Guild Wars 2

When can we also expect to see skins being added into the game that either:

• A: Don’t look like kitten
  or
• B: Don’t require a gem store purchase. (The last set of skins added were the Ascended ones.)

What about the ambrite weapons?

Also, if you want to talk about the communication between devs and players, then we also have to address the inconsistent and annoying bump in that very road: The Moderators.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Prysin.8542:

vectorfox.6894:

Hi Chris!

I have been wondering for a while, since you said that many of you like to converse with us and share feedback and such, why doesn’t any of the devs or maybe staff at Anet talk with us in their free time, at home or on break, i know you all have other things to focus on but is it a policy type thing or do you just not like coming on to talk with us even if it doesn’t have to relate to what they do in their job such as; commenting in a thread about your favourite dungeon or event, versus threads asking about content being worked on.

I guess employees have to treat their own forums like their own job but seeing them converse on average player topics like another fake example; ‘need help on ele build!’

I believe (although probably wrong) that if you talked more often then every word you say wouldn’t be taken like a final confirmation or solid answer, but more like “hey that’s cool news i hope it gets implemented” or “great idea Anet!”.
Because right now anything that gets said or announced we think its definite and “omg x is being worked on!!!” although that has slipped since lack of faith.

Thank you in advance if you reply!

this is actually a very good point indeed. +1

Hi Prysin,

I addressed this in my previous reply above.

Chris

Did you directly reply or was it answered in someone else’s similar question because i can’t see it :x (so many replies to look through XD)

Thank you in advance for your time to answer, just really wanted a in depth reply like some others got (I’m so selfish)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

phabby.8945:

Mike great to see the honesty and commitment to us here, so Ill be honest Go play with the boys they are way more important then us, we can wait till your Monday and if anyone thinks we can’t they don’t have kidds.

Woohho I see we have Regina popping in always a pleasure to see her on, Now if we get Gaile then what a party, be like the old days.

great impact Devs thanks for your time on the weekend now go relax looking like the next few weeks may become hectic in here with CDI and other communication

cheers Phabby

hi Phabby,

its all good, the boys are playing lego around mea nd we are chatting. Thanks for your concern though.

I think i might take the day off tomorrow though (-:

Chris

Yeah im with phabby on this one. Go be with your family. Much more important. If anyone who wants to say differently, well they can go take a long walk off pier 61. But we do greatly appreciate your time here with us. If its not too much to ask, I would greatly appreciate your look into this thread? Would love to hear your thoughts…if any. Thanks! !

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Improvised-CDI-thread/first#post4322881

Geez, I love all of Chris’s sassy answers—he takes the words right out of my mouth half the time

I have no clue how you guys can slog through all the gunk here to find the constructive posts, but I really do appreciate the simple existence of this thread!

Hamfast.8719:

First off, Chris, thank you for coming forth and doing what is not really a part of your job description, and doing it on your weekend to boot. I have always understood that many of the Developers do what they do out of love for the game. Your taking personal time to repair the lines of communication only reinforces that notion.

Put anybody who thinks you aren’t serious about this on your “ignore” list. You’re doing a nice, diplomatic job so far in the face of some really hostile comments, whereas I might’ve managed to get myself infracted by this point.

Now on with my thoughts…

I have often read comments that most of the gaming community doesn’t go to the forums, and when they do it is often because they have a gripe about something. So while a CDI may be a good way to brainstorm solutions, it may not be the best way to determine WHAT needs to be solved. The forums don’t reach a broad enough section of the community.

During the Beta testing, we were given little in-game questionnaires to help you guys decide what people liked, and disliked, and what needed work. That seems like a good way to reach a nice, sizable spectrum of gamers. Do you think your little questionnaire program could be adapted to quiz the community on their desires?

Let each account respond ONE time. Offer a checklist of “hot topics” we’d like to see addressed. Everyone can check three items on the list, and your computers can tally up what topics are the most important to the community as a whole. (Checklist responses only… no freeform replies. That would take forever to sort through).

Once the results are in, THEN open your CDIs and talk about the “winning” topics. This would help assure that the issues we discuss are truly the issues uppermost in the minds of the majority of the community.

