Guild Wars 2

Columba.9730:

unknowable.8470:

Columba.9730:

unknowable.8470:

I love this game still and hate the community and how they behave… Or at-least the community on the forum.
It reminds me all too much of what I see in other games, players not actually reading what developers write, thinking about how changes actually impact them or responding in sensible manners.

But then again you are all the 90% right, whatever your idea is EVERYONE holds the same idea.

I find it funny that people talk about grind in ascended gear, the rings drop and fairly easily with one guarenteed and if you cannot afford a black slot after doing over EIGHTY fractal dungeons I have to ask… How bad are you at this game… I mean seriously I get what 60silver roughly per three dungeons at LOW LEVEL DIFFICULTY in those dungeons… You get through 80 dungeons + to the level you are required to actually use the back slot item and you get a ring AND can afford a backslot item… It is that simple.

The stats on the item make a 1%-2% difference to your OVERALL character strength which is NOTHING and a lesser difference than rare to exotics. And makes no difference in world vs world, especially if we cannot select runes and have rune effects in play (and people who use runes for their stats only and don’t work with the effects are just bad players, like the glass cannon only groups, lacking in intelligence)

There is still no gear grind in the game that isn’t optional, none that effects the gameplay in a meaningful way and ascended isn’t even a grind atm due to how they implemented it.

All I see is a bunch of people having a kneejerk reaction without actually having a closer look at how it will effect them and the way the game is played.

lol i have looked closely. it’s hours and hours of a grind in content some of us hate. How difficult is that to understand. the rings don’t always drop. How can you say what is a grind for some of us? It’s not optional. stop saying that. the stats are at least 20% better than exotics. not optional.

Buutttt you don’t need them, the stats are 8% better than an exotic and you don’t need them outside of fractals and even then only after level 11…
That 8% stat bonus is a 1-2% character power bonus at best and even less as you cannot get a full set yet.

Multiple analyses have shown its at least 20%, lol. This is only the beginning.

Actually, It truly depends on the stat you are looking at. Take the jewel slot stats, those are 20%-28% better for regular stats and crit damage is 33% better. However if you go by the item stats it’s only like 4-6% better and crit damage is 33% better. Overall the items are ~12.5%-24% better depending on the stats you want. Condition damage doesn’t increase nearly as much as crit damage or magic find. Which is another thing, why is the stat weighting in this game so wonky? I mean it feels like they just tossed stats on items without doing the math.

Dont know why saying “sorry, we missed the mark and we are making emends” is so hard to say. We all love the game and we all are hoping to be given reasons to stay here playing and spending some money now and then if the game is worth of it.

So, plese, fix the issues, rollback some content if you have to but make it count for good.

I, like many thousands of players out there, just want to have fun playing GW2.

It’s just a handful of canned responses and lies, paired with intentionally ignoring the REAL problems such as the new gear. That’s all ANet has become, canned lies. I love how at the end they give a list of vague descriptions of real problems they should have fixed before the game was even released. It’s like “Despite what everyone thinks, the event was a complete success except for a few slight technical things that we promise to fix! oh by the way, here’s every aspect of our game that needs to be finished and over-hauled, we won’t bore you with the details when and how we’ll do it. Now go back and play the game while we censor forum posts.”

Sounded very much like a PR exercise to me when I read the article. Fractals was a really good idea and could have been amazing if not for the exclusion/elitist attitude it’s brought with it into the game and sadly no mention of addressing these aspects – just adding more.

Look, folks, it’s apparent ANet understands that the way the events were run weren’t best. What I can insinuate from that article is that they won’t do it the same way again due to negative responses. What I truly love about ANet is the fact they’re willing to listen to the community and learn from mistakes. But let’s also give them some credit; Fractals are very fun (imo) and I’m glad they’re listening. It’s a lot better than D3 or WoW’s community, and I truly appreciate their constant strive to please their customers.

I am excited about the adding of new dungeons to Fractals of the Mists, that concept for PvE is amazing. Hope they add a lot of crazy levels, jumping puzzles, game mechanics and music to FotM.

I am also excited about adding new content and reward progression to WvW.

I hope they go all out and add gear, rewards, specific titles, new game mechanics, new siege, new borderlands, new jumping puzzles, and Kill Death Ratio board on their website and make it pertain to Servers, Guilds and Individual Players.

I really do hope they consider making it so we can all see each others names in WvW as well. Notoriety goes a long way in pvp, especially World vs World PvP like they have made here.

In any case, keep up the great work and I will keep playing and paying.

Happy Thanksgiving to ArenaNet

fellyn.5083:

Columba.9730:

More dungeons. I hate dungeons. It would have nice to acknowledge the near universal disgust at the gear grind.

“Near univseral”? So you managed to ask every single player in the game how they feel about it?

Do you realize the people posting on the forums represent not even 10% of the people who are playing the game?

Since you’ re posting on the forums you probably represent less than 10% of the player base too. I find it odd that positive threads are often thought to represent most of the populous while negative threads the vocal minority.

It’s true that the majority of players express their opinion indirectly (but clearly) by playing the game as enthusiastically as ever, still logging in every now and then or hardly ever logging in any more. However that does not necessarily mean that the people in the forums do not roughly represent a significant part of the player demographic (ppl that are rather ambiguous about staying or quitting but kinda wonna stay still).

For what it’s worth my server feels like nothing but a shadow of its former self most of the time and my guilds’ attendance sheets are 90% grey even during the weekends.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Thanks for your feedback we really appreciate it. I would like to take the opportunity to answer your questions in an AMA on Reddit on Monday 26th (12pm PST- More details to follow) to talk about recent updates to the game and our philosophy for Guild Wars 2 moving forward.

Please keep in mind that there we are about to begin the Thanksgiving holiday in the US and are out of the office (and likely in game) until Monday. Happy Holidays everyone!

Chris

Erm… just a quick question here: most Oceanic players were not able to participate in the weekends events because they started at 12pm PST which was, well in the middle of the night where they live so can they participate in this AMA?

