Guild Wars 2

Three weeks ago, the Ranger CDI was opened. With bated breath, I followed closely the debate and issues raised. Many of the issues with the Ranger were as old as beta, but at least now the Ranger profession had center stage to discuss these issues. Or so I thought …

As time went on, I was struck my the lack of response from Anet. It seems that Allie Murdock did not have the time to devote to this massive topic. I can count on two hands the responses she made in the 67 page thread. I can only find one summary thread, and that thread only included a few ideas.

Frankly, how was this collaborative? Compared to the other concurrent CDI threads, the Ranger thread was ignored. The Edge of the Mists thread barely crested 11 pages, but saw more posts by Devon Carver, even though he took almost two weeks off. PVP Ladder and Seasons thread was a paltry 4 pages, but, as all things PVP, got many responses and personal time with Anet staff. Fractal Evolution, which hit 30 pages, got the usual multiple-posts-per-day attention from Chris Whiteside. What about the Ranger thread? Each of the other CDI threads saw more red posts than the Ranger thread. That is shocking considering how the Ranger thread dwarfs the other CDI threads, bringing in more posts than all the others combined.

Because of this lack of communication, we have no idea what is being discussed from the Ranger thread. We never built a discussion. Every time Allie did show up, all she did was shoot down ideas or put out fires.

I politely request that Anet make a new Ranger CDI thread. To start the thread, Anet should summarize the previous thread (yes, all 67 pages please), including the ideas that are feasible, liked, and possible. This would help guide discussion into fruitful territory. Next, I would ask that Anet allocate an appropriate amount of staff to respond and collaborate with posters. Looking at the size of the previous thread, likely 3 staff members would be needed. This would go a great deal in making that 67 post thread not feel like a waste of time.

Wishful thinking on your part but anet wants no part in starting another ranger CDI lol

What you see is what you get.

Allie is not to be blamed here, she isn’t a dev

The reason it wasn’t so collaborative is because anet devs are still scratching their heads…. they release what a mess rangers are in and its tough to answer the community when they can’t come up with an answer….

the lack of collaboration in the ranger CDI means anet devs don’t have an answer yet… (thats my assumption)

Yeah, the 4 CDI topics at the same time wasn’t a good idea, Anet should use the CDI ranger topic as a brainstorm and create a new CDI, but this time listing the ideas that can be worked from the beginning.

I don’t blame Allie. It was just she did not have the time to discuss ideas and build a proposal for the important issues of the Ranger (like perma-stowing, pet AI, traps, no burst damage, etc), which is clearly what the Ranger CDI needed.

Of course, if we get a redo, and I sincerely hope we do, I would be overjoyed to have a dev who can more quickly discuss what is viable and liked.

John.5732:

I don’t blame Allie. It was just she did not have the time to discuss ideas and build a proposal for the important issues of the Ranger (like perma-stowing, pet AI, traps, no burst damage, etc), which is clearly what the Ranger CDI needed.

Perma-stow was mostly off the table, not as much as “get rid of it entirely” was. Pet AI was already known to be an issue way too big for them to get to short of a massive undertaking which wouldn’t leave room for anything else to get done.

The rest could have been talked about, and it should have been discussed how the ranger is not filling the role they envisioned. Except a lot of people wanted to talk about how the pet needed to go, or never should have been around ever ever ever WTF ANet.

Honestly what the ranger CDI needed was way more attention especially after it began spiraling out of control around when it grew a least six pages in twelve hours. And not “lock it til I can read”, more like “get some people who can talk about these things so we can put X topic to bed and move on”.

Of course, if we get a redo, and I sincerely hope we do, I would be overjoyed to have a dev who can more quickly discuss what is viable and liked.

We probably won’t get a redo, and frankly I’m not sure it would turn out any differently from our side.

I would expect good things to come of the CDI soon.

As well as a new ranger CDI soon too.

The CDI thread just emanated into a secondary Ranger sub-forum. Hardly 5% of the people who posted there actually had their words in edgewise.

And what can we expect? Rangers are a mashup of two failed experiments (Beastmaster and Warden) in the early alphas of GW2. Even the developers can’t understand the role of the Ranger, simply because there is no role. They feel frustration of conceiving a profession imbued too deep into broken, poorly designed AI. And us players feel frustration of having been neglected on far too many fronts in the game.

