Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Pandaman.4758:

I’m just baffled by what was so confusing about rallying that they had to make it a level 5 unlock and how making it a level 5 unlock will magically teach people how to rally; if they didn’t understand what it was when it’s first presented to them, covering their eyes and telling them to ignore it for five levels isn’t going to help.

If you want people to learn what a feature is, you explain it to them.

Have a tutorial where a Rally Trainer NPC jumps out of nowhere, downs you with a sucker punch, starts screaming at you to hit #4 if you want to get back up, kicks you to interrupt your rally, screams at you that you’re a yutz for trying to rally while under attack, then jumps back into nowhere before you can get back up to retaliate.

Maybe have him voiced by Ronald Lee Ermey.

It’s really interesting. If you present too many things at one time to people, they don’t get all of them. So, you’re in the game new. Maybe even it’s your first MMO. You get a bunch of weapons and new skills. You go down in a fight. In most games you just die. You don’t even really know a downed state exists.

Level 5 is pretty fast to get to. What’s the big deal?

my daughters are wondering who these people are that you are referring to Vayne. Toddlers? If my 11 yr old could figure it out when she started playing I would assume so could most people. Unless they have some kind of huge learning disability but then they are going to have issues no matter how you present it to them. So why dumb it down for those few that it really isn’t going to help.

Behellagh.1468:

Vayne.8563:

But a lot of those changes were made to the China release due to research from the American release. They knew more when they made the Chinese release.

I agree with this. It’s GW2 V2.0. From Global Guilds to a more guided tutorial/help for new players who are accustom to be led from area to area. Making leveling a big thing rather than a muted “oh look, I have skill points to spend”. Yes it’s skinner boxish but other than a flash along the XP bar as it resets leveling in this game is fairly uneventful. There’s no “gratz” because nobody quite notices, even you.

I also like skewing drops more toward your profession. Do you want players to buy what they need or do you just want them to sell what’s not wanted.

And yes it’s not all good. I’ll hate it if weapon swap is moved to a higher level unlock and while I agree that the downed skills menu is confusing for a newbie, was to me, pushing it off to level 5 feels is a little late for me.

I don’t think they learned anything, I think a different suit got in charge that doesn’t understand the game (because he doesn’t play them) and made a bunch of changes for the china release and is now forcing those changes on us/eu servers.

In some games they have a check box so if you want the drops to be based on profession then you check the box. For those that don’t want it you the leave box unchecked. I have no idea why anet can not do something simple like that. It is one of those easy things they could do that actually pleases everyone. A blanket change for everyone is a waste of time. As you only please half the people either way if you don’t make it an option that can be toggled. So why even waste the dev time. Unless it really is just a simple 3 click change and they just added it in so they have something to add to the blogs. I personally prefer to have it open for all drops at level cap so that I have a chance at a lucky drop for any of my characters. Being based off of profession only really helps while leveling and for those that only play one character or profession.

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Lheimroo.2947:

Why are they trying to turn everything they gave us previously for free without hassle into the new mode of ‘progression’?

This “feature pack” is porting functionality from the China version which is Pay-to-Win.

Everyone just let that sink in and think about it.

Tell me about it. I’m going to be keep an eye on this for awhile. If this game goes the way of Perfect World or Aion, my money will go back to SquareEnix, Nexon and Blizzard. Plus, I will never, ever buy another NC Soft game after this. I refuse to support Pay-to-Win games and the companies that make them.

Anet doesn’t want my money after all my years of supporting them through thick and thin? They want to destroy their own brand name by mistreating players, doing pointless revamps, censoring content, and refusing to add much needed content? Fine. I’ll go somewhere else. Blizzard also has Sylvari-like creatures in their upcoming expansion. This Sylvari fan might just want to go over there and check it out.

Nexon has investments in NCsoft. Just saying. BTW wasn’t it Nexon who was so infamous for P2W systemw. Not that it really matters if it’s P2W or not. It effects the game in a negative way and thats a problem.

