Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone, in this post, I would actually like to know what YOU all think about a certain topic. Namely to do with the patches that have come in during the last set of months.

Do you think that patches have been encouraging fun, intuitive, and engaging game-play, or do you feel that the patches have been destroying the fun by creating uninteresting mechanics, repetitive unintuitive game-play, balancing factors, and items? To help you think, here is a list of some things that have come with patches throughout Guild Wars 2’s lifetime.

• Nerfs/Buffs
• DR
• Fractals
• Ascended Gear
• The Lost Shores
• Mad King’s Day
• Wintersday
• New balancing factors relating to farming, items drops, etc.
• New balancing towards dungeons
• New gem store items
• Bug fixes
• New sPvP maps
• New WvWvW mechanics
• Banning bots
• Updates to how you play the game, dailies monthlies etc.

I think it’s been really fun! They just keep building on a solid foundation, I’m delighted and constantly surprised with where they are taking the game.

<——happy gamer

Uhm….after the Feb ones? No…mostly because the game doesnt work at all.

latest changes r just killing the fun. i never enjoyed big events since they have always been overcrowded…. these events got worst but u r forced to play them since their loot improved that much. how can these events be fun? its a joke… its nothing else than flagging mobs…. but the main problem is, the gaming experience in these events is crap… there is nothing challenging…. your eyes and ears hurt…horrible performance. ridicolous….
i enjoyed faming orr… thats over… liked playing fractals and other dungeons for challenging stuff… for farming i just like to kill a few mobs… now orr farming is not worth doing it anymore and its exausting.
WP change made dungeons less fun since u have to care more about others in your grp. no problem with a good grp, but with newbies in your grp your fun is affected.
Spy kit change…. there r so many anoying parts in this game… spy kits made them acceptable…
the daily grind….
no viable rewards for running different dungeons….
since farming for your legendary is a big fun part for many…. these changes made it more difficult to find a enjoying way of farming….
cof path 1 gets more and more interessting. also farming chest with all your chars by guesting…..

I would like something new to do.
I was really excited for the guild missions, they seemed fun. Then they came out, and were out of the reach of my guild and many others. That is unless I keep doing the same things I have been for months.
Fun is dwindling in this game.

No, the patches are not creating fun. The unfun trend started on 11/15 and continues through 2/26. The changes to Orr to make it more “interesting” betray a misunderstanding of farming. I’m sure all those people “up for the challenge” who have “learned how to play” will disagree. Silliness. In any game in or near the genre you have farming. Income is both a ‘reward’ factor and a requirement to maintain and expand your characters. It’s not where you look for crushing challenge in a game. They added multiple champs and more vets to the premier farming location in the game. Does it add challenge? Yes. Does it drastically reduce income? Bigtime. A party member summed it up well on patch day with “they killed it”. More than anything it simply betrays a misunderstanding of the genre. The changes to Orr are just one that I’m pulling out to illustrate. I could also talk about the tuning of dungeons or DE’s as well.

The concept of ‘fun’ is significant and I’m glad you zero in on it OP. Patch contents to-date have removed fun consistently from the game. Hey, GW2 started out as one funnest games I have played so it could afford a little loss of fun. The tipping point for me was 2/26. I chose to stop playing the day after the patch.

Yes, the patches are creating fun. And I love loaded questions like the one in the OP. It’s clear the OP isn’t really asking a question that needs answering, so much as trying to express an opinion by asking the question.

I have a guild of 70 people, most of whom are having fun.

Wish you were here.

Well they certainly create alot of debate and forum activity…

I have been very, very impressed with how much free content has been added since release and very pleased with alot of it.

Halloweon, loved it 9.5/10

Lost Shores, good idea, badly implemented 4/10

Wintersday, enjoyed it alot 8/10

Living story Jan (+all the other bits like new dailys), I liked the patch, really love the laurels as a reward system 8/10

Living Story Feb (+other stuff), a very mixed bag, some really good stuff, better loot, bug fixes, improved the dailys, new map for PvP, a few WvW bits, some good profession adjustments but then they spoil it by creating a content wall, closed off content (you after join a big guild) with the guild missions, nerfs especially to stealth and turning AC dungeon from a pleasent, fun dungeon experience to don’t do AC anymore ever. 6/10

Edit…no idea why some of the stuff got underlined, probably another bug…lol

I know they killed my enjoyment with their nerf to the spy kits & power crystal, as someone who doesn’t enjoy forced group play, most of my enjoyment came from exploring the world and doing every random event I could find to see the different bundles and stock up on them.

