Guild Wars 2

Ahwoo.8029:

Thinking that not listening to the vocal minority, being a good thing, is in fact an opinion, you realize this right? Also, who the vocal minority is, is an opinion. We (that’s you and I) have no metrics to measure who the minority is, here on the forum. Arena net does, alas, you and I are not Arena net.

First it’s “us”, now it’s “them”. Make up your mind already. I quoted you there, to point out the hypocrisy of your message. Chairs that can be sat in, and health bars with percentages being good things, again, are your opinion. And here you have become the very thing you’re rallying against.

Lastly, just to be clear, you said: “There is, in fact, a difference between caving in to every little nitpicker, and realizing that some players have good ideas.” As a matter of fact, there isn’t. I just want to be clear about what facts, in fact, are.

You’re apparently assuming that the original post was made with an agenda in mind. “Oh don’t listen to these guys, listen to these guys”. It wasn’t. I made it because I feel like with all the negativity on the forums, ANet might want to read some encouragement now and again. Sure, it’s encouragement tempered with “But hey the game isn’t perfect there’s still problems”. But it is encouragement.

There is no ‘us’ vs ‘them’. It’s “ANet” vs “People who want to fundamentally change the game”. Like… PvP servers. Or adding raids. Or making legendaries more than 1-2% better than exotics. That sort of thing.

Yes, those are my opinions on what a good idea are. Everyone is bias in some way. There is no hippocracy in “Don’t fundamentally change the game, but don’t ignore all of your players to avoid a few”.

There is, in fact, a difference between caving in to every little nitpicker, every single person who wants to change the game, and reading those suggestions to find the ones that are good.

One makes you wishy-washy, the other improves the game in a way that ANet thinks that it needs to be improved.

Guild Wars 2: http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2
World of Warcraft: http://beta.xfire.com/games/wow

Only counts Xfire users, but there’s no reason to believe that there’s no discrepancy in Xfire users between the games.

Look, Birdy, I get it. You want GW2 to be WoW. But it was made specifically to not be WoW. So instead of trying to turn this game into something it was never meant to be, just go back to your boring gear treadmill and stop posting on the forum of such an “awful” game.

There is endgame in Guild Wars 2. Just because it’s not the endgame that you want doesn’t mean that there’s no endgame at all. Going back to complete zones you haven’t done yet? That’s endgame. You can do it at 80. You can do it while leveling. Doing events you haven’t done yet? You can do it at 80. You can do it while leveling.

The vast majority of the game, due to the downleveling system, -is- endgame, because it’s just as relevant as 80 as it is at level 2, because of the downleveling system.

And even then, there’s things that you can only do at 80. The very definition of endgame. Be it explorable dungeons, or farming legendaries. There’s more things, but the point is that the whole game -is- endgame, because nothing in the game is ever completely irrelevant, or even mostly irrelevant.

I agree about not caving in to the customer’s complaints about end-game and early nerfs to certain classes cough Thieves and their heart-seeker spam kills cough but I also want to point out that there are some things in the game that might need to get look at i.e. the difficulty in personal story seems to make it as if the personal story quests should be for atleast 2 people but that can also be looked as a good thing since you’ll get to explore other sides of the game incase you never create the certain race

JunkyardWolf.4126:

Wow a lot of folks here are really missing the whole point.

First off, the whole concept of a never-ending “endgame” is just absurd in the context of an RPG, regardless whether it’s MMO or single-player. Those who’ve tried it (EQ, WoW, et al) have always failed miserably at it.

By definition, “endgame” must be, and always will be, a repetitive grind in some fashion, since devs can not possibly put out content faster than players will consume it; eventually they must start repeating the content in order to have anything to do at “endgame”. This does NOT make for good gameplay.

So what does that leave? The whole rest of the game. One huge lesson I’m sure ArenaNet are taking from other games is that when the focus is placed on endgame, it renders all the pre-endgame (ie. leveling) content obsolete.

Look at WoW for example. The vast majority of its content is pre-level-cap, and yet the level cap is supposed to be “where it’s at” in terms of gameplay. And what is that level-cap gameplay? Endless repetition until the next content patch or expansion.

Now take a look at many of the great single-player RPGs that have predated MMORPGs over the decades, right up to current RPGs like the latest Elder Scrolls games. There is no “endgame” where you stop exploring/questing/leveling and start grinding for months on end; it makes no sense, since once you’ve defeated the game’s ultimate badguy(s), you’re effectively done. Sure, you can keep playing and poke around the gameworld, but your progression is over, period. You’ve beaten the game. You can then either put it down and be done, or try again with a different class/race/whatever for a different style.

