TL
R
Incoming AoE ability balancing (nerf) - they are too effective right now
Removing rez rushing in dungeons - i.e. can't WP if group members are in combat. Reducing difficulty on some of the more challenging encounters
New achievement system to encourage players to go back to the deserted zones & guilds stuff
sPvP: custom areans. leaderboards, 1 team vs 1 team winner stay in loser kicked out tournament (paid)
WvW - working on introducing progression, better rewards and fixing culling
Class balance to bring up the weaker weapons/traits, more viable builds, and reduce AoE effectiveness.
What is our long term focus for PVE and how we are bringing left back to deserted zones
New achievement system that plays into dailies/monthlies that adds new style of gameplay
New achievements to encourager cooperative play - i.e. rezzing, rallying) - things that will help players better at understanding the concepts of our game.
Allow players to filter back into some of the deserted zones (i.e. this month's monthly achievement for jumping puzzles was used as an example)
New content with the guilds - 4-5 different styles of content that show up in the world that guilds can go in to help kick off and pull other players into it as well.
Adding tiers to guild economy/ear guild tabs, adding in new rewards for guild members to show off.
>100 new rewards tied to the achievement system/guilds to allow players to show off some of the cool stuff they have done.
Framework rolling out next couple months
New Ascended items coming into play outside FOTM with the new achievement/reward system.
Philosophy on the dungeons
Multiple phase change for the dungeons - first build - remove the idea of rez rushing (i.e. only way to beat some of the difficult encounters at the moment is to have dead players run back from nearby waypoints while players that are alive kite the mobs)
You can no longer able to rez (I think he meant waypoint here) if someone in dungeon is in combat
We are nerfing some of the encounters that are a bit more challenging
Phase 2 - go back and look at some of the encounters - retune and increase difficulty if necessary.
New rewards (no details)
LFG mechanics
We are working right now on a system that go across the board, not just for dungeons, sPvP. It is a bit far off.
sPvP
Working on custom arenas - need to make sure it is bug free, we are polishing them atm
Working on leaderboards - see your progress against other people
New player experience for PvP - better matchmaking system - play with players of your skill level.
Working on a new 1 team vs 1 team version of our tournament system , will be paid tournament (but reduced the cost and reduced rewards). Winners stay in, losers kicked out to the lobby. (Current tournament system require 8 teams for a single tournament with 3 rounds so it is hard to get tournaments started at the moment)
This new tournament version will be on Temple of Silent Storm map (this map has a lot of tournament potential).
Blog post coming up to talk more
Adding more some unique skins to PvP and WvW
WvW
Looking into progression in WvW to give you some kind of character development and rewards
Goal is to progression/rewards. Encourages more players to do WvW.
Recently tested culling - we are doing great things with culling - running a lot of different tests/tweaks.
Our WvW programmer talks about more on the official GW2 forums.
Adding more some unique skins to PvP and WvW
Upcoming AoE skill balancing (nerf)
One of the issues brought up a lot in WvW./sPvP is AoE (Area of Effect). We feel like they are too strong at the moment and a lot of people in WvW are gaming the system using AoEs.
For people that don't know - max targets for siege weapons is 50 while max targets for AoE is 5.
Reducing AoE effectiveness to bring them in line with the single target damage skills.
Major update coming to all the AoE skills - make classes that are good at single target damage stand out a bit more.
Same thing with dungeons - right now if you have a lot of AoE you can past encounters by just spamming AoE which is not what we want.
Philosophy inside weapons and class balance
We want classes deal situations in an unique manner
We want to bring up all the weak weapons/traits in addition to reduce AoE effectiveness.
Some classes have 1-2 good builds while others have 5-6 builds , we want to bring up all the classes to 5-6 builds.