Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

The implication is in the phrasing. Saying “people want something” implies most people, because if only a minority of people want it, there’s no much point bringing it up that way.

The entire post implies that there’s this huge group of people who want this. I submit that people don’t really know what the majority wants.

Please stop trying to pick apart other posts, your just embarrassing yourself and derailing the topic given “people don’t really know what the majority wants.” you dont know if the majority do or do not want this. (a good reason for well designed polling) the number of people on the forums has nothing to do with whether or not it is an accurate representation of the player base, as an example political exit polls on a fraction of a percent of the voting public can be incredibly accurate.

the implication you claim is non existent, the usage is as a plural of person not as a collective usage this is obvious from reading the text. further i would submit that 100,000 is a huge amount of people but that is less than 3.33% of the population hardly a majority, so even if the implication were there you would still be incorrect.

back on topic:

feedback for Chris/ whoever cares to read the wall of text

i believe responses “from the hip” are generally more favored as you don’t have to pick through three paragraphs of text the essence of which can be summarized in three sentences, with the remainder being ambiguous verbose dross that doesn’t really tell you anything, but which will be picked over and bickered about as its all that we have from you, there is also have the benefit of being able to respond and clarify things more rapidly ie 2-3 to the point blunt responses compared to one long one that is carefully ambiguous

on polls
you will need to track how accounts have voted if you have polls in multiple locations ie forums and launcher and in game, to ensure people don’t game it and decide if you want to allow people to change their votes before voting closes ie players may initially love content then run into problems or the reverse and want to vote another way.

having a comment field or the forum polling thread open to comments would allow people to elaborate on why they have voted as they have, this is very important as binary data from polls doesn’t give you insight into why people respond or act a certain way ie are people logging in because they enjoy content or because they don’t want to be left behind?

+1 to

Simple enough, let the pigeons do the dirty work.
You can advertise a new function via an e-mail and dedicate it a separate section.
The new icon may change color once a new survey is available.
No one will be forced to respond, and invasiveness will be minimal.

i was picturing something like that which leads to feedback tabs etc for the in game implementation, perhaps with a recent history tracker so you can leave feedback about events you have recently participated in. if you put it in game defiantly do it like that as opposed to a popup, im hesitant about including rewards for completing surveys as that may lead to people just checking YES/ 5* for everything without reading it to get the reward, the reward should be the interaction and the knowledge that the feedback is hopefully going to better the game

on forums
in regards to duration of forum posts, i think it really needs to longer than 2-3 days, im picturing something like a week, you could add additional topics every few days but if you don’t come to the forums that often you’d miss out on being able to give feedback for that point you’d also have less time to consider the feedback you are giving, as a result i think a longer forum life is needed to catch the most players. you should also announce what the next topic is and when it will be available, it would be terrible to have to travel for real life commitments and miss the opportunity to participate

in terms of topics have a separate thread for upcoming discussions where players can suggest topics to be focused on, you can then include a poll of the most favorable/ suggested ones to decide which is next, this would probably be best implemented in the suggestions forums with a moderated sticky.

on collaborative improvements

communication is key specifically WHY most of the changes of the last year have boggled my mind mainly due to not understanding what you were thinking when you implemented them, given my immediate reaction is generally why haven’t they implemented it this other way, ill give three specific examples

the fervid censor is a living world rare backpack that has an infusion slot and cannot be ascended

its existence is presumably justified by the desire to give players easy access to a backpack with an infusion slot for fractals. HOWEVER why was it part of the living world? would it not have made more sense to reward it for defeating the jade maw for the first time? or sell it for a small amount of fractal relics etc making it easily obtainable to those who want a backpack with an infusion slot?

its actual implementation gave players who have no desire at all to experience fractals or the other forced vertical aspects of the endgame a backpack with half the stats it should have, that needs to be transmuted to be useful outside of a small corner of the game, if it was intended to be cosmetic it could easily have been rewarded as a skin as many of the items are, but it was not…

the pillar “play the way you want” is frequently referred to, but each patch changes it to "play how we tell you"

currently you are pigeonholed into one build on one class due to time gating on gear, and progression in general, because if you want to change to another class or build you are looking at months of effort just to get back to the point you are currently at, while being weaker and more poorly rewarded while you do so given that reward is calculated based on damage(support=no recognition) and progression level ie fractals, which leads to that build being direct damage ie berserkers in most cases. this is essentially leading to the point where you will have to enact balance changes that will ruin carefully devised and constructed builds for some players, faced with months or rebuilding to get back to the same point with no guarantee you wont just re-balance again, many players would just quit.

as the proverb goes “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” while you may aim for some ambitious goal the implementation leaves much to be desired. and in many cases runs counter to your stated intent

the curse of game development is that you spend more time making games than playing them, this is one thing you really need to address, primarily because missteps and decisions you have made, have been done before by other companies, you just need to look at the competition and see why feature X didn’t pan out or what the solution they implemented to problem Y was to inform your development.

as an example companies like blizzard stopped resistance gating the better part of a decade ago, did you ever wonder why before you implemented it in this game?

mixed messages/ no solid design

it was only a few weeks ago that you guys were telling certain staff not to communicate with us and now you want to improve communication, its complete 180s like this that are never properly explained that lead to people having no clue as to what the game is about where its going or if we can even trust anything you say

a more specific example from a little over a month before the game released, the presumably finalized design lasts about 4 months

Colin and Eric on endgame design last year

“these legendary weapons are really cool looking and like we said, there’s no, you wont get a game-play advantage out of these things you’ll just look really cool and people will be like hey where did you get that.” (comparing them to exotics)

to last month, just over a year later

Changes to Legendary Weapons

Legendary weapons now have increased stats to keep them in line with the new ascended weapons as “best in slot” items.
Legendary weapons now have functionality to allow their inherent stat combo to be changed to any other stat combo when out of combat.

even if you argue that there is no stat advantage over ascended the functionality to change stats and avoid having to get another ascended weapon is a game-play advantage, not to mention they have been explicitly stated to always upgrade to BIS so when there are more tiers you wont need to grind for them.

but seriously make with the non ascended servers, if jagex can do it for runescape so can you

Wow GW2 players are as passionate about this game as RL politics.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Uh I have a topic for you as well. It is called RNG

I don’t mind some sort of RNG element in a game. It makes you open chests etc. with some amount of anticipation.

