Guild Wars 2

Well why don’t they release the content every 2 weeks as they are doing now, but lasting for a month?

That would solve both problems:
- Content being too fast! (You have a month to do them) – Would benefit those due to RL can’t do things in a 2 week time period!

- Small content to play! (You have 2 Living story events @ time) – This would sort the event zergs trough both content.

/cheers

If you don’t have time to complete one of these releases, how can you possibly complete them all after they start piling up, if Arena.net suddenly decides to make them permanent?

The problem here is that you don’t have time for them, not the pace of the events themselves. You’ll just have to prioritize, real life or games.

Now the quality of the events is another matter. They have started to change from more inspired things like SAB to zergfests that nobody can play at any decent fps.

AntiGw.9367:

If you don’t have time to complete one of these releases, how can you possibly complete them all after they start piling up, if Arena.net suddenly decides to make them permanent?

I do have the time to complete them. I have completed most but SAB last year as it is not my cup of tea. I might have another look this year. But there is no break to catch your breath. You keep rushing from one living story straight into the other and have to plan to get it all done. So when they become permanent I would still finish them, but not have to rush it like crazy at the moment.

Anyway lowering the pace would be beneficial for a lot of players, whether the content would become permanent or not. If they stick to the same formula, but with longer time between releases that would work better for us already.

One thing one should never complain about is having too much content. That is simply just wrong, it’s a luxory many MMORPGs do not have the resources to offer. We should be thankful for this, while we all have to enjoy that content in our own phasing. Some play a lot, some play less, that’s life. Everything cannot be delivered on a golden plate.

When that is said, as long as GW2 keeps on releasing “mini game” like content with similiar patterns (i.e. several achievement sections with similiar objectives in different content, with the continous weapon skins and mini’s) – then I dont mind that it’s on a 2 week cycle as I really do not take much of this stuff seriously. I miss experiencing stories with a twist, where things may not be as they appear. They deffinatly do put in some work into the characters and how they present the story, but it has yet to touch what I described. So I dont mind the 2 week cycle, so that we can get rid of it and hopefully get onto something different.

Furthermore, it would be great if they considered expanding on their options for 2 week release cycles – must it always be PvE related? How about WvW, could a story be tied here.

I play from 2 to 3 hours every day in game and I’ve barely enough time for explore to the full the new living story (which means to complete all the achies).
I would like to have time for playing some WvW with my guild, for complete all the JPs, for level some alts. But I don’t wanna miss contents becouse they’re temporary, and I wanna enjoy them.

If Anet want to carry with the temporary contents it’s ok, but I really need more time to complete them.

Partly the achievements system drives the perceived stress. It’s pretty tough for most players I imagine to find the time to do all the checklist. I think that’s often a bigger complaint than the difficulty obstacles we often hear.

2 weeks is admirable, but feels more like a marketing strategy – “we are the only mmo to offer such consistent updates”. That’s true and I can see how a business would find that coup. Is it sustainable? Personally I don’t think so long term. The quality has varied considerably – not because of poor effort on part of the devs, but it feels more like because they are constrained by time.

I’m really not sure why we need “2 weeks” “3weeks” “monthly” etc. If the content is ready…release it. If not, give it more time. Flame and Frost had all the makings of a decent story, but was too spaced out. Now we have too short, too rushed stories without meaning or explanation. A story takes as long as it needs to be told.

Also, Festivals can be slotted in as 2-3 week slots a they are proven effective in those kind of windows…but only as background content..never as lead content.

One thing I have recognised with the Living Story – a new player will have no idea who Scarlet is or what threat she poses (not sure I do tbh..). They are likely fully aware the threat of the Dragons. Until Living Story seamlessly integrates with the world, it wont merit the Living STory moniker.

Agree. I’d never thought I’d reach the day where a game developer updates too much. It’s like, a wish came true but now that it has I realize it’s not what’s best. I love A-net. And the support they’re giving this game is UNPRECEDENTED. I’d love to see them allocate the resources into different areas of the game though. PvP needs a lot of work, WvW, dynamic events are imba all over the world and could be balanced, endgame reward demographic (maybe playing for weekly-released skins?). The living story is great, but it is completely irrelevant to anyone under 80 and anyone who misses a single chapter.
could be added,

Randulf.7614:

Partly the achievements system drives the perceived stress. It’s pretty tough for most players I imagine to find the time to do all the checklist. I think that’s often a bigger complaint than the difficulty obstacles we often hear.

