Guild Wars 2

Companies like Anet track retention rates. They know when players are most likely to drop out. If there is a certain point where a large amount of players are dropping out, they make changes to reduce the drop out rate at this point. Most likely, ANet is seeing large numbers of people dropping out at early stages. These changes are meant to reduce the drop out rate at this point. If large amounts of people were dropping out at the later stages, then they would address those points instead.

To you it appears that large amount of people are dropping out at the later stages because that is your community. These people are the most visible to you, while new players are probably invisible to you. If you associated with new players, you may find their drop out rate is higher than among veteran players.

Anet is out to make a profit, as all companies do. The best way to make that profit is to increase the retention rate where ever it is lowest.

NewTrain.7549:

And once again we have people adamantly against adding anything they don’t personally intend to play. To hell with everyone else’s fun, right? Such a great attitude to take when trying to grow (or even maintain) a community.

I don’t think you actually get my point. “lategame” (I’ll start using this term because appearently many people think that endgame only refers to super hard content) content and features would benefit everyone. They don’t even have to be lategame to be useful for everyone (like the wardrobe system that we got in the past for example). 2 years after release they should be focusing on more concrete things that would primarily satisfy the majority, not the minority ESPECIALLY if they want to maintain the community. . Adding leveling QoL patches won’t really change how older players will feel and eventually leave.

Spira.4578:

NewTrain.7549:

And once again we have people adamantly against adding anything they don’t personally intend to play. To hell with everyone else’s fun, right? Such a great attitude to take when trying to grow (or even maintain) a community.

I don’t think you actually get the point. “lategame” (I’ll start using this term because appearently many people think that endgame only refers to super hard content) content and features would benefit everyone. They don’t even have to be lategame to be useful for everyone (like the wardrobe system that we got in the past for example). 2 years after release they should be focusing on more concrete things that would primarily satisfy the majority, not the minority ESPECIALLY if they want to maintain the community. . Adding leveling QoL patches won’t really change how older players will feel and eventually leave.

Late game changes do not benefit the new player that can’t figure out what’s going on while in the downed state.

yes anet is doing okay for new players, but what about veteran players? Running same dungeons over and over again, stuck in same wvw match up over and over, doing the same pvp modes over and over… you get my point. The thing is that Anet has no intention for catering to veteran players because of money. It is possible to get more money from new players through gem stores with “new/old” skins simply because new players won’t have the gold to exchange for gems. Old players however, those who stuck around and learned to make gold, are simply useless data that take advantage of gold to gem exchange.
Keep in mind that it is those elitist/hardcore/complainers that created dungeon/tp/pvp/wvw guides. Once these players leave, only then you’ll find that running any dungeon path will take over 20 minutes since everyone is doing what they want (arah will be abandoned), wvw become simply tag following rather than organized groups, and pvp full of afkers who want the ranks for finishers.

DarcShriek.5829:

Late game changes do not benefit the new player that can’t figure out what’s going on while in the downed state.

True, but they do benefit the rest of the new players that do know what’s going on. I wonder which is more. The players that have problems with downed state or players that would want more late game features and content.

Vayne.8563:

Crafters have been as ignored as anyone since launch. There are people who love crafting and want to do more with it. They get something for them in this update.

I loved crafting in other games, because it was rewarding and you could make actual profit out of your time investment: in gw2 unfortunately this is not possible as often materials and time alone cost more than the final product you would sell.
I think this is very sad, because crafting would be one of the many awesome end game contents this game is missing :\
Note: this is actually coming from someone who appreciates gw2…

Grevender.9235:

Vayne.8563:

Crafters have been as ignored as anyone since launch. There are people who love crafting and want to do more with it. They get something for them in this update.

I loved crafting in other games, because it was rewarding and you could make actual profit out of your time investment: in gw2 unfortunately this is not possible as often materials and time alone cost more than the final product you would sell.
I think this is very sad, because crafting would be one of the many awesome end game contents this game is missing :\
Note: this is actually coming from someone who appreciates gw2…

Yes this is my point. Crafters get the short end of the stick as much as anyone else. Crafting updates are not going to go amiss.

By the way, there are things you can craft if you’re a craft that involve some farming, but I’m making decent money on the plant food now, as an example.

And there are other components that work.

It’s just that you don’t make HUGE amounts, but there are people who get rich on crafting. You just have to be more creative in this game. And more vigilant.

Part of this is because of the universal instead of server based marketplace.

Spira.4578:

DarcShriek.5829:

Late game changes do not benefit the new player that can’t figure out what’s going on while in the downed state.

True, but they do benefit the rest of the new players that do know what’s going on. I wonder which is more. The players that have problems with downed state or players that would want more late game features and content.

The late game content is something that won’t come in a feature patch. No matter how much the game needs it. The game needs both.

This stuff was done for the chinese game anyway so moving it here was a lot easier. It took a lot less time than making a single new dungeon.

One would think players would be happy about improving the experience for people coming so they stay so we have more people to play with.

I’m a guild leader. I’m happy they put the time into bringing these improvements over.

people are scared of Change.

i wil never unserstand the reason people say that " WE DONT WANT NEW ENDGAME "

if you dont want to do it. dont do it.

but for those of us veteran players that got bored of doing the same stuff everyday. let us plead for new content at level 80 so we stay and have fun playing.

without us veteran players Gw2 would be very quiet.

-we NEED new content.
*its as simple as that

Zardul.3952:

people are scared of Change.

i wil never unserstand the reason people say that " WE DONT WANT NEW ENDGAME "

if you dont want to do it. dont do it.

but for those of us veteran players that got bored of doing the same stuff everyday. let us plead for new content at level 80 so we stay and have fun playing.

without us veteran players Gw2 would be very quiet.

