Guild Wars 2 Development Update by Jon Peters

Article en anglais en attendant une traduction...

Citation :

Guild Wars 2 Development Update by Jon Peters Jonpetersblogheader

It’s been a little while since we’ve provided you with an update about the current state of Guild Wars 2, so today I thought I’d share some of the things we’ve been working on these past few months. We are heads down, hard at work on the continued development of the game, and I’m happy to report that things are progressing very nicely on all fronts. From art and sound to filling out and polishing all of the content in the game, we’re making great strides toward completing Guild Wars 2.

Read on for some details about what we’ve been up to!

Tinkering with the Tool Belt

When we revealed the engineer earlier this year, we introduced the tool belt, a profession mechanic that fills the engineer’s F1-F4 keys with skills that tie into some of the heal and utility skills in slots 6-9.

When we initially talked about the engineer, only some of the heal and utility skills had corresponding tool belt skills, but as we spent more time with this profession—especially testing for the gamescom demo—we started imagining a much cooler version of the engineer’s tool belt, where every slotted heal/utility skill had a tool belt counterpart.

This improved tool belt system meant that we had to design twenty-three new skills. Since this is ArenaNet, that meant a bunch of meetings, some yelling, a whiteboard, and a lot of sticky notes. After all was said and done, we ended up with a matching tool belt skill for every heal and utility skill—this was how the engineer was always supposed to play!

To give some examples, an engineer that equips slots 6-9 with Elixir H, Flamethrower, Slick Shoes, and Rocket Boots would now have the following skills in their tool belt:

F1 - Throw Elixir H: A ground-targeted skill that throws Elixir H at the target area, randomly granting vigor, protection, or regeneration to allies in the area.
F2 - Incendiary Ammo: Your next three attacks cause burning.
F3 – Super Speed: A very short but powerful speed boost.
F4 – Rocket Kick: A kick that causes AoE fire damage.

Guild Wars 2 Development Update by Jon Peters ToolBelt21

I personally love popping Incendiary Ammo, firing off a few rounds, swapping to my flamethrower, chasing the enemy with Super Speed, and finishing them off with a Rocket Kick.

A Ranger’s Best Friend

We’ve had a lot of internal discussions about improving ranger pets for a while. The difficult question wasn’t what was wrong with ranger pets, it was how to fix them. Well, that answer is finally here.

Slotting and Swapping Pets

Rangers now have a total of two terrestrial and two aquatic pet slots. Amphibious pets are able to occupy either terrestrial or aquatic slots. Rangers can now use F4 to swap between the two valid pet slots during combat. This mechanic works even when your current active pet is defeated, allowing a ranger to quickly adapt when a pet is downed or when a situation arises that calls for a new pet. Swapping pets has a cooldown associated with it, and this cooldown is longer if the active pet was downed when the swap took place. A downed pet that was swapped out will be at full health when he is swapped back in. We’ve done a lot of work to make each ranger pet more unique and fill a particular role, which fits perfectly with the fluid, adaptable nature of combat in Guild Wars 2.

Pet Controls

Pets now have two stances: active and passive. In the active stance, if your pet is doing nothing and you engage in combat, your pet will attack your opponent. In the passive stance, your pet will follow you and not to attack unless explicitly ordered to do so. You’ll be able to toggle between these stances by pressing F3.

Ranger pets can be ordered to attack a specific enemy by selecting a target and hitting F1. This action will temporarily overwrite your pet’s current behavior, giving you more direct control over your pet’s actions in complicated combat situations.

Species and Families

Pets no longer evolve. Instead, they are set to the level of the ranger, and their stats and abilities are determined by their species. Each pet belongs to a species and each species belongs to a family. For example, a snow leopard is a species belonging to the feline family of pets. Charming a species unlocks that species for you, allowing you to equip that species into any pet slot whenever you are out of combat. In Guild Wars 2, a single ranger can collect and use every type of pet in the game without having to worry about stables or leveling the pets from scratch.

Each family has three basic skills that define that family. For example, bears are hard to kill, drakes do AoE damage, devourers use ranged attacks, etc. These skills are automatically used by the pet. Each species within a family has a unique skill. For example, polar bears have an icy roar that freezes enemies, while brown bears have a roar that removes conditions. This family skill has a cooldown and is activated by the ranger by hitting F2.

Cross Profession Combos

In the past, we’ve talked about one of the more explicit ways in which Guild Wars 2 characters can interact: cross-profession combos. This system has been in development for some time. We knew it had a lot of potential, but we also knew we couldn’t flesh it out until more of the game was developed. Now that seven of our eight professions have been revealed (and the last one is undergoing testing), we have started to flesh out this system and create the building blocks that make it work. Cross-profession combo is the term we use, but these combos can also be created by two of the same profession and, in many cases, by a single character.