I don’t know how these things work. Can the questions be posted over the course of a day or so?

so is Anet not doing anything for those of us who got dc’d. The event was fun overall but getting kicked from my reward after that boring 3 hour boss fight has made it hard for me to log back in since.

What you could try to do, is find a representative for the oceanic players.

Gather up all questions you have as oceanic players, and that involve oceanic players. (I am sure that there will be questions that are not oceanic related, but most people will have them too that arent in that time-zone.

Then let one person post that bunch of questions saying:

“I’m here on behalf of quite a few oceanic players who couldn’t be here today. And I have the following questions that are their most pressing concerns regarding their time-zone:

- insert list of questions -

Thank you for your time."

You could “simply” make a topic here regarding the AMA, gathering questions from Oceanic players as such. Advertise it to fellow oceanic players as well. Hell, I bet some of the CMs might help you out by making a link on facebook about it (if they have the time, so no promises).

It’s not too much effort I suppose? ^^

To be honest, the same thing can be done for any group of players. It’s better to make a list of questions than to litter posts around about how unsatisfied you are. Which doesn’t give you any concrete answers anyway, since the whole of ArenaNet is on vacation. Granted that it is quite hard to answer satisfactory to a group of people who disregard everything as PR-talk, are too impatient to not be negative about every other change or go hand in hand with a bunch of trolls who put off every attempt as dumb stupid and lies. (Really, if you think that is helping, then you’re very mistaken.)

If trust is broken for you, then there will be no satisfactory answer. It’s like holding a gun to someone’s head and telling them to answer the answer you want to hear instead of what actually is the case, even if that’s something you don’t want to hear.

Questions I would like to see them answer would be:

“What is the difference between a gear treadmill and gear progression? And how do your initial philosophies come into play in this aspect?”

and/or

“People obviously don’t want to grind in Guild Wars 2. How is some gear not a grind, since it does take 250 T6 crafting material which only drops in certain locations? And what is done or going to be done to prevent that people have to repeat the same content over and over, in order to get this new gear, or the materials for this gear?”

I mean, I have not seen a single person come up with any meaningful questions at all. Be constructive and open to their answers. Destructive or in-constructive remarks lead to nothing or break down your viewpoint, where-as constructive and sceptical questions lead to answers. Whether you want to hear those answers or like those answers is a whole matter on it’s own of course. And if that means what they said before is or isn’t true is much a matter of opinion, or coping with the change in viewpoint.

Nephaerius.9103:

Nice to hear some news/plans. However, I’m not buying a word that comes from ANet until I see it in action. The Ascended gear fiasco was enough for me. Not to mention the epic fail that was Lost Shores.

+1

You basically said it all.

Flynch.6034:

phabby.8945:

So really am amazed that anet goes on holidays and won’t address our complains from an Oceanic perspective this is just disrespectful

Ok if this is the level we’ve fallen to on the forums then, wow, quite frankly.

But to address the rest of your post, there will be an AMA meeting next Monday that will hopefully answer these questions that you might have.

But honestly, you need to chill out and let them have a holiday without some forum-based guilt, else you come off as a little bit insane. They are not the forum’s personal slaves, they are people who work hard and make mistakes like we all do.

wow an AMA meeting scheduled for gee lets see 7am my time Tuesday morning, and for some its 4am , other in my region 10 am so how you figure we could make time when we would either be at work, school or sleeping?.

let them have a holiday you say , I say no we were complaing about the schedule since it was realised with no respectful answer given then the one I posted up.

Point 1-They knew since game release that their decision would affect half their player base due to the timing of the event, yet did nothing to address this

Point 2- They stated that no player would ever be discriminated against with content because of where they live, yet they did so

Point 3-They then gave out up too $250.00 worth of in game stuff, driving a wedge in the community, by all accounts this is totally bias to all players whom could not make the event because of point 1

Point 4- You would find that a multi national company as such as Anet, Don’t get Holidays its bad for business, so there is someone there to answer complaints, And its been 5 days now in still no word , That is , very rude, to treat your paying customers in that way.

Point 5- They need to show they are addressing the complaints in a professional manner, instead we have seen they lock threads delete posts and temp bad some ppl. Due to the legality of what they have done their lawyers should be addressing the fact they they have opened them selves up to a mass lawsuit in some country’s ,

Point 6- Love the new map the designers have done an incredible job, the new foe are hard has nails and are so fun to test your ability against, Job Done amazingly congrats.

Point 7- the new dungeon seams to be great from what mates have said , haven’t had the time to do it yet looking forward to it, so will give feedback on that when I do

Point 8 the discussion over the new Gear is to me a bit of a joke. In guild wars we had elite players that would run UW sc, DOA sc, why cause they could and they would try and better the next crew that put up a time. Not to mention the elite mini’s ,ectos and so forth that went with these guys. So by Anet introducing this new class of Gear they have given these types of player something to do.They would be like kidds at xmas at having an area to work on to gain something elite that normal players would find hard to get. Leave them too it because they are that nuts that they will do it over and over again till they get that “OH LOOK AT ME”

Point 9- For all those in the USA have a safe thanksgiving’s
cheers Phabby

phabby.8945:

Flynch.6034:

phabby.8945:

So really am amazed that anet goes on holidays and won’t address our complains from an Oceanic perspective this is just disrespectful

Ok if this is the level we’ve fallen to on the forums then, wow, quite frankly.

But to address the rest of your post, there will be an AMA meeting next Monday that will hopefully answer these questions that you might have.

But honestly, you need to chill out and let them have a holiday without some forum-based guilt, else you come off as a little bit insane. They are not the forum’s personal slaves, they are people who work hard and make mistakes like we all do.

wow an AMA meeting scheduled for gee lets see 7am my time Tuesday morning, and for some its 4am , other in my region 10 am so how you figure we could make time when we would either be at work, school or sleeping?.

let them have a holiday you say , I say no we were complaing about the schedule since it was realised with no respectful answer given then the one I posted up.

