Guild Wars 2

I don’t know what it is, but something needs to change. Current living story, I feel, has left many unfulfilled and unhappy.People log on check it out complete the meta then log off. I would much prefer months of no content where you guys really think about what you want to add in the game. right now you guys are running a sort of quantity over quality mentality, and in my honest opinion this should be the opposite. I would much prefer you guys announce the day of th big patch and give us little hints of what’s to come, then the update would be a permanent addition to the game and allow us to explore what you haven given us. For example:

Uvatha made a great point! I feel the most important thing arena net could do to increase interest in GW2 is really increase the quality of the story. Over all aesthetic and minuscule features I listed prior only keep the game alive in its current state, however developing an enriching story that keeps everyone addicted to the development really makes an MMO long lasting. I believe this may not be and issue because ArenaNet has confirmed that there are currently 4 teams working on LS yet there are other, larger teams working on much more prolific content. What this is or may be I still have no clue. Hopefully their planning on adding large updates (with fee?) to the game, and the fact to been a year still that they haven’t announced it means their is a lot of care going into this add on.

0.increase overall story involvement(simply put make the story better)
1.New skills
2.Existing weapons for new professions
3.New weapons
4.New areas (Cantha, Crystal Dessert, or Magumma Jungle)
5.New sigils and runes
6.New skins (add some flavor with new weapon sets every month?)
7.New armor skins (this does not mean out them in the gem store)
8.new profession (hint third heavy class)
9.New profession specific armor ( make our characters feel unique out in Tyria, it sucks that rangers, and engi’s, and theirs can all look the same…)
10.More permanent content

Quality if life changes:
-being able to save build traits (no more swapping individual traits)
-make GvG more accessible to guilds
-people really want guild halls where you can quickly go to fractals, wvw, ext. (maybe let customize with influence allowing us to buy merchants, BLTC representatives, mystic toilet, etc.) ( this would be an instance where only your guild could enter)
-need more ideas…

I would really like to see the community to get excited of the upcoming big patches. Oh what’s next? I heard Cantha?(please.please.please) Really I heard we finally get the explore the crystal dessert with a whole new addition to the living story and adding new end game. There is none of this excitement and you guys aren’t showing anything back.
The living story needs to go and be replaced with bigger, permanent, and time consuming patches. And look if you can create a story and design it every two weeks you guys and easily and in some new weapon and armor sets. They don’t have to look well as a whole because in the end people like to mix a match. A whole set could look horrible but those gloves look FABULOUS. You guys said that end game wasn’t about stats but aesthetics you reached endgame when you finally completed the look for you character. If you keep adding in weapons and armours this keeps the surge of " I want…" I
“I like…”
The summarization:
LS isn’t working the way you want it to. Sure the “Update every two weeks” looks great for marketing and on paper but I fails horribly in implementation. Again it should be quality of your work instead of the quantity. Please just take a break from LS and stop shoving skarlet down my throaght ( if I hear DIE DIE DIE DIE in wvw on more time I will kitten on all of your desks). Think more of long lasting additions. And keep the artists busy with making skins for weapons and armies monthly. This keeps people working for what they want. ( and no that dose not mean put them on the gem store). Add actual skins like you did for the champion box update that was by far one of the better moments you guys got right. Of course keep the festives up like Halloween and Christmas. But please stop living story and emphasize on the actual work you put out. Think things through and don’t rush. For me I would fine with big updates if they were fewer and far between but not expansion pack material. But I feel something really change….

I agree they need to do something that will make people want to play and not look and say: yey we get new terrible looking armors that will eat all my money to make.

Do I really want to log in?

GW2 needs to change the perspective.
At first we were liking new items, but there is almost too much and new are on the way. They will find customers for that, but you know…

This won’t be a majority any more. People really seems to want new maps even thou it migth be a problem, but there are many many areas that are changed drastically and those areas are like WvW and PvP.
PvE which has the most ofter used like some kind of main game way is not everything.

Yes I know many people feel bored abut that due the fact that you don’t do other stuff in the game. You only go solo or duo some achievements and them go away for 2 weeks.

I know storywise this game need a lot but it’s another problem that seems to go in CDI.
You really should go and read some CDI and then I feel like the post will be more in place.

