Dear devs,
First of all, congratulations for your great work, much appreciated. Guild Wars 2 is an amazing game. Secondly, I want to explain myself, this is not a complaining rant (even though it will probably seem as such) , just a few suggestions and a couple of reminders.
I know that ArenaNet is a huge company with an already- set strategy and probably this text won’t change anything, hell, it will probably never reach the eyes of those it concerns. But I feel the obligation to talk, not just for myself, but for a respectfully-sized minority of players in the game.
I think you should give equal chances to everyone to obtain Ascended weapons (and later on, armor), not just the very rich people (in -game or otherwise) who can spend 200 g in order to craft them. I think that you should add options of “upgrading” the existing exotic weapons and armor (because I guess you will add Ascended armor soon) with karma or laurels or a combination of both. Or maybe something else. But make it fair, please.
Adding new tiers “cancels” all our previous work. For some of us, getting 2 exotic armor sets, exotic jewels and a 3-4 exotic weapons per character is a big deal, both in terms of time spent, and in terms of effort involved.
Even Legendary weapons used to be simply decorative, with same stats as the exotics. What happened in the meantime?
Many people will disagree with me, saying that this is not fair, some people try harder and should be rewarded, right?
Not like that.
This is not the Guild Wars spirit. In Guild Wars 1 the stats were same for a 15p armor and a 500p armor, and all that mattered was the appearance and the skill of the player.
Some people don’t like it. That’s why they never played GW1. That’s why we bought GW2 and not some other MMO, because we loved that mentality. Hardcore and casual players have the same stats on their armor/weapons. Hardcore players can do more things because of their skill and time they invest, plus, they look cooler. Casuals feel a sense of accomplishment, as they are able to own max-stats gear, even though they play for a little time.
Please take into consideration the following facts:
1)You are trying to appease to ex – WoW players. These guys devour the game content in one month tops and then go back to WoW. They think Guild Wars 2 is a nice (or not so nice) break until the new instances/raids/arena seasons come. They will never stay loyal. This is not their game. They will keep ranting in the Heart of Mists or Lion’s Arch chat about how shallow and non-rewarding Guld Wars 2 is, mocking everything you do as “too little – too late”, “e-sports” etc.
2)Guild Wars used to be something else. In your videos before release, you pretty much made us think that GW2 was going to be a better version of GW1. You said “no gear treadmill”.
This has changed… and it feels like you “betrayed” your loyal fans, those who were so happy for receiving a festival hat (yes, guys, a festival hat) or a “silly” pet as reward. Now we have to grind for months (got me 5 months to get full Ascended jewelry with Laurels) in order to be able to obtain “max stats”. This is not what we signed for, guys, this is not Guild Wars. This starts looking like a WoW clone, new stats every few months, elitist and unforgiving.
Please reconsider before going fully down that path.
Thanks,
Jaco
(edited by Jaco.9623)