Point 1-They knew since game release that their decision would affect half their player base due to the timing of the event, yet did nothing to address this

Point 2- They stated that no player would ever be discriminated against with content because of where they live, yet they did so

Point 3-They then gave out up too $250.00 worth of in game stuff, driving a wedge in the community, by all accounts this is totally bias to all players whom could not make the event because of point 1

Point 4- You would find that a multi national company as such as Anet, Don’t get Holidays its bad for business, so there is someone there to answer complaints, And its been 5 days now in still no word , That is , very rude, to treat your paying customers in that way.

Point 5- They need to show they are addressing the complaints in a professional manner, instead we have seen they lock threads delete posts and temp bad some ppl. Due to the legality of what they have done their lawyers should be addressing the fact they they have opened them selves up to a mass lawsuit in some country’s ,

Point 6- Love the new map the designers have done an incredible job, the new foe are hard has nails and are so fun to test your ability against, Job Done amazingly congrats.

Point 7- the new dungeon seams to be great from what mates have said , haven’t had the time to do it yet looking forward to it, so will give feedback on that when I do

Point 8 the discussion over the new Gear is to me a bit of a joke. In guild wars we had elite players that would run UW sc, DOA sc, why cause they could and they would try and better the next crew that put up a time. Not to mention the elite mini’s ,ectos and so forth that went with these guys. So by Anet introducing this new class of Gear they have given these types of player something to do.They would be like kidds at xmas at having an area to work on to gain something elite that normal players would find hard to get. Leave them too it because they are that nuts that they will do it over and over again till they get that “OH LOOK AT ME”

Point 9- For all those in the USA have a safe thanksgiving’s
cheers Phabby

I would happily wager that someone from your particular timezone will have the opportunity to ask these questions – as if the forums are correct then a vaste number of players feel very strongly about this, and a percentage of them will not be working, have school or any other commitments at that time.

7am – 10am is actually a pretty good time to throw some questions down imo. You can always check back after work, school etc to see what the answers are, or surf the website at lunch.

Or are you asking them to have 2 meetings now to accommodate the timezones?

Thing is, i’m all for them having separate events that cover two mirrored timezones. I’m also very much in favour of having a discussion with a member of the team who is well rested and has had a break from the utter carnage of this forum.

On a side but related note – the whole Precursor thing is a bit weird. I mean, it was RNG to start off with in the game world prior to the Event. Anyone could have a crack at it given enough time. The event just compressed the time it would have taken and some people got lucky on the RNG, just as they would have needed to have done, outside of the event. Now the prices have plunged. I’d say that’s pretty good surely.

But the meeting isn’t what it seams as question have been asked 4 times now to be added about the event timing on Oceanic’s behalf yet the opp won’t have it as a question so the AMA is already seaming to be a fix.

The side note I understand your point of view however most of us had all ready been at work for hrs before the launch , We want the chance to play as it was intended and have our chance at the chest, if they cannot accommodate this then they have failed in there promise not to disadvantage anyone in game on the principal of where they live.
due to the excessive reward given they need to compensate everyone in some way = to what they dished out or allow us to play and have a chance.

As for your hoilday when did that start? as an Aussie I have no idea about Thanksgiving timing by FB its today , however it has been 5 days and no reply? that a little too long in my mind for a company not to give something after the mess that was

I suspect the AMA will be a big waste of time, where they will not address concerns.

Generally they like to answer questions about poofball collection and pretend that everything is rosy.

Well, Chris Whiteside comments on the Lost Shores Event and the future is a pretty standard PR reply after a major blunder.

Although pointing the positive and acknowledging the negative aspects, you gloss the positive and understate the negative. Then you throw a bone to distract the costumers and raise expectations by talking about future features. Basically you focus the attention of the costumers on what is coming, trying to defuse the present state of affairs.

Example:

“We are very excited about releasing the new model of XXXX car. Its new engine with YYY Hp and a top speed of ZZZ km per hour together with the new design lines represent a major effort from our company to reach costumers expectations.

We are very excited about this model as are many of our costumers. Many of you already tested it and could be thrilled about the feeling of driving such a powerful car.

We are aware of some minor issues with the new model that could have worked better (the engine fails many times, the brakes do not brake, the noise inside the kittenpit is unbearable and the suspension is very unsafe) but based on your feedback we are working in solving these annoyances.

We want to extend a huge thank you to all the test drivers that spent their time driving this new model and we learned a great deal about how to make cars a bit better.

We take this opportunity to point out our plans for future improvements of our model:

1. The seat heating system will have added a scent chosen by the costumer;
2. Costumers will be able to choose the painting scheme;
3. More variations of the model will be released;
4. We promise to fix the engine problems;
5. We will improve the breaks;
6. We will be pushing for our car to enter the Formula 3 championship;
7. We will build even more versions of this car in the furure.

We wish an Happy Thanksgiving and hope to find you in the road at the wheel of our new model (even if stopped by the roadside with a minor breakdown)."

Thank you and best regards,

Red

RedBaron.6058:

Well, Chris Whiteside comments on the Lost Shores Event and the future is a pretty standard PR reply after a major blunder.

Although pointing the positive and acknowledging the negative aspects, you gloss the positive and understate the negative. Then you throw a bone to distract the costumers and raise expectations by talking about future features. Basically you focus the attention of the costumers on what is coming, trying to defuse the present state of affairs.

They didn’t understate the negative. They completely ignored that part.

Silentstorm.7531:

Horizontal progression my azz that doesn’t work and the game was bleeding people fast with that standalone. A mmorpg just can’t do that alone in this day in age.

In which age did an MMO even try horizontal progression? We’ve had over a decade of vertical progression/gear grind MMOs. We don’t have a way of knowing of the game is “bleeding people”, and we certainly don’t know if lack of vertical progression is a primary cause of people leaving the game. I would agree that the game population is lower now than it was a month ago, but that is to be expected after any game’s “honey moon phase”.