I agree we need something huge. I would like to go back to Cantha, but before that we have a lot of Tyria left to explore. I want to go to the Crystal Desert and fight Hydras, go to the Maguuma Jungle (and have the name of the Tarnished Coast brought back to what they are calling the Maguuma Jungle) to fight Wurms for a Totem Axe, got to the Isles of Janthir to fight the White Mantel, and just explore the Ring of Fire. We have so much of Tyria left to explore that we don’t need another continent right now.

I think the best thing ANet can do at this point is to start up the “regular addition of new skills and traits” that was mentioned in the Looking Forward post a few months back.

Unfortunately, the preoccupation with profession balance means we’re unlikely to see anything like a “regular addition of new skills and traits”.

More likely, we’ll get 1 new addition, followed by months of balance passes before the next one is implemented.

I really wish they’d just dump a bunch of new traits and skills into the game and take careful notes on the ensuing chaos, popping in to make the occasional course correction when blatant imbalances arise. We would have months of fun experimenting with new builds and new ways to play while the balance team works in it’s fixes to steer the chaos back toward balance.

To me, that sounds like the most fun I could have in GW2 right now.

just add new Permanent Content. all this temporary stuff is getting old.

You also mention new armor skins. I would LOVE each profession get its own distinct look like they had in GW1. I want my Warrior to look more terrifying than my calm cool and collected Guard. My Necro more hideous than my eligant Mesmer and fiery Ele. My Theif to look more stealthy than my steampunk Engi and nurture intuned Ranger. Reworking the skins we already have to fit each class’s uniqueness would bring a lot more excitement to each class and the game.

Anet needs to focus more on making this game worth to replay.
They need to add more things from GW1 into GW2 that were good and give this game a greater nostalgic flair

They need finally to focus on alot more of Character Progression, instead of all the time lastly only Gear Progression. Sure, they aren#t done with Gear Progression yet, that goal is reached only firs,t once the game has everywhere legendary equipment up to legendary upgrades of all sorts. Only then will we be done with Gear Progression, unless Anet ever is intending to add a new Gear Tier, that stands over Legendary, but that will neve happen for sure, because then would be the game so dead for sure, like the Amen in church.

Anet needs to revitalize the game on a constant basis by adding with every patch somewhere new dynamic events instead of this whole living story stuff that should get merged with the personal story to let us step by step get nearer to the next elder dragon fight.

They need to improve the game with features, that really improve the character progression, like implementing Sub Classes for all of the 8 Main Classes.
They need to improve the Trait System by splittign it up into Traits, Abilities and Talents, so that there are abilities, that have a direct influence on our weapon skill effects and looks, traits that still are passive character effects and Talents, that massively improve the class specific key features which lead to the specific sub classes

They need to implement finalyl those missing minigames liek Polymok, Bar Brawl ect and make all other towns places, where people want to go to, instead of focusign permanently everythign around Lions Arch (includes removign the silly Activities NPC from LA, as long this is there, theres no need to move to other towns for the activities and the other towns will stay ghost towns)

The Fractal Dungeon Entrance Asura Gate has to get moved out finally from LA and to be put on a Map like Southsun Cove. Same as the asura gate to southan has to get removed from LA, theres already a Ship Transportation Mechanic in the game to get to Southsun Cove (so unlogical to have 2x the same travel mechanic in the game, so obsolete)

They have to add then new explorable mas in the continent of Tyria.. before we get expansions for Cantha/Elona ect. Tyria should become first to 100% explorable and theres alot of land mass left over to explore…

The complete Maguuma Jungle, Fire Ring Islands, Wood Cascades, large parts of Orr, Crystal Desert, the north of Tyria and all of the old EotN territories (Tarnished Coast including) and the underground plus all of the Deldrimor Territory

So ANet has really alot to do first, before we should set foots on Cantha/Elona.
—-

I’M really interested to see Colins next Blogpost, where he will tell us all the expectable to see new content for the upcoming first half of the year 2014, what we will see getting all implemented into the game from January to June next year.

I’ve made a few changes to the thread now because you guys all collectively added great ideas. Keep them coming.

