror.7521]

@Rubi Bayer.8493 Overall good News and nice to hear that you concentrait to get the old content new and fresh. Only thing I am a bit sad about. Warrior! This classes e-specs are the same thing only other skills means melee dps only. Now that we know you will not gain us new e-specs im a bit worried about this classes Standing. Hope we will be Finaly able to get something supportish and not just dps. Also nice to see you work on WvW IT needs the ubdates for Sure. I only wana say pls take also a Look at PvP this mode is dying since Duo que is a thing would be nice if you also take at least a look at this one as Well. 

 

Good Job and nice work as the Last 2 years keep or up!

 

 

[Randulf.7614]

11 minutes ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Not gonna lie, I thought of you when I first read that section. 😄 

Ha! I'm honoured! Just think of the relief you will feel when I stop moaning about it 😉

 

[Aens.2713]

Just now, Randulf.7614 said:

Ha! I'm honoured! Just think of the relief you will feel when I stop moaning about it 😉

 

When we ALL stop. Because that is probably the number 1 request of everyone since game release.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

noice... !!!!

Quote

With our next expansion, our goal is to further augment the combat options for each profession by adding new tools to their arsenal and by lifting constraints that will unlock an unprecedented number of playstyle customization options—while keeping the feel of Guild Wars 2 combat true to its origins. Theorycrafters are going to be very busy.

Let the speculations begin! my first thoughts: does that mean that certain weapons / skills might no longer require E-specs?  maybe new weapons / utilities /elites for "core" use?  maybe new F-skills dependent on game mode?

Quote

Allied Player Visual-Effect Filtering

YES!!!!!!!

Quote

 

As for the balance update, here’s what we’re looking to address:

~Improving the feeling of moment-to-moment gameplay for many boon support builds. We want these builds to have more flexibility in their utility skill choice, and not be required to press a particular utility type on cooldown to provide quickness or alacrity.

~Introducing alternate playstyles for some specializations, including quickness-support deadeye and damage builds for druid and tempest.

~Tuning up some underutilized weapons and solidifying their roles within their professions. For example, we’re looking at further defining ranger sword as a mobile, power damage weapon.

~Removing additional skill-type-specific recharge-reduction traits and rolling the reduction into baseline skills where it makes sense to do so. The goal of these changes is to give players more interesting trait options to choose from.

 

YES! YES! YES! to all of it!

I'm definitely looking forward to see the damage tempest build improvements, as damage tempest is my preferred open world / story playstyle

Quote

As part of our focus on core game modes, we’ll be releasing another round of World vs. World improvements, including the addition of a new infusion and weapon set and new ways to spend your unused Skirmish Claim Tickets and Emblems of the Avenger.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and people say that Anet never listens! they apparently haven't been paying attention. I can't even begin to list the player requested changes, even in high level form... i remember i tried it once or twice many moons ago on the official forums, but YES!!!!

Edited May 1, 2023 by Forgotten Legend.9281
removed default extra space between paragraphs

[Infusion.7149]

WvW
Yay actual WvW rewards but I truly hope it has both the WvW guard bonus AND +5 agony resistance. If it does have agony resistance but no WvW guard bonuses then it is moot and more PvE players will be using it than WvW players (save for support players using toughness, concentration, or healing infusions). (see copy pasted section in italics)

World vs. World improvements, including the addition of a new infusion and weapon set and new ways to spend your unused Skirmish Claim Tickets and Emblems of the Avenger.
An account-bound version of the infusion can be purchased after completing an achievement in World vs. World. Keep lords will also have a chance to drop a tradeable version of the infusion when defeated.

It should be noted that the currently lopsided reward system will only appear even worse to the great majority of players since the infusion will not drop from defense whatsoever (it is from keep lords and it is not specified whether it is from T3 only). There are numerous complaints of defense credit not being given despite killing players within the confines of a keep. This is something I addressed at the first stage of the reward rework but people did not care at the time since they were too busy repairing SMC or something.

Speaking of rewards, I was severely disappointed at the reduction in grandmaster mark shards output. If the rewards team was truly intent on helping newer players that do not want to PvE then restoring the grandmaster mark shards to reward tiers below the highest ones that reward skirmish tickets should be a priority especially for T1/T2 keep captures. As it is now, due to the cost of the memories of battle (which are not in daily chests) it costs more for WvW-only players*  to purchase a weapon from the skirmish vendor than to craft it and there are no collections for those weapons (Mistforged hero, Mist Lord, Obsidian, Mistforged Obsidian).

* Which is 100% made possible by the level 80 boosts especially for alt accounts on different regions (NA/EU) and/or worlds.

