Dear ArenaNet,
I will no longer be recommending this game, nor will I spend another dime on gems or any future expansions. I’m so disappointed by the direction you are taking I have debated several times just uninstalling GW2 altogether to save myself future heartbreak.
Because this was my all-time favorite game, ever. I feel like a pet has just died with this latest patch.
Here is my list of specific grievances:
1. Leveling – Level Gating:
I will not level another character. Both of the friends I talked into buying your game have now quit because of the new leveling gating. One of them had just purchased his twelfth character slot. The best thing about the leveling experience in GW2 was that you could get started with a full player experience from the very beginning: completing maps, collecting resources, and learning/unlocking your weapons. Even low level play was action packed. You’ve ruined it.
2. PVP – Character Standardization Modeling
The character standardization modeling is the second worst thing I have ever seen introduced to a game (behind your level gating). Players will no longer be able to experience the full personality of this game without placing themselves at a competitive disadvantage. You claim this is for your high level gamers. How does lowering the skill cap benefit high level play? It doesn’t. It only makes the game worse for everyone involved.
4v5s
Yet you’ve failed to address the worst thing about PVP which is the 4v5. AFKers are ruining the PVP experience. One in every five games is a 4v5. A PVP game should never start without five players on each side who have actively selected entering the match. Automatically throwing AFK players into a match only to have them sit there is no solution, nor is starting a match with only 4 players on one side or the other. The rudimentary level or programming it would take to fix this is mind boggling simple, yet you choose to spend your development resources on crap like character standardization, something nobody in the community was complaining about.
3. Balance
Elementalist tornado is a worthless elite skill without a projectile reflect. It is even more worthless now without empowering meteor shower. Fiery Great Sword was only useful in PVP for its movement and only useful in dungeons for fiery trail. No more FGS in dungeons apparently.
4. Backpieces
So you nerfed my ele and my warrior and my necro, but all of that would have been forgiven because you finally buffed flamethrower. So I logged onto my engi only to discover that you destroyed his style (attachment included). Even though engis have been complaining about how bad hobosacks look since launch, I figured out how to actually make mine look good by infusing it with spinal blades. I was so happy with how well the character came together. Not anymore. You’ve taken that away as well. I’m back to the same floating back crap hobosack I was stuck with while leveling.
Couldn’t you have made hiding the backpiece when clipping an option in the player panel rather than just making the decision game wide for everyone? Many of us were very happy with the way our characters looked. The only endgame to this game is style and you’ve ruined that for me as well, at least with my favorite character.
5. Complete lack of communication with your player base
None of these changes were asked for by the community that has been supporting you for over two years now. Why don’t you run a test server so that players can review and respond to your patches before they go live? Why does it seem to take years to respond to actual player feedback?
Sincerely,
VS
