Guild Wars 2

… and I reached the part where I wanted to discuss how character progression is different in this game compared to most others. To be specific I just wanted to describe the way main skills and weapons work in GW2 compared to other MMO’s set in stone skillsets, and I just wanted to praise ANet for this great system. But….

I also wanted to add this short sentence (well, I’m writing it in hungarian language so not “exactly” this ^^): “the best thing about this skill system is that is allows the developers to easily add new skills and mechanisms by simply opening up more weapon options for each class later, or design completely new ones.”

I know this has been a “thing” around all GW2 forums, and knowing that the game is getting closer to it’s second birthday, the fact that ANet still seems to ignore to expand the game in this particular section got me worried. There is a new feature patch coming now, but I actually don’t have any hope left to see an update with weapons content inside – especially after the letdown of Feature Patch 1, because if I look back all it did was adding a new traits (so the devs played around with existing numbers and mechanims, same for PvP tracks. It’s not that I don’t like these, but it’s a minor, cheap thing) and redesigned some UI elements to fix the broken transmution system.

My question is: how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?

I know there is a long way until they reveal everything, but so far it seems the same, new UI elements and some fixes….

SaltyDave.7346:

My question is: how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?

What in Skrittsburgh do you mean by “lacking real changes”?

The April Feature Pack made a ton of “real changes”. Things that were needed, and things that were just nice to have.

A Feature Pack is not some sort of expansion that is supposed to dramatically change the game, it is just a patch that only adds new features – because in the past people never noticed changes because they were too focused on the new content.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

SaltyDave.7346:

My question is: how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?

What in Skrittsburgh do you mean by “lacking real changes”?

The April Feature Pack made a ton of “real changes”. Things that were needed, and things that were just nice to have.

A Feature Pack is not some sort of expansion that is supposed to dramatically change the game, it is just a patch that only adds new features – because in the past people never noticed changes because they were too focused on the new content.

So what will they call the things that are supposed to dramatically alter the game?

SaltyDave.7346:

… and I reached the part where I wanted to discuss how character progression is different in this game compared to most others. To be specific I just wanted to describe the way main skills and weapons work in GW2 compared to other MMO’s set in stone skillsets, and I just wanted to praise ANet for this great system. But….

I also wanted to add this short sentence (well, I’m writing it in hungarian language so not “exactly” this ^^): “the best thing about this skill system is that is allows the developers to easily add new skills and mechanisms by simply opening up more weapon options for each class later, or design completely new ones.”

I know this has been a “thing” around all GW2 forums, and knowing that the game is getting closer to it’s second birthday, the fact that ANet still seems to ignore to expand the game in this particular section got me worried. There is a new feature patch coming now, but I actually don’t have any hope left to see an update with weapons content inside – especially after the letdown of Feature Patch 1, because if I look back all it did was adding a new traits (so the devs played around with existing numbers and mechanims, same for PvP tracks. It’s not that I don’t like these, but it’s a minor, cheap thing) and redesigned some UI elements to fix the broken transmution system.

My question is: how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?

I know there is a long way until they reveal everything, but so far it seems the same, new UI elements and some fixes….

yes, i broached this in my other thread, and the point is, if this feature pack brings the type of things it seems it will bring, AND this continues to be the type of updates players can expect, well i cant see things going well in the long term

The Wardrobe completely changed the game for me. The mega server completely changed the game (in my case for the better).

I’m sure I’d love new weapon skills too, but let’s not belittle what was done. More obviously needs to be done.

SaltyDave.7346:

… lacking of real change as the first one?

Stop writing your review, it’s horribly biased. You would do yourself a disservice to publish it.

@Vayne:
*I wonder how the wardrobe changed the game for you. It’s a nice thing to have to plan your looks, but we already had that via itemcodes on 3rd party sites.
*We already had that armor skins, they just added a new way to unlock them. Literally ONE backpiece was added.
*How did the Megaserver changed your game? It was: check a site with a timer, get there and kill it. Now it’s the same, just with set timers a day, and for the same events you still need to get there early enough make it to “main mirror” where it doesn’t fails (Tequatl, 3 headed wurm). The champ trains are the same. For newcomers it’s nice that it brings people together.
*They changed the way you unlock traits. It’s much better this way, but yet again it’s a change better for newcomers.
*New traits. Finally something that matters.

Did I cover everything?

