Guild Wars 2

I got up for the ‘one time only’ Halloween event and regretted it.

I slept through Lost Shore’s ‘one time’ event, and regretted it.

The only thing I can appreciate about Anet’s performance is their inconsistency.

Now I am at a loss as to what to do come Christmas. Do I sacrifice the better part of a nights sleep for the inevitable ‘one time’ event or not? Chances are whatever I do I will end up regretting it.

Oroborous.2694:

My thoughts:
So… the Consortium invades the home of a race of undersea horrors, the karka, causing unknown damage.

The karka then retaliate by attacking what they perceive to be the source of the attack on them, Lion’s Arch.

Lion’s Arch then retaliates by deforesting a section of the island, destroying the karkas’ egg nests, the actual eggs, we slaughtering them indiscriminately, and the whole thing ends with us killing the most ancient member of their race.

And we’re the good guys?

Exactly how i felt through out the event.
Invading the island, cutting down the trees…

The end event on the other hand felt kinda awesome once the laggs were gone.
There was so much pain and hate for that creatures at this part, and if you tried to forget the invading part, it was a amazing event.

What i highly dislike on the other hand was the chest.

Really ArenaNet?

Do you know what made you big as company? Why people used to love you?
Because GW was about skill, fairness, hard work and fun.

Not about RNG’s devaluing months of playtime.
There were people earning 600+ Gold in the event.

That this is even a statistical possibility is ridiculous, that it actually happened countless times, a farce.

There are other working since head start to get stuff like the Tier 3 Cultural, which is ridiculously overpriced – sucks for the people just happened to like the skin, not the “prestige object”.

But now everbody playing for a week or so (enough time to get to 80) can buy every freaking item he wants in the game. All you need is to be lucky at a specific chest.
You don’t even have to like the Armor- on what else would you spend all that money on?

It’s ridiculous that some random drops devaluate MONTHS of playing, and even farming, and while being happy for my guild mates and co. who earned hundreds of gold, i feel highly punished for playing the game since the first beta.
Not because something was taken from me, but because what i was working towards to since the day i started the game (and checked the armors) was devaluated immensely, to a point where i don’t even know if i want to put any more work into the game.

Not because of “QQ i got nothing out of the chest”, but because i have seen what happened to to many games that went the route of RNG’s deciding everything, and I’m just not willing to experience that again.

“GZ, you got a lucky drop should never be” > than “Wow, you really worked hard for months to get this”.
Because whats the point to do the second then?

GZ on absolutely obliterating the even playing field ANet.

Giving some people 800 times or even more the rewards of what others got might actually be the worst decision you made with Guild Wars 2 so far.

I wanted to add some positivity myself too and I’m kinda sad to see people mocking OP for saying that he enjoyed the new island. But hey, it’s the internet.

I enjoyed Southsun Cove and the event. I really did.
Sure there were problems the first day (I’m still a bit upset about the Miyani accident) but it’s an MMO. People should very well know by now that MMOs have problems and can generate bugs and lags and whatnot.

I appreciate how ANet decided not to push a new build while a big event is in progress. Appreciation over 9000!

I’d like to start out by saying that this is going to be a long list of patch feedback about everything good and bad that I can pop out of my little head. Some of it might be displeasing to read, but take it all as opinion and not fact. Also, note that I loved the content and the patch; so it’s not going to push hate at all.

This feedback is not just going to be Pro and Cons, but also some insightful suggestions on to improvement for the future.

PROS:

• Karka enemies are fun. They’re very challenging, very vicious, and somewhat unique. I really dig how they have 2-health bars (1 for the shell, then 1 for the nakedness underneath). It’s also funny watching 20 people balled up and the Karka do it’s steampowered dash right through all of them, killing/downing most instantly.

• Fractals are fracin’ awesome! Rewards aside (get to that later), the Fractals are a great experience. They do require a lot more communication than current dungeons, and almost always require a VOIP (pugs are …nearly impossible here). The use of traps, puzzles, jumping, and so on is great.

• Head crabs: To have the hatchlings latch onto your head like that of something from an Alien movie is so cool. Honestly wish I could get a town-cloths hat of one.

• Another jumping puzzle: Keep them coming, they’re loads of fun and I love every one of them. Definitely great content for the explorers at heart.

• Nice tropical design: The island of Southsun Cove is very tropical and semi-volcanic in a sense that it’s pleasing. Thankfully it’s nothing like Orr (some people might have gone mad if it was).

• Karka Lore/Event story: These events, the invasion and story of the Karka, has been very well laid out. It’s great that this “mysterious creature” shows up after a few weeks of anticipation based on dying whales, signs warning of death, and a ship wreck. Then to find ways to fight them by using other race’s knowledge, finally using that to take the fight to them. {Still want to know whether or not they’re minions of Bubbles?}

• WvWvW loot drop increases: Yay! Some love for those that slaughter the enemy in droves. I mean I’m all for tokens, but getting Rares and Exotics off of players instead of needing to farm Orr for 3hrs is a great thing.

• New sPvP map: I really enjoy the new sPvP map. It’s so fun to kite someone around a bridge and up the stairs in a circle 3x that you’d think they’d eventually stop and turn around to intercept… Oh what a blast it is, glad to see ever expansion on this aspect.

• Daily/Monthly sPvP achievements: Another change to sPvP that’s very much enjoyable. Now daily participation is showing much more so than just tiny nicks in the overall Glory Rank bar. And the rewards are very appreciated and fitting.

• New back Pieces: Quivers! Yay! So many of my guild’s Rangers (and Thiefs) were flipping out in happiness upon finding this out. But, to also have other back items, new books, and the like is fantastic.

• Profession’s sweep: Glad that a lot of broken skills have been fixed, mislabeled items labeled properly, and a few balancing tweaks. The best ones I see as appreciating is making the Elementalist’s Conjured Weapons viable via the Boons provided and the extended range of Magnetic Pull on the Toolbox Kit for Engineers.

Pt 2.

CONS:

• Ascended Gear’s Attainability: Don’t get me wrong here, I love the idea of new progression through some gear stats. It’s not that big of a deal to me and I won’t flip out. However, what I was so vigorously made aware of was that it requires “repeated runs” of the Fractals to get. When the developer posted that these will “eventually be obtainable through WvW and other previous content”, the only question is “Why not already?”
  ————Suggestion: Ascended Gear is missing in different sections of the game. I’d have like to see it in WvWvW, even if it cost 1,000 Badges of Honor to obtain a single piece. That itself sets a goal for WvWvW players and allows them to play the content they enjoy while still progressing their character just as PvE players do on their content for their character. Even across the board, that’s what I mean.