However: I do think gw2 rely too much on the RNG factor.

Let’s take Tequatl as an example. We all know that organizing this event takes effort. We all know that once you are in the right main server or overflow, you cannot leave. You are stuck there for 1 hour +.

We all know we are rewarded differently for this. Some will get the mini pet, some will get ascended gear, I know of some that have successfully killed him more than 60 times by now and got nothing but greens.

Tequatl is obviously just one example. Another would be the mystic forge for precursors or precursors random drop chance, The Black lion claim tickets, the new weapons from Twilight Arbor. Actually, outside dungeon tokens, most seems to be RNG drop chance.

I think this is a problem. I think there should be some way to work towards something outside RNG.

Crafting precursors (which is my understanding are at high risk of not happening this year) would be a step in the right direction.

Another good idea, which someone suggested elsewhere, would be adding some sort of token for killing Tequatl so people that do not win the RNG lottery are still working towards something. Let’s say you could buy an ascended weapon once you had x amount of tokens. That would mean killing him x amount of times and you might get lucky with RNG, but if you don’t, then you are still working towards something. Tequatl does take a lot of time. Time people could have spent gathering mats for their ascended weapons or time they could have spent jumping on the champion farm train and earned the gold to buy the minipet or ascended materials of the TP.

I feel I lack something outside the RNG. I am not a lucky person. I do however play with someone that seems to be blessed by the RNG gods. Or in his words: “I have silly RNG luck, I have always had silly RNG luck in games”.

We do the same events, the same dungeons etc. I have more magic find than he does, I even play more hours a day than he does, but since the greatest rewards come from RNG…. Well, it doesn’t really matter how much I play or don’t play. It is not that I am jealous of him in that regard, we have played together for more that 5 years and we share a bank, materials, recipes etc. anyway, but I do think it shows the flaws in the RNG system.

I have played this game since February and yesterday I got my 6th exotic drop ever (which sells for the impressive amount of 1.20g) In the meantime, he got 20+. One, which sold for nearly 200g.

Thanks to my friend again I do have the Tequatl mini pet, I do have the abyss and celestial dye but outside gathering crafting materials I never have much to offer in return. The dyes I open aren’t the good ones, I am yet to get anything but greens and 2 cheap exotics from Tequatl. When it comes to who has contributed the most to our character progression, it is not even close to being a draw.

I think it adds to the problem that we now have ascended items. Those are not just cosmetic enhancements, those are actually +stats enhancements. Whether you gain those weapons through drops or through earning gold and buying the materials of the TP, it would help if your income to a higher extend was based on your effort. Outside chopping wood and mining materials, it is all about RNG. I would love to discuss how to possibly change that.

RNG would be a great topic to discuss!

Chris

This post genuinly made me sad. Well done Reesha, you wrote that really well explaining one of the biggest disheartening things in this game. The huge RNG aspect of this game so far, continues to make so many people just feel terrible.

My biggest one has to be when i opened (and mostly paid for) thousands upon thousands of coffers to get a ticket for a jade skin. My friends got so concerned by how much i spent on them, that towards the end of the chance for getting them they started sending me all theirs. On the last batch of a couple hundred my friend had, he sent me them wishing me all the luck…and on the very last 2-4…i got one!

Great that on my last opportunity that i got one, but it just felt wrong spending so much. When my friends had a few drop for them and they hadnt opened a huge amount in comparison.

If there is gonna be RNG, the gap between needs to be alot milder. Or like you said, there needs to be less of it and/or other ways to aquire.

IF you guys really collaborated with the community you would see that the Cantha thread is pretty big and what MOST players want is a large content update in the form of extra content like in GW1 not piece meal projects that make us by trinklets in the gems store. I have not played the game since you guys BROKE the ranger. Until you guys REALLY listen to the community and release an expansion pack and fix the ranger I will no longer support this prouduct

Drok Kindleshot.1496:

IF you guys really collaborated with the community you would see that the Cantha thread is pretty big and what MOST players want is a large content update in the form of extra content like in GW1 not piece meal projects that make us by trinklets in the gems store. I have not played the game since you guys BROKE the ranger. Until you guys REALLY listen to the community and release an expansion pack and fix the ranger I will no longer support this prouduct

Ranger is not broken in WvW and PvP. Thats what matters to the esports demographic. And btw class balance is going to be tweaked after October 15th and probably hundreds of times before GW3 is released. Have fun.

Regarding polls, as painful as it would be for the ones gathering them, there should be a ton of of polls, based on all kind of game aspects.
And just like in the beta, of course you don’t have access to a poll until you finished the necessary content.

For example, when you only get a poll Weaponsmith crafting when you reach the max level. And a poll regarding crafting in general when you have maxed out every crafting professions.
You only get to answer the living story poll once it’s over.

And keep it kind of simple like in the beta, that way it won’t be such a chore when you have hundreds of polls to fill. (I’d say give achievement points for them, but then players will be more than tempted to answer randomly).

I´m very suspicious about polls and majorities – because I obviously took a minority-class on release (Engi).