-we NEED new content.
*its as simple as that

I’m not scared of change. I enjoy change. But there are people on these forums asking for specific types of changes that some other people don’t want. Just because you don’t like certain specific changes, doesn’t mean you don’t like change.

Change is necessary in all MMOs to keep them vital. There are probably not enough changes to skills in Guild Wars 2 to keep people adjusting all the time.

But now that china is launched, I expect changes to start coming more quickly.

Vayne.8563:

Zardul.3952:

people are scared of Change.

i wil never unserstand the reason people say that " WE DONT WANT NEW ENDGAME "

if you dont want to do it. dont do it.

but for those of us veteran players that got bored of doing the same stuff everyday. let us plead for new content at level 80 so we stay and have fun playing.

without us veteran players Gw2 would be very quiet.

-we NEED new content.
*its as simple as that

I’m not scared of change. I enjoy change. But there are people on these forums asking for specific types of changes that some other people don’t want. Just because you don’t like certain specific changes, doesn’t mean you don’t like change.

Change is necessary in all MMOs to keep them vital. There are probably not enough changes to skills in Guild Wars 2 to keep people adjusting all the time.

But now that china is launched, I expect changes to start coming more quickly.

i would not bet on that.

me personally, i would not value a few changes in a year or 2 to justify the time i spend playing this game.

if it continues, for me personally ill quit and for like minded people who think the same as me, i would bet they would quit too.

you may say we are a minority, but how many people moan on a daily basis? both ingame and in forums about what this game has to offer for the time and effort most of us put it?

it makes you think, it makes you suggest things on the forums but in the end, it doesnt matter as we see countless times that every update is underwhelming and not hitting points that many have made before.

it feels liek a continuous cycle so i cannot see how you think waiting around will change anything. because CHANGE is not in this games bios.

If you ask me, the single worst aspect of ANet’s management of GW2 has been how they handle Skills and Traits. Skills and Traits are literally the only aspect of GW2 that affect all game modes. Regardless of what you play, you should be excited to hear about balance changes and skill changes because they affect how all players in GW2 play. It affects new and old players and it is the one thing that can breathe fresh life into a game.

In light of that I find it completely baffling how we have only gotten 9 new Skills and 40 new Traits in TWO YEARS. And most of the new skills and traits introduced are just awful and don’t even see competitive play. We get one balance patch every 6 or so months, that only focuses on PvP and makes minor changes that don’t majorly change the meta. That is simply NOT ENOUGH updates for what should be one of THE core elements of the game. I hate to bring up this comparison, but look at GW1. Two years after launch they had introduced hundreds of new skills, new runes, heck even new classes. GW2 was promised as an MMO revolution, but the one aspect of the game where ANet have truly failed to innovate its Skill and Trait Balance.

We should be getting balance patches every 3 months tops. We should have new weapons or different existing weapons unlocked on existing classes by now. We should have entire new trait lines, or at the very least new Master and Adept traits by now. But we don’t have any of that. Instead, after TWO YEARS of balance patches there are still entire skill types that feel worthless (Most Thief Traps and Tricks for instance). There are still traits that were in the game AT LAUNCH that no sane person would want to pick up (Hard to Catch anyone?). This is frankly UNACCEPTABLE.

And for the love of The Six, can we please get splits between PvE and PvP skills? GW1 had a PvE/PvP skill split and in that game PvE was set up as a tutorial for PvP. The game types are too different to be reconciled by one set of skills. It doesn’t matter that it might be “confusing to new players” or “people might not be able to test build in sPvP any more”. They’ve already made sPvP stats different from PvE stats with the introduction of Ascended gear, and the game modes are too different. You don’t spend a PvP match with 5 guys wailing on one opponent who can insta-down them and has 10 times their health, but dungeons are balanced around sPvP. You don’t spend an sPvP match in a 30v30 slugfest either, but WvW balance still hinges on sPvP.

And the most frustrating part is I can’t figure out why they won’t introduce new skills. Nowhere is it written in stone that new skills must come from an expansion pack. They could have been releasing new skills through the Living Story, by writing them into the events that have been occurring. For instance Nochtli in Dry Top could have taught us new ways to handle our existing weapons, unlocking new weapons for different classes. They could have had the centaurs in Dry top teach us how to use Whips as a new weapon type. We could have learned new traits from interactions with Braham, Marjory, etc. But we have gotten nothing of the sort.

It’s really disheartening as a fan because I want GW2 to be the best game it can be, so it saddens me to see ANet neglecting what should be the very core of their game. If you want me to be honest, I would tell ANet to open their eyes and honestly make Skill and Trait balance a priority across all game modes, because right now it’s pretty clear that it is not and the game does suffer because of it.

Sorry for the long post.

Spira.4578:

DarcShriek.5829:

Late game changes do not benefit the new player that can’t figure out what’s going on while in the downed state.

True, but they do benefit the rest of the new players that do know what’s going on. I wonder which is more. The players that have problems with downed state or players that would want more late game features and content.

Anet knows.

Vayne.8563:

The late game content is something that won’t come in a feature patch. No matter how much the game needs it. The game needs both.

I already said that the topic wasn’t directed toward this specific feature pack. It was directed toward ANETs development directions I only used this feature pack AND the latest interviews in which they said they won’t be working on SAB or dungeons anytime soon. I’m aware that we won’t get content with features. and as I already said before, that’s why I gave the wardrobe system as an example.

Vayne.8563:

One would think players would be happy about improving the experience for people coming so they stay so we have more people to play with.

I’m a guild leader. I’m happy they put the time into bringing these improvements over.

One would also think that players would be happier if they would get features and content to play with. With new features and content others that left because of boredom would also come back. So we would also have more people to play with.
And new players would also benefit from it, since they would get those features and content to play with as well.