I do think that has a huge bearing on it. I know I ’d enjoy the content a lot more if I could just “experience” it and do what I want and feel complete. Not be tied to achievements and their form of completion. Sadly that is just part of gaming these days I guess.

Of course I could ignore achievements and all that stuff, and if its something I know I can’t do I will gladly ignore it. But in some cases the only rewards/gifts from the events that we get are usually tied to the metas now. At least they are kind of trying to make it easier with adding in ability to complete metas by doing dailies.

And a lot of people wouldn’t even know what to do if they were given free reign of a event. :P

I really feel sorry for people that started playing after Living Story was released or wasn’t 80 even. It is a totally different game now, and if you aren’t 80 its a real struggle in some cases to even participate in the LS.

I like achievement and i have a lot of free time (part-time job) but even I agree with OP. The pace is waaaaay to fast. And the content ends. Living story is no more then a temporary Dynamic event. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for eternity. In gw1 a superior mission (aka living story here, but much better), you could repeat it as many times until you were bored. I repeated some missions ovre 50 times, cause they were so much fun. Now in gw2 i don’t have freedom, YOU (anet) dictate me what to do, and because of it I get bored faster (not slower).

I agree. It’s too much. I’ve already been close to burning out a couple of times already. The 4-week cycle was way better than the bi-weekly ones. As it is now I have to choose between doing LS for the achievement points and the other rewards that is only available for a short time and doing the other fun parts of the game. I can’t do both. At this rate I fear I’ll probably burn out soon and give up on the game completely. I really want to be able to log in, do whatever I want to, but the game reeeaally force the LS down my throat atm.

1- we are not supposed to complete all achivements, this is a bad sense we all have and we have to get through it
Not everyone was supposed to beat liadri, i didn’t indeed.
definetly not everyone is intended to complete sab tribulation mode LOL
2- keep up with who? pve leaderboard is a joke, you’ll never keep up or reach top tiers, they are miles ahed of you, so if keep up is related to position 10000+, thenyou have a point. i’m at 8500 ish and i’ll never even think to stand a chance.

said that i agree with you in kinda way.
two weeks release are quite too short but is fine if it was like b4 so you can do most of achivements in the inteded 2 weeks and finish the remaining during the next two if you wished.
last clockwork chaos update was really too much specially with that gauntlet-time consuming-thing around.

As Colin said in the interview at PAX, they are cautious in opening new zone and leavin too much permanent content, as well as dungon hard modes because that would split the comunity too much.

this game is soo big (wvw, spvp, pve, dungeon, fractals, living story) that the risk is high.
they keeep putting in temporary stuff in low level zones to bring end game dudes there to give a sense of vitality to new players.
And kinda agree with them, is though to understand, would be nice t have a new zone every month bu u’ll agre that it that means waiting more to find ppl for a dungeon, less ppl in wvw and spvp can be bad but we always see the player perspective not the game one.
temporary content has the advantage of attracting most of player together, and as they dd lately ther was always at least two kind of achivements lists to do for two different kind of players.
in last patch we had:
-the pavillion for farmers
-the vorp pottal stuff for lore ppl
-the gauntlet for hardcore ppl
-clockwork chaos for farmers again

the new one as far as now has:
-sab w1-2 for those who wants easy gameplay and who missed w1
—tribulation mode for crazy super mrio addicteds!yai!

and mostluy the same for all the other recent patches.
different AP tabs for different players.

I just want to reiterate to ANet reading this thread, the content is great but too fast. I have seen some say the game is super buggy in this thread, and the content is not well designed. I just want to make it known that I, and most everyone I talk to agrees the quality is good…just too fast.

Also, on a related note, aren’t you killing your developers? I understand there must be multiple teams, but still, can they keep up this pace without burning out? It’s a real concern of mine. The content is great now, but if you keep hammering your devs for this two week cycle, the content and the game is going to suffer, which leads to the player base suffering. Something to think about.

Zeldain.5710:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Hey, guess what, you represent the minority. The very very small minority. Id also think you must not know much about the decisions being made in the game by the devs, as stated in the interviews. If you don’t have at least 5 hours or more in your week to play the new content, then maybe you shouldnt be playing games.

