Guild Wars 2

There have been a great number of comments about the changes to the event made in the recent patches. Most of them quite reasonable and polite. But I haven’t seen any response from anyone at Arenanet on the matter.

Some sort of indication that we’re being heard would be nice. An idea of whether you plan to make any changes to address the current widespread frustration, even better.

Thanks.

It was the weekend. They don’t work on the weekend.

It doesn’t look like ANet takes suggestions seriously from topics that they hasn’t specifically ask (like the CDI). Sometimes some devs will post meaningless phrases like “yes we looking at threads, just not responding.” But don’t let that stop you from complaining making constructive feedback, because the game will not improve if the devs think people are happy with it.

I’m sure they have, like kuma said they can’t do much on a weekend.

Best we can hope for is a patch that fixes everything today or tomorrow so we have 5-6 days of the 14 that are playable.

You’re all wrong. They’re just trying to gather 150 skilled people in order to reproduce the achievment bug and then fix it =D

Have to say, after reading some of the more “insightful” threads, I wouldn’t respond either.

I’m sorry, but I’ve read most of the threads, but I haven’t seen any worthy of a Dev response. Wanting something isn’t the same as deserving something. Just because you post a thread doesn’t warrant the time or energy necessary to write a response. Considering that every Overflow I’ve been on continues to do the event every hour and completes it without incident, I’d say the handful of Event bashing threads don’t amount to much.

Can they do things better in the future? Yes. Would it be nice if they took notes on the problems people had and worked to alleviate some of those issues in the future? Yes. Does any of that require a Dev to actually post something to confirm it? No, not even slightly.

Kal Spiro.9745:

I’m sorry, but I’ve read most of the threads, but I haven’t seen any worthy of a Dev response. Wanting something isn’t the same as deserving something. Just because you post a thread doesn’t warrant the time or energy necessary to write a response. Considering that every Overflow I’ve been on continues to do the event every hour and completes it without incident, I’d say the handful of Event bashing threads don’t amount to much.

Can they do things better in the future? Yes. Would it be nice if they took notes on the problems people had and worked to alleviate some of those issues in the future? Yes. Does any of that require a Dev to actually post something to confirm it? No, not even slightly.

Your ignorance on how lower population server is faring on the Knights event is not helping your argument. I’m not sure why you devalue actual, constructive, and popular feedback while worship the devs’ “time and resource” as something sacred. Yes, there are a lot of threads basically just reiterating the same topic. Not all of them need a developer response. But do consider that so many threads exist partly because of the lack of dev response. You know why the CDI threads look so much more constructive than this forum? Because at least people were guaranteed that their feedback is at least being listened to, and actual developers are there to help guide the discussion.

Anyway, if your idea is to design a LS chapter that has a component only half of the total servers can get through, then I very much hope you aren’t being hired by ANet.

I’ve seen ‘too much’ advice taken from the forums honestly. People complain about this and that so they change it or add it and then those people complain about the opposite. Anet is probably best off just sticking to their vision. They are the artists after all.

Qaelyn.7612:

There have been a great number of comments about the changes to the event made in the recent patches. Most of them quite reasonable and polite. But I haven’t seen any response from anyone at Arenanet on the matter.

Some sort of indication that we’re being heard would be nice. An idea of whether you plan to make any changes to address the current widespread frustration, even better.

Thanks.

My signature with months-old subjects will answer you.

They listen to the suggestions the like, they ignore the ones they don’t.

I think they tend to like the ones that tell them to do something they were basically going to do anyway. The ones that require a lot of work that doesn’t fit with the two week LS schedule? They hate those.

The Revenant.4970:

I’ve seen ‘too much’ advice taken from the forums honestly. People complain about this and that so they change it or add it and then those people complain about the opposite. Anet is probably best off just sticking to their vision. They are the artists after all.

Pretty much. I blame that “The Knights Drop too Much Loot” thread nonsense for this entire mess. God forbid, players get good loot for doing the events. Now, instead, everyone gets frustrated and complains on the forums.

Win.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

I’m sure they have, like kuma said they can’t do much on a weekend.

I didn’t post this on a weekend. Nor did I indicate that I expected them to comment on a weekend.

It’s a weekday now. It would be nice if they would acknowlege the feedback provided on the dramatic changes made to this event mid-stream. Obviously it’s their product and they can do what they want with it — as they did on Friday.

But the result of their changes is a lot of frustrated and disappointed people. The fight, as they’ve made it now, is tedious and unrewarding for the vast majority of participants.