Fractals/Strikes/Raids

I think Arenanet realizes at this point fractals (June 27 for the slated Cantha fractal) are the best thing to add to the game due to the way tiers affect the grouping of players (and their level of patience). The Raid LFG leaves a lot to be desired and until roles are actually flagged or indicated it really is not conducive to the existing group finder.

However generally speaking strikes are the future from a development point of view if expansion sales are to be priority. The difficulty tiering is similar to fractals (story / solo, normal, challenge mode) and there is reuse of assets to reduce production cost.

Balance

Balance is controversial but more hard numbers on why something is being changed (such as Josh Davis' comments on reddit re: power mech before the PVE changes) would allow for a better picture. There are quite a few balance changes that seem to only affect the players that are benchmarkers or speedclear players (see the recent proposed May 2 power untamed changes with no other changes) or further PvE mirage staxe changes.

Most notably the omission of any changes to mirage in competitive modes when tradeoffs for nearly every other spec including vindicator (which was designed with one dodge) have been outright removed are quite puzzling especially when the dev team stated specifically they were looking into restoring the full two dodges on mirage.

As for the lack of any new elite specs in the future, let me just say that heal warrior leaves a lot to be desired in PvE. Chrono would probably be workable with some number changes on well heals and change to healing/barrier on the initial cast. Likewise it has been theorized there will be alacrity added onto Sand Savant for scourges as in PvE people typically only look for alacrity or quickness supports.

Investment into technology

Chromium for the TP and DX11 mainline client were welcome and show Arenanet are not on maintenance mode for the overall game. An option for reduction in visual noise should help people that insist on turning on post processing. One thing to note however is that bloom is not a selection in post processing and that is the major offender.

I would really like some of the core improvements in the pipeline to be listed somewhere so the same suggestions do not keep popping up. In addition, the prioritization of larger updates could probably be better conveyed to the community especially if they are possibly controversial.

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by Infusion.7149

[mandala.8507]

I'm really starting to vibe with the double entendre of the chapter names.

First half is "What Lies Beneath", where we explore what resides beneath the Jade, but also where we identify an entity there literally lying to us about our feelings and exploits.

Second half is then "What Lies Within", where we explore deeper into the delve in pursuit of the demonic entity residing there, but also where we realize the true liar was the voice within ourselves all along that we must now successfully confront and overcome or risk falling into darkness.

Who needs therapy when you have Guild Wars 2, haha.

[Gibson.4036]

I'm excited about the possiblity of DPS druid.

I'm not a fan of instanced content. Happy that people who have long awaited new strikes will start getting stuff. But the new model looks like it will be light on what I think is one of the biggest things GW2 got right: an immersive open world.

The visual effect filtering has potential. It'd be nice if we could get a way to tune them down, not just eliminate certain ones. It's not just the amount of players effects that's problematic, it's the intensity. Some of my Holosmith's skills, for example, create enough noise to make it hard to see the enemy I'm fighting.

The rework of core game reward systems sounds intriguing, but too vague to really know. I've become reluctant to imagine into these kind of detail-free announcements.

With the addition of adventures  featuring the siege turtle, it'd be nice to give players access to it without needing to do a strike.

Exciting to see that core EoD maps might still evolve.

 

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

21 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Yay actual WvW rewards but I truly hope it has both the WvW guard bonus AND +5 agony resistance. If it does have agony resistance but no WvW guard bonuses then it is moot and more PvE players will be using it than WvW players

my guess is that the new infusion will be a visual effects one, not a new best-in-slot-for-all-game-modes infusion... and it's a WvW infusion. wouldn't really make sense to me to include agony resistance to a reward in a game mode that doesn't use AR... /shrug

[Infusion.7149]

5 minutes ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

my guess is that the new infusion will be a visual effects one, not a new best-in-slot-for-all-game-modes infusion... and it's a WvW infusion. wouldn't really make sense to me to include agony resistance to a reward in a game mode that doesn't use AR... /shrug

There is no such thing as a visual effects infusion (if you mean a cosmetic without stats or AR) even if there are cosmetics that are not infusions. Every infusion that is a metaevent drop or from fractals/strikes/raids has +5 agony resistance in PVE. The note specifically said infusion and not enrichment (amulet).