Hehe, no. No sir, YOU are in the small minority. It’s a wasted life playing a game so much.

The problem is, these content updates are not really content, but sales vehicles for cash shop items. So, the people that can’t play as much at least feel like they can be a “part” of it by buying some stuff.

Welcome to predatory b2p.

The new content system and pace is great.
If you don’t have at least 5 hours or more in your week to play the new content, then maybe you shouldnt be playing games
Ultra Causual are in the small minority !

Tiger.7506:

The new content system and pace is great.
If you don’t have at least 5 hours or more in your week to play the new content, then maybe you shouldnt be playing games
Ultra Causual are in the small minority !

I play around 4-5 hours a day and I still think my gaming experience would benefit from slowing the pace down a bit.
It will always be a matter of opinion I guess. And the opinion on this matter does not necessarily have to do with “Ultra Causual” as you put it

I have to agree with the OP as well, its wonderful that ANet are putting in all the new content, but its too fast. I hardly even bother with the LS now. If I come across something happening while out in the world I’ll take part, but I won’t join the zerg train and I pretty much ignore the LS achievement section.

I would like to see more permanent content added as well. Maybe limit the short term content to once a month and make every forth month permanent content instead.

Oh and yes, I’m another casual, I have to fit in my gaming around a job, a family, a house, all the normal things. Gaming is what I do to relax, I don’t want it to be more stressful than my job is.

Tiger – it’s not about not having time it’s about the content being temporary and forcing me to feel i have to do it NOW.
On ITS terms and not on mine.
I’ve been putting in 5-7-8 hours/day or more these past few weeks and I’ve still felt the same.
I feel I’m being pushed to play what the game needs me to play instead of what I want. And If I don’t I won’t get the stuff I want.

Speaking only for myself I like the pace. I have no interest in doing SAB, simply because it don’t fit my playstyle so this update is being skipped by me. If they were to do two updates I did care about doing though I may feel rushed, but as the achievement are optional I don’t mind skipping a few of them. Some of the events are bound to return in one way or another anyways as they have already been programmed in, and as such I’m sure ANet will revisit most of the areas in the future. Even the gauntlet could be revisited in a fractal or similar.

So I’m just doing what I find fun to do and leaving the AP grinding at the door. If they want to add tons of new content I’m fine with it so long as the content is high quality.

Being a completionist I’ve gotten every single living world achievement until now. Started playing at xmas so I’m ok with missing stuff I wasnt around for.

Got all slayer achieves except for giant, all weapon masters except for 4 that are going slow, light up the darkness, no problem.

Then I have to go away for a fortnight and find that for some reason they’ve shutdown clockwork chaos completely. That kitten ed me off more than ascended weapons.

10k achieve, legendary, multiple champion, 6×80, 500g account soon up for grabs. Gonna hang my hat on Star Citizen and play some fps in the mean time.

I’ve said it before in other threads, but I’ll throw my voice into this one as well.

I intensely dislike being pressured to play on someone else’s timetable. It creates an unnecessary sense of urgency and stress that I find extremely unpleasant. Until they stop with this “do it now or miss out on it forever” philosophy they’ve adopted, I refuse to log in to the game. I will not allow myself to be counted as a log-in statistic so that they can boast about how many people are currently playing the game.

If you like the game the way it is, by all means, log in, play, and have fun. But if you don’t, and want this issue to be taken seriously, I suggest that you do not log in. At all. Not even to the character selection screen.

And keep telling them how you feel. Despite what people may say, you have every right to express your dissatisfaction (without resorting to personal attacks, of course!).

We’ve really hit a nerve on this one. Almost complete agreement.

Is there any way we can know if ANet folks are reading this one?

minbariguy.7504:

…
And keep telling them how you feel. Despite what people may say, you have every right to express your dissatisfaction (without resorting to personal attacks, of course!).

I’ve actually done that, although not for the reason in this thread. The pacing was burning me out, but getting stuck with two ascended rings I never would have bought is the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ve been playing for 7+ years, but I finally decided I need a break.

Will I come back? Probably.

My problem is that there is no way to let ANet know what I don’t like. The tech support group can’t do a thing and will loudly force you to understand that if you try. The forums don’t seem to be read by the devs at all, and if anybody else is reading, they’re maintaining radio silence or something.

So, please, by all means tell me how to make this known to them. If they correct either of these problems, I’ll most likely return (assuming I find out some way without logging in).