GW2 was a well-hyped, highly anticipated game, and a sequel to another very popular game. Take a look at a few games in similar situations, particularly those requiring a service like Steam (for player stats) and having online/multiplayer as a primary feature. I think any recent Call of Duty game can fit this bill, with multiplayer being the main feature and even having post-release content/DLC to keep players longer. These games peak in concurrent players shortly after release. Everyone gets their new toy on release day, and they all play it. The ones that don’t like it as well will stop playing it, others will playthrough the story once and quit because that’s the part they wanted to see. There is massive list of reasons why someone would choose to stick with, or stop playing, any given game.

slazzy.7309:

What would you like in the game? Would you like the rings mailed to you? Would you like the mats you need to craft ascended gear for free?

Nope, I’d rather they weren’t there at all … ever.

I want an MMO with horizontal progression … like the game we were sold.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

to talk about recent updates to the game and our philosophy for Guild Wars 2 moving forward.

Well, i guess that’s it, “our philosophy for Guild Wars 2 moving forward”,dd “Gear Progression”, and flush the entire “Manifesto” down in the toilet.

I have a suggestion for keeping Ascended items in game (we all know they will never flat out remove them), but keeping them in-line with exotic stats. As others have suggested, knocking their base stats down to match exotics is the first step, but it could be a tweaked a bit beyond that.

1) Remove the “baked-in” upgrade item stats, the equivalent of having an Exquisite Ruby/etc built into the base/fixed stats.

2) Add the upgrade item stats to the infusions. Infusions will just be an Exquisite jewel with agony resist, than can only be used with Ascended gear.

3) To keep Ascended as an “upgrade” over exotics (other than just having the infusion slot), give them a small percentage of damage reflect for Agony damage, a damage buff when inflicted with Agony, or increased damage vs enemies that use Agony.

The stats would looks something like this.

+90 Power
+64 Precision
+5% Critical Damage
Gain Might for 5 seconds when suffering from Agony (Effect triggers when Agony is applied)
Infusion Slot:
+25 Power
+15 Precision
+3% Critical Damage
+5 Agony Resistance

Chris Whiteside.6102:

to talk about recent updates to the game and our philosophy for Guild Wars 2 moving forward.

…actually looks moving backward, but go on, please! lol

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

“I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.
Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.
Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.
Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores."
Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

OK – where does establishing an entire new tier of gear AND a new “agony” system in which people are rewarded for excluding those who don’t have enough agony resist fit in with your manifesto considering this game’s sense of community and content experience?

I also add that you have just tipped your hand that Ascended gear is not the end of this, either, that you are also introducing MORE legendaries. (Probably one for every single slot?!, that’s ABSURD and is a slap in the face to all loyal gw2 players who signed on to the manifesto and demonstrated ANet history of skill-based play!)

Wasn’t content supposed to be enjoyed for its own sake, rather than the sole sake of obtaining “e-shinies”? Why not add to endgame by adding paths to existing dungeons and new dungeons, even paths with obviously higher difficulty, but without the “aid or necessity” of “Ascended gear” or yet more legendaries?

…i don’t see any problem in introducing more legendaries (especially since lot of curently existing aren’t exactly desirable aestethically). As long, as the stats that are on them are easily achievable.

mrstealth.6701:

Silentstorm.7531:

Horizontal progression my azz that doesn’t work and the game was bleeding people fast with that standalone. A mmorpg just can’t do that alone in this day in age.

In which age did an MMO even try horizontal progression? We’ve had over a decade of vertical progression/gear grind MMOs. We don’t have a way of knowing of the game is “bleeding people”, and we certainly don’t know if lack of vertical progression is a primary cause of people leaving the game. I would agree that the game population is lower now than it was a month ago, but that is to be expected after any game’s “honey moon phase”.

GW2 was a well-hyped, highly anticipated game, and a sequel to another very popular game. Take a look at a few games in similar situations, particularly those requiring a service like Steam (for player stats) and having online/multiplayer as a primary feature. I think any recent Call of Duty game can fit this bill, with multiplayer being the main feature and even having post-release content/DLC to keep players longer. These games peak in concurrent players shortly after release. Everyone gets their new toy on release day, and they all play it. The ones that don’t like it as well will stop playing it, others will playthrough the story once and quit because that’s the part they wanted to see. There is massive list of reasons why someone would choose to stick with, or stop playing, any given game.

In the original and first Guild Wars MMO game, there was no vertical gear treadmill at all, just a horizontal one for skins/looks and the coolness of the item/s…..so now you know.

RedBaron.6058:

Well, Chris Whiteside comments on the Lost Shores Event and the future is a pretty standard PR reply after a major blunder.

Although pointing the positive and acknowledging the negative aspects, you gloss the positive and understate the negative. Then you throw a bone to distract the costumers and raise expectations by talking about future features. Basically you focus the attention of the costumers on what is coming, trying to defuse the present state of affairs.

The problem being that everyone knows that what is coming is a grind and a treadmill. Oh, they’ll promise everyone that there will be other ways to obtain the gear, but we won’t get specifics. There will be no guarantee that it will be less grindy ot that gear of the same stat value will be equally available. Sorry, I’ve already been trained to expect to get screwed for not playing the main event, lik WoW PvP. Playing that casually never got me gear that would allow me to fight on equal footing with people doing Rated. All you could do was chew glass in BGs and get subpar gear that let you curbstomp fresh 80/85/90s.

If they don’t come to the AMA with clear, definitive words and zero spin, they’ll get eaten alive. Look at the threads. A good portion have zero faith in the AMA being useful as it is. ANet’s credit is at an all time low. They will need to wow them with wit, not baffle them with bullkitten.

Gombar.7324:

In the original and first Guild Wars MMO game, there was no vertical gear treadmill at all, just a horizontal one for skins/looks and the coolness of the item/s…..so now you know.

I played GW1 for 7 years, and you’re right that it had no vertical progress. But GW1 was not an MMO, it was a COORPG (cooperative online RPG), so it was not a consideration in the question asked. The gameplay is similar, but its fully instanced design puts a distinct line between the two genres.

mrstealth.6701:

Gombar.7324:

In the original and first Guild Wars MMO game, there was no vertical gear treadmill at all, just a horizontal one for skins/looks and the coolness of the item/s…..so now you know.