There are stat-only infusions with less than +9 AR and agony resistance-only infusions from fractals. None of those have a cosmetic effect.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cosmetic_aura

The only other way that Arenanet can do this is removing the guard damage bonus outright from all +5 power and +5 precision WVW stat infusions in WVW.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Infusion.7149

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

wow, way to split hairs about naming conventions.... Cosmetic Aura is a visual effect... 

and again... the ones that drop in PvE give PvE bonus of AR. it makes no sense for the PvE cosmetic aura infuisions to have WvW-inherent stats. they said this new one drops in WvW, so it makes sense that it would have WvW stats, NOT PvE stats

EDIT:

Ghostly infusion for example has a blue flames visual (cosmetic) effect, AND +5 on a stat, AND +9 AR, so does Peerless infusion (with the bubble visual instead of the flames.). the point being, they have stats and visual components.

also, no infusion has both AR and WvW + damage vs lords / guards/ etc. those would be considered best-in-slot for all game modes.

it occurs to me that you may have mis-typed, that you may have meant that you want +5 power / prec / healing / etc (stat) plus  +1% damage to lord / guard /etc... but those already exists in the game at the skrimish ticket vendors and the WvW laurel vendors, which is why i supect the new infusion will have a cosmetic effect in addition to WvW stats, like the Ghostly and peerless infusions are cosmetic with PvE fractal stats.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Forgotten Legend.9281
everything after edit because i [enter]d too soon

[lezbefriends.7516]

Very meaty and gutsy post. New "baddies" look delightfully evil! My only issue is that new armor skins will be locked behind... collections *sigh*. I'm tired of playing the wiki game.

Also, I hope the oni don't sneak up on you while you're afk. Just standing still and taking a breather on newer maps is difficult enough. All this would do is force you to mount up and hover on your skyscale every time you want to sip your coffee.

Edited May 1, 2023 by lezbefriends.7516

[voltaicbore.8012]

I'm pleasantly surprised - feel better about the direction of the game than I have for some time. Looking forward to visual noise reduction and whatever the new not-elite-spec gameplay updates are going to be!

[Counter Terrorist.7421]

So to clarify what's going to be filtered with the visual effect filtering feature? Will anyone see you having infusions at all equipped in a lesser cluster f way or will it effect armor/weapons only or infusions only ?  

[Doctor Hide.6345]

     I will give you props for finally adding the option to turn off Ally visual effects. Now the question is that for combat only, or is there options to turn off player infusions as well? I am fine with either or, but some clarity would help there on which one it is.

[ShadowbaneX.6273]

So any hope of getting elite spec utilities to work underwater? It'd be nice if we could finally get the Jade Mech waterproofed, or have functioning wells and other utilities that aren't just hard disabled the moment we get knee deep in a bit of water.

[Darkk.3018]

Really liked everything I read in the blog. The timescale for the pve content and xpac was ahead of expectations, so that's great. I'm excited for the new wvw rewards and hope that alliances can become a permanent addition sooner. My guild is in a state of uncertainty over transferring because of it.

 

The new monsters...Will be interesting to see their origins now that it won't be dragon minions. Looking forward to the new threats! 

[Luthan.5236]

Seems good. Story-wise I do not expect that much. The new enemies ... maybe look l ike the mobs from Abbadon in GW1? The no new elite thing - is a good thing. Though I bet there will be too many other mechanics already with the next expansion.

Something that really builds up on the existing professions would be nice - not just another special action skill. Maybe we actually will get to combine stuff from different elite specs lol. (But that might be harder to balance than a new elite spec itself.)

New fractals and stuff ... sounds be good. I wonder if the thing shown in Sunqua fractal that is affecting the boss ... is the same  thing we are fighting now. The only thing that I might dislike ... cooperative adventures. (Like with the turtle where you might need to group up with another player to do it.) Hopefully not many achievements (rewards) are tied to those.

In general the focus (as claimed in the update post) on als improving existing stuff - is good. I agree that there is a lot of content ant mechanics. I just wonder if the future things won't just be more again ... but we need to see how they actually fit in with the existing stuff.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Luthan.5236

[Cuks.8241]

I really appreciate all the core improvements youre delivering and working on. It can be ungrateful job because its development thats not invested in new shiny content that sells. But it should pay off in the long run. The game still has lots of potential if you can keep resource balance. 

I would still have some proposols though. 

UI and LFG. Im not going to write specifics we are all aware where its lacking its been written a thousand times. 

Pvp and wvw. New or more drops are not really content updates. Dont get me wrong, wvw drops rewamp and weeklies are nice. But a little bit of love with some new real content would go a long way. You really have awesome, one of the best foundations here with great mechanics, deep build crafting and just great combat feel. Also the most fluid large scale pvp combat engine that can handle so many players I've ever played. It would be such a shame to waste it. The options to reduce visual noise you announced will also improve the modes a lot.