Guild Wars 2 Reddit questions

More news on Thief at Tuesday, 12/20/2011
Thief's "#2 Dagger Slot Ability" had its name changed to "Heartseeker"

Mesmer Illusions are more about building them up and breaking them against highly skilled players than deception.

    >Q:How long does the Mesmer's Veil skill last? Seems like it could be overpowered in PVP

    >A:It is permanent...Seriously it is a number and that number will be balanced in PvP. I think somewhere between 0 and 1000 seconds.

    >Q:Whats left on the professions to work on? I'm studying to be a game designer, so I'd appreciate a more in depth answer on the process of how you do it too.

    >A:as always we have a lot of polish and balance to work on it's always the little things that really make a large difference. One of the most powerful things about GW2 skill system is as designers we have a lot of power with our tools and can make a lot of rapid changes this allows us to make changes quickly and test ideas. The things that matter a lot and just take some grunt work is making sure all descriptions are correct and all the effects take time and effort and a lot of testing. Make sure to hug your QA daily.

    >Q:How many classes do we have in total when GW2 gets released?

    >A:8.

    >Q:Underwater Mesmer skills examples please? :)

    >A:Feigned Surge. You dart forward hitting guys in a line attack. When it tends you teleport back to where you started.

>Q:Will people be able to grief a dynamic event by being present just to increase the event difficulty, but not actually contributing anything towards the completion of the event?

>A:Nope. :)


This one's a big one.

>Q:Just hoping one of these will be interesting to you.

1)The GW2 iteration of the Ranger no longer establishes itself as THE bow user and loses the signature sturdiness/evasion that defined it in the previous installment, said traits now being more present in the warrior and thief respectively. As such, how do you seek to distinguish the Ranger from the thief or warrior in terms of gameplay and style? Is it meant to be a hybrid of the warrior and thief agility and sturdiness? How does it deliver its damage, control, and group support compared to the other martial counterparts?

a)Players are concerned that part of having a pet means sharing damage with it, bringing issues of pet uptime on targets and feeling forced in taking Heal as One and Comfort animal lest your damage suffer significantly from a zerged pet. Other concerns involve the tying of important utility to a pet which may require melee range to fire off utility that can be ranged on another class.

b)Spirits and traps were very limited in use in GW1. They felt often-times impractical and easy to trivialized by enemy players. What approaches do you have in mind to encourage Rangers to consider traps/spirits over the more reliable, player centered self-buff like Lightning Reflexes and passive signets?

2)How does the Necromancer coexist with the mesmer? In GW1 they often were a thorn in each’s side due to the overlapping of hexes and “debuffer, over time wear” type of role they served. Is the mesmer more frontloaded and control oriented now, while the necromancer is less of a spike damage class with condition flow control in combat?

a)Could you elaborate on blood sacrifice skills? There seemed to be traits related to them, but so far very few skills emulated the GW1 Blood Necro’s option for necromancers to be more frontloaded and vampiric via health sacrifice.
3)What keeps the elementalist from sitting on fire attunement and using the rest of the elements as niche elements? If fire maintains a noticeable offensive edge, and damage is always beneficial in combat whether healing and blinds/cripples are not always necessary and mostly situational – what incentive is offered for people to trait for say, a water attunement specialized elementalist when healing is situationally necessary and people want to maximize the tasks with most uptime?

>A:Great questions! I'll just hit one real fast, which is great question (shows you really played a lot of GW1).

Necro vs. Mesmer: Due to the Death Shroud/Illusion mechanics, the classes are more different in GW2 than they were in GW1. They can do some similar things (inflict conditions, control opponents, do damage), but they do this in different ways. The Necromancer relies a lot on conditions for damaging/killing opponents, whereas the Mesmer is less reliant on conditions, and more reliant on Illusions.

Thanks for all the great questions!

>Q:What is the one thing that your are personally most excited about what the Mesmer offers to PvP?

>A:Portal. :)


>Q:Are we going to see less spiking ability (Esurge, SS, ect) in exchange for other skills or are those strong lead skills still there?