I think the only ones saying don’t add content are those commenting on how they are displeased with additions to the game directed toward new/returning players. That’s what this thread is about. Sure, give something for Vets, but there’s no reason not to give something for new/returning players, as well. We all want more Vets, I’m sure. Can’t get more if players are discouraged at the low levels.

Zardul.3952:

Vayne.8563:

Zardul.3952:

people are scared of Change.

i wil never unserstand the reason people say that " WE DONT WANT NEW ENDGAME "

if you dont want to do it. dont do it.

but for those of us veteran players that got bored of doing the same stuff everyday. let us plead for new content at level 80 so we stay and have fun playing.

without us veteran players Gw2 would be very quiet.

-we NEED new content.
*its as simple as that

I’m not scared of change. I enjoy change. But there are people on these forums asking for specific types of changes that some other people don’t want. Just because you don’t like certain specific changes, doesn’t mean you don’t like change.

Change is necessary in all MMOs to keep them vital. There are probably not enough changes to skills in Guild Wars 2 to keep people adjusting all the time.

But now that china is launched, I expect changes to start coming more quickly.

i would not bet on that.

me personally, i would not value a few changes in a year or 2 to justify the time i spend playing this game.

if it continues, for me personally ill quit and for like minded people who think the same as me, i would bet they would quit too.

you may say we are a minority, but how many people moan on a daily basis? both ingame and in forums about what this game has to offer for the time and effort most of us put it?

it makes you think, it makes you suggest things on the forums but in the end, it doesnt matter as we see countless times that every update is underwhelming and not hitting points that many have made before.

it feels liek a continuous cycle so i cannot see how you think waiting around will change anything. because CHANGE is not in this games bios.

I don’t get this.
Justify the time you spent playing?
What do you mean? Why spend the time if it needs justification?
What is it that the game has to offer “for the time and effort most of us put in?”

I get that you liked playing the game, at least I hope so or else that time playing really was wasted, and want more content to freshen it up a bit but claiming that the time playing was unjustified seems like more emotion than sense. The thing that GW2 is very good with is that you can drop it and pick it up again anytime without much loss. If you are tired of the game but still like it, much like I am, then stop playing it for a while.

Grevender.9235:

Vayne.8563:

Crafters have been as ignored as anyone since launch. There are people who love crafting and want to do more with it. They get something for them in this update.

I loved crafting in other games, because it was rewarding and you could make actual profit out of your time investment: in gw2 unfortunately this is not possible as often materials and time alone cost more than the final product you would sell.
I think this is very sad, because crafting would be one of the many awesome end game contents this game is missing :\
Note: this is actually coming from someone who appreciates gw2…

A lot of players craft for the XP, and are left with a pile of goods they can’t use as a result. Some gets salvaged, but a lot of it ends up on the TP, and as Vayne mentioned, the multi-server TP means that everyone competes with each other for sales where in most games each server has its own economy. This isn’t something they can change without completely tearing apart the economic and crafting systems and would cause more problems than it sol;ves: for example, crafting mats would become way way way more expensive and shortages would be common.

I know what you mean, when I played Rift one of the first things I did to make money was to craft bags. Each toon could transfer servers once a week for free, so I could buy cheap mats on one server, craft as many bags as a toon could carry, then transfer to a server where there weren’t many people selling bags, and make a huge profit.

I tried crafting bags when I came to GW2 and found that the lower ones sold for slightly more than vendor value, making it impossible to build up enough money to make larger and more expensive bags. I gave up on it quickly, because the TP here just doesn’t work like Rift. But that doesn’t mean you can’t sell – I often buy intermediate components (bow strings, sword blades, helmet linings, insignia) from the TP rather than continue to make them when they don’t give XP. If you find yourself with extra mats just craft these intermediate steps and sell them to people who want to craft the finished product but don’t want to waste time refining every ore and making every component.

Or find a specific item that is in demand and make a few, then move on to the next item before competitors notice what you’re doing.

KngGilgamesh.3481:

I don’t get this.
Justify the time you spent playing?
What do you mean? Why spend the time if it needs justification?
What is it that the game has to offer “for the time and effort most of us put in?”

The warm fuzzies that come with an endorphin rush and a sense of accomplishment… because our brains are not very good at distinguishing between things we actually do and things we imagine doing. It’s like getting to be a Navy SEAL without getting off the couch or going through any of that training nonsense.

tolunart.2095:

Anet knows.

Cool story, bro.

Spira.4578:

Vayne.8563:

The late game content is something that won’t come in a feature patch. No matter how much the game needs it. The game needs both.

I already said that the topic wasn’t directed toward this specific feature pack. It was directed toward ANETs development directions I only used this feature pack AND the latest interviews in which they said they won’t be working on SAB or dungeons anytime soon. I’m aware that we won’t get content with features. and as I already said before, that’s why I gave the wardrobe system as an example.

Vayne.8563:

One would think players would be happy about improving the experience for people coming so they stay so we have more people to play with.

I’m a guild leader. I’m happy they put the time into bringing these improvements over.

One would also think that players would be happier if they would get features and content to play with. With new features and content others that left because of boredom would also come back. So we would also have more people to play with.
And new players would also benefit from it, since they would get those features and content to play with as well.

Then you’re timing is crap, because you’re complaining about content when the forum as a whole is talking about feature packs and we know that until that comes out there’ll be no more content.

You can complain about it now but you won’t get the answers you want now. And there’s nothing your saying that hasn’t been said a million times anyway. It’ll happen when it happens. It’s not going to happen on your schedule, it’ll happen on Anets.

