I’m a Guild Wars 2 Developer: AMA about professions.

Please post shorter questions. My time is somewhat limited and shorter questions are easier to pick out and answer.

So how about that mesmer? :)

Love it so far! Still have to see it in action.

What do the torch skills do???

EDIT: torch not warhorn.

He doesnt have warhorn but how about TORCH!!!

Skill #4: The Prestige: Cloak in a cloud of smoke, 3 seconds later appear with a burst of flame setting enemies on fire.

Skill #5: Backfire: Summon a Phantasm that attacks your target whenever they use a skill.

Brb, grabbing a donut!

Any information for closed beta release? And.. When will mesmer come to guildwars2.com in proffesions?

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.

In WvW what is the maximum number of players allowed on one given map? Or what is the most people you've seen in a WvW at the office?

At least 500.

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.

So what game allows PvP that is bigger than this?

Eve Online

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

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

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

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.

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.

double post FTL

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?

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.

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?

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!

What is your #1 favorite thing about GW2?

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

Any comment on the Ranger pet irritation?

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

Hi, will you be able to finish any Instance with -lets say- 5 rangers with shortbow/dagger set. So will you really have a free choice in terms of professions?

I will. As far as anyone else, it depends on if they are any good at playing ranger.

....

Seriously though it is our goal is that how you play your profession and skills are more important than what you bring.

[deleted]

We are still on track. Like I said, closed beta starts Friday.

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 ?

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.

What is the time frame/level required before you can play with other races? Will be playing with a younger few who may need assistance...

Just finish your race's introduction (tutorial area), and you can meet up via Asura gate once you go into your race's starting city!

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

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

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

Allies, but players only. For now.

Wait, does that include minions and/or pets for necro/ranger respectively? Because that would be tragic if you accidentally stranded them by going through a portal.

Yeah, it might also allow companions. Hey, it's not quite ready yet :P

Is the confusion condition going to last long and do small amount of damage, or be applied for short time and do big enough damage to actually shut down the enemy?

As of right now, it can actually stack. This means that it does a small amount of damage with one application, but with many applications, it will definitely make someone think twice about attacking!

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?

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.

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?

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.

Thanks for the AMA Jon!

It's great to have developers so dedicated to their fans.

Thanks to all my fans for showing up!

I didn't know you had so many fans Chap! -Jon

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?

Thanks for the AMA.

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.

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

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.

How will the steal mechanic look like in the future?

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

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?

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.

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

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...

• 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

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

Take a Mace/Sword and a hammer.

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

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

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...

I noticed the Mesmer had a few melee weapons in the skill videos but didn't really hit anything with them in melee range. Do mesmers have up close and personal attacks as well?

Yes.

[deleted]

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.

How far apart can the portals in the portal skill be set? and can allies use them?

Radar range, which is 2500 units, so 208.333 ft., so 63 meters if you use a sensible system like the metric system. :)

will there be ways to accurately measure distance in game apart from using the radar?

by radar I mean minimap.

What is the most fun profession ,in your opinion, to play

Warrior. :) - Jon

Necro or Mesmer. (--) (That's a ninja face) - Chap

Greetings Jon, thanks for taking the questions. A lot of fans have been worried about the thief profession, feeling that it will not have all the tools that others have access to. Is there any new things that have changed since the last demo; specifically, if you can, what are some of the effects of stolen items that we haven't heard about yet?

Blog coming next Tuesday on thief improvements. I can promise you they are not bad in PvE or PvP.

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

For now, yes. This may change before release.

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:

1. 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!

2. 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.

3. 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

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

Great questions!

-Chap

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

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

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.

Minion army = very viable in GW2!

-Chap

You can run a minion on heal, bone minion utility (which gives you 3), Bone fiend, and Shadow fiend, and a Bone Golem. Giving you a fairly large minion army.

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

1. Take a degree in Philosophy and Religion, minor in psychology,
2. Play wayyyyyy too much Starcraft in college,
3. Become a designer,
4. Profit.

