Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We definitely listened to the feedback surrounding CP and were aware there would be some concern before we deployed the content. We weighed up the pros and cons and went with it.

We will be offering a lot more player choice moving forward but have certainly learnt lessons from CP. We want the players to not just shape the social aspects of Tyria but the world itself. This is a topic i can’t go into more detail on currently.

Chris

This is what I mean exactly in my previous post in this topic. Thanks for taking your time by the way, I appreciate it.

And now you bring up the pro’s and con’s…
I can list a bunch of stuff here that you’ve also thought about.
But the biggest issues that are still left unanswered is why you would couple two completely unrelated choises together and just force people to make a bad decision?

And why do you let people who wouldn’t care about specific content choose it?
I’ve heard dozens of people who don’t do fractals, or don’t feel strong about them. Yet, they get to choose for people who care deeply about it.

I’ve just picked one topic here where I feel ArenaNet completely missed out on an awesome idea. And I’m sad to say that your response doesn’t really give me hope for a better future. And that’s a whole nother issue that seems to linger around which I could go on about for a long time.

brick.2708:

Good point. Also, I don’t really RP either (I might sometimes toggle my walk though =P) That said, I still like to get immersed in my games.
Personally I’ve always said that I’d love to see a “Tome of Knowledge” kinda thing that was featured Warhammer Online. A book which would update you on lore whenever you interacted with it in the world.

For example:
You’ve reached the peak of Anvil Rock, besides a point of interest or a Vista, you might get a Journal update. In it, it describes the history behind Anvil rock.
You can even take it a step further. Let’s say Anvil Rock has a hidden jumping puzzle somewhere. Your first journal entry then simply reads: “This is Anvil Rock, bla bla, history of the, bla bla.” But after you’ve found and done the jumple puzzle, it will continue: “It appears as if there’s an ancient ruin or the Mursaat, buried deep within the mountain. Perhaps it’s been here for over eighthundred years when the Collossus still roamed.”

Same with animals.
You run into a Minotaur and kill it.
_ “I have killed a creature known as a Minotaur. Reknown for having the head of a bull, it can often be found in cold regions of the world.”_

Then after you’ve killed 10:
“After encountering the creatures several times, I’ve noticed a pattern in their behavior. They often travel in pacts, but the herd will ban their Omega’s to fend for themselves.”

Anyways, that’s a pipeline dream, and something that probably shouldn’t have been posted here. =P

That would be so nice to have
(And I sometime walk around)

What about this: If a thread in the forum gets a certain number of views, it should trigger a dev response.

Would it not be better to maybe make a sticky in each section, PvE, WvW, and SPvP so the appropriate team can comment and collaborate with each community ?
Keep them heavily moderated to filter out that anger if you like, but my concern is one big open free for all like this, things will get lost and before you know it the seperate communities will be fighting over who’s playtime is more important

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

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

I know this is a bit specific, but I figured I’d try: Are you guys still working on bleed cap? It’s a very important issue to about half the DPS builds in the game, and it’s gotten a lot of feedback here and here.

Lord Kuru.3685:

What about this: If a thread in the forum gets a certain number of views, it should trigger a dev response.

I dunno if I’d like this; I don’t think that large threads are the best format for discussion. They’re really intimidating for people who are approaching them; most people will probably not read much beyond the opening page and the most recent page, which obviously makes a problem for any thread that’s longer than two pages. Unless threads have structured growth and bookmarks it’s difficult to know which posts are sticking and which aren’t, and they can get a bit cyclical in their responses.

in relation to the “what do you want to see” threads…I’m hoping that you will actually have most threads that highlight key aspects of the game that need some fixing, instead of just having a spam-fest of ideas.

For example, Instead of :
“what do you want to see in WvW?” how about “What method would you use to curb buffs”

Or instead of

“what do you want to do about PvE?” how about asking “What is most pressing. Condi stacks? Lack of gear variety? or Enemy skills vs player skills?”

Not saying everything should be relegated to significant areas, but it’d help to at least get somewhere.

On a side note, – As I’d said previously, I’d be nice if we could get the players from in-game participating too, and not just the forums.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

That is a very good question. Obviously for me, the answer is “no”, but this could be a real concern for others.