>A:we found that there are plenty of of spike skills but the down state and anti spike skills like enduring pain and mist form really help protect yourself vs spiking while its still a very viable strategy it has been less of a focus as much as positional play.

~izzy

>Q:    Will there be DEs in WvW ?
    Can you shatter phantasms?
    How easy can you go into WvW and back into the pve world and into WvW again?



>A:1) Yes! 2) Yeah any shatter, destroys all clones and phantasms. 3) Just go to Lion's Arch and walk through an asura gate! It really is an extension of your server's world out in the mists that you must go defend.

>Q:So what where the other professions? Or where they not even named? Can we expect them if we get an expansion for gw2?

>A:I think at some point we said there was a warden and marksmen that got rolled into the Ranger. Once upon a time there was a juggernaut, but no one could decide if he was offense or defense...

>Q:Thanks for answering questions, my friends and I are really looking forward to the game! This might seem like a weird question but for a thief, can you only steal in stealth? Also, for the mesmer video of the mind wrack skill, the illusions the sylvari conjured seemed to do the thief's unload skill. So do the illusions do other profession skills when they fight?

>A:yes you can steal in stealth, and it doesn't count as damage so it doesn't destealth you.

that skill was an Illusionary dualist


There's some concern in the pvp community about the potential for a less deep PVP system than Guild Wars. The main things about this that worry me are:

    Less skills, the death of the "deck" skill system. As a GW player, I spent most of my time and had the most fun with combining skills that most people wouldn't think about using together to make my own unique "builds" for PVP. With the demos, people were given a set of 5 skills dependant on weapon, some of which essentially did the same thing as others, and couldn't swap or even rearrange them on the bar. With the removal of energy in the game's system, this sometimes meant a simple "cooldown" playstyle of who can hit off their skills the quickest and most efficiently. This can take away the timing, strategy and consequence of using a skill from the game. Using GW as an example, it is possible to load a skill bar with attack skills (eg. Power attack, protectors strike, pure strike etc.) and use them as they become available. That's a viable playstyle, I'd just like to know if it WILL be possible to switch out your 5 weapon skills from a bigger list to ensure that those of us looking for a deeper experience will be able to build our characters as we want. Us skill whores want more!

    No energy. I said this already, but without energy there is no immediate cost to using a skill other than the activation and recharge time. This means that the potential for basic skill spamming as the most effective use of a build is pretty high with some weapons.

    Elites are crazy powerful. It seems that if you're using an elite, then everyone has to GTFO, use their own elite to counter, or curl up and die. Elites in GW1 were a great way to determine how you chose or used your other skills, and although some were OP at times, it was a fairly balanced system and created smoother, more contestable battles. I'd hate to see a battle system where whoever activates Tornado or Lich form gets the cap point.

I absolutely loved GW1 and despite my concerns, I have no doubt that GW2 will be a better game. Of course, it will be a different game than 1, but I think the thing I'm looking the most forward to is seeing how the game changes after it comes out. You've always listened to the community to make the game as good as possible, hope you keep it up!

EDIT: formatting

    Builds are very important in Guild Wars 2. Weapons + heal skill + utilities + elite + traits proffer a lot of building for each profession. Traits, in particular, are absolutely huge in differentiating builds. They're just different systems.

    No, spamming skills isn't really viable at high level. Energy was used in GW1, but even without it, timing is a huge part of being a good GW2 player. I've been on the winning side of many 1on2's, 2on3's, and even 2on4's. Trust me, spamming skills will get you killed against good players. Calling targets, interlacing stuns, stacking conditions, and controlling spacing are all huge.

    Elites are strong, but we're still balancing them. Don't worry about them too much, as we're going to make sure we find a great balance for them so that using them at the correct time is crucial.

-Chap


    >Q:There still hasn't been a sign-up for GW2 beta. So I'm assuming the closed beta is F&F only or something?

    >A:Its invite only. That doesn't necessarily mean f&f only. :)

>Q:How do you "win" WvWvW? What is the main objective?

>A:There is a score system based on which objectives you hold. Score happens every so often and you gain points for each objective based on how big it is. At the end of the two weeks the team with the highest score "wins." As you gain these points you pass thresholds of score that give your server worldwide bonuses, so really EVERYONE wins!