I think this is a pretty good suggestion any thoughts? If not exactly like this some form of it? I agree I don’t jump on forums too much but spend 10+ hours in the game sometimes each day! (will be jumping and have been on forums more often!)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

pdavis.8031:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

phabby.8945:

Mike great to see the honesty and commitment to us here, so Ill be honest Go play with the boys they are way more important then us, we can wait till your Monday and if anyone thinks we can’t they don’t have kidds.

Woohho I see we have Regina popping in always a pleasure to see her on, Now if we get Gaile then what a party, be like the old days.

great impact Devs thanks for your time on the weekend now go relax looking like the next few weeks may become hectic in here with CDI and other communication

cheers Phabby

hi Phabby,

its all good, the boys are playing lego around mea nd we are chatting. Thanks for your concern though.

I think i might take the day off tomorrow though (-:

Chris

Yeah im with phabby on this one. Go be with your family. Much more important. If anyone who wants to say differently, well they can go take a long walk off pier 61. But we do greatly appreciate your time here with us. If its not too much to ask, I would greatly appreciate your look into this thread? Would love to hear your thoughts…if any. Thanks! !

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Improvised-CDI-thread/first#post4322881

Hi,

I was looking at this thread last night. Will catch up now.

Initial thoughts are it is cool.

Chis

Thanks you rock! !!!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

And whilst we are on the subject. if you think everything mentioned in a CDI is going to be agreed upon and magically created overnight then your expectations are perhaps a little bit high.

Chris

It’s the Twitter generation. If you can’t compress an idea into @100 keystrokes it’s not worth trying to read or understand. These are the same people who go to a restaurant, spend 20 minutes taking pictures of their food and posting to social media, then complain about the service because their food is cold.

These are people who are so caught up in narcissism that they can’t even understand that they are responsible for their own problems.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

ToaLux.6478:

Geez, I love all of Chris’s sassy answers—he takes the words right out of my mouth half the time

I have no clue how you guys can slog through all the gunk here to find the constructive posts, but I really do appreciate the simple existence of this thread!

Sorry if they are coming across as sassy. just trying to be honest and a bit more human and less water of a ducks back as many of you have said i should try harder with.

It is actually much less frustrating to just say it like i see it. I hope though that this approach is taken in the spirit it is intended and not in a negative way.I tend to be like this on CDIs.

Chris

Pff, no! They’re brilliant! Haha, I love reading how bluntly honest they are

Believe me: I certainly do not take them negatively; I also think most others would agree with me. Keep it up!

It is really nice to see so much interaction with a Dev, thanks Chris! Look forward to the CDIs

Aww, I’m so sorry to hear that. I’ve always enjoyed my aquariums, though I’ve never had the pleasure of a saltwater one. Loads of freshwater, though! They make wonderful pets and are quite soothing to watch.

My condolences.

great no response from actually wvw matters feedbacks feedbacks feedbacks

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Zoso.8279:

Hamfast.8719:

First off, Chris, thank you for coming forth and doing what is not really a part of your job description, and doing it on your weekend to boot. I have always understood that many of the Developers do what they do out of love for the game. Your taking personal time to repair the lines of communication only reinforces that notion.

Put anybody who thinks you aren’t serious about this on your “ignore” list. You’re doing a nice, diplomatic job so far in the face of some really hostile comments, whereas I might’ve managed to get myself infracted by this point.

Now on with my thoughts…

I have often read comments that most of the gaming community doesn’t go to the forums, and when they do it is often because they have a gripe about something. So while a CDI may be a good way to brainstorm solutions, it may not be the best way to determine WHAT needs to be solved. The forums don’t reach a broad enough section of the community.

During the Beta testing, we were given little in-game questionnaires to help you guys decide what people liked, and disliked, and what needed work. That seems like a good way to reach a nice, sizable spectrum of gamers. Do you think your little questionnaire program could be adapted to quiz the community on their desires?

Let each account respond ONE time. Offer a checklist of “hot topics” we’d like to see addressed. Everyone can check three items on the list, and your computers can tally up what topics are the most important to the community as a whole. (Checklist responses only… no freeform replies. That would take forever to sort through).

Once the results are in, THEN open your CDIs and talk about the “winning” topics. This would help assure that the issues we discuss are truly the issues uppermost in the minds of the majority of the community.

I think this is a pretty good suggestion any thoughts? If not exactly like this some form of it? I agree I don’t jump on forums too much but spend 10+ hours in the game sometimes each day! (will be jumping and have been on forums more often!)