I wouldn’t have thought they really wanted all their hard work with the living world to end on this sort of sour note. I find the decision to nerf this event to oblivion right in the middle very hard to understand.

They have an entire weekend full of threads to wade through. Did you see the sheer amount of volume there was? You can’t expect them to jump right into it?

Besides. They rarely comment on anything of value anyway.

There have been a great number of comments about the changes to the event made in the recent patches. Most of them quite reasonable and polite. But I haven’t seen any response from anyone at Arenanet on the matter.

Some sort of indication that we’re being heard would be nice. An idea of whether you plan to make any changes to address the current widespread frustration, even better.

Thanks.

What are you talking about? They closed down Twilight Arbor, which is the solution to all the problems people were having.

Solved it.

Ohoni.6057:

There have been a great number of comments about the changes to the event made in the recent patches. Most of them quite reasonable and polite. But I haven’t seen any response from anyone at Arenanet on the matter.

Some sort of indication that we’re being heard would be nice. An idea of whether you plan to make any changes to address the current widespread frustration, even better.

Thanks.

What are you talking about? They closed down Twilight Arbor, which is the solution to all the problems people were having.

Solved it.

Guess people got too much loot there or something then. So when it opens again all the bosses will have twice the tougness, 1/3 the loot and any associated achievements will be broken.

Here’s something I’ve learned from being around a lot of businesses. In a nutshell:

1/10 people will voice their satisfaction about something.
9/10 people will voice their dissatisfaction about something.

This applies to pretty much… Everything. This game included. And when one person voices their dissatisfaction, 5 others will jump on the bandwagon and voice their concerns. When someone says something is good, people who read it just nod and agree but don’t necessarily add on to that.

So there you go. The devs know this. PR people know this, and now you know this and why there may be a lack of response.

This isn’t to say that they’re not taking all the constructive feedback and doing something with it. But with all of the feedback, they take it with a grain of salt.

kgptzac.8419:

It doesn’t look like ANet takes suggestions seriously from topics that they hasn’t specifically ask (like the CDI). Sometimes some devs will post meaningless phrases like “yes we looking at threads, just not responding.” But don’t let that stop you from complaining making constructive feedback, because the game will not improve if the devs think people are happy with it.

Thing is, overall people are probably very happy. The forums show a minority snapshot, driven there by being unhappy with the game in the first place.

Carighan.6758:

Thing is, overall people are probably very happy. The forums show a minority snapshot, driven there by being unhappy with the game in the first place.

I’ve been around Internet forums and groups for now close to 25 years. I know how the dynamic works.

The difference in tone this past week compared to that two weeks prior was quite obvious. It’s not just the usual “people who complain are louder”.

And it’s not just the forums. People are quite unhappy in-game. Again there, unhappy ones may chat more than happy ones do, but I didn’t see this in the “Escape” installation.

I also find it interesting that in that one they made it easier to get the best reward, by changing it from 1500 citizens to 1200. Whereas here they haven’t just made the entire event a little bit harder, but punitively so.

I don’t understand why this was done, nor why people are bending over backwards to defend Arenanet’s lack of comment on this matter. They usually do post at least somewhat frequently, and it’s one of the things that’s kept me playing GW2 until now. The silence here is noticeable.

They took 2 pieces of feedback into account for the Knights:
* “Zerker are ruining the game!”, “Warrior Zerker are Gods” thus the big 360, kb-inducing, severely overpowered attack with the hammer, and the two attacks that force you to stop DPSing and dodge.
* “Conditions are OP!” thus the Knigths are inmune to then for half the fight (alas, they didn’t read that they refer to PvP)

Then they took two pieces of feedback and changed the Knights:
* “Break the Zerg”, “Kill the Zerg”, “Zerg is Easy Mode!” etc. (thus the 50 players limit)
* “Too Much Loot!”, “Stop Farmers”, “Looters are ruining the economy!” (thus the nerf on the boxes).

Et Voila! Knights are exactly what a big vocal majority of forumnites has been asking for.

Now you all feel what Rangers and Necroes felt from nerfs caused but forums complains.

Carighan.6758:

kgptzac.8419:

It doesn’t look like ANet takes suggestions seriously from topics that they hasn’t specifically ask (like the CDI). Sometimes some devs will post meaningless phrases like “yes we looking at threads, just not responding.” But don’t let that stop you from complaining making constructive feedback, because the game will not improve if the devs think people are happy with it.