• WvWvW Gear Skins: Right now there’s a single skin set for WvWvW and a single stat stack (Power/Vitality/Toughness). There’s not been any new added stat sets to WvWvW, nor has there been any new skin sets added to this.
  ———-Suggestion: Add in a few more skins to the WvWvW vendor for badges. I can sort of see why stat types are one version, as it promotes other content and even crafting/buying crafted goods (economy keeps spinning). But, there just needs to be a few good skins out there so that Engineers don’t look like Thiefs and Mesmers don’t look like Necromancers.

• Mini-games: There was not yet a single one this patch. During Halloween’s event we were introduced to three really fun and entertaining mini-games; yet only one was kept while the other two taken away. The game contains only two mini-games of note (and Achievement) at this moment: Costume Brawl and Keg Brawl.
  ——————Suggestion: I’d first love to see a return of Reaper’s Rumble. That’s a great game that was so super fun and unique that it’s sad to have seen it go. However, some content updates as far as the currently-in-construction Polymock Arenas and Shooting Gallery would be nice. Trust me when I say that guilds love to do these mini-games together, scheduling events that get their players a refreshed “fun” in the game. That translates to them staying in the game longer, leaving less, and … possibly spending more in the Gem store. Ah, that last part is completely speculation, but you get the idea.

• WvW anti-zerg: Aside from the changes to the loot table (and class balance sweeps) there’s been nearly no changes to WvW as of this patch. The current method of WvW stands as 1) get army of 30-50 players following one commander, 2) steamroll supply camps, power-build 3 rams at tower doors, and kill everything via the blob.
  ——————Suggestions: There’s been a few others have shared that I’d like to adopt. The first would be to remove the AoE cap for both healing and damage. Damage for a Arrow Carts, Catas, Trebs, and the like can be tweaked if they become an excessive nightmare like they were in Beta…but, it would promote more different tactical styles instead of zerg-blobs. The other suggestion is to remove sword flagging of keeps, towers, camps, and everywhere else. That change would promote scouting parties and sentries stationed at key properties in the map; communication would be a must then.

• Bugged Events: I really hate to touch this subject (as mentioned above, I love the events and story), but it’s a must touch subject. Halloween’s Events had the same issue when it came to select added NPCs that players had to kill. The NPCs we just talk to for interaction, or gather things for, were just fine. But, those that have to be killed don’t reset or get bugged out for some reason. Same server bug in both Live Events.
  —————-Suggestion: If we come up on a lore based scavenger event for Wintersday and this one issue is not completely 100% QA tested and fixed by then, I’d like to suggest not to have any static interactive NPCs we have to kill and expect to respawn for the next guy. Or, another suggestion would be to make these NPCs into a separate instance thing similar to personal stories so that there’s no issue with respawn, bugging out, or whatever.

• Lion’s Arch again?: Seems like this Pirate-governed city is the center of Tyria’s universe. I would like to see use of some of the other cities in the game, which now feel like Ghost Towns. I know LA was the main city for Guild Wars 1 (having read that, never played), but this game has 4 other really great cities (and a Charr one ;P).
  ——————Suggestions: Earth Day in The Grove? Wintersday in Divinity’s Reach or Halbrok? Snaff day in Rata Sum! I’m just thinking that the other cities need love and give plenty of reasons for players to go there. I’ll even go as far as suggesting that the catacombs below Divinity’s Reach featured in Ghosts of Ascalon should be turned into a dungeon (which would promote travel there).

The best solution to all these is, roll back to the beginning of phase 3, make the event 1 time per account and all other necessary changes, reintroduce it next weekend. Its less effort than to:

check the logs for those who disconnected at last phase and reward them back
check the logs for those who did more than 1 and possibly punishment
stabilize TP if the drop of legendary base is not intended

Loved the event as a whole.
Yesterday it felt like a really big battle: hordes of karkas, many deaths, at some points we were really struggling to gain the upper hand and the last part chasing the ancient from half the map was amazing.
I had to lag yesterday.

Good job A-net!

Hi. I am a longtime Guild Wars player, as I’m sure many Guild Wars 2 players are. I have been with your game since 2005 and have been through many ups and downs with the series as a whole. I did not have an opportunity to participate in any of Lost Shores because I have a job that isn’t even going to let me spend Thanksgiving with my family in its pursuit of the almighty dollar, so why would it allow me to have a weekend off?

Reading up on this debacle saddens me. Standing from the outside looking in, almost every phase seems to have been one-time only (thus locking out people with responsibilities like myself), but even if they had been cyclical and repeating, it doesn’t look like they would have worked reliably. Even people who were able to attend the whole event walked away feeling angry about it.

It seems to me like there was a disastrous lack of oversight on the entirety of the content and it was rolled out with carelessness about its integrity and also carelessness about other players. Imagine my chagrin when I heard that the rewards for this finale event were quite… hefty. There was a workaround alright, but that also was a crapshoot in an alley filled with other desperate players attempting to experience the event and loot the rewards for themselves. And even then, there were rampant errors and glitches that excluded all but the most tenacious of players from engaging in this extraneous way to participate in the event.

And even for some of those most obstinate and determined of players, they were denied by a sudden mass disconnect, and then the patch that eliminated the whole thing at a time BEFORE midnight PST on November 19th.

Across the seven years I’ve seen of Guild Wars, I can safely say that this is one of the lowest points I’ve seen the current game in. I will conclude my post with a few suggestions.

One-time events: stop it. The idea sounds extremely intriguing in theory and would, for many, be a memorable closeout to an overarching metaevent. But in practice, the servers end up slammed, people get insurmountably separated from their party or guild, the performance is ATROCIOUS in both mechanics and actual FPS due to everyone being driven by the “last chance, only chance” desperation. And then you have the disenfranchised individuals like myself, who had an exactly 0% chance of making it to any of these events.

Make these events weekly, not weekendly. A week allows much more time for busy individuals to participate in the content. Not to say anything of those who live in Oceanic regions, who seem to be routinely left out in the cold due to ANet’s focus on the American-European contingent. Guild Wars is a global game and the developer should consider its special events with a global perspective.

Lastly, do a better job with QA. This debacle has in fact happened before. REMEMBER THE SHATTERER from Beta Weekend 2? I do. Bitterly.