I dont think they realize that this game is very much built on its community and things like hard dungeons and defending in wvw and an increase in roaming in wvw brings the community together. While its nice to go and bash a bunch of baddies in an instance or collect a dozen pieces for a backpiece it becomes a passing fancy. The content coming out now has 2 major flaws: firstly, no repeatability. Hardcore dungeons and fractals are a great way to do this, theynwould have to both be rewarding and be so hard that a group of players really have to get into a rhythm with eachother in order to FEEL like they had to evolve as a team to accomplish the task. The second major flaw is that people want to feel important in a battle. The reason wvw is so lackluster is because you currently just run around facerolling a few champions until finally you run into an enemy zerg and either you steamroll them or they steamroll you. In wvw you are not a skillful player. You are a number in a zerg there to do nothing more than boost overall dps. Its hard for people to take pride in their servers accomplishments in wvw when the deciding factor of who wins is who has the most players. By incentivizing defending and roaming people would be willing to challenge big groups of people, and if by a slim chance they pull through they feel like champions rather than “that guy who lobbed a few fire balls and water fields from the back of the zerg”

Just throwing in my two cents. Hope anet listens but this is kinda buried.

Vayne.8563:

Then you’re timing is crap, because you’re complaining about content when the forum as a whole is talking about feature packs and we know that until that comes out there’ll be no more content.

You can complain about it now but you won’t get the answers you want now. And there’s nothing your saying that hasn’t been said a million times anyway. It’ll happen when it happens. It’s not going to happen on your schedule, it’ll happen on Anets.

Nope, my timing is just right. Because I’m using facts based on recent events as proof.
I know we won’t get things changed based on a single complaint now. Which is also what I wrote in the first post. However, if what I wrote will at least add to the collective, which would eventually change the game for the better, then I achieved what I wanted.

Spira.4578:

Vayne.8563:

Then you’re timing is crap, because you’re complaining about content when the forum as a whole is talking about feature packs and we know that until that comes out there’ll be no more content.

You can complain about it now but you won’t get the answers you want now. And there’s nothing your saying that hasn’t been said a million times anyway. It’ll happen when it happens. It’s not going to happen on your schedule, it’ll happen on Anets.

Nope, my timing is just right. Because I’m using facts based on recent events as proof.
I know we won’t get things changed based on a single complaint now. Which is also what I wrote in the first post. However, if what I wrote will at least add to the collective, which would eventually change the game for the better, then I achieved what I wanted.

What I mean by your timing is crap is this. If you post this thread now, it will be SEEN as a reaction to the content patch. That’s what I mean. Most people will see it this way and this post will be lost in that sea of complaints. It won’t be noticed or taken seriously because timing wise, it’s another complaint in a sea of complaints, but most of those complaints have been a reaction.

This is the time when your complaint, which I consider reasonable, will get the least amount of actual attention.

biggietoot.6945:

The second major flaw is that people want to feel important in a battle. The reason wvw is so lackluster is because you currently just run around facerolling a few champions until finally you run into an enemy zerg and either you steamroll them or they steamroll you. In wvw you are not a skillful player. You are a number in a zerg there to do nothing more than boost overall dps. Its hard for people to take pride in their servers accomplishments in wvw when the deciding factor of who wins is who has the most players.

That’s not the experience at the bottom and it’s one of the main reasons I’m not eager to transfer to a higher tier or to have ANet merge the servers in WvW. There are all sorts of instances where it’s a handful of players against a handful of players and even the zerg clashes are rarely so huge that individuals don’t make much of a difference or the lag makes skilled play impossible (lots of zergs at that tier are in the 20-30 range rather than the 50+ range). There is also quite a bit of skilled play with individual players and party teams looking for open field fights, at least during prime time and on the weekends. The problem at the bottom is that the population mix can get very uneven (sometimes we wind up playing servers than can field a 50+ zerg or two or three zergs at once) and there are off-hour times when there are few people to fight and it’s largely a PvDoor experience when whole maps at T3 towers and keeps get flipped. But during prime time, the play can be pretty good.

Enenion.8127:

If you want me to be honest, I would tell ANet to open their eyes and honestly make Skill and Trait balance a priority across all game modes, because right now it’s pretty clear that it is not and the game does suffer because of it.

Sorry for the long post.

I understand your frustration and I never played GW1, so I don’t know how largely that differed, but I do want to say: They are taking competitive PvP very seriously in this game.

If their system was set up to separate PvE and PvP skills completely, then they could try new skills in PvE and then consider porting them over to PvP, but I’m not sure their system has that kind of flexibility.

And if it doesn’t, then every new skill and every new trait means more balancing for the competitive PvP scene. Overpowered builds crop up or new skills get watered out of fear of imbalancing the game and end up useless/unused.

I do agree with you that the trait system could use some work and it would be awesome to see new cool skills, but I don’t think it’s as simple as it would seem, unfortunately. :/

tolunart.2095:

It’s okay, I don’t expect you to understand.

I would said that a journey is more to explore new places, new adventures and stories; than search for the litle missing parts for over 1 year and half lol.

Thing is our endgame is a bigger in quantity and mayor in quality living story, and it is slower than a capped 80 would like. Come on i want a new dungeon in my journey!.

My charr hero has got fatter from chatting in Lion Arch, is like adventurers arent needed anymore.

Vayne.8563:

Spira.4578:

Vayne.8563:

Then you’re timing is crap, because you’re complaining about content when the forum as a whole is talking about feature packs and we know that until that comes out there’ll be no more content.

You can complain about it now but you won’t get the answers you want now. And there’s nothing your saying that hasn’t been said a million times anyway. It’ll happen when it happens. It’s not going to happen on your schedule, it’ll happen on Anets.

Nope, my timing is just right. Because I’m using facts based on recent events as proof.
I know we won’t get things changed based on a single complaint now. Which is also what I wrote in the first post. However, if what I wrote will at least add to the collective, which would eventually change the game for the better, then I achieved what I wanted.