I´m also very suspicious about Anet´s communication:

“•Bundles from player skills (engineer kits, elementalist conjured weapons, warrior banners) now have base damage that is consistent with the highest rarity weapons available at the level of the player.” (taken from update notes January 28)

With introduction of ascended weapons base damage from engi kits was increased for 5% which would fullfill the statement above – for a few hours, until:

“•Fixed an unintended damage increase that caused engineer kits, elementalist conjures, and warrior banners to deal more damage than intended.”

There were several threads and postings in the Engi-forum about this, the only related answer came on the Ele-forum:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/RIP-conjure-builds/first

So tell us, Mr.Whiteside, where is your communication concerning a problem which negates the biggest addition of this year so far (ascended weapons) for almost a whole class?

And how can we rely on your communication when that statement from January obviously wasn´t true (as the problem with ascended weapons and kits was already discussed before)?

And yes, I´m angry and I think, I have very valid reasons for that – but still I´m only part of a minority.

Galen Grey.4709:

What if the hard stance they take is not the one you like, would you be happy with that?

Not to speak for the poster you’re responding to, but I think a lot of people would be happier. We have arguments among the player base about statements that ArenaNet Made that go something like:

Player1: “ANet said X and gave us Y and I’m Mad”
Player2: "Games evolve, you can’t hold them to everything they said three years ago.
Player1: “But X was a core part of the vision for the game!”
Player2: “But they learned most people wanted Y, and so they gave it to them!”
Arenanet: (if there is a red post in the discussion at all) “We didn’t really implement Y. We’re looking into things. Improvements are coming.”

It would be so much better for everyone if they could just take a hard line and say, “Sorry, Player2 is right, we’ve changed our mind based on this and that and Y is our new direction for the game and we’ll be sticking to it.”

Yes, player1 will probably complain, but then they can decide whether they can live with Y or not, and either shut up and play the game or decide to move on.

how can you be sure we who dont like vertical progression are their core base rather then the minority you think should be denied?

That’s just the problem, we can’t be sure. So we’re going through endless cycles of trying to convince each other that the core base does or does not like VP, when we should probably move on (since it seems to be here to stay) and try to find ways to make it lekittenous to those who didn’t want it in the first place. This is where clearer communication from ANet would help take the discussion forward into a more meaningful place.

ANet didnt choose to ignore anyone, the problem here is people think that if they dont do stuff exactly the way they wish then it means they’re being ignored.

No, not at all.

I remember back before launch, when there were mana/energy potions in the game. There was a big response from the community that the idea of having to stock up on potions before going out and playing was running counter to one of the core principles that ANet had stated. They wanted us to be able to do the things that are fun in game, not spend time preparing for them.

There was communication back from ANet in response to why they thought potions were useful. People could still be upset, but they couldn’t claim no one was hearing them.

It’s a basic part of communication. “I hear what your saying, you are concerned about X because of Y. Here’s why we decided to go with X anyway, please continue to let us know if Y is a problem and if you have ideas on how to adjust X to solve it.”

Sure, there may be people who will continue to throw tantrums if they don’t get their way. The ill-will on the forums (and in-game, lets no pretend everyone in-game is happy because they don’t post on the forums) has a lot to do with a lack of clarity in communication, not just dissatisfaction with design choices.

Why would polls be a lot of work, apart from programming the basic functionality? You can get a ready-to-go list of results nowadays at the click of a button.

RedStar.4218:

And just like in the beta, of course you don’t have access to a poll until you finished the necessary content.

For example, when you only get a poll Weaponsmith crafting when you reach the max level. And a poll regarding crafting in general when you have maxed out every crafting professions.

I’m not sure about your emphasis on completion.

Shouldn’t someone who refines mats to 425, spends gold to craft to 450, does ascended mat refinement to 475, but quits because they decide the last 25 levels take an extreme amount of resources to level get a chance to give feedback on Weaponsmithing?

Shouldn’t someone who plays through the Gauntlet but can’t down Liadri be a part of the discussion on the Gauntlet?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Catch you all tomorrow.

I really like the idea of Collaborative Development between devs and players but I don’t think that the forums as they stand will be a good way of doing that. In a typical forum thread people debate and complain and contradict one another far too much for clear ideas and recommendations to be made and you end up with a thread two dozen pages long where most of the posts are people having side-arguments with one another on off-topic issues. Sifting through that would be difficult.

So my suggestion is that surveys (as frequent as is useful) could be used to gather a general overview of peoples views and feelings about the game, what they like, what they want to see improved and so on.

These could be used to produce “blind” threads which are focussed threads where an ArenaNet employee puts up the initial post with the usual title and a description outlining the specific issue or feature to be discussed (“PVE condition handling”, for example) providing information on the problem and then people can post their ideas and outline their issues with it. So far, very similar to normal forums but the difference will be that, while all ArenaNet employees can see every post, the players can only see ArenaNet employee posts and their own posts. ArenaNet employees can reply to and quote specific good ideas, or pieces of good feedback and then everyone will see that and can in turn comment on it indirectly.

Then after a week or two, when you’ve gotten the feedback you need you close the thread and turn off the blind side and show everyone everything. People can now +1 the posts they like or agree with and the thread isn’t bogged down in arguments or off-topic discussions.

The downsides of this of course are that you may get a lot of duplicate suggestions (but that’ll happen anyway, as it stands now if someone suggests something on page 5 then by page 10 other people will be suggesting it) and you won’t have that refinement process where someone can rework a suggestion based on other players but I think that the pros outweigh the cons: You have a more succinct thread with “purer” content where people aren’t getting side-tracked and the thread isn’t getting derailed the entire time.

I remember in the last days i played AION, there was a “flashy icon” in the screen with some In-Game Surveys about particular subjects. They even add rewards (nothing great obviously) to surveys to rewards players for the time doing them!