Signed,

A longtime Guild Wars fan

Permanent Contant = great. Lost Shores event = Terrible.
Phase 1 is broken. Phase 2 was super laggy. Phase 3 crashes the game. Worst of all is the ONE TIME event idea. Not only are you alienating your fanbase who cannot make it to that event, it doesn’t even work for a portion who attended. I know you scheduled this event on your ‘peak time’ to encompass as many players as possible with that limitation in mind, but unless you plan to ONLY market this game to THOSE players then go right ahead. Feel free to shaft the rest.

people stop QQing about precursors. they buffed the precursor drop rates to ALL big chests. go run jormag, shatterer, or any number of other world bosses that have a big chest at the end and you have the exact same shot at a precursor in WAY less time. you’re just seeing so many now because so many people were logged in and got this chest. the same thing would happen if for some reason a million people logged in and did claw of jormag at the same time.

Never again do One time only events… this is what happens… you get unhappy players, that do not recommend your game, even more now that you are making free trials… NEVER AGAIN DO ONE TIME ONLY EVENTS….

if you plan to do world changing events, make them last a month.

i sincerely loved the event, changes, maps, enemies, design, everything up to the point where i got DC and missed the last battle… after 3 hours of non stop combat…

Fantastic post. Summed up everything I wanted to say in a rather eloquent fashion. My post would have likely had more baby cats, as it were.

I invited a few friends that hesitated to buy the game and was waiting for a trial. Not one will buy it after playing the weekend..

The lagfest that was phase 1, followed up by bugged phase 2 and then culling/lag/dc phase 3.. I cant blame them.

I love the game still but if that was your first experience with the game i dont think you will get the urge to try again.

Excellent post. I feel as if I could have designed a more accessible and less bugged event on a bar napkin.

I agree.

i’m fine with one time events changing the game permanently and if i missed any cut scenes well… youtube is there for that. One time events with rewards are bound to create a lot of problems and i do not agree with having those. I too have missed this event because of my life/work/sleep schedule. I hope something is done about this or future events are done in a different manner.

This thread will probably be deleted. Very depressing.

Here’s my view about this weekend.

Friday: utter failure. Simple as that. Foes were not visible, at one time I had a lag of 5 minutes (I timed it) between me activating my first skill and me actually throwing my axe. I got disconnected 4 times within a 10 minute time span as well. I found out I had died three times, only saw the downed screen once. And I had managed (somehow) to kill a total of 1 karka. I really wondered why I had even bothered to log back in after my second disconnect. Couldn’t even do the quests after the Failure of Lion’s Arch, as Noll didn’t want to do speak to anybody. Lovely cutscene though, and a shame about the lighthouse…

Saturday: still no Noll and a repeat of the Failure of Lion’s Arch. No visible karkas and that final boss, I still don’t know what was the meaning of that, as we’d get it down to 4/5th of its health and it would regenerate. So, I went to the cove with some friends, left the zerg after 5 minutes (which became 10 due to the lag) and started exploring.

Sunday: finally managed to talk to Noll and the other guy who I had found bound on Saturday without me even knowing why… It did ruin the story for me. At 21:00 (my time), I went to the Cove again with some friends and proceeded to the area we thought would be the focal point of the final event. And we were right about that

This event, I liked. All except the first part. The first part was simply an annoying defeated-fest. No retreat possible (spawning champions behind you while you are fighting a champion), no loot drops to soften the hurt either and way too many champions One or two would have been fine, but this was just overload. But, after the charges were set, you could see people starting to work together. You’d see less people defeated and some sort of order was restored in the ranks. That first wave of reinforcements was a tad too long, imo. That second wave was better, as you had those mortars which did a lot of damage.

I can’t comment on the loot as I was scaled up from 24 (got about a whole level reviving people :P) and I know everything is then scaled. I did like the 20-slot bag which wasn’t soulbound like the halloween one, but account bound. My ranger will love it!

Galen Grey.4709:

HiSaZuL.2843:

free?… i clearly remember paying for this game….
also… they can take this kind of content and shove it.

You’re kidding right? short for eve online dont know of any other MMO that gives this amount of content without specifically charging for it as an expansion and in case of eve you’re paying the subscription for that!

But hey if the bugs bother you so much why dont you ignore the content for a week or two until its ironed out! guess what you’d still be getting more then you get in other MMOs!

Lol so kitten cute. Ignoring the content for a week or two until bugs are ironed out? You do know that this content was an “once in a life time” event that only spawned over 3 days right? And it seems like Phase 1 is still bugged out. As if Anet’s going to take care of the bug either way. They just closed it so they don’t have to work on a fix anymore. How the hell are we supposed to wait till bugs are ironed out? Those who were unlucky can’t finish the content anymore. Not that we have the desire to do so anymore after this debacle.

Happy player voices actually means nothing. Anet should be listening to the frustrated group so they can improve on what went wrong. There were many unhappy players from the Halloween event, and it just seems Anet haven’t listened well from how this event turned out.

Appreciations are given where it’s due. Despite being bug ridden, GW2 is a great game so props for that. As for this event? Not so much. Props to the art team for bringing great visuals. Who ever wrote the event authoring tool needs a boot however, as well as the kitten buggy overflow servers. It’s just driving your player base mad. I’m safe to say that the player base is happy with GW2, but when it comes to events, I think the majority of the player base is just disappointed and frustrated. Something needs to be done. 2 failed events in a row only in a 3 months span is not a good way to start a budding MMO.

I think the event was nice and if they manage to handle bugs and lagg problems in future events it will be great.

BroScientist.9875:

This thread will probably be deleted. Very depressing.

Not deleted, but merged.

Swept into the big thread alongside all the flotsam where it will be lost.

Sad.

My feedback: DC every 5 minutes lags lags lags and of course i mised on big chest witch aparantly droped precursors awesome! Sorry but this was not a good event.

I’m so sad to feel so horrible and angry today about a game that I actually really love. First of all, I don’t have the latest and greatest pc, but my pc does exceed the minimum requirements by a fair margin. I started the event at the very lowest possible graphics settings, but still played (the time that I actually played) at less than 1 frame per second. Mobs and player skins would not load on screen and all I could really do was attempt to rez other players (which I could not see). So that said and done, I still spammed 1 from a distance to try and hit the empty space with a red circle around it. Then my first death: load and run back to the cave trying my best to make good time but barely managed to make it back to what seemed a mass graveyard of players most complaining about lag, models not loading, rubberbanding and all the nasty sides of games (not one comment in map speak about what a great event this is – only jokes about repair costs and generally making fun of the game in a bad way).
Many deaths followed but players brought me back to life. Then at the top of the cave with my 1fps gameplay I fell through a hole in the floor and was stuck in the loading screen for about 10 minutes. My only option was to restart the client and hope to make it back. I didn’t. Load into some overflow, die there as soon as my feet touch the ground, spawn to WP and load to my party’s overflow only to find that the zerg has moved on and I missed the whole first battle – no reward no joy. Move on to part two where I don’t even know what we are doing, just spamming 1 again but this time nothing really happens. I’m rubberbanding all over place, my skills won’t activate, I have my whole skill bar lighting up with no result. Then a disconnect. Load screen takes ages again, dead on load, spawn to WP, load to party overflow, disconnect after 3 seconds, rinse and repeat. This was now about 1.5 hours of absolute very bad horrible experience. I stopped playing then, since there was no point really.
This after a whole lot of time and currency wasted on bugs in phase 1… c’mon Anet – surely this is not what you had in mind. Slap your developers and testers behind the head please.