What I mean by your timing is crap is this. If you post this thread now, it will be SEEN as a reaction to the content patch. That’s what I mean. Most people will see it this way and this post will be lost in that sea of complaints. It won’t be noticed or taken seriously because timing wise, it’s another complaint in a sea of complaints, but most of those complaints have been a reaction.

This is the time when your complaint, which I consider reasonable, will get the least amount of actual attention.

Considering the quantity of post he spent in answering you and others spent in your posts, been yours a reaction for what im quotting, you sucedeed in nearly ruininning his post.

As you can noticed in your urge to stop what you will call a series of complaints you did in fact what the complaints will generate: the destruction of great part of the constructivity of this post.

Labjax.2465:

Enenion.8127:

If you want me to be honest, I would tell ANet to open their eyes and honestly make Skill and Trait balance a priority across all game modes, because right now it’s pretty clear that it is not and the game does suffer because of it.

Sorry for the long post.

I understand your frustration and I never played GW1, so I don’t know how largely that differed, but I do want to say: They are taking competitive PvP very seriously in this game.

If their system was set up to separate PvE and PvP skills completely, then they could try new skills in PvE and then consider porting them over to PvP, but I’m not sure their system has that kind of flexibility.

And if it doesn’t, then every new skill and every new trait means more balancing for the competitive PvP scene. Overpowered builds crop up or new skills get watered out of fear of imbalancing the game and end up useless/unused.

I do agree with you that the trait system could use some work and it would be awesome to see new cool skills, but I don’t think it’s as simple as it would seem, unfortunately. :/

They can split skills between PvE and PvP, it’s been done in the past and is still present with Confusion dealing more damage in PvE than in PvP. However, they’ve moved away from splitting skills between game modes with the reasoning that it would “confuse players”. That, to me, seems the wrong decision as I see a split as the only logical way to balance more than one game mode.

And honestly the entire game, including the PvP scene, could use more balancing. As I mentioned in my long post, the current rate of balance patches is too slow to allow for shifts in the meta that keep the game interesting. The game is stagnating, with people running the same builds for multiple months at a time. After the coming balance patch, people will be running the same builds, with minor changes most likely. That is not enough to keep the game fresh in the long term, and ANet needs to hear this.

Lucius.2140:

Vayne.8563:

Spira.4578:

Vayne.8563:

Then you’re timing is crap, because you’re complaining about content when the forum as a whole is talking about feature packs and we know that until that comes out there’ll be no more content.

You can complain about it now but you won’t get the answers you want now. And there’s nothing your saying that hasn’t been said a million times anyway. It’ll happen when it happens. It’s not going to happen on your schedule, it’ll happen on Anets.

Nope, my timing is just right. Because I’m using facts based on recent events as proof.
I know we won’t get things changed based on a single complaint now. Which is also what I wrote in the first post. However, if what I wrote will at least add to the collective, which would eventually change the game for the better, then I achieved what I wanted.

What I mean by your timing is crap is this. If you post this thread now, it will be SEEN as a reaction to the content patch. That’s what I mean. Most people will see it this way and this post will be lost in that sea of complaints. It won’t be noticed or taken seriously because timing wise, it’s another complaint in a sea of complaints, but most of those complaints have been a reaction.

This is the time when your complaint, which I consider reasonable, will get the least amount of actual attention.

Considering the quantity of post he spent in answering you and others spent in your posts, been yours a reaction for what im quotting, you sucedeed in nearly ruininning his post.

As you can noticed in your urge to stop what you will call a series of complaints you did in fact what the complaints will generate: the destruction of great part of the constructivity of this post.

I left these forums for a while. Others who feel like me picked up the slack anyway. It’s not about whether or not his complaint is legit. It’s about whether it will get noticed when other threads are essentially saying the same things, but many of them in response to a specific catalyst.

If you agree with him, that changes nothing. I’m not saying new content is a bad thing. I’m saying the focus now is on something else, so the timing of this will simply make it look like he’s one of the people who are being spurred on by what some would call a disappointed feature patch.

Bad timing is bad timing, no matter how good the message is.

Enenion.8127:

Labjax.2465:

Enenion.8127:

If you want me to be honest, I would tell ANet to open their eyes and honestly make Skill and Trait balance a priority across all game modes, because right now it’s pretty clear that it is not and the game does suffer because of it.

Sorry for the long post.

I understand your frustration and I never played GW1, so I don’t know how largely that differed, but I do want to say: They are taking competitive PvP very seriously in this game.

If their system was set up to separate PvE and PvP skills completely, then they could try new skills in PvE and then consider porting them over to PvP, but I’m not sure their system has that kind of flexibility.

And if it doesn’t, then every new skill and every new trait means more balancing for the competitive PvP scene. Overpowered builds crop up or new skills get watered out of fear of imbalancing the game and end up useless/unused.

I do agree with you that the trait system could use some work and it would be awesome to see new cool skills, but I don’t think it’s as simple as it would seem, unfortunately. :/

They can split skills between PvE and PvP, it’s been done in the past and is still present with Confusion dealing more damage in PvE than in PvP. However, they’ve moved away from splitting skills between game modes with the reasoning that it would “confuse players”. That, to me, seems the wrong decision as I see a split as the only logical way to balance more than one game mode.

And honestly the entire game, including the PvP scene, could use more balancing. As I mentioned in my long post, the current rate of balance patches is too slow to allow for shifts in the meta that keep the game interesting. The game is stagnating, with people running the same builds for multiple months at a time. After the coming balance patch, people will be running the same builds, with minor changes most likely. That is not enough to keep the game fresh in the long term, and ANet needs to hear this.

