Guild Wars 2

Nova Stiker.8396:

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The biggest problem, ArenaNet does not feel human.

It was pointed out by an earlier poster that the feedback in this thread has been overwhelmingly helpful, since a dev started it by reaching out. I think it ties into your point. I understand that the attitudes in these forums are sometimes such that no individual would willingly dignify the flaming by noticing it, but… if one is angry enough to kick something, and it appears that all there is to kick is a deaf wooden post … the post is going to take quite a kicking. When the post becomes a person, civility reasserts itself.

This could be a really exciting experiment, guys. In ten years, we might be saying; ‘Yeah, well remember when Arenanet decided to throw corporate stonewalling to the wind and let us help make our own game?’ It could turn out really well.

Wauw… it must have been since… since… since SOE DEVs posting in SWG forums that I have seen such a post from a DEV.

This statement is particular disturbing:

I guarantee you, anything that the vast majority of the players want, we (as players of our own game) also want

This statement seem to say ‘if the majority of the players want it, DEVs want it too, so why even bother asking the players,, we know what they want anyway’. Or in other words: ‘if the DEVs don’t want it, the players don’t want it’.

That is really wrong. DEVs are usually a) hard-core players and b) people that know the ins and outs of the game. That is NOT representative AT ALL of your player base. In fact, it’s REALLY REALLY REALLY a minority of your paying customers that are like DEVs.

One might argue that this is the mindset that kills most games: DEVs know it all.

Let’s hope your view on this issue is not representative for all DEVs.

I don’t post much, but I read a LOT. One thing that I really wish Dev’s would always keep in mind with ANY new content is the one thing that makes this game different from every other MMO I have played: Scalable content.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep in mind with whatever you come out with that not every server is one of the higher population servers. Tequatl is only the most recent example…

The one thing I fear with this new ‘collaboration’ is that once again, the servers with the most people will get great content, while those of us on low population servers will just have one more area that we cannot go to anymore (lost shores made it so we cannot go to southsun anymore since all the areas are over-run with Karka’s and we never have enough people in the area to clear them.)

Here is just some examples from the last week on a low-pop server: I was part of a Shatterer fight that failed, we ran out of time. Tequatl has never been defeated on my server….I have literally tried popping into every single map on the server shouting for people to come to tequatl to try a major attempt at it…only to still not have a full 150 people for the event. Southsun is a ghost land (too many Karka for small groups to even attempt). I don’t think we have taken the temple of Balthazar since the changes to that…I have done numerous Scarlet events lately where we don’t even get past the first stage because we dont have enough people. I couldn’t find enough people in Orr last night to do temple clearing….and that was during prime time….We took Lyssa, Melandru, and Dwayna with only about 8 people, but we had no hope at Grenth, or Balthazar, or any of the others. The biggest guilds (that haven’t already transferred servers) cant seem to get more than 30-40 people on at a single point in time…for even guild events…I could go on.

Lately, this has become the trend, make content that requires hundreds of people to complete…or change existing content making it “harder” by making it require more people.

If there is one thing that made this game the most enjoyable game I have ever played, it was the scalable events…and if there is one thing that has made this the most frustrating game lately, it has been the recent tendency to NOT use that scaling. The latest Tequatl event actually caused a ton of people I know to switch to higher population servers…(which only made my server even LESS populated) and they are loving being on the high population servers…I have guested with them…and was amazed that we can actually fight the Karka Queen, or clear temples, or actually WIN a scarlet invasion.

If your goal is to get the low population servers low enough where you can simply merge them…then okay…merge us and help us out already. If your goal is to make content that is enjoyable to everyone…then PLEASE start using the scaling you already have built into the game and not start the bar so high that low pop servers have no chance at completing this content. Everything else can be dealt with but we cannot conjure people out of thin air (unless you bring back GW1 heroes)….Please, start using your scaling algorithms more when doing EVERYTHING.

We low-pop servers also want challenging content….I am sick of guesting to high-pop servers to do content that was released for all of us…and from what I have read on the forums, they are sick of me coming to their servers as well…but the recent releases have left us absolutely no choice.

A good thing to have happen, might be for the ANET folks to start spending some time playing on the low-pop servers so they can see our challenges. While guesting on the high population servers I saw an ANET person doing each of the events with us! I had never seen anyone with that tag before above their head on my home server. I know it is more fun for them to play on the high-pop servers because there are more people…but then they are not seeing what the low-pop servers are dealing with…and this might be the cause of the lack of scaling in events. Spend some time with us low pop folks and then come up with challenging content that works for us as well.

Mif.3471:

Angry complainers mean the game is healthy. It shows people care about the game.

When they stop complaining, that’s when a game is in trouble, because it means they’ve stopped caring.

for Josh Foreman & Chris Whiteside & rest
+1 for the posts, i am happy now that you guys actually read/discuss what the community has to say (ex. the condition problem and other stuff)
it was a nice way to put the fire out, at least for me
just a few post were enough to make me happy again, at least it’s not the feeling of a brick wall now

l.e. lets say 100 people are at tequatl, and 50 are condition specs
how those 50 ppl can do their damage if just 5 are enough, the rest of conditions are “lost” ? And because of player number scaling, the monster is killed 30-40% slower than with all 100 guys pure damage builds
in non-time limit cases, this is not so much of a problem
lets say that the 100 zerker guys kill tequatl in 8 minutes, from 10 the limit
so if it’s 50 zerk 50 condition, they lost the boss already
and you still didn’t fix this since beta, how should i NOT be angry in this case…

also did you account for events on low population worlds, them becoming “impossible” with low player numbers?

