Latest Guild Wars 2 interview material

Some highlights from reddit.

P5. How come Guardians are the only Profession that are limited in range abilities? Everyone else has true-ranged skills, but Guardians have skills that can't go up inclines/ledges (they don't travel through the air, but on the ground)!
I actually updated those skills since the last BWE. Give scpeter a try I tried to make this the ranged option, particularly in WvW for Guardian.

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon

PVP1. Are there any plans on making a PvP type that can transit into an eSport?
Please give our automatic tournaments a try this weekend. This is our first step towards e-sport. :)
PVP2. It's been previously stated that spectator-mode for PvP won't be available until sometime after launch, any idea about an ETA when we can expect it?
It will be based on how simple it is to add and how requested it is. :)
PVP3. Can we, or are you planning on implementing - a way for players to duel each other?
We intend to have dueling post release, but when will depend on how demanded it is and how easy it is for us to get it into the game. ECHO!

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon

There were a number of problems with the old system that we felt required a change. We believe this new system keeps the spirit of the old system, while actually working better in the long run. Here are the problems we believe this change solve:
1) Best builds were all 30,10,10,10,10. There was always a super strong trait in every line which made each player only put 10 points into that trait line and still gain a very powerful benefit. In the new system this will still be true, but it will be tempered because people will be giving up going 20 or 30 points into multiple lines. This has allowed us to shift traits around so that more of them get play at different levels, meaning they don’t all have to compete against each other at tier 1.
2) This system is so much easier to balance. It is not reasonable to make 12 equally useful traits, particularly given how some of them had niche effects. Making 12 equal traits is harder, takes longer and ultimately leads to some traits seeing a lot less use. Finally an important point is that balance creates more choice as well because unbalanced and bad builds aren’t really options. The old system created a very small subset of über-builds which stomped out a lot of the good builds along with the bad ones.
3) Opportunity Costs are what make interesting choices. Trait tiers allow us to split the traits. 6 allowed in slot 1, 10 (6 tier 1 and 4 tier 2) allowed in slot 2, and 12(6 tier 1, 4 tier 2 and 2 tier 3) allowed in slot 3. The final 2 tier 3 traits are "elite"-like, in the sense that you can only ever have one of them on your build at once. If I'm making a damage warrior I am going to put 30 points into strength, same as every other big damage warrior, but now those characters are all guaranteed to be split at least in half forcing you to not take one of the two exclusive final traits. Before, anytime a character went 30 points in a line they were taking the same 3 (maybe 3 out of 4) traits.
4) Option Shock. New players at level 20 were clicking on a trait line for the first time and seeing 12 options which was very overwhelming. This gives them a bit of a reprieve to pick between a smaller number of traits at first and then learn more as they have played their character more.
5) Putting 30 points into a line left you with a climax of picking the third most interesting trait which did not feel good. Players want to feel like that decision to go 30 is a big decision and that when they make it they get to make a big decision that simply could not happen in the old system. Now when you commit to 30 points you are rewarded with an important choice as well as options that you didn't previously have.
Finally, these are not the final balance numbers or often even the final traits/functionality and we will be iterating on this system as we move towards release. I know for certain there are already a number of changes I wish I could have made before this weekend, but they will have to wait until next time. If you had a really fun build before this change and it is lost now, post it in our beta forums and we can figure out how to make it viable. The intention here was not to remove fun, good builds but to create more viable builds that will increase the variety of characters in the game. 

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon

The gap between T1, T2, and T3 should be noticeable but not game breaking. There are plenty of builds that I currently run that do not use T3 traits despite going 30 points in a specific line.

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon 

The plan for guild cap is that guilds will be able to gain influence to up their cap. How this will work is not exactly determined yet, but the current limit of 100 is lower than the maximum a guild will be able to achieve.

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon 

We intend to support spectator mode at some point, but right now we are focused on core features to get the game into your hands so that you as the players can help us determine the course of future updates.

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon 

In this BWE we are introducing tournmaments which will allow you to PvP with friends. We have also made some improvements to the hot join games allowing you to follow friends into games via a chat link and will continue to improve these now and after release as well.

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon 

Tournaments, which are in this BWE, are the equivilent of GvG in GW2. Players will be able to form teams and enter the most basic form of tournaments this weekend. More tournament support is incoming.

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon  

Oh yeah we fixed the UI so you can see all traits in a line before spending points! :)

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon  

This was a bug and should now be working as intended. Some of the problems may stil exists but it is our intention that WvW is on equivilent footing reward wise in every way to PvE. 

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon  

The plan for guild cap is that guilds will be able to gain influence to up their cap. How this will work is not exactly determined yet, but the current limit of 100 is lower than the maximum a guild will be able to achieve.

Jon Peters - Systems Designer - Jon