Now, many of the bundles I do have are worthless and there’s no point in collecting more due to the fact that they’ll probably nerf them when they remember them.

Now since nothing interests me in-game anymore, I’ll complain about it on the forums in hopes that their awful update will be removed/changed, while I play Secret of Mana.

I am mostly happy with the patches. ANet has been really careful with buffs and nerfs, and seemed to have mostly hit what needed to be hit and buffed what needed to be buffed.

Yes, it has been a learning experience for them, and some blunders here and there are testament to that (cough…Kharka final event disaster, anyone?), but overall I think they are easily outdoing both quality and quantity of what other MMO companies deliver. Perhaps the (fantastic!) seasonal events actually did them a disservice in terms of recognition of that fact – for an obvious lot of effort went into Mad King/Wintersday, but of course that content is disabled for the time being, making the total amount of new content appear smaller than it really was.

Yes, I would have done a few things differently too, and made a few different decisions here and there. Particularly:

- While I don’t mind Ascended Gear per se (as long as they stick to their promise to make it available through all types of gameplay, including WvW!!!), adding a layer of hard/slow to obtain gear really made the game less alt-friendly. The rate at Laurels can be gained is strictly limited and for me (I am neither in a guild nor do high level fractals, more about that later), that means I had to decide for one and only one character to stick with and gear up, as for me there is no feasible way to get Ascended gear on more than one character in a finite time.
On a side note, I do also think that prices for infusions are waaay over the top and that’s coming from a person able to make a decent income in the game. For a game advertised as having little to no grind, that’s a lot of grind right there.

- As for the fractals, while I generally like the idea and enjoy playing them, adding platforming challenges to them really killed the fun for me. I suck at platforming, and the sheer thought of getting either the Uncategorized or Cliffside Fractal assigned to me and become a total burden to my team that way scares me so much that I am reluctant to play them at all, particularly considering that horrible knockback attack Harpies get at L10.

- A thing I had loved them to do but so far didn’t see was them adding new armour skins, as the one thing I am really unhappy with in GW2 is the near total lack of variety in gear design (almost all medium armour is some variation of (trench-)coat, almost all light armour is some variation of robe, and too many dungeon sets follow the “more spikes = cool” scheme, making them totally uninteresting for me to collect.

- About the balancing for dungeons I have mixed feelings. In the case of AC I am really convinced that they were trying to fix what wasn’t broken. Being the ‘entry-level’ dungeon, AC has no business being overly hard or even requiring all that much coordination (the latter is a general concern for me anyway, as coordination-tests are intrinsically PUG-unfriendly, and PUGs are the way I do this sort of content with), but that exactly seems to be the direction they want to head to for dungeons. Not sure I am overly happy with giving bosses more and more fuzzy mechanics people are expected to know how to beat even before they enter the dungeon for the first time. I know that some people love exactly that sort of thing, so feel free to disagree. It’s just my opinion.

farming easy facerollable events and boss should not be as rewarding as doing tougher, more challenging content.

there should still be reward for farming, but to make it
that much profitable is absurd.
and honestly, open world events are tag fest and really boring, but that my opinion.

i like some of the new content they did, but everytime they failed to nail something important. its very strange, and makes me go; O_o why ?!?

So far I have liked the changes. Guild Wars 2 feels a much more solid game now than at release.

Just don’t stop being creative (hint:GW2Back2CANTHA).

^

how can the game be easier?
the most rewarding content is facerolling world events….

cant be easier than is now…

Avatar.1923:

farming easy facerollable events and boss should not be as rewarding as doing tougher, more challenging content.

there should still be reward for farming, but to make it
that much profitable is absurd.
and honestly, open world events are tag fest and really boring, but that my opinion.

i like some of the new content they did, but everytime they failed to nail something important. its very strange, and makes me go; O_o why ?!?

chest events r faceroll since u only need to tag a few mobs to get a chest…. kill the first wave, go afk, wait till event is over, loot your chest……

and now chest events r op compared to everything else….

farming mobs is much harder since u have to flag every single mob…. but its also more fun for me. u cant see any mobs at big events. its not running smooth…. 200 ppl on 1 spot but u only see max 20…. its a joke…..