Daddicus.6128:

We’ve really hit a nerve on this one. Almost complete agreement.

Is there any way we can know if ANet folks are reading this one?

Apparently they do read almost everything on the forums. Just because they don’t reply doesn’t mean they aren’t reading it.

Unfortunately they won’t ever win on this issue. If they stop doing updates as frequently some people will start to complain that content isn’t coming out fast enough.

I do agree though, the time frame of these updates is just getting a bit out of hand at this rate. Everything is here and gone before you know it and there’s not enough time to get anything done at a reasonable pace.

You don’t rush through everything? TOO BAD IT’S GONE!

The pace is pretty fast. My guild was talking about this today and they were all a agreeing that there isn’t any breathing room. I’m skipping the SAB, at least for a week at so, so I can just roam around in the world, explore, and do other stuff besides LS. It isn’t necessary to have 100% uptime on the LS. There should be blank spots in between updates of a week or so, so people can do other stuff and anticipate an upcoming update.

Astral Projections.7320:

The pace is pretty fast. My guild was talking about this today and they were all a agreeing that there isn’t any breathing room. I’m skipping the SAB, at least for a week at so, so I can just roam around in the world, explore, and do other stuff besides LS. It isn’t necessary to have 100% uptime on the LS. There should be blank spots in between updates of a week or so, so people can do other stuff and anticipate an upcoming update.

I am in the same boat and I completely agree.

I have to agree with a lot of the “Too Fast” opinions. I feel like I have to do my daily as quick as I can, the PVP daily as well (for achievement points)… then charge my quartz crystal. Run a few dungeons for the daily loot… Run all the living story achievements before they are gone. I get 4 days off in a week (not always weekends) and I find myself dedicating too much time to this game.

Some may say “You dont have to do it all” but realize that I do enjoy the game and enjoy completing the achievement lists.. I just dont like having to devote 20 hours a week to do be able to do this.

I am also starting to wonder about Anet being money hungry since now you can forge the new SAB mini’s —- This means collectors have to spend more gems now to complete thier collection. They either want real cash or are using this to remove the gold that was farmed during clockwork chaos. How about we just dont add in farms like this if you dont want the gold in the economy?

EDIT: I am actually looking forward to Halloween and Christmas because I wont have any new achievements to do… Well, Unless they add more…. And the living story.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

I like achievement and i have a lot of free time (part-time job) but even I agree with OP. The pace is waaaaay to fast. And the content ends. Living story is no more then a temporary Dynamic event. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for eternity. In gw1 a superior mission (aka living story here, but much better), you could repeat it as many times until you were bored. I repeated some missions ovre 50 times, cause they were so much fun. Now in gw2 i don’t have freedom, YOU (anet) dictate me what to do, and because of it I get bored faster (not slower).

Comparing the living story to missions in Guild Wars 1 is comparing two different types of content.

First of all, missions in Guild Wars 1 were much simpler shorter affairs. The longest mission in hard mode doesn’t take 20 minutes. A single zone wide event in the last LS ran for 40 and it was one of many things.

There were 25 missions in Prophecies, 13 in Factions and 20 in Nightfall for a grand total of 58 missions all up in the first three games, or roughly two years. At the one year mark where we are now you only had 38 missions. Of the 38 missions, how many were actually “fun”. I didn’t like many of the missions in the Maguuma Jungle. Thunderhead Keep? Maybe not.

There were fun missions, I do agree, but comparing them to the living story? Take the last month. You had the Queen’s Gauntlet for those who want harder challenge. You had the zone wide events for people who enjoyed big open world zergs (and the pavillion before that). You had a couple of cut scenes that total the story. You had a new mini-dungeon with a couple of separate achievements in that. Though it was easyish, I quite liked the mini dungeon.

You had the ballooon which introduced new events.

And you’re comparing this to A mission? Which mission?

Do you know why I did missions 50 times in Guild Wars 1? Because I’d already done everything else and there was nothing left to do but those missions. And while they were fun, I’d have preferred new content to repeating the same missions.

The question is, two years down the track as more stuff stays from LS (like the Scarlet Invasions), which came will have more fun content?

The majority of new content/achievements should be permanent (or reoccurring) with some temporary elements (ex. perhaps story instances, etc.) to introduce the new content.

