Guild Wars 2

Well at least I know now to not bother getting my hopes up anymore. I’ve lost most of my motivation to play at this point, not all because of this but because of the direction the game has been moving in in general. At least I’ll have more free time now I guess…

Why not abandon the legendary journey component and go back to the old RNG drop system if it takes so many dev resources to make legendary weapon? I think a lot of players would find this preferable to not getting their legendary greatswords or longbows or swords etc for an indefinite period of time (which must be considerable if you’re making this post).

I understand shifting your priorities (I personally don’t craft legendary weapons but I do play Living World) but it seems legendary weapon crafting (which was on the road map back in 2013) is not worth the dev resources at any time when those same devs could be making something more players would see.

Why did we see several Black Lion Chest skins, several outfits, several gliders and even a legendary-like Wintersday Scavenger hunt (the present and the skritt quests) all sold in the gem store when you are unable to deliver the majority of legendary weapons after more than six months after HoT’s launch? Dev resources are being put into new microtransactions when you are unable to commit resources to one of the expansion’s big features.

For now, I’ll say that we’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates.

So it was said we would get them in subsequent updates, but I think it’s fair to say the majority of people interested in them expected the full set of legendaries to come within twelve months of HoT’s launch. That’s a very long time to wait and it’s possible we will have to wait even longer than that. It seems unfair you are still creating content that you are monetizing while you are halting development on one of the expansion’s undelivered elements.

Silmar Alech.4305:

Absolutely the correct decision to postpone other legendary weapons. Create content that is open for all of the players, don’t create content that is viable for only a small subset of players. I feel the same could be done with the raids, by the way.

Yes yes, just throw away content that was promised and that PEOPLE PAID MONEY FOR.

Great business plan.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,
…
I know this will be a controversial decision. I’ll hang out with you here on the forums for a little while today to discuss it. And I’m always available by email.

Mo

So, a question Mr. O’Brien?

You’ve taken over Chris Whiteside’s job tittle… a little staffing change that got far less attention that Colin’s departure, yet ultimately a FAR more serious change in the way ArenaNet produces content than most people realize.

When are you hosting the next CDI?

Phase 2 of Gen2 Legendaries on hold in order to focus on core content? Sounds fair. Love me some dynamic world content.

But ya know what I strongly feel should be priority #1? A stable client. Since the launch of HoT about 153 days ago, the game has been rife — dare I say bursting at the seams — with crashes, making it completely unplayable. If I had a nickel for every crash since launch that has denied me loot, achievements & event credit, I could probably buy Peru.

Seriously… I apologize for any undue snarkiness, but since I bought the game long before it was F2P, paid for the most extensive pre-order option, and have sunk more than a few dollars into the Gem Store, I can’t help but feel a little betrayed (if I may be brutally honest) that seemingly no headway has been made in fixing these rather severe and well-documented crash issues (Bug reports post is up to 72 pages as of this message). I mean… your new features & shinies are nice, but how can I enjoy them when the client poops out at the drop of a hat?

Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate all the efforts being made into trying to expand on every facet, and I do respect the effort involved. However, as one of my old I.T. profs once said, “You don’t build — and expand — a skyscraper on swampland; that’s just asking for trouble.”.

Even though I have been unable to play GW2 properly since HoT launched, and been unable to play it at all since the end of December / beginning of January, I am still a huge fan and miss playing very much. (Would like to note that it ran flawlessly pre-expansion with nary a single crash on OSX, and have upgraded both OS and machine since then with no difference in stability.)

My one hope is that you’ll focus on allowing those of us who can’t play because of this issue the ability to get back into the game. If you can’t fix the crashes — and I trust that’s just crazy talk — I hope you’ll find some way to at least allow us to NOT LOSE EVERYTHING we’re working on when the client inevitably dies. Flag the user acc’t, with time code & location / instance, or something… y’know? This game is VERY loot-and-event driven, and if players are unable to get drops & credit due to constant crashes… why even invest the time in getting nowhere?

I thank you, ArenaNet, for taking the time to ingest and mull this over.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Obviously I go into this knowing that some players will be very upset. That’s why it’s such a tough decision.

Ankdarkwolf, Darkmikau, Ballads, Spira, Caerbannog, Cysgod, you each posted a variant of an accusation I’ve seen many times over the past few months on the forums, something along the lines of, “AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.” I take issue with that. We shipped a new region full of content, a new mastery system, gliding, guild halls, a new profession, nine new elite specializations for existing professions, and more. Then we shipped precursor journeys for existing legendaries, and said, “We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates.” While I fully get that you’re disappointed today, this is not about us shipping half an expansion pack.