I think it’s kitten generous to withstand even a shred of optimism one and a half years into this.

John.5732:

I don’t blame Allie. It was just she did not have the time to discuss ideas and build a proposal for the important issues of the Ranger (like perma-stowing, pet AI, traps, no burst damage, etc), which is clearly what the Ranger CDI needed.

Of course, if we get a redo, and I sincerely hope we do, I would be overjoyed to have a dev who can more quickly discuss what is viable and liked.

She wasn’t a Dev though. She is a Community Coordinator which I can only assume is a type of PR role. Any discussion she had with us had to mostly use her to transmit dev ideas to us and vice versa. It didn’t help when she threw out things like we aren’t a burst class while not being in a position to be able to explain why we don’t have burst in a game that seems to be built around burst for power builds. Things like that only breed frustration. If we came away with more questions than answers at the end of the CDI then it failed horribly.

Things would have been a lot more constructive if the actual devs had taken a break from fawning over the Fractal CDI to talk to us as well.

Another Successful CDI. >_>

nethykins.7986:

Another Successful CDI. >_>

This is my point. Not the sarcasm, but what happened with the Ranger CDI can’t be our only chance to fix this profession. The outpouring of posts, more than I have seen on a single topic, should show that the players are willing to work toward a better game. Please, Anet, work with us.

I knew they were not serious when they didn’t assign a developer to the Collaborative Development Initiative. No offense to Allie.

Substance E.4852:

John.5732:

I don’t blame Allie. It was just she did not have the time to discuss ideas and build a proposal for the important issues of the Ranger (like perma-stowing, pet AI, traps, no burst damage, etc), which is clearly what the Ranger CDI needed.

Of course, if we get a redo, and I sincerely hope we do, I would be overjoyed to have a dev who can more quickly discuss what is viable and liked.

She wasn’t a Dev though. She is a Community Coordinator which I can only assume is a type of PR role. Any discussion she had with us had to mostly use her to transmit dev ideas to us and vice versa. It didn’t help when she threw out things like we aren’t a burst class while not being in a position to be able to explain why we don’t have burst in a game that seems to be built around burst for power builds. Things like that only breed frustration. If we came away with more questions than answers at the end of the CDI then it failed horribly.

Things would have been a lot more constructive if the actual devs had taken a break from fawning over the Fractal CDI to talk to us as well.

This is why I think the CDI was (atleast partly) a failure. The devs screwed once with the ranger, yet they want to fix it, but they don’t want to talk directly to the people who have the most experience with the class, the players.

What I took away:
1. There is no compromise to be made on removing pets from rangers or giving rangers an option to trade higher dps for no pets.

2. Pet AI is tied to mob AI animation. As a result, the broken pet skills and inability to hit moving targets cannot or will not be fixed (because it’s too expensive to fix)

So since neither 2 nor 1 can be addressed, I am puzzled as to what else is there to discuss? We all agree that broken pets are the problem, yet no quarter will be given to address the root cause. It seems as though any other changes are pointless without these being addressed. What am I missing?

Sanduskel.1850:

What I took away:
1. There is no compromise to be made on removing pets from rangers or giving rangers an option to trade higher dps for no pets.

2. Pet AI is tied to mob AI animation. As a result, the broken pet skills and inability to hit moving targets cannot or will not be fixed (because it’s too expensive to fix)

So since neither 2 nor 1 can be addressed, I am puzzled as to what else is there to discuss? We all agree that broken pets are the problem, yet no quarter will be given to address the root cause. It seems as though any other changes are pointless without these being addressed. What am I missing?

they will probably move around traits, have pets take less damage from aoe and make traps combo fields then call it a done deal.

also, lesson to be learned from the cdi… anything requiring a real effort and resources will not be done because they will take the path of least coding and cash resistance. all while waving the AAA flag and putting more effort into generating gems sales.

Regardless. I still believe Anet has no true vision for this class. They never did and i doubt they ever will. They pass the ranger off as a pet class but a year and a half later, the pets have been nerfed and they still need serious work done to them. Are we going to see any fixes to the pets at all? This is the only pet class i have ever played where the pet is considered more of a hindrance.