Thing is, overall people are probably very happy. The forums show a minority snapshot, driven there by being unhappy with the game in the first place.

You think its just the forums voicing issues .. have you logged in recently.. cos on my home server and several others I’ve either guested on or have friends on.. it isn’t that pretty 99% of the time and all based around a common theme.
But yes I agree the forums are a minority at least I sincerely hope it is.. but it is also a snapshot/small sample of what is being felt/said in game a lot of the time so I consider it to be a spill over effect rather than a minority report.

Qaelyn.7612:

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

I’m sure they have, like kuma said they can’t do much on a weekend.

I didn’t post this on a weekend. Nor did I indicate that I expected them to comment on a weekend.

Yes? You were questioning why there was no comment yet, if there is one it’ll be either today or sometime this week.

Carighan.6758:

kgptzac.8419:

It doesn’t look like ANet takes suggestions seriously from topics that they hasn’t specifically ask (like the CDI). Sometimes some devs will post meaningless phrases like “yes we looking at threads, just not responding.” But don’t let that stop you from complaining making constructive feedback, because the game will not improve if the devs think people are happy with it.

Thing is, overall people are probably very happy. The forums show a minority snapshot, driven there by being unhappy with the game in the first place.

I’ve never seen people trash an update this badly since the original Southsun update, it’s not just the forums but openly in map chat. We can’t even do the event on my server anymore since the last patch and we’re not exactly a small server, I can only guess that it’s similar elsewhere.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

Yes? You were questioning why there was no comment yet, if there is one it’ll be either today or sometime this week.

I said there’s been a lot of feedback, and no response yet, and said that I hoped there would be a response. I never asked why there was no comment yet, nor implied that anyone should have posted on the weekend.

(And for the record, we do fairly regularly see comments posted under Anet tags on the weekend anyway.)

The devs did make a couple of patches to “fix” the knight issue of inconsistent drop rates for the cores, which are the only required drop for finishing the backpacks. The holo fight just drops the same old loot with a very small chance for rares or any of the LS unique drops. Honestly, if your group can’t finish the knight they are going to waste 30min trying to do the holo… And that fight is seriously annoying, far more so than the knights. Just guest and be sure to get into lion’s Arch at least 10 min before the hour and if you are in an overflow that has a good number of people waiting for the knights don’t travel if asked, it only puts in another overflow and it might be worse…
Personally, I think these LS world events need to be rethought so they can be completed by all the servers, but remember this stuff is one and done, how much time do we really want the devs to spend on it? At least your server has to only kill one knight to get a chance for a core or two. It sucks, but it’s bascially almost over… Spoon

Qaelyn.7612:

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

Yes? You were questioning why there was no comment yet, if there is one it’ll be either today or sometime this week.

I said there’s been a lot of feedback, and no response yet, and said that I hoped there would be a response. I never asked why there was no comment yet, nor implied that anyone should have posted on the weekend.

(And for the record, we do fairly regularly see comments posted under Anet tags on the weekend anyway.)

Quite simply if there is going to be any comment or indication that they’re aware of the issues it’ll be today or sometime this week, unless the teams get together on the weekend it was unlikely that they’d be posting on the forum.

Tspatula.9086:

Honestly, if your group can’t finish the knight they are going to waste 30min trying to do the holo… And that fight is seriously annoying, far more so than the knights.

I dunno, I was able to do the holo with 8 people with 6 minutes to spare once, can’t even do knight with 25-30 at each knight.

No

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The Revenant.4970:

I’ve seen ‘too much’ advice taken from the forums honestly. People complain about this and that so they change it or add it and then those people complain about the opposite. Anet is probably best off just sticking to their vision. They are the artists after all.

Pretty much. I blame that “The Knights Drop too Much Loot” thread nonsense for this entire mess. God forbid, players get good loot for doing the events. Now, instead, everyone gets frustrated and complains on the forums.

Win.

That thread was not the problem. The problem was that many of us were killing knights and getting no loot. That’s zip, zeo, nada loot. That’s why they made the changes. Didn’t you see all the threads that complained about no loot? In fact, we even complained in the thread that claimed there was too much loot. For the life of me, I don’t understand why you singled that thread out when there were at least a dozen that made the exact opposite claim.

Well something might of gotten thro if the midnight patch is to be believed… 25% reduction in each knights health and removal of menders at blue knight.
No news on event scaling tho, guess that was too much to ask… lets hope 15 at each knight can get the job done and .. 6min to knightfall attainable – I am not holding my breath though (on either). This might make it easier during a few hours of primetime but I if your not lucky enough to be able to do that then.. back to Queensdale for you

Yep, I already thanked Autumn for posting in another thread.