Jordy.1570:

Avatar.1923:

farming easy facerollable events and boss should not be as rewarding as doing tougher, more challenging content.

there should still be reward for farming, but to make it
that much profitable is absurd.
and honestly, open world events are tag fest and really boring, but that my opinion.

i like some of the new content they did, but everytime they failed to nail something important. its very strange, and makes me go; O_o why ?!?

chest events r faceroll since u only need to tag a few mobs to get a chest…. kill the first wave, go afk, wait till event is over, loot your chest……

and now chest events r op compared to everything else….

farming mobs is much harder since u have to flag every single mob…. but its also more fun for me. u cant see any mobs at big events. its not running smooth…. 200 ppl on 1 spot but u only see max 20…. its a joke…..

lol and you think the chest rewards are gonna stay like that permanently…

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Rising Dusk.2408:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Just wanted you guys to know that these are also available as guild mission rewards as well. You can get them as random rewards from completing missions or from the commendation vendor.

That’s good news. Although it really makes me wonder how you guys came up with this price as a valid equivalent to a guild mission. I seriously doubt you expect 6 guild missions to be as difficult as acquiring 40 laurels and 50 ecto.

It’s partially related to the time it takes. Personal rewards for guild missions can only be claimed once per week per mission category. Therefore if your guild only has guild bounties unlocked, it will take you 6 weeks to claim one of these accessories from the commendation vendor (assuming you don’t spend your commendations on anything else).

When the developer is ok with each piece of BiS gear taking 4-6 weeks to acquire…then I’m going to have to say no.

So much fun to be had in this game…all overshadowed by gear that has to be farmed religiously to obtain. In 2012, a brand new person could take 1-2 weeks to catch up to someone at launch. Now, a new person is shafted.

@KOLZ
probably not, but as long as there is farmable open world content, we risk the same boring gameplay and performance issue that turns gw2 into a pale shadow of itself.

Vorch.2985:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Rising Dusk.2408:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Just wanted you guys to know that these are also available as guild mission rewards as well. You can get them as random rewards from completing missions or from the commendation vendor.

That’s good news. Although it really makes me wonder how you guys came up with this price as a valid equivalent to a guild mission. I seriously doubt you expect 6 guild missions to be as difficult as acquiring 40 laurels and 50 ecto.

It’s partially related to the time it takes. Personal rewards for guild missions can only be claimed once per week per mission category. Therefore if your guild only has guild bounties unlocked, it will take you 6 weeks to claim one of these accessories from the commendation vendor (assuming you don’t spend your commendations on anything else).

When the developer is ok with each piece of BiS gear taking 4-6 weeks to acquire…then I’m going to have to say no.

So much fun to be had in this game…all overshadowed by gear that has to be farmed religiously to obtain. In 2012, a brand new person could take 1-2 weeks to catch up to someone at launch. Now, a new person is shafted.

if the guild missions are fun, i have no problem.
i played mario kart a lot…

so far there isnt a general vibe/critic on the internet yet.
lets wait and see!

^
i dont care for the speed of progression, but about the “fun” of progression.

and right now, to progress is to get gold/ectos to infuse my backpack etc, and its BORING, farming these events, facerolling to a chest.

KOLZ.4501:

Hmm just sounded like one those that wants every piece of gear handed to them asap and rage quit because they don’t get the top tier gear on day one.

…not taking that bait.

I will say, however, there are other forms of vertical progression outside of the geartreadmill.

Title tiers were used in GW1 and offered offensive, defensive, and skill buffs to those who pursued them. They could have been used here as well; adding new tiers or titles would have given people something to chase instead of making their entire arsenal useless.

You thought the guild mission and ascended item whiplash was bad? Wait until they decide to raise the level cap.

Vorch.2985:

KOLZ.4501:

Hmm just sounded like one those that wants every piece of gear handed to them asap and rage quit because they don’t get the top tier gear on day one.