John.5732:

nethykins.7986:

Another Successful CDI. >_>

This is my point. Not the sarcasm, but what happened with the Ranger CDI can’t be our only chance to fix this profession. The outpouring of posts, more than I have seen on a single topic, should show that the players are willing to work toward a better game. Please, Anet, work with us.

Personally, what i took from the CDI, is that the class is stuck in limbo, and they don’t know what to do with it in it’s current state, and I really don’t think a bandaid solution will benefit rangers. While Allie did a decent job of keeping up, it’s all the other devs that should have been part of this and constantly communicating is where this CDI fails.

Another disappointing thing is that ‘long-term investment’ in changing some parts of the class is brushed aside simply because it will take too long to implement or fix, not because they’re bad ideas, but because it would take them too long to see the benefits.

I didn’t think I’d have to say this but I might as well: Rome was not built in a day.

Don’t expect ranger players to be ecstatic just because you created a makeshift solution.

/ramble

Also, I know the balance patch had been delayed until summer, but it will be at least October by the time the profession CDI are done so don’t expect anything meaningful to come to fruition until 2015.

I fear that they never get their stuff together, so this game would stay unfinished till it fades away. TBH, what kept me playing was either the achievement-hunt, which isn’t really satisfying on along term, and the story, which is also kinda meh… The balance on the other hand is awful.

Swagger.1459:

Also, I know the balance patch had been delayed until summer, but it will be at least October by the time the profession CDI are done so don’t expect anything meaningful to come to fruition until 2015.

hmmm I guess they don’t understand that ESO launches in 2 weeks. I’d be concerned.

Swagger.1459:

Also, I know the balance patch had been delayed until summer, but it will be at least October by the time the profession CDI are done so don’t expect anything meaningful to come to fruition until 2015.

lol and then we’ll all have EQ:Next to look froward to.

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

Man, I wish I’d have your optimism.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

Man, I wish I’d have your optimism.

ive pushed ideas into the game, and thats the time table.

assume they havent been listening to any ranger qq up to the date of the cdi.

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

Meanwhile, those of us who have been here from the beginning know how this song and dance actually ends because we’ve seen it played out before. #Aquaman2012

Substance E.4852:

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

Meanwhile, those of us who have been here from the beginning know how this song and dance actually ends because we’ve seen it played out before. #Aquaman2012

i have been here from the beginning o.O
dont expect them to take every word of a single suggestion
dont expect them to do it quickly
dont expect them to take every idea
dont expect them to fix everything at once

they certainly have started listening to us, ele was nerfed / warrior was buffed, wvw matchmaking is a bit smoother, theyre starting on server population imbalance, theyve done optimizations for skill lag and culling, and new bossfights have been designed with player concerns in mind. storywriting is much better in the living story.

just lower your kittening expectations.

insanemaniac.2456:

just lower your kittening expectations.

If they get any lower they’ll become negative expectations and I believe that would rip a hole in the fabric of spacetime.

In all seriousness though, a summery of what they liked and what they are currently thinking about as far as changes for the class would go a long way. Their lack of feedback/communication in general is what causes issues in every part of these forums, not just ours.

Most of the time, we have no idea what they are working on till its live.

allie put that into the cdi
then it was discussed for about 2 or 5 pages, and she took that discussion into consideration

then it was buried under another 30 pages of proposals

insanemaniac.2456:

Substance E.4852:

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

Meanwhile, those of us who have been here from the beginning know how this song and dance actually ends because we’ve seen it played out before. #Aquaman2012

just lower your kittening expectations.

Well, this CDI was the first thread about a serious problem in GW2, you could call it their debut. And they could’ve done better. Way better. I, for myself, will hinge my faith in ArenaNet on the outcome of this CDI.

insanemaniac.2456:

allie put that into the cdi
then it was discussed for about 2 or 5 pages, and she took that discussion into consideration

then it was buried under another 30 pages of proposals

She said that was only part of the ideas she forwarded to the devs.

Allie isn’t a developer, shes a community coordinator.

I mean a person who physically works on the game compiling a list that caught their eyes specifically, that they would then be discussing as possible changes.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

insanemaniac.2456:

Substance E.4852:

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

Meanwhile, those of us who have been here from the beginning know how this song and dance actually ends because we’ve seen it played out before. #Aquaman2012

just lower your kittening expectations.