Mo

You might take issue with it, but that doesnt take away your players see it that way. HOT is for many players an unfinished product, myself included and this for obvious reasons since ahlf a year later we are still waiting on things said to be part of HoT to be released, how some lore just feels unsatisfying, how we go into region and see something that we expect to be an important event but it just seems somewhere along the way it got scrapped (the mordremoth minion in the traris map that is constantyl trashtalking). I can understand you our proud of HOT and it hurts a bit that people say it, but that doesnt change the fact that many find it was an unfinished product content wise and the execution was a bit sloppy. Yes saying we only got half an xpac is not the truth, but can you honestly say, looking at what was delivered with HoT and lets say the 2 months after it that you have truly delivered a fully completed and polished xpac? IMO if you have to be honest the answer there is no.

Mike O Brien.4613:

pachex.9723:

Have to ask Mike, but…does this also apply to legendary armor?

We’ll deliver both.

But only to Raiders, right?

Mike O Brien.4613:

Obviously I go into this knowing that some players will be very upset. That’s why it’s such a tough decision.

Ankdarkwolf, Darkmikau, Ballads, Spira, Caerbannog, Cysgod, you each posted a variant of an accusation I’ve seen many times over the past few months on the forums, something along the lines of, “AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.” I take issue with that. We shipped a new region full of content, a new mastery system, gliding, guild halls, a new profession, nine new elite specializations for existing professions, and more. Then we shipped precursor journeys for existing legendaries, and said, “We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates.” While I fully get that you’re disappointed today, this is not about us shipping half an expansion pack.

Mo

I’ve been playing this game for a long time. I bought it around release. I’ve been playing MMOs since early 2000. I don’t think this is a case of releasing half an expansion. This is about what an expansion means in the industry itself. Here is what people are used to.

Expansion Releases > Play expansion content for 1-2 years > New Expansion.

Now Anet has taken a different direction on how to push out content. You took on the mantle of the whole living world release style (which I loved). However, when you announced and released an expansion…people were relating their expectations to previous experiences.

For example, with WoW they release an expansion and people play it for 2 years. The content has a 2 year lifespan.

In Guild Wars 1 you pushed out expansions really fast. It was what, a year between them? These expansions were also filled with content.

So what happens when these expansions are released? People play the expansion content, almost exclusively, for 2 years. The content had a large life span.

Now with HoT, this wasn’t so. A lot of the content people did once, but they also went back to vanilla content. The content just doesn’t have a large life span. So while in terms of quality and quantity, it was pretty up there. However, it didn’t deliver on the replay ability and the life span of the content. A majority of people I knew (including myself) did the content for about a month. Possibly two. Then we found ourselves back doing Vanilla content a majority of the time. Doing the daily fractal which isn’t uncommon to be below level 50. Doing the world boss train.

The thing that makes WoW expansions so successful are the ladders. They put in a ton of ladders to climb. Faction/currency ladders, dungeon/raid ladders, gear tier ladders, etc. These weren’t optional either. You had to do some of these things to keep up. In the processes, previous content would die. We, as a community and Anet, need to find some way to replace these ladders with something that fits into the games design.

For example, right now the major reward structure in the game is gold. People seem to want to gravitate towards actions that have a good work/stress to gold ratio. One of the major reasons the World Boss train and Silverwastes chest train is so popular.

Now if we ignore the gold reward structure and look at HoT focused rewards. We have the main following. Stat combinations, gear looks, and achievements (includes collections).

1. Stat Combinations – Right now your meta (with the exception of sPvP) doesn’t change a lot. Zerker is still very popular, especially in PvE. Since the meta remained unchanged (as it always has over the course of the game that has led us to 27 stat combinations for ascended and 33 for exotic), many people didn’t care. They didn’t want to farm crystalline ore in DS or do any of those events over and over again for the new stat combinations. It simply wasn’t worth it. Especially when the currencies often had a wide range of uses and needs.

2. Gear Looks – this is pretty simple. If the gear doesn’t look good/cool to a person, they don’t want it. I don’t see a lot of people running around with Bladed or Leystone armor sets. I don’t play as often as I used too, but I think in the months since HoT I’ve only seen maybe 5-6 full sets of Leystone. Maybe 1-2 full bladed (that includes the chest).