    >Q:Is there any profession that is more gear dependent than the others? Is gear a determinant factor?

    >A:No!

>Q:The thief class seems like the only class which can't fulfill all the three roles (damage, support, control), especially the control and support part. How are you going to put it on par with other classes ?

>A:The thief can absolutely do all 3 roles. I know it can do damage, I know it has good control, and I know Izzy has a great support thief that he runs right now in PvP tests.

    >Q:Has anything been changed with the Elementalist's cooldowns across attunements since Gamescom? It seemed like the Elementalist PvPing was able to annihilate everyone and get away as they wished, was that just a result of the player's skill, and intended, or did it need a bit of balancing?

    >A:Some of this was skill on the player's part, part of this is just balance. Cooldowns, just like everything else in the game, are still in a place of flux until everything is balanced.

>Q:How's the work environment at ArenaNet? Do you guys get stressed from the pressures of the community / their demands? I feel like working on a game would be bitter sweet because there are so many people that want to be pleased by GW2.

>A:It is a double edged sword for sure. Once you work on a game its not as exciting to play games because you start to nit pick everything in them. Oh wait, that is what fans do anyway. It is a really great place to work and I look forward to my Mondays as much as my Fridays.

Q:
Are you worried that people of a high skill level will be able to detect which illusions are fakes and focus down the mesmer more quickly than they can other professions? Given that they have the lightest armor and lack a pure survival mechanic (like attunements and death shroud), how do you feel about their PvP survivability? While I recognize that Mesmers have a high skill ceiling, that also could be mitigated by certain cues as to what they are doing. Also, what is your favorite profession in PvP thus far?

A:
I don't think they are supposed to be so deceptive so much as a temporary distraction. They die in about one hit so even AoE attacks tend to melt them pretty quickly. The more interesting decision is how to build up sets of them to shatter in interesting ways.
Favorite PvP profession: Warrior.

>Q:At any point in development did you ever personally come up with a feature that was great on paper but didn't work so well in practice? If so what was it?

>A:Sure! Our first version of Death Shroud actually involved the Necromancer needing to capture souls in order to use weapon skills, with skills costing different amounts of souls. It didn't work very well because it meant the Necromancer had a lot of useless skills on their bar until they killed things. We like the new one much better.

>Q:Speaking of WvW, can you tell us anything about the rewards for matches over a two week period?

>Q:500... is that a joke....?!

>A:No. It is 4 huge maps with hundreds of players and persistent battles.

>Q:So why the need for a difference between clones and phantasms? Couldn't one fulfill the needs of both? Or am I misunderstanding their nature?

>A:Clones are really just deception. They are there to utilize the shatters and create temporary dps and distraction. Phantasms are more like "in world" hexes. There is a Phantasm called Backfire that does a powerful attack to foes casting skills.

>Q:Any favorite dungeon party set-up/teams you've had yet?

>A:Any combination is actually very strong, which, in itself, is really one of our favorite things about the game. Instead of people needing to bring specific builds or professions, they just need to be good at whatever build/profession they bring.

>Q:Question 1: Cutt-throat world PvP

One of my coworkers was a long-time EVE player, and I've been trying to convince him to join us in GW2 when it comes out. He seems interested, but his biggest question has been whether or not there will be any sort of world PvP.

One of his favorite things about EVE (and one of my favorite things about WoW) is always having to watch your step when you're questing/farming in dangerous territory. He loves the idea of being able to kill and be killed anywhere you go, beyond the boundaries of safe territory.

I've tried to convince him that WvWvW and organized PvP are both huge elements in GW2, but he still would like to see world PvP enabled on some servers. Any idea if that's a possibility we can look forward to?

Question 2: Easiest and hardest classes to play well

This is obviously going to be a little bit subjective - but based on what you've seen so far, which classes do you think are going to be the easiest and hardest to play at a high level of skill?


>A:No OPEN PvP in PvE, it doesnt make sense with how events work. However I think people who like Open Gank PvP (like myself) will REALLY love WvW.

