PvP Visual and Reward Updates

[Karizee]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/p...eward-updates/


PvP Visual and
Reward Updates


The September 2014 Feature Pack, which we announced yesterday along with our World Tournament Series, is bringing exciting additions to PvP!
Today, we’ll be talking about two of our additions aimed at supporting our competitive community: Standard Enemy Models and PvP-exclusive armors!

Gameplay Programmer Branden Gee will kick things off by introducing the Standard Enemy Models, and then Designer Hugh Norfolk will tell you about our glorious new armors.


Standard Enemy Models

Something you’ve probably noticed if you’ve played much PvP in Guild Wars 2 is that races in our game can have widely varying animations for the same skill. In competitive play, this can make it hard to accurately anticipate and react to opponents. As part of our support for high-end competitions, we wanted to use this feature pack to introduce a way for players to more consistently identify and react to enemy skills.

This left us with a pretty tough question to answer: How do you normalize the animations and sizes of characters to improve readability while still maintaining the visual identity of each profession? Let me tell you right now, upscaling asuran characters was not the answer we were looking for!





Our solution is what we’re calling “Standard Enemy Models.” It consists of a human model, a weapon set, and a set of armor per profession and gender. We put together looks that we feel preserve the feeling of each profession and are visually distinct from other professions.

So what does all of this mean for you? It’s pretty simple. There’s now a setting in the General Options tab of your F11 menu. If you enable the Standard Enemy Models and enter a game type that supports them, all of your opponents will be represented by these models based on their gender and profession. This set will only replace enemy models; your teammates will not be affected. As this functionality is intended for high-end, skilled players at the top tier of PvP, this option will work only in Team Arenas and Custom Arenas that allow Tournament Commands.


PvP Armor & Reward Track

Hey, everybody, Hugh Norfolk here to tell you about our new PvP-exclusive armors. “Wait, Hugh,” I can hear you asking, “did you really just say that we’ll be getting new armors in PvP?” Yes! There will be two sets of armor that will be released exclusively to PvP: the Glorious armor and Glorious Hero’s armor.





When designing this armor set, we really wanted to bring something unique and, well, glorious to PvP. We started out by asking questions like, “What would a god of war wear into battle?” and “What would embody the glory of combat?” As we looked for the answers to these questions, we turned to mythology for inspiration. We also looked to the most glorious place of all: the Hall of Heroes from the original Guild Wars. One of the key visuals from the Hall of Heroes is its majestic statues with ornate wings, which we decided to incorporate into our new armor sets.

In response to the PvP community wanting a very prestigious set of armor, we decided that we would create two variants of this armor. The Glorious Hero’s set is a top-tier reward for certain competitive tournaments like the Guild Wars 2 International All-Star Tournament at gamescom. If you aren’t one of the teams competing in that tournament, don’t despair—the Glorious Hero’s set will be available as a prize in similar tournaments in the future. The Glorious Armor set is something we wanted all players to be able to earn. As such, all players have the opportunity to obtain the Glorious armor set from a repeatable Glorious Armor Reward Track that will arrive with the feature pack.





This track will have rewards similar to those found in region reward tracks, like Dragonite Ore, Empyreal Fragments, Obsidian Shards, and Mystic Clovers. You’ll also be able to earn Custom Arena Time Tokens to support your favorite Custom Arenas. Each time you complete the Glorious Armor Reward Track, you’ll be able to select a piece of Glorious armor to add to your wardrobe!

We are very excited to bring you these armors in the upcoming feature pack, and we can’t wait to see you don the mantle of glory!

We’ll see you in the Mists!

[zito]

I think the PvP visual thing is a waste of time, animations hardly differentiate from race to race, maybe auto attack spam but a warriors adrenaline hammer move looks the same regardless of race or a mesmer phantasm summoning.

1 exclusive armor is a start.

I have a feeling the majority of this feature patch is PvP/WvW which is kinda bull shit, they should just rename it the PvP patch instead because that's what it usually focuses on. There is no "feature" about this patch so far.