9.New profession specific armor
I support this idea, could be nice to look different in this way

The whole end game of GW2 is primarily cosmetic so in theory the more skins you add the greater the differences in end game are.

1.New skills
2.Existing weapons for new professions
3.New weapons
5.New sigils and runes
6.New skins (add some flavor with new weapon sets every month?)
7.New armor skins (this does not mean out them in the gem store)
9.New profession specific armor ( make our characters feel unique out in Tyria, it sucks that rangers, and engi’s, and theirs can all look the same…)

These suggestions are very common and I don’t feel add anything new to the game. Yes, your play style may be slightly different with new builds and yes your armor may have a unique look but those are bandaids for substantial and new content. Regardless of your skills and looks the game (in these regards) is still just as stale as it currently is and features no real appeal to continue playing.

Adding new explorable areas opens the game up to new environment design, different enemies than the same few you can find on every map, heart quests with different goals and ways to achieve them, new dynamic events, and meta bosses. This is a lot of bang for your buck that adds hours of fresh content that would encourage players to play and explore.

Adding a new race will only nominally increase play value and new content because the only thing they would have to offer is a new personal story. After that point you’re just repeating the same Order and Pact missions that everyone goes through. Still, new racials, lore, and different armor looks would be an appealing factor for alt lovers or those who don’t feel they entirely mesh well with any of the existing races.

Adding a new profession could be interesting depending on how it is executed. The devs have said that if they ever considered adding a new profession into the game they would only do so if it had unique features that other classes didn’t and wasn’t just a hodgpoge of existing traits and abilities. If they could pull this off the willingness of players to go back and give the new profession could be great, but I don’t see ANet making moves to that any time soon. Also, as previously stated, the new profession isn’t adding anything new to do in game except have a new character.

The most important thing that could be added to increase value in this game would be characters and a story we could feel attached to and invested in that takes place in a planned and defined story arc.

Player attachment can be seen with Sieran and Tybalt but is left kind of hollow in their brief time within our personal story. Introducing new characters we feel comradery with makes us want to relive our time with those same NPC’s over and over.

Also having a story arc that means something would be amazing and addicting. These episodic situations with one untouchable uber villain doesn’t bring the weight of those situations home and they feel like events that are happening apart from us. Having a true personal rivalry, high stakes, love, and loss make a story and the current LS lacks that content.

My fave RPG’s ever are Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy X, and Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4. I don’t need additions of new skills, armors, people I can play as, or even new maps because I love living in the world those games built, I am vested in what’s happening to the characters, and regard my friends in game as friends in real life. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with Frog, Chie Satonaka, or Loki? (nobody wants to hang out with whiney Tidus)

The true allure of these games that are over 15 years old is that they’re apart of my emotional landscape. GW2 has the potential to sculpt that in players too and make them wanting to come back for replays over and over but it seems like they aren’t even trying. Having solid character development and writing (even for an MMO) would do more for this game and intriguing a fan base more than any of the suggestions listed in the above posts.

Uvatha.5476:

1.New skills
2.Existing weapons for new professions
3.New weapons
5.New sigils and runes
6.New skins (add some flavor with new weapon sets every month?)
7.New armor skins (this does not mean out them in the gem store)
9.New profession specific armor ( make our characters feel unique out in Tyria, it sucks that rangers, and engi’s, and theirs can all look the same…)

These suggestions are very common and I don’t feel add anything new to the game. Yes, your play style may be slightly different with new builds and yes your armor may have a unique look but those are bandaids for substantial and new content. Regardless of your skills and looks the game (in these regards) is still just as stale as it currently is and features no real appeal to continue playing.

Adding new explorable areas opens the game up to new environment design, different enemies than the same few you can find on every map, heart quests with different goals and ways to achieve them, new dynamic events, and meta bosses. This is a lot of bang for your buck that adds hours of fresh content that would encourage players to play and explore.

Adding a new race will only nominally increase play value and new content because the only thing they would have to offer is a new personal story. After that point you’re just repeating the same Order and Pact missions that everyone goes through. Still, new racials, lore, and different armor looks would be an appealing factor for alt lovers or those who don’t feel they entirely mesh well with any of the existing races.