I think it is a good idea. I will discuss it with the guys and girls on Monday and get back to you all.

Chris

This idea is totally AWESOME!!!

I wonder how many players are active in the Forum. 20%?
You have to do it if you really want to know what the players want.

Aedelric.1287:

So, can we have the devs communicate to us about issues outside of this topic now?

It seems like so much effort is wasted talking about communicating rather than actually communicating in the many topics that actually require attention.

Sheesh, it’s Saturday, and it sounds like the kitten didn’t really hit the fan at ArenaNet until yesterday. Give them at least the weekend to figure out a more global plan :-P Chris is here on his own time, and might not want to delve into PvE rebalancing (or anything so heavy) on his day off. I wouldn’t xD

And BTW, which forum are you referring to? The dungeon forum has gotten some attention this morning — it sounds like they’re restructuring a bit to give comm people more forum time \o/

I know there are other subforums that probably need more attention — which were you thinking of?

I’m someone who’s thoroughly fed up with ArenaNet’s communication, and is largely on the way out, so hopefully my perspective is useful. I’m going to try to be constructive.

It doesn’t feel like ArenaNet acknowledges or is aware of the problems with their game, leading people like me to believe that they’re largely not going to be fixed. It doesn’t feel like they recognise the strengths of their game, or intend to build on them. Communication is a part of this, but so is a lack of trust, and that cannot be fixed with any number of CDIs.

Most of the things that have blown up over the past week have been long-standing sore points amongst the community. In each case, people got snippets of information and extrapolated wildly from there. I’ve been on the other side of this: the problem is not ‘people got inaccurate information’ (because the same thing happens if they do get accurate information) but that people have been looking for any information at all, without the context to make sense of it. A good example is the radio silence after the poorly-received changes to fractals, and the trait system. This wasn’t future content. What was needed there was a dev to explain the design choices they made, discuss expectations and intentions, and because it was absent, that bred resentment. Josh Foreman did this excellently during SAB2, and the players who are still around from then remember that he engaged, understood, and learned from the negative feedback. I know it was particularly kitten him, but ANet had gone through a big period of radio silence so Josh unfairly got the brunt of that.

If devs are scared of toxic feedback, look at how John Smith handles it – even his insults show he is paying attention, because he is responding to toxic comments as if they’re toxic and not “good points that we will take into consideration”. There’s a sense that John won’t bullkitten us.

You don’t even talk about how the game’s going now – any other company would be putting together a press release every time they got another 500,000 players. Talk about upcoming MMOs don’t even mention GW2 as a game that’s current, and it’s certainly not the new hotness any more.

Because we don’t have that kind of visibility into the game as it exists, all we have is wild speculation. We don’t know what ArenaNet’s priorities are, or what they even consider as problems. (I know it came as a surprise to me to find out that increasing demand for cloth way above supply was intentional.) Which means that for every big and little problem that we can think of, whether it’s the frustrating way loot works or engineer hobo backpacks or PPT or dungeon story-mode rewards or or or or or or, the only way to get some closure is to bring it up at even wildly inappropriate opportunities.

Part of that is your unwillingness as a studio to discuss what you’re working on – which would be fine if we trusted that you were working on something exciting, but that trust is long gone.

It started to fray during Living World Season 1, which was probably not the plan – Guild Wars has always valued a certain amount of consonance between the lore and game mechanics, and the idea of making updates part of a story was a fascinating idea. The PvE players loved the idea that there’d be a surprise every two weeks – a new dungeon? a holiday? new bosses? new events? – but every update grated on WvW and PvP players because they’d constantly get their hopes dashed. The Feature Pack model was supposed to fix this, but the problem there is that because they’re much further apart, WvW and PvP players are encouraged to believe that each Feature Pack will contain ‘major updates’, and in the absence of information, that will inevitably mean ‘the thing that players have been wanting most’.

PvE players are also feeling like ArenaNet haven’t made good on their promises – you’re hearing a lot about precursor crafting, but there’s a certain amount of disappointment with Season 2 as well. It’s more consistent, but as a result it’s also a lot less surprising, and that feels like we’re getting less.

Do you see how, even though you never intend to make promises, that they happen anyway? There’s been a huge erosion of trust, and that colours everything. There’s a lot of skepticism over yet another CDI because it feels like they’re trotted out for disingenuous reasons. (They started just after a previous big PR disaster when an ArenaNet employee had choice words for GvG players in WvW.)