-Chap

1. move to seattle casing a girl at 18
2. get a job at ebx next to microsoft
3. get an interview at microsoft
4. suck less
5. then work in community, qa for 3+ years before landing in design for the last 9 years 8 at Anet.

~Izzy

[deleted]

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.

Now that all the professions are out, which one do you think you'll be playing the most of?

Warrior. :)

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?

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.

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

Can Rangers still throw traps?

Emphatically. Yes.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.?

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

-Izzy

Was it always the plan to have the Mesmer in the line up? Or did you realise how pissed fans would be without it ;)

It was always the plan.

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?

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

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?

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.

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?

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.

I'm running on the fumes of 2 donuts and a bag of Fritos. Lunch approaches, any other big questions?

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?

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

Underwater Mesmer skills examples please? :)

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

[deleted]

Thank you, thank you. We are working hard for you guys! Thanks for the support!

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

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!

When does this AMA section ends? I'm keeping refresh the page to translate your answers to Chinese for the fans in Taiwan and HK and it's 2:46 am...

I'm going to answer as long as I can. :)

As a warrior, what weapon do you prefer using and why?

Hammer. For smashing people in the face.

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?

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.

-Chap

Ok I'm falling asleep in my chair I'm going to call it a night talk to you later thanks for the questions. ~Izzy

Is there any profession restriction based on race?

Absolutely not!

Everybody give a big welcome to Eric Flannum who is going to take over for me while I go build some Elementalist Skills. :)

Ok all goodnight! Take 'em home Izzy!

Hey, everyone. Just wanted to post links to some interviews that Jon, Chap, and Eric did with the media as part of the mesmer announcement in case you're interested in reading further coverage. ~Regina

• Game Informer: http://www.gameinformer.com/games/guild_wars_2/b/pc/archive/2011/12/14/lifting-the-veil-on-guild-wars-2-39-s-mysterious-mesmer-profession.aspx
• Now Gamer: http://www.nowgamer.com/features/1166714/guild_wars_2_memser_reveal_arenanet_interview.html
• OnlineWelten (DE): http://www.onlinewelten.com/games/guild-wars-2/specials/mesmer-enthuellung-achten-klasse-in-guild-wars-2-8526/
• 9lives (BEN): http://www.9lives.be/games/guild-wars-2/specials/telefonisch-interview-met-guild-wars-2-team
• Jeuxvideo (FR): http://www.jeuxvideo.com/news/2011/00055282-interview-guild-wars-2-les-envouteurs.htm
• Multiplayer (IT): http://multiplayer.it/articoli/96749-guild-wars-2-largo-allipnotizzatore.html
• Meristation (ES): http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_avances.php?pic=PC&id=cw4ee874c24d1d3&idj=cw460a29429a57f&idp=&tipo=art&c=1&pos=1
• Gamereactor (NOR): http://www.gamereactor.no/artikler/127551/Fortryllende+illusjonist/
• GamePlanet (NZ): http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/159700.Guild-Wars-2/features/138358.20111215.ArenaNets-Jon-Peters-on-Guild-Wars-2/

Jon Peters: being an avid fan of DAOC I am sure you are aware of the development of realm pride, rivalries on the battlefield both by name and guild. What concerns me is the rotation of WvW every 2 weeks removing this aspect from Gw2. Could you elaborate on the purpose of this rotation? I also understand there will be world wide bonuses after taking certain objectives in WvW. How will these 'relics' be affected by the bi weekly rotation?

The purpose of the rotation is to keep match-ups fresh. If you played a lot of DaoC (as I'm sure you did by your name) then you'll know that it is very easy for one realm to achieve an advantage of skill or numbers over another realm, at that point it becomes less fun for everyone involved, both the winners and the losers. We feel like the rotation helps keep worlds of similar ability level playing each other. Rather than hurting rivalries we expect this to enhance them as it should result in much more competitive play overall. Take for example rivals in professional sports, even though most teams only play a few times a year rivalries will still develop.

all right my bus to work leaves in 11 minutes. Thanks for your passion guys.