- Why can’t a similar tool exist?

style.6173:

The problem is that the PvP team is stubborn and won’t increase game modes (hello team deathmatch) and the WvW team is completely out of touch. The WvW team in particular is a problem.

Any decisions that are made in WvW have to go through the PvP team first.

Chris, I have one opinion I would like to share.
I think Arena Net should make it more clear whether a feature is a possibility or not so that community doesn’t keep talking about things infinitely.
For instance, we get a weekly thread on the trinity or treadmills but Anet never posted their stance on that; i.e. they could say “we currently we do not intend to implement such a system” or “we are evaluating the possibility yadda yadda”.
Until Anet clears its stance toward a matter the community will just circle-talk about it and it creates a bit of uncertainty around.
Not saying you should speak in black and white (because you never know in the future you might change idea), but you can say if something is currently under consideration or not at all

Another thought: I think explaining changes to the game might be a good idea as well.

We see the patch notes, but often the reason behind the change is not transparent. The reduced karma would be one example. Many people (myself included) have been speculating why it was reduced by that much and how it is going to influence especially new players.

I think some of us would welcome a bit more transparency.

Maybe alongside the release notes could be a topic: Questions regarding release notes.

This would give the option to clear up any misunderstandings to the implemented changes and to explain reasons behind any given change, without going into a lengthy discussion.

Just an idea.

This thread shows you what the power of developer responses can do!

The first couple pages were not that good, the hate was beginning to flow in. Now that you are responding? The feedback is tremendous and the last 10 pages have been nothing but love of finally being heard and some great, great feedback!

Get that going across all sections of the forum and this forum will begin to purify itself just like the land of Orr!

I applaud you Chris Whiteside and I hope that what you say about developers interacting with players more on the forums stays true!

The biggest thing on my list? Make the game more alt friendly across the entire game, just like GW1 was!

I’ve said this before in other threads…
I think that the reason why this community has become the most demanding and nit-picking community out of any MMO I’ve ever played is because Arenanet has made pretty bold claims, promises, and then claimed that we mis-understood what they meant to say. I’ve played many MMOs and while each commmunity is different and each community is pretty demanding, GW2 community is by far the worst in this regard.

So I think this is why, obviously, that there has been a lack of communication on their part. They don’t want us to rip apart their quotes each time. But they dug their own hole with this one.

BTW, I too am guilty of ripping apart quotes. Just saying, that we are half of the reason why they are frequenting these forums less and less. The other half of the reason is that they know they cannot back up their claims so boldy as they pretended to have done done pre-release.

To Chris.

People have been vigorously discussing and asking for Cantha to return for over a year now. I’d say these people deserve some kind of an update – whether it will happen or it won’t.

Also, more frequent blog posts about the upcoming updates/progress wouldn’t hurt.
Back in July(?) we were promised new skills, unfortunately, I haven’t heard any update on it – whether they’re coming this year or not.

Well I’m looking forward to helping in getting this “living world” up and running and in more ways than just the living stories too. But I am a little bit interested by what they mean with “living worlds”.

Are they meaning that just for this game or are they meaning of branching out with this idea for other games perhaps? If just this game how could that be? We know of the main world as Tyria, Cantha etc. Does this mean that world will be added onto as a true, global (round planet) world like our own. Or does it mean through other realms such as SAB? Can’t wait to find out.

Wooden Potatoes makes great GW2 feedback videos.
Like this one – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AidBQxGQsSg

Jordo.5913:

This thread shows you what the power of developer responses can do!

The first couple pages were not that good, the hate was beginning to flow in. Now that you are responding? The feedback is tremendous and the last 10 pages have been nothing but love of finally being heard and some great, great feedback!

Get that going across all sections of the forum and this forum will begin to purify itself just like the land of Orr!

I applaud you Chris Whiteside and I hope that what you say about developers interacting with players more on the forums stays true!

I dont want to be a fountain of negativity, but Chris Whiteside said the same things a year ago when ascended gear rolled out and he held the AMA. He said he wanted to have Arenanet communicate with us more. Here they are, almost a year later, saying..“we want to be more active in communication”.

I definately agree and applaud that Chris Whiteside has the courage to stand in front of this forum and speak to us. He has my respect.

But there are issues that have been lingering since launch, things that we have cried for and clamored for all over these forums and fan sites, things that are un addressed. But they continue to focus their development on controversial things like living story and ascended gear.

cesmode.4257:

I’ve said this before in other threads…
I think that the reason why this community has become the most demanding and nit-picking community out of any MMO I’ve ever played is because Arenanet has made pretty bold claims, promises, and then claimed that we mis-understood what they meant to say. I’ve played many MMOs and while each commmunity is different and each community is pretty demanding, GW2 community is by far the worst in this regard.

You never played EQ a year or two in, or WoW in the TBC era, did you? Or sure as heck don’t remember the forums from back then if you did! With EQ, players got so demanding that they staged sit-ins which crashed servers, in order to attempt to force developers to nerf certain classes (not for PvP, even, purely for PvE!). The players were successful (the leader of these sit-ins went on to be WoW’s lead dev for a while before being sidelined into developing Titan).

With WoW, the amount of screaming and shrieking, particularly from self-declared “raiders” in the TBC era was far, far louder, more irrational, and more shrill than even the worst stuff here. Screaming that they, as raiders, should never have to do anything but raid to access gear, that no-one who didn’t raid should ever have gear which was either aesthetically pleasing OR powerful, trying to force the developers to get rid of “welfare epics”. The level of entitlement was truly astonishing (there was no “opposition” either – no group of people demanding easy epics or the like, just “raiders” (and I was an actual raider at the time and thought these guys were complete idiots) shrieking endlessly at the devs and threatening to quit and to go to [insert FotM game which turned out to be terrible here] and so on. WotLK forced them to accept that none of that was going to happen so they kind of calmed down a bit then.