I don’t know how you rebuild that trust without making commitments, because as far as I’m concerned you don’t do what you say you’re going to do, so why should I believe you when you say you want things to be different. And you don’t seem willing to make commitments.

This came out sounding more like a breakup letter than I had intended.

(Don’t you dare respond to this with ‘all good points’, Chris.)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

tolunart.2095:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

And whilst we are on the subject. if you think everything mentioned in a CDI is going to be agreed upon and magically created overnight then your expectations are perhaps a little bit high.

Chris

It’s the Twitter generation. If you can’t compress an idea into @100 keystrokes it’s not worth trying to read or understand. These are the same people who go to a restaurant, spend 20 minutes taking pictures of their food and posting to social media, then complain about the service because their food is cold.

These are people who are so caught up in narcissism that they can’t even understand that they are responsible for their own problems.

It is probably incorrect for me to say this but your post made me lol.

Thanks for social commentary humor, you have made a rather somber day turn into one where i am smiling now.

Chris

P.S: Somber because my Yellow Tang died 0-: not because of anything else.

Sorry about your fish

The funny thing is the story is true – I read an article not long ago about a restaurant where the management noticed a dramatic rise in complaints and bad comments on Facebook and such. They used to have video cameras taping the kitchen and dining areas so they found some old tapes and compared them to footage from their current system. They found that vs. 10 yrs ago people were taking a lot longer to order because now as soon as they sit down a lot of people are absorbed in their phones – talking, texting, surfing the web – where they used to pick up the menus immediately and order within five minutes or so, now it’s more like 10. Then the food arrives and they spend more time tweeting about it than eating it. This adds an extra half hour or so to the average visit and these are the people who are more likely to complain that the service was slow, food was cold, etc. The service is still as fast as ever, the customers have changed.

Food for thought…

tolunart.2095:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

tolunart.2095:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

And whilst we are on the subject. if you think everything mentioned in a CDI is going to be agreed upon and magically created overnight then your expectations are perhaps a little bit high.

Chris

It’s the Twitter generation. If you can’t compress an idea into @100 keystrokes it’s not worth trying to read or understand. These are the same people who go to a restaurant, spend 20 minutes taking pictures of their food and posting to social media, then complain about the service because their food is cold.

These are people who are so caught up in narcissism that they can’t even understand that they are responsible for their own problems.

It is probably incorrect for me to say this but your post made me lol.

Thanks for social commentary humor, you have made a rather somber day turn into one where i am smiling now.

Chris

P.S: Somber because my Yellow Tang died 0-: not because of anything else.

Sorry about your fish

The funny thing is the story is true – I read an article not long ago about a restaurant where the management noticed a dramatic rise in complaints and bad comments on Facebook and such. They used to have video cameras taping the kitchen and dining areas so they found some old tapes and compared them to footage from their current system. They found that vs. 10 yrs ago people were taking a lot longer to order because now as soon as they sit down a lot of people are absorbed in their phones – talking, texting, surfing the web – where they used to pick up the menus immediately and order within five minutes or so, now it’s more like 10. Then the food arrives and they spend more time tweeting about it than eating it. This adds an extra half hour or so to the average visit and these are the people who are more likely to complain that the service was slow, food was cold, etc. The service is still as fast as ever, the customers have changed.

Food for thought…

Yeah saw the same article and thought the same thing. Also Yellow Tang is a fish? I was thinking about the drink…no wonder is was confused about the aquarium bit…

Sorry to hear that man.

Any inclination to what type of cdi ya’ll will start with?

(hopefully not a cdi on how communicate via a cdi…think I saw that mentioned somewhere…might be wrong)

For some reason I thought we already had a cdi on the formatting of cdi’s the 1st time round. Probably wrong..it’s late afterall

CDIs aren’t worth developer time because all we have learned from the first ones we have done is that you don’t have time to go through them anyways. I wouldn’t want to read about work when I am not at my job and I don’t expect you guys to do it either. I do expect our comments to be read and the good non-toxic ones to be passed on to you or management by a community team member. I don’t see the community team doing their job well enough that you shouldn’t have to even look at the forums. There seems to be a disconnect there. I hope that you guys move forward to a transparent way of communication because I love the game and I hope the best for it. At this point, depending on how you continue and move forward with the communication will determine if you can keep myself and I am sure others playing the game and/or buying gems.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

and honestly a lot of the team who care deeply about Arena and the community are to scared to post because let’s be honest forums in general can be quite toxic.