I played GW1 for 7 years, and you’re right that it had no vertical progress. But GW1 was not an MMO, it was a COORPG (cooperative online RPG), so it was not a consideration in the question asked. The gameplay is similar, but its fully instanced design puts a distinct line between the two genres.

Too, GW2 isn’t a MMO either according to ANet, but instead an “Online World”…..still don’t take away that to the broader audeince, both GW and GW2 falls into and under the MMO umbrella…anyway, sorry for the derailing and the splitting hairs.

Stormcycle.4208:

I don’t think its the end of the world at all if they make gear progression in this game, gear progression is in EVERY game, what makes it so bad for GW2 to have it?

I don’t know. My favorite games to play at the moment are GW2, Planetside 2 and MWO. Those three are more than enough to keep me busy until next year when Arma 3, DayZ standalone and Elder Scrolls Online come out.

As long as Anet makes good on all their ideas and promises so far, GW2 will remain the best MMO on the market right now.

The reason it’s the “best” right now is because its a SKILL BASED GAME.

The introduction of a gear grind removes that skill-based nature from the game by trivializing content and handing out unfair advantage in WvW to people who engage in one type of content (the GRINDY, backbiting, exclusionary, elitist type).

So yes, it is a very big deal. What is the point of even having dodge if they intend you to “grind-out-gear” for events and pvp?

Stormcycle.4208:

On another note, I am watching GamebreakerTV early this morning, and there seems to be a lot of butt hurt concerning GW2 WvW at some point in the show, and by people supposedly representing WoW…

Seems to be a lot of butt hurt on these forums as well.

I bought GW2 and never read any “Manifesto” that people keep crying about, and I honestly don’t care about it.

I don’t think its the end of the world at all if they make gear progression in this game, gear progression is in EVERY game, what makes it so bad for GW2 to have it?

I don’t know. My favorite games to play at the moment are GW2, Planetside 2 and MWO. Those three are more than enough to keep me busy until next year when Arma 3, DayZ standalone and Elder Scrolls Online come out.

As long as Anet makes good on all their ideas and promises so far, GW2 will remain the best MMO on the market right now.

That’s the problem and the center of what you call “butt hurt” is all about. That certain things, such as their ideas and promises, aren’t any good any longer. In that that has now been changed.

I can only say that you really should take a minute or two and read through/watch the manifesto video where this is put forth, and with the latest patch, taken back…every single word!

- o -

http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto

mrstealth.6701:

Gombar.7324:

In the original and first Guild Wars MMO game, there was no vertical gear treadmill at all, just a horizontal one for skins/looks and the coolness of the item/s…..so now you know.

I played GW1 for 7 years, and you’re right that it had no vertical progress. But GW1 was not an MMO, it was a COORPG (cooperative online RPG), so it was not a consideration in the question asked. The gameplay is similar, but its fully instanced design puts a distinct line between the two genres.

Instanced design and progression type are independent of each other, which makes the “no MMO” argument completely irrelevant in this discussion.

plasmacutter.2709:

Stormcycle.4208:

I don’t think its the end of the world at all if they make gear progression in this game, gear progression is in EVERY game, what makes it so bad for GW2 to have it?

I don’t know. My favorite games to play at the moment are GW2, Planetside 2 and MWO. Those three are more than enough to keep me busy until next year when Arma 3, DayZ standalone and Elder Scrolls Online come out.

As long as Anet makes good on all their ideas and promises so far, GW2 will remain the best MMO on the market right now.

The reason it’s the “best” right now is because its a SKILL BASED GAME.

The introduction of a gear grind removes that skill-based nature from the game by trivializing content and handing out unfair advantage in WvW to people who engage in one type of content (the GRINDY, backbiting, exclusionary, elitist type).

So yes, it is a very big deal. What is the point of even having dodge if they intend you to “grind-out-gear” for events and pvp?

Yeah but gear progression is what drove PvP in Vanilla WoW. You have to admit it.

There is still skill because you can dodge to evade attacks, use terrain, better coordination of attacks, combo moves, etc.

There already is a big difference between a level 40 and a level 80 in WvW, more stats and higher stats still give you an advantage at a higher level.

I’m not saying they should go all out and put in PvP gear with Resilience (worst idea ever thought of )

But a little gear progression isn’t bad. They just need to make sure its extremely linear, more of a min max kind of thing, instead of having huge jumps in power like other games have between gear sets.

I think that is what they were trying to do by introducing Ascended gear as well, with the current model anyone who has legendary’s has a huge advantage over someone in exotics because of the stat difference so the way I heard it explained, they were trying to bridge that gap.

Stormcycle.4208:

plasmacutter.2709:

Stormcycle.4208:

I don’t think its the end of the world at all if they make gear progression in this game, gear progression is in EVERY game, what makes it so bad for GW2 to have it?

I don’t know. My favorite games to play at the moment are GW2, Planetside 2 and MWO. Those three are more than enough to keep me busy until next year when Arma 3, DayZ standalone and Elder Scrolls Online come out.

As long as Anet makes good on all their ideas and promises so far, GW2 will remain the best MMO on the market right now.

The reason it’s the “best” right now is because its a SKILL BASED GAME.

The introduction of a gear grind removes that skill-based nature from the game by trivializing content and handing out unfair advantage in WvW to people who engage in one type of content (the GRINDY, backbiting, exclusionary, elitist type).

So yes, it is a very big deal. What is the point of even having dodge if they intend you to “grind-out-gear” for events and pvp?

Yeah but gear progression is what drove PvP in Vanilla WoW. You have to admit it.

There is still skill because you can dodge to evade attacks, use terrain, better coordination of attacks, combo moves, etc.

There already is a big difference between a level 40 and a level 80 in WvW, more stats and higher stats still give you an advantage at a higher level.