I heard that FFXI fans were even more demanding and loud, too, but I don’t know, I never played that.

You are right that a lot of the issues stem from the boldness of developer comments followed by the near-complete lack of communication of changes of direction, though. In general I think we could do with more frequent updates on the direction of the game, and particularly some discussion from the devs of their goals with certain mechanics and ideas – not the living story stuff, which they are always happy to talk about, but Ascended weapons and the karma nerf and so on, which they avoid discussing much.

Eurhetemec.9052:

cesmode.4257:

I’ve said this before in other threads…
I think that the reason why this community has become the most demanding and nit-picking community out of any MMO I’ve ever played is because Arenanet has made pretty bold claims, promises, and then claimed that we mis-understood what they meant to say. I’ve played many MMOs and while each commmunity is different and each community is pretty demanding, GW2 community is by far the worst in this regard.

You never played EQ a year or two in, or WoW in the TBC era, did you?

I actually did play WoW in the TBC era(did not play EQ). I was on the forums frequently. I remember people saying content was too difficult(alar was the stopping point for many guilds). I don’t remember people whining about raiding the way you claim, but I guess I could have glazed over those threads because I was having too much fun in a game that was innately difficult(with raiding) and the content was meaningful instead of fluffy mini games, themed updates, and zerg fests.

Wildstar is getting back to the root of this. While I believe that my hardcore days are behind me, many will argue that the Vanilla and TBC days of WoW were its best years because the content was difficult but it was meaningful. It was a gear grind, but you have to be able to complete content to get that gear, not just have insane amounts of wealth and time. The content was also meaningful…there was a true threat to the world. In GW2, we have..scarlet and invasions where mobs stand there picking their noses, not attacking any cities or towns. Thats a truely living world right there.

Gibson.4036:

Not to speak for the poster you’re responding to, but I think a lot of people would be happier. We have arguments among the player base about statements that ArenaNet Made that go something like:

Player1: “ANet said X and gave us Y and I’m Mad”
Player2: "Games evolve, you can’t hold them to everything they said three years ago.
Player1: “But X was a core part of the vision for the game!”
Player2: “But they learned most people wanted Y, and so they gave it to them!”
Arenanet: (if there is a red post in the discussion at all) “We didn’t really implement Y. We’re looking into things. Improvements are coming.”

It would be so much better for everyone if they could just take a hard line and say, “Sorry, Player2 is right, we’ve changed our mind based on this and that and Y is our new direction for the game and we’ll be sticking to it.”

Yes, player1 will probably complain, but then they can decide whether they can live with Y or not, and either shut up and play the game or decide to move on.

That would make sense if they went all out Y but they generally dont in order not to exclude player 1 completely.

If I am a transport company and I come out and say all transport will happen via Trucks, some people like that cause I dont know they feel trucks are safer then planes. However other people hate that cause transport via trucks take too long. So I compromise and choose to transport stuff via trains. I didnt choose trains because I no longer care about my customers who deem planes to be unsafe, I chose trains specifically because I still care about them but at the same time the customers who want speed cannot be ignored either. As such would it make sense to tell those customers who prefer safety over speed, sorry we decided to go with speed now?

Discliamer, not implying trucks or trains are safer then planes just using them as an example. In my ficticious world trucks are safest but slowest, trains are medium safe and medium fast, planes are unsafest and fastest.

Gibson.4036:

That’s just the problem, we can’t be sure. So we’re going through endless cycles of trying to convince each other that the core base does or does not like VP, when we should probably move on (since it seems to be here to stay) and try to find ways to make it lekittenous to those who didn’t want it in the first place. This is where clearer communication from ANet would help take the discussion forward into a more meaningful place.

I bet not even Anet know cause its something thats impossible to tell, however does it really make a difference? my argument is not ascended gear should go on because people who want vp are larger just that both vp fans and hp fans are part of the game and any design decision should cater as much as possible to both!

Gibson.4036:

..snip
Sure, there may be people who will continue to throw tantrums if they don’t get their way. The ill-will on the forums (and in-game, lets no pretend everyone in-game is happy because they don’t post on the forums) has a lot to do with a lack of clarity in communication, not just dissatisfaction with design choices.

I am not sure that will make much of a difference to be honest. In many cases the reason is obvious you dont have to be told really. We can easily say why they added Ascended gear yet those who are unhappy with will not stop being so just cause they know the reason behind it.

All I’ve got to say is:
Stop violating the manifesto. Please.
That’s all.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I agree, please do understand though that part of the problem really has been a lack of time. We work at a break neck pace and as i have said we need to carve out more time to do that. So the speed at which i am posting now is extremely difficult for most and will be difficult for me to but what i am hoping is we can work to build a communication process that is great for all involved.

There have been many many times i have wanted to post and i would imagine this is the case for the devs to but finding the time to give it the attention it deserves and also getting the courage to do so has been difficult.

This is something i want us to get back to and in answer to the question of why did the communication cadence lower in the first place, it is simply down to how busy everyone has been. You can take it or leave it in terms of believing this but i am telling you it is the truth (-:

I am really excited about rebuilding the communications bridge and this conversation in general.

Chris

Far too many posts for me to tell if this has already been said but I think this is an important message to get across.

People get frustrated when they feel no-one’s listening to them and when devs don’t respond to threads this is how they feel. However perhaps we have unrealistic expectations of how much time devs have during the working day to devote to things like this.

It’s apparent that the only reason you’ve been able to respond as you have been is that you’ve found some free time to do so and I recall Josh talking about working 16 hour days on SAB (I’m sure because he wanted to do it not because you were there cracking the whip ).