DarcShriek.5829:

That thread was not the problem. The problem was that many of us were killing knights and getting no loot. That’s zip, zeo, nada loot. That’s why they made the changes. Didn’t you see all the threads that complained about no loot? In fact, we even complained in the thread that claimed there was too much loot. For the life of me, I don’t understand why you singled that thread out when there were at least a dozen that made the exact opposite claim.

You’re aware that the “no loot bug” occurred after, right? Some speculation that the bug was intended until the fix. But, that’s pure speculation.

EVERY game company reads what their community has to say. EVERY ONE! But the real issue lies in the communication with their players. This is incredibly rare or too little too far apart.

They read it, they bring it to the boardroom, they discuss it, they close the book or put it on the backburner or talk about how, why, whatever. They do. But it is very, very rare for any company to come forward and say “This is what we’ve decided to do based on your feedback.” Or “We’ve decided against it for the following reasons.”

Your feedback is getting through. Theirs isn’t.

Another thing to note is that they upped the frequency of aether laser attacks at the ends of the hologram arena. As in the spots people were afking because they were safe. They also added the aether laser to the fail conditions for the No More Tricks achievement.

It’s a little late, but they did add some incentive for people to stay active. It doesn’t prevent the afk from getting rewards for sitting around, but that would require an overhaul of event rewards, which I don’t see happening.

Personally I do see this patch as proof that the feedback is getting trough.

People complained that there was too much loot and no loot at the same time, which were both true, knights gave too much loot but there were people participating that got no loot at all, they changed it to a bonus chest, so now everyone gets loot.

There were complains of the blue knight healing too much from a group of nearby menders (bug?), they were removed

People complained that the knights fights were too zergy (this one I saw both in forums and in game), they changed it to put a limit on each knight, then people complained that change made them too hard, so they reduced the HP of each knight to make it easier to kill.

People complained about others AFKing during the scarlet fight to get the achievement, it was changed it so that the lasers attack the spot they were AFKing in.

There were complains about having to do zergy events (the marionette, for example) before being able to continue the story, so they added a way to bypass the zergy events and go straight to the story.

Also note that they do have more than one way to get feedback. For example, people complain a LOT in forums about new weapons and armor being added to the gem store… yet if they see that the armor sets sell like hot cakes (and judging by the amount of zodiac armor I’ve seen in game, and even the flame one considering it’s just a reskin, they do sell a LOT), then they can only conclude that there’s a large player base that does like new armor and weapons in the gem store. Same in the game, people complain about the knights fight, yet everytime I try to do it (on Yak’s Bend) I get sent to overflow unless I’ve been on the map for a while when they start.

kgptzac.8419:

Kal Spiro.9745:

I’m sorry, but I’ve read most of the threads, but I haven’t seen any worthy of a Dev response. Wanting something isn’t the same as deserving something. Just because you post a thread doesn’t warrant the time or energy necessary to write a response. Considering that every Overflow I’ve been on continues to do the event every hour and completes it without incident, I’d say the handful of Event bashing threads don’t amount to much.

Can they do things better in the future? Yes. Would it be nice if they took notes on the problems people had and worked to alleviate some of those issues in the future? Yes. Does any of that require a Dev to actually post something to confirm it? No, not even slightly.

Your ignorance on how lower population server is faring on the Knights event is not helping your argument. I’m not sure why you devalue actual, constructive, and popular feedback while worship the devs’ “time and resource” as something sacred. Yes, there are a lot of threads basically just reiterating the same topic. Not all of them need a developer response. But do consider that so many threads exist partly because of the lack of dev response. You know why the CDI threads look so much more constructive than this forum? Because at least people were guaranteed that their feedback is at least being listened to, and actual developers are there to help guide the discussion.

Anyway, if your idea is to design a LS chapter that has a component only half of the total servers can get through, then I very much hope you aren’t being hired by ANet.

None of them. Let me repeat, none of them NEED a developer response. Nothing that is occurring on this forum requires a response. People WANT a response because they want their concerns validated and the only way they can apparently acquire that validation is to have some kind of confirmation that the Devs care. Wanting a thing is not the same as needing a thing.