I too had a wonderful time during the final stage of the event. I was on Teamspeak with over a twenty fellow guildies and every single one of us were laughing and having a great experience and took happy accomplished screenshots at the end of us standing over the defeated boss. The only bored moments were the reinforcement stages where it was quipped that we sure were going to need a lot of butter and a lobster bib to drop at the end to go with all the karka-lobsters we were slaying.

In any case, we certainly are looking forward to more large scale events like this. Thank you Anet for a great gaming memory!

I have to say, im pretty upset and angry about this, and ive spent the last 2 months defending Anet from angry people.

Halloween event? Fine ok, i missed out on a cutscene that i can watch on youtube, thats fine i can deals with it.

This event? Ridiculous. Firstly you decide to run it at 3am on a MONDAY morning for all your Aussie players. FYI it is also exam month this month so its not like those in uni can just take a day off an exam.

Secondly, you make the event drop a garenteed 20slot bag, chance at exotics and even procurers! This is ridiculous. Loot drops this amazing and you shaft all the aussie players.

Lastly, you do ‘routine maintenance’ That just happens to remove the events (even people in progress at killing the final boss) At 5:30-6pm, right as everyone is coming home from work/school. At least we may have had a chance had you let the overflows finish there events, but no, apparently Aussies cant participate in these events unless they want to miss school/exams or work.

Had i been informed before i bought the game that i would miss out on every single one time event because i lived in Australia, i may have reconsidered. Hell the least you could have done was do the event twice, once for american timezones, then once when all the aussies got home. Or even made one server do it on an aussie timezone and let us do a temp transfer for it.

I am seriously reconsidering my love for this game.

BroScientist.9875:

This thread will probably be deleted. Very depressing.

I sure hope not. If they do delete this thread because of all the negative feedback, then that just shows they don’t care and have no will to learn from this mistake. It also shows that we shouldn’t care either because the same problems we face this time will show up the next time.

Blackie.8762:

First off. Great event other than the lag and bugs. I love the new dungeon.

Secondly, to all those who are crying about not getting a pre cursor. Mind you, I did not get one either, however I placed an offer on the TP for 165g and it netted me one. I am happy with the outcome. You are not entitled to ANYTHING in this game. It is free to play and to think they came up with ALL this in just 2 weeks, just blows my mind.

Thirdly, they did not reward precursors solely to reward certain players. It brings down the average price on the TP, making it significantly easier to farm the gold and buy it.

Ah but you are one of the people that actually got to run the event right? Or did you get disconnected twice or even more like myself and others. It isn’t that fact that we didn’t get a precursor, it’s the fact that we spent hours in the game to get such a chance and where denied the chance because of flaws be on our end or Anets (I was part of the lag kicks and new build kicks so in my case Anets faults) frustrating that people cannot see that we just wanted a chance.

Warlord.9074:

To the players who still want the earing and didnt get it there is a way. If you can farm or buy 1000 shells theres an NPC on the island that will sell you one.

That’s gone now.

Good morning everyone!
I apologize in advance for any mistakes in my post but I am not a native speaker and therefore will not be able to avoid them.
First of all, thank you, A-net, for the effort you have no doubt put into this event. The concept was interesting, Southsun Cove is beautiful and the karka are challenging.
I really appreciate your giving your customers new content and events to do like you did in Guild Wars 1. So what, if anything did not work out straight away or lagged? I’ve known Anet to find fair solutions to these issues und give the community a chance to achieve later on what could not be done the first time.
This is why I am confident that they will really look into complaints and will therefore add my problem.
(Please note it is MEZ time in the following)
I was on an overflow server since ~20:30 and joined the event maybe at 21:05. Had very challinging fun until the demolitionists died on the way down the spiral, stood again und stopped moving. We cleared the whole thing and waited. After it became clear the event was not working as intended, some left to join other servers and I sincerely hope they had luck with the event. Some filed a report, so I was confident something would happen and was not disappointed: An Anet representative (Nox) joined us on the map at ~ 22:30 and she and her team started to look into the matter. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no easy solution and she stayed a long time, until ~ 0:10 when she disappeared and did not return while I was there; logged off ~ 0:55 for I was very tired and yes, I admit, frustrated, for after she was gone a while, some said they had whispered her and she said we should try other servers. We knew, however, the others had finished the event. After all, this was over three hours after the event had started and friends told us what the loot was and we had been joined by several people who had a dc in the boss fight and ended up with us.
Unfortunately, this made the 3rd day of the event that did not work out as expected (by Anet) und hoped for (by me). Friday, it was so laggy I had not a breath of hope to experience anything in LA. Saturday, my real life intervened. And yesterday, when I was lucky, I understand, to have no lags, the NPCs denied us their services to blow the karkas up. And it is no shame to admit that I, of course, would have liked to see all those goings-on, to reach their final and, in the end, open a at that point well-earned chest.
I am still confident Anet will live up to the reputation it has had for me since GW1 and once again find a fair solution for all of us and therefore would ask the community to give them the time to look into this. In my opinion, it shows quite bad manners to complain that much about content that was for free and so soon after release.
And yet, there is one thing I would like to suggest: while I like the dynamic event system, I would like a little time to do things related to events or the events themselves. It’s ok to be able to do a thing just once but to be bound to some particular time? I suggest a weekend-long system in which you have to do several things to gain entrance to an instance ( like halloween labyrinth) where a final event starts every two or three hours. The chest can only be opened once per account (per character would be asking to much). This way, more people have the chance to participate.
Thank you all at Anet once again for this wonderful game and the effort you put into it every day to make it still better for us. I, for one, really appreciate it and have done so for years.

Miru.4569:

BroScientist.9875:

This thread will probably be deleted. Very depressing.

I sure hope not. If they do delete this thread because of all the negative feedback, then that just shows they don’t care and have no will to learn from this mistake. It also shows that we shouldn’t care either because the same problems we face this time will show up the next time.