GW2 is not a traditional MMORPG, in many respects. From ejecting the holy trinity of class roles (finally!), to prioritizing the journey (exploring/leveling) over the destination (so-called “endgame”), they’ve made fundamental changes to the way these games are played.

To complain about lack of endgame content in GW2 is like complaining that you can’t drive a Ferrari in a football game. It’s apples and oranges.

GW2 is not a game where you’re meant to play the same character at the level cap for years on end. It’s a game to explore and experience, to pick up or put down at your whim, where you’re not pressured or even expected (though you can if you like) to dump days-long marathon sessions into it.

To expect the tank/healer/dps paradigm is to miss the point. To expect that you need to play every available minute to get your money’s worth is to miss the point. To rush through the leveling process for the sake of reaching “endgame” is to really miss the point.

I’m not telling people how to play, but I will say that if you expect something from a game — any game — that’s just not there, nor is intended to be there, you’re entirely missing the point of that game.

Also, I agree with the OP entirely. ArenaNet, stick to your vision; if you try to please everyone, well… go look at Blizzard’s failed attempt at that, and learn from their mistakes instead of repeating them yourselves.

I really agree with this. The point of game should be to complete certain goal which for me is complete exploration or maybe get one legendary weapon. After that i might stop play it for a bit and come back later if i feel to play it or seek new challenge. I could come back and play it anytime with no pressure because i dont have to pay subscription fee, which i feel like the gw2 game doesn’t “force” me play it.

Sighs I’m sorry but the lot of you complaning about no “endgame” are what we would have called in the pre-wow years a “POWER GAMER” you burn threw games as fast as you can to beat and/or dominate it. You only care about whats to be found at the end of the travels NOT what was to be found as you walked along the path way to the end there for you all missed alot of the smaller things that make this game stand out from other MMO’s. Yes I may have never played WoW but I knew from reading up on it that it wasn’t my type of game to play. Long be for WoW was even thout of I played Dark Age of Camalot then read about Final Fantasy 11 and played that in both games I never cared about what was found at the end but what I came across as I played. I played FF 11 the day it came out on the PC for the US and made meny great freinds along my travles in Vana del’ now I have stoped playing not becouse I got all there was to get in end game play but them freinds no longer play. I do not look at a new MMO from the point of ether of my past playing of MMO’s I see a game as it IS I for one am enjoying playing GW2 I have played 121 hours now in 21 days I only just a few days ago hit 60. Meny of you well being saying how can you be that low you should be lvl 80. Simple I’m having fun exploring the maps and finding the small roses along the path I tip my hat off to ArenaNet for a good job so far and to keep up the good work I expsaly loved the node you put in to older RPG’s of old with the one NPC you guys made me grin and rember them days bows

Mexxer.5096:

I agree about not caving in to the customer’s complaints about end-game and early nerfs to certain classes cough Thieves and their heart-seeker spam kills cough but I also want to point out that there are some things in the game that might need to get look at i.e. the difficulty in personal story seems to make it as if the personal story quests should be for atleast 2 people but that can also be looked as a good thing since you’ll get to explore other sides of the game incase you never create the certain race

I tried not to mention PvP because there’s a whole hornet’s nest waiting to happen with that. PvP is a lot harder to balance because you have to look at each skill individually, and how it impacts -everything- that that class does and how it interacts with the other classes.

To use Heartseeker as an example. Nearly everyone seemed to think it was overpowered in some capacity. But to balance it, you have to find out -why-, and how to fix it. Which sometimes may not have anything to do with the skill itself.

It could be that Heartseeker was average, and the rest of their skills simply sucked, so everyone used heartseeker. It could have been that thieves weren’t mobile, and everyone was using heartseeker because it was a short-range gap closer. It could even have been that the other classes didn’t have enough/good enough heals, so that they were always below a certain threshold. There’s a -lot- to look at with PvP stuff, so I decided not to mention it. I don’t really know enough about PvP to comment anyway.

I think Personal Story missions are too hard. Other people think they’re too easy. Even more ‘other people’ may think that they’re just fine. ANet has to judge “Do we think this is too hard? Is it because people are playing their classes wrong? How do we fix that if classes being played wrong is indeed the case? Is it because there’s too many mobs at once?”