Sometimes I feel like I have to push back certain goals (ex. Ascended Back item) in order to not miss out on the Living Story content (achievements in particular). This is especially true of the 2 week content (ex. Cutthroat Politics) rather than than 1 month content (ex. Bazaar of the Four Winds).

I’d rather see them do monthly updates that affect the world more. These every 2 weeks updates doesn’t change a lot.

My thoughts:

5 week releases. First part for two weeks, second part for three weeks.

One week off in-between.

This gives each Living Story time TWO FULL WEEKS extra to do work, while making us appreciate Living Story content more since we get a week to relax and breathe.

I agree with you Hamartia. That also allows enough time for 1-2-1, 2-2-1 LSs that have “wind up” like Halloween had.
I also understand that players like new permanent content and that GW2 maps have a lot of teasers. But if they kept adding maps like Southsun every now and then we would be spread, maps would be empty (like starting maps), content on maps undone (like temples in Orr). That becomes nightmare for long time players and even more so for new comers.
So at the moment I think AN is on the right track, but I would also like permanent things to be added and I think we have big enough maps and wouldn’t mind some things changing from time to time. Ideal end game here could be for maps that get low number or visits to have DEs change (bad guys start winning since there are no heroes to keep them away), rewards get boosted and Living Story on that map gets mixed in, changing permanent stuff on the map and creating a bit different events. I have no idea how game engine works or how complicated it is to change DEs but if every 6th Living Story is a map changing one that would mean we get 2 maps updated/redone in a year. New maps and instances? Well I would like to leave that one for AN to figure out how often is enough to keep players happy and world crowded since they have far better insight into numbers.

Daddicus.6128:

Wow, I seem to have touched a nerve.

Well, maybe they’ll see it and correct things.

From what I see, they need a few things absolutely:

First, slower content-ending stuff. In other words, go ahead and start them as often as you like (although I recommend less often), but allow us to at least follow the content through before throwing them into the furnace.

I couldn’t get both achievements for the election because there simply wasn’t enough time; I had started later in the cycle. So, by the time I realized there was limited time, there weren’t enough days left to finish.

Besides, who ever heard of a congressional election lasting only a month?

Second, let us know if the loot that was special to that content period will become worthless or not. How many of you have stacks of candy canes, but no way to spend them? Sure, we could have recipes that use them. But, those recipes were only available during the Halloween content changes.

I’m glad that my leftover gaming tokens will get put to use. But, I’m saddened to know that the other loot I received last time WOULD BE useful, if I hadn’t purged them. :p

Finally, find ways to get us interested in the actual storylines. I had absolutely no time to study the storylines of the Lion’s Arch stuff, because I couldn’t even keep up with the missions. That stuff would have been very interesting, but we were never given the chance.

Well it’s not really a new nerve you hit. This sort of complains are coming for multiple months now. And looking at the overall reactions you are not in the minority but the majority.

About Anet fixing it. After many complains for a long time Anet did react on it in this interview http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/2585362 saying they would change it. That however turned out to be a lie. Two days later they showed what was coming for the next half year and that was more time-gated content. (What is really the same as temporary content) also politics was released and then removed after two weeks and the following patches where once again the same sort of temporary non-content.

Reason for this sort of content seems to be (imo) that GW2 went from B2P to F2P. Now they want to focus on cash-shop in stead of income from expansions meaning they need to give people reasons to buy stuff. Every patch also has temporary gem-items linked to it and we even saw some B2W. For example with the politics there was a gem-item to get more votes and now for the SAB they created a mode that is not based on skill but trial and error. Meaningeverybody can do it, you just need a lot of tries and what do we see, an infinite count in the gem-store. Anyway enough about the reason behind the discussion.

It does not feel like a living world but like a list of achievements we get trying to pressure us in logging in and buying gems. Works on the short run does not work on the long run and that ‘long run’ is not so very long we are already at the end of that.

What the living story should be is more like we saw with the first Living story patch but without achievement linked to it. We really saw a story unfolding with the refugees. That should build up but never have rewards or achievements linked to it and it should end in a way that we did see with the the lost shores event (without the bugs). That event should then reveal new permanent content (like a new map but that is not a must. Other sort of permanent content is also fine) with achievements, rewards and so on. Then you really have a story going on leading up to content and nobody has to miss out.. well maybe the event that happens you mis but you might be able to see that back. There are then no achievements or rewards you miss out.