…not taking that bait.

I will say, however, there are other forms of vertical progression outside of the geartreadmill.

Title tiers were used in GW1 and offered offensive, defensive, and skill buffs to those who pursued them. They could have been used here as well; adding new tiers or titles would have given people something to chase instead of making their entire arsenal useless.

You thought the guild mission and ascended item whiplash was bad? Wait until they decide to raise the level cap.

Bait?…O_o I am not fishing. Yeah aion seems to be like that where titles give you different stats, I did find that cool. From what I am seeing there are multiple ways of getting ascended gear so I am not seeing the problem but I am sure it’s gonna involve “it takes more than killing that frog in the beginning area to get an entire set”. All the complaints I honestly have seen involves nothing more than people wanting the gear just handed to them asap aka wow style. Especially with the guild missions.

relax guys.

we can definitely agree that the game cannot revolve around people looking at the spawn timer for world events, and then server zerglag the boss, right?

so something is gonna change.

Avatar.1923:

relax guys.

we can definitely agree that the game cannot revolve around people looking at the spawn timer for world events, and then server zerglag the boss, right?

so something is gonna change.

Yeah, it isn’t going to take long for them to nerf something else.

KOLZ.4501:

Vorch.2985:

KOLZ.4501:

Hmm just sounded like one those that wants every piece of gear handed to them asap and rage quit because they don’t get the top tier gear on day one.

…not taking that bait.

I will say, however, there are other forms of vertical progression outside of the geartreadmill.

Title tiers were used in GW1 and offered offensive, defensive, and skill buffs to those who pursued them. They could have been used here as well; adding new tiers or titles would have given people something to chase instead of making their entire arsenal useless.

You thought the guild mission and ascended item whiplash was bad? Wait until they decide to raise the level cap.

Bait?…O_o I am not fishing. Yeah aion seems to be like that where titles give you different stats, I did find that cool. From what I am seeing there are multiple ways of getting ascended gear so I am not seeing the problem but I am sure it’s gonna involve “it takes more than killing that frog in the beginning area to get an entire set”. All the complaints I honestly have seen involves nothing more than people wanting the gear just handed to them asap aka wow style. Especially with the guild missions.

I don’t think people want the gear handed to them.

As someone stated in a prior thread, there are three ways of gating content:

• Skill/Tactics gated (i.e. Exotic at the end of the clock-tower on halloween)
  This gear can be obtained in VERY short amount of time if one has the skill

• Effort Gated(i.e. Karma, Dungeon tokens and, to a certain extent, pristine relics)
  This gear requires some skill to achieve initially, but after a while, the content can be repeated at will to achieve all the gear you need

• Time Gated (i.e. Laurels, Guild Merits, and to a certain extent, pristine relics)
  No matter how skilled you are or how much effort you put forth, you are limited by the amount of currency that you can obtain over a time period.

Imo, BiS gear should be behind skill and effort gates, while unique skins and convenience items should be time gated.

btw, what event timer are you guys using?
guildwarstemple.com?

arrownin.3128:

Hello everyone, in this post, I would actually like to know what YOU all think about a certain topic. Namely to do with the patches that have come in during the last set of months.

Do you think that patches have been encouraging fun, intuitive, and engaging game-play, or do you feel that the patches have been destroying the fun by creating uninteresting mechanics, repetitive unintuitive game-play, balancing factors, and items? To help you think, here is a list of some things that have come with patches throughout Guild Wars 2’s lifetime.

• Nerfs/Buffs
• DR
• Fractals
• Ascended Gear
• The Lost Shores
• Mad King’s Day
• Wintersday
• New balancing factors relating to farming, items drops, etc.
• New balancing towards dungeons
• New gem store items
• Bug fixes
• New sPvP maps
• New WvWvW mechanics
• Banning bots
• Updates to how you play the game, dailies monthlies etc.

Intuitive, and engaging game-play: Yes, the patches have added this.
Fun?: this would depend of which type of gameplay mechanics you enjoy most to play in an online game.

On topic: I liked the halloween update. Some flaws but got my hopes up for the next events and updates. I even bought gems for the Mad King outfit just to support…
Following events and updates went from meh – bad – worse in my opinion.
Have not felt the need to support by cashshopping ever since 15/11/2012.