Like go into the weapon wardrobe and search for some skins you like. Then try to get them. Sadly in most cases you will see they will be part black lion trading skins or part of a LS that you can not do anymore or something like that. So that leaves you usually with 2 options. Buy it with real cash (by buying gold it keys or buy the skin directly of them cash-shop depending on the skin you like) or grind grind grind mainly gold and buy it.

So basically that means it usually end in frustration and a disappointment. Not really positive for a game I would say. But heey it’s not P2W so according to some thats just fine.

Now how it should have been is that you can get those weapons in the world by killing a boss or doing quest lines and so on and so on. In that case it would not have been a frustration and a disappointment but it would have been a reason to go into the world, it would set goals it would be end-game. Summarized it would be fun. Exactly what a game is supposed to be about.

But with less pressure to buy gems they are less people falling in these traps. Thats why they are here. But thats where many of the problems come from.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

relevant, Colin:

I think that’s a totally fair question, as a veteran user I’d wonder that too – why does making the game better for new users benefit me when I want features that benefit me?

The simple answer is: by ensuring the game foundation is solid for new users, we’ll be in a place after the feature pack where we can do the kind of things that excite both veteran and new users simultaneously, and we’ll be able to retain a much larger percentage of the new or long returning users when they show up. Can’t say anything more than that yet – but that’s the thinking, you don’t need to agree with it, but it’s important to know why the decision was made!

and

Yeah we thought so too. After tens of thousands of usability testers and interviews with players who tried Gw2 and left leading up to China launch both in NA/EU and in China – we learned we were wrong.

Honestly, we were kind of shocked how many systems, downed included a surprising number of players just didn’t understand. For downed, we tried a downed tutorial, building downed into the level 1 tutorial, etc. We found after usability testing with numerous different groups, the best rate of people learning and understanding it came from having it be layered complexity and the solution we went with above. Intuitively that wouldn’t have been my guess either initially, but we found people understood it better this way than all other options we tried.

This same level of testing led to the other changes as well. At the end of the day the biggest take away I’d say is: all of us, especially people who go to a reddit to discuss a game, probably know games (and Gw2) really really well. We have millions of users, and a tiny % of them frequent game forums or reddit. Just because all of us, me included, learned those systems well and thought it was all really easy doesn’t mean we are the norm

I have no time at the moment to post the context/questions/statements, look for yourself: http://www.reddit.com/user/ArenaColin

This is a really interesting post which I think makes real sense.

the tl;dr version from colin: People are way too stupid to figure things out on their own. The only way a large percentage of people can play games is by having large neon signs that tell them or show them exactly what to do.

This does not bode well for the general health of our society when people can’t even figure out what to do in a video game.

kta.6502:

If this game goes the way of Perfect World or Aion, my money will go back to … Nexon …

I … uhh… I hate to tell you this, Sunshine, but a lot of people feel that Nexon’s involvement with NCSoft is what caused ANet to get pulled down into the state it’s in right now. You might want to rethink that part of your plan.

Think we are jumping the gun here, not ptw just yet!

I do however think that the revamp of personal story steps is pointless at this stage, with the changes made by the living world to the map completely destroying any immersion new players might hope to find in many ps instances e.g. LA. As many people have already said, living world and personal story are completely incompatible and the longer ANET try and keep them both going the worse it is going to get. This game needs an expansion with a new leveling zone and personal story if they truly want to create a good experience for new players. Otherwise focus all resources on endgame content for the existing player base and fully embrace living story as a concept. I’m talking massive changes to Orr in line with the death of Zhaitan and removal of risen events from Kryta and Caledon Forest, replacing them with events related to Mordremoth’s spreading corruption. I’m talking the successful ending of the foefire and signing of the peace treaty between the charr and ebonhawke: each with significant impact on the zones involved, perhaps replacing existing events with new ones related to new or existing threats e.g. minions of Kral or Primordus. Unless we see changes like this taking place, living story as a concept will never be taken seriously by the playerbase.

cranked.3812:

This does not bode well for the general health of our society when people can’t even figure out what to do in a video game.

