Guild Wars 2

This whole patch was disappointing…
I logged in last night and played for the first time in two months. After seeing what transpired in the CDIs I’m astonished at how abysmal this patch is. If this is arenanet’s idea of fun and exciting, then there is no hope for the game.

Its the same thing as any other patch.

1. Funnel us all into one or two areas — Check
2. Create content that fosters zergs — Check (although to get the highest rewards you have to split up, but it is not required and I still see a lot of zerging).
3. Create content that only requires auto attack and minimal brain activity — Check
4. Inject the same monsters into the content — Check
5. Do not give the player much direction as to where to go when he/she logs in for the first time — Check
6. Tell the story abysmally — Check.

It is like this for every patch since Jubilee and Clockwork invasions. Mindless zerg content that requires no skill or coordination that happens in one or two zones or an instance. Horrible.

Arenanet is wasting their money on this idea of a 2 week living story. Just stop and and start developing real content like new zones, monsters, game systems, dungeons, skills(not a heal skill that has no impact on builds)…

The game is being torn down to make this living story work and its only working for a % of the people while the core pillars of the game are being left to rot. Its so sad…

It’s fun in the beginning, but it wears off quite quickly. I got all my achievements and now I’m already thinking “why would I do it again” ? There’s not enough diversity with the events – mots of them are just “Kill everything that isn’t us” , like Magnus says, acting no doubt as ANet’s proxy here. Grinding for loot only goes so far.

Not to mention all the bugs – it seems that the main server is the buggiest. Events not starting, credit not received for completion, children walking in slow motion, miasma bar filled at the start (and citizen counter not updating, ergo no loot bags…) … bug testing would be nice.

If there were more different types of events it could sustain for longer. Like, use stealth to sneak some citizens out, prepare a boat to get them away using the coast, launch them out of the city with the cow gun those Charr invented… anything! Now, it’s just kill, kill, kill.

Actually, I like it. On the surface it seems zergy, but that’s not the most efficient way to win the event The more citizens saved, the better the reward loot. And that requires not a single monster zerg, but rather a number of groups stationed at various locations and succeeding events. Give this patch more than a day and you’ll (hopefully) see fewer zergs and more organization.

Also, I love the back items!

cesmode.4257:

1. Funnel us all into one or two areas — Check Nobody is being funneled. The event occurs in LA. Choose to take part or don’t.

2. Create content that fosters zergs — Check (although to get the highest rewards you have to split up, but it is not required and I still see a lot of zerging). The major complaint about Scarlet’s Invasions were that nobody completed it intelligently after a while because higher rewards cam from farming champs rather than winning. Anet responds with an event designed to give higher rewards for winning. Good planning on their part

3. Create content that only requires auto attack and minimal brain activity — Check That’s your choice how to play. You can autoattack all you want. I’m going to help the whole zone win the event.

4. Inject the same monsters into the content — Check Well it makes sense doesn’kitten Scarlet creates a large and varied army of krait, clockwork, aetherblades, nightmare court, dredge, and Flame Legion. That’s 6 factions, each with numerous types of enemies. Of course she’s going to use the army she spent the past year building.

5. Do not give the player much direction as to where to go when he/she logs in for the first time — Check Read your mail, check the upper-right of your UI. Talk to other players…it is an MMO after all. It’s really not that hard.

6. Tell the story abysmally — Check. Truth be told, there’s not much story to tell. What, did you need pages of lore and revelations? This is the culmination of the story…a massive attack on Lion’s Arch. We get a cinematic showing the beginning of the attack and we take part in the evacuation. What else needs to be told?

Seras.5702:

Actually, I like it. On the surface it seems zergy, but that’s not the most efficient way to win the event The more citizens saved, the better the reward loot. And that requires not a single monster zerg, but rather a number of groups stationed at various locations and succeeding events. Give this patch more than a day and you’ll (hopefully) see fewer zergs and more organization.

Also, I love the back items!

I wish I’d realized that the only recipe was for the Ascended, that each back item has to be made individually from the dropped parts. Then I wouldn’t have sold all my extras.

Seras.5702:

cesmode.4257:

1. Funnel us all into one or two areas — Check Nobody is being funneled. The event occurs in LA. Choose to take part or don’t. -- Funneled. Still funneled. LS content is one area. You ARE being herded.