I’m sorry some of the servers don’t have enough people on them who care enough and are capable enough to populate the zone and complete the content. That’s a bummer, but to do anything for those servers would trivialize the content for every single other zone and all those overflows who do it regularly. You should not need to guest to a more populous zone, but that option is available to you. With only two weeks for the whole event that is the most reasonable solution, not Dev intervention, and not a Dev coming down and saying effectively the same thing.

Understanding this does not mean I’m devaluing your troubles, nor worshipping the Dev’s time and resources. It just means I actually understand how these things work, and should work.

Kal Spiro.9745:

It just means I actually understand how these things work, and should work.

The ratio of correct to incorrect answers you post to these forums would imply otherwise.

Leablo.2651:

Kal Spiro.9745:

It just means I actually understand how these things work, and should work.

The ratio of correct to incorrect answers you post to these forums would imply otherwise.

Based on your ability to interpret correctness? When’s the last time you were directly quoted by a Dev for saying exactly the right thing? I think I’ll stick with how I’ve been going.

People have been making the same complaints and leaving the same feedback for events and balance issues for -MONTHS-.

No, our feedback is not getting through. They just band-aid it with a thread every few weeks going “Oh, talk to us, we listen” and then you never see results of the “We wanna help” thread.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

I’ve never seen people trash an update this badly since the original Southsun update, it’s not just the forums but openly in map chat. We can’t even do the event on my server anymore since the last patch and we’re not exactly a small server, I can only guess that it’s similar elsewhere.

Well we’re Aurora Glade, we’re full of incompetent slackers like me, and we do it every time in the evening.
I’m not sure whether the issue isn’t a social one. That is, everyone on your server thinks “We can’t do it”. Hence people don’t go there, hence you can’t do it.

The event is really simple. I mean seriously.

And it’s rather well-designed if you think about it:

• Non-trivial fight mechanics (we’ve been asking for this), yet unlike Marionette single players cannot ruin it for other players (we’ver been asking for this) and it’s still simple enough to be open for everyone.
• Split combat, which was positively commented on during Marionette. Better FPS for everyone leading to less deaths.
• Story-end in single instance (again, this was player feedback).
• No unique rewards behind walls like raid bosses or grind achievements, hence you can’t lose out on anything. It’s funny ,we complain about “kitten rewards”, before we complained about “having to do the meta”. What now? :P
• Thematically sensible change. Before we were fleeing, so we had to evacuate LA every so often. Now we are pushing back, hence we can go in whenever.

There’s two huge issues however:

• QA. The big one. This release was terrible in that regard, with bugs all over the place and the QA team having serious issues even reproducing the problem.
• Too much condition-reflect time versus too little condition-spam time on the knights. This isn’t massively out of balance, but adds to the frustration when coupled with the QA issues.

Or in short: QA fail.
And really, “QA fail” (sorry Autumn ) describes a lot of GW2’s problems. It feels like we’re getting content hot from the build servers, not perfected by repeated QA/Fixing/QA/Fixing.

Other than that though, this event shows a lot of listening to player feedback, all in one patch. Yet somehow we’re again unhappy, which makes me wonder whether it was the correct decision to listen to that feedback in the first place.

Namica.2951:

People have been making the same complaints and leaving the same feedback for events and balance issues for -MONTHS-.

And most of those complaints have been listened to.

Scarlet invasion inverse reward structure? Fixed.
Jubilee lag issues due to mass player zerg? Fixed.
Marionette single-player fail? Fixed.
Tower structure event inaccessibility? Fixed.
Story hidden behind achievements? Fixed.
Style rewards hidden behind achievements? Fixed.

These were issues we specifically mentioned in regards to previous events. And? They have all been alleviated.
I mean I get that you’re angry, but do you realize that comments such as these make us – the playerbase at large – look extremely stupid, because all we do is complain and we never mention it when our complaints get listened to?

Kal Spiro.9745:

Leablo.2651:

Kal Spiro.9745:

It just means I actually understand how these things work, and should work.

The ratio of correct to incorrect answers you post to these forums would imply otherwise.

Based on your ability to interpret correctness? When’s the last time you were directly quoted by a Dev for saying exactly the right thing? I think I’ll stick with how I’ve been going.