Josh Foreman.8250:

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4. Please stop calling us liars when we fail to implement something we intended to months ago, but for some technical, balance, or other reason found it to be untenable. We can’t be very open about our plans if every word we say is taken as a contractual obligation. Imagine if every word you said to your friends were recorded and played back at the most inopportune time in order to make you look like a fool. You’d probably clam up pretty quickly. Making an MMO, especially one as experimental as GW2 requires… experimenting. Requires making plans, following through, finding dead ends, back-tracking and trying something else. Sometimes that means that we will state a clear goal, test it internally and find out it just won’t work. The idea that this means we don’t have a clear vision is wrong. There is a difference between a core vision for our design principles, and the implementation of specific systems. We are very clear about the mountain we want to scale, but whether we do it in 4×4, on foot, with a grappling hook, or a hot air balloon are all contingent on the terrain we discover as we progress.
…

maybe then u should start to tell the players why u X and not Y.. atm your company dont say anything except “is on the table”, “soon” and other stuff. we arent dump, we can follow argumentation. but your company treats us like kids with no brain.

Hi Chris and Josh,

It feels odd seeing my name appear in the dev tracker so much. Glad to be able to help out, if only a little. A couple of suggestions on things you asked feedback on:

1) Creating a thread every two days may be too quick – you could burn out and have people loose interest if it’s so fast. Changing it to three days – effectively twice a week, may be a little easier to gather feedback.

2) Asking people to ‘submit one idea they want to see discussed’ is a little tedious. Do I post about ascended gear? Condi cap? Content variety? Living world? It may be easier to ask people for a list of points and just store that as a reference point, as it is difficult to decide on just one thing to bring up. I know the process can easily be repeated but this may save time and confusion.

3) Moderators – let’s be honest, some of the moderators on this forum are extremely trigger happy. Moving forward, this really needs to be toned down. I had a thread deleted and was infracted recently for reporting gold sellers in my servers LA – after they were reported countless times they were still there after a few hours. This sort of thing is demoralizing and makes it feel like the community mods are out to get anyone who disagrees with their agenda.

Sure, this is a game forum and there will be a lot of disrespectful and not-so-mature posting, but the amount of times the mods jump on something, simply because they can, needs to be reconsidered if you guys want to build a better relationship with the community.

Have a great weekend guys!

Just wanted to add one more thing to this long thread….I was trying to find a POST by Devs or Anet on the end goals of GW2….

DO you guys want 3 million players playing the game at one time?
Do you guys want a high retention rate among current players?
DO you guys want GW2 to last as long as GW1?

I mean if you guys are going to ask us for some constructive collaboration and then release goals like this one …from the first post to this thread………

“Our goal with Guild Wars 2 is to drive the creation of online worlds forward, thereby creating original, ‘stand-out’ content that pushes the boundaries of what it means to journey through a Living World. "

And then just release piece meal content your not really trying to achieve that

“Journey through a living world” statement……How by having us chase content that ends after a week? Really….I mean GW1 was groundbreaking with huge content updates that took months to complete…everytime you guys had an expansion pack it opened up a whole new WORLD pretty much…..you guys contradict yourselves.

What about goals for class’? Why after a year are some class still OP and some just broken beyond recognition? What’s it gonna take another year? I mean the roadmap for Class’ like the ranger must look like a college concept map with bubbles everywhere going in circles because the Ranger no matter what you guys do is always and will be BROKEN until you guys fix it. I have also heard some of you guys say on this thread…

“hey if you dont want to play the game anymore then that’s fine” Really? that’s the attitude you guys have on here? as DEVS? I mean we are your meal ticket…my 30 bucks in gems ends up in your guys pockets and the best you can say is " good luck" glad you tried the game out.

Well then I’ll just go play FFXIV ARR and get ready for Elder Scrolls Online and forget all about GW2 I mean you guys dont need my money huh…

That’s not really a good attitude to have on players leaving Devs its even worse when other people read that it sends a negative vibe to us……

You guys wanna bring back some of us players who have been gone for more than 6 months you guys need to listen to the community a lot more….

Fix endgame
Fix broken Class’
Fix disconnects
Fix Fates
Fix Botting
Fix “enter anything here”
Fix “enter anything here”

I mean it’s a year guys…we are still breaking class’ a year in are we serious here?

Games boring DEVS

GW2 is a great concept it just has not been implemented well….you guys might of sold
3 million copies but it’s not really worth spending any money on it other than the box.

Just the box it’s just another game

I’m not being disrespectful or anything I’m just disappointed in ANET. Before the game
came out I tried to get my friends onboard and did now they are done with the game just like me. That feeling of arriving in old ascalon back in 2005 and shooting a bow, running chests in Cantha, going through FOW, that stuff is what made Guild Wars an amazing experience….this, this isn’t Guild Wars it’s a 59.99 box game that is all.