[Svifnymr]

I think the PvP visual thing is a waste of time, animations hardly differentiate from race to race, maybe auto attack spam but a warriors adrenaline hammer move looks the same regardless of race or a mesmer phantasm summoning.

I imagine there was a lot of complaining and that the solution was an easy enough fix ("fuck it, give them an option to make their enemies humans in generic armor"), so they did it.

Whether it was widespread complaining or just 3 guys that hate Asura, whether the complaints are valid or just 3 guys that hate Asura, no clue, but easy fix.

I have a feeling the majority of this feature patch is PvP/WvW which is kinda bull shit, they should just rename it the PvP patch instead because that's what it usually focuses on. There is no "feature" about this patch so far.

I have a feeling they wanted to make PvP folks feel less neglected by doing their stuff first. It's a bit off given that most of any PvE changes will carry over to PvP anyway (like dye system and such), but do keep in mind we're looking at a few weeks of information anyway. If you go Full Pesimistic this early, you may not make it to the end.

[zito]

Balancing act is again PvP
Rainbow is WvW
Tricks is most likely WvW again with the new golem thing
Prepare to fight is probably gambits which I have no interest doing dungeons until they redo every boss fight to be more engaging instead of "white damge hurts derp derp"

I don't understand week 2 or week 3 part

[lawow74]

I think the PvP visual thing is a waste of time, animations hardly differentiate from race to race, maybe auto attack spam but a warriors adrenaline hammer move looks the same regardless of race or a mesmer phantasm summoning.

1 exclusive armor is a start.

I have a feeling the majority of this feature patch is PvP/WvW which is kinda bull shit, they should just rename it the PvP patch instead because that's what it usually focuses on. There is no "feature" about this patch so far.

I think the PvP visual option is good for WvW, can help to cut down on bloblag and such. Exclusive armor is a cute notion, doesn't really impact me, but if people want it, go ahead.

And we're only just starting. Give it a little more time before we all start screaming deliberate gimp.

[zito]

It won't really help WvW because WvW just shows a bunch of pink blobs on my screen anyway lol

[lawow74]

It won't really help WvW because WvW just shows a bunch of pink blobs on my screen anyway lol

Okay, it helps people who can run it at more than the pink blob level but want to maximize their not-pink frameblobrate.

[Svifnymr]

Balancing act is again PvP
Rainbow is WvW
Tricks is most likely WvW again with the new golem thing
Prepare to fight is probably gambits which I have no interest doing dungeons until they redo every boss fight to be more engaging instead of "white damge hurts derp derp"

I don't understand week 2 or week 3 part

I'm pretty sure they said first week of reveals is all pvp/wv, so the pve/everybody stuff will be after.

[zito]

I will not be satisfied until

1) Housing
2) Super adventure box

that is all

[Svifnymr]

I really don't see Housing on the plan anywhere soon, but other games have added it so maybe it's on the radar. I'd like it if so!

I'm not sure how it'd interact with the personal instance though.

SAB wouldn't have anything to do with a feature patch, and I have little hope it'll return. It's entirely possible of course, and I still have baubles, but wouldn't hold my breath.

[zito]

I bought the unlimited lives coin, the only thing I bought from the gem store. I will demand a refund if SAB isn't coming back.

[Svifnymr]

I bought the unlimited lives coin, the only thing I bought from the gem store. I will demand a refund if SAB isn't coming back.

Heh, I can probably give you a copy of their "sorry, but no" letter now if you want. They're really sorry they couldn't help me those times though...

[zito]

They gave me a refund for the witches outfit cause it's now a one piece and I found that bull shit so I got a refund, although they let me keep the outfit...

[Svifnymr]

Sure, that was part of a bigger deal. When I bought the Pirate Outfit, it was very disappointing, so I emailed about a refund, they refused. Months later when they changed outfits, I got a refund same as you, but because of the patch, not because they refund gem items.

Mind you, maybe something changed either way.

[thursday67]

im still new to to this game but Im pretty stoked in general for the pvp updates-- I can tell that they are much needed from the little pvp ive played.