Adding a new profession could be interesting depending on how it is executed. The devs have said that if they ever considered adding a new profession into the game they would only do so if it had unique features that other classes didn’t and wasn’t just a hodgpoge of existing traits and abilities. If they could pull this off the willingness of players to go back and give the new profession could be great, but I don’t see ANet making moves to that any time soon. Also, as previously stated, the new profession isn’t adding anything new to do in game except have a new character.

So far the only thing you think would make the game better would be to add new areas to explore but the problem is that not everyone does pve. That would only benefit on section if the community leaving the other two. My simpler changes would infact change all three spheres of the game. The end of all in GW2 is when you’ve maxed everything of anything for your character(s) and further bored. Adding New skills, weapons, skins, etc. just furthers the advancement you could potentially go. As of now the ascended level is the maximum level of obtainable armor and halts anymore vertical development. The only thing that surpasses this are legendaries and overall the look you want (no ones walking around in ascended armor without some transmutation trust me) So the aesthetics of this game are very important. Also new skills and even new trait paths would completely change the feel of the game. Everyone is different and thus every playsyle is different, adding more viable ways to play would be great. I would love to dual wield shields on a warrior or gaurdian and have a sort of punching form of combat. Stuff like this makes you feel more connected to your character. My main D/D asuran elementalist feels like my own character but I would love to add to more with new skins. My necro would look great with some dark shadow particle effects. Adding unique stuff that works only makes the game better. And of course new areas with bigger and better Metas is always exciting, but until those teams finish working or when they decide to announce their release, for now I think this could hold us over.

I also highlighted the benefits of new race and profession. I just also included cons to go with those too. All three that I listed (explorable areas, races, professions) would add more to game value.

Dynamic game play is different and would deal with skills and traits but still leave little impression of change in the overal game. Last summer we had a major trait revamp of all classes and this next patch we’re seeing a huge overhall yet again. Even though these game play aspects have changed and change often they aren’t adding a new level of excitement or interest overall and players are still complacent and bored with contend as a whole despite the changes.

My opinions and suggestions were to add things to a more immersive experience.

I agree with most of the original post.

I love the mechanics of GW2 and enjoy the combat and artwork greatly but I just feel like there isn’t much to do.

You could do a daily fractal, and then spend 10 minutes finishing up your daily achievements but that’s essentially all the end game content feels like at the moment. Unless you go to WvW or PvP and not everybody likes having to run around a WvW map setting up siege to capture buildings.

Dungeons and fractals are pretty much the only end game PvE content and they don’t have a feeling of longevity.

Perhaps I’m being overly critical because GW2 is a great game, I just feel like there’s not much to do once you get map completion and ascended gear etc.

Uvatha.5476:

I also highlighted the benefits of new race and profession. I just also included cons to go with those too. All three that I listed (explorable areas, races, professions) would add more to game value.

Dynamic game play is different and would deal with skills and traits but still leave little impression of change in the overal game. Last summer we had a major trait revamp of all classes and this next patch we’re seeing a huge overhall yet again. Even though these game play aspects have changed and change often they aren’t adding a new level of excitement or interest overall and players are still complacent and bored with contend as a whole despite the changes.

My opinions and suggestions were to add things to a more immersive experience.

You see I agree with you because the whole trait revamp thing is really flawed. I hate the use of traits simply because I can’t see what I’m developing. It’s so hard to tell when a trait is activated or deactivated and have very unnoticeable effect on the battle field. My problem with traits is that it only helps increase the damage you do, decrease the damage you take, or buff the unique set that each profession has respectively. I’m not saying traits don’t have an impact because they definitely do but it sooo hard to really see the correlation between your skills and traits. But that might just be me idk. What do you think?

I love how you guys keep giving Gw1 as an example for many things. Then again Gw1 wasn’t a MMO and it wasn’t as popular as Gw2 is and it had completely different constraints. For one it had no OPEN WORLD. It all was instanced! Some food for your brains

Ravenmoon.5318:

I love how you guys keep giving Gw1 as an example for many things. Then again Gw1 wasn’t a MMO and it wasn’t as popular as Gw2 is and it had completely different constraints. For one it had no OPEN WORLD. It all was instanced! Some food for your brains

It was however a better game. It had a deeper combat system, a camera that actually works, and targeting that actually works. Plus there were guild halls, which for a game called GUILD Wars would seem like an important feature to have.