@Bone:
I think I’ve seen some stuff in the last 10 years of MMO history to know what counts as a real change or not, and I’m more than sure I know what and how to look at when I write a review – something I’m doing for 6+ years now almost every week. Just because I QUESTIONED the real effect of some changes on the game, that’s a brutally negative attitude and feedback on something you haven’t even seen yet, and even if I’d write it in english you propably wouldn’t even consider to read. What I just did wrong now? Predicting if you will or will not do something, while I know nothing about you. Fact. You did the same, I hope you get the picture now.

The only advice I have for you if you are doing a review is that even you have decided that your opinion is negative, you have to be careful not to show that bias; because then it is very easy for those you are trying to sway to dismiss you as a “hater.”

Try to avoid inflammatory “click-bait” language, acknowledge what few things you think it does well, then lay into the meat of the criticism with level, reasoned arguments and potential fixes.

Make sure your bases are covered, and you can start a strong dialogue.

SaltyDave.7346:

… and I reached the part where I wanted to discuss how character progression is different in this game compared to most others. To be specific I just wanted to describe the way main skills and weapons work in GW2 compared to other MMO’s set in stone skillsets, and I just wanted to praise ANet for this great system. But….

I also wanted to add this short sentence (well, I’m writing it in hungarian language so not “exactly” this ^^): “the best thing about this skill system is that is allows the developers to easily add new skills and mechanisms by simply opening up more weapon options for each class later, or design completely new ones.”

I know this has been a “thing” around all GW2 forums, and knowing that the game is getting closer to it’s second birthday, the fact that ANet still seems to ignore to expand the game in this particular section got me worried. There is a new feature patch coming now, but I actually don’t have any hope left to see an update with weapons content inside – especially after the letdown of Feature Patch 1, because if I look back all it did was adding a new traits (so the devs played around with existing numbers and mechanims, same for PvP tracks. It’s not that I don’t like these, but it’s a minor, cheap thing) and redesigned some UI elements to fix the broken transmution system.

My question is: how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?

I know there is a long way until they reveal everything, but so far it seems the same, new UI elements and some fixes….

I’m not sure honestly. I’m already well past disappointed entirely. I’m well past the stage of a concerned customer. It’s gone far beyond being hopeful for someone anyone to see the underlying problems in the game.

I was actually quite surprised when two reviewer websites, both of which have been long fans and supporters of this game, wrote scathing reviews of their rewards system and their need to make everything RNG and even about the economy here and how terrible it is. When even your reviewers are standing up and saying “hey, there’s something wrong here” it’s time for a change.

Whether it’s a change in management or a change in the procedure or a change in parent company it’s gotta happen at some point. I’m quite surprised that this kind of thing has gone on this long without shareholders going “uhm yeah you might need to change that if you want to have more than 500k players in the future.”

I think I’ll be immensely surprised if they actually make the long standing changes people have needed since this game launched and change their direction, if it’s just another patch don’t bother imo because to me it will be just like the CDI why bother having them if nothing of what people are saying is going to be used, about as useless as having a suggestions folder if you’re going to toss it out.

The other thing is we’ve seen the video where players have given an oath to GW2 how about we see that oath returned to the playerbase? Where’s the promise of a new direction in the name of the CDI’s where’s the promise of a gamechanging plan in the name of the suggestions folder RIP that should have been followed not because a few of us wish it but because even major reviewers were taking the time to help you improve the game overall by offering their significant experience in the matter.

I think it would be helpful to stick to your point of what could be done, rather than using the language that April 15th changed nothing. It changed a lot of things for a lot of people. Just because it didn’t impact your game doesn’t make that false.

World bosses are completely different than they used to be. Those timer sites you mentioned? You could sit around for up to an hour waiting for a boss to spawn. I miss the spontaneity of that, but I certainly don’t miss waiting for the event.

The April feature pack was the result of conversations held in this forum with players about real change they’d like to see implemented. I have reservations about how well the implementation has gone, certainly, but to say it changed nothing makes me wonder how long you played the game prior to April.

SaltyDave.7346:

@Vayne:
*I wonder how the wardrobe changed the game for you. It’s a nice thing to have to plan your looks, but we already had that via itemcodes on 3rd party sites.
*We already had that armor skins, they just added a new way to unlock them. Literally ONE backpiece was added.
*How did the Megaserver changed your game? It was: check a site with a timer, get there and kill it. Now it’s the same, just with set timers a day, and for the same events you still need to get there early enough make it to “main mirror” where it doesn’t fails (Tequatl, 3 headed wurm). The champ trains are the same. For newcomers it’s nice that it brings people together.
*They changed the way you unlock traits. It’s much better this way, but yet again it’s a change better for newcomers.
*New traits. Finally something that matters.