I’m not saying they should go all out and put in PvP gear with Resilience (worst idea ever thought of )

But a little gear progression isn’t bad. They just need to make sure its extremely linear, more of a min max kind of thing, instead of having huge jumps in power like other games have between gear sets.

I think that is what they were trying to do by introducing Ascended gear as well, with the current model anyone who has legendary’s has a huge advantage over someone in exotics because of the stat difference so the way I heard it explained, they were trying to bridge that gap.

There was no gap for legendaries. Legendaries and Exotics were the same stats. There will be when they introduce Ascended weapons and bump the legendaries up to ascended stats. But they introduced the gap with Ascended. There literally was nothing to bridge.

Maz.8604:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Thanks for your feedback we really appreciate it. I would like to take the opportunity to answer your questions in an AMA on Reddit on Monday 26th (12pm PST- More details to follow) to talk about recent updates to the game and our philosophy for Guild Wars 2 moving forward.

Please keep in mind that there we are about to begin the Thanksgiving holiday in the US and are out of the office (and likely in game) until Monday. Happy Holidays everyone!

Chris

Hopefully this is weighted with the proper respect that the lack thereof caused the original to be deleted.

With all due respect, but this format is only really good for people who are anonymous. Such as IAMA doctor AMA and in a general discussion forum about medicine. Doctoring, engineering, etc, rarely has enough fans. It is all about imparting information, not public relation spin.

Holding an AMA in the GW2 subreddit will just increase the noise to signal ratio as the hive-mind asks irrelevant questions that have little do with the reasons you have to do the AMA. To smooth over all the issues the November 15th update caused.

The softest ball that passes over that particular plate will be struck, and the hive-mind will consider it a home run and call it caring. This a PR move. And any dissent will be down-voted by the hive-mind mentality that happens on /r/guildwars2, no matter how relevant and poignant the points made.

This is why reddit is a stain on humanity. Useless.

Hop on a live stream and answer both live questions and pre-submitted questions. Don’t dodge. If you don’t know and answer, say so. If you do know an answer but aren’t allowed to tell us, say so. “I’m not allowed to answer that” is a perfectly acceptable answer. Do not use a reddit AMA.

I’m mildly pleased to hear about the old dungeon overhaul and all that, but it would be nice if we knew what was being done about bugs that didn’t get fixed/got created for the various professions in the last major patch.

Mmmeh… all i hear are words. They want to do this and that.

Problems that have been in the past still are now and/or even bigger.

+ the fact they completely shafted rangers in the most major way i have yet to see in an mmo…. They have to amend that in a biblical way because their PR went down a lot.

Also on PR..they should cut the secret-ism cr*p already. They said we should keep soggy bags +2 map peaces in our inventory till after the event….a week passed. Seriously..stop it and say what is up when asked. It’s better to answer then to give vague useless answers. For example when u were honest and said u had a wooping 2 man team on balance for 8 classes. That was an honest answer that made me decide “why bother? they will never fix anything with that team..they don’t even have time to read what we say on the forums…i will just roll the unlimited buffed class”.

It’s done wonders so far.

Golgathoth.3967:

I’m mildly pleased to hear about the old dungeon overhaul and all that, but it would be nice if we knew what was being done about bugs that didn’t get fixed/got created for the various professions in the last major patch.

I’m actually worried about that.

If their “overhaul” to old dungeons is to make them like fractals, i’m going to be forced to pack up and move on.

I liked the explorable modes, the fact that they were entirely based on skill, the fact that they did not have agony, the fact that if you searched for an explorable mode group you did not have to worry about their “level”.

if they apply fractaling to explorables, I will have nothing left to play.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

Two things from me:
- We will talk in more detail about the things Chris outlined when we get closer to releasing them.
- If this thread becomes another one where people bicker back and forth about Ascended gear, I will close it down. Please continue discussion about Ascended gear in the existing threads on that topic and do not derail every thread that pops up.

Thank you.

Wow…it sounds like some bully, here. they don’t want any mention of it anywhere. All I see now coming from ANET is hostility, this is anet on a whole. You guys have just turned hostile to your player base.

Give the players what they want; the game that they paid good money for.

Take away the PR hype and be honest with us. The only types of players you’re going to have around after Christmas at this rate are the hard-core “life is for someone else” gamers that are the only ones that will be able to keep up with your vertical treadmilling. No one else here likes it, not casual players anyway. The problem is you haven’t kept the focus on the player, you’re bowing to the wishes of the elitist. Please remember that people bought this game as something to play, not as a full-on challenge, but we would like to be rewarded likewise for our efforts when we can play.

I thought about this earlier on today, and right now it’s mostly about money. The hardcore gamer can get rich as easy as breathing, but for the casual gamer, everything costs money and there’s no real easy way to make it back. It’s like ANet suddenly became a bit like a casino in Vegas.. the RNG is the odds you play, and those odds ALWAYS favour the house.

The view of a casual player.
I am against all forms of vertical gear progression. So when I first heard about the new content I really did not think it was what it sounded like, however after some more posts by Anet it became clear that it was what it sound it like. A gear treadmill.
I played Guild Wars(1), and every campaign, and I came back to that game so many times. I have only really done that for a few, as with most games I leave once I get bored and do not bother coming back. However with GW(1) you added new campaigns and got me reinterested, and then the best bit was I came back and did not need to grind to get new gear for my main character because there as no gear treadmill. This meant I could play alts and get different gear for my main based on looks.
For GW2, this is not the case. I have not got bored yet, I am enjoying your game and I felt getting exotics was hard enough. I have only got two level 80s with exotics, and it s taking some time to gear them up. However I just read a post about how it is going to take either 250 ectos or 1850 fractal tokens to get the back slot item.
For me a casual player I have to say this is insanely high. I would not mind it so much if it was only for the looks, however as I understand it you need this new gear for the infussions and the higher stats in later fractals. So please tell me why you would do this?
Exotic was fine, and now we have to work twice as hard to get better gear if we want to keep up. Currently it is not too bad as most have alts and do not mind doing the lower level fractals. However soon, say a months time the about of parties going to level 5 fractals are going to drop and anyone who does not have the right gear is gong to find it very hard to catch up. Now luckly I am in a good guild and we help each other, but we are all casual and it is going to take a lot of time to gear everyone. By the time we do that, some of the slightly more hard core players will have the gear and may not want to help. How often would you world complete queens dale for a guild mate?
So Anet please remove this gate to the new dungeon. You are splitting the community.
As you get more fractal tokens in later levels, a temporary solution might be to allow people to start at the fractal of the highest memeber. However this is only going to slow down the split of the community. If I take a break from GW2 now, ill never catch up and that means I wont come back. So I am just hoping I do not get bored, and with all this grinding for new gear just to stay with everyone that might happen.