GW1 unintentionally was far closer to the GW2 Manifesto than GW2 is, and that is a bit embarrassing. I often feel that I was sold a product that doesn’t match what was advertised.

• It feels like I’m grinding way more than I was in GW1
• The world seems to repeat the same events far more than GW1’s quests ever did
• The world does not seem to remember who I am or what I did, unlike GW1
• The story is not as good as it was in GW1
• The game seems to deliver a far emptier end game than GW1
• The Dungeons are not as good as they were in GW1
• The game focuses much more on gear, than personal skill, unlike GW1
• Enemies constantly respawn seconds after you’ve killed them!
• The trinity has been replaced by an unbalanced combat system

This thread is about how both my husband and I both feel about GW2 as well. We were very excited to start, but now it feels just like a gear oriented grind fest with unbalanced combat and spammed world events lacking the quality that I’ve come to expect from the GW team.

I want to enjoy content and to be able to play casually while my husband plays more hardcore.

After experiencing all the good things pioneered in GW2 for more than a year, I strangely feel the overall feeling is quite detaching. Unlike previous MMO I have played, which can easily hooked me for 4 to 5 years, GW2 did not offer the same attachment. I ‘m afraid there is something quite fundamental that prevent GW2 to get me attached, but I don’t know what it is, at least for myself. I’m at the stage to “find” something to do, to hang on, which usually indicate the end phase of playing a particular game. After crafting my legenedary, then probably it will be time to say goodbye.

Hi. I’ve been playing GW2 for over a year and I agree with the vast majority of the comments under this thread. The content is coming too quickly and the achievements are taking constant dedication to the game, which not everyone can afford to do.

With The Nightmares Within, holy cow. Going through without a group of people amounts to ridiculousness. The people who haven’t finished their achievement chains are pretty much out of luck unless they happen to show up when some other random players are there. I am more than willing to participate in the Living Story arcs, but the sheer number of enemies, the inability to get out of attack areas, the insane respawn rate, the freaking arbitrary exploding plants – I get that Scarlet is chaos incarnate, but there is nothing fun about hardness just for the sake of it.

Add insult to injury as well – the chests within contain largely blues and greens. I have been faithfully salvaging every blue, green, gold and white item that I have in my inventory and my account is at 83% magic find. One would think that fact added to getting the crap beaten out of us on the way through the Nightmare, we might find a few more interesting items.

Event might have been a little more tolerable if the drones were at the chamber landings instead of only between the floors – therefore, once you completed a chamber, the drone was now available to warp to for your character. It would also help you identify which chamber was missing from your achievement track.

Anyway, I hope the feedback helps.
Tivy

I agree with most of these comments, my friends and I left wow a year ago (6 years+). and now are heading back after sort of getting bored with GW2. Take it with a grain of salt, nostalgia has a lot to do with it – via the little things. I remember reading about this concept in Back to the Future movie franchises, how they would consistently reuse or restate certain things in the movie to ensure the audience keeps the emotional attachment – such as when Marty encounters Biff every single movie. Now, I think GW2 does just about everything right – mechanics, controls, graphics are all top notch. Story I can care less for, just not invested, its just 0s and 1s to me, since it doesn’t really shape anything I do, such as gleefully aligning myself with the horde or allies in real life within my inner circle – I mean, no one admits this stuff in public, hah. Here’s what I would suggest, based on the successes of what others have done intuitively:

1) Expose the Character API so that savvy developers can create their own version of Gw2 Armory. People love seeing what others look like, do, and are about to either mold, or compete with, it adds such a tremendous element to the mmosphere

2) I was excited about dynamic events, until I realized it happened on a timer, over and over again, and there wasn’t really anything dynamic about it. I wish it would pop up randomly all over the place, across multiple storylines. For example, if area A has a big wild boar that you have to kill within 3 minutes, then make it popup randomly in Area C with a big Green Moa in the same mechanism to kill within 3 minutes, hopskotch!