Well, this CDI was the first thread about a serious problem in GW2, you could call it their debut. And they could’ve done better. Way better. I, for myself, will hinge my faith in ArenaNet on the outcome of this CDI.

no. world population and pvp game modes are both more important. they affect overall game health much more significantly than a single class’s balance. game modes have nothin as of yet, population imbalance is in its infancy.

insanemaniac.2456:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

insanemaniac.2456:

Substance E.4852:

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

Meanwhile, those of us who have been here from the beginning know how this song and dance actually ends because we’ve seen it played out before. #Aquaman2012

just lower your kittening expectations.

Well, this CDI was the first thread about a serious problem in GW2, you could call it their debut. And they could’ve done better. Way better. I, for myself, will hinge my faith in ArenaNet on the outcome of this CDI.

no. world population and pvp game modes are both more important. they affect overall game health much more significantly than a single class’s balance. game modes have nothin as of yet, population imbalance is in its infancy.

That’s your opinion. For me the balance is the most obvious and important part of a game.

insanemaniac.2456:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

insanemaniac.2456:

Substance E.4852:

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

Meanwhile, those of us who have been here from the beginning know how this song and dance actually ends because we’ve seen it played out before. #Aquaman2012

just lower your kittening expectations.

Well, this CDI was the first thread about a serious problem in GW2, you could call it their debut. And they could’ve done better. Way better. I, for myself, will hinge my faith in ArenaNet on the outcome of this CDI.

no. world population and pvp game modes are both more important. they affect overall game health much more significantly than a single class’s balance. game modes have nothin as of yet, population imbalance is in its infancy.

Pvp game modes are a direct result of balanced classes. The best pvp maps/modes ever made are worth crap if the classes in them aren’t properly balanced.

And as far as population goes, I know that a good way to ensure it doesn’t grow is to neglect class balance. I wouldn’t invest in a game with rampant class imbalance even if it favored my preferred play style. It shows a lack of attention from the staff and that they don’t care about their players enough to present a level playing field. It’s a good sign to look other places for an MMO.

it is my opinion, but heres why:

a new player can play any class up to 80 and get hooked on the game. the ranger in the state its in is playable, and you can have fun doing it.

people walk in to wvw expecting masses of players colliding all the time. that happens on 6 servers. its extremely likely that a new player does not start on one of those 6 servers since theyre “full”. a new player will walk into wvw, walk around for 5 minutes, get ganked 5v1, see that if theres a commander on the map, its gonna take another 5 minutes of walking to get to him, and think its not worth it and leave the game mode forever. because its kittening boring.

people walk into pvp, and whats to see? you dont have stat combo variety, runes/sigils are missing, and the only game modes are some strange king of the hill, and some strange king of the hill + death match frankenstein dominated by a class that 3 shots you from invisibility. frankly, the issue in pvp is more closely tied to class balance, but the first impression a new player will come away with is total crap.

for those 2 problems, you turn people off before they ever have a chance to start caring. with class balance, the classes are in a state thats playable and can hook players on the game before they really understand the underlying issues. so by leaving class balance to rot, you drive people away, but not before theyve had a chance to blow some gems in the cash shop.

John.5732:

I politely request that Anet make a new Ranger CDI thread. To start the thread, Anet should summarize the previous thread (yes, all 67 pages please), including the ideas that are feasible, liked, and possible. This would help guide discussion into fruitful territory. Next, I would ask that Anet allocate an appropriate amount of staff to respond and collaborate with posters. Looking at the size of the previous thread, likely 3 staff members would be needed. This would go a great deal in making that 67 post thread not feel like a waste of time.

Anet likes: This skill gets buffed 100x more.

Anet finds out that buffing this 100x more will make it overpowered. So Anet doesn’t buff it. Community finds that it isn’t buffed and whines.

Anet just can’t win. If they talk more, people will quote them as a promise and will blame Anet for not doing their promise. So Anet tries not to talk as much, and players will still blame them for not talking much.

SkiTz.4590:

The reason it wasn’t so collaborative is because anet devs are still scratching their heads…. they release what a mess rangers are in and its tough to answer the community when they can’t come up with an answer….

the lack of collaboration in the ranger CDI means anet devs don’t have an answer yet… (thats my assumption)

Well, I don’t think so.
Rather I think – or well, hope – that somewhere while the thread was running the devs realized that direct player-to-dev input is a terrible idea for balancing and development. Especially if it’s done via the forums.