Anet needs to stop the gear treadmill!

mrstealth.6701:

Gombar.7324:

In the original and first Guild Wars MMO game, there was no vertical gear treadmill at all, just a horizontal one for skins/looks and the coolness of the item/s…..so now you know.

I played GW1 for 7 years, and you’re right that it had no vertical progress. But GW1 was not an MMO, it was a COORPG (cooperative online RPG), so it was not a consideration in the question asked. The gameplay is similar, but its fully instanced design puts a distinct line between the two genres.

Standing around in Lion’s Arch LFG for Fractals (or any dungeon) is idential to GW1. You’re standing in 1 of a few (or more) variations of a city zone, and looking to get people to go into an instance that is exclusive to your group.

Revan.3185:

so is Anet not doing anything for those of us who got dc’d. The event was fun overall but getting kicked from my reward after that boring 3 hour boss fight has made it hard for me to log back in since.

Revan.3185:

so is Anet not doing anything for those of us who got dc’d. The event was fun overall but getting kicked from my reward after that boring 3 hour boss fight has made it hard for me to log back in since.

Revan.3185:

so is Anet not doing anything for those of us who got dc’d. The event was fun overall but getting kicked from my reward after that boring 3 hour boss fight has made it hard for me to log back in since.

Hmm, seems you’re right.

Bregah.7365:

Standing around in Lion’s Arch LFG for Fractals (or any dungeon) is idential to GW1. You’re standing in 1 of a few (or more) variations of a city zone, and looking to get people to go into an instance that is exclusive to your group.

You never had to stand around looking for a group for all but a few things in GW1. And even then, it was only if you insisted on doing it a certain way (like the speedclears of UW, etc). You could do anything you wanted with just you and your heroes. I can’t think of a single thing that was not possible alone after the 7-hero update, and almost everything could be done before that with a 3 hero/4 henchmen party.

The instanced areas in GW2 are also pretty limited (only dungeons and personal story), where GW1 had 100% of the gameplay content in instances. But, if all you are doing is dungeons, then it would feel more like GW1. FotM does seem to have condensed a good portion of the players down to doing just that. This is, of course, largely the fault of Anet’s decision to make it (currently) the only place to get ascended gear.

GW1 also never required you to do a certain dungeon (or any specific activity) for max gear, as FotM now does. People were standing around LFG because they wanted to do UW faster, have more experienced players to help with something they found difficult, or just preferred playing with humans instead of NPCs. They weren’t LFG because they needed 4 other players in order to get gear.

plasmacutter.2709:

Golgathoth.3967:

I’m mildly pleased to hear about the old dungeon overhaul and all that, but it would be nice if we knew what was being done about bugs that didn’t get fixed/got created for the various professions in the last major patch.

I’m actually worried about that.

If their “overhaul” to old dungeons is to make them like fractals, i’m going to be forced to pack up and move on.

I liked the explorable modes, the fact that they were entirely based on skill, the fact that they did not have agony, the fact that if you searched for an explorable mode group you did not have to worry about their “level”.

if they apply fractaling to explorables, I will have nothing left to play.

I dunno… I think if they applied “fractaling” to all the dungeons.. that might be cool.. just remove the ascended gear and agony and keep “the deeper you go, the more difficult it becomes with greater rewards” part. Without the ascended gear and agony condition, the deeper levels would still be about skill instead of stacking a resistance to a constant condition.

Also, the fractals dungeon, as an idea, is awesome… really, it’s just that it’s the only place that rewards ascended items seems to be the issue with most people (or so i think).. if this patch came without the ascended items, i think it would have been awesome.. to be honest, I love the fractals dungeon.. it has interesting mechanics in all of them (instead of just a boss with a massive hp bar).

slazzy.7309:

Columba.9730:

lol i have looked closely. it’s hours and hours of a grind in content some of us hate. How difficult is that to understand. the rings don’t always drop. How can you say what is a grind for some of us? It’s not optional. stop saying that. the stats are at least 20% better than exotics. not optional.

What would you like in the game? Would you like the rings mailed to you? Would you like the mats you need to craft ascended gear for free?

And where did you get the 20% better? Did you read that somewhere, or did you calculate it on your own?

What you need to do is decide for yourself what feels like a grind and what doesn’t, and you’ll feel better about how you play the game. The people here are not a sample of the majority. Progression in all of its forms are as much a part of this game as it is a part of life. If you choose not to progress here, you go somewhere else and progress elsewhere. But make no mistake. Fundamental design requires character progression and reward. Anet has provided additional ways to progress, that’s all. It doesn’t violate the ToS, it doesn’t violate some vague promise they made 7 years ago. It’s the natural order of the development cycle, and it only helps to improve your enjoyment of gameplay. So, don’t listent to the masses, don’t jump on the bandwagon until you listen to yourself first. What do you feel you want to accomplish in this game? That’s more important than what anyone else tells you.

I would like the game I was sold that promised no stat grinds

E3: How will future events be handled in regards to timing? Oceanic players are upset that the one-time-only events were skewed to arguably unfavorable times for them, and that many didn’t get to participate.
Moving forward we are going to do our best to design events that are accessible to the community as possible. We really should have thought about some of the ramifications of the design of the Karka event in more detail. In short its not something we wanted to happen and we will be rethinking how we do 1 time events moving forward.
chris

Very poor answer Chris given your development team Knew about this before the game was launched..