I’ve also never considered that it might be a daunting experience posting a reply on the forums but thinking about it I can see how this would be the case.

I think it’s good that you’re looking into building more time into people’s days for them to respond on the forums and hopefully the community will be supportive thus making it a less scary experience.

Similarly we probably have unrealistic expectations of how long something takes to be changed.

For example take something like not being able to change the leader of a dungeon. To me this seems a simple task which just needs the leader to right click the name of who they want to change it to and select ‘make party leader’ from the drop down list. To my inexperienced mind this should take someone a few days to program? In reality I suspect that implementing this would actually be much more involved and take much longer.

Perhaps if people’s expectations were a little more realistic they wouldn’t get quite so frustrated. Would there be any value in having a blog/news post detailing the day in a life of a developer or a look at how a feature which has been introduced went from idea to implementation and how long this took?

I’m not suggesting it’s done as a this is why we can’t respond to you, or look at how long it takes us to do this, type post. More of an informative post of what goes on behind the scenes at ArenaNet – I’m sure people would be interested in this and perhaps it’ll have a secondary effect of changing some of our expectations.

Anyway keep up the good work and remember that when people get upset with you guys it’s usually because they’re passionate about the game.

Srly, we can say what’s wrong with the game without being banned this time? OMG then here I go:
First of all, thank you Chris for your post, this actually give me hope concerning Anet attention to the community thoughts on GW2 so here I go:
Concerning the PVE:
-It’s good to have a living story going on, but why creating scarlett, or all the foes so far. Don’t we have at least 4-5 dragons to defeat? So why don’t they have a more important role on the actual living sotry? How come we don’t hear anything about them? Aren’t they the biggest threat of Tyria??? I bought GW2 because I was a GW1 player that loved the GW1 story, and was hoping to get something at least as good as GW1 and the beyond Kryta and Cantha? I was wrong, GW2 story is pretty good until you defeat Zaithan, in the last cinematic, you are told that the other dragons still need to be defeated, so how come nothing happened concerning the dragons? Also, how come some things unexplained in GW1 are totally left apart in GW2? Is it because it’s a different game or because the story team completly changed? Right now, the living story is boring but that’s only my opinion anyway…
-next concerning HL content, the lat dongeon created with Scarlett was (except the lore that was completely useless) really a great one? I know Anet said that they would rework the dongeons once, but when? And how can you explain that all the scenario mode are harder than the exploration mode??? Why are the scenarios more interesting (better boss mecanics for example)? It should be the contrary don’t you agree? Also when do you plan on putting a DOA/FOW/UW like area?
-I way told that a way to get precurssors through a quest was ongoing so when and how?
-Finally, how has GW2 become so grindy?

Now concerning the sPvP:
-Does the PvP team plan on doing something for the abuses on the skyhammer map?
-When do we get real class balance???
-when do we get other playing options? You want to be stuck to this E-sport thing…But look at LOL for example: It’s an E-sport game and they have more than one playing mode. Also at this time, GW1 had released faction with AVA, JQ and FA, which were one of the greatest PVP modes ever. In the end GW1 had HoH, GvG, AVA, JQ, FA and another one I don’t remember the name…I know GW2 is still a young game but come on, It has 1 year already and nothing is done to either improve PVP experience, or PVP play modes! On top of that why not doing like in GW1 where you had some skills leveling according to your Lux or Kurz rank, so that even PVE players would find a reason to go on PVP. “Because PVP is for PVPers only” Is that so? Then are you telling me that reaching level 40-50 by farming skyhammer is skill and elitist???
-Finally the actual mode is a mode where you have to capture points and defend them. So how come do gain almost nothing when a cap and keep a point whith a gard for example, and get 300 min glory when switching with a thief to kill everyone. This is insane and totally contradictive! Srly you are not rewared when you accomplish the objectif, but get rewarded as soon as you don’t? Then why don’t you do deathmatches? Because any logical thing would be, for the actual PVP, to give a lots of point to people capping points and above all, defending them, like in Dominion.

I still have a tons of things to say, but I’m going to stop here.

Since I know my post will be deleted because I critizised the game, I will say this: I really loved GW1, I loved GW2 but I don’t like the fact that Anet doesn’t keep the promises they gave to GW1 players, and the direction GW2 is actually taking, which is nowhere… So I hope, before being deleted, my post will be read. You can only advance when you look at the community feeback, not by being deaf and blind to critics.

Sincerly, a GW fan

ColinJohanson.2394:

(…)
I’ll try doing the once every 6 month Gw2 status updates every 3 months starting in 2014 (the next one will be in January) and see how that works going forward. If every 3 months is still not frequent enough we can all discuss that as a community at that time, though I’m not sure a big blog post saying we’re still working on the same stuff each month would be very useful or well received

Sorry if this important question has been asked before: Cantha?

(loved the interview just for that )

I am not sure about an in-game survey, but I’m willing to try and if it improves the game, even better.

Another “idea”, not sure if it has been brought up already, make all those streaming videos you guys do more visible.

Thanks for the conversation.

When anet stated during Eurogamer there wouldn’t be anymore zones, a part of me died.

On polls:

Sorry if someone said this already (it’s a long thread). But what if the polls were available at the login screen where you select your character. You aren’t really immersed in the world at that point.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

When anet stated during Eurogamer there wouldn’t be anymore zones, a part of me died.

you mean no new zones this year right?

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

When anet stated during Eurogamer there wouldn’t be anymore zones, a part of me died.

Any more zones full stop, or any more zones this year?

TheDaiBish.9735:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

When anet stated during Eurogamer there wouldn’t be anymore zones, a part of me died.

Any more zones full stop, or any more zones this year?

Indeed, I couldn’t find where it was said during Eurogamer categorically no zones ever. Can you provide a link?