2. Create content that fosters zergs — Check (although to get the highest rewards you have to split up, but it is not required and I still see a lot of zerging). The major complaint about Scarlet’s Invasions were that nobody completed it intelligently after a while because higher rewards cam from farming champs rather than winning. Anet responds with an event designed to give higher rewards for winning. Good planning on their part —Maybe if youre not caught in overflow, which is unlikely.

3. Create content that only requires auto attack and minimal brain activity — Check That’s your choice how to play. You can autoattack all you want. I’m going to help the whole zone win the event. -- Still no need. Wasting finger energy reaching for the # 3 or 4 key. Everyone can auto attack and we win. Theres no NEED to buff people. Do you really think that is helping?

4. Inject the same monsters into the content — Check Well it makes sense doesn’kitten Scarlet creates a large and varied army of krait, clockwork, aetherblades, nightmare court, dredge, and Flame Legion. That’s 6 factions, each with numerous types of enemies. Of course she’s going to use the army she spent the past year building. —And the same army we have destroyed time and time again. Same monsters, for a year. Nothing new. Boring. Yawn. BTW, how many minons does she have? She must have more monsters and minions in her army than all the orders, lionguard, and GW2 players combined.

5. Do not give the player much direction as to where to go when he/she logs in for the first time — Check Read your mail, check the upper-right of your UI. Talk to other players…it is an MMO after all. It’s really not that hard. Read the mail checked the UI. it said to find a camp director. I spent 15 minutes runnaround around Ganderran(where it spawned me) looking for this director. I had to ask in chat where to go, they said just wait for the even to start. Oh..Okay. Wish the ingame mail or UI would have told me “wait for the event”.

6. Tell the story abysmally — Check. Truth be told, there’s not much story to tell. What, did you need pages of lore and revelations? This is the culmination of the story…a massive attack on Lion’s Arch. We get a cinematic showing the beginning of the attack and we take part in the evacuation. What else needs to be told? Personal story told a story better than this living story ever did. Id much rather have something similar.

Very disappointed!

So tired of these zerg fest events, And hit the Overflow and you fail.

I’m disappointed Scarlet didn’t destroy that narrow little stairway from the Mystic Forge area to the bank…arghh.

Leaving open the possibility that if we ever retake and rebuild LA that that one, too kitten narrow, stairway will be unchanged…shudder.

C’mon Scarlet. You blew up the lion statue, the arches, the BLTP with those annoying chairs that no-one uses and always hang my Asuran up. But you let a little tiny itty-bitty staircase get the best of you?! Amateur!

(All in jest of course. But I am an uncoordinated clod with bad vision and that staircase and the BLTP chairs have always been a pet peeve.)

cesmode.4257:

Whole bunch of stuff about being funneled, zerging, auto attacking and poor story telling

If you simply “funneled” into LA and didn’t wander through the refugee camps, couldn’t be bothered to listen to the NPC conversations that they were carrying on, or actively press the talk buttons with NPCs to get the story then you probably shouldn’t complain about the story telling here. It’s actually rich and varied, from the quaggans who have lost their homes and are reluctantly making plans to move further South, to the soldier who is vowing vengeance, from Marjory and Kasmeer discussing whether it’s worth it to go back in and fight again to the soldier who is glad to have the refugees so near vigil camp so that he can sleep in his own bed, to the little robot who wants to be a tank… The story is some of the best we’ve seen. Did you see Evon Gnashblade close the Asura gate on the citizens trying to escape LA?

Everyone complained about them putting short-stories on the website so they’ve put the stories back in game, and they are wonderful! Told in bits and pieces, but it’s there for anyone who wants to bother themselves to find it.

The achievements are also better than what we saw at the beginning of LS — it isn’t do this one thing 15 times, instead it’s do 15 different things one time. You can spend a cycle of Under Attack saving civilians, then the next defending way points or killing champions. Yes, to finish the meta you have to play Under Attack more than one time, but you can decide to experience it differently each time you play it, even choosing where you enter into the city and defending/counterattacking based on where you come in. My achievement tab is filling up just by playing the game.