I think you’re looking at it wrong. It doesn’t speak well for the video game if it doesn’t do a good job showing you what to do. Especially when it’s trying to do something different than most of the other video games of the same “type”. It may mean that the difference is too odd, or poorly introduced. It doesn’t have to mean that people are idiots.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Sirjbenson.7298:

Define what “endgame” really is. Other mmo’s “endgame” is usually just grinding the same raids over and over for a chance at better gear. I do not find that fun at all.

No other MMO’s endgame is:

1. Hardmode dungeons
2. Raids with 12-14 unique bosses with special mechanics and a unique storyline with access to the best gear in the game.
3. Endgame zones that provide good rewards with repeatable content
4. Unique mounts and cosmetic items that are acquired through long quests, and achieving difficult objectives.
5. Crafting with special bonuses

GW2 endgame is:
1. Repeating the same dungeons every day that you have since launch
2. Grinding mobs for 10000’s of hours in the hopes you can make money faster than the price of precursors rise
3. buying stuff in the gem store
4. Living story

Right now the only thing GW2 has going for it is living story, which provides the story aspect of raids, but does not provide anything else. The complaints over the past two years have mostly focused on the other aspects of endgame that are missing. Challenging content, long quests to acquire unique items, new dungeons, new zones.

You forgot to mention the endless RNG grind to attempt to get BiS gear, then the endless trolling in 5 mans and LFR / Heroic Hero’s who play 24/7 and look down on all…
Oh yeah and then having to farm every week for Valor Points to upgrade or guilds wont take you that week and stupid caps on VP so you can “maybe” buy something each week, (which of course is then obselete by the time you get the set you are like 20 ILvls too low)
But sure, lets have the same awful grind in GW2…. As if grinding to try to get a Legendary is not enough , or trying to Miraculously unlock traits in WvW and Map Completion when your server is ALWAYS being dominated by the others….

Palador.2170:

kta.6502:

If this game goes the way of Perfect World or Aion, my money will go back to … Nexon …

I … uhh… I hate to tell you this, Sunshine, but a lot of people feel that Nexon’s involvement with NCSoft is what caused ANet to get pulled down into the state it’s in right now. You might want to rethink that part of your plan.

I do play MapleStory for fun and nostalgia purposes. The most I pay for in that game are the pets and the magnet for picking up loot.

Nexon only owns 14% of NcSoft’s stock anyways. They’re not calling the shots in how GW2 is being created. Anet only had 1 person from Nexon in the past, but that person dealt with the gemshop, not game development.

The problems with GW2 are similar to another failed NcSoft product: Tabula Rasa. People blamed Richard Garriott for TR’s problems. But with all the problems GW2 is having, I’m beginning to think the blame was misplaced.

What was TR’s problem?

1. unnecessary nerfing and revamping (Just like GW2)

1. not enough content (just like GW2)

1. too many status effects on player characters and no counters for the effects (We’re seeing something similar in GW2 with the combined torment, poison, and stun statuses from the Mordrem monsters. There are no counters for the torment attacks at this time .)

1. NcSoft calling the shots in how TR was made (We don’t know for sure if NcSoft is doing the same thing with GW2, but it’s possible.)

The following two articles talk about what happend to TR in more detail:

http://www.alteredgamer.com/other-mmorpg/28629-history-timeline-and-post-mortem-of-tabula-rasa/

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-12-12-garriott-what-went-wrong-with-tabula-rasa

TR didn’t have enough content at launch. It was buggy as heck since it was pushed out the door years late and a major change of direction. They had finally got it into shape just as it got canceled by NCSOFT.

Destination Games was bought by NCSOFT in 2001. ANet in 2002. Tabula Rasa came out 2 1/2 years after GW. From NCSOFT’s POV, they bought a bunch of talent from Blizzard (ANet) and the people behind UO. ANet delivered, DG didn’t.