>Q:Is that an answer to the former or the latter? Best to clarify now cause if you meant the latter and people assume the former well then people will run with "ONLY 2,000 PEOPLE ALLOWED IN WvWvW!" and I'm sure you know how that is.

>A:So what game allows PvP that is bigger than this?


>Q:Is the mesmer's portal skill group based or only the mesmer can use it?

>A:Allies, but players only. For now.

>Q:What is your #1 favorite thing about GW2?

>A:Dynamic events. It will be nice to finally play an MMO with content that makes sense for the genre.

>Q:Why no interrupts? Where's the Diversion (out of place, maybe, but still), the real Cry of Frustration, Psychic Instability, etc. I'm so sad now. I WANT D-SHOT!

Loved Guild Wars, can't wait for Guild Wars 2. Consider Interrupts!

>A:Here are the ways to interrupt:

Stun, Knockdown, Launch, Knockback, Daze.

Interrupts as just interrupts were just a wierd mechanic that were hard to explain.

In fact the shatter F3 that stuns is called Diversion.

>Q:How will the steal mechanic look like in the future?

>A:We have a blog coming Tuesday which will shed some light on this!

    >Q:Is it possible to play a 'tanking' role as a Warrior?

    >A:Take a Mace/Sword and a hammer.

    Healing skill: I recommend healing signet. Utility skills: Endure Pain, "Shake It Off", Stomp.


    >Q:Will the Necromancer have skills that inflict the new confused condition ? If yes, can you give an example of such skill ?

    >A:Yes, Warhorn - Wail of Doom (skill #4)

>Q:Don't know why it would be. Sounds about right to me. The maps will be huge, so you likely will only see a fraction of that number at any given spot on the map.
(WvWvW)
>Q:Yeah, until players decide where the best choke point is.

>A:On a map that has many objectives, takes 10+ minutes to sprint across and is a full map with lots of water, mountains, caves etc. I guess good luck finding that spot.

    >Q:It seems like there is a base of people who are disappointed by the Mesmer profession (I am definitely not one of them), because their mains were Ritualists and they feel they have no profession that represents that well. What GW2 profession do you feel will cater to that subset of players?

    >A:In the way that Ritualists were indirect suppport in GW1, many classes in GW2 can support their allies as the Ritualist did. Rangers can bring nature spirits, Necromancers can bring minions, Elementalists can bring familiars, Mesmers have their illusions, etc. etc. All classes can bring buffs, boons, etc.

    >Q:It seems that the Elementalist, Guardian, and Warrior are so powerful/versatile in PvP that any team that doesn't include at least 1 of them (or maybe all 3?) will be disadvantaged against a team that did.

    How are the niche roles that other professions fill balanced out to match those 3 professions power and versatility?


    >A:They are all that versatile to be honest. It all depends on how good you are at playing your build.

>A:We will officially enter Closed Beta Testing this Friday. It will be marked with an increase in our pool of testers. To clarify, this phase of testing is still under NDA and is not open to the public.

Based on the feedback we get from our current Closed Beta Testing, we will determine the next phases of our beta program in which we will open beta access to more people.


On Mesmer Portals
>A:Yeah, it might also allow companions. Hey, it's not quite ready yet :P

    >Q:Can clones and phantasms be affected by boons and targeted by other beneficial skills?

    >A:For now, yes. This may change before release.



    >Q:You guys both mentioned Warriors as an example of playstyle differences with weapons, that goes for other classes too, right?

    >A:Yes, I would say a Sword ranger and Longbow ranger play somewhat differently. :)

    I think we just changed dagger necro to actually be melee as well.


    >Q:Any comment on the Ranger pet irritation?

    >A:There is a special lotion that will help get rid of that. It's available at Karma vendors.


>Q:Can Rangers still throw traps?

>A:Emphatically. Yes.

>Q:I'm just trying to grasp the clone parts of the Mesmers. In PVP will other people see them as exact copy of you, or their ghostly forms like we saw in the videos?

>A:If it's a clone, they will see something that looks like you. If it's a phantasm, they will see an illusion with a purple color to it.