He was referring to my post, which was a standalone thread until it was merged for whatever reason. Here it is again:

Hi. I am a longtime Guild Wars player, as I’m sure many Guild Wars 2 players are. I have been with your game since 2005 and have been through many ups and downs with the series as a whole. I did not have an opportunity to participate in any of Lost Shores because I have a job that isn’t even going to let me spend Thanksgiving with my family in its pursuit of the almighty dollar, so why would it allow me to have a weekend off?

Reading up on this debacle saddens me. Standing from the outside looking in, almost every phase seems to have been one-time only (thus locking out people with responsibilities like myself), but even if they had been cyclical and repeating, it doesn’t look like they would have worked reliably. Even people who were able to attend the whole event walked away feeling angry about it.

It seems to me like there was a disastrous lack of oversight on the entirety of the content and it was rolled out with carelessness about its integrity and also carelessness about other players. Imagine my chagrin when I heard that the rewards for this finale event were quite… hefty. There was a workaround alright, but that also was a crapshoot in an alley filled with other desperate players attempting to experience the event and loot the rewards for themselves. And even then, there were rampant errors and glitches that excluded all but the most tenacious of players from engaging in this extraneous way to participate in the event.

And even for some of those most obstinate and determined of players, they were denied by a sudden mass disconnect, and then the patch that eliminated the whole thing at a time BEFORE midnight PST on November 19th.

Across the seven years I’ve seen of Guild Wars, I can safely say that this is one of the lowest points I’ve seen the current game in. I will conclude my post with a few suggestions.

One-time events: stop it. The idea sounds extremely intriguing in theory and would, for many, be a memorable closeout to an overarching metaevent. But in practice, the servers end up slammed, people get insurmountably separated from their party or guild, the performance is ATROCIOUS in both mechanics and actual FPS due to everyone being driven by the “last chance, only chance” desperation. And then you have the disenfranchised individuals like myself, who had an exactly 0% chance of making it to any of these events.

Make these events weekly, not weekendly. A week allows much more time for busy individuals to participate in the content. Not to say anything of those who live in Oceanic regions, who seem to be routinely left out in the cold due to ANet’s focus on the American-European contingent. Guild Wars is a global game and the developer should consider its special events with a global perspective.

Lastly, do a better job with QA. This debacle has in fact happened before. REMEMBER THE SHATTERER from Beta Weekend 2? I do. Bitterly.

Signed,

A longtime Guild Wars fan

I was very underwelmed with the first two phases, esp. the scavenger hunt (Compared to the Halloween One which was epic this one was very lackluster even if it wasn’t bugged).

But the final phase really blew me away. Amazing meta chain, really felt like you were changing the world as ANet promised. Great boss fight, great rewards.
+1

Loved it… not.

First came the the 16th’ unique event. Lagged so bad (data packet loss) that I could barely see what was happening. Well. I thought this was my connection at fault. NP.

Fractals are cool and enjoyable, until you find yourself on the wrong side of the difficulty-level-gap. I had to work for a good part of Saturday, and I found that most of my friends already had 3-4 levels ahead of me. I had two choices : asking them to come with me, stopping their progression for a while, or going full-pick-up. Well, they wanted to go deeper and I can’t blame them for that. Have fun friends, I’ll see you in a month, I guess :s

The quest line was undoable thanks to a bug, and was fixed only once the second part was made unavailable. I got half the story behind lost shores, and got it too late for it to be relevant. Well. I still have the next big events, right ?

17th’s unique event : Cool, a new zone with challenging ennemies and some new events. Was a bit laggy but nothing major. I had fun !
I still had to get the background story from the wiki, being unable to get it myself.

18’th unique event : Each time I got into Southsun Cove, I could play for about 10 seconds, before lagging out for about 2mins (I had all the time in the world to look at immobile players & NPCs), then getting disconnected from the server. I tried at least 20 times to join my friends, who had no problem except some PC-related-slowness due to the number of people involved. I had no luck here either. I even trying going into less populated overflow servers, and ran into the same issues.

You got exotics ? You got an amazing time ? Good for you. I got an evening of disapointment, jealousy and frustration.

My connection wasn’t at fault : no disconnection from mumble or any other mutliplayer games I played while trying to forget GW2. Any issue I had was gw2’s server forgetting to send me data.

I love GW2, but it doesn’t love me back. Now I have a bad case of broken heart :’(

No more one time events, thanks. While they are cool and all, it really just excludes a ton of players due to RL and timezones.

Next time, have the events repeatable every few hours so most people can enjoy them and then when they end; send a mail with rewards to only one character so that you only get it once. Everyone wins in the end, right?

Last note; this thread will either be deleted or get magically nuked due to a ‘forum bug’. Excellent way to squash complaints, it works well.

Warm Ember.2798:

Arklain.6429:

Disconnect-at-the-end-of-Lost-Shores-Event-Read-this

… If this is anything to go by, only people who were at the final boss will get a reward, which is fair enough. But what about hundreds of others like me, who never even got to that part because we were all foolishly repeating the event chain in vain for hours, over and over and over again in several overflows after being either disconnected or having our game crash? I WISH I could have gotten to the boss, I TRIED my hardest to for hours, but it just didn’t work out for me. I hope people in my situation will also get some consideration from Anet.

This exactly. I’m Australian, so it was starting at 7am my time. Planned to head into work a bit late, so I could do as much of it as I could, maybe even the whole thing, and lo, couldn’t even get near it. So, since I wasn’t at the end, probably not even going to get whatever make-good Anet might eventually offer.

The chest at the end doesn’t actually mean that much to me (though the 20-slot bag would be nifty). I don’t go for legendary weapons, high end armour etc, I’m a relatively casual player. I like the interactive/cooperative nature of PvE here, and that’s what I was looking forward to most of all: the chance to play in a group with everyone.

What actually happened has been pretty well detailed: problems in the whole Lost Cause thing from the get-go, culminating in a great big charlie fox at the end. People that were actually there—that actually made it to the end—will get a make-good, but those who weren’t… I really can’t tell. That announcement only covers those who couldn’t open the chest, not those who couldn’t even get into combat.

GW1 ran special events pretty well—finales once every few hours so that, no matter where you are in the world, you could get to it, because not everyone can make it to a one-time event. This really wasn’t up to par.

OumaShu.4502:

I bet all these whiners are from WoW.

No, all these whiners are not from WoW, all these whiners are people that DIDNT GET A CHANCE!!!

Miru.4569:

BroScientist.9875:

This thread will probably be deleted. Very depressing.

I sure hope not. If they do delete this thread because of all the negative feedback, then that just shows they don’t care and have no will to learn from this mistake. It also shows that we shouldn’t care either because the same problems we face this time will show up the next time.