I wonder if it’s possible to have an in-game poll initiated by an NPC? Or if that would be overly complicated? I’m interested to hear what others have to say on the subject of in-game polls.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

For me yes and perhaps many in game who don’t visit the forums it would possibly seem random. Never been a fan of the idea personally – I would much rather see conversations like this..outside of the game (forums, reddit, livechat etc). They also strike me as a rather desperate measure for an MMo company to take and almost acknowledges that their product is poor. I know Anet get a lot of flak (way too much imo), but I don’t see they are at this stage or anywhere close.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

But what constitutes as “Immersion”?

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

Randulf.7614:

would much rather see conversations like this..outside of the game (forums, reddit, livechat etc).

I agree with this. As I said on the previous page, I think it would be better if some of the bigger changes to the game had a line of communication after the actual implementation.

Without any communication after implementation, it is very hard to give actual feedback or to enter a dialog of some form. There are plenty of posts providing feedback on several topics, but without any dev replies, no one really knows if the feedback is even read, no one really knows if you agree with concerns raised.

Besides, and in game poll would not feel much like a dialog between developers and the community.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

Even if it does “break immersion” (which for me is total bs, but that’s not the point here). Would you:

a) Use early(ish) stages of the game, have a little immersion break, but use that to build a better game for years to come.

b) Be worried about the instant effects that a pool would have on those that feel it breaks their immersion, and waste valuable feedback that could make the game live up to its full potential, resulting in not-so-great experiences which could shorten the life of the game.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

Not if there’s an opt-out for in game polls. As soon as an in game poll appears players should have the option to opt out. For larger issues that you’d want more of the playerbase providing feedback put out a news post on the website and make sure it shows on the game’s launcher page so people see it. Also on the launcher page it’d be a good idea to have more eye drawing elements for newer news items.

minbariguy.7504:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

That is a very good question. Obviously for me, the answer is “no”, but this could be a real concern for others.

I wonder if it’s possible to have an in-game poll initiated by an NPC? Or if that would be overly complicated? I’m interested to hear what others have to say on the subject of in-game polls.

I had a thought about this not long ago.

We have the Living Story framework and development cycle. It wouldn’t be too hard to expand the Living Story into its own window, I imagine. You could tuck the poll into there. Menus are naturally unimmersive, and you don’t really open them unless you’re not actively engaged.

So yeah. Create a Living Story window which basically outlines the current Living Story stuff in the same way that the Heralds and the thingy in the top right and the letters you receive do. Tuck a “report card” feature into it so you can give ANet your thoughts on what they’ve put out. Naturally, attach a few checks onto it to make sure that you’ve actually done the content. Maybe add a little perk to filling out report cards (achievement points would be pretty much perfect for this), and donesies. If you’re like me, you’ll probably chew on the content and form a few thoughts on it; whether you’re a fan, whether you thought that boss was too hard or tuned just right, whether you think a character is a complete train wreck, and then you’d go either to the forums or to hypothetical the poll to fill out your feedback.

Hi Chris,

I still attest this is an odd thread, maybe just the tone of the first post is confusing. Since you guys seem serious about it, I’ll make a constructive suggestion.

It’s definitely true that many issues have been resolved. An example is magic find – the previous implementation was generic and caused a lot of animosity; the newer iteration is well designed, a lot more open to the community and resolves the previous issues. There are a few things however, which are raised time and time again but there is little dev response on these. Even if you guys are working on solutions, how about just creating high level threads acknowledging the problem, what the community thinks about it and peoples ideas for solutions. Even if said ideas raised are not considered, having a place on the forums which shows the developers acknowledge the issue and are showing they want to resolve it, will solve so many conspiracy threads and help resolve so much of the negative feedback on these forums. Examples of higher level topics which are raised over and over again:

Ascended Gear
- Weapons based on crafting or unlikely RNG drops. No skill based achievement patterns.
- Trinkets based on repeating content multiple times which is not ideal for all players due to requirements of content, such as being in a large guild. No crafting or skill based individual content.
- No ascended backpieces or accessories in wvw (accessories have same cost as PVE, no badge cost)

WVW
- Accound bound ranks
- Server imbalance
- T1 > Tarnished Coast > T2 > coverage = main factor in deciding matchups
- Class balance focused around pvp where perma stealth and banner revving not a problem, yet is ignored in terms of wvw balance.
- Bloodlust buff creating unfair and artificial advantages
- Power creep in passive buffs (bloodlust, guard stacks, world health bonus etc)

PVP
- Lack of game modes
- Community dropping off
- Balance issues (Jonathan did a good job highlighting coming changes, but little is discussed to do with toning down over the top elements which are ruining the current meta)
- No rewards or incentive for high level play with current meta/lack of teams