A cross-profession combo has two important elements; the initiator and the finisher. Think of it like a set and spike in volleyball. One action sets up the combo, and another finishes it.

Guild Wars 2 Development Update by Jon Peters Cross-profession-combo

Initiators

All combos are initiated by creating an area in the world that changes some skills performed within it. We call these areas “fields” and they come in various flavors. They range from elemental effects—such as fire, ice, and lightning—to other effects like poison, light, dark, and smoke. All fields persist in the world for a time and can be taken advantage of by any number of finishers.

Finishers

All combos are completed using finishers. There are categories of finishers, and when a finisher category interacts with a field type it creates a combination. All finishers are actions of some kind, including firing projectiles, leaping, and blasting an area. Every finisher can only be modified once, to avoid confusion and stacking. (Stacking was in at one time and was incredibly overpowered.)

Combos

So what happens when a finisher meets an initiator? Here are some examples to get you excited. Use Ricochet through a Firewall to get a bouncing axe that has a chance to burn the targets it hits. Leaping Death Blossom through a Symbol of Faith will remove conditions from allies near your target. Stomp inside a Smoke Screen to cloak nearby allies. This is just a small sampling of what you can do with combos, and we leave it to you to find them all and combo to your heart’s delight.

Combo UI

When two players create a combo, we create a floating notification for each player that shows that they did a combo and which skills were involved. Skills also display their field type or finisher type in their description, to help players experiment.
Guild Wars 2 combat is all about dynamic teamwork. We want to make sure that players are working together, and cross-profession combos are another way we encourage this. Almost every weapon has some sort of initiator or finisher which leaves two players ample opportunities to find and capitalize on combos, regardless of profession or other skill choices. All that is left now is for you to find and master them.

SOURCE : http://www.arena.net

Citation :

Jon Peters : « Le développement avance bien sur tous les fronts »

A défaut d'une annonce tonitruante sur la dernière classe ou sur le calendrier de beta, Arena Net propose aujourd'hui, sur son blog, un nouveau billet sur l'état d'avancement du développement de Guild Wars 2.

Cette fois, c'est Jon Peters qui s'y colle et qui fait le point sur les dernières modifications...

Jon Peters, game designer chez Arena Net, le reconnaît lui même : cela commence à faire un moment qu'aucune information sur les dernières avancées en matière de développement des mécaniques de jeu n'avait filtré.

Le manque commence enfin à être comblé avec ce nouvel article.

Sans plus attendre, voilà à quoi s'attendre :

Des précisions sur les ceintures d'outils de l'ingénieur
Enfin des infos sur le familier du rôdeur promises un peu plus tôt dans la semaine par Eric Flannum !
Et pour finir, les détails du fonctionnement des combos inter-professions.

En vrac ci-dessous, les points à retenir concernant le système de familier :

Le rôdeur a maintenant 4 slots pour mettre un famillier, 2 pour les terrestres et 2 pour les aquatiques. Les familiers amphibiens peuvent prendre soit l'un soit l'autre.
On peut changer de familier à n'importe quel moment en appuyant sur F4 (parmi les 2 slots valides en fonction si terrestre ou aquatique). Il y a cependant un temps d'attente avant de pouvoir en changer à nouveau.
On peut changer de familier même s'il est "mort", le temps d'attente en revanche sera rallongé avant de pouvoir changer.
Un familier "mort" reprend toute sa vie quand on l'appelle/change à nouveau durant le même combat.
Chaque familier sera unique et aura un rôle particulier
Ils auront 2 "poses" : active (attaque la cible engagée) et passive (ne fait que suivre le joueur).
Un familier peut attaquer une cible précise en la sélectionnant et en pressant F1.
Les familiers ne gagnent plus de niveau, ils adoptent directement celui du joueur.
Leur statistiques sont fonction du niveau du joueur et de son appartenance à une espèce.
Il suffit de charmer un familier pour qu'il soit débloqué et puisse être "équipé" (mit dans des slots)
Le familier a 3 attaques basiques qui sont spécifiques à son espèce. Par exemple, l'ours est difficile à tuer, le Drake fait des attaques de Zone et les dévoreurs des attaques à distance. Ils utilisent ces compétences tout seuls.
Chaque familier a une compétence élite spécifie. Par exemple, l'ours polaire a un cri qui gèle les ennemis alors que l'ours brun un cri qui enlève des conditions
L'élite du familier a un temps d'attente et peut être utiliser par le joueur en utilisant F2

Guild Wars 2 Development Update by Jon Peters Bear_vs_Pet

SOURCE : http://www.jeuxonline.info/

Guild Wars 2 Development Update by Jon Peters

Guild Wars 2 Development Update by Jon Peters

Sujets similaires