We don't tend to cover day to day Guild Wars 2 news here at GW2Hub unless it's something out of the ordinary. In this instance, I think a mammoth Reddit: Ask Me Anything conducted by a whole array of ArenaNet employees, including Mike O'Brian, qualifies as worthy enough.
What surprised me most about this AMA is not only the amount of time ArenaNet answered questions, but their willingness to actually answer some of the more difficult ones put forward by the community (traits in particular). In all my years following MMOGs I've never known a company be so willing to interact with their fans in this way, for so long.
Without wishing to spoil the transcript, questions covered a wide range of topics from performance improvements, to profession changes and trait tiers.
Two questions that really jumped out at me were specific to the Mesmer and Engineer, answered by Jon Peters. They hinted at a redesign for the Engineer currently in the works (although they didn't state as to how bigger redesign) as well as some changes to the Mesmer arriving in the coming Beta weekend. It was an interesting choice of words (or unfortunate) in reference to the Mesmer, to state: "we will make the changes necessary to make Mesmers viable." Is this a suggestion that in its current form, it isn't?
I think people will also be incredibly pleased to hear that the Guardian now has a viable ranged option in the scepter: "Give scpeter a try, I tried to make this the ranged option, particularly in WvW for Guardian."
Finally, Rangers should rejoice at the pet AI bug squashing that is clearly ongoing: "We have fixed a large number of bugs with pet AI, but there are still some lingering ones."
Without wishing to quote from the AMA any further, you should head right on over to the transcript. You might also want to put a significant amount of time aside or at least get a drink before you start reading; at nearly 25,000 words, it's a huge read.
What were your favourite parts of the AMA?
Comments
Glad to hear they did some Ranger pet AI fixes! I'm excited to try it out now this weekend!
It was rather funny. They kept getting asked about the Asura and Sylvari races and instead of saying yes or no to if we will see them before launch...they just kept saying "Keep watching"
They did confirm no Asura or Sylvari this time, but it sounds like they will be making announcements soon regarding them, so that should be interesting.
Galen
Galen
Information from the Reddit AMA indicates that the trait tiers will be broken down as follows;
Each trait line will have roughly 12 major traits total to choose from.
1st tier (10 pts assigned) will unlock access to 6 major traits.
2nd tier (20 pts assigned) will unlock access to 4 additional major traits.
3rd tier (30 pts assigned) will unlock access to the final 2 major traits.
It should also be noted that the character level restrictions appear to have remained in place, so you will not even be allowed to assign more than 10 pts to a single trait line until you reach level 40 as a character, and level 60 will be required before being allowed to assign more than 20 pts to a trait line.
(Essentially, all characters below level 40 are restricted to HALF of the total major traits for their class… anyone who believes this will not encourage the speed leveling mentality is so myopic they should not be allowed to drive legally.)
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What remains unknown (to me at least) at this point in time is whether or not a player is free to select any of these major traits once the requisite number of pts are assigned to the trait line.
One of the stated goals (stated by the DEVs in the AMA) was to prevent players from accessing the most powerful trait from each line by simply putting 10 pts into each.
That CAN be accomplished without needless further restriction…
If a player who has assigned 20 pts to a line (thus unlocking access to a total of 10 out of the 12 major traits associated with that line) is then free to choose ANY of those 10 traits for BOTH of the major trait slots they have, then this system is merely preventing early access to certain (presumably more powerful) traits, but is STILL ALLOWING players the freedom to creatively mix and match various traits and experiment with various synergies.
The problem (as I see it) of encouraging the “race to level cap” mentality would still be present, but at the very least, once players jump through that hoop, they would still be able to creatively explore MOST of the different combinations of traits, at least within a single trait line.
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HOWEVER, if the system’s restrictions extend so far that even after a player assigns 20 pts to a trait line and unlocks access to a total of 10 of the major traits, they are STILL PREVENTED from assigning one of the 4 major traits unlocked at the 20 pt tier to both of the major trait slots they have at that stage – essentially restricting the first major trait slot to one of 6 traits regardless of how many other traits the player has unlocked with further investment into the trait line – then the censure of player choice and creativity is extreme. This is a worst case scenario imo, and if true, reflects a total failure on the part of the DEVs to design balanced and useful traits.
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If the traits you’ve designed are so horrendously out of balance to one another that you feel compelled to cut off access to HALF the traits for ONE THIRD of the available slots then WTF is the point of having them?
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Also, if this second and worst case scenario is in fact the case, don’t you dare ever talk about giving players “the freedom to play their way” because that is clearly a statement in as much conflict with this trait system as “I swung a sword… I swung a sword again” is in conflict with the weapons skills acquisition system.
One of the goals was to diversify types of builds further, such that not every "damage warrior" looks identical, because in the pool of traits, X, Y and Z are the best traits. The specifically spoke about making you have to take the most interesting choice last.
Reading the AMA, I have a hard time interpreting any other way than this: Lower tier traits can be used in higher tier slots, but not vice versa.
You can at most have 3 tier 1 (indeed Izzy mentioned using a build like this atm), 2 tier 2 and only 1 of the tier 3 traits per line (not at once, obviously). Since the tier 3 traits are the most specialized, they will also probably have the greatest impact on your playstyle (say the choice between spike or pressure), hence the most interesting choice is at 30 points, not at 10 like it was before.
I shudder everytime devs use the word "viable" because to me it always means that a bunch of whiney pvp'ers got defeated by a mesmer and so in comes the nerf bat.
Mesmer was always the class that got beat up on in GW1 with nerfs.
What amazed me was they actually specifically named a hardware issue they were having with performance. Never have seen a dev talk about such things before launch.
Oops, the above Anon was me..didn't sign in
I simply can't recall a Dev being more open about a mainstream MMO up to this game. I mean the warhammer PR blitz might be of the same level but quite honestly it was a lot of Marketing based crap.
The WAR 'PR blitz' was all smoke and mirrors. I don't know what game Paul Barnett was playing, but the game that Mythic churned out was nowhere close to being the product that Barnett was selling us during the game's development.
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