Well you say you understand how things should work.. sorry but if your wanting to support the issues and Band-Aid fixes around servers inability to efficiently complete events like this on a regular basis then I think you lack the understanding.
These issues are not new, they are not suddenly big black holes that appear , they have been within the game for 6-9 months now and only getting worse .. you say guesting is the solution that’s is there and yes it is a means to an end but it is in no way a solution in fact it only serves to exacerbate the issue further for many servers and then on the flipside create more issues on those servers being stacked.. overflow piggy backing, lag, community unrest etc ,etc – the solution is there staring ANET in the face but they lack the bottle to do it.. more than half the servers could easily be merged but I guess they are simply afraid to do it in case it sends a shock wave out that the game might be in decline, just like it did with other titles like SWTOR, difference is GW2 has always been aimed at a casual market so peaks and troughs are always going to be there and over time every MMO will loose players the older it gets and newer title appear.

Leaving servers to fester like they are, especially with the new WvW season almost upon us will only server to kill off more enthusiasm for the game if something isn’t done about it.. but hey xfers will be the replacement then for guesting and they know gem sales will see a nice spike again.

Bloodstealer.5978:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Leablo.2651:

Kal Spiro.9745:

It just means I actually understand how these things work, and should work.

The ratio of correct to incorrect answers you post to these forums would imply otherwise.

Based on your ability to interpret correctness? When’s the last time you were directly quoted by a Dev for saying exactly the right thing? I think I’ll stick with how I’ve been going.

Well you say you understand how things should work.. sorry but if your wanting to support the issues and Band-Aid fixes around servers inability to efficiently complete events like this on a regular basis then I think you lack the understanding.
These issues are not new, they are not suddenly big black holes that appear , they have been within the game for 6-9 months now and only getting worse .. you say guesting is the solution that’s is there and yes it is a means to an end but it is in no way a solution in fact it only serves to exacerbate the issue further for many servers and then on the flipside create more issues on those servers being stacked.. overflow piggy backing, lag, community unrest etc ,etc – the solution is there staring ANET in the face but they lack the bottle to do it.. more than half the servers could easily be merged but I guess they are simply afraid to do it in case it sends a shock wave out that the game might be in decline, just like it did with other titles like SWTOR, difference is GW2 has always been aimed at a casual market so peaks and troughs are always going to be there and over time every MMO will loose players the older it gets and newer title appear.

Leaving servers to fester like they are, especially with the new WvW season almost upon us will only server to kill off more enthusiasm for the game if something isn’t done about it.. but hey xfers will be the replacement then for guesting and they know gem sales will see a nice spike again.

I never said anything about any of those things. This thread isn’t about any of those things. This thread is about whether they’re listening to us and if they should tell us. The answer is, yes they are, and there is no reason they should. If they want to, they can, and occasionally do, but they’re under no obligation to respond to us in any way.

It’s cool to be up in arms about things, but if you’re going to try to contradict someone, at least be covering the same topic.

I think they do. I suggested during the marionette event that they should add some sort of mission briefing for the players, and not just rely on quest markers and the quest tracker on the right side of UI. On succeeding updates, they added scouts and they improved the mission briefing in map view. Or maybe that was already their SOP, I think there was a scout in the marionette event, I’m just not sure, but the mission briefing definitely needed some work.

Carighan.6758:

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

I’ve never seen people trash an update this badly since the original Southsun update, it’s not just the forums but openly in map chat. We can’t even do the event on my server anymore since the last patch and we’re not exactly a small server, I can only guess that it’s similar elsewhere.

Well we’re Aurora Glade, we’re full of incompetent slackers like me, and we do it every time in the evening.
I’m not sure whether the issue isn’t a social one. That is, everyone on your server thinks “We can’t do it”. Hence people don’t go there, hence you can’t do it.

The event is really simple. I mean seriously.

And it’s rather well-designed if you think about it:

• Non-trivial fight mechanics (we’ve been asking for this), yet unlike Marionette single players cannot ruin it for other players (we’ver been asking for this) and it’s still simple enough to be open for everyone.
• Split combat, which was positively commented on during Marionette. Better FPS for everyone leading to less deaths.
• Story-end in single instance (again, this was player feedback).
• No unique rewards behind walls like raid bosses or grind achievements, hence you can’t lose out on anything. It’s funny ,we complain about “kitten rewards”, before we complained about “having to do the meta”. What now? :P
• Thematically sensible change. Before we were fleeing, so we had to evacuate LA every so often. Now we are pushing back, hence we can go in whenever.

There’s two huge issues however:

• QA. The big one. This release was terrible in that regard, with bugs all over the place and the QA team having serious issues even reproducing the problem.
• Too much condition-reflect time versus too little condition-spam time on the knights. This isn’t massively out of balance, but adds to the frustration when coupled with the QA issues.