Last update seemed to add a few nice PvE adjustments that may actually make some things more fun/enjoyable.

(Imo) Anet needs to dig long and hard to bring my enjoyment/fun back to pre-nov. 15th. levels. (Re-)building trust takes an awful amount of time.

sPvP is still totally uninspiring, WvW is rather messy and the culling issues will take a long time to fix if fixable at all.

Overall: Not as fun as expected, focus seems to have moved towards pleasing the players who enjoy vertical progression and RNG/lotto cashshop generators while sPvP is left out in the cold: Show me a single Anet employee saying: “E-sport” since release!
Currently PvE-Repetition > PvP fun in this game :-(

This one was amazing i must say they gave all old world events new life. Now guild are grouping up running events together. I must say they are doing what ppl asked them to its just the ppl who asked forgot what they where talking about 2 3 weeks ago.

arrownin.3128:

Hello everyone, in this post, I would actually like to know what YOU all think about a certain topic. Namely to do with the patches that have come in during the last set of months.

Do you think that patches have been encouraging fun, intuitive, and engaging game-play, or do you feel that the patches have been destroying the fun by creating uninteresting mechanics, repetitive unintuitive game-play, balancing factors, and items? To help you think, here is a list of some things that have come with patches throughout Guild Wars 2’s lifetime.

• Nerfs/Buffs
• DR
• Fractals
• Ascended Gear
• The Lost Shores
• Mad King’s Day
• Wintersday
• New balancing factors relating to farming, items drops, etc.
• New balancing towards dungeons
• New gem store items
• Bug fixes
• New sPvP maps
• New WvWvW mechanics
• Banning bots
• Updates to how you play the game, dailies monthlies etc.

Intuitive, and engaging game-play: Yes, the patches have added this.
Fun?: this would depend of which type of gameplay mechanics you enjoy most to play in an online game.

What do you most enjoy to do in an online game?

Updates/patches are kinda necessary whether you like them or not. Some are nice (fixing bugs for broken skills), some are not (nerfing stuff/loot/farming spots), but overall, the game can’t progress without patches. Even RTS games and single-player games with multiplayer access have patches.

changes r fine. but what did they do? ppl get forced to play broken stuff…. there is a big hardware/software problem… gw2 was sold as a game with big events and wvw… big events just dont work how they should. they r laggy and not smooth. there is no reason for playing events with 300+ ppl if u only see 30 ppl. u often cant see the mobs etc… so ppl get forced to play the not enjoyable parts of the game.
im rly unhappy with these changes because i never enjoyed these misconcepted parts of the game….
for me the only acceptable solution is a server split since they r not able to fix it. servers r too overcrowded
since i can see only 30 ppl max in big events it wouldnt make any difference if there r rly only 30 ppl…. they stick to their BIIIIGGGG events and server but its fail since it doenst work. would be much greater without the need of an overflow solution

they probably saved money by buying cheaper or less server. would it be a problem if there were only half the ppl on your server? since lfg is pretty much outsourced to gw2lfg.com it doenst even matter if u r on an empty server.

Viewed overall… the patches have been a positive thing that has only improved the game.

But viewed as a line item… there are some choices that have been complete and utter kitten. This most recent one included… guild missions add more fun (and would have been a great addition to the game if they hadn’t introduced it in such a kitten poor way)… fractals add a lot of fun (would have been WAY more fun if they had been fully functional at launch instead of having all the disconnection issues and whattnot.)

All in all… new content is always good… introducing new content in kittenty ways is always bad.

Jordy.1570:

for me the only acceptable solution is a server split since they r not able to fix it. servers r too overcrowded
since i can see only 30 ppl max in big events it wouldnt make any difference if there r rly only 30 ppl…. they stick to their BIIIIGGGG events and server but its fail since it doenst work. would be much greater without the need of an overflow solution

You seem a bit confused about what is actually going on. Your regular perception of shards/realms/servers does not apply in GW2. Splitting servers will NOT solve this (yours, mine, everyones) problem at all.

Someone wrote a pretty good post about the issues (there are more than one) here: Informed post about culling issues.

I for one find the patches they make fun.

