Guild Wars 2

Ok, so it’s been a few days now since the expansion has been released. And ever since then, I’ve been seeing a lot of negative comments, and even bashings going on from the community towards ArenaNet. I’ve seen everything from “this expansion sucks”, to “ArenaNet screwed up again”, to “gg ArenaNet what a waste of time”. There’s been worse and there’s been better.

I really don’t like the fact that people have to be this rude, and this harsh about a game. I mean, we’ve all been wanting new content, we’ve all be wanting raids, we’ve all been wanting guild halls, and they’ve given it to us. If anything, a lot of the things we do ask for, they give us, and if not, they at least consider it and reply to us and actually give us feedback. I have played many MMO’s before where developers don’t reply to you, and don’t give a crap and have the mentality of “if you don’t like the game, don’t play it”. At least when we have complaints here, such as veterans not getting anything for pre-purchasing, or certain classes being too overpowered, or whatever it may be, ANet has listened and given us something, or fixed things that we didn’t like. Besides, they are still running a business, and business can get ugly sometimes, but people need to stop thinking they are just some bosses behind their desk that just want to screw us over for money constantly.

I think it’s really rude and heartless to bring people down and call someone’s work a piece of trash when they’ve put time and effort into it. And this isn’t everyone, but I know for a fact that there are more people making threads to complain and swear about something than praise it. I mean I do YouTube and make videos for Guild Wars 2 (“Gaming with GS” if you’re interested), and if I invest a lot of time in a video and people comment negative things, yeah it brings me down sometimes. So I know that devs reading the forums or reddit seeing people trash their work can affect them too. I for one like the expansion, and I appreciate the work that they’ve put into it. Yeah, maybe there are some bugs, maybe there are some things that need to be changed or rethought, maybe people still are running Zerker gear, maybe it does suck that you can’t use your elite spec for most of the story, but at least they tried. And if we don’t like something we can post about, we can give our opinions, but not in a way that I’ve seen in some of these threads.

I play with my gf, and best friend, and we’ve made some great friends on this game and are loving the expansion. And if we find a problem with something we’ll post on here, but we certainly won’t sit here and rant and bash the developers for something that we don’t like. Some people on here need to have better manners and realize that we’re all still human, and we all have the ability to screw up. So with that said, thank you ArenaNet, for making this expansion that we’ve all been waiting for and for continuing to put up with our crap and looking past those who just want to bring negativity to the community and still caring.

And by no way am I trying to glorify ANet, because I know no one’s perfect. I just think that in past few days some people have really been inconsiderate and not thought about what they are posting.

They haven’t given us anything. We had to pay for it.

While I agree people don’t have to be rude, a lot of the complaints are valid imo.

fellyn.5083:

They haven’t given us anything. We had to pay for it.

What this guy said. There is a certain amount of quality you expect when you spend MONEY on something. If they gave it to you for free then you are free to say “thank you for what you’ve given me”. But they didn’t give you it, they sold it to you and you as a consumer should expect a certain amount of quality.

Regardless of if you agree or not with people’s criticisms they are CONSTRUCTIVE criticisms that should be acknowledged if Anet wants to maintain a good relationship with the players who ultimately may spend money in the ingame shop. I already know of at least one person who put Anet on his “do not buy dlc from” list due to the expansion. I’m in the middle but leaning towards not supporting them if they don’t ultimately fix more stuff in the expansion.

Not requiring T4 Itzel is a start, but it is really buggy and I currently cannot advance the story because of it. This is not satisfactory to a 50 dollar product, and definitely not satisfactory enough for me to buy more things out of the cash shop with real money.

Don’t apologize for me. They devalued the core game and took away earned guild upgrades and paywalled them to leverage HoT. That is unethical and I have no shame stating it.

What is T4 Itzal exactly required for?

I think a lot of the negativity, mine included, comes from the fact that many people loved or still kinda love the game and want to see it last many years. Unfortunately, it becomes evident over time, though, that the game is predictably problem laden.