The Zergs are not effective and are actually detrimental to success. Eight to twelve people can succeed where 50 will fail, simply because of the up-scaling. You can zerg or you can grab a couple of guild groups and have tons of fun and success both. If you’re going to blame A-Net for the zerg, then blame them for getting players in the habit of zerging early in the game’s history. Right now they are trying, pretty heavy handedly, to change that. It remains to be seen if they will be successful.

All in all this is a great update. The story rocks, the artwork is beautiful, and they’ve managed to involve me and many other players on an emotional level.

cesmode.4257:

1. Funnel us all into one or two areas — Check Nobody is being funneled. The event occurs in LA. Choose to take part or don’t. -- Funneled. Still funneled. LS content is one area. You ARE being herded. Only if you want to participate, no one is forcing you

2. Create content that fosters zergs — Check (although to get the highest rewards you have to split up, but it is not required and I still see a lot of zerging). The major complaint about Scarlet’s Invasions were that nobody completed it intelligently after a while because higher rewards cam from farming champs rather than winning. Anet responds with an event designed to give higher rewards for winning. Good planning on their part —Maybe if youre not caught in overflow, which is unlikely. It doesn’t matter if you’re in an overflow or not. The people in the overflows are the same people that are trying to get into their individual maps. They just comprise all servers rather than just yours, it doesn’t make them better or worse

3. Create content that only requires auto attack and minimal brain activity — Check That’s your choice how to play. You can autoattack all you want. I’m going to help the whole zone win the event. -- Still no need. Wasting finger energy reaching for the # 3 or 4 key. Everyone can auto attack and we win. Theres no NEED to buff people. Do you really think that is helping? Um, yes, actually. I have to assume the scores of dead players who aren’t waypointing are the ones who think like you and don’t use everything at their disposal in order to complete the events in time.

4. Inject the same monsters into the content — Check Well it makes sense doesn’kitten Scarlet creates a large and varied army of krait, clockwork, aetherblades, nightmare court, dredge, and Flame Legion. That’s 6 factions, each with numerous types of enemies. Of course she’s going to use the army she spent the past year building. —And the same army we have destroyed time and time again. Same monsters, for a year. Nothing new. Boring. Yawn. BTW, how many minons does she have? She must have more monsters and minions in her army than all the orders, lionguard, and GW2 players combined. How do you manage to play any game for an extended period of time if you can’t handle the reuse of mobs? I do agree on her numbers, they are an unruly amount of minions

5. Do not give the player much direction as to where to go when he/she logs in for the first time — Check Read your mail, check the upper-right of your UI. Talk to other players…it is an MMO after all. It’s really not that hard. Read the mail checked the UI. it said to find a camp director. I spent 15 minutes runnaround around Ganderran(where it spawned me) looking for this director. I had to ask in chat where to go, they said just wait for the even to start. Oh..Okay. Wish the ingame mail or UI would have told me “wait for the event”. Ok, you missed a step. The step you missed was to open up your map and look for the yellow star which indicates a story contact. I do agree that there could have been a little more information about the cycle, but I happened to have read the patch update which said every hour.

6. Tell the story abysmally — Check. Truth be told, there’s not much story to tell. What, did you need pages of lore and revelations? This is the culmination of the story…a massive attack on Lion’s Arch. We get a cinematic showing the beginning of the attack and we take part in the evacuation. What else needs to be told? Personal story told a story better than this living story ever did. Id much rather have something similar. Personal Story had all the development time of the game to write. This one had less, but while I don’t necessarily like all the characters nor how they’re doing things, the overall story and how it can be told after the fact works just fine.

Palador.2170:

I’m disappointed, but I expected to be.

I want to poke around, and take on solo fights. Be the wandering hero that finds the stray person trapped in the rubble and pulls them to safety.

I tried the events normally at first. It’s zergy, and I hate that. Too much stuff going on at once, and trying to track it all gives me a headache fast. (It’s one reason I don’t like to team.) I also felt like I wasn’t really making any difference at all unless I stayed on Rez detail, at which point I wasn’t really getting anything for my efforts.

Taking off on my own, I found that I kept running into groups too tough for me to take out alone. So, no poking around or exploring for me. I might try that again later, but… very disappointed.

I’ve found that somewhere between these two is the best — go wandering with a party instead of completely solo and see how many citizens you can save. I know that our wandering party made a big difference to our server last night.