Or in short: QA fail.
And really, “QA fail” (sorry Autumn ) describes a lot of GW2’s problems. It feels like we’re getting content hot from the build servers, not perfected by repeated QA/Fixing/QA/Fixing.

Other than that though, this event shows a lot of listening to player feedback, all in one patch. Yet somehow we’re again unhappy, which makes me wonder whether it was the correct decision to listen to that feedback in the first place.

Namica.2951:

People have been making the same complaints and leaving the same feedback for events and balance issues for -MONTHS-.

And most of those complaints have been listened to.

Scarlet invasion inverse reward structure? Fixed.
Jubilee lag issues due to mass player zerg? Fixed.
Marionette single-player fail? Fixed.
Tower structure event inaccessibility? Fixed.
Story hidden behind achievements? Fixed.
Style rewards hidden behind achievements? Fixed.

These were issues we specifically mentioned in regards to previous events. And? They have all been alleviated.
I mean I get that you’re angry, but do you realize that comments such as these make us – the playerbase at large – look extremely stupid, because all we do is complain and we never mention it when our complaints get listened to?

Your cherry picking minor offenses and treating it like it means the major issues arent there. Like how each event is little else than zerg fests that dont even reward you ACTUALLY PLAYING (thus, afkers at zone in). Heck, I find that they, ONCE AGAIN, put most of a patches armor on the gem shop (Scarlet armor) to be flat out insulting. Or the constant DPS check bosses. Those are two MAJOR issues that have been on the table for months. Or how condition builds are almost literally worthless (with the knights, they are infact a massive detriment). How nothing can hold a candle to full zerker in PvE.

You just brought up some minor issues that were specific to the time. Those get fixed, while the large issues that crop up constantly go ignored.

Namica.2951:

Carighan.6758:

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

I’ve never seen people trash an update this badly since the original Southsun update, it’s not just the forums but openly in map chat. We can’t even do the event on my server anymore since the last patch and we’re not exactly a small server, I can only guess that it’s similar elsewhere.

Well we’re Aurora Glade, we’re full of incompetent slackers like me, and we do it every time in the evening.
I’m not sure whether the issue isn’t a social one. That is, everyone on your server thinks “We can’t do it”. Hence people don’t go there, hence you can’t do it.

The event is really simple. I mean seriously.

And it’s rather well-designed if you think about it:

• Non-trivial fight mechanics (we’ve been asking for this), yet unlike Marionette single players cannot ruin it for other players (we’ver been asking for this) and it’s still simple enough to be open for everyone.
• Split combat, which was positively commented on during Marionette. Better FPS for everyone leading to less deaths.
• Story-end in single instance (again, this was player feedback).
• No unique rewards behind walls like raid bosses or grind achievements, hence you can’t lose out on anything. It’s funny ,we complain about “kitten rewards”, before we complained about “having to do the meta”. What now? :P
• Thematically sensible change. Before we were fleeing, so we had to evacuate LA every so often. Now we are pushing back, hence we can go in whenever.

There’s two huge issues however:

• QA. The big one. This release was terrible in that regard, with bugs all over the place and the QA team having serious issues even reproducing the problem.
• Too much condition-reflect time versus too little condition-spam time on the knights. This isn’t massively out of balance, but adds to the frustration when coupled with the QA issues.

Or in short: QA fail.
And really, “QA fail” (sorry Autumn ) describes a lot of GW2’s problems. It feels like we’re getting content hot from the build servers, not perfected by repeated QA/Fixing/QA/Fixing.

Other than that though, this event shows a lot of listening to player feedback, all in one patch. Yet somehow we’re again unhappy, which makes me wonder whether it was the correct decision to listen to that feedback in the first place.

Namica.2951:

People have been making the same complaints and leaving the same feedback for events and balance issues for -MONTHS-.

And most of those complaints have been listened to.

Scarlet invasion inverse reward structure? Fixed.
Jubilee lag issues due to mass player zerg? Fixed.
Marionette single-player fail? Fixed.
Tower structure event inaccessibility? Fixed.
Story hidden behind achievements? Fixed.
Style rewards hidden behind achievements? Fixed.

These were issues we specifically mentioned in regards to previous events. And? They have all been alleviated.
I mean I get that you’re angry, but do you realize that comments such as these make us – the playerbase at large – look extremely stupid, because all we do is complain and we never mention it when our complaints get listened to?