Fractals:
- Fractal level being character bound instead of account bound
- Unable to salvage fractal weapons
- Lower general rewards than open world pve yet higher difficulity
- Artifical scaling in terms of mob health
- Best rewards (unique skins) being RNG based

General PVE
- Too much temporary content
- Bleed cap/generally bad to use condi builds for team play
- Imbalanced rewards/risk/effort. For example, fire ele vs shatterer
- Precursor system totally based on rng

Devon used to do a great job in posting in the WVW forums, usually once a week he would go through and address a number of points. I don’t blame him for stopping this with the animosity caused by Bloodlust, but it was an example and people respected him for it. It’s simply a case okittennowledging there may be a potential issue and putting it out there to see how people respond. Even just creating a single thread, for discussion, once a week, with a dev post every 2 days, would do SO MUCH to help some of the anger on these forums – which again does not come from all users, but is noticeable in pockets of users which then grows larger with more and more negative feedback cycles. Also splitting the suggestion forum into a pvp suggestion forum, wvw suggestion forum, general suggestion etc will make that less of a mess.

By the way, the balance devs have stated multiple times before they only read the sPVP forum section and do not read the class forums – yet a lot to do will balance will show in the class forums as the game isn’t just pvp. The only time we see posts in the class forum seems to be regarding bugs. A ‘State of the Mesmer’ etc thread once a month by a balance dev would be nice… you never know, we may teach them a thing or two about the class in the progress. There is only 8 classes, creating 8 threads explaining the current state of the class, what is too strong/needs work shouldn’t be too much work…

Randulf.7614:

They also strike me as a rather desperate measure for an MMo company to take and almost acknowledges that their product is poor.

I see what you’re saying, but I guess I disagree. I get surveys printed on sales receipts at many stores and restaurants. It doesn’t strike me as desperate. It strikes me as interested.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

To me it’d really depend on how the questions would be asked, what the topic would be and the choise of answers.

For instance, if you get a poll after beating a boss in the middle of a dungeon… that would be indeed immersion breaking. If you would get a poll after finishing it, it’d be a nice way to see what people think. That way, you get the answer from people who played that content. You could also put certain parameters to that (i.e. play through all paths of the dungeon, or complete the same path 3 times).

Now what I would love personally is that we could perhaps comment on the idea that you want to implement. Let’s say the account wallet. I feel if there’d been the kind of collaboration you are now trying to establish it’d be a much better feature. It came on top of my mind because you can’t deposit prestine relics in there (which at the time seemed like an obvious thing). And now, with all the new crafting materials that really soak up inventory space and that I keep having to throw away… it feels like the feature again is not living up to it’s potential.

So it’d be nice if we can say what we absolutely don’t want in advance… or what’s missing instead of having to give you feedback afterwards.
And here the forums could absolutely shine. As you could give us the exact reasons why stuff is going to happen the way it is (as it’s not far away in the pipeline), and it’s still subject to easy last minute adjustments.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

Why not just email polls to players like you do with the high level updates for each month? Add an ‘unsubscribe from polls function’ and occasionally post the results or atleast a high level analysis on the forums.

Pure ‘in game polls’ would be easy to miss, especially if people read the release notes and did not want to sign in to repeat more temporary content. Also we get enough spam mail in game as it is. :P

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside has a team of writers/PR people and Marketeers talking through him!
This is not the case. i just happen to write this way. Everything i say comes from the heart and if it helps i can write in a less passionate manner. Note i am English and this may have some effect on the way i write (People in the studio tend to blame a lot of the mistakes i make on being English so you are all in good company there)

To me it is so much more refreshing to see you post something like this, than your original post. The first one was so PR this one is so much more human. Some other devs do that, and they can, their choice. But you don’t have to use PR on us, you already got us man!

But thanks for your comments, people do appreciate it. As I said earlier, secrecy breeds distrust and uncertainty (I don’t think you were being secretive but some perceived it as such).

I don’t think anyone expects developers to post on the forums a lot. We know how hard your job is in the MMO space, and I personally appreciate it a lot. But the communication needs to be more open. For example, it would have been better if you guys had communicated with us the stats of precursor crafting a little while ago, instead of us asking about it, and then getting the answer it might not come this year.

Another issue that we haven’t gotten any communication on for almost a year is condition damage:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/No-love-for-condition-builds/page/2

There are some examples that I have seen asked about for a year, with little to no updates/response.

Thanks Chris.