For one thing, the thrill of trying out the patch is already fun and playing in the changes is even more fun.

Also, the patches just keep on introducing cool things. I don’t really see why people have to rage though but it’s just probably me being optimistic!

lisamee.2408:

arrownin.3128:

Hello everyone, in this post, I would actually like to know what YOU all think about a certain topic. Namely to do with the patches that have come in during the last set of months.

Do you think that patches have been encouraging fun, intuitive, and engaging game-play, or do you feel that the patches have been destroying the fun by creating uninteresting mechanics, repetitive unintuitive game-play, balancing factors, and items? To help you think, here is a list of some things that have come with patches throughout Guild Wars 2’s lifetime.

• Nerfs/Buffs
• DR
• Fractals
• Ascended Gear
• The Lost Shores
• Mad King’s Day
• Wintersday
• New balancing factors relating to farming, items drops, etc.
• New balancing towards dungeons
• New gem store items
• Bug fixes
• New sPvP maps
• New WvWvW mechanics
• Banning bots
• Updates to how you play the game, dailies monthlies etc.

Intuitive, and engaging game-play: Yes, the patches have added this.
Fun?: this would depend of which type of gameplay mechanics you enjoy most to play in an online game.

Indeed, fun may have been a bad word to use, since fun itself is impossible to define, and everyone has their own definition of fun.

lisamee.2408:

arrownin.3128:

Hello everyone, in this post, I would actually like to know what YOU all think about a certain topic. Namely to do with the patches that have come in during the last set of months.

Do you think that patches have been encouraging fun, intuitive, and engaging game-play, or do you feel that the patches have been destroying the fun by creating uninteresting mechanics, repetitive unintuitive game-play, balancing factors, and items? To help you think, here is a list of some things that have come with patches throughout Guild Wars 2’s lifetime.

• Nerfs/Buffs
• DR
• Fractals
• Ascended Gear
• The Lost Shores
• Mad King’s Day
• Wintersday
• New balancing factors relating to farming, items drops, etc.
• New balancing towards dungeons
• New gem store items
• Bug fixes
• New sPvP maps
• New WvWvW mechanics
• Banning bots
• Updates to how you play the game, dailies monthlies etc.

Intuitive, and engaging game-play: Yes, the patches have added this.
Fun?: this would depend of which type of gameplay mechanics you enjoy most to play in an online game.

What do you most enjoy to do in an online game?

What do I enjoy most in an online game? Well it really depends on the game, however I usually just like to PvP and chat with people.

• Nerfs/Buffs: Mixed bag; some seem warranted, some over-the-top
• DR: More of a perhaps necessary evil than something to promote fun
• Fractals: Don’t care for them; like Kimyrielle, I’m not fond of platform-style play
• Ascended Gear: not fun per se; not fun killing either — but then, I didn’t need a reason to log in
• The Lost Shores: Fun concept, would have been better if vetted through a test server first
• Mad King’s Day: very fun; I liked everything about it that I did
• Wintersday: mostly fun; didn’t care for doing Tixx dungeon to get wool sweaters as a final reward
• New balancing factors relating to farming, items drops, etc.: I like that they’re listening; I still think MF was and is a fun-killer
• New balancing towards dungeons: don’t fix what isn’t broken
• New gem store items: give me armor/weapon skins or give me nothing
• Bug fixes: outstanding with relation to bugged DE’s; my necro melee minions still don’t attack my target reliably
• New sPvP maps: no opinion
• New WvWvW mechanics: no opinion
• Banning bots: kudos, well done
• Updates to how you play the game, dailies monthlies etc. like that there are choices for dailies and that they are using dailies to address other community complaints; ; March is the 2nd month in a row I will do the monthly after skipping Nov., Dec. and Jan. 2 thumbs up

^
dont tell me you like everything about halloween and wintersday if you dont like platforming!

(btw platforming rocks!!!)