3) The thing that I loved about WoW, and makes it wholly different is how well it embraces healing. Now, I like that gw2 removed the roles, and made it fair, but what it ignored was how much healing is to the altruistic person. I see 8 new healing spells are making its way, but something about healers playing a large role is quite fun. I would fix by adding a new elite skill to each race that last for 2 mins with 4 min cooldowns and has only healing type skills or spells.

4) WvW. WoW had the best open world pvp across all mmos. Now its just moba fest. Instanced areas where people are trapped like rats. I would fix by encouraging rewards for skirmish skills, so there’s more 1v1 battles even amongst the masses.

5) New playable races – I’d like to see a new take on dwarf, elf that will draw people in. Especially maybe dark elves, that aren’t so fluffy like the wow night elves.

Tael.5432:

I agree with most of the original post.

I love the mechanics of GW2 and enjoy the combat and artwork greatly but I just feel like there isn’t much to do.

You could do a daily fractal, and then spend 10 minutes finishing up your daily achievements but that’s essentially all the end game content feels like at the moment. Unless you go to WvW or PvP and not everybody likes having to run around a WvW map setting up siege to capture buildings.

Dungeons and fractals are pretty much the only end game PvE content and they don’t have a feeling of longevity.

Perhaps I’m being overly critical because GW2 is a great game, I just feel like there’s not much to do once you get map completion and ascended gear etc.

Time for Anet to start developing raids. not 5-players based dungeons, but 10-players dungeons that last 2-3 hours and rewards are worth that time.

They need to add player housing, guild housing, more group interaction style game play. I personally would love open world pvp servers. But anything that would build a community feeling, they might have well named this solo quest/grind.

Neek.9531:

1.New skills

A little bit related, but if you’re interested in some fun brainstorming, I made a thread to brainstorm new Elite skills for classes.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/For-Fun-Design-an-Elite-Skill/first#post3326965

However, I do largely agree with your points. I’m a bit curious what you or others would think of as an acceptable third Heavy Armor profession though. All I can think up are Dervishes, but I feel like a lot of their functionality has been lost to other professions such as Elementalists.

Vexander.9850:

Neek.9531:

1.New skills

A little bit related, but if you’re interested in some fun brainstorming, I made a thread to brainstorm new Elite skills for classes.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/For-Fun-Design-an-Elite-Skill/first#post3326965

However, I do largely agree with your points. I’m a bit curious what you or others would think of as an acceptable third Heavy Armor profession though. All I can think up are Dervishes, but I feel like a lot of their functionality has been lost to other professions such as Elementalists.

Yes I read this and it was very interesting. Really makes you wonder how much fun all these skills could add to the game.

I agree with the OP, the living story in this game has become, well, stale, and I feel like I’ve been logging in less and less lately. Frost and Flame & Super Adventure Box were my favorite patches, and a few since then have been enjoyable, but lately everything seems to be some new unsolo-able instance which us late-comers can never complete for lack of other players whom have already completed their meta.

Neek.9531:

2.Existing weapons for new professions
3.New weapons
4.New areas (Cantha, Crystal Dessert, or Magumma Jungle)
6.New skins (add some flavor with new weapon sets every month?)
7.New armor skins (this does not mean out them in the gem store)
8.new profession (hint third heavy class)
9.New profession specific armor ( make our characters feel unique out in Tyria, it sucks that rangers, and engi’s, and theirs can all look the same…)
10.More permanent content

+1,000,000 to this. I would much prefer less frequent updates with better, permanent, rewarding content (no more repetitive instances every 2 weeks): new areas (Crystal Desert, please) & dungeons, guild raids, guild vs guild battles, player housing, harder (but optional) content for those who want it, hard mode on dungeons, easier content for casual PvE wimps like me :P … and what happened to being able to save builds like in the first Guild Wars?

Just my 2 cents.

I completely agree, this game needs some change and from what I have seen the Living Story system is definitely not the change it needs. There have been less than 5 patches in the history of Guild Wars 2 that I can say that I have actually liked playing. Most of the time I honestly just skip the Living Story patches as it seems like it is always the same kind of zerg style temporary content over and over.