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

Why not just email polls to players like you do with the high level updates for each month? Add an ‘unsubscribe from polls function’ and occasionally post the results or atleast a high level analysis on the forums.

Pure ‘in game polls’ would be easy to miss and we get enough spam mail as it is. :P

Personally I wouldn’t want it in-game. That would make the game feel like it is in beta and ruin the immersion, but I like your idea of an e-mail.

for me there are pros and cons with the current game and this is for wvw firstly i like the IDEA behind the orbs however the actual bonuses of the orbs is the problem if this could be changed that it doesnt give a player/group/zerg such a great advantage over another then i would be happy with that.
another thing is the lack of GvG in a game called guild wars and please dont tell me well SPvP is over that way because honestly its not the same. gvg is something similar to normal wvw raids but with as much fairness as possible, equal numbers, no added stats bonuses (guard stacks) you really dont see many of these gvg guilds raiding around wvw with 8 people.
honestly anet if you did implement a good instanced version of gvg where there can be no distractions from neutral players ill be a very very very happy customer and so will many others

A poll or survey would be great for WvW, I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt any other aspect of the game either. It seems the WvW community and Dev Team seem to be more out of touch than other areas of the game, which as I’m sure your aware causes hostility. I can honestly say it seems at times that particular team just ignores everything and throws out random things that make no sense at all. Its kind of like us saying we want some pie, they reply with “here’s some cake”, “well thank you for the cake but we really wanted pie”, “no you want cake, now eat it and enjoy it”.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Meanwhile i am hoping with this thread that we can discuss a good process for collaborating moving forward and then once we have that we can put it into action.

Perhaps having yourself (or another dev) opening a topic about a specific part of the game (GW2’s “end-game”, crafting, dungeons, WvW, sPvP, rewards in general, skills, character appearance, world bosses, living story achievements, etc.) and then everybody gives their two cents. I think this would work better than having a free-for-all, since we already have the Suggestions forum for that.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

A poll sent to our login email would (hopefully) not affect in game immersion.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

I have a question for you.

Do you think it would affect it any more or less than?

- The constant bugs that remain and are introduced each month.
- The artificial time-gated content
- Living World stories that come and go without much change
- Living World remnants that never get removed, solved, or changed
- Purple player models, invisible enemies.
- Fuzzy animal hats
- Zerg farming
- etc

At this point, we can pretty much agree that the level of immersion in is game isn’t exactly super high. The Living World feels more like a scripted episode of “Full House” more than it does a dynamic, living, growing exciting, unpredictable world.

At this point, I would rather you provide an in-game feedback system and use it to effectively improve the game, than continue to “experiment” and hope it works. Neither of us has unlimited time, resources and patience. We meet to optimize all of those thing the best way we can, so we can get this game straitened out before it’s too late.

You’re asking for our patience, but honestly, you’re asking a lot. You’ve not done enough as a company to gain the trust an loyalty of many players to be asking for such things. I feel that you need to put your egos aside, and understand that in the short term, listening, and tpgathering feedback from the players you still have, will to only help solidify our relationship, but hopefully improve the game to the point where this isn’t an issue.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IndigoSundown.5419:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

A poll sent to our login email would (hopefully) not affect in game immersion.

It would not. It would also have the benefit of reaching those who play less regularly/taking a break who would not see an in game poll and show that the company is interested in the opinion of players past and present (and thus future)

They would have to timed accordingly. Maybe twice a year/quarterly

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

Yes.

Worse, it could become a “demand”.

At one point by the last beta weekend, rolling another set of alts, I was annoyed with the feedback splash screen in the starter zone and since I’d already turned feedback in, just kept closing the window without answering questions.

DAoC’s devs (Mythic) via the VN Boards, ran a survey section on the game forums, posting a survey about issues the devs wanted feedback on, on a weekly/monthly basis. Allowed for feedback specifically in the form of a survey (questions important to the devs) and a kept a history of posts regarding open-ended feedback related to the topic, so both devs and players could track issues.

Something along those lines, locking the surveys and accompanying thread after, say, 2 weeks might keep it manageable. And feedback focused in a way that is useful to the devs.

Topics ranged across a wide-variety of issues. And all contained in a specific survey-subsection of the forums.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

But what constitutes as “Immersion”?

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

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

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

Chris

- Seiging a T3 keep
- Just broke through outer
- Attacker stacks, fire fields, drops veils
- ‘Hi, how do you feel about guild wars 2 today?’ popup appears
- Guild stop fighting, keep lord takes a tea break while everyone fills in survey. Warriors clean their banners, guardians polish the golems.
- War resumes.