Even Personal Story problems can be fixed in myriad ways. Say there’s a personal story mission where you spawn in five enemies. Players complain that they hit too hard. This could be a problem with people not avoiding damage. It could be that the mobs really do hit too hard. It could be that they -don’t- hit too hard, but that there’s five mobs there and collectively they hit too hard.

You could fix it by crippling the mobs to be easier to kite. You could fix it by providing a better tutorial on some things. You could fix it by lowering the mob’s damage. You could fix it by removing one mob so that it’s only four. You could fix it by adding more NPCs. You can’t rush into fixing problems, because there’s -so many- things to consider.

That’s why I’m saying “ANet, don’t cave in. Don’t bandaid problems. Don’t fundamentally change the game. Fix the game with the same quality that you’ve designed it.”

Illushia.3721:

You’re apparently assuming that the original post was made with an agenda in mind.

No, I haven’t made any. Of course you have an agenda, and it is for you to make sure that Arena Net knows the difference between good ideas (yours), and bad ideas (the “vocal minority”, aka you, and I suppose, also me)

Illushia.3721:

There is no ‘us’ vs ‘them’. It’s “ANet” vs “People who want to fundamentally change the game”. Like… PvP servers. Or adding raids. Or making legendaries more than 1-2% better than exotics. That sort of thing.

Those things would take a lot of work, but, I don’t necessarily see them as bad, well, I would agree with the “too powerful legendaries” bit, as being bad, acknowledging, of course, that’s a shared opinion.

Illushia.3721:

Yes, those are my opinions on what a good idea are. Everyone is bias in some way. There is no hippocracy in “Don’t fundamentally change the game, but don’t ignore all of your players to avoid a few”.

Again, I’m sure that many people are biased, but to say everyone—hyperbole. And I agree, there is no hypocrisy, in what you’ve said there, however, that isn’t what I was referencing, this is: “Don’t cave in. Don’t give in. You guys made a game, and you guys made a game that you could be passionate about. But at the same time, don’t forget about us, the little people who bought your game. Because some of us do have pretty good ideas.”

In that quote, you are quite clearly coming out against the “vocal minority”, perhaps, without realizing, that in doing so, you have become the “vocal minority”. That is why I called you a hypocrite. You are also attempting to establishing yourself, as someone who has good ideas, while at the same time saying, the"vocal minority" doesn’t. I don’t like that. I’m also not suggesting that you don’t have good ideas, just to be clear.

Illushia.3721:

There is, in fact, a difference between caving in to every little nitpicker, every single person who wants to change the game, and reading those suggestions to find the ones that are good.

Again, still don’t agree with you on this, even though you have repeated it here. Who’s to say who’s a nitpicker, isn’t it through nitpicking, that a game is refined. Who’s to say what constitutes nitpicking? Is wanting something like an option to stay signed into the forums (shameless plug) nitpicking? Who’s to say?

I can’t think of any developers, current or otherwise, that it could be said, that they caved to “every little nitpicker”, so, it’s irrelevant, and you shouldn’t worry too much about it.

Illushia.3721:

One makes you wishy-washy, the other improves the game in a way that ANet thinks that it needs to be improved.

So, if you want to write a letter of encouragement, where you smite the pervasive negativity, do that. But, don’t write an ode to hypocrisy, and when someone pulls your card, you suddenly change your message. That makes you wishy-washy.

1) You’re again assuming there was an agenda. There isn’t. There’s no ‘my idea’. There’s “ANet make the game you want”. That’s it.

2) ANet has said they are not, and never will, add PvP servers. It goes against the … ‘atmosphere’ of the game. I guess. Tried to think of a better word for it and failed. They also are not going to add instanced raids. Outdoor events are essentially raids anyway- they’re just accessible by anyone who happens to be in the area.

3) Again, you’re assuming I have an agenda, in presenting this thread to try to funnel ANet into looking at some ideas over others. I’m not. I’ve even said it before “Look at everything, only use what you want. Don’t feel pressured to make a change, make it because you want to make it.” That’s what I mean by don’t forget about us. The players. As a whole. There is no ‘us’ vs ‘them’. Us was referring to everyone.

I’m not even suggesting I have good ideas. I probably have terrible ideas. I’m not even saying the vocal minority has bad ideas. What I’m saying is don’t cave to the vocal minority just because they’re vocal. If they have a good idea, an idea that ANet thinks is good and goes along with their vision of the game? Awesome, glad it got out there.