Your cherry picking minor offenses and treating it like it means the major issues arent there. Like how each event is little else than zerg fests that dont even reward you ACTUALLY PLAYING (thus, afkers at zone in). Or the constant DPS check bosses. Those are two MAJOR issues that have been on the table for months. Or how condition builds are almost literally worthless (with the knights, they are infact a massive detriment). How nothing can hold a candle to full zerker in PvE.

You just brought up some minor issues that were specific to the time. Those get fixed, while the large issues that crop up constantly go ignored.

Conditions and Zerker on PvE aren’t going to be fixed by the LS team. That is a much more significant issue that goes well beyond them. There, now you can move on to other issues that are bothering you.

Namica.2951:

Like how each event is little else than zerg fests that dont even reward you ACTUALLY PLAYING (thus, afkers at zone in). Heck, I find that they, ONCE AGAIN, put most of a patches armor on the gem shop (Scarlet armor) to be flat out insulting. Or the constant DPS check bosses. Those are two MAJOR issues that have been on the table for months. Or how condition builds are almost literally worthless (with the knights, they are infact a massive detriment). How nothing can hold a candle to full zerker in PvE.

Right-o:

1. The fights are specifically not zerg fights. They break up the large mass of players, forcing them to focus on multiple targets at a time. In the case of these knight/hologram fights we’re broken up into groups of 33-50 players (for most instances it should be ~35, as little taxi-ing is going on). For the Marionette it was 20-30, for Escape it depended entirely on where you wanted to go only, as there was no real mass-event going on.
2. You’re right about the Armour, though, the Helmet and both Rifles are available ingame, Shoulders and Gloves gem store. So far, advantage ingame (though I fear this’ll change as they’ll release more of the armour).
3. There’s been no DPS check other than the 5-man platforms at Marionette. Now if you mean “The fights are done by dealing damage to a target”, well then welcome to lvl1, sorry, can’t say it any nicer. :S But a “DPS check”? What? 50 players in condi specs using a non-condi weapon and just using AA and perfectly getting a boss down in time makes it a “DPS check”? That’s the lowest possible DPS the group of players can bring without being AFK! How can that be a DPS check?! Speaking of AFK…
4. AFKing disqualifies you from the loot. You need to fight the knights to get the rewards, and you need to join the hologram fight (which nukes the afk-areas) to qualify. Escape had this issue, granted. Battle doesn’t.

Carighan.6758:

Namica.2951:

Like how each event is little else than zerg fests that dont even reward you ACTUALLY PLAYING (thus, afkers at zone in). Heck, I find that they, ONCE AGAIN, put most of a patches armor on the gem shop (Scarlet armor) to be flat out insulting. Or the constant DPS check bosses. Those are two MAJOR issues that have been on the table for months. Or how condition builds are almost literally worthless (with the knights, they are infact a massive detriment). How nothing can hold a candle to full zerker in PvE.

Right-o:

1. The fights are specifically not zerg fights. They break up the large mass of players, forcing them to focus on multiple targets at a time. In the case of these knight/hologram fights we’re broken up into groups of 33-50 players (for most instances it should be ~35, as little taxi-ing is going on). For the Marionette it was 20-30, for Escape it depended entirely on where you wanted to go only, as there was no real mass-event going on.
2. You’re right about the Armour, though, the Helmet and both Rifles are available ingame, Shoulders and Gloves gem store. So far, advantage ingame (though I fear this’ll change as they’ll release more of the armour).
3. There’s been no DPS check other than the 5-man platforms at Marionette. Now if you mean “The fights are done by dealing damage to a target”, well then welcome to lvl1, sorry, can’t say it any nicer. :S But a “DPS check”? What? 50 players in condi specs using a non-condi weapon and just using AA and perfectly getting a boss down in time makes it a “DPS check”? That’s the lowest possible DPS the group of players can bring without being AFK! How can that be a DPS check?! Speaking of AFK…
4. AFKing disqualifies you from the loot. You need to fight the knights to get the rewards, and you need to join the hologram fight (which nukes the afk-areas) to qualify. Escape had this issue, granted. Battle doesn’t.

Many servers cant beat the knights because the DPS check: Not everyone has zerker gear, this has been a recurring problem for months, stop sweeping it under the rug like its not an issue, its a very obvious one.

You can afk for many parts of the content and you know it.

Really, you don’t need zerker setups. At all. I have no idea where you get the idea that you’d need zerker setups for the knights. Or lots of clue.

Here’s what you don’t need:

• People meleeing the knight.

Then it dies, pretty much. Takes a bit more than 6 minutes, but goes down with way enough time to spare.