Hamartia.3421:

My thoughts:

5 week releases. First part for two weeks, second part for three weeks.

One week off in-between.

This gives each Living Story time TWO FULL WEEKS extra to do work, while making us appreciate Living Story content more since we get a week to relax and breathe.

So you like to get to do list in a game that have a time-limit on them? Looks like work instead of a game.

The pace is ridiculously too fast. And, it is all at the expense of an evolving permanent world, deeper storytelling, less buginess, and general game polish and balance. My plea from the beginning was to move to a longer development cycle. Rather than longer, they moved from 1 month to two weeks. As a software developer myself it’s silly on the face of it. And, we are witnessing a negative now that I didn’t articulate and that’s burnout. I’m feeling it myself. I’d like to just relax and play for awhile without all the stuff with a perceived need to do. And this would be the time-gated achievements that go away if you don’t do them now. Imagine an evolving living world that was permanent and the achievements didn’t go away every couple weeks. That would be a player-oriented MMO and one that I would love to play.

I agree with OP. Doing this living story feels more like job because there are deadlines. And nobody wanna miss it.

Raine.1394:

The pace is ridiculously too fast. And, it is all at the expense of an evolving permanent world, deeper storytelling, less buginess, and general game polish and balance. My plea from the beginning was to move to a longer development cycle. Rather than longer, they moved from 1 month to two weeks. As a software developer myself it’s silly on the face of it. And, we are witnessing a negative now that I didn’t articulate and that’s burnout. I’m feeling it myself. I’d like to just relax and play for awhile without all the stuff with a perceived need to do. And this would be the time-gated achievements that go away if you don’t do them now. Imagine an evolving living world that was permanent and the achievements didn’t go away every couple weeks. That would be a player-oriented MMO and one that I would love to play.

In there defense and to get your facts right. They did move to a longer development cicle. They when from 1 small team to 4 bigger teams so while they moved from 1 month to 2 weeks the development cycles became bigger. Thats also why you see that the patches have become bigger. But this however does not solve the problem… it makes it worse.

A lot of content but temporary. a list to do. People burn out very fast like this.

Temporary / time-gated content is always bad.

Mortifer.2946:

I agree with OP. Doing this living story feels more like job because there are deadlines. And nobody wanna miss it.

Untill you have missed something our you are burned out and then you don’t care at all anymore. Then you leave the game.

They focus on the “And nobody wanna miss it.” part. This ensures them that people will log in and also spend gems because there is also a lot of temporary content related to the living story patches (buy it not or miss out on it). And that tactic works for a few months but in the end it alienates a lot of people. It are basic marketing tricks they use but most likely they have an incompetent marketing team as they do what they learn from the books but fail to so what the consequences are (in this case) on a longer run. Or they might simply have no long time goal for GW2. It’s all a show, they are now trying to fill the pockets and then leave it to die. Thats also an option.. if thats what they want they have a very competent marketing team.

I also agree with OP. The content is coming too fast. I am a completionist and did almost every archivement in this game, but I had to work a little more in this last month and couldnt finish some of them. This made me lose some interest in the game. Its like I have another job when I am home… I want GW2 to be a game to spend my free time.

So, please:

1. Update less frequently or;

2. Make permanent content so I can finish everything when I can.

Deadlines sucks and I already have a lot of them in my job.

I love this game and thats why I am posting this.

So far I have been lucky, I have not missed any achievements that I really wanted because I was not able to play much during the two week window. I don’t care about SAB or the rewards so it’s actually a welcome change of pace for me.

I am worried whether this fortunate personal trend will continue and it sounds like other people have already fallen from it.

Some of the achievements like the Queen’s Jubilee were around for a month which seems more reasonable (although the Clockwork achievements leeched away players from the Pavilion).

Quick updates for storylines would be tolerable I think (as long as they were easily accessible and perhaps even allow people to catch up on the old storyline missions), but I can see how the quick turnaround for the achievement rewards could become difficult even if it has not personally affected me yet.

bi weekly chores…. Hate the pace and the lack of anything perm in the game besides 90% less karma now, southsun, and fracs. The game has never gotten bigger. LS is a cover up for the world staying the same size forever while we wear ourselves out for chores every 2 weeks. What, in reality, do we gain for this? Not fun or happiness….