I agree with you. Their additions and balancing of skills and traits, the very core gameplay, has be absolutely abysmal. Even more so when compared to GW1.
It’s disgraceful.

They’ve had every opportunity to do it and all the time in the world, but they refuse to. And a big part of that appears to be them being stubborn about splitting their skills….. even thou they said they would initially…. and went through this exact same problem in GW1 and had apparently learned from their mistake.

When I challenged them on it they just come up with the pathetic excuses that it would confuse people, making up hypothetical questions no one in their right mind who actually played the game would ask. More likely they decided on high not to spend resources on it, and nothing is going to change their mind, no matter how negatively it impacts the game.

This is the only thing they needed to do, add content to your bloody professions/classes. This is standard, and they couldn’t even be bothered to do that much.

Instead we get ‘features’, window dressing, fluff non-content.
And of course nothing to look forward to either, because they decided we didn’t need to know anything.

It’s not about end game content vs new game content, it’s about content, period.
And the fact is, we haven’t gotten much of anything in two years, just fluff and excuses.

I wonder how many players, like my Guildies, never come on the forums, never read the patch notes, or blog posts or any announcements really. Rarely, if ever, consult the Wiki, but rather just go their merry way playing as they see fit. Lol.

They rarely know what’s been added or taken away, unless it smacks them in the face. Never even notice their traits have been reset. Ha ha, that happened to me, and I do keep up on what’s going on.

I know lots of people that come here are passionate, but I wonder what percentage just….play the game. I suppose ArenaNet knows, and it may influence some of their decisions. /shrug

Vayne.8563:

-Snip-

Bad timing is bad timing, no matter how good the message is.

You could have started with this perfectly reasonable argument imo, but we could argue about the “coulds” and “shoulds” and get nowhere.

On topic: As I see it, their decisions on what they work on now and what they leave for later sums up to, in this particular matter, “is it more beneficial to try to reel in new players or work towards keeping the ones we already have (vets)”

I have to agree with Vayne here though, the chances them knowing the answer to that is higher than us since they handle all the data. Then again, all I said is a moot point since they’ve yet to tell us their plans for older players.

Tristockle.8716:

Vayne.8563:

-Snip-

Bad timing is bad timing, no matter how good the message is.

You could have started with this perfectly reasonable argument imo, but we could argue about the “coulds” and “shoulds” and get nowhere.

On topic: As I see it, their decisions on what they work on now and what they leave for later sums up to, in this particular matter, “is it more beneficial to try to reel in new players or work towards keeping the ones we already have (vets)”

I have to agree with Vayne here though, the chances them knowing the answer to that is higher than us since they handle all the data. Then again, all I said is a moot point since they’ve yet to tell us their plans for older players.

I only got to this argument when I realized that what the OP was saying has nothing to do with the content patch. That’s why I didn’t start with it.

It’s so easy to get into the mindset that all content threads are a reaction to the content patch that I was fooled.

NewTrain.7549:

And once again we have people adamantly against adding anything they don’t personally intend to play. To hell with everyone else’s fun, right? Such a great attitude to take when trying to grow (or even maintain) a community.

I know right? It’s amazing the number of people in this thread alone furious that Arena.net would DARE seek to improve the leveling experience over “end game” content…

Oh… wait…

Ha ha. I’m leveling a new character as we speak. Can’t wait for the new improvements. I haven’t received but one weapon drop I can use, and I’m level 8 or 9 now. Seems like something players will appreciate.

Godzzila.3752:

Andred.1087:

Spira.4578:

As a matter of fact I do, since I’m actually a programmer.

As a fellow programmer, I’d like to point out, no, you don’t. You might understand ways in which you could implement these things, but you do not know how ANet did it, or how difficult it is for them to make changes to their code base. You don’t know what features they are testing as we speak or what things they’ve already tried and had to throw out. Just because something appears to be simple does not mean it is, and if you have any real world experience, you ought to understand that.

Bad porgramming. Simple as that. If you make code and then later you have no idea what you did or how to change it, it is bad programming, and if this is the case, this game was doomed since second 0.

Trying to decipher someone else’s code months after it’s been implemented is always tricky. For something as complex and convoluted as a MMORPG, which has dozens of people working on it, this is even more true.

And just to nitpick at the original quote above, anyone who’s doing anything of substance would refer to themselves as a software developer, not a programmer. Programming is to a software developer what carpentry is to an architect.

Spira.4578:

In gw2 endgame pretty much starts when you reach level 80, since before reaching that level, you are still going trough a process in which you’re gaining levels.
After you reach level 80, you start doing things on repeat every day.

There’s something about this explanation I don’t like. My experience was never about leveling, quite the opposite. I was trying to keep from leveling because I was stuck in this sense of “level-appropriate zones”, and would end up two or three levels above the occupied zone from doing everything appropriate to my level (map completion, Events, dungeons). It wasn’t until I got to the Cursed Shore steps of my Personal Story that I realized your level wasn’t strictly important (yes, despite the tell from Honor of the Waves and up).

Being lv80 just means I can go wherever I want and not have my axe taken from me and buried in my butt, I’m still doing what I did back at release….. Just to be clear, that means I’m doing everything because I still find it fun (despite the annoyances that are ‘no fun allowed’ players, my contempt for them would fill an ocean).

People will always argue at how the game is fine as it is.
But in couple months or years, you will feel the same Bordem most of us vets feel.

Doing your same stuff every day rinse and repeat
With a low to none of content updates.

I’d love to see you say to me or anyone else how sure you are that if it stays the same that you will be as interested in it as you are now.

The simple fact is. Everyone gets bored of a the same old content.

2 whole years, and the majority of it was temporary content.