I can see that happening.

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

2996kittenris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

But what constitutes as “Immersion”?

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

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

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

Chris

- Seiging a T3 keep
- Just broke through outer
- Attacker stacks, fire fields, drops veils
- ‘Hi, how do you feel about guild wars 2 today?’ popup appears
- Guild stop fighting, keep lord takes a tea break while everyone fills in survey. Warriors clean their banners, guardians polish the golems.
- War resumes.

I can see that happening.

But so English of us

Chris Whiteside.6102:

[…]
So back to the matter at hand. Through reading the posts i think it would be really useful for me to start a thread like ‘name one thing you would like to see improved in Guild Wars 2’ and then start riffing with you all on these subjects matters and try to make a more meaningful connection with you all that way by which we can define a process together for Collaborative Development?

I am also going to ask that we build out more time for team members to post and i will follow up with you all on that.

What do you think, does this sound like a good way to move forward?

Chris

In my opinion a really good way.

On the topic of breaking immersion. I’m someone who really values it, and constantly talk about it, even did several videos about the immersion in GW2. That said, having a pop up wouldn’t break the immersion anymore then the already constant pop ups on the side that show the living story, daily progress, zone events, etc.

You can have immersion if the UI blends in well in the world. That said, it’s getting close to 2:19 am here and I got work in the morning. I’d love to discuss this again at a later date. :P

One other thought:

access to an in-game survey / feedback via the log on screen, or “contact ANet” interface, or via the escape button (used for reporting bugs). Maybe an icon on the upper left of screen (the way beta had the bug icon). That way, it is there as a reminder / tool that can be used that is optional, but not making a demand.

Another thing that some MMOs do is take common questions that people have on the forums and answer them in a blog instead of actually answering them on the forums. This way the Q/A is organized and more easy to read.

And another benefit of doing it this way, is the community team can give the commonly asked questions to each dev department and they can answer that. This can be done monthly or quarterly.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yep and here lies a Catch 22 problem that we have to solve right? (Yes i know Catch 22 inherently can’t be solved, but nothing is impossible with GW2!)

I think feedback can be commented on, without giving the whole game away. I think questions can be asked and answered without giving the game away to. The problem is it just isn’t good for us to talk about specific work in progress before we are confident about it. So i suggest we ask questions and feedback on any areas of the game but don’t go into specifics regarding development of said items?

This is something we should discuss more in this thread.

Chris

The issue I’d like to raise here is that you’re also not talking about specific work that’s not so much in progress anymore. Like, perhaps a week or two before it goes live I would guess most of the things are already finalised to a point where discussion could take place?

Or am I wrong here?

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

2996kittenris Whiteside.6102:

nethykins.7986:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

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

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

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

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

But what constitutes as “Immersion”?

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

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

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

Chris

- Seiging a T3 keep
- Just broke through outer
- Attacker stacks, fire fields, drops veils
- ‘Hi, how do you feel about guild wars 2 today?’ popup appears
- Guild stop fighting, keep lord takes a tea break while everyone fills in survey. Warriors clean their banners, guardians polish the golems.
- War resumes.

I can see that happening.

Put a survey/poll NPC at spawns, this same method could be used outside of dungeons, after events (similar to karma vendors appearing after temples). Players could then choose to either take the time to fill it out or ignore it completely.

PPS:

We have ingame /wiki which takes us to the information site.

Why don’t we have ingame /forum which could take us here.

And/or

/survey

I think the idea of a Question and Answer thread isn’t a bad one, but it comes across as a bit of a bandage to me at this point. There are many examples of hot button issues that already exist on the forums which haven’t received any level of response. I would imagine that the first questions asked in a QnA thread will just be ones players have already been debating for weeks, months or longer. Sort of like going fishing when you’ve already got a cooler full in your boat.

Players need to get solid answers and know that ANet has a real plan for the game instead of just what seems to be offering bits and pieces to every possible segment of the player base and little substantial content for anyone. I do definitely feel that an update of the Manifesto and a development roadmap are very important things to get everyone back on the same page.

To me, it’s simple.