4) A nitpicker, I imagine, is someone who tears through something just to find one thing in that something to harp on about. It could even be something that can’t be fixed. I’m not going to present an example, because you apparently like to turn them to make an argument out of them. But I’m sure examples are out there.

5) The whole thing is a letter of encouragement. There’s not been a change of message. Read the first post. Read every post after. What do they all say “ANet make the game you want”. There’s been no changing of the message. It’s been the same.

You can continue to reply(Of course you can, I can’t stop you, and wouldn’t if I could), but I’m not going to respond to you any longer because I don’t want to derail the thread from it’s track any more than it is.

Which is, “ANet make the game you want to make, don’t bow to people simply because they’re vocal”.

Illushia.3721:

That’s it. The title. Don’t cave in. Yes this is directed to ANet, but you can’t say that in the title so hey.

Don’t cave in. Don’t give in. You guys made a game, and you guys made a game that you could be passionate about. That you had all these ideas for that took years to get working.

So make your game. Make it the way you want to make it. (Or… continue… to make it? Whatever works.) Because this is your game, your baby.

People that don’t ‘get’ the game? They don’t get it. And they probably won’t continue to play. People that want to massively change the game’s systems or how certain things work probably fall under this category.

But at the same time, don’t forget about us, the little people who bought your game. Because some of us do have pretty good ideas.

Even so, this is your game. You honestly don’t have to listen to any of us. And I hope that when you -do- listen to us, it’s because you want to, not because you feel forced to.

Don’t cave in. =3

Well said, Illushia. I’m not even going to read all the replies to your original post here in this thread. Don’t need or want to. My choice. Just as in the game. My choice how to play this amazingly awesome MMO RPG.

Is Guild Wars 2 ‘as is’ a perfect game? Of course not. Can and will there be more tweaking and improvements made upon it? Sure. As there should be. But it would be a major disappointment, to me, if the developers “dumb down” the game and stray from their vision of what they want Guild Wars 2 to be.

Basically, bottom line, am I having fun? Yes! Am I expectant and eager to learn more about the world of Tyria? Yes. Do I enjoy playing with a variety of people, spontaneously helping out one another as they happen along? Yes.

Do I care that there are issues with the game working as intended, designed, and as it should? Of course. Am I concerned that some have experienced very real, and beyond frustrating, problems such as being hacked or logging in? Definitively yes! But I’m also confident that things that aren’t working will be sorted out.

Thank you ArenaNet for a wonderfully envisioned and beautifully crafted environment in which to explore.

Kasenai.9418:

That is the worst possible attitude one could have:
“Our product is flawless. If the customers don’t like it then they don’t get it.”

Really?

I don’t know, doesn’t seem to stop Apple’s valuation from perpetually rising. They’ll even EOL some of the most popular editing software in the world because they wanted to re-do it their way.

Birdy.4816:

gurugeorge.9857:

Birdy.4816:

Yes, Don’t listen to the majority of MMO players, because we are all completely wrong.

The idea that the majority of MMO players is represented by whiners on forums is absolutely ludicrous.

I’m tired of you people’s reading comprehension, WoW is built around end-game, wow has 10 million subsribers, MMO PLAYERS LIKE AN ENDLESS GAME THAT IS FUN.

Newsflash: statistically, most people who play WoW will never see the “endgame”: the vast majority of WoW players are in fact casuals.

Whether GW2 is an endless game or not is yet to be shown, since (newsflash again) it’s only been out a few weeks.

And for your third newsflash, here’s another important point: in every MMO that’s ever been made since the earlier hardcore ones, there have always been people who rush to level cap and whinge and whine about there being nothing to do. It means absolutely nothing.

Two weeks after WoW’s release it was exactly the same: some people had gotten to 60 and complained about lack of endgame and stunk up the forums with their bleating.

gurugeorge.9857:

Two weeks after WoW’s release it was exactly the same: some people had gotten to 60 and complained about lack of endgame and stunk up the forums with their bleating.

Yup. I specifically remember the posts, too. They went like this: “This is World of Easycraft. Everyone is going to be 60 in 2-3 months, and then they’re going to quit because there isn’t anything to do. The game will be finished in 6-9 months”.

Kind of like Baghdad Bob, really.

The problem with listening to the player base is, a huge % of this player base comes from a certain game. A certain game in which I play other games to get away from teh horrible crap which is that game. They move onto games like this destroy them and then head back to said game.

Sure they can listen to the playerbase who will kitten and cry over stupid things until it gets changed, but in the end, they only hurt themselves and thier loyal fanbase when doing so.

