[Dev update] Games Changes & Design Team Update

I don't PUG much anymore. I nearly play this as a single player game. But I love it because it changes and evolves. Looking forward to pet controls and better bow skills for my ranger.
Also great move on being able to select a different character without logging out. A small change but I appreciate it and will notice it

Mini pets in town?! Mini pets racing?! what next? um,...why dont we go all the way and have minipet arena as well! lv up your minipet and send them into battle.
gotta catch'em all!

looking forward to the update

a great big thumbs up from this aspiring 'beastmistress' on the whole pet side of things.. I can't wait to try it out and change my builds and stratagies to suit... Thanks for this ^^

Kea

I love this part of GW!! Updates!! YAY!

Very nice job Devs! And a huge "thank you very much, Gaile" for keeping us well-informed on these free, well-thought-out, free, cool, free additions to a otherwise great game!

(Did i mention it was a free update, that gives us more stuff to do/play with? I did buy this game "as it is", not "as i'd like it to be", so any additions are really a plus...)

I am, however, a bit worried about the sound level in towns now. An option to adjust pet volume might be nice. I'd like to be able to enjoy some music, and hear the background sounds... not just "raawr!, click-click-click or moooh!"

Still, a free update to a game that's not "broken"! Cool!

(Did i mention this is a FREE update that a-net doesnt HAVE to do?)

TYSVM! w00t! Ding! and so on and so on...

Incorrect.

Paragons became degenerate when there were 5-6 *physicals* in a group. Every physical you added made Paragons better.

Paragons, coincidentally, are physicals.

Paragon builds became ridiculous because you were running 5-6 different versions of a degenerately good physical in a 5-6 physical build. Note the distinction. Each of the Paragons in a 5-6 Paragon build is *individually* too good. You could replace 3 of those Paragons with Warriors, and the Paragons would *still* be too good. It made sense to run more Paragons instead of Warriors, because Paragons are the strongest physical in a 5-6 physical fight.

As it happens, Paragons are *still* very strong characters in builds sporting 5-6 physicals. With the changes, however, there is less value in some of the subsequent Paragons, and similarly limits some of the other Paragon builds that were only made viable by all of the other Paragons in the build.

I still run through PvE consistently sporting 1-2 Paragons, and I don't forsee any reason to change that in the near future.

Paragons are mediocre to weak characters in a typical PvE pug group, which tends to skimp on physicals and neuters the physicals it does have. That Paragons do not thrive in such environments should be obvious.

Peace,
-CxE

First time i know that Ensign play PvE like us, as for me i appreciate your PvE feedback as you do in PvP..
/bow

I have to say i'm worried about any changes to bow skills. My ranger is my main character and i'm so happy with him, it'd be a shame to see him nerfed.
Maybe the changes will be positive, but i get the feeling they wont be.
I hate the fact that most of these changes will be because of PvP which i never really play, being that i'm a PvE player and the skills work just fine there.
We'll have to wait and see i guess.

On the mention of showing pets off in towns, how will the 20 people be decided?

Ferret

You can walk...you just have to be near a foe who casts Imagined Burden.

As for the not having to log out to switch characters...w00t...long awaited!

They said the first 20 people to have their pets out, will be able to have their pets out.

So it's most likely going to be like this:

Show Pet
>>> If Pets in town == 20
>>>>>> Show Pet = No
>>> ElseIf Pets in town < 20
>>>>>> Show Pet = Yes

Or, if you enter a town and there are less than twenty pets, you will be able to show yours... if not, you won't.

...Like they said in the first post

Up to 20 mini-pets visible in towns.. sounds very Pokemonish to me..

Got to admit to being a bit concerned at ranger bow skills "being looked at". I know this does not specifically mention in what way they are going to be looked at, but I always get that sinking feeling when I see things like that. Of course I could be totally wrong and it may be nothing to do with skill balancing, but something totally unexpected and positive.

Ranger pet controls sounds very interesting though :-)

the mini-pets thing is unimportant

Quite. There will be a massive competition between all the wammos in the first couple of weeks to be the "chosen 20" who get to show their pets but after a couple of weeks people will forget to get their pets out it my best guess...a bit like the new party search function...I hardly see it used any more.

I don't have a pet, but sometimes I have fun chasing other people's in explorable areas. In Everquest 2 your pet can be clicked and will do an animation or say something if someone else clicks on it.
There is a goblin that gets really grumpy when clicked, or a mushroom man that emits spores that makes you sneeze.
It's pretty cute and we've had some hilarious drama.

Oh yes! I remember something. Voices for emotes! That was the source for a lot of fun in Everquest 2 when we'd be standing around the broker. Certain emotes had 2 random sound files that could play. We were messing around next to the broker and did this improv.

'Hello'
'Hi hi'
'I know more than a hundred ways to kill someone'
'Yeshy yesh'
'You better watch out!'
'mmm hmmmm?'

All those were voiced emotes that have 2 possible random things said, it just turned out to make sense and we all started cracking up for a minute at how they just fit together perfectly.

What I'm curious about is why some updates are emphasized over others.

This one, or the DoA changes update (that altered the gem drop rate, and required amount for Armbraces) for example. Why make threads and detail certain updates, but not others? This one doesn't seem too spectacular, overall.

Well if they allow minipets in towns, they gotta make pikachu minipets.

So? Your point exactly?

It might be to quell the masses after the last weekend test update. There was a lot of talk about mesmer usefullness in PVE for example. I am glad that this announcement was made. I imagine pet control would put a whole new spin and appeal to beast mastery!

GREAT UPDATES!!! i knew the paragon was going to be the nerd assasin of nightfall, that's why i never made one, i knew they sucked from the beginning, greatly looking forward to minipet racing, pet options, and the logout screen GOOD WORK AND THANK YOU ANET!

Thank you, ANet for changing how logging out works. It should help with the common issue among players of excessive inventory management across characters.

Just to try to ask politely...are there any plans, even if not soon, to address the limited storage provided to players designed and relatively unchanged (materials storage was great!) from when Prophecies was designed? Is that a recognized issue to eventually be addressed or is the "official" current position on the issue that players use the work-around solution of using character slots as mules?

Just to mention also...gold limitations designed from when Prophecies was designed may be outdated too (not that it really affects me personally, but it does severely artificially inflate ecto prices and affects/hinders in-game trading).

Thanks again. Looking forward to continued further improvements to make the gaming experience better.

At least now we will not have 3 choices for ha but 2
RIT and NECRO spike