Not only does posting on the forums take time away from your regular job, it’s also a potential minefield because it’s not what you are trained for and it’s easy to make mistakes.

That’s why imo your team could use an a Forum Liaison. Someone who comes on the forum at set intervals, takes questions and gets back with the answer. This will give the people the information they seek while insulating the Devs from some of the more toxic and inflammatory remarks.

If the Devs come to the forum and speak, they are a lightning rod for all the discontented people to post and be rude. A Liaison won’t have that problem since they are an intermediary, not the person who is doing what is making people upset.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

On a separate topic I can’t get over how good this fan made video is.

I mention it because i am watching it again atm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gHsliMTzhg

Chris

You should higher that person to do some “The story up till now” videos for you, was awesome.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

On a separate topic I can’t get over how good this fan made video is.

I mention it because i am watching it again atm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gHsliMTzhg

Chris

This is wonderful, thanks for putting it in.

It makes up for the sour taste from the Forum -1 I got from page 3. Watch out for those Chris, with the liberation of communication

Yes, it is a very enjoyable video. Kudos to Affably.7102! =)

Welcome back Chris, I really did miss having you around.
Because your easily one of the most down to earth, open and honest people working at Anet that actually take the time to communicate.
And for that you have my respect.

That being said however, I can’t say I am pleased with the current state of things. Arenanet have really dropped the ball, and it’s going to take a lot more then ‘sorry, we’ll try better next time’ to fix it, at least for me.
The level of communication these past months has been atrocious, and I for one have completely given hope on Anet, of not only basic human levels of communication, or doing anything remotely fun or interesting with GW2. I’ve gone from being a die-hard fan, to someone who honestly loathes what Arenanet has become, hopelessly disappointed in the game and has quit as a result.

And honestly, I believe it is a direct result of this asinine policy you’ve taken on to never talk about future anything, unless of course it’s already finished and ready to go, in which there is nothing to discuss.

-
When you refuse to talk about the future, which in game design is the significant majority of topics, and the only thing of relevance to most players, you do both yourselves and your player base a great disservice.

First it makes you out to be hostile to candid and honest communication, because your cut off from talking about most subjects right from the outset, and as a result it appears they you just don’t care about what your player base have to say. Even stating the opposite once in awhile is not enough to prevent this when your actions speak otherwise, as actions speak loader then words.

It further more make it seem like you have no plan and no idea what your doing, because at no point do you show us what your plan is or even that you have one.
As a result it becomes fair to say that GW2 has no future, because you’ve never presented one, and we honestly don’t have much to go one since your track record so far has been all over the map with very little consistency besides the Living Story, which many are not a fan of.

Which in turn leads players to wild speculation, because we have nothing to work with, and a general sense of disappointment and hopelessness as their is nothing to look forward to, and nothing much seems to change in the meantime.
And this breeds toxicity in your player base. Something that I myself have found myself doing as of late, because I simply cannot trust you anymore.

How can anyone be reasonably expected to trust people who never tell their side of the story? Who by in large don’t communicate (at least not a two way communication), and of who’s intentions we know little to nothing of?

Which is why this policy is such a bad idea, it doesn’t prevent toxicity, it breeds it like crazy.

-
The CDI was one of the few glimmers of hope that I saw, but almost as soon as it began it was gone again. Not word no nothing, just disappeared like a fart in the wind.
Because it felt like one of the few times that Arenanet gave the impression that they were genuinely interested in what we had to say, even if it was a little rickety and cumbersome. Good things take time.

And without some kind of outlet for out woes and problems about the game, toxicity sets in, and things get ugly real quick. As has been the case over the last couple of months, I’ve just seen the general quality of the forums nose dive. And I can’t say I’m not responsible for some of it. I’ve had a grown sense of hatred towards Arenanet, between the lack of trust and utter disappointment.

But that is an inevitably result when you guys refuse to talk to us. If you want my advice, drop the stupid counter-productive policy. Just be candid and honest with us and we’ll be more then willing to take your side and defend you against the nay sayers.
Because I am willing to accept that mistakes happen, as long as people own up to their mistakes, specifically state what the mistakes are, and how they plan of rectifying them, even if thou’s plans fall through any you have to come up with another.
I’m sure we’d all like to help fix mistakes and get both the game, Arenanet and the player base to a better place.