The forum community is highly biased, is a very specialized subset of the total playerbase, and often here because their opinions on what the game ought to be is at direct odds with what the community at large things (hence they’re on the forums).

Asking them for input is one thing. Giving them direct input into development and balance however is bad. Going by what I read here on the forums:

• Balance would be ~entirely based on sPvP, nevermind that it ignores giant parts of the game which are much more frequently played.
• (or) balance would exist three times, meaning only a third as many balance changes would happen per game mode, and complexity would go through the roof in a game which is already skipped by many players due to being too confusing.
• All balance would always be based on the optimal sPvP-build, but
• All specs are supposed to be perform exactly the same, so they all will be highly homogenized.
• All classes will be extremely homogenized. Great.

You can also pretend to let your playerbase influence development (this is what the Mythic devs did back in the days). But that’s just dishonest and before you know it you release Trials of Atlantis for GW2 and your game tanks to sub-50k subscribers within a handful of months. :P

Really, some feedback is nice, but if you look at how the Team Lead program worked in DAoC, it’ll just frustrate everyone even more. Most TL reports of 9-15 questions were answered with 9x-15x “Working as intended / no plans to change”, a copy-paste answer with no further explanations.
Would you like that? And people in other threads are asking for exactly that.

Thing is, there’s simply no reason to let your players interfere with development. Their opinions are too biased and they’re too passionate.

Swagger.1459:

Also, I know the balance patch had been delayed until summer, but it will be at least October by the time the profession CDI are done so don’t expect anything meaningful to come to fruition until 2015.

I have not heard about the balance patch being delayed, link?

Also, I wasn’t asking for changes now, I know it takes time. And with Anet devoting everything to LW over the rest of the game, non LW changes take years. But, I was talking about making the CDI actually collaborative, like the other topics received. Beyond that one summary post, we got nothing from Allie.

Carighan.6758:

Well, I don’t think so.
Rather I think – or well, hope – that somewhere while the thread was running the devs realized that direct player-to-dev input is a terrible idea for balancing and development. Especially if it’s done via the forums.

The forum community is highly biased, is a very specialized subset of the total playerbase, and often here because their opinions on what the game ought to be is at direct odds with what the community at large things (hence they’re on the forums).

Asking them for input is one thing. Giving them direct input into development and balance however is bad. Going by what I read here on the forums:

• Balance would be ~entirely based on sPvP, nevermind that it ignores giant parts of the game which are much more frequently played.
• (or) balance would exist three times, meaning only a third as many balance changes would happen per game mode, and complexity would go through the roof in a game which is already skipped by many players due to being too confusing.
• All balance would always be based on the optimal sPvP-build, but
• All specs are supposed to be perform exactly the same, so they all will be highly homogenized.
• All classes will be extremely homogenized. Great.

You can also pretend to let your playerbase influence development (this is what the Mythic devs did back in the days). But that’s just dishonest and before you know it you release Trials of Atlantis for GW2 and your game tanks to sub-50k subscribers within a handful of months. :P

Really, some feedback is nice, but if you look at how the Team Lead program worked in DAoC, it’ll just frustrate everyone even more. Most TL reports of 9-15 questions were answered with 9x-15x “Working as intended / no plans to change”, a copy-paste answer with no further explanations.
Would you like that? And people in other threads are asking for exactly that.

Thing is, there’s simply no reason to let your players interfere with development. Their opinions are too biased and they’re too passionate.

Going by that logic the balance sub-forum was a mistake to add and its’ prime goal is to fool the playerbase into thinking they are being heard and their opinions matter. Maybe it is just wishful thinking, but I would like to convince myself that the goal of this sub-forum was to gather feedback on profession balance. Shrugging that off as a bad idea totally foregoes the point of having an open discussion.
It is like saying that people who care about this game enough to put their time and effort into writing their opinions and posting them have invalid opinions because they are as you say: too passionate.

Surely people are biased, I totally agree. Plenty of people are like that, but the developers have their reasons for being like that too because they are the most involved in their product. That does not mean that we can not have an open discussion or that no good ideas will come to fruition from such a collaborate discussion.