>Q:Will you be supporting the E-Sport side of Guild Wars 2 through officially ran tournaments with cash prizes, likewise to the original game?

>A:Yes, we want to support the game as an E-Sport, but we're not talking about the details just yet.

>Q:Will PvP players still need to "reroll" to a different profession, or will that process be easier in gw2?

>A:You will need to make a new character to play a new profession. However, you will have access to everything once that character gets to PvP, so you won't need to "grind up" the new character.

>Q:How can you only reserve a short amount of time when you arranged this thing yourselves? :/

>A:I guess it depends on when you want me to stop answering questions and go back to finishing the game.


>A:Fair enough. I love Eve, but they don't let you blow up castles with Trebuchets.

On "what game has larger PvP than GW2"

>Q:Dark age of Camelot did and had fights that could go up to 1000+ people.

>A:And it is not a coincidence that DaoC is one of our favorite games of all time.

>Q:Still wouldn't it be nice to have skills with the same mechanic as the old diversion / power block / blackout / arcane thievery / d-shot / d-chop (...) What do you think ?

>A:Those mechanics just don't make as much sense in the new system. Basically, the nice thing about a daze is that a bad player using it still gets the blackout portion of it, but a great player can get the interrupt out of it as well.

>Q:I'm in love with Necromancers and was able to check out a Sylvari Necromancer at Gamescom. There I was able to check out the Jagged Horror, which I could nom on for health.

Can you give us any details about the other undead summons Necromancers will be able to have? Will we be able to have Minion Masters as they are in GW1, running around with a small army, or have the functionality goals changed? Will there be a limit to how many undead summons spells you can have at once?


>A:Yes, you can still have minion masters, but there is a cap on the # of minion skills you can have on your bar, as they only appear in the heal/utility/elite skills.

    >Q:Very cool, thanks for the answer! I'm actually personally glad that they don't "rely" on the deception; it is often too difficult to make a convincing deception with AI as we can see in League of Legends. Sub-question regarding the shatters; can you have all 4 "pre-cast" before a fight, or can you only have one charged up at a time?

    On illusions

    >A:They are all just normal skills like anything else. You use F1-F4 to activate them, and they are instant skills that can be used in the middle of another cast.

    >Q:Thanks for doing this AMA. I have a question about pvp.

    In the usual unorganized pvp environment, either in a mmo battleground or in many fps's, people tend group up and zerg points. This can lead to very monotonous gameplay. How does this strategy or lack thereof fit into GW2? Are there specific counters for it?


    >A:We use our secondary objectives to discourage this type of game play. By using things like a treb that deals massive damage to everyone in the area you can really punish people for grouping up.

    >Q:Game design student! Questions HO!

    How many iterations have these professions gone through already?
    Did you guys have these professions in mind from the beginning?
    How much of an effect does weapon choice have on gameplay?
    >A:1)It depends on the profession. We just got out of the 10th or so meeting on Elementalist skills yesterday. Guardian had A LOT of iteration, whereas mesmer and thief actually have had a lot less. 2) We had 12 professions in mind at the start. We ended up with these 8 because they fulfilled the archetypes in the best ways while keeping some of the GW1 feel and still making it feel like a new game. GW2!!! 3) Weapon choice is almost as important as profession choice. A Hammer warrior is a CC nightmare, but a Longbow warrior is an AoE damage machine. Of course its also valid to play a warrior with neither of these weapons.

    >Q:How much control does a Mesmer have over Clone and Phantasm behavior? Is there a UI in place to allow him/her to direct them, do they have the same AI as necromancer minions, or what exactly?

    >A:They will only attack the target upon which they were summoned. You cannot control them as much as Necromancer minions or a Ranger pet.

>Q:Which games do you feel influence you the most? What games are you currently playing? Skyrim?!

>A:Influenced: Warsong on Genesis, Final Fantasies, Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape, War 2, War 3, SC 1, CS, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, Street Fighter 2, Soul Caliber, etc.

Currently: LoL , Skyrim. :)

-Chap

    >Q:It is by far one of my favourite PvP games of all time, I am hoping the WvW in GW2 can live up to it.