Did I cover everything?

The wardrobe now makes skins something to collect. You can see them unlocked. You can try many differetn combinations with dyes before actually applying anything. I LIKE collecting skins and unlocking them account wide. I have a lot of alts. Now I only need one skin for any or all of them. Not having to buy separate skins for everyone makes everything more afforable.

The megaserver isn’t just for doing meta events. I play in the open world, as many do. That means there’s usually people around in all zones at all hours. If all you do is meta events, you dont’ see a difference. This game isn’t just meta events and dungeons.

“the best thing about this skill system is that is allows the developers to easily add new skills and mechanisms by simply opening up more weapon options for each class later, or design completely new ones.”

If you use this as an argument it sorda shows you’re late to the party.
As players its fun to speculate, truth be told 99% of things we’ll come up with will never happen. I assumed that in 2 years time we would have a HUGE collection of gemshop skins. I was very very wrong.

but that was a speculation I made 2 years ago.
GW2 is not following standard MMO updates, and that’s fine. But your quote is already biased towards updates in the trend WOW does ; ‘change every little thing so people have to relearn their class’ is not a real system of improving a game, it really isn’t, it is an illusion you give the players just like how Powercreep gives the illusion that you’re more powerful, while in reality its not needed. GW2 is doing a pretty nice job keeping the Powercreep beast at bay while not killing the fun. (And GW1 proves you can sit on a lvl for an entire game without needing to be ‘bigger’ ) .

“My question is: how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?”

I do not expect Anet to cater my needs I’m just 1 teeny tiny person that still enjoys this game.

If you are writing a review of GW2, you should write about the actual game content as it is, and not what you hope it will be some day.

WHY THELL IS EVERYONE STUCK WITH THAT REVIEW. STOP IT.

THE THREAD HAD A CLEARLY HIGHLIGHTED QUESTION IT IS ABOUT.

And for all those who seem to be more concerned about my review than you should be, my attitude and overall opinion is VERY far from negative.

Well, my perspective on this game is a rather pessimistic one, but I’m still playing.
So there must be something good about it, right?
In fact, GW2 was the first MMO I’ve played for a longer timeframe. To be precise, this timeframe lasts from the beginning almost two years ago until now.
But the most reasons why I’m still playing are in this game since launch. I like the graphics, but I think it lacks details. I like the combat system, but hate the balancing (ranger main since day one). I like the story but dislike the way they present the story in GW2. I like the maps but hate the lacking purpose of the open world.
Everything great this game offers gets overshadowed by flaws and design decisions I can’t agree with. I feel like this game hasn’t progressed a long time now, not to mention that the progressions we got lacked a clear direction.
The wardrobe is the perfect example for this: They’ve made it easier to mix and match your look but killed almost all townclothes doing so. And they’ve introduced outfits, which can’t be mix’n’matched.

The biggest reason why I’m still playing are my friends who also play the game.

As for the feature patch: People tend to forget that the Feature Patch didn’t add any features but updated features already in the game. The wardrobe hasn’t changed my way of playing the game, it made it easier (or atleast that’s what it was intended to do). The megaservers didn’t changed my way of playing the game, they made it easier (sometimes more annoying) by putting more people on the same map.
The trait update should alter my way of playing the game but I can still buy the traits, like I’m used to. It just got more expensive.
This feature update wont change the way we play, it will only make it easier and more fun (hopefully, the commander tag update is disappointing so far).

My question is: how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?

I’m not sure what kind of response you want from your ‘question’, when it is so biased toward the negative.

‘How will you react, if your latest review is as lacking in substantive qualities as the last one?’

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

My question is: how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?

I’m not sure what kind of response you want from your ‘question’, when it is so biased toward the negative.

‘How will you react, if your latest review is as lacking in substantive qualities as the last one?’

It’s what’s called a loaded question. I disagree with the premise of the question, so how can I answer it?

The problem is that although adding new weapons or expanding the use of old ones is (probably) simple to do with their existing system, doing so would have a huge impact on class balance. Which means they need to have time to do major balancing patches both during and after the adding of these new weapons, or else competitive play would likely become a mess.

