Guild Wars 2

This is something I’ve been wondering, too.

While I genuinely enjoy the LS so far (I know a lot of forum posters don’t :P ), it feels incredibly unpolished. The QA feels in-existent at times.

And to me that really seems to be a result of the very very tight release schedule.

Short answer is YES. Yes they do need more time. But they’ve been clear about it. They are committed to two week patches and that is that.

I completely agree with every question you asked right there and explanations you have given. I wish they would update once a month…hell….even just good old fashioned expansions with a complete world/classes/races would be so much better than this living story.

Signed.

15 characters

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Monthly-Updates-3-month-preparation-time/first#post3272827

This kind of thread has been posted already several times.

I still sign it as it’s important!

The are not reconsidering the release cadence at this time, despite a volume of people pointing out that it is hindering them in the CDI thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Collaborative-Development-Topic-Living-World/3186741

I’ve been thinking about this too, and personally I think they need a testing group of players. Either open up a ptr, or select a group of very active players outside ANet to help.

As a general rule I’m on the side of ANet, but this patch was a disaster with things that shouldn’t have happened: no way point in the story mode fractal, glitches, bugs aplenty, etc.
I honestly believe that they can keep on with their schedule and still release quality content, but they seriously need outside player testing and constructive criticism before releasing patches.
People giving feedback on bugs, what we want to see, things they should never do again, etc, after release isn’t the proper way to go as far as I’m concerned. I also really feel for those whose job it is to go through the forums to gather info. There is so much nonsensical seething hatred floating around (which is an MMO problem to begin with), it has to be tough to separate the helpful from the blind rage.

As for uneven balance between classes I have yet to see a single game where everything is properly balanced. It’s a never ending juggling act, even for games that have been out for almost a decade.
I agree that some are crazy overpowered over others. But as someone who has played underdog turned over powered and back again classes over the years, we just have to try to slog through the changes.

Yes, they desperately need more time.

Unfortunately they have already stated that the two week schedule is not something they have any intention on changing. I think the reasoning is that player activity falls off after two weeks of play, this content cycle keeps them in game and thus provides regular income through the store.

More time or not doesn’t have anything to do with content release schedule. If they need more time for anything (testing for example) then they need to add that into their schedule. Reducing the amount of content releases to be done would do nothing to affect how much time they schedule for each release.

The result of them deciding to do fewer releases would be them reducing the number of staff required. The result of them deciding that more time was needed for a release is them starting to develop each sooner or them adding more people to work on each one.

Hooray for this summary.

Though might I recommend that this doesn’t actually belong in the Fractured sub-forum but the Suggestions sub-forum?

What I think is sad is they will do nothing tell it’s to late. Then they will try to do everything nothing will work. They will either shut down the servers or they will go to 3-4 servers and a once great game will be dead/dieing.

A PTR could in fact help a ton.

What they could do is do a slightly different cycling where a patch goes onto PTR on patchday 1 (arbitrary number). Team doesn’t start a new project yet. Then players test it for two weeks, and on patchday 2, it goes to live. Team now takes next project, and on patchday 2, the patch of the next team goes onto the PTR, too. So basically delay the whole process by 2 weeks to allow for simmering on a PTR.

Although I think they need more time, but I do also tend to think they need to get content which uses the feedback from CDI ASAP. Frankly, most of the recent LS has been absolutely terrible, and if they don’t do anything to turn it around, its going to be a tough ride for them next year.

I would rather have good polished content monthly than garbage buggy content every two weeks that we are getting currently.

i won’t call guardians as OP class with the “big boys” they are nothing compared to warriors even when it comes to survivability or damage .
by far guardians are not OP at all

Sir Isaac The Great.5341:

I would rather have good polished content monthly than garbage buggy content every two weeks that we are getting currently.

Mind you, it won’t be more content. So it’ll be half as much content as we’re getting right now, just with less bugs and maybe a tad more finesse on camera movements and timings and such.

If they need more time they can start planning each update 12 weeks in advance instead 10 weeks in advance, or however long each update takes. These updates are not written and developed in a fortnight. Turning the living story into monthly updates isn’t going to help at all if the overall development time for each update remains the same.

The voice acting you are hearing from Scarlet and the other characters could have been recorded 3 months or even 6 months ago.

if they had more time, they would be able to create better content, its just the nature of the business. We know for a fact that the anet team is talented, but with such preassure above themselves I can tell they are getting weary. Look at the developer livestreams, these guys look tiiiireeeeeed and bored out of their minds, screwing up like crazy.

Also, bringing the cosmetic’s issue here, they need more time to create compelling dress ware and other things like hats, etc, instead of basically recycling the same armor that already existed.

100% agree.

I realize that the two week releases are nearly locked in, so if ditching constant 2 week releases is not possible, then at least scale them back a bit – with larger releases every month or two and smaller items that build on those. I think we’ve seen a smidge of this, but I’m afraid that you’re burning your team out.

Please dedicate more resources to polishing and the growing backlog of bugs and needed quality of life issues.

Yes they do need more time to polish their content. I think there was more hype when patches were released monthly instead of bi-weekly.

I love how Aden Celeste.3650 expressed this! I am an extremely active player & find the 2 week releases & all the bugs & glitches that come with them as tedious & frustrating making me feel more rushed & taking other players out of the loop for other fun content way too often. Even 3 weeks would be a lil less annoying than two. Way too much stress that tends to cause conflicts in the community as many feel rushed to try & get it all NOW & bugs & glitches that affect players everywhere run, not only the newest addition.
This games leaves little time to explore all the content or enjoy a few relaxed runs~ puts too much pressure & emphasis on the releases & totally ignores the communities stability & mindset are being negatively impacted.

Signed. Anet, please slow down and make your game good. I feel like the gem store has been a curse. For funding the game, it is bringing out the worst in development. Not enough QA, throwaway story, quick cadence, and constant pointing to the gem store all to sell items on the gem store. I want a game first, not a gem store.

They need more time – yes – but with micro transactions being the main way this game makes profit they’re forcing themselves to rush out unfinished and untested content in order to keep players in the game more.

• More time to re-work the TP. It is still in a very primitive stage, where I cant filter
armors to show only the ones my toon can actually wear…

Very much this. Now that we have the account-wide wallet (so your richest character doesn’t need to be the one who does all the shopping anymore), there’s no reason we shouldn’t have more filters in the TP, like a “can equip” checkbox for armor & weapons. If it’s not an item the character’s class can equip, give us the option to not display it in search results.

I had honestly thought about this a few times over the year, more so in the earlier days when bugs were running rampant every few feet. My only theory is Anet wanted to beat blizzard to the punch and release Guildwars 2 before Mists of Pandara.

Its the only reason I’v been able to come up with as to why everything felt and still feels so unfinished, and the fact that anet is so hell bent on releasing endless new content as quick as they can which also comes out feeling sloppy and riddled with flaws and bugs at times.

I posted a very similar thread to this some months ago, so signed.

i like the fact that new content comes out frequently, but i think it would be better if every month and not every 2 weeks at least

I’d be all for monthly patches instead of bi-weekly ones.

The strange thing is the two-week patch cycle doesn’t seem to be getting that much media hype or word of mouth, so I’m not sure what purpose it serves if most of the people actually playing the game are upset with the poor quality of recent patches and the storytelling.