3. Achievements – This was probably your most successful reward avenue. Often they were none grindy achievements and collections that people would complete. Collecting masks, killing a certain boss, etc. They were great. This was the major reason I saw personally people doing certain events or actions over and over again.

The rest of the rewards are tied to gold. Guild Halls? Gold drains. Scribing? Gold drain. It doesn’t matter if you make it so something is built with materials. As long as those materials can be bought and sold on the TP, people will associate them as a gold based reward structure (and then it falls upon that work to gold ratio).

Finally, you have the other parts of the game. While these were released for free, I personally consider them apart of the expansion.

1. Stronghold – A surprisingly large number of PvPers don’t seem to like this gamemode. It isn’t uncommon for me to have seen people group up and request not to be queued up with this gamemode. It’s very saddening since it was a major form of hype for sPvP in the months prior to release.

2. New Desert BL – you already know the issues behind this guy

3. Dungeon Reward Nerf – even if it was a 1% nerf, it would’ve been horrible. Not a lot of people realize that it isn’t pointless to do dungeons. But it became sort of “circlejerky” to talk about how horrible dungeons are now and they have no point. It really sped up the amount of people not doing dungeons.

I think there were a lot of better ways you could’ve taken this expansion in a few aspects.

Guild Halls should not have been gold drains. The way you should’ve expanded this content’s lifespan is by forcing guild members to group up. Invent some kind of currency that you could ONLY acquire from doing certain events/actions with guild members in your group. World Events, Mini Dungeons (I love these btw), Jumping Puzzles, Dungeons (these should’ve been made the major way to gain said currency to make up for the dungeon nerf), Fractals, WvW, sPvP, etc. The Guild Hall system SHOULD have been centered around teamwork with Guildies to progress, not gold begging/donations.

Scribing/Decoration. Decorations should not have been connected so much with Scribing. The best way to have handled decorations is to make it so decorations would have been sold by special NPCs that are locked behind certain open world events (JP, MD, Events, WB, etc). What these vendors would sell would depend on the region. Shiverpeak/norn style decorations from the Shiverpeak areas, for example. Currency used? Majority – Guild currency spoken above AND Karma. Minority – Gold. Those three currencies together with a small focus on the gold part (kind of like how the decoration merchant is now, only 10s). This would’ve also fed into the exploration and world part of the game. The world you have in Guild Wars 2 is amazing. People constantly talked about how Gw2 had the best leveling experience. Your open world was great. It was the nice mix of relaxing, actiony, exploration, lore, stories, and events. Putting these hidden vendors behind special events would’ve played into this more.

While I think this is a questionable decision, I do have to commend the honest communication. Please remember that the unpleasant reaction you are likely to face here is the result of the decision to suspend the development of advertised content, and not the result of the decision to communicate honestly.

I point this out only so you don’t come to the conclusion that you should not communicate because it only upsets people.

Communication is always good, even if it communicates bad news.

That said, although I understand the decision to focus on producing more playable content (and I honestly think the decision is a good one), it’s still a bit of a hard sell to convince people that you are capable of producing gem store content and future expansion content (both of which people will, presumably, have to pay for) but are not capable of producing content that has already been advertised and that people have already paid for.

Glad to see you guys can keep pumping out new outfits and black lion ticket weapons each month though, instead of giving us what was promised for the expansion. Really shows how much of a money grab this game/expansion has turned into.

Perhaps i should suspend GW2 for some BDO aswell.

Kastiel.1947:

Ok now this is coming from someone who’s been a passionate supporter of HoT, DBL and other decisions taken, this actually made me sad. Like upset irl. A full set was promised, and now it’s basically scrapped. I mean if it hasn’t been shipped whilst it was passionately being worked on, we deffinetly won’t see any now that they have been indefinitely suspended. I honestly don’t think that creating 19 legenderies is that much effort with the amount of stuff Anet previously has put out, and like someone else has posted before I feel betrayed.. Anyways this is my 2 cents , which will be ignored cause nobody gives a kitten about this opinion , and this is a private company that can do whatever they want. I feel so stupid for arguing with people who were commenting things like "full 2nd set on 2022, along with next expansion " , they were basically right and there is NOTHING to guarantee even if they state that more legenderies will come with the 2nd expac, that they actually will. Public announcements are basically not be taken seriously.. I’m sad, hope you go back on this one ..