MatthewMedina
Content Designer
We know that this is a topic that’s going to be heavily discussed, and we definitely want as much of your feedback as possible, both positive and negative (so long as it remains constructive and within the guidelines of the rules of conduct). However I would just like to point out that this:
“…fact that it’s the highest concurrence time…”
is contradictory to this:
“why not choose a time where there’s a higher chance for people to choose to attend?”
The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.
Offering events like this at multiple times for different time zones is certainly worth considering, but given our team’s goals and the timeline we had to operate in (we fielded our team immediately after shipping the Live game), it just wasn’t feasible for us to consider such an option for this particular event.
Having said that, this decision is something that we realized would not make everyone happy. Keep in mind that there is a tremendous lineup of content to choose from during the weekend and after, with both the island and the Fractals dungeon remaining active, and we will continue to listen to both criticisms and compliments about these special events in order to continually improve your playing experience.

So explain why you still went ahead with the event the way you did knowing this in advance especial given the reward for this event were so far added to $250. worth of in game stuff that , 1/2 your player base could not even have the chance of getting cause they were forbidden by Anet because of the timing?

We want our chance at the event and to have a go at our chance in the rewards for the event, you have driven a big wedge into your Oceanic community.

We do need a proper answer from either you or Mike since the offical stance is

We feel that everyone should have the ability to contribute no matter what time of the day it is. How we’ve came to this conclusion is that no player’s time is more valuable than another. Everyone has different off peak hours for whatever reason. Players should not be punished or unable to experience and view the same content as everyone else because they play at a different time. They too are paying customers.

So Please a decent answer would be nice

TY Phabby

Think we arn’t going to get an answer.

on a positive note I think having something for the" Look At Me ppl" to chase is a cool idea, be it assended gear or something flashy shiney shiney . Thouse guys need something to set them apart, only thing i could see to make everyone else happy is make them a Town only clothes ,that way they won’t affect wvw or pvp such things and make those areas still all about skill not how good your armour is

phabby.8945:

We want our chance at the event and to have a go at our chance in the rewards for the event, you have driven a big wedge into your Oceanic community.

Mate they did this a long time ago. Now they’ve just exacerbated it.

We’re the minority that ANet doesn’t think is worth the time to read. We’re paying customers also but the reality is I don’t think they can handle the logistical side of an event properly. Highest concurrency is tantamount to having the best times for the servers to fall over and people to whinge and moan they didn’t get to finish the event. I’ve put forth the idea of an Oceanic server since GW1 when I spoke to the ANet mouthpiece of the time, Gaile Gray. I mentioned this to her twice, and both times it’s been fobbed off. I believe it’s a fantastic way to take load off other servers, decrease latency for people in this part of the world and when events are available, they’re on a local server at local times.

The logistics side of things that ANet is worried about is that the server won’t be used, kind of like what happened in the Asian servers in GW before they got merged. I believe right now it’s the Sea of Sorrows which is the unofficial Oceanic server, but it’s still located in NA. As such our pings are way higher than anyone else in the world. When events like the karka come around, it’s almost unplayable from here, if you could get on at all. My info is that people were kicked out once they were d/c’d / culled from servers, and couldn’t get back in. Now what was that about “highest concurrency” again? Take everyone you can until the servers explode?

Summary is this: I think my suggestion bears more thought and deliberation than just “nah we can’t put one down there, it won’t get used…” and never thought of again. The Oceanics will still be around to tell you otherwise.

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

phabby.8945:

We want our chance at the event and to have a go at our chance in the rewards for the event, you have driven a big wedge into your Oceanic community.

Mate they did this a long time ago. Now they’ve just exacerbated it.

We’re the minority that ANet doesn’t think is worth the time to read. We’re paying customers also but the reality is I don’t think they can handle the logistical side of an event properly. Highest concurrency is tantamount to having the best times for the servers to fall over and people to whinge and moan they didn’t get to finish the event. I’ve put forth the idea of an Oceanic server since GW1 when I spoke to the ANet mouthpiece of the time, Gaile Gray. I mentioned this to her twice, and both times it’s been fobbed off. I believe it’s a fantastic way to take load off other servers, decrease latency for people in this part of the world and when events are available, they’re on a local server at local times.

The logistics side of things that ANet is worried about is that the server won’t be used, kind of like what happened in the Asian servers in GW before they got merged. I believe right now it’s the Sea of Sorrows which is the unofficial Oceanic server, but it’s still located in NA. As such our pings are way higher than anyone else in the world. When events like the karka come around, it’s almost unplayable from here, if you could get on at all. My info is that people were kicked out once they were d/c’d / culled from servers, and couldn’t get back in. Now what was that about “highest concurrency” again? Take everyone you can until the servers explode?

Summary is this: I think my suggestion bears more thought and deliberation than just “nah we can’t put one down there, it won’t get used…” and never thought of again. The Oceanics will still be around to tell you otherwise.

Totally Agree with you about a Server for us, At least with GW’s we got to play any of the events as they ran for a week or even over the whole weekend without this now one time only crap that really is a discriminating act on us all in this time zone,and you would think that we pay more for there game then 90% of the rest of the world they would at least make it fair on us .

Really does suck to miss out on an event like the lost shores and then to have them rub salt into the wound even more with them rewarding the chest drops that they did is just pathetic , Halloween was just a cinematic so that was ok to deal with but I know alot of Aussie players that have just ditched the game after the way this was handled.

And I can see that this is being ignored totally thinking we will just go away with time, but what’s the bet a One time only thing will happen again for Wintersday and we will miss out on that aswell

for those that are following this thread ,news on the ppl that got dised before the end of the event,you should be getting something in your mail next week, gz to you all there and good luck.

For us oceanic guys and girls we miss out on even a srry so far and looks like we get the cold shoulder from anet and won’t be getting the chance at the event or the rewards