Look at most of these “Holy Trinity” threads, almost every thread dealing with such has a certain game labled in it. I would like ArenaNet to listen to it’s loyal player base, and not so much the other crowd as they will be moving back to thier other game anyways.

What is with the OP trying to preach to A Net, like they need a random person to cheer lead for them? Appreciate the sentiment though

Hehe to OP:
Don’t forget that more importantly this is their job. The trouble there is that there is a line between hobbies and work, and yes often that line can overlap and that can be great when that happens however: At the end of the day they have to make profit, that is goal number one.

Having said that… i think the fact that the game has a lot of unique clever stuff going for it is what has attracted the majority. At least I hope so, i think ppl were ready for some major changes, I know I was. MMOs stopped holing my attention completely (and I played wow for some 3-4 years) and this brought the love back just as I gave up on it.

Will it last? too early to know, but I really hope so I have played a bunch of classes to 10 now and I remain highly optimistic.

I agree and feel the same way OP. I understand exactly what you are saying.

Listening and using discretion when it comes to feedback.

What OP is saying common sense, but apparently some people just like to take out of context and argue.

I would imagine that anet would listen to worthy feedback, and ignore the scrub-rage.

Example of something that would be ignored. – Dungeons are too hard! I just tried to do one for the first time, and I died! OMG ITS BROKEN FIX NAO.

Example of something that might not be ignored. – While I enjoy the dungeons, I would love to see bosses go through various phases as you dps them down. Possibly with branching skills and tactics that will fire off during one fight, and may be entirely different the next time you encounter that fight. Also, I don’t have a huge problem with graveyard zerging in story mode, but maybe you could lock the spawn point during explore modes? Or put them further away? Lock the boss room door entirely? Or greatly increase the length of the debuff.

I wonder what the OP thought of the Bioware ending.

They made the ending THEY thought was the best. It was an “Artistic choice” if I recall correctly.

Dead.7385:

I wonder what the OP thought of the Bioware ending.

They made the ending THEY thought was the best. It was an “Artistic choice” if I recall correctly.

Yeah. And I honestly do think that the overreaction to that ending was pretty… pathetic might be too strong, but it was the first word that popped into my head.

Dead.7385:

I wonder what the OP thought of the Bioware ending.

They made the ending THEY thought was the best. It was an “Artistic choice” if I recall correctly.

I haven’t played ME3. But from what I understand, someone who hadn’t worked on the other two games, or even most of ME3, wrote the ending. Which is part of why it felt so disjointed.

Hunterdan.4921:

I would imagine that anet would listen to worthy feedback, and ignore the scrub-rage.

Example of something that would be ignored. – Dungeons are too hard! I just tried to do one for the first time, and I died! OMG ITS BROKEN FIX NAO.

Example of something that might not be ignored. – While I enjoy the dungeons, I would love to see bosses go through various phases as you dps them down. Possibly with branching skills and tactics that will fire off during one fight, and may be entirely different the next time you encounter that fight. Also, I don’t have a huge problem with graveyard zerging in story mode, but maybe you could lock the spawn point during explore modes? Or put them further away? Lock the boss room door entirely? Or greatly increase the length of the debuff.

But you realise that alot of people complaining about dungeon difficulty are citing that of the story modes which should ease users into the whole concept of dungeoning? The saddest thing is that this feature could essentially lock off a portion of the endgame to the casual crowd because it is designed, essentially, as a gold and time sink.

While I dont think dungeon difficulty is an issue, I feel that trash mobs have been poorly thought out and that the rewards for the amount of time needed to complete these endeavors are supremely underwhelming. And rewards are also what most people are complaining about. If you believe hard gameplay is rewarding? Good for you, it doesnt mean that every other player feels completing hard content is reward in itself. It does not help, also, that individuals spew out the term l2p without offering any insight.

Anet should look suggestions, but their problem now is their lack of forum presence. People will continue to make threads about what they think are issues until anet comes out to say, ‘no, that is working as intended’ or ‘we are looking into this.’ But their only statement on dungeons was that they are approaching difficulty like they did when DoA was realeased. DoA resulted in particular builds being essential and particular classes being rejected because of their uselessness.

Are we heading into a future where only particular builds are viable? Are we headed for a future where you MUST play a certain way just to clear content?

I already said there are problems.

Being oneshot by arrow attacks that are not telegraphed in any way, that do more than your full health bar in damage, and hit you even if you -do- dodge, is a problem.