    (Dark age of Camelot)

    >A:and I am hoping that we can live up to it and MORE! I played DaoC from release and had a level 50 Eldritch roaming the frontiers very early on. I remember the first time I ran into the Midgard giant, and proptly turned and ran as quickly as a could.


    >Q:So lets say I play an Elementalist and I throw down a firewall and then want to switch to water attunement to heal some of my buddies, would I experience a kind of global cooldown from when I throw the firewall before and can switch to water attunement and then heal my buddies?

    >A:Nope! You can throw down the firewall, swap to Water, and then support your allies immediately with water skills.

>Q:So lets say I play an Elementalist and I throw down a firewall and then want to switch to water attunement to heal some of my buddies, would I experience a kind of global cooldown from when I throw the firewall before and can switch to water attunement and then heal my buddies?

>A:GLOBAL COOLDOWN! UGH please no. I hate global cooldown with the passion of 1000 fiery suns. In fact attunement swapping is instant so you can do it mid cast!!!

Blog post coming Tuesday on thief also talks a bit about why we don't have global cooldowns and how our combat system works based on animations.


>Q:Now that all classes have been released, do you have any ideas you'd be willing to share about plans to keep them all balanced with each other?

EX: Right now the Ritualist is one of the stronger PvE classes (as compared to, say, a Ranger). In GW2, what would you do to try and make Rangers just as useful/in-demand as Rits?


>A:We're going to work very hard to balance all professions so that they are all equally viable in PvE and PVP. This simply means playing the game a lot and constantly working to keep all the professions balanced.

>Q:In PvP, how does a Mesmer prevent it from being obvious which clone is real? For example, do the clones follow the exact actions of the Mesmer to the split second? Or do the clones sorta do their own thing independent of the Mesmer, leaving it somewhat obvious who the real Mesmer is?

Additionally, can aoe spells easily and quickly dispatch a Mesmer’s clones?


>A:Once you learn your illusions and how they work, you start to realize what they look like to your opponents. Then you can start behaving like illusions to really throw your opponents off!

>Q:Could you tell us a bit more about the way we 'find Traits'? Will we be able to experience full stories or are they just little things littered in the world; books, tomes, beer, experiments. And what about utility skills? How do we acquire these?

>A:The trait changes, and Eric wants me to remind everyone we didn't "scrap" it, we just are reworking it, is going well and we will talk about it soon.

>Q:What's the biggest disagreement the developers and designers have had in creating GW2?

>A:The perennial disagreement - "Where are we eating lunch?"

>Q: One of the most frustrating things to encounter in guild wars 1 was stacked hexes/conditions. Having only conditions seems like a big step in the right direction, but currently there seem to be a really large amount of conditions. What steps are you taking to prevent condition stacking from becoming an issue?

In past pvp mmorpgs, people pick short classes because they are harder to target. Is something being done to prevent all asura groups from being ideal?

Another reason people pick all the same race is to make it harder to identify what character is what class. Currently it seems hard to distinguish between an elementalist and a necromancer before they cast spells, since their armor looks practically the same in videos. Is this intentional or are there other visual cues that are harder to pick up on?

From videos and testimonials of people who have played the game, there doesn't appear to be an "unstick camera" option. By this I mean the following: if you were to run backwards and pan behind you, if you wanted to turn to the right or left a little while still looking behind you, the camera resets. This can really limit awareness, especially in more open environments. Is this going to be changed before release or is this an intentional design decision?

If all classes can fill all roles, whats to stop a team from stacking all one class to frustrate their opponent? For example, why not go all mesmer and overwhelm your enemies with so many illusions they can't tell what is going on?

What sort of zerg killing capability do you expect a well trained group to have? Are we talking one group taking on maybe twice their numbers, or dark age of camelot style 1 group versus 4 group zerg busting?

Are you planning on launching with automated tournaments like you have in guild wars 1, or are automated tournaments far away in the developmental pipeline?

>A: We feel like a limited number of conditions and boons allows people to learn the conditions and we just plan for them to stack.