But keeping us in the dark is not going to help anyone in the long run.
I’m willing to take your side, IF you present it.

A repost from another thread because I think this should be seen by the devs.
Bare with me, the post is rather long and english is not my native language.

The (First World) Problem of GuildWars 2
The real problem with GW2 is that the flaws are multi-dimensional and sometimes that big, that they affect nearly every part of the game. Many of these flaws are so huge that they probably can’t be removed until ANet is willing to rework huge portions of the game to please players who have played this game a long time now, the non-casual gamers.
And I honestly don’t think this will ever happen.

Some initial information:

I’ve played this game now since release and dumbed more than 4k hours in this game. Thus, I wouldn’t describe me as casual player. All “flaws” I am going to list and analyze will only become obvious after multiple, multiple hours in-game time. If you’re new to GuildWars 2 or if you don’t want to stay “forever”, you can happily ignore my concerns, since you wont be limited by the “flaws” I’ll list.

But let’s look for the flaws:

GW2 Manifesto
No Grinding! That was one of the promises GW2 tries to achieve. But how?

1. Currencies as reward instead of items. There is no content dedicated to farm special items. This bares the risk of dominating currencies. We have the problem with gold. Except of fractal skins, everything can be bought with gold or requires no preparations at all.
2. RNG Drops. You can farm everywhere and nowhere because the RNG assures that you always have the same small chance of getting what you want.
3. Diminishing Returns. This actively prevents anyone from farming anything effectively.

Casual Friendly! What it did to the game:

1. Easy content. Anything can be completed with every profession or gear. It may take longer but it’s not impossible. This leads to the fact that there is no challenge in the game and many people get bored quickly. It also limits build diversity.
   Since there is no defensive required, everyone is compelled to maximise their DPS and there can be only one build for each class offering the most damage.
2. Simple AI. Stacking in corners. Nuff said. If I’m recalling correctly, mobs used to walk out of AoEs as example. But this got scrapped before the game shipped.

Balanced Economy! This is how it backfires:

1. Limiting item/currency creation. This ensures that the economy doesn’t get flooded with gold. But because of this, events grant almost no reward and dungeons also grant low reward. Entire PvE maps become redundant because there is nothing to do that grants acceptable reward.
2. Everything can be traded. This also leads to the dominating role of gold. Everything can be bought with gold.
3. Gems can be converted to gold. This, in combination with the dominating role of gold as currency and in combination with the low reward from in-game activities, leads to the fact that it would be more rewarding goldwise, to work in RL to buy gems, rather than to farm in-game to get what one wants.

ArenaNet as company
There are also issues related with the way ANet works as a company:

1. Small Staff. We can see this being an issue on the basis of patchcyles and the age of the content. New content gets only developed in small bits, no huge updates since release, bugs remain unfixed for several months.
2. Balance. This would also apply to the small staff, but it deserves a separate bullet point. The amount of skills got reduced drastically compared to GW1, yet the balance is still a mess. Countless traits and utilities remain completely unused, there are only one or two “competitive” builds for each class and broken builds like HamBow Warrior, Decap Engie or PU Mesmer remain untouched for far too long.
3. Wrong Ambitions. ANet tries to go it’s own way, tries to push PvP into ESports, tries to satisfy the PvE community with temporary content aka. Living Story, rather than working on popular modes like GvG or delivering permanent content for PvE. Most people would even pay for more PvE content. Not to say ANet shouldn’t be allowed to aim for those goals, but they should address the issues the game has, like old, stale content by delivering new content, rather than to stave off the community with half-baked temporary content.
4. Missing Professionalism. I don’t want to upset anybody, I just suggest to read following thread: Biconics can’t carry GW Franchise.
5. Unloved aspects of the game. See Dungeons. They almost never got (and probably will get) any love.

These are the reasons I think this game suffers. If you want to correct me or add something, feel free to do so.
One can see easily that fixing those flaws requires heavy investments, so I’m not very optimistic to see any substancial changes.
I don’t like some map design decisions either, but I think that is personal preference.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

A repost from another thread because I think this should be seen by the devs.
Bare with me, the post is rather long and english is not my native language.