I was really gung-ho about this game and for the first few months bought all I could from the gem store. Mini packs, SAB minis, weapon and armor skins. Lately within the last few months I’ve spent not a cent on this game and refuse to do so until they fix these issues because it’s not fun anymore.

Agree with most everything in this post. It’s too fast for us and it looks like it’s too fast for Anet as most of the first week of new content is buggy and needs constant fixing. SO you get new events every 2 weeks that go away and they spend the first week patching the hell out of it cause its broken…

Look at the recent update. SAB achievements are broken, I’ve gotten stuck in objects, etc…issues I never had with the first one. Not to mention you practically need to buy the infinate lives coin to get through all the content. I’ve already sign off of playing this update (mainly cause the needing the coin or grinding baubles for lives) and hopefully Anet will listen to us and slow down as well as polish and qa their releases better.

I’m in the same boat. Even though i found the start glacially slow (fix signposts for a month?), the fire and frost story line is the only one i actually followed. There was plenty of time to do it even slow paced, and it felt like being part of the story, unlike the current “2 weeks to do 20 times this DE and play this minigame 14 times”. It feels tediously like work, and that’s not why i log in after a working day so i just don’t bother anymore and just enjoy the new scenery every now and then.

I’d love to be able to go back and do those stories at my pace later, but well, i guess they can’t cater to everyone at the same time, so fair enough.

Totally agree, sucks all that work goes away every two weeks and I like permanent content. Stuff like SAB makes sense every now and then, but the world doesn’t feel like its expanding at all when content just gets removed all time.

While I like the differences this game has over others (Main reason why I play it), they need to take a card from other mmo’s and keep patches permanent and maybe just take their time in-between those updates and make sure they are worthy of the Guild Wars seal.

Randulf.7614:

Flame and Frost had all the makings of a decent story, but was too spaced out. Now we have too short, too rushed stories without meaning or explanation. A story takes as long as it needs to be told.

If they took all short stories they release on the front page and implemented them in the actual updates in form of some kind of cinematics or similar, it would be much easier to understand and follow the general storyline.

Take Scarlet’s story for example. I think it’s great. But you don’t see any of that in game.

Imagine if they took their time and told the story in form of artistic cinematic. How much better these little stories would be…

Most misguided post I’ve seen in a while.

There’s absolutely no reason they should limit the amount of content they add to the lowest common denominator – the player who plays the least. If there’s too much content for someone to get through everything, then don’t do it all. It’s not like any of it has been required to continue moving forward through the game.

The complaint seems to be the same as someone going to an amusement park and complaining that there are too many rides that they can’t possibly get to them all. Instead of complaining they should be happy that they can prioritize and do those which are their favorites without having to duplicate or do those they don’t prefer.

It also makes no sense to complain about temporary content and too much content at the same time. By definition temporary content doesn’t need to be done unless the developers make a huge mistake they’ll have to reverse. There’s no way they would make content temporary that was required to be done or the player would be left behind. So if the content is temporary you don’t need to do it.

Finally, if there’s so much in the game that you really like doing that it’s more than you have time to do being grateful is the proper response, not complaining that they have provided too much.

If they slow the pace down it would have several benefits. They would have more time to deepen the story, bugs could found before release, stories more polished and last but not least the players can have downtime to do other stuff without feeling the need to be doing the LS. I know that you don’t have to do the LS, but if you want the achieve points, to work toward your next reward chest, to do the new content and to get the reward for doing the content, then it’s mandatory. This pressure to do the content NOW, because its going away soon puts a lot of pressure on the players. There’s little time to just goof off. Roam the world. Do events. (Remember them, the original focus of the game?). Level alts. Or do whatever else you used to do.

It almost feels like the Devs have given up on players doing the original meat of the game and are desperately trying to entertain and distract us. Now it’s good to have new stuff to do. I’m not complaining about that. New content is good. But new content 24/7 without a pause leads to player burnout. It starts to feel like work and not fun.

I hope they read this thread and consider what most have said. The last paragraph Astral put is dead on to me. I love GW2 and love new content. But someone(s) need a valium or two.
I remember the days of logging in GW1 and just staring at the screen wishing for something new. Now I log in GW2 and stare at the screen trying to figure out where to start every other week.