No they didn’t delete the thread. They rolled them all up into one single super thread in an attempt to hide all the negative threads that was spawned once they implemented the new ‘build’ and cut us off from a chance to finish the final event.

My problem with the event is ArenaNet.

ArenaNet handled it disgracefully and ignorantly, showing they learned nothing from the feedback with Halloween. Or showing they didn’t care to listen, and decided to push out failed content, instead of holding it until ready.

During beta, we got messages on screen. They showed humor and warmth, saying things like;
“We extended the beta another 2 hours. You have 2 hours left.” (then an hour later)
“We extended the beta another 2 hours. You have 1 hour left.” (then a minute later)
“oops, we mean 1 hour longer and 1 hour left. Have fun!”

Where was that this event? WHERE WAS THAT SINCE RELEASE?

ArenaNet could have done it to guide the failed events and get players to know they have a shot in another overflow at the Final Boss. Too often people found out by word-of-mouth and lost out on the chance. Not only that, they lost out while realizing others knew and benefited all day.

Facebook has an announcement that players will be compensated. FACEBOOK!?!? Where is this announcement on the official forums? In-game? Anywhere the player should find expected information?

I have nothing against using third party sites like Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit, but USE YOUR OWN kitten OFFICIAL SITES AS WELL.

Should not have to keep saying the same message over and over until the thick skulled employees that are preventing this suddenly become wiser.

I said I’d never go back to Panda Craft. I’m eating my words. They have Public Test Servers. They stress test content to release it bug free.

ArenaNet does not. That is another failure in the game. This event showed all the cracks in the mechanics. All the complaints about the old ways of MMO design are minor compared to this failed experiment. People were dying left and right because they were knocked down in AoE. No way to heal them, stabilize them, or take away their conditions reliably. We can only “Support” (what a kittening joke) for a fraction of a second, while the other player is pinned down dying.

These types of mechanics are fine when the players can react. But when I see a player get knocked down, and is frantically trying to dodge into the non-AoE zone unsuccessfully, and is obviously lacking ALL TOOLS to do so, then the game mechanics are a failure. The design is a failure. And the people who let it release like that are failures. Especially since I was throwing all sorts of “support” at them with my entire server doing the same.

This failure of an event showed how players bond to overcome crappy design. We made it work by standing around rezzing and not playing. It was boring, tedious, and aggravating. Mobs had skills to effectively negate all control from the players. The mobs could knockdown for long durations, cause heavy damage, and blanket a large area in seconds. All those abilities stacking is not challenge, it is a nightmare. There is no teamwork that can overcome that except rezz-zerging, which is not fun.

And lag. If the majority of players are lagging, you do not have working content. Period. Lag should be a rarity. GW2 sports it like a feature.

The worst point of all? The event was hyped and promoted by ArenaNet to bring in players and show off GW2. It showed it off alright. How horrible everything can go wrong, with no official word.

When people complained about Halloween, you had just as many defending you. This event? You have very few defending anything. They are all having to look very hard at the silver lining. And more of us are expecting this is ArenaNet’s true standard.

Booted from the Ancient Karka event due to new build. Never got the chance to do it.

Here is my general feedback:

Pros

• Free content with a well designed (artistically, at least) zone
• Interesting take on a leveled dungeon with a somewhat randomized 3 mini dungeons per level
• Final event was nice and fun. Great rewards…I wasn’t expecting that.
• zone is challenging. Got my butt kicked at first, made a few tweaks to my build and skills, and it’s better now. This is good so the gameplay and builds doesn’t get too slate after a while.
• Did I mention this update was free? I’ve seen subscription games that couldn’t give this much content in their updates.

Cons

• Not a lot of lore surrounding this island, the Karka, and what their purpose is. Granted, there is some reference to DSD, but not a lot of it. No personal story relating to this zone kinda sucked.
• The leveling with the FoTM dungeon is already creating community division and problems.
• The one time finale presents a problem with players who couldn’t attend, and I agree with them. Why should I receive these incredible rewards while some players receive absolutely nothing because of real life responsibilities? I don’t really have a problem with the other events being 1 time only (although i would have liked to see them as well), but I would suggest making a finale like this available for 24-36 hours, 2-3 hour intervals, so the majority of players can attend.
• Lag, wasn’t a major issue for me, but other players had it pretty bad. May need to limit the amount of players in busy locations and overflow, and create more overflow locations to limit lag.

MAJOR CON (potentially game breaking)

• The new armor tier. Personally, I am so sick of gear grinding games (raiding, dungeons, etc). I hate this mechanic and everything about it and have totally stopped playing/investing any time in other MMO’s because of it. I really don’t understand why a certain portion of players want to torment themselves with this gear grind. I refuse to do this and if Anet continues down this path I will have to question how they marketed this game to players and perhaps write off this genre all together. A few simple fixes: (1) Allow other game modes (WvW, PvE, Karma, etc) to offer ascended gear if you must keep it in the game (I heard this is already being implemented, but seeing is believing). (2) Only make the infusion upgradable instead of introducing new gear tiers; then there is some progression but it’s not overkill.

As a GW 1 vet, this is a complete 180 for you guys and I don’t understand. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume NCsoft had something to do with this. >>>>$$$<<<<

I too had a wonderful time during the last event. I was sleeping on my bed cos it was 4am on a Monday morning.

Pyro.7640:

Here is my general feedback:

Pros

• Free content with a well designed (artistically, at least) zone
• Interesting take on a leveled dungeon with a somewhat randomized 3 mini dungeons per level
• Final event was nice and fun. Great rewards…I wasn’t expecting that.
• zone is challenging. Got my butt kicked at first, made a few tweaks to my build and skills, and it’s better now. This is good so the gameplay and builds doesn’t get too slate after a while.
• Did I mention this update was free? I’ve seen subscription games that couldn’t give this much content in their updates.

Cons

• Not a lot of lore surrounding this island, the Karka, and what their purpose is. Granted, there is some reference to DSD, but not a lot of it. No personal story relating to this zone kinda sucked.
• The leveling with the FoTM dungeon is already creating community division and problems.
• The one time finale presents a problem with players who couldn’t attend, and I agree with them. Why should I receive these incredible rewards while some players receive absolutely nothing because of real life responsibilities? I don’t really have a problem with the other events being 1 time only (although i would have liked to see them as well), but I would suggest making a finale like this available for 24-36 hours, 2-3 hour intervals, so the majority of players can attend.
• Lag, wasn’t a major issue for me, but other players had it pretty bad. May need to limit the amount of players in busy locations and overflow, and create more overflow locations to limit lag.