Yes we was absolutely right but im not sure if we should be happy about these news at all.. i called HoT a boxed ls3 months ago before it was released.. but i have good news. Next expansion will give us 3 more legendary weps.. Meanwhile..

I’m a bit unsure what to think of this.

On one hand, this implies better and faster content that isn’t scavenger hunt to do what we’d be doing anyways (like 95% of the current legendary collections are anyways).

On the other hand, this leads to false advertisement and more promises not kept when players pay money, which feels like a backhanded slap to our faces.

Honestly, not sure what to think… but I feel more insulted than anything at the moment. ArenaNet, you’ve had a habit since Season 1 of changing your mind every few months. I could go on and on about lists of these kinds of things, if you feel like you don’t show this. There’s been far too many promises never kept, and promises is what most of HoT was – and now they’re not being kept either.

I’m sure whatever content the legendary team will work on will be good and fun, but do you really want the name “ArenaNet” to be synonymous with “those who cannot keep their promises”?

Next time you make a promise, fulfill it before moving on, please.

Witte.3160:

Perhaps i should suspend GW2 for some BDO aswell.

I’m downloading to try it out now! I’ll come back for the update, but, honestly, this continuous negative news and developments, or lack there of, from this game is decreasing how much enjoyment I’m getting out of gaming.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

In the upcoming Spring 2016 Quarterly Update, we’ll launch the new legendary short bow, Chuka and Champawat. The team outdid themselves on this one. This new precursor journey takes you through a memorable experience inspired by a real-world story, and the bow you craft at the end is the perfect commemoration of that journey. I hope you all check it out.

Last year we talked about plans to gradually build out a second set of legendary weapons through live content updates. That’s a big responsibility. We have a team of six developers working on that, who could work on it for years to come.

As game director I have to make tough trade-offs. One thing I believe is that we have to focus on the core game first before taking on additional responsibilities. I wrote in the Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto in 2010 that our vision was to create a living, dynamic world, where there’s always something to do. Let’s ensure we succeed on that front.

So, after shipping Chuka and Champawat, I’ve asked that we indefinitely suspend work on new legendary weapons. This team of developers will instead shift their efforts back to Living World style content, building new journeys and events for everyone to participate in.

I know this will be a controversial decision. I’ll hang out with you here on the forums for a little while today to discuss it. And I’m always available by email.

Mo

To me, legendary weapons are more of the core game than Living Story is.

But will we still get new skins in the gemshop? I hope that team is still working, because I can’t wait for the next Blacklion Weapons and Glider Skins to be purchasable.

You guys have been promising us new Legendarys for years. Literally years.

Then you announced we would finally get it with the expansion- not only weapons- but armor- and the fractal backpiece- Which was the biggest reason i bought the xpac.

To say i’m upset is an understatement. I’ve never played a game where i was advertised something by the developer to have it not be in game- Or if it is delayed- your atleast given a window of when it will be delivered.

You don’t put up a $60.00 dollar paywall- advertising content, then months later be like “na, where just not gonna do it” Really? What kind of company are you running over there?

Considering that Legendarys are our end game and Considering the breakdown on Reddit- you have 300 people on your team. 300! In over 3 years noone was capable to design new legendarys?

Really not cool.

HiggsBoson.1976:

Thank you for considering the silent minnow majority, instead of caving to the entitled whales.

I seriously think you may need to revisit any amount of ethics if you think insulting the now lied to playerbase that was looking forward to paid content is anything to be thankful for. While sure I may not have been as excited for weapons as Living World this content was a selling point and a promised part of HoT. The issue is not which should come first its that this should have been done and if not done constantly in the work as a priority until its finished. ESPECIALLY before they ever thought to devote 1/2 their staff to the next expansion. Also just because they said they’re moving to what you want, there’s no guarantee at this point that will happen either because as of this moment all of their promises about HoT are null and void. If they can suspend this they could just as easily suspend your LW to fix WvW, followed by suspending that to work on Fractals, Followed by suspending that to sell another expansion with all new “gemstore” armor. I’ll repeat myself for clarity this isn’t an issue of who they’re listening to this is an issue of they sold a product and have yet to deliver said product before devoting 50% of their staff to the sale of their next expansion while scrapping projects that should have been in this one.

So, when will I be getting a partial refund? Or some sort of compensation?

That was one of the things I PAID MONEY FOR as part of the expansion.

Witte.3160:

Perhaps I should suspend GW2 for some BDO as well.