This thread has some really great ideas and stuff the community has been asking for. I personally would love to see Guild style raids and more challenging content like hard mode dungeons for us more serious players. I was really looking forward to the Teq Rising patch but it turned out to be another zerg style battle. Instead I enjoyed the new TA path much more as it actually required a team to work together and had some interesting mechanics and is something I would like to see more of for sure.

At this point, I’ve also explored each zone numerous times and know them like the back of my hand even though I am not a exploration kind of person. I would absolutely love to see some more level 80 zones with some new instances and dungeons possibly guild raids and some more lovely scenery found in Guild Wars. This game has great potential but lately I feel that with each patch more and more of the potential is lost and I really hope ArenaNet considers stopping the Living Story content (except for holidays) to focus more on expansion type content with new zones, dungeons, gear sets, raids, rewards for future and current content.

I also would like to say that I had very high hope for the Fractured patch and was OK with losing my fractal level all for the improved rewards. I do however say while I am grateful for it getting some attention I still believe it needs a lot more work to be rewarding especially since the fractal weapon box is not available at the current available levels which was my main motivation for participating in fractals in the first place.

I would like to add my opinion here for what its worth. I enjoy playing GW2, and it has kept me occupied and excited for over a year, but suddenly with all the bosses being upgraded and changed, it is becoming increasingly difficult to solo and just have fun with normal gear and weapons (and yes I belong to an active guild with 300 players). I just think their is to much content alongside the changes to weapons and armour which keep people so occupied with getting an achievement or crafting that ascended piece, that their is less time to play the actual game. (Just go look at LA, then go look at any boss).
I have had my ranger changed so much from when I started that I can no longer run the same map I completed six months ago, yet the changes and enhancements are supposed to be better? I’m more squishy than I have ever been. Some bosses have become almost unplayable, so its pointless giving us all the equipment, sigils, runes etc if you going to just keep nerffing everything levels above us, just for a few more coloured pixels. I’m afraid the fun factor is diminishing into the mists alongside my enjoyment of the game. I just want to be able to have fun no matter if I am running my high lv toons in a dungeon, or trying to roll a new char on a lev 1-15 map. Everyone is so busy with achievements, that it very necessary to be able to solo, after all lv 80 guildies don’t want to run a low level map to help a player get a skill point. Ive completed map twice, have 3 toons at 80, so been here for over a year, but honestly the first time I have become frustrated with the game.

Here’s my two-cents, take it or leave it, but I completely agree with pretty much every post in this thread. The LS stuff I don’t even bother with half the time because I don’t have the time to log on to even enjoy it or get far enough for the Meta within the time frame.

I would really really really like to see new PERMANENT areas like the Crystal Desert and Far Shiverpeaks.. all the areas in Tyria that we can SEE have names, but aren’t actual maps yet.

Guild Halls/Housing. There are quite a few games that successfully implement these, (even another NCSoft game, Aion) and even the guild halls in GW1 were fine. I know a lot of RPers like me would really like to have our own space or guild hall where we can hold guild meetings without competing with other guilds for the same location. If personal housing is too much to ask for, I KNOW the majority of the community would be happy with at least Guild Halls, though it would be nice to either have a “tangible” location, or allow guests to visit (just not be able to use the guild services) the halls. The “tangible” location would be cool because then guilds can show off their halls. Like have plots of open land guilds can purchase and build on. It would make things nice for large guild-hosted events, that are open to the community, without bogging down the main cities. I also know a non-instanced version of the Salma District in DR would be very welcome. It technically exists because I see people work their way into it, but you guys just keep blocking it off. Just open it up and then you don’t have to worry about it! Win-Win! Obviously you can keep the instanced version for the quests. Open up more buildings! We love to explore, imagine, and be creative. You have done such a wonderful job creating these cities that we WANT to RP in them.

Weapon dyes! Seriously, you had a great weapon dye system in GW1. Please bring it back!

More town clothes that are available year-round (either via gem store or in-game vendors). I never even bother switching to my town clothes right now because the default set is just so blah. I end up buying like 5 different armor sets and using those instead. It’s a bit more of a pain, but at least my character looks good.