Well for me…

•Nerfs/Buffs – largely has not affected me or my gameplay so I suppose it is mostly ok.
•DR – no comment/opinion because sometimes it works for me and sometimes…not. I am quite neutral on this
•Fractals – I do fractals every now and then, and it is nice place for loot and such but I’m no glutton for punishment… err i mean, uhm.. ‘challenge’ :P, so there’ll be a limit to how far I’d go with this, but so far this seems a good thing.
•Ascended Gear – I want these things but it is also a worry. I’m usually not too keen on ever increasing vertical progressions of item tiers. I hope it will end here. I’d hate to keep on grinding in later pathces for ..what’s the term… ‘best in slot’ gear every now and then. You can say its optional, and probably its true, but it will nag me everytime i think someone with (vertically) better gear doing the same thing I do with the same kind of toon but better…
•The Lost Shores – couldn’t really get in then, also had limited time
•Mad King’s Day- wasn’t around for it.
•Wintersday- while i can say im not too fond of THAT kind of jumping puzzle they had, I enjoyed wintersday enough. Plush Griffon ftw!
•New balancing factors relating to farming, items drops, etc. – In the latest patch, after release I got two rares from mobs quickly… and then.. almost no rares at all… I hear ppl say they’re getting lots and lots of rares but… I don’t really know what to say except… I need ectos. :P
•New balancing towards dungeons- Fun, heard AC was revamped and ppl say its more a challenge now. Notable mention also: Arah path 4… you know… that one lil boss wasnt too fond of previous high dps check/ perfect execution with little to no room for error thing, but thats just me.
•New gem store items- im keeping my plush quaggan!
•Bug fixes – always a good thing
•New sPvP maps – i dont do spvp.
•New WvWvW mechanics – havent experienced it, i will check on this soon
•Banning bots- they say bots ruin economy and all that, so yeah of course this is a good thing! :P
•Updates to how you play the game, dailies monthlies etc.- its good to have choices if sometimes the list available is still a nuisance :P but thats small concern. Also keep monthly off pvp related stuff, and im sure to do it. February was nice and March is looking good.

Avatar.1923:

^
dont tell me you like everything about halloween and wintersday if you dont like platforming!

(btw platforming rocks!!!)

I’m glad you like it. I don’t have anything against it other than issues with arthritis causing frustration, which is why I said not fond of instead of dislike.

Edited Mad King to say “everything … I did,” since I did not do everything. I don’t remember any platforming in WD event, but that might mean I missed it.

I’m not likely to say that an event was bad if there were 1 or more activities in it not aimed at my preferences.

In my opinion, this February patch is a step in the right direction although the patch is not exactly without problems.

New Scaling System -
The new scaling system I think is a well thought out system with the champions other than the fact that half the time the champion disappears after the event ends (sometimes it auto kills and drops loot).

Improved chests -
I found this a very good improvement but not without flaws. Before the patch, these events were not worth doing AT ALL. However, it is worth doing now but imo some of these events are just way too easy. In my opinion, the Grenth event in particular is very well done. It has just the right level of difficulty and loot as well. Another issue to this change is that the servers cannot handle the load of players during some of these events for an example Jormag.

Guild missions –
I have yet to try them out but on paper, it seems like a very good idea. However, just make sure it is accessible to smaller guilds as well cause big guilds are just not for everyone.

Glad to see that a lot of people are having fun with the new content!

I am deeply concerned that introducing the Ascended gear treadmill, and then the Fractals, modified dailies/monthlies, etc as the mechanics supporting that treadmill, have changed my experience from “go out and explore randomly, including Explorables that take a little work to master” in a world where people were friendly and cooperated/collaborated, into an experience reminiscent of grinding dungeon dailies in WoW where every 24 hours I had to do “x” or I’d miss a cooldown and fall behind. And into a world experience where people are competing for mobs that actually register evade “dodges” for the daily, or events in the lowbie zones, or rezzable npcs — even if that means making Queensdale totally unplayable for a lowbie new to the game.

This change in feeling is distancing me from a game I thought I’d be playing for the next 5 years, because the devs got the social / community stuff right for the first time in an MMO in the last decade. (This is my 8th MMO; my first MUD was in 1977.) Thes patches tried to reach out to those who like a gear treadmill, but inadvertently seem to have broken the very thing that made GW2 special, at least to me.

It’s sad to see a few mechanics cause such a visible change in player behavior, and such a noticeable change to my own experience playing the game. GW2 is becoming less GW2 and more RIFT or WoW…and I think GW2 deserves a much better future.