And just think: if you wander off long enough, GW2’s 3rd ex-pac will come out and give you the second ex-pac for free .

I want to thank you for the heads up, and I am sad to see legendary weapons are being delayed(even though they are something I do not wish to pursue). For many they are the only thing left to really do in the game.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Ankdarkwolf, Darkmikau, Ballads, Spira, Caerbannog, Cysgod, you each posted a variant of an accusation I’ve seen many times over the past few months on the forums, something along the lines of, “AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.” I take issue with that. We shipped a new region full of content, a new mastery system, gliding, guild halls, a new profession, nine new elite specializations for existing professions, and more.

I want to be the voice of reason here and say “yea yes you did ship those things”, and frankly you guys did. I understand internally anet has made leaps and bound to deliver what they have, but from the community’s perspective:

Were 6months into HoT and :

*We are glad you guys are still talking with us.
*We are frustrated with lack of content in and before HoT.
*We are sad and frustrated about content that is in poor a quality state(both in base and HoT).
*We are bored of standing around waiting to be able to do HoT content.
*We upset about missing content that was advertised as part of the HoT experience.

Hopefully the changing of resources will aid in fixing some of the problems we have right now. Lastly, at this point in time have absolutely no faith in another expansion due to the quality and time-line the current has been delivered.

eekzie.5640:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Obviously I go into this knowing that some players will be very upset. That’s why it’s such a tough decision.

Ankdarkwolf, Darkmikau, Ballads, Spira, Caerbannog, Cysgod, you each posted a variant of an accusation I’ve seen many times over the past few months on the forums, something along the lines of, “AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.” I take issue with that. We shipped a new region full of content, a new mastery system, gliding, guild halls, a new profession, nine new elite specializations for existing professions, and more. Then we shipped precursor journeys for existing legendaries, and said, “We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates.” While I fully get that you’re disappointed today, this is not about us shipping half an expansion pack.

Mo

And you promised more than that, including the legendaries that you’re now scrapping.
Just like people are expecting LS3 and raids, legendary armor, and more. Specifically more content.

So when people talk about half an expansion on launch they expect the rest of it to come after. And if you’re scrapping an important part of what was supposed to come people do indeed get upset.

It’s really sad you’re yet again failing to deliver promises. And there’s been plenty examples where you haven’t lived up to expectations.

I really do hope moving forward you have more uplifting news to share, as thus far anything but raids after the expansion has been a huge letdown.

For me it just shows the disconnect with the community. That you don’t know how and what to deliver to make people happy. Simple thing is you can just ask and you will have your answers, but the path of legendaries was set to fail with the unncessesary complications that weren’t rewarding.
So it’s good to see that killed off, but to indefinitely suspend the legendaries themselves is heartbreaking.

They could save themselves the effort and scrap the next expansion’s legendary weapons now.

Nobody wants new legendaries, give us more gemshop skins!

On one hand, good on you for have the emotional and moral wherewithal to come out and tell us straight up.

On the other, the fact that you’ve been so proud about working on the next xpac already when you haven’t even delivered on promises you made for the base game OR your first expansion is sickening, coupled with the stifling pace of Black Lion content in comparison, a game that I used to recommend to others as a shining example of what a non-sub game could and indeed should be is tarnished almost irrevocably. Not that a lack of new legendary weapons is the cause of that, merely the capstone on a monument made up of failed experiments.

I bet what won’t see any slow down or indefinite suspensions is the production of Outfits, BL Weapons, and Gliders.

This is truly a sad day. I’ve supported the GW franchise and Anet since 2004. It may have very well just ended. The money grab is so real at this point.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I think perhaps you should indefinitely suspend the next expansion until you can deliver the promises made on the current one. That would be the right thing to do for your customers.

Totally agree. Its been a complete fiasco.

Not doing Legendaries, WvW dead, pvp a joke, the story so bad its embarressing – and now no Legendaries.

What exactly are they doing with all that money they took from us? It sure as heck aint been used to make a decent game.

But hey, here’s some new gemstore items! -_-

Another sad thing is that since Heart of Thorns was released, there have been 112 gem store skins added to the game (Dominator, Soaring, Timekeeper, Merciless, Plasma, Immortal, Improvised). No problem allocating resources to that, was there?

Pull/delay next expansion, not legendaries. Legendaries were promised this expansion.