Boneheart.3561:

There’s something about this explanation I don’t like. My experience was never about leveling, quite the opposite. I was trying to keep from leveling because I was stuck in this sense of “level-appropriate zones”, and would end up two or three levels above the occupied zone from doing everything appropriate to my level (map completion, Events, dungeons). It wasn’t until I got to the Cursed Shore steps of my Personal Story that I realized your level wasn’t strictly important (yes, despite the tell from Honor of the Waves and up).

Being lv80 just means I can go wherever I want and not have my axe taken from me and buried in my butt, I’m still doing what I did back at release….. Just to be clear, that means I’m doing everything because I still find it fun (despite the annoyances that are ‘no fun allowed’ players, my contempt for them would fill an ocean).

Hmm, in a way that’s what I meant. I just don’t really know how to express it in a good way.
What I wanted to say is that while you’re leveling you still have a different experience. You’re becoming stronger, you gain new skills and you’re basically learning how to play that class. Once you’re done with it, you’ll end up doing things like doing daily dungeon runs to get your exotic armor, doing daily wb boss runs, doing daily fractal runs, doing daily gathering/crafting runs, ect. It all starts to cycle. Of course you can spice things up by doing other fun stuff like going on a tour of a zone or something like that. The guild i’m running is well aware of that, that’s why we’re doing weekly tours of zones while another member talks about the lore and stuff like that – just so players (both old and new) can get immersed ingame. We’re doing hide and seek events and things like that, just so we can do more non-daily things to make the ingame experience more dynamic.
But the main problem still remains. Many players feel like the late game is stagnating. That doesn’t mean that the game doesn’t offer much when you start playing it (cause it does – I still believe that as a core game, GW2 has way more to offer than any other mmorpg on the market) or even when you play it for a year and more. It’s just that after doing the same thing over and over again, you get bored of it eventually, that’s why new and fresh things are extremely important not just for GW2 but anything in life, really :p

Zardul.3952:

People will always argue at how the game is fine as it is.
But in couple months or years, you will feel the same Bordem most of us vets feel.

Doing your same stuff every day rinse and repeat
With a low to none of content updates.

I’d love to see you say to me or anyone else how sure you are that if it stays the same that you will be as interested in it as you are now.

The simple fact is. Everyone gets bored of a the same old content.

2 whole years, and the majority of it was temporary content.

Stop talking for people or telling them what they will feel. I’ve played every day since headstart. I guarantee you I have more hours than you. I’m not bored.

Just state your opinion and stop trying to talk for everyone.

I can absolutely agree with your post. I’ve been playing since the headstart and a couple days ago I finished my third legendary. Up until this point I’ve convinced myself that there was always something more to do. And technically there is. I just dont want to do any of it. I have 10 80’s. an ungodly amount of skins, tonics, boosters, mats, whatever. I mean I could always grind for ascended gear but… for 10 80’s?…. forget about it. And it doesnt make much of a difference regardless. I’ve grinded for legendaries…. THREE BLOODY TIMES now. I always assumed that I’d keep working for new legendaries but… I just dont feel it anymore. Its all been done a thousand times by a thousand other people anyway.

The point is, I’m burnt out. And besides some friends who are just returning from being burnt out themselves, there’s nothing thats keeping in the game. It feels like every day I log in, stand around and think… “now what?” I mean pvp is fun i guess but im not much good at it. I try it once in a while but I get bored pretty quick. Things like wvw and eotm are fun for a little while but what is my end goal? Just more gameplay? I’m sorry but I dont find pvp/wvw content exciting enough to hold my interest for another two years.

And its depressing, but I’ve become extremely cynical of Anet’s management over the game. I believe that some big-wig execs at NCsoft are pulling all the strings and focusing the game on gemstore cashgrabs as opposed to updates that will really keep players in for years. I feel like theyre just squeezing every penny out of us that they can until the game is dead and we move onto their next cashgrab project. ITS BUMMING ME OUT kitten! I wasnt always like this. but after two years of plushie quaggan backpacks I just cant take it anymore.

Seems premature with still a week of reveals ahead.

If you could please link where you get your data to base your claims on, that would be great. Otherwise they are just that, claims.

Personally, I like that they make the game more accessible for new players. A lot isn’t explained very well for newcomers.

Look at it this way… if a new player can’t figure out the 4 buttons associated with the downed state… are they really going to be sticking around anyway?

How will they learn fractals, or explorable dungeons, or tricky fights in the new LS if they can’t even handle downed?

If someone was getting confused and leaving the game over the downed state this change will do nothing except delay their departure a few days.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I wonder how many players, like my Guildies, never come on the forums, never read the patch notes, or blog posts or any announcements really. Rarely, if ever, consult the Wiki, but rather just go their merry way playing as they see fit. Lol.

They rarely know what’s been added or taken away, unless it smacks them in the face. Never even notice their traits have been reset. Ha ha, that happened to me, and I do keep up on what’s going on.

I know lots of people that come here are passionate, but I wonder what percentage just….play the game. I suppose ArenaNet knows, and it may influence some of their decisions. /shrug

It may help to think of the forums as a university… there are different departments and the posters are like professors. They are deeply invested in their fields, whether it’s math, physics, philosophy, etc. and any new developments are discussed endlessly. But it’s easy to forget that the rest of the people outside of the university have different concerns. They don’t care about the new black hole that was discovered or a letter from a long-dead philosopher to his student.

The things that are important to you, seem important because you are deeply invested in these things. Others barely notice them in passing and quickly forget about them. Anet’s focus lies somewhere between the extremes.

tolunart.2095:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I wonder how many players, like my Guildies, never come on the forums, never read the patch notes, or blog posts or any announcements really. Rarely, if ever, consult the Wiki, but rather just go their merry way playing as they see fit. Lol.