MAJOR CON (potentially game breaking)

• The new armor tier. Personally, I am so sick of gear grinding games (raiding, dungeons, etc). I hate this mechanic and everything about it and have totally stopped playing/investing any time in other MMO’s because of it. I really don’t understand why a certain portion of players want to torment themselves with this gear grind. I refuse to do this and if Anet continues down this path I will have to question how they marketed this game to players and perhaps write off this genre all together. A few simple fixes: (1) Allow other game modes (WvW, PvE, Karma, etc) to offer ascended gear if you must keep it in the game (I heard this is already being implemented, but seeing is believing). (2) Only make the infusion upgradable instead of introducing new gear tiers; then there is some progression but it’s not overkill.

As a GW 1 vet, this is a complete 180 for you guys and I don’t understand. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume NCsoft had something to do with this. >>>>$$$<<<<

Well i have to agree 100% especially on this part:
The one time finale presents a problem with players who couldn’t attend, and I agree with them. Why should I receive these incredible rewards while some players receive absolutely nothing because of real life responsibilities? I don’t really have a problem with the other events being 1 time only (although i would have liked to see them as well), but I would suggest making a finale like this available for 24-36 hours, 2-3 hour intervals, so the majority of players can attend.

I mean i participated fully to the demolition mission which in my overflow took around 2.5 hours then there was the ancient boss. It was late for me and i had stuff to do so i didn’t manage to finish it. I only reached the steam wall with the mortars firing on the vets that were spawning. that also took around like 2 hours to get there and i had no more time to stay. I don’t find it fair that i did not get the final chest and i hope u guys are gonna do something about it.

It was a bit tedious at parts but all in all it was a fun evening with some epic moments!

I feel sorry for those that lagged our or got d/c, but there was no achievment or other reward you cannot get easily elsewhere, i didnt get one of the expensive exotics but who cares, i didnt have one before the event either.

You got a 20 slot bag. /thread

Event was awesome, servers still need some work though, first time i connected the delay was around 3-4 mins no joke, was completely unplayable and friends couldnt get into my overflow.

got dced from the game. got back into a different overflow with another friend though and it was fine. however not sure if this was intended but the pirates way point was gone, which made excessively annoying to die because you had to spawn on the opposite side of the island and run the entire continent back.

while i enjoyed the event, more variety in monsters would have been nice, was proclaimed to have a new area with new monsters, there was 1 new monster and he came in different sizes, thats about it. by mid way through the event about 30-40% of our army were just afking in the back.

so overall, fun event, needs more variety, servers need to be better still for large events, loot was great but i kinda feel since it was a once off event, giving everyone who completed it something unique to commemorate it would have been a nice touch instead of just normal exotics.

Some ideas I had for future events:

Phasing would be excellent – its one of the few things some other mmo does really well. For those that aren’t familiar with phasing it allows people to come into an event area, but only see the part of the event that they are Personally on.

Phasing would allow everyone to log in anytime during the weekend event and begin the event from the beginning. Anyone at the same portion of the event would be grouped and together. Other mmo’s use this method and its great because at ANY time during the event dates a player may participate in the event through its entirety.

Or an overflow server that is constantly running the initial event with the cut scenes would seem like another way to experience the event. It could be a special, selectable overflow such as the “Join (player) in (location)” option for grouping with party members.

The event should be experienced by everyone at their leisure. It should have the importance that Personal Story has that was fundamental in the GW2 design.

Nothing in the description of the event mentions that One Time Event means only at that One Time. Its easy to confuse what IS said to mean that this event won’t happen next year AND that you will have 24 hours to experience each sequence. It should specifically say:

“The launching of the event can only be experienced if you are on at 12pm PST while the remainder of the event can be experienced throughout the day” (barring glitches :p).

And

“The finale of the event begins at 12pm PST and ends when the participants have been victorious. It is intended to last several hours and it will only happen ONE time. There will be no second chance to obtain the rewards for being a part of this event.”

I would prefer to experience the event as a Personal Story over missing the event by not logging in at a specific time or experience the lag that concept encourages. If this method is employed again, even MORE people are going to try to be on at that one time causing an even worse experience.

I also would have preferred this event come out in April or whenever it was really ready. I think people would have been happy if you’d just thrown out some banquet tables and food/recipes/gifts and just said, “Happy November! Show your friends around Tyria for the free weekend.”

I’m sympathetic towards ANet and players for this exciting weekend event. ANet wants to share new content that they’ve put time into and players want to enjoy it. On top of that ANet offered a free weekend trial. New players are being introduced with all this going on

The game has only been out a little over 2 months and is on its 2nd event. Its impressive. No game launches without bugs especially mmo’s. We can hope that with more time these events will become streamlined and enjoyable by everyone no matter their location or availability.

Phase 1: It was extremely laggy for me and almost not playable. The general idea wasn’t bad, but i think there is a bug on overflow servers. I think the EU and NA people are on the same overflow, but don’t see each other and also have different events. If the event is finished on either side, the event will also be finished for the other side. In this case, the final boss popped up for us and a new event startet. A few seconds later (he didn’t take any damage) he ran away again. I guess that was the ancient Karka we had to defeat in Phase 3, it’s the only place i can imagine it showing up before, and it was never mentioned in any quest text either.

Phase 2: The 30 minutes wait before the event was a pain, don’t do that anymore. The Lion’s Arch part was extremely short, after a few minutes we won. This time i was in a party with some people from NA (i play on EU servers) and we were in the same overflow (i saw their blue dots on the map). For them, the event didn’t even start, and when we finished it, they could also use the ship, without seeing the lion’s arch part at all. And anyway, what were those catapults they built for? They weren’t used at all…
The part on the island was fine.

Phase 3: Generally i liked it. I liked that there it was hard enough so even a group of 100 players was close to wiping several times. But the reinforcement waves when driving the ancient Karka back to it’s nest were a huge pain. They weren’t hard, just extremely tedious and boring. Make them 1/3 to 1/2 as long and they will be much much better.

Rewards: The rewards were fine. I got 2 exotics, the bag and the shell (and 2 rares), that’s just fine for the effort and the occasion. BUT: next time, please restrict the random exotic rewards to items your class can use

General idea for the lag: If possible, split up the events to various locations and let them run simultaneously. I know, people will miss parts of it, but they will split up and the lag problem should be much better and the event be more enjoyable overall for everyone. For example you could have had the Karka attack at various locations at the same time in Phase 1 and 2. And if you are forced to choose just one, you also get that feeling of “i wonder what would have happened when i chose the other option” which you get from your personal story.

1) I understand that due to present limitations, the event could only be once-off, and I don’t expect to make all the events.