While I am unexpectedly disappointed, I do feel like I can be lenient, given the change of game directive. However, I do feel it would be better to postpone the second expansion in favour of finishing HoT. I can say that I am satisfied with most of what HoT has had to offer. The new content gives a much-needed challenge, the events are good (but certainly hard to jump into), and I am a fan of the mastery system. I feel that especially the small raid team works incredibly well, churning out fantastic content at a favourable rate, and the people who hate on them for making content for ‘5% of players’ are silly for doing so. I have, unfortunately, already crafted 100 Crystalline Ingots, and have continued to slowly craft Amalgamated Gemstones, in the hopes that the new dagger would look fantastic (and if not, I would craft HOPE instead). As a result, I have some questions:

As your wording seems to indicate, work on new legendaries has been postponed rather than cancelled. Is there any indication on when it will resume? After LS3 is complete? Or will they be redirected to the next expansion team?
And regarding the next expansion, I would assume this means it will not feature new legendaries, but will it ship with another batch?

I am conflicted with how I feel about your project management. On one hand you have a wonderful raid team, but on the other you put too much into content that is too far into the future, or that is in the Gem Store (though I can’t talk, I posted that I wanted cat ears the other day). Then again, it seems to everyone that the raids team is the only one being productive, as most of the only content we see is new raids.

To me, it seems that at HoT announcements you simply evaluated what you could do badly. I see it too often in gaming (Kickstarter-type games mostly). I hope that in the future you can better decide the direction you want to take your game in, and realise how much work you can actually do.
The second expansion is your chance for redemption.

Will this affect the Mastery Tract associated with them (Legendary Crafting 4/4)?

minbariguy.7504:

Communication is always good, even if it communicates bad news.

That’s true, but you do have to appreciate the artistry that goes into coming out and telling us stuff in a way that you can actually hear the income from the next Ex-pac pre-sale boiling away to nothing over a fire built out of burning credibility.

This decision wasn’t just hard, it was COSTLY. Both in terms of torched goodwill and straight to the bottom line loss of faith.

Whoever was on that Legendaries team that couldn’t deliver, they’re gonna be in the doghouse for a year.

Thank you for your honesty Mike, i really appreciate when developers communicate with customers directly and are honest with us. A couple of collections/skins is not something you should use 6 good men and women on when there are more urgent and important matters to be attended, hence i understand your decision. I would really like you guys to hurry up with the WvW overhaul, with all the updates and everything I must admit that WvW was a much more enjoyable 2 years ago than it is now. The new maps are good in general, just give us gliding there and we’re good. Another thing is LS, yes, that is another priority, make it happen ASAP and good luck to all of you guys at ANet!

Ya know, We get new black lion weapon skins nearly every month. Some of which are way cooler than legendarys and have sound effects like the Timekeeper skins.

How can they push out new black lion weapons nearly every month- a FULL set mind you! Yet 300 people can’t design new legendarys in over 3 years? Weapons that were promised to us for years, and then given a PAY wall to get it with HoT.

Where is the logic in this?

Mike? Anyone? Someone needs to explain that to me.

pumpkinspiced.8617:

I’m disappointed to know there won’t be any new legendaries for a while, but it’s okay, because having something to do is SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT. If postponing something like legendaries can guarantee us having anything at all new to do, I’m on board.

Legendary weapons were something to do. They were the reason to run old content, farm events, to put the effort into gathering (to sell mats, as crafting is pretty much useless aside from ascended), to farm keys, to farm silverwastes, to farm the new HoT meta events, to run old dungeons, etc.

For the last year, barring the brief period of HoT being launched, the goal of finally finishing my first legendary was all that kept me playing. Once I finished my first weapon, and realized it wasn’t as tedious or difficult as I thought it would be, I wound up making a second. And then got halfway through Astralaria and Kudzu (through the new collection) before I was drawn away to BDO, where I will stay indefinitely.

Working toward legendary weapons provided way more engagement with content than the few hours it takes to run through the instanced, static, shallow “living” story.

ozma.3498:

Another sad thing is that since Heart of Thorns was released, there have been 112 gem store skins added to the game (Dominator, Soaring, Timekeeper, Merciless, Plasma, Immortal, Improvised). No problem allocating resources to that, was there?

$$$$$$$$$

ozma.3498:

Another sad thing is that since Heart of Thorns was released, there have been 112 gem store skins added to the game (Dominator, Soaring, Timekeeper, Merciless, Plasma, Immortal, Improvised). No problem allocating resources to that, was there?