GW2 has a heck of a lot of content at ship time and it was fairly stable. The Eurogamer article pretty much outlined why TR failed and NCSOFT interference wasn’t one of them. $100 million cost, 7 years of development, 50K copies sold at launch with dismal subscription retention. It had income south of $15 million when it was up. The ROI on the investment was terrible so NCSOFT cut and ran.

Behellagh.1468:

The Eurogamer article pretty much outlined why TR failed and NCSOFT interference wasn’t one of them. $100 million cost, 7 years of development, 50K copies sold at launch with dismal subscription retention. It had income south of $15 million when it was up. The ROI on the investment was terrible so NCSOFT cut and ran.

The Eurogamer articles does imply it at the beginning of the article. According to Richard Garriott himself,

""We started the game by bringing on a lot of staff by our Asian partner, and we decided to create a game that we believed could be popular in Asia. And we spent the first couple of years trying to create a game that had Asian style and Asian influence to make sure that we could be popular in Asia. But we kept getting feedback – accurate feedback I believe – from our Korean counterparts that said, ‘You know what, when you guys try to do Asian pagodas or Asian armour or weapons, it never feels domestic, it always feels like a foreigner making stuff for us.’

“The way it was phrased to us was, ‘Look, imagine we were going to do a European castle: instead of making the stone walls nice and straight, we’d make them sort of like an inflatable castle, slightly curved, like a marshmallow castle. We might not notice that it doesn’t look like a good castle, but you would immediately notice that it was cartoony versus strong and powerful.’ "

Translated from Asian business-speak to layman’s English: No, you can’t make your Asian themed game, Mr. Garriott. You have to make the game we want in our way.

That’s how TR went from being Asian themed-historical fantasy game (Garriott’s speciality) to a sci-fi game (which was way out of Garriott’s league.) I’m familliar enough with how business is done in South Korea.

How does it tie into Guild Wars 2’s Pointless Revamp situation?

There are times when I think that the pointless nerfs and revamps are Anet’s way of communicating that they don’t have control over their own game. It’s almost as if the devs are waiting for some high-top NcSoft person to give them the okay to add real content (new dungeons, adding paths to old dungeons, fixing exploits in Arah, adding new maps & areas for level 80 characters, more solo content, etc.).

Most game developers in other companies take initative to add stuff to an MMO, make a new expansion ASAP, or they start making a new game. Blizzard puts out an expansion every 2 years. Nexon has continuously updated MapleStory over the last 9 years with new maps, monsters, events, dungeons, etc. Most devs make tons of new content for games. It’s not a job for the lazy and people who win awards can’t rest on their laurels like movie stars. Taking initiative is a soft skill that is taught to all new students at the 2 commercial game dev schools in the Seattle area. I’ve met many game dev students who work the 12 to 16 hour days just focusing on their projects and homework.

The Anet team who worked on GW1 had 2 expansions out in GW’s second year (Factions & Nightfall).

With the GW2 team, it feels as if the devs are maintaining the game instead of working on adding new content (just like TR).

kta.6502:

With the GW2 team, it feels as if the devs are maintaining the game instead of working on adding new content (just like TR).

The problem is new content has come out regularly but a lot of it was temporary. If all the stuff from the first season was still in game, no one could say they weren’t coming out with content.

And they’re still coming out with content. Not as fast as people would like, but content is definitely coming.

And not necessarily the content people want either.

I’d still be stunned if they didn’t have a profession or race they were working on.

Vayne.8563:

kta.6502:

With the GW2 team, it feels as if the devs are maintaining the game instead of working on adding new content (just like TR).

The problem is new content has come out regularly but a lot of it was temporary. If all the stuff from the first season was still in game, no one could say they weren’t coming out with content.

And they’re still coming out with content. Not as fast as people would like, but content is definitely coming.

And not necessarily the content people want either.

I’d still be stunned if they didn’t have a profession or race they were working on.

Oh, I’m sure they are. On the side, in the background, so to speak. And then, when other things pop up, it’s the first project to be tossed aside. “Drop your project, the LS team needs more help.”