If you are right, and I really hope you are not;

Balance forum -> No balance, there is your answer. /sub-forum

JorneMormel.9850:

Going by that logic the balance sub-forum was a mistake to add and its’ prime goal is to fool the playerbase into thinking they are being heard and their opinions matter.

I kind of think the same. A more devious explanation would be that it keeps the really angry posters away from all the other forums, serving as the /b/ of the ANet forums.

John.5732:

Swagger.1459:

Also, I know the balance patch had been delayed until summer, but it will be at least October by the time the profession CDI are done so don’t expect anything meaningful to come to fruition until 2015.

I have not heard about the balance patch being delayed, link?

Also, I wasn’t asking for changes now, I know it takes time. And with Anet devoting everything to LW over the rest of the game, non LW changes take years. But, I was talking about making the CDI actually collaborative, like the other topics received. Beyond that one summary post, we got nothing from Allie.

It’s not knowing, it’s just assumptions, based on the fact devs once stated they didn’t want to put major changes in the game in the middle of a WvW season.
Since tournaments start (next week?) and end in May, people don’t expect anything before then…

Wait, people are really complaining about this?

You do realize that this thread had over 3000 posts, 90% of which were page long essays and that A-Net needs to read and discuss everything that’s said internally? You could have a team of fifty people devoted to this and still not be able to keep up with every post individual post and discuss every idea in the time-frame and depth that you all seem to want.

Sometimes the ideal scenario cannot be reached. A-Net can’t just magic into existence a dozen new employees devoted to replying to one single thread. I’d say that Allie did an admirable job with what was put in her lap, and that she talked about the major issues and the developers’ thoughts on them quite extensively.

TLDR: This community is spoiled, and unrealistically expects individual replies to every post they make.

Dissapointed because: no change in this patch (wvw or balance) this means no change until the end of season 2

Substance E.4852:

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

Meanwhile, those of us who have been here from the beginning know how this song and dance actually ends because we’ve seen it played out before. #Aquaman2012

I want to play wvw in this season, not half year later

McWolfy.5924:

Substance E.4852:

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

Meanwhile, those of us who have been here from the beginning know how this song and dance actually ends because we’ve seen it played out before. #Aquaman2012

I want to play wvw in this season, not half year later

Use your Warrior like ANet wants you to do.

runeblade.7514:

John.5732:

I politely request that Anet make a new Ranger CDI thread. To start the thread, Anet should summarize the previous thread (yes, all 67 pages please), including the ideas that are feasible, liked, and possible. This would help guide discussion into fruitful territory. Next, I would ask that Anet allocate an appropriate amount of staff to respond and collaborate with posters. Looking at the size of the previous thread, likely 3 staff members would be needed. This would go a great deal in making that 67 post thread not feel like a waste of time.

Anet likes: This skill gets buffed 100x more.

Anet finds out that buffing this 100x more will make it overpowered. So Anet doesn’t buff it. Community finds that it isn’t buffed and whines.

Anet just can’t win. If they talk more, people will quote them as a promise and will blame Anet for not doing their promise. So Anet tries not to talk as much, and players will still blame them for not talking much.

And that’s an excuse for doing nothing?

Substance E.4852:

Pvp game modes are a direct result of balanced classes. The best pvp maps/modes ever made are worth crap if the classes in them aren’t properly balanced.

I’d go back a step further. They don’t even have a good mode yet in pvp. You need to work out a proper framework before you throw the moving pieces into the equation.

5 player node cap is flawed for an MMO, no matter how much Sharp thinks it has merit because even Counter Strike had secondary objective. And to balance the classes around that, is like letting the tail wag the dog. Doubly so when they try to transpose that “balance” onto other game modes that have nothing to do with spvp.

PVP should be about killing people, not how long I can hold onto a node, and secondary objectives like capping a node should not affect how a class is balanced. Look at the trap ranger, quite deadly on the point, when opponents are forced to walk into your traps to prevent cap, utterly useless in WvW when the target has the luxury of running away from you and your traps or when you run into 20 enemies. When you change the metric, you change the whole outcome.

A flawed starting premise could only let you arrive at a flawed conclusion. The ranger class is symptom of that larger problem.