^^ A million times this

Sartharina.3542:

Pull/delay next expansion, not legendaries. Legendaries were promised this expansion.

Yes. And at least do everything promised in this one.

If this isn’t an early April fools joke then I am legitimately done, I am quitting this game after 10+ years of GW from GW1 beta. We’ve put up with being sold half an expansion because we were told the content would be coming shortly after launch. Now we’re still waiting on LS3 and you’re suspending the remaining legendaries. So done.

Hi Mike, hi all,
I have to say I’m very disappointed as well—I was really hoping for another Legendary Dagger some time soon. The hardest part is being able to see both sides—as a gamer, I’m terribly let down by seeing things that had been promised, and now don’t seem to be ever coming in the foreseeable future. On the opposite side, it takes a lot of strength to be the person to make the hard decisions and break the bad news, because that means YOU’re the one that’s going to take the crap from all the upset gamers coming down the pipe.
If I could maybe make a suggestion? I know the Legendary team is now working on new story content, but….why not make use of all the amazing, talented gamers you have in this community? By that, I mean, why not have a contest? Make a contest for the next set of Legendaries—have people make up the pre and the Legendary design, and the steps to get it. There were always lots of contests for Guild Wars 1, and I bet you would get some AMAZING contributions for a contest like this. And, I’ll admit first off that I’m not a programmer, BUT—if the programmers were handed the designs for the pre and legendaries, and the steps to get them all, wouldn’t it be WAY easier to program something that’s already done, into the game? Just a thought.

islarose.7356:

Working toward legendary weapons provided way more engagement with content than the few hours it takes to run through the instanced, static, shallow “living” story.

This… so much this. When I want a Living World, I don’t want “Living Story”. I want things that keep the world alive. Dynamic Events, and a robust economy and players in every map do that. Blowing up Kessex Hills more doesn’t.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Obviously I go into this knowing that some players will be very upset. That’s why it’s such a tough decision.

I main a thief so I’m kinda lucky (after a staff and a pistol, now we get a shortbow), and biaised.

I understand players are upset and I’m also disappointed with the missing content of HoT, but I wanna say thank you for communicating. Even bad news. Silence is much worse.

The only thing I truly wanted from HoT was new legendaries and i already have the dreamer, bifrost, frostfang and HOPE so i wanted ones i didnt already have a leg for. Anet seriously let me down with HoT. If you cannot deliver on what you say I truly beleive your company needs an overhaul. I dont give a hoot how long ppl have been in the company. Fire everyone and get a competent team. Do that or be honest to us that love the game and dont say we are getting stuff then deliver on 10% of what you say. This is probably going to be one of the final things I’ll take from this company kittening us around. Remove dungeon devs…i sigh and go well okay theyll bring something great and keep my dungeons rewarding…nope you molest them. You promised so much with HoT but the results were a hurried half finished broken system you called a great expansion laughing all the way to the bank. If 6 devs cannot be spared to create a few neat weapons start paying the community back, or have those of us that love the game contribute and accept our help. I can guarantee there are plenty of people with the know how and skill to be able to implement new legendaries, even on your broken code of a game.
Sincerely,

A dissapointed loyal gw2 player

Can we receive word that 2016 will focus on fixing bugs and issues with classes?

Ex.
Less
“The Butterfly Harvesting Flute now properly grants swiftness when used with an Item Booster.”

More
Rangers Pets will not spawn at the location of death in pvp and put rangers in combat every time they respawn.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Ankdarkwolf, Darkmikau, Ballads, Spira, Caerbannog, Cysgod, you each posted a variant of an accusation I’ve seen many times over the past few months on the forums, something along the lines of, “AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.”

Agreed HoT was half baked.

Mike O Brien.4613:

We shipped a new region full of content, a new mastery system, gliding, guild halls, a new profession, nine new elite specializations for existing professions, and more.

New region = More map meta event spammage that isn’t fun to a large portion of the community due to lack luster rewards for time spent
Mastery system = Not fun, just another copy/paste of skill communes and others require you to run around doing achivements many other players would normally care very little about.
Gliding = Fun, almost perfect job on that one
Guild Halls = Killed the ability for small guilds to compete with large ones
New profession = I’ll give you that one
Elite Specs = Sold as “alternitive way to play your class” but was delivered as “straight upgrade, must be run at all time”. This is not true for all classes such as ranger and guardian, but for many such as engineer, necromancer, mesmer, warrior, elementalist, theif, etc it is not
More = uhhm what exactly? It sure wasn’t balance, dungeons, fractals, or any upgrade to exsisting content!
Raids = Wasn’t listed but gj there, I don’t play them but people seem to be having fun with them

Mike O Brien.4613:

Then we shipped precursor journeys for existing legendaries, and said, “We’ve been working hard on new legendary weapons, the first handful of which will be introduced in Heart of Thorns, with more to come in subsequent updates.”