However: Noon PST may be the ‘highest concurrent time’ for you, and I would not have complained if it had been something like the Mad King cutscene in Halloween – but to be shafted out of an entire chain with its rewards leaves a bad taste in my mouth – especially after hearing that precursors were given out (and noting that the TP prices on precursors have dropped by 50%.). Obviously the event was one which warranted the chest, but if you’re going to do that, then there has to be a way for people to play it if they can’t make the timeslot.

I might not have got a precursor – actually, my drop luck is pretty bad, so I doubt I would have gotten a precursor – but the fact that I and several other people I know didn’t even get the opportunity to try is really galling. In fact, I’m happy that the prices have gone down, because they really were too high in the TP.

Missing Mad King Thorn bursting into Lion’s Arch: fine, it was a cutscene. Choosing not to do the Clock Tower and not getting the rewards: also fine, because that was my own choice and it was available for several days. Missing an event-chain with a reward because it was once-off and at a time that is not convenient for several timezones (despite people in this forum repeatedly telling you that several timezones will get the short end of the stick should the finale be 12 pm PST) – I am not so happy about.

2) …what was with the plug-pulling? I’m guessing it was the free trial thing ending? =\ It interrupted a lot of people mid event/dungeon/fractal etc.

3) Oh, the bugs. Seriously. Also a lack of information: for example, the final event was touted to us as an event chain that would span ‘multiple hours’. I’m not asking for exact end dates, but it would have been nice to get a rough idea of how long it would have taken. I think the new events are more complex and interesting than the old, but the upshot of that is that you really need better communication: from map chats and forums it sure seemed like a lot of people were confused.

The good stuff:

I really love some of the new things that the Lost Shores update brought: I’m having fun in Fractals despite initial misgivings, and I like having new crafting materials to play around with. I like that it’s more challenging running around Southsun Cove. So I think the additions that the event was meant to herald are actually pretty fun, and I’d like to emphasise that part of my disappointment at not getting the event isn’t just about the loot; it’s about the fact that I liked what I actually got to play and was effectively shut out of the event due to my timezone. (I’m in SEA.)

tl;dr: I love the additions, but the event management was absolutely abysmal.

Phase I was a catastrophe and you know that. It was unplayable.

Phase II was much better in terms of lags. I Think you had built in hidden waiting queues for different instances (waiting for the catapults and bridges!) this time and that was a good thing, because it massively reduced the lag experienced. I gues you removed a previously planned event part in Lion`s arch – which is also good because it wouldnt have worked. All the NPCs now worked, presumably because you built in waiting time to prevent npc flooding by players clicking wildly. To me it immediately worked the next day.

The new area is awesome and much of effort has gone into that, thanks a lot for this.

Phase III was almost lag-free, too ( i got appr. 10 minutes of very laggy play but the rest of it was fine).

The general appearance of Phase III, the final battle and the rewards were – AWESOME. Definetely. But – it took a little too long. There was a big part of the final fight (defeat the karkas who are defending the ancient one) that took boringly long. That would have been much more exiting if it would not have been stretched for hours… (But maybe this was a kind of waiting line as well, dont know – why else would you redirect us to different parts of the map and back?)

In summary: You definetley rescued the event nicely. And I guess most people didnt even recognize how or that you did but thats totally fine because that was how it is supposed to be.

Good work, finally Anet!

Fractal dungeon needs to be fixed.If anybody for some reason leaves or get DC u have to start all over again.After finishing 1 fractal everybody got teleported to the next exept me.So all get mad and leave pt.So just out and try to find other ppl on lvl 1…..

Let me start by saying, I want to stay interested in Guild Wars 2… I really do. But this event has actually made me lose interest in the game instead of gaining any. I hope you take my criticism seriously because I can’t see myself wanting to play this game for much longer…

Lets begin with Phase 1… The event went rather smoothly up until the Ancient Karka wrecked the Lighthouse. I was attempting to record everything for other players who missed out to see; but I could not catch the Lighthouse breaking because of the placement of the collection NPC (who was on the other side of a mountain, obstructing the view)

Then there was Phase 2… which started thirty minutes later than announced on the Overflow I was on (and even later on other player’s overflows). I actually enjoyed most of this Phase; the introduction of the new zone, the jump puzzles, and the new events and features (such as a new pet for Rangers). However the replay value of the events went sour after repeating them twice… perhaps adding something impressive and fun to attend like the more memorable meta events (Jormag, Shatterer, Tequatl, Shadow Behemoth, etc.)

Then we had Phase 3… I want to make it perfectly clear that I got to attend the event twice, and receive the loot twice. So please, don’t think that I’m disappointed cause I missed out. The Reinforcements phase was ridiculously long due to the scaled health bars… during the second Reinforcements phase people were actually seen finding little nooks and crannies that they could hide in and AFK; that’s how boring it was because of the amount of health you had to sit there and deal with. I do not know if it was intended for the timed charges to go off instantly or not, I doubt it was intended for players to be able to fall through the cracks at the bottom of the pit just to find themselves stuck in lava… but those sort of things happen. Tolerable.

Now the Fractals… I absolutely hate this idea. I love the content, I thought it was fun as hell and I only did one run; so I haven’t even experienced majority of them. But the reason I hate it… is because I have to be a burden on my friends and guild mates to catch up to them. If they are on Fractal Level 7… I can not join them. They have to come down to Fractal Level 2 and redo all of those Fractal difficulties in between, just so we can run the Fractal they were already ready to run? I’m not putting them through that. And the compensation needs a little boosting, level 25 Fractals only giving 9 Relics each… but like I said, compensation can be overseen due to how fun the dungeon is… or would be if I could run it with my friends instead of slowing them down.

Overall… I think this event would’ve been a great one-time event, like the Mad King. But you’re implementing majority of it’s content it as a permanent addition and I just don’t see any incentive at the moment to even fathom any replay value of what’s been added. The zone is just as boring as say… Kessex Hills. And the fact that ALL players have to be on the same difficulty level for running Fractals together is flat out depressing; I either have to burden my guild and friend to backtrack or suffer through PUGs. It could be as simple as any other dungeon, as long as one player in the group has completed Story Mode, he can choose to bring along friends who have not completed Story Mode to accompany him into Exploration Mode. Same idea; if someone has completed difficulty 23, or what have you, allow THEM to decide if they want to bring along friends who haven’t.

I want to stay interested in this game… I really do. But to me, community is what makes an MMO; and if a gap is being created between me and my ability to play with friends happily, instead of being a burden and making them repeat their past accomplishments? I’d rather just find a new game to play.