All races have the same collusion box and we show names based and targeting based on this size to help keep races more similar

we have a ton of things that help with this, each profession has things that help you identify this. (Effects for what attunement your in, guardian aegis, ranger pet, necro minions.. ect.)

We have a large number of camera options and will continue to expand them.

Not all professions have access to the same things, for example a guardian has access to less control and a warrior has access to more support. The thief can teleport and move around really quickly while necromancer can remove and transfer conditions. So while professions can do each roll they all do it differently so a diverse group is better then one of 5 professions.

we've found coordinated groups to be very deadly at killing large groups of people, either with AoEs, or good positional tactics.

we plan on launching with Automated tournaments.

    >Q:Thanks for this!

    Can you tell us what are your plans for PvE Endgame? More 5 mans dungeons only, Raids with 10 or more people, more Areas with Dynamics events like The Shatterer, a mix of those?
    >A:Endgame is such a dirty word. We want our game to be the endgame. We don't like the idea of a game that changes when you hit max level. As you level up you can play events, dungeons, WvW, or at anytime take a break and do some competitive PvP, and then hit a button and go back to PvE stuff.

>Q:When?

>A:When it's ready!

Obligatory.

>Q:I want your job (title, not actual job... Co-workers, BFF duh). How can I get it?

>A: Take a degree in Philosophy and Religion, minor in psychology,
Play wayyyyyy too much Starcraft in college,
Become a designer,
Profit.

-Chap


>Q:How much of a role does autoattack play in combat currently? Does that vary greatly from profession to profession (warrior compared to elementalist)?

>A:Because all skills can be set to "autoattack" different professions use this different some use it on attack 1 while others may set apply poison or sharpening stone to auto cast.

>Q:How many pieces of armor can you wear? Like in GW1 you could only wear 5 pieces, will there be other pieces for instance shoulder pads or belts etc.?

>A:You can have 6 major slots for armor, as well as slots for amulets, rings, trinkets, etc.

-Izzy


>Q:Will Necromancers be able to function as "minion masters" as in GW1, or will minions be limited to 1 or 2?

I loved having my own little army.

>A:Minion army = very viable in GW2!

-Chap


>Q:Whirlwind for Ele seemed overpowered as it lasted a long time when I played the game at PAX. Is that how it is supposed to be?

>A:You mean Tornado? Whats the point of turning into a Tornado if you don't feel overpowered.

I've never heard truer words.

>Q:Game design student! Questions HO!

How many iterations have these professions gone through already?
Did you guys have these professions in mind from the beginning?
How much of an effect does weapon choice have on gameplay?


>A: id say we've done about 10 major passes on all professions but we talk about them everyday and do a lot of small tweaks to them constantly.

We started with a very large list and narrowed it down to a smaller list and then made the cut to what it is today

weapon choice is one of your biggest character choices as weapons really drive your play style a warrior with a bow plays very different then a sword. So what weapon you pick will really drive your choices.

~Izzy

>Q:Are we going to see less spiking ability (Esurge, SS, ect) in exchange for other skills or are those strong lead skills still there?

>A:we found that there are plenty of of spike skills but the down state and anti spike skills like enduring pain and mist form really help protect yourself vs spiking while its still a very viable strategy it has been less of a focus as much as positional play.

~izzy
>Q:Whirlwind for Ele seemed overpowered as it lasted a long time when I played the game at PAX. Is that how it is supposed to be?

>A:Balance is an ongoing thing, so we're always tweaking things that we feel are too weak or too strong.

>Q:Are you worried that there will be a definitively accepted meta group of professions rendering the no-trinity system effectively useless?

>A:No. Are you? :)

The combat just isn't built that way. I know we say it so often, it gets annoying, but honestly learning to play your build is so much more important than your actual build.

The lack of trinity comes from forcing flexibility in combat. Trinity doesn't promote team play it forces team dependencies. That is something we really wanted to avoid, and so people will say we got rid of it to get rid of the LFG stuff, but the real reason is because we want people to play TOGETHER, not next to each other...



Jon Peters' favorite profession is Warrior
Dungeons are designed around player skill, 5 Rangers with a shortbow and dagger combo can take on the entire thing if they're good enough, no specific professions are necessary.