I want to give you this one, but at the same time I don’t. It was a bit of a mess when released as some of the chains didn’t work properly and fixes took a bit too long. On the flip side you did give people alternatives to spending that 200g~1,000g+ on a precursor from the TP. So +1 there…

Then again it has been 5 months and 2 days since HoT was released… Where are those new legendaries that you promised us exactly? so -1 there…

On a whole I’d give HoT a 6 of 10 due to many promises being made and few being kept. The support for bug fixes has been extremely limited since HoT launch and personally I’d no longer recommend GW2 to a friend. I would however not go out of my way to tell people its a terrible game because it is not, GW2 is just no longer as good as it once was.

Nike.2631:

Witte.3160:

Perhaps I should suspend GW2 for some BDO as well.

And just think: if you wander off long enough, GW2’s 3rd ex-pac will come out and give you the second ex-pac for free .

Truth. At least we know what we’re getting for the next 2-3 years with BDO. Half of GW2’s next xpac will be cut by the time we’ve got our hands on it.

ozma.3498:

Another sad thing is that since Heart of Thorns was released, there have been 112 gem store skins added to the game (Dominator, Soaring, Timekeeper, Merciless, Plasma, Immortal, Improvised). No problem allocating resources to that, was there?

And if you look at the publicly available income and profit data for the MMO genre, GW2 and its parent company are some of the more lucrative games in the genre. And yet they’re paying second-rate writers, utilizing 5 and 6 man teams for entire branches of content, and now cutting or holding those branches indefinitely? Shouldn’t they be more than capable of recruiting talent to satisfy these promises?

Something’s wrong with the management and talent allocation at ANet. And it’s been wrong for months, if not a few years now. GW2 was magic at launch. By HoT it’s become a soulless cash-grab.

Hi Mr. O’Brian. Tough call I’m sure.

Is there any work being done on the RNG with regards to precursors? I’ve played this game since head start and not had a single precursor drop in any of the killing I’ve personally done or rewards from events (minor or major). Furthermore, what mystic forge gambling has also yielded up bingo precursors. I don’t know what it is off the top of my head with regards to hours played I do know it is above average.

Assuming you have the data, and I’m pretty sure you do because as a developer and/or designer and/or big data nut I know I personally would have had it added, run a few queries over a weekend, grab a bottle of wine (you know, the good one that has the dust on it that you have been saving for a while – Colgin Or Heitz for me) and take a look at the startling statics.

I thought Aion upon launch had some of the strictest RNG and DR’s of any game but when I look at the hours played without a precursor I beg to differ. GW2 has the wonkiest RNG of all. Well, Maybe World of Warcraft has you beat with Zin’rokh, Destroyer of Worlds and that whole archaeology bullkitten (yeah, that was also super frustrating for players) but still.

Anyway – let’s talk big data and precursor drop rates. Yes, we can now craft them. And yes, I’m personally working on Nevermore (just finished stage 1). But do you not find it a bit ironic that I have to deforest all of Tyria for it? And has a supposedly Nature Loving Druid are not the trees supposed to be my friend?

Nike.2631:

Witte.3160:

Perhaps I should suspend GW2 for some BDO as well.

And just think: if you wander off long enough, GW2’s 3rd ex-pac will come out and give you the second ex-pac for free .

Great point, I like the way you think.

Khue.7140:

Will this affect the Mastery Tract associated with them (Legendary Crafting 4/4)?

They should give us a mastery point reset, seeing as that one is basically useless now.

Sartharina.3542:

islarose.7356:

Working toward legendary weapons provided way more engagement with content than the few hours it takes to run through the instanced, static, shallow “living” story.

This… so much this. When I want a Living World, I don’t want “Living Story”. I want things that keep the world alive. Dynamic Events, and a robust economy and players in every map do that. Blowing up Kessex Hills more doesn’t.

Yeah it will be Lions Arch all over again… Destroy it, let people repair it for a few years than kazaam new and shiny within a patch… Big value lost by not giving us that living world feeling over many patches…