Chris
I’d like to ask a few questions regarding dungeons and make some suggestions.

1- Is spot selling allowed? You said in twitter it’s not but in the forum a moderator said it is.

2- Can you make it so that you can downvote a kick, and the instance owner should have a special icon in the portrait in the party so people don’t kick him.

3- We never see any changes to dungeons (bug fixes) unless it’s with the LS, and we never get a reply from a dungeon developer, last one was 6 months ago and the daily gold from dungeons is seriously messed up to the point I doubt anet even played the dungeons when they assigned it, do you see where I’m going or do I need to connect the dots?
If they do however exist, can you tell them to post in the dungeon forum….

4- Will there ever be a sure way to get the desired fractal weapon?

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

When anet stated during Eurogamer there wouldn’t be anymore zones, a part of me died.

Relax Windu, because if it was stated on Eurogamer you can bet it’s not true.

For example, once upon a time: Colin Johanson to Eurogamer, "Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.”

So as you can see, there’s no need to put any stock in something said to Eurogamer.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

I don’t care about immersion(uh … how did this GIANT shield fit inside that deer?!) but I think polls are a terrible idea. Mainly because many polls do not seem to be well done(pretty sure there was one like this from ANet from the beta), the questions are sometimes asked in a way to skewed the result a certain way or the possible choices do not cover all the possibilities the question is asking. Incorrect information due to skewed questions seems worse than uncertainty.

effybuttonmoon.4607:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Uh I have a topic for you as well. It is called RNG

I don’t mind some sort of RNG element in a game. It makes you open chests etc. with some amount of anticipation.
However: ……..
I feel I lack something outside the RNG. I am not a lucky person. I do however play with someone that seems to be blessed by the RNG gods. Or in his words: “I have silly RNG luck, I have always had silly RNG luck in games”.
We do the same events, the same dungeons etc. I have more magic find than he does, I even play more hours a day than he does, but since the greatest rewards come from RNG…. Well, it doesn’t really matter how much I play or don’t play. It is not that I am jealous of him in that regard, we have played together for more that 5 years and we share a bank, materials, recipes etc. anyway, but I do think it shows the flaws in the RNG system.

I have played this game since February and yesterday I got my 6th exotic drop ever (which sells for the impressive amount of 1.20g) In the meantime, he got 20+. One, which sold for nearly 200g.

I think it adds to the problem that we now have ascended items. Those are not just cosmetic enhancements, those are actually +stats enhancements. Whether you gain those weapons through drops or through earning gold and buying the materials of the TP, it would help if your income to a higher extend was based on your effort. Outside chopping wood and mining materials, it is all about RNG. I would love to discuss how to possibly change that.

RNG would be a great topic to discuss!

Chris

This post genuinly made me sad. Well done Reesha, you wrote that really well explaining one of the biggest disheartening things in this game. The huge RNG aspect of this game so far, continues to make so many people just feel terrible.

My biggest one has to be when i opened (and mostly paid for) thousands upon thousands of coffers to get a ticket for a jade skin. My friends got so concerned by how much i spent on them, that towards the end of the chance for getting them they started sending me all theirs. On the last batch of a couple hundred my friend had, he sent me them wishing me all the luck…and on the very last 2-4…i got one!

Great that on my last opportunity that i got one, but it just felt wrong spending so much. When my friends had a few drop for them and they hadnt opened a huge amount in comparison.

If there is gonna be RNG, the gap between needs to be alot milder. Or like you said, there needs to be less of it and/or other ways to aquire.

I too believe RNG needs to be addressed so that it functions in an equitable for all players. This includes all drops. I’ve not seen many exotics for lately (1 or 2 if I remeber right) but I read posts of people getting them continually and others 0. Threads I read seem to reflect that this is the way it works, and if you don’t get drops, that’s just the way it works and you are just having bad luck. Well,in my case, if it wasn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all.

Making in-game polls would definitely make me feel better as knowing that they would do things that majority of players wants them to do.
You could ask in polls something about the future of the game.?

How you would like the game to go on?
– Continue with living story.
– Polish the core game (PvE)
– Polish the core game (PvP/WvW)
– …

Anyway, definitely add in-game polls. (daily/weekly/monthly polls)

I love the communication that is going on in this thread, it gives me hope for the future of the game.

However the is one MAJOR issue that has thus far been completely ignored by the devs.

Condition damage in PvE: It is horribly broken and is a major game system. It really needs a complete overhaul, but seeing as that is unlikely, one of the MANY MANY suggestions on this forum would be helpful. But we have not heard a single peep or response to one of the biggest issues currently in the game in over 11 months. That to me is unacceptable.

Please help us, you are our only hope!

Timze.7980:

Making in-game polls would definitely make me feel better as knowing that they would do things that majority of players wants them to do.
You could ask in polls something about the future of the game:
How you would like the game to go on?
– Continue with living story.
– Polish the core game (PvE)
– Polish the core game (PvP/WvW)
– …

Anyway, definitely add in-game polls. (daily/weekly/monthly polls)

To define it into reachable goals and a less ambiguous answer (for example, there are many parts to PvE), devs from each game mode could take a look at what fixes / improvements could be made that would be relatively quick and simple to do, and include them as the poll options.

Ision.3207:

“Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. *We want everyone on an equal power base.”*

Oh really, guess that one went out the window then………………….

TheDaiBish.9735:

Timze.7980:

Making in-game polls would definitely make me feel better as knowing that they would do things that majority of players wants them to do.
You could ask in polls something about the future of the game:
How you would like the game to go on?
– Continue with living story.
– Polish the core game (PvE)
– Polish the core game (PvP/WvW)
– …

Anyway, definitely add in-game polls. (daily/weekly/monthly polls)

To define it into reachable goals and a less ambiguous answer (for example, there are many parts to PvE), devs from each game mode could take a look at what fixes / improvements could be made that would be relatively quick and simple to do, and include them as the poll options.