I mean, say each class gets to use another weapon now, a two-handed – that’s 5 new abilities for each class, for a total of 40 new abilities to balance. And the unfortunate part of balancing and abilities is that people always come up with builds you couldn’t have predicted, and then you have to nerf them.

SaltyDave.7346:

WHY THELL IS EVERYONE STUCK WITH THAT REVIEW.

Gee, I don’t know how anyone could have gotten stuck on that. Do you think it might have something to do with your thread title being “So I’m writing a review”? Maybe you should have just asked your question, instead of droning on for three paragraphs before you even got to it. The first two paragraphs are entirely about this review you are writing, with the second containing an actual excerpt from it. This is a public forum, we have the right to comment on any part of your post that we so choose. If you were going to freak out when people commented on the topic of your review, then perhaps you ought not have mentioned it.

SaltyDave.7346:

THE THREAD HAD A CLEARLY HIGHLIGHTED QUESTION IT IS ABOUT.

I don’t know what you think “clearly highlighted” means, but to me your question is just one of many sentences in your post, not apparently more significant than the rest of it. But, since it is so important to you…

SaltyDave.7346:

how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?

The first feature patch on April 15th was very a substantial update, including several overhauls of some pretty major gameplay systems. I already don’t expect every update to be on that same scale, as that is kind of ridiculous. As far as what has been hinted at so far, I think I will be satisfied with what we get. I am hoping for new skills and whatnot as much as anyone, but I don’t expect them to come in this next feature patch.

You may wait to wait until they release the changes in the upcoming feature pack regarding character progression:

September 2014 Feature Pack

Week 2: A Fresh Start

Our second week of September 2014 Feature Pack reveals is focused on improving the Guild Wars 2 experience for new and veteran players alike!

“My question is: how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?”

hurr durr

If questions like this are anything to go by, I’m sure your review will totally be informative and an absolutely fair assessment!

Putting the incredibly obvious attempt to seek confirmation bias from the OP aside, even if you don’t intend to show bias in your actual review you still have no idea what you’re talking about. You don’t understand what a “feature patch” is. I highly suggest you inform yourself before you attempt to write a “review” on it. lol

Boneheart.3561:

SaltyDave.7346:

… lacking of real change as the first one?

Stop writing your review, it’s horribly biased. You would do yourself a disservice to publish it.

Gotta agree with this.

Take a step back. Take a deep breath. Spend some time away from the game. Play some other games. Then come back and attempt to be a bit more objective.

Guhracie.3419:

I think it would be helpful to stick to your point of what could be done…

Take your reason and objectivity and leave!

Boneheart.3561:

Guhracie.3419:

I think it would be helpful to stick to your point of what could be done…

Take your reason and objectivity and leave!

Ahaha. I feel like this a LOT of the time. 10/10.

Yeah, the potential for this game, because of their design philosophy, is fairly limitless – it’s so easy to build upon what they made at the beginning; what irks players more than the design is the lack of any actual, meaningful, impacting expansion to the design.

“My question is: how will you react, if this second Feature Patch will be as lacking of real change as the first one?”

Hmm..I would probably just log on and do what I do normally. I’m not going to get in an uproar over a game that I don’t have to pay a subscription for. That’s just me though.

Well, here we are with basics of what they are changing. From an Engineer pov I have to say yep it’s definitely as lacking as the first one and isn’t even addressing the most basic of problems in the engineer class. Anyone else find this as troublesome as I do in their class lists of changes? Find it as lacking or missing the entire list of problems the playerbase in your class forum has listed for months now?

Their architecture allows adding a lot of things as time goes on, but unfortunately the bug fest we get with these updates puts a sad face on players. Anet’s QA is one of the worse.

SaltyDave.7346:

WHY THELL IS EVERYONE STUCK WITH THAT REVIEW. STOP IT.

THE THREAD HAD A CLEARLY HIGHLIGHTED QUESTION IT IS ABOUT.

And for all those who seem to be more concerned about my review than you should be, my attitude and overall opinion is VERY far from negative.

It’s hard to take that at face value with a question basically being loaded with shotgun shells and handed off for us to answer. If I do answer it, I ‘admit’ the first Feature Patch was lacking . . . whatever I think of the upcoming one.

So, I’ll do the Socratic thing and answer your question with a question:

Exactly why do you say the first one lacked anything of substance?