And then, eventually, someone else is given the project. Either the earlier person is considered too valuable to “waste” on that now, or they’ve left the company.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

DiogoSilva.7089:

All those changes are important because they fix the several flaws that GW2 has early game: the lack of a sense of progression, poor tutorials, directionless, forgottable rewards and jumpy story instances that forced you to level up midway, interrupting the flow of the story.

So far, this feature patch is great for new players, but, what about the veteran players? It doesn’t seems to offer much to make us stick to the game.

More information will be released next week about features that are more suited to veteran players.

Thank you, I would have loved to have heard there was more to come in one of the announcements telling us vets that more changes to improve our gameplay was coming, such as possibly a rewards revamp similar to what Dry Top had

I’m sorry but the game has a what, 12 rating? If anet honestly thought that the trait and downed system etc. needed reworked because people didn’t understand it then they must think that their customers are complete morons and they (anet) are some superior race of intelligent beings.

Paul.4081:

I’m sorry but the game has a what, 12 rating? If anet honestly thought that the trait and downed system etc. needed reworked because people didn’t understand it then they must think that their customers are complete morons and they (anet) are some superior race of intelligent beings.

Or they tested it and found that it’s true. Let’s take a vote. Your opinion vs. Anet’s tests.

Pretty sure most people would go with the tests.

Paul.4081:

I’m sorry but the game has a what, 12 rating? If anet honestly thought that the trait and downed system etc. needed reworked because people didn’t understand it then they must think that their customers are complete morons and they (anet) are some superior race of intelligent beings.

Obviously you’ve never studied people playing your games. If you had, you would understand just how easily people get confused.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

DiogoSilva.7089:

All those changes are important because they fix the several flaws that GW2 has early game: the lack of a sense of progression, poor tutorials, directionless, forgottable rewards and jumpy story instances that forced you to level up midway, interrupting the flow of the story.

So far, this feature patch is great for new players, but, what about the veteran players? It doesn’t seems to offer much to make us stick to the game.

More information will be released next week about features that are more suited to veteran players.

Still waiting!

globe.7238:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

DiogoSilva.7089:

All those changes are important because they fix the several flaws that GW2 has early game: the lack of a sense of progression, poor tutorials, directionless, forgottable rewards and jumpy story instances that forced you to level up midway, interrupting the flow of the story.

So far, this feature patch is great for new players, but, what about the veteran players? It doesn’t seems to offer much to make us stick to the game.

More information will be released next week about features that are more suited to veteran players.

Still waiting!

You get to go back to the same areas and collect generic doodads for achievement points.

It’s like an entire new game.

Substance E.4852:

globe.7238:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

DiogoSilva.7089:

All those changes are important because they fix the several flaws that GW2 has early game: the lack of a sense of progression, poor tutorials, directionless, forgottable rewards and jumpy story instances that forced you to level up midway, interrupting the flow of the story.

So far, this feature patch is great for new players, but, what about the veteran players? It doesn’t seems to offer much to make us stick to the game.

More information will be released next week about features that are more suited to veteran players.

Still waiting!

You get to go back to the same areas and collect generic doodads for achievement points.

It’s like an entire new game.

And cosmetics when you complete the set. It’s not quite archeology in WoW or collections in Rift but it’ll do as a good start.

Palador.2170:

cranked.3812:

This does not bode well for the general health of our society when people can’t even figure out what to do in a video game.

I think you’re looking at it wrong. It doesn’t speak well for the video game if it doesn’t do a good job showing you what to do. Especially when it’s trying to do something different than most of the other video games of the same “type”. It may mean that the difference is too odd, or poorly introduced. It doesn’t have to mean that people are idiots.