Chris’s question was asked on reddit, which lets us more clearly see what the majority of the players want. As expected, “Guild Management Features” received the most upvotes.

Can we PLEASE for the love of all that is holy get an official response about guild features?

My request:
Less living story and slower cadence. Roll this into less achievement gathering and more substantiated content. More lore, more threat to the world and less carnival-like patches.

That is my request. However, since it is not in line with the company’s direction I doubt my post here will receive any attention.

Drok Kindleshot.1496:

“hey if you dont want to play the game anymore then that’s fine” Really? that’s the attitude you guys have on here? as DEVS? I mean we are your meal ticket…my 30 bucks in gems ends up in your guys pockets and the best you can say is " good luck" glad you tried the game out.

Well then I’ll just go play FFXIV ARR and get ready for Elder Scrolls Online and forget all about GW2 I mean you guys dont need my money huh…

That’s not really a good attitude to have on players leaving Devs its even worse when other people read that it sends a negative vibe to us……

When I read this in Chis’s post, I felt the same way. “If you’re not on board with the place we are taking this game, then maybe this isnt the game for you”. I was kind of taken back by that. Like the money I spent on the game was not appreciated. Or like the future dollars I could spend on the game aren’t appreciated or valued.

I know you cannot make a game that pleases everyone. But time and time again, people come to forums to post that this game has done a 180 on them. From what they perceived pre-launch and in beta, to what is now. The game is very different. Many many people feel this way. And your attitude is “well, this isn’t the game for you”?

I guess not. I haven’t played in well over a month and I honestly cannot see myself doing so in the near future unless drastic change development direction(i.e. shifting from living story and toward more traditional content updates).

Josh Foreman.8250:

There is no MAKE IT WORK button that we refuse to push out of spite. Even if that were the case, it just doesn’t make sense to insult the party you are requesting something from. In what part of the real world does that ever work? No one wants to ‘slap you in the face’ or make the game less fun.

Suggested proposal: Build a “Make it work button.”

I have one high-level concern that I find to be the root of nearly all my troubles with the game:

Encounter Scaling to Players Present

There are far, far too many dynamic events in this game that are impossible for a small number of players and trivial for a zerg.

At one end of the spectrum the entire concept of the [Group] tag in front of some encounters needs to be ditched. You aren’t building any more immersive of a world by having Champions squatting 24/7 on half the skill point challenges of Malchor’s Leap – all you are doing is frustrating players who didn’t happen to play that content during the massive first rush a year ago now. Likewise Tequatl and to a lesser degree the clockwork invasion is an exercise in EXCLUDING your players from content. The is simply no reason to spend resource on purely “large guild-only” content when a better system of scaling would make those a location worth visiting for most or all of your PvE players solo, small group, and guild-warriors alike.

At the other end you have things like the Shadow Behemoth and the Shatterer, both of which are awesome visual displays made out of wet cardboard. You literally cannot lose to SB because its attacks are virtually non-existent. And no, adding an ABSOLUTELY FIXED AND UNVARYING timer so that its a DPS race for the people that showed up is not a real fail-condition. These events need to gain not just stronger numbers (more HP, harder hitting attacks) they need to actually gain mechanics as the number of player’s present increases. and under it all you need a table that makes those adjustments ranging from <5 players present all the way up to zone population cap, checking the number of folks around at every possible phase change.

And at the tail end of this the loot needs to reflect the encounter (and challenge) that was presented, not just a flat table for 10 people or for 75. It can be something as simple as “beat the simplified 10 person Tequatl, get a 1% shot at the big shiney. Beat the full 70-man experience, get a 7% shot at the shiney.” Make every attempt appealing and attractive instead of 2 minutes into it knowing you’re wasting your time for even bothering to have zoned in.

I’m also in the camp that believe tings like fixed party size need to die in a fire at the bottom of a well. Resources like building a dungeon map should be leveraged to provide an entertaining experience if I’m on alone, happen to find a friend on, or have my full crew. Encounters in places like dungeons should, IMO be built to scale for 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 players depending on who’s present. Should running CoE alone net rewards as greats as running it with 5? No, but it shouldn’t be outright impossible to do so either…

There have been varied suggestions about how to poll and whether you should have polls or just forum discussion.

I think you should have both. As a few questions ingame in the poll to reach the maximum interested people and direct people to a thread at the forums if they want to give more input or explanation.

I think forum discussions as you have described implementing should occur also.

Aion every once in a while would give a trivial little gift with a poll. Not every poll but every once in a while. I think that is a good idea because it creates a pleasant experience with a poll appearing.

I liked the idea about having a role play/npc type way to answer polls. I’m not sure but what that might take more time and resources than you want but it would be cool if some polls were handled that way. They could be at an obvious place such as an entrance and be associated with the event. I like the suggestion about the skritt npc. I also liked the bar rpg suggestion. I also liked the “talk to the skritt npc” for the daily every once in a while.

Thanks for opening the dialog.