They rarely know what’s been added or taken away, unless it smacks them in the face. Never even notice their traits have been reset. Ha ha, that happened to me, and I do keep up on what’s going on.

I know lots of people that come here are passionate, but I wonder what percentage just….play the game. I suppose ArenaNet knows, and it may influence some of their decisions. /shrug

It may help to think of the forums as a university… there are different departments and the posters are like professors. They are deeply invested in their fields, whether it’s math, physics, philosophy, etc. and any new developments are discussed endlessly. But it’s easy to forget that the rest of the people outside of the university have different concerns. They don’t care about the new black hole that was discovered or a letter from a long-dead philosopher to his student.

The things that are important to you, seem important because you are deeply invested in these things. Others barely notice them in passing and quickly forget about them. Anet’s focus lies somewhere between the extremes.

I’m not sure how your response applies, but thanks for the feedback! =)

Spira.4578:

NewTrain.7549:

And once again we have people adamantly against adding anything they don’t personally intend to play. To hell with everyone else’s fun, right? Such a great attitude to take when trying to grow (or even maintain) a community.

I don’t think you actually get my point. “lategame” (I’ll start using this term because appearently many people think that endgame only refers to super hard content) content and features would benefit everyone. They don’t even have to be lategame to be useful for everyone (like the wardrobe system that we got in the past for example). 2 years after release they should be focusing on more concrete things that would primarily satisfy the majority, not the minority ESPECIALLY if they want to maintain the community. . Adding leveling QoL patches won’t really change how older players will feel and eventually leave.

I wasn’t necessarily (or exclusively) referring to you. I agree with your assertion that content for level 80 players desperately needs to be added.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Look at it this way… if a new player can’t figure out the 4 buttons associated with the downed state… are they really going to be sticking around anyway?

How will they learn fractals, or explorable dungeons, or tricky fights in the new LS if they can’t even handle downed?

If someone was getting confused and leaving the game over the downed state this change will do nothing except delay their departure a few days.

This is a massive over-simplification.

It’s not about figuring out the downed state or not figuring out the downed state. It’s about the amount of information and how fast you have to deal with it.

There are people in my guild who took months to get the hang of combat in this game. But now they run dungeons. They run fractals. They run Dry Top and Orr. It just took them longer. Trying to judge everyone by the standards of the very capable is a bad, bad business move.

So you structure the unlocks so that people have time to learn one thing and adjust to one thing at a time. Or a couple of things at a time.

Thinking that because someone can’t learn at a faster pace that can’t learn at all is simply wrong.

Turning away players because they’re not as fast or as sharp at the top learners is equally wrong.

And even if people never do dungeons or fractals…I hate to tell you there are plenty in this game who don’t…if they buy gems they still help support the game.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’m not sure how your response applies, but thanks for the feedback! =)

What I mean is that forum posters exist in their own little world where things that are of great importance to us are pretty much ignored by everyone else. Like a physics professor who can’t understand why most people aren’t excited about advancements in his field of expertise.

Zardul.3952:

you may say we are a minority, but how many people moan on a daily basis? both ingame and in forums about what this game has to offer for the time and effort most of us put it?

A vocal minority can be louder than the majority but it is still a minority. I don’t really hear any moaning in-game, then I hop on the forums where everything is all in one place and people can crowd together. This seems to be where the poop goes, and just sits in the open on display and the stink starts to spread as poop goes on top of the existing poop.
Personally, I’m happy with the updates to leveling, honestly. Sure, it’s not delivering new content for 80’s. This is a feature pack, not content pack. What this will do is add more veterans in the long run instead of satisfying whiny veterans now who will only whine again when they are done playing with their new toys and get bored with them. Anet is a business on top of a game developer, they need to bring in new customers as well as have old ones coming back day after day. If their statistics (that we don’t have access to) say it would be beneficial to focus on drawing more new players into reaching endgame, where I’m guessing their statistics are saying most veterans play at every time they log in, then I’m going to have to say that from business standpoint, they are doing a brilliant job in the efforts to increase those numbers. Do I think the leveling system needed all these adjustments? Not at all, but I do know that newer players often times will stop playing because they can’t figure certain things out, get frustrated, and give up. Which is why my opinion doesn’t really matter in the scope of the big picture. Obviously the numbers are saying newer players give up and that some changes needed to be made to boost those numbers. (Analogy time!) It’s not much different than an employee saying their boss is stupid and doesn’t know how to do his job because he makes a decision that doesn’t make sense to them; he has access to a lot more information than you do, and he can make a much more educated decision for what is best for everyone, not satisfying a whiny employee who thinks they deserve a raise because they don’t set the store on fire and show up with pants on everyday.

Lastly: poop; because maturity.

Honestly, if they wanted to revamp the starting experience, they could have done it in a way that would ‘benefit’ new players as well as vets (well, the alt-rollers, anyway) – perhaps by expanding some or all of the starting options. Human characters, for example, may currently choose from these regretful biography options: unknown parents, dead sister, missed opportunity. Yeah, yeah, been there done that rinsed and repeated. Why not add, ya know, a few more options?

Samples:

Mysterious Stranger (“I still don’t know who gave me this gift”) — When I was born, a stranger approached my father and gave him a centaur figurine carved from oak to give to me when I came of age. No one agrees on the stranger’s appearance. I’ve always wondered who this person was.

Missing Time (“I don’t know where I was”) — On the morning of my third birthday, I was not in my crib. My parents and their friends searched diligently, but could not find me. Twenty-one days later, I was back in my crib. I have no memory of this. I wish I could figure out a way to find out what happened.

What do ya say, fellow forumites?

PS: If new starting options such as these were ever released into the wild, would it be impossible to allow old characters to revisit and reset their origins?

PPS: Is there anybody else left who even cares about this kinda stuff?