That was just a raw example.
Of course they should make better polls but I just want them to add that option. I just can’t make myself heard at the current way by using forums. I don’t feel like they watch these enought still when they say they keep eye on these…

Chris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

2996kittenris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

But what constitutes as “Immersion”?

…you guys had said you didn’t want to do things like fight with town clothes because it “broke immersion”, but, like…can we say that the LFG tool breaks immersion? Not too sure we can if you were keen to add it

Good point. So for me immersion breaking would be a pop up appearing after an event completes or following beating a dungeon. But you raise an interesting point with LFG. Perhaps (and i am just brainstorming here) it could be a tab that you can open up to give feedback.

I will think about it some more. Keep the ideas coming.

Chris

Pssst!!! You might want to tell some of the devs to stop breaking immersion. Every time we get a daily chest, kill a dragon/major boss once a day, finish a dungeon….

Also! before i forget. Thanks…for just being here…now…doing this. Really. It helps a ton.

No worries thanks for being so collaborative with the discussion.By the way i have to disagree though. I personally feel that a poll is less immersive then the bouncy chest. Mainly because the chest is still in the theme of the game world and more connected to the gamestate. Where as the Poll is more abstract in terms of goal and gamestate.

This said we are having a discussion and i am just giving my opinion.

Chris

Why not only have the poll show up at the start of the next patch (LS ones), with the possibility to skip/abstain or postpone till next login (like what one of the other people brought up)? That way you ask for feedback on the previous Living Story stuff, and possibly the features the last patch added.

If we are talking about what needs to go in the Poll ..

I think it needs to be fairly high level and not too much detail but rather covering a broad spectrum-making players choose either/or for things also seems like a bad idea especially if those things are really needed in the game like QOL stuff

I was thinking more along the lines of:
“how do you experience this content?” fun, repetitive, novel, difficult etc.
just to get a basic idea how people are experiencing the stuff in game.
or even something as bizarre as “your nr 1 most pressing concern”
in 5 sentences- go

Then have an in depth discussion about this on the forum that goes into particulars- with a link to the discussion either on the loading screen like the updates are now or on the Poll tab in the UI ( if you end up using something like that)

I ask two simple things:
Kick people in the party who are in www ofline or out of the www
The commander only visible to guild members

A lot of my suggestions have made their way into this game, but that hasn’t managed to keep me playing.

It feels a bit silly to say it now, but I think ArenaNet have spent too much time taking community ideas on board, so much so that the game has lost focus and is becoming more the product of the community than of the ArenaNet team.
It’s now all about “rewards”, achievements and repeating content over and over again.

I think the most poisonous concept of those is that of rewards.
Great, innovative gameplay has been sidelined in favour of releasing quick, slap-dash content with a shiny reward at the end.
The game itself should be the reward, not some vacuous, virtual bauble.
But withdrawing “rewards” from the game now is impossible, as people are addicted to the steady drip-feed of shinies.

Just take a look around the forums and you’ll see that the player-base obsess on the in-game economy and availability of prestige items in the game instead of the gameplay itself.
And ArenaNet has organically grown to accommodate this obsession; after all, when it comes to developing with the idea of making money (or evolution in general), the path of least resistance is the easiest to follow. If you can keep the attach rate “high” by releasing regular low quality content, you will. It’s easier and less dangerous, as it appeals to a broader user base. And let’s face it, when you have a couple million customers, you’re no longer interested in appealing to a niche demographic that appreciates slower, quality content over more regular, shallow, snack-sized content.

And I must admit, I’m not innocent here; a lot of my suggestions were made innocently thinking that it would improve quality, when in reality they’ve ended up turning this game into a chore. And it’s impossible to see that without a few months of testing prior to releasing it.

For example, one of my suggestions was that of allowing players to pick 5 dailies from a list.
What I should have been petitioning for was the complete removal of daily check-lists, as now the whole game is circling the plughole of time-gated content.
But instead, my initial suggestion helped lay the foundation for acceptance of time-gated content by making it more palatable.
Months after ArenaNet implemented this idea, it’s one of the primary things that has driven me away from the game.

Hoisted by my own petard.

So in closing ArenaNet, I’ll make one more suggestion.
Stop listening to the community.
You guys have got degrees in game design.
We haven’t.

I only hope this communication-bridge will be done not only for content such as skill balances, weapon/armor improvments, but also for the Story part of Guild Wars 2. I remember the times when Guild Wars 1 had the greatest and biggest story out of all mmos (hmm maybe WoW was somehow more interesting), and what we are seeing in the GW2 rigth now is just something poorly written. Like an author of all of this had created it during his lunch break. We need some more possibilities to contact with devs on the topic of where the Story of Guild Wars 2 goes.

I can’t help but wonder if this is the calm before the storm .

As an example, I’m excited to see the staff elementalist get good boosts to support. What concerns me is what “isn’t” said. “…and part of that is to reduce how effective the existing staff attunements are for damage. If you want damage, you ‘must’ use daggers or something else”. Guess we’ll see next week.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

1: Polls: Every seems to like them but where do they go?

everywhere, both ingame and through mail. Gather data and then refine (prompt reaction may give a different feedback than the delayed one)

2: Game Feedback Collaboration: How do we want to do this?

from multiple sources, gather and refine data. First and foremost it’s really really urgent to gather feedback from each class forum, to verify how each class react to certain content, then gather data from each macro-area (WvWvW, sPvP, PvE) and have it crossed to understand how each point of view impact on the entire world of Tyria.

I like this bridge, keep it going and spread this habit everywhere in the board /thumbsup