Rollender Götterfels - #31 - Drang zur Klarstellung, Drang zu Änderungen

Oha. Des nachtens, also als Mitteleuropa friedlich schlummerte, hatten die Entwickler, Game Desinger Jonathan Sharp im besonderen, den Drang einige Dinge klar zu stellen und vor allem neue Änderungen zu präsentieren. Aufgeklärt wurde z.B. das Märchen, das lediglich 2 Leute bei ArenaNet am PvP arbeiten. dem ist nicht so und jeder der eine Sekunde darüber nachdenkt, hätte es sich auch denken können. Sharp erklärt lang und breit wieviele Leute an welchen Teilen des Spiels arbeiten und nennt auch die Namen der verantwortlichen und wie Entscheidungen getroffen und dann ins Spiel implementiert werden. Gut! Das war bitter nötig.
Außerdem, nachdem die Foren schier gebebt haben aufgrund des 20 Sekunden Timers im sPvP, wurde dieser auf 15 Sekunden heruntergesetzt. Ein guter Anfang aber ich persönlich hätte 10 oder 12 Sekunden besser gefunden. 20 Sekunden war viel zu lang und hat einiges an Spielspaß gekostet.
Eine dritte Nachricht gab es zum Thema "neue Spieltypen". Der derzeitige Conquest-Mode, der einzige den es im sPvP gibt, wird langsam ermüdend. Was auch an der kleinen Auswahl an maps liegt. 5 insgesamt und nur 3 die sich für Turniere eignen ist sehr wenig. Und von den 3en die bei Turnieren gespielt werden würde ich nicht mal alle als "geeignet" bezeichnen. Sharp erneuerte seine Aussagen bezüglich kommender Spielmodi indem er ein weiteres mal klargestellt hat, dass neue Modi kommen werden, man allerdings zuerst Ranking/Ladder und Matchmaking vernünftig implementieren will. Auf der einen Seite nervt mich dieser Umstand ein bisschen, andererseits finde ich es gut das ArenaNet erst einmal einbauen will was lange gefordert und versprochen wurde. Es macht einfach nicht viel Sinn das man einige Turniere locker leicht gewinnt und beim nächsten Match in Runde 1 eine Niederlage epischen Ausmaßes ertragen muss, nur weil es eben kein faires Matchmaking gibt.
Hier nun die Aussagen von Jonathan Sharp aus dem englischen Forum.

Thema:  The team that work on PvP/WvW/Balance

"A while ago Jon Peters said something that has been taken out of context. He said that only two people were working on the things he was working on (which was true – but he meant it differently than how it was received) and people have taken that to mean that we only have 2 people working on balance, or PvP, or both (at this point it’s morphed into different things in different threads).
Based on what was said, I understand how it could have been construed, so I wanted to be as transparent as I can be, so that you know what’s happening inside the studio.

PvP
On the PvP team we have programmers, designers, QA and an environment artist (Darrin Claypool – he’s the guy who just finished making Temple of the Silent Storm). Many PvP features need all members of the team, but some are programmer intensive, or art intensive. For example, while we’re still working on custom arenas and other core features (which involve server programmers, UI programmers and gameplay programmers), designers and artists were able to build the recently released “Temple of the Silent Storm”. Because the map required no code, we simply worked with art, design and sound in order to support this map’s needs. Work on custom arenas requires zero environment art, so those two features (custom arenas and a new map) don’t impact one another greatly, as far as work flow goes.

WvW
For WvW, we have a similar setup. We have designers, QA, programmers and environment artists. WvW is a massive piece of the GW2 pie, and the WvW team is able to focus on WvW needs. While many of us in the company may give feedback/ideas/suggestions to the WvW team, they are the ones who actually implement and carry out those changes.

Balance
When it comes to balance, we have multiple people who give feedback/guidance/suggestions, even though a smaller subset actually implement those changes (which is what Jon was saying in his post). After we have balance meetings, a few of the designers implement the changes. If it’s a WvW change, the WvW designer will implement that change. If it’s a PvP change, one of the PvP designers implements it (again, this is what Jon was saying). If it’s strictly a balance change, then we have a designer do it that has the bandwidth (sometimes it’s me, sometime it’s even Izzy, but usually it’s Karl or Peters). Currently, when we have balance meetings, the following people are present in various combinations, depending on the topic:

1. Jon Peters – game designer
2. Karl McLain – game designer
3. Representatives from the WvW team, including QA and design
4. Representatives from the dungeon teams, including another game designer
5. Representatives from the live response team, including QA guys who play ALL aspects of the game A LOT
6. Other representatives from the PvP team, like Tyler Bearce (designer) and Roy Cronacher (QA)
7. Izzy – lead designer
8. Myself – game designer

When we’re in those meetings, we’ll talk about hot topics, and issues that are currently a big issue for a certain piece of content. We also listen to high level players, we read the forums (sometimes we even take the best-written posts, print out 10 copies, and bring them to a balance meeting), and we play the game to get a feel for ourselves. Just because you don’t see a change that YOU want, keep in mind that someone else may disagree. Just because we don’t do every single change YOU want, doesn’t mean we don’t care about you or the game. We just try to make the best changes for the greatest number of players.
I just wanted to clear this up to let you guys know a little bit more of what happens here inside the studio so you understand more of what Peters was trying to say. He’s just as busy as we all are, and with a lot of us gone for Thanksgiving (he’s not here right now), I just took it upon myself to try to clear this up a little.
Cheers"

Thema:  Downed Timer adjusted

"Hey all.
We’re going to bring down the res timers from 20 seconds to 15 seconds. A lot of people have posted about how they don’t like the new system, and a lot of people have posted about how they DO like the new system. So, let’s set the record straight:
We want the best system for the game, the best system for the community, and the best system for growing the game’s Esport’s potential.
So we’ll keep an eye on this. If the entire community feels that wave spawn timers are better for the game, then we’ll go back to that. However, right now, it seems that some people like it, feel that it “rewards” each kill (before, someone could die and hit the res wave timer such that they would literally be back in a few seconds) and doesn’t require players to have to memorize the clock wave respawn timings in order to be an effective killer. We’re watching the threads on this issue, so keep posting your thoughts.
TL:DR – We’re listening to you and we’ll iterate on it until we find the best solution for the game overall."


 Thema: Anything in the pipeline for new game types?

"Phira has it right. Once we have the key features we need for the core of the game, we’ll look at doing other game types."

Soweit die Aussagen von Entwicklerseite aus. Es wäre fantastisch, wenn diese sich grundsätzlich so mit der Community ausseinadnersetzen würden. In letzter Zeit hatte ich das Gefühl, das da eingies eingeschlafen ist, was natürlich auch dem Umstand des Content-Patches geschuldet war.

Fallen überall