The (First World) Problem of GuildWars 2
The real problem with GW2 is that the flaws are multi-dimensional and sometimes that big, that they affect nearly every part of the game. Many of these flaws are so huge that they probably can’t be removed until ANet is willing to rework huge portions of the game to please players who have played this game a long time now, the non-casual gamers.
And I honetly don’t think this will ever happen.

Some initial information:

I’ve played this game now since release and dumbed more than 4k hours in this game. Thus, I wouldn’t describe me as casual player. All “flaws” I am going to list and analyze will only become obvious after multiple, multiple hours in-game time. If you’re new to GuildWars 2 or if you don’t want to stay “forever”, you can happily ignore my concerns, since you wont be limited by the “flaws” I’ll list.

But let’s look for the flaws:

GW2 Manifesto
No Grinding! That was one of the promises GW2 tries to achieve. But how?

1. Currencies as reward instead of items. There is no content dedicated to farm special items. This bares the risk of dominating currencies. We have the problem with gold. Except of fractal skins, everything can be bought with gold or requires no preparations at all.
2. RNG Drops. You can farm everywhere and nowhere because the RNG assures that you always have the same small chance of getting what you want.
3. Diminishing Returns. This actively prevents anyone from farming anything effectively.

Casual Friendly! What it did to the game:

1. Easy content. Anything can be completed with every profession or gear. It may take longer but it’s not impossible. This leads to the fact that there is no challenge in the game and many people get bored quickly. It also limits build diversity.
   Since there is no defensive required, everyone is compelled to maximise their DPS and there can be only one build for each class offering the most damage.
2. Simple AI. Stacking in corners. Nuff said. If I’m recalling correctly, mobs used to walk out of AoEs as example. But this got scrapped before the game shipped.

Balanced Economy! This is how it backfires:

1. Limiting item/currency creation. This ensures that the economy doesn’t get flooded with gold. But because of this, events grant almost no reward and dungeons also grant low reward. Entire PvE maps become redundant because there is nothing to do that grants acceptable reward.
2. Everything can be traded. This also leads to the dominating role of gold. Everything can be bought with gold.
3. Gems can be converted to gold. This, in combination with the dominating role of gold as currency and in combination with the low reward from in-game activities, leads to the fact that it would be more rewarding goldwise, to work in RL to buy gems, rather than to farm in-game to get what one wants.

ArenaNet as company
There are also issues related with the way ANet works as a company:

1. Small Staff. We can see this being an issue on the basis of patchcyles and the age of the content. New content gets only developed in small bits, no huge updates since release, bugs reamin unfixed for several months.
2. Balance. This would also apply to the small staff, but it deserves a separate bullet point. The amount of skills got reduced drastically compared to GW1, yet the balance is still a mess. Countless traits and utilities remain completely unused, there are only one or two “competitive” builds for each class and broken builds like HamBow Warrior, Decap Engie or PU Mesmer remain untouched for far too long.
3. Wrong Ambitions. ANet tries to go it’s own way, tries to push PvP into ESports, tries to satisfy the PvE community with temporary content aka. Living Story, rather than working on popular modes like GvG or delivering permanent content for PvE. Most people would even pay for more PvE content. Not to say ANet shouldn’t be allowed to aim for those goals, but they should address the issues the game has, like old, stale content by delivering new content, rather than to stave off the community with half-baked permanent content.
4. Missing Professionalism. I don’t want to upset anybody, I just suggest to read following thread: Biconics can’t carry GW Franchise.
5. Unloved aspects of the game. See Dungeons. They almost never got (and probably will get) any love.

These are the reasons I think this game suffers. If you want to correct me or add something, feel free to do so.
One can see easily that fixing those flaws requires heavy investments, so I’m not very optimistic to see any substancial changes.

Spot on.

tolunart.2095:

It’s the Twitter generation. If you can’t compress an idea into @100 keystrokes it’s not worth trying to read or understand. These are the same people who go to a restaurant, spend 20 minutes taking pictures of their food and posting to social media, then complain about the service because their food is cold.

These are people who are so caught up in narcissism that they can’t even understand that they are responsible for their own problems.

So much truth, although sadly it seems they are a sizeable portion, if not the majority of who GW2 is trying to appeal to… hence the focus on facebook and twitter communication. I’m happy they are starting to recognize the official forums more.