1. Create / reintroduce an in-game feedback system similar to the one created for beta.
2. At the bottoms have a space for buttons.
– if player inputs any data, change button to “submit”
– else, buttons show “skip” and “stop bugging me”
3. Until player chooses to opt out, the game will prompt users
4. Allow users to “opt-in” through setting menu

That said, I’m not sure we need this much micro data. I think it could be valuable to have a survey pop up at login, and ask a series of questions relating to the game in general. While it would be nice to have feedback for each battle, I don’t think it’s needed.

You just need to get some data to see if certain things are working or not.

EDIT: Someone mentioned above an NPC for surveys. I think this has a lot of merit. There are a bunch of clever, fun, not immersion breaking ways to integrate these into the world. If desired.

In the end, it think whatever method used it needs to be easy to find, use, and understand. The questions need to be fair, and honest.

Hi, Chris!

This thread (specifically your recent replies) gives me renewed hope! It felt like before launch there was a good dialogue going between all of you and the players, but that it became more and more sparse the farther we got from launch.

The number one thing that first got me hooked on GW2, two years before the game went live, was the passion with which you all spoke about the game. It truly felt like a team of people working to make the game you want to play yourselves.

I’d like to echo a few things that have been said previously in this thread, but stand out as the most important to re-establishing that communication and excitement.

1. We need more statements of the vision for the game. You’ve seen the “manifesto” posts on these forums. Part of the player base feels that your original vision for the game that you expressed so passionately early on (not just in the manifesto video, but in other statements frequently quoted) no longer apply. Some people are unhappy about that. Some people defend it as evolution of the game. But no one seems to be able to point to anything significant post launch that either upholds those original vision statements or replaces them.

It seems like recent “here’s where the game is going” statements focus on lists of things you are working on or would like to implement in the future. Specific features, bug fixes, and the the like.

Possibly the movement to the “living world” concept works as one of those vision statements post-launch, but I think we need something more. This is the touch-stone by which we can come back to you with feedback. We can all argue over whether any given change in the game is good or bad, but that just comes down to personal preference. If there is a clear mission, vision and value statement, so to speak, we have something to hold changes up against so we can let you know whether the change is serving that vision or not.

2. More “why” along with the “what”. When you make changes, it helps a lot to know what though process went into it. Again, this will help us then give feedback that makes sense. If I don’t know why a certain change was made, all I can do is tell you if I liked the change or not. If I do have an idea why the change was made, I can give very specific feedback as to whether or not it’s have the intended effect, regardless of whether I personally like it.

Finally, before answering one of your specific questions below, I’m not sure a “what is your number one concern” thread would be terribly useful. Especially if there’s no way to restrict everyone to answering only once. You’re going to be inundated with everyone’s personal pet peeves, like many of the posts sprinkled throughout this thread.

Could I, instead, suggest you or others on your team simply comb back through the last few pages of each subforum? If you look for the posts with a large number of views, responses, or even (if possible) those that stayed on the first page for a significant amount of time, you’ll find the really issues people are most passionate about, and are probably in need of a developer response. It’d be fairly easy to create a punch-list of top forum community concerns to address.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Yes, very much so. I tried to dutifully fill them out during the BWEs when they popped up, but I found them very disruptive.

Unless, maybe, they could pop up during loading screens, when play has been interrupted anway? Or perhaps just one that shows up upon opening the client?

The other problem with polls is that it’s really hard to create them without steering the replies. I often find myself thinking, “That’s not really the question they should be asking” in order to get meaningful feedback on how I felt about whatever aspect of the game.

Thanks again for this thread, and taking your time this evening to dig into it! Like many, I have been a passionate fan of this game for several years now (long before even setting foot in Tyria 2.0). Lately, I have been a bit snarky at times on the forums, and for that I apologize to you and the rest of your co-workers.

I appreciate your team’s passion and talent.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I think feedback can be commented on, without giving the whole game away. I think questions can be asked and answered without giving the game away to. The problem is it just isn’t good for us to talk about specific work in progress before we are confident about it. So i suggest we ask questions and feedback on any areas of the game but don’t go into specifics regarding development of said items?

This is something we should discuss more in this thread.

Chris

I think sometimes the most important thing is being heard.
I don’t expect you to go into specifics, but I think it is important to know that the feeback provided at least is being considered.
If you made a topic asking for feedback regarding.. well what ever topic really, and as an example simply asked people something along the lines of:

“What would in your opinion be the biggest quality of life improvement on xxxx (ability/encounter/mechanic) and why?”

I am pretty sure you would get a lot of interesting suggestions, and if you replied as you do here in this topic (which is not game revealing either) I think you would have entered a constructive dialog with the community.