@Inspired, please don’t take my comment as a complaint. As said, I love the new content. Just there are times I’m overwhelmed. I do hope they will recycle some. If they don’t it is cool. I don’t chase after ap anymore, but would like to see their work instead of just reading about it.
edited because my “its” came out as kitten and when reread it made no sense. Of course the no sense is just me in general.

Devata.6589:

Raine.1394:

The pace is ridiculously too fast. And, it is all at the expense of an evolving permanent world, deeper storytelling, less buginess, and general game polish and balance. My plea from the beginning was to move to a longer development cycle. Rather than longer, they moved from 1 month to two weeks. As a software developer myself it’s silly on the face of it. And, we are witnessing a negative now that I didn’t articulate and that’s burnout. I’m feeling it myself. I’d like to just relax and play for awhile without all the stuff with a perceived need to do. And this would be the time-gated achievements that go away if you don’t do them now. Imagine an evolving living world that was permanent and the achievements didn’t go away every couple weeks. That would be a player-oriented MMO and one that I would love to play.

In there defense and to get your facts right. They did move to a longer development cicly. They when from 1 small team to 4 bigger teams so while they moved from 1 month to 2 weeks the development cycles became bigger. Thats also why you see that the patches have become bigger. But this however does not solve the problem… it makes it worse.

A lot of content but temporary. a list to do. People burn out very fast like this.

Temporary / time-gated content is always bad.

I know all about their development organization as Colin has trumpeted it. The meta cycle is 2 weeks; that is the actual release cycle. Emulating a longer development cycle helps in one way as it gives one team doing one thing more time to do it and perhaps time for some unit testing. However, when dealing with an integrated, evolving world fragmented teams are more of a hindrance than a help. What you want is an integrated team telling one story (and story threads), not the work of four teams working independently. Think about it. I’ve been doing development for 25 years from structured systems analysis to the latest and greatest methodologies. It wouldn’t even occur to me to try to do something like they are doing. Sadly, we’re all playing the result and we all know the shortcomings intimately. If everything were rosy I’d back off and admit miracles are real. But, sadly, my experience is living up to my expectations.

I definitely feel burnt out and I’ve only done two of these (Queen’s jubilee and Scarlett invasions). Personally, I feel like a drug addict. You get so many achievement points on the fleeting content it’s hard NOT to do it. But I have a full time job and school and family. I also hate to feel left out or feel like I’m falling behind, so I feel I have to to it, even if I’m not enjoying it. AND, to top it off, it’s often hard to tell what you’ve done. For instance, the 13 different invasions thing KILLED me. I ended up spending an entire Saturday waiting for ONE last map to come up. I hated the game by the end of the day…. seriously I was mad and ready to throw my computer out the window. It took ALL the fun out of it.

I totally understand that my own sense of HAVING to complete things is an issue I should deal with. But if I’m not going for achievement points then what? Legendaries? That’s even more of a grind that takes sometimes thousands of gold or hours. I love the game in general but I still need something to “go for”. But every two weeks is just too fast. Personally, I would like quarterly new actual content a lot more than the current “in and out like a bullet” system.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I definitely feel burnt out and I’ve only done two of these (Queen’s jubilee and Scarlett invasions). Personally, I feel like a drug addict. You get so many achievement points on the fleeting content it’s hard NOT to do it. But I have a full time job and school and family. I also hate to feel left out or feel like I’m falling behind, so I feel I have to to it, even if I’m not enjoying it. AND, to top it off, it’s often hard to tell what you’ve done. For instance, the 13 different invasions thing KILLED me. I ended up spending an entire Saturday waiting for ONE last map to come up. I hated the game by the end of the day…. seriously I was mad and ready to throw my computer out the window. It took ALL the fun out of it.

I totally understand that my own sense of HAVING to complete things is an issue I should deal with. But if I’m not going for achievement points then what? Legendaries? That’s even more of a grind that takes sometimes thousands of gold or hours. I love the game in general but I still need something to “go for”. But every two weeks is just too fast. Personally, I would like quarterly new actual content a lot more than the current “in and out like a bullet” system.

I think the last two events really burnt out a lot of people.

I know they sure put me on the edge. I enjoyed pavilion at first, but did not expect the giant fest of invasions afterwards. It was a little extreme.

Really if you are going to put two giant zerg fests in don’t make it a back to back marathon. I dunno if they were trying to burn the farm out of us, but they more so burned out any sense of enjoyment for some people.