John.5732:

I politely request that Anet make a new Ranger CDI thread. To start the thread, Anet should summarize the previous thread (yes, all 67 pages please), including the ideas that are feasible, liked, and possible. This would help guide discussion into fruitful territory. Next, I would ask that Anet allocate an appropriate amount of staff to respond and collaborate with posters. Looking at the size of the previous thread, likely 3 staff members would be needed. This would go a great deal in making that 67 post thread not feel like a waste of time.

Really? You think that CDI fiasco was entirely Anet’s fault?
…Let me ask you all something: Who decided that Allie’s statement that permastow/aspects would not happen (at least not immediately) and continued to push for it? Who devolved the thread into a meaningless discussion about pets vs. permastow?

I’m not white-knighting Anet here—there’s definitely things that are broken with GW2, and that thread could’ve used more support, but honestly, so many people on this forum are so passionate about their race/class/build/etc. that it turns into anger. The reason that thread derailed was partially due to a lack of support, yes; but we certainly didn’t help put it back on track.

I saw a few people calling for others to use the format and offer other ideas. Most refused. They said, “We can’t talk about something else because it revolves around the pet!” Fair enough. But who was forcing the argument about pets vs. permastow? Why did that entire kittenstorm of borderline flaming and lack of productivity even have to happen? If there’s nothing to talk about, then we should’ve calmed down and bumped the thread until someone answered.

You know why that thread received little to no collaboration? Because they didn’t expect to have an average of 3-5 pages added per day. They didn’t expect one person to have to wade through properly formatted ideas as well as a useless argument to find gems. Poor Allie had to wade through all 67 pages of that. Sure, the ranger is a class that needs a lot of work, and maybe they should’ve anticipated the sheer volume of posts, but on the other hand we should’ve realized that Allie or anyone would have a tough time dealing with all our posts and tried to keep new posts as new ideas only

TL;DR: Yeah, Anet does some things sometimes that hinder the game, or that we don’t like. But that CDI thread didn’t need an argument about a topic that Allie already gave Anet’s opinion on. We complain that we never got a clear answer, but the reality is, we didn’t get the single clear answer THAT WE WANTED. We’re blaming Anet for the entirety of that CDI when it was OUR fault that we chose to focus on a useless argument instead of trying to keep things civil and simply give Allie time to respond. Sure, maybe other CDI’s got more attention; but it’s also partially on us to make sure we follow the rules of the thread and keep it from getting out of control.

Sorry if this sounds rude or accusatory, but what kittened me off the most about the CDI wasn’t the sparse responses, it was the people who refused to let aspects and permastow die after she said it was off the table.

your tldr was too long dude ^

John.5732:

I politely request that Anet make a new Ranger CDI thread. To start the thread, Anet should summarize the previous thread (yes, all 67 pages please), including the ideas that are feasible, liked, and possible. This would help guide discussion into fruitful territory. Next, I would ask that Anet allocate an appropriate amount of staff to respond and collaborate with posters. Looking at the size of the previous thread, likely 3 staff members would be needed. This would go a great deal in making that 67 post thread not feel like a waste of time.

I’ll be charitable and assume that ANet was overwhelmed by the volume of feedback and the diversity of suggestions and didn’t have time to reply in detail without mulling it over. That said, I think this is the correct solution, since it’s clear that fixing the Ranger is a topic that a lot of people feel strongly about. Take some time to read through that first thread, pull out the ideas that the developers think are feasible, interesting, or would like to hear more about, and start a more directed thread that gives us more guidance about the direction they want the discussion to take as well as their current opinions (assuming different developers might feel differently) about those suggestions.

At this point, If you don’t know that the Ranger CDI is pointless anyway, and that Anet is going to do the Class Changes it thinks is best, You’ve not been paying attention to them as developers, and pretty much every other Developer of every other MMO for the past 15 years

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread is so full of kitten.

see what happens over the next 3-6 months before you go saying they dont listen. it takes at least that long to get all your spam implemented.

inb4 trashcan.

The bolded statement is exactly what’s wrong.

It shouldn’t take 3-6 months. It shouldn’t have taken over a year-and-a-half.

Everything said in the CDI has been said since beta.

I’m gonna go with, “They don’t listen.”