I disagree. I made it through the game just fine on my own with some small help from wiki/google and this is my first MMO I have ever played. It’s not that hard to just play the game and follow the green arrows every once in a while that direct you to the next personal story step. Sure, not everyone is me, but the problem does fall on to the players. Maybe it’s not necessarily being stupid, but it’s either that or lack of patience or willingness to take an extra step above and beyond not seeing giant neon lights waving you to the next part.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

DiogoSilva.7089:

All those changes are important because they fix the several flaws that GW2 has early game: the lack of a sense of progression, poor tutorials, directionless, forgottable rewards and jumpy story instances that forced you to level up midway, interrupting the flow of the story.

So far, this feature patch is great for new players, but, what about the veteran players? It doesn’t seems to offer much to make us stick to the game.

More information will be released next week about features that are more suited to veteran players.

So far the minis being account bound is ok, more achievements is ok, adding the spoons to be found is ok too. But without an actual expansion, as in many NEW maps to explore and the temporary living story arc as a filler to the main Personal Story. I feel, Anet will find many vet players that find these updates lacking. There are veteran players out there that want to fully explore the content known as Tyria. These areas include, the Crystal Desert, Fire Island Chain, Blood Legion Homelands, and more.

Dry Top was a good start but I have a feeling that area was chosen because in GW1 there was barely anything there. Which gave the Living Story team a chance to expand on the area without having strong ties to the original Dry Top in GW1. Which means less work but a new map. I understand creating new map areas will take time for GW2. Yet, I hope Anet understands that many MMOs including GW1 would have release several new maps (in a pack or expansion) all at once. However, this week isn’t over so hopefully Anet is saving the best update announcement for veteran players for last.

cranked.3812:

Palador.2170:

cranked.3812:

This does not bode well for the general health of our society when people can’t even figure out what to do in a video game.

I think you’re looking at it wrong. It doesn’t speak well for the video game if it doesn’t do a good job showing you what to do. Especially when it’s trying to do something different than most of the other video games of the same “type”. It may mean that the difference is too odd, or poorly introduced. It doesn’t have to mean that people are idiots.

I disagree. I made it through the game just fine on my own with some small help from wiki/google and this is my first MMO I have ever played. It’s not that hard to just play the game and follow the green arrows every once in a while that direct you to the next personal story step. Sure, not everyone is me, but the problem does fall on to the players. Maybe it’s not necessarily being stupid, but it’s either that or lack of patience or willingness to take an extra step above and beyond not seeing giant neon lights waving you to the next part.

I disagree with the disagree-ers. The games do have to have a basic foundation of knowledge. The downed thing for example, new players don’t know that the downed state isn’t balanced so of course they’ll get on a character like an Engineer and find out that it’s pretty much a death sentence. Also there’s a serious problem with the way the map displays where to go on the personal story and LS2 instances. Sometimes the world map simply doesn’t show you where the end result will be and will only display which portal to go through to lead you there which can take you the long way around.

These things have to work properly. To use these dissenters’ logic we shouldn’t have any signs on the roads or stop lights because people should simply “know” where and how to drive in those roads. That logic doesn’t stand on it’s own sorry.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

So what exactly is the point of revamping the only part of the game people almost unanimously loved and completely ignoring the areas of the game people think need the most work? It just seems like a terrible business strategy to me.

Unfortunately, their business strategy revolves around immense gold sinks and the convenience of the Gem Store.

Why would they deliver on permanent content and key features for prominent game-modes such as sPvP and WvW when they can make a killing off of a quaggan hat?

I must say, the collections announcement was a pleasant surprise to me. This is something that I loved doing in other MMO’s. In WoW (yes I know, eww WoW) I spent hundreds of hours collecting rare mounts in order to unlock the mount collecting mount.

It was a lot of fun and it gave me a great reward at the end. No mounts in GW2, but the same principal applies. I hope the collections give some really cool/unique rewards to work towards.

Still none of the big features I was hoping for this patch, but at least vet players are getting some love. If we get some good TP UI overhaul today I will call this patch satisfactory. However I will expect the next patch to be made up of NEW things since we will be synced up with chinas version after this.

If it’s not broken, fix it.

This feature pack is most useless patch I have ever seen. Seriously, do they even think about what players want? Forum is full of rage ._.