Jonathan Sharp posted on the forums about some of the big changes/improvements coming to the world of Structured PvP (sPvP)
Hey all, hope you guys had a great break!
There are so many things to talk about, so instead of quoting individual people, I’ll just make a post outlining things that people have mentioned.
New features: As I said in the Guru state of the game, January won’t see any big updates. Everyone is getting back from vacation, so it’s a small patch. We’ll see bigger updates in later patches, etc.
I plan to write out a full blog for these features as they’re closer to being ready. But I can give a few details now:
Custom Arenas. This is still our top priority for the time being, as it allows the playerbase to do so many things. You guys can set maps up in the ways that you want, and it you can set up your own servers to allow you to practice with your friends. It also allows custom tournaments, etc. It just gives you guys a lot of control over the game, so we’re pushing hard on it.
Ratings/matchmaking/leaderboards. These are being worked on. I’ll give more details on this later, but quickly: We will be using our MM (matchmaking) system to match teams up against one another. Each player has their own rating, and these ratings are used when 2 teams are fighting one another. MM obviously won’t be used in public matches (because people are jumping in/out all the time), and instead will be used in tournament formats. We will be using the MM system in the background as you play, and then we will be showing player ranks via our official leaderboards. These leaderboards will show things like player ranks, wins, losses, qualyfing points, etc.
New player experience/teaching the game better. We want players of all experience levels to enjoy the game, not just the hardcore. We’ll talk more about this stuff later, but we want to make sure all players enjoy the game. Custom Arenas will help here as well, because players can find arenas where they feel comfortable, and play the game with the same players every day while they learn the game, etc.
1 team vs. 1 team. Like with other things, I was going to do a more robust blog on this later, but we are doing this. We will be testing out Temple of the Silent Storm for tournament rotation play by doing a 1 team vs. 1 team setup (as opposed to the 8 team setup we use in tournaments). This will mean only two teams play, one wins, one loses. It will cost less to enter these 1on1 matchups than tournaments, but rewards will also be scaled down. You won’t have to go multiple rounds, and once a match is over, both teams can jump right back into the pool. So overall, compared to tournaments, it will have less rewards, but it’s quicker to play and easier to get into/out of. We’ll be testing this system in the near future to see how it works, and if feedback is positive, we may look at trying to incorporate the 1on1 format into PvP. We know that free tournaments are going almost all the time, but we recognize that paid tournaments are having some issues right now, so have been listening to you and have made plans to improve the experience. You guys have made some great suggestions, and a lot of your ideas are in alignment with the things propounded in our internal meetings. So thank you for all your passion and suggestions!
That’s all I can say for now on that stuff for now.
Having come back from the holiday break Robert Hrouda stopped by the forums earlier today and wanted to give players an update on the Arah Explorable Seer path:
Hey folks, here’s an update on the situation that you will soon see in an upcoming content patch:
I made it so that the sparks will better follow players. They will try to get closer to the player before using their skill, and their skill recharges faster, so they will spend less time standing around after using a skill. I also made them prefer player targets so that they won’t just attack a minion/pet/npc if a player is nearby.
While her healing is a factor, I felt the main problem was the spark behavior. The changes I described above make them better follow the player, which is in line with the mechanic of the fight. I’ll be keeping an eye on it though.
This is just a minor change and is not part of the revamp that they have planned for some point in the future. Hopefully this will make the fight a little more manageable.
Welcome back thieves. I hope your holiday was full of wondrous food and god times. But it’s time to get back to Tyria! Wintersday may be over, but it’s not as if it has entirely left us. Holiday events always leave a few permanent additions to the world of Guild Wars 2, so I figured me might want to have a bit of a look at them, and see what they might have to offer the Thief.
Weapon Skins
First and foremost, there were a ton of really excellent Weapon skins available over the Wintersday event. Since they were acquired not only from the Gift Exchange, but from drops, They’re dirt cheap on the auction house.
Sorry in advance. We’re about to get economics all over your Guild Wars 2.
A good number of players (rumored to be around a couple hundred) received bans over Wintersday due to a crafting and salvaging process that ArenaNet labeled an exploit. Since it is no longer possible to perform this process, we’ll post it here. The process goes like this:
1. Craft a Snowflake Mithril Earring of Winter, which consumes 1 glob of ectoplasm, 6 mitril ingots, and 1 pristine snowflake for materials 2. Salvage the earring with a Black Lion Salvage Kit, which will return your brilliant snowflake guaranteed plus some mithril ore and has a good chance of giving you 1-3 ecto. 3. Use the brilliant snowflake that was returned to you to craft another Mithril Earring of Winter. 4. Rinse, repeat.
The end result? You were able to essentially manufacture ectoplasm. ArenaNet called it an exploit, stopped the process, and dropped the banhammer on those who, they said, were using it heavily. Naturally, the official forums have exploded with dissent. There are people who asked if this a bug or some sort of exploit, but did not get a clear answer until the bans were issued. Many, myself included, are wondering if it’s even worth trying to make money off of playing the market and crafting, since it appears to potentially be a bannable offense. Maybe. Sometimes.
Before we go any further, it’s time for an economics lesson.
In a quick message posted on the official site today, Evon Gnashblade, CEO of the Black Lion Trading Company, announced he’d be offering us a three day sale, beginning tomorrow, January 4th, and going all weekend.
The New Year is here, which means big savings at the Black Lion Trading Company from January 4-6!
To celebrate the dawn of a new year in Tyria, we’re chopping prices in the Gem Store for three days from January 4-6! During each day of the sale, we’ll feature three different items on sale at drastically reduced prices! All sales begin at 12 AM Pacific and last for 24 hours.
The cuts are so deep you’ll swear I took a greatsword to the prices!
(I must admit, I am officially taken by that signature. Bad. Ass)
No word on what we can expect, thought the three pictures at the bottom of the post might indicate a sale on Character Slots, Makeover Kits, and Shiny Radioactive Chests (probably an Asura Theme)….
Apparently if an Engineer reflects a Mesmer clone creation they can create the clone on themselves. The result is an almost infinite number of clones! Nerf Engineers!
One aspect of Guild Wars 2 that sets it apart from many other games is the amount of customization that can go into your character. After you’ve spent perhaps hours during character creation you then have a world of dyes from which to choose, and some dyes are worth more than others. Finding the right look can be expensive though; right now, for example, White Dye is currently selling for 5g 35s! Ouch, right in the pocket book.
Reddit user bameschke has done the community a favor and pointed out some alternative dyes that just might fill the niche you’re looking for. Here’s an alternate dye example: Lemon Zest (14s 90c) vs Sand (23s 16c).
There are twelve additional colors in the gallery that you should check out here. Have any other colors that are very similar to each other? What are your favorite combinations? Leave us a comment below or in our forums.
Happy New Years GWI readers! With the holidays finally coming to an end normal life can resume, which means working on those resolutions, and spending time in Guild Wars2! If you are still looking to level your cooking discipline Qorthos over at ErrantQuest has put together a very good guide that, at this time, only costs 1.5 gold and about 2200 karma.
Qorthos was also kind enough to put together a full list of where to find the vendors and who sells what which can be found here. Happy cooking!