I think some of the most vocal opponents to HoT have many valid reasons to be vocal and the inability to “play how you want” shines very intenesly after the new patch. Prior to this it was general lack of “equality” being given to the 3 main game divisions: pve, wvw, and pvp. Now it is completely gated by pve to progress equally in the 3.

maniamsmart.7981:

I mean, we’ve all been wanting new content, we’ve all be wanting raids, we’ve all been wanting guild halls, and they’ve given it to us.

Like the others have said, ArenaNet has not “given” us anything, they are requiring people to pay a very high price – $50,00 is not the usual for an expansion – for this content update. And they haven’t given us raids yet, for the records – they said they will give us one wing of one raid, but we don’t know when exactly that will happen.

maniamsmart.7981:

I think it’s really rude and heartless to bring people down and call someone’s work a piece of trash when they’ve put time and effort into it.

Honestly, looks like a lot of people have left ArenaNet recently anyway.

Jon Peters, former Game Design Lead? Left ArenaNet a few months ago to join Amazon.

Eric Flannum, former Lead Designer for GW2? Left ArenaNet to also join Amazon.

Kristen Perry, the main artist behind the Sylvary look? Left ArenaNet a couple months ago.

And it seems like Anet’s silence is deafening. I guess “communication” has always been an issue for them, but at least now they losing a lot of goodwill between the community.

I’m a fanboy of anet and gw2. But even me need to be honest here. This expansion gave us a lot of good stuff, but a lot of very bad stuff too.

Life Teofa said, they took away part of the core game and put it behind HoT as if it was new content. As much as the new 4 maps are fantastic IMO.

- Legendary Crafting is complete garbage and not worth the 2 years delay for the 2nd generation of legendary.

- Outside of the new maps, there is pretty much zero new content. Fractal were nerfed to the ground and they only added more scale. Worst, they added even more power creep into them that the game already had.

- Guild were completely butchered. It look so much like the fractal reset to 30. We worked hard enough to unlock our buff and the guild missions were a fun guild event even if they were old. This week was a nightmare for me as an officer. We lost all our buff, can’t craft the items we had access too and guild missions was a complete nightmare this week. Anet can scew up a new content, it happen, but no reason to destroy our current content.

This doesn’t mean that the expansion is a complete garbage. I have a ton of fun with the masteries, the glider is SO MUCH FUN. The new maps are so cool. The expedition was hard to lead, but with more than 100 people it was a success. I’m a collection kitten and I’ll have enough to keep me occupied for a long time. But removing/nerfing/putting behing gate old content is one of the worst decision Anet did in a long time.

Akkeros.1675:

I think a lot of the negativity, mine included, comes from the fact that many people loved or still kinda love the game and want to see it last many years. Unfortunately, it becomes evident over time, though, that the game is predictably problem laden.

I think some of the most vocal opponents to HoT have many valid reasons to be vocal and the inability to “play how you want” shines very intenesly after the new patch. Prior to this it was general lack of “equality” being given to the 3 main game divisions: pve, wvw, and pvp. Now it is completely gated by pve to progress equally in the 3.

Well I get that. But do you really think they intended to do that? I can’t see them purposely doing so for a game they love. So I don’t see why people have to treat the xpac as if it’s trash.

I can’t speak for others but whenever I criticise a game, I do so because I care.
If I don’t care I will simply leave and play something else.

Well, I’m having a blast.

It is certainly possible for someone to post criticism without resorting to pejoratives, but a lot of people react emotionally. This type of reaction increase exponentially when money is involved. While I think it’s worthwhile to issue a call for civility, I don’t think anyone is served by a call to not be critical.

Were I running a company, I’d be looking to see what the underlying concerns are and not focusing on the verbiage. What so often happens in forums, though, is that discussions tend to center around correcting assumptions, verbiage, sometimes even spelling and grammar. Reading the complaints with an eye to what’s behind it leads to understanding what about one’s product has caused such anger. Sometimes, posters give you that explicitly, other times they don’t. Asking for clear, concise feedback is also worthwhile, but sometimes you have to work with what you get. A large customer base is going to include people with different backgrounds, languages, concerns, and maturity. All of those factors can impact what they say and how they say it.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

I can’t speak for others but whenever I criticise a game, I do so because I care.
If I don’t care I will simply leave and play something else.

This. I have hundreds of games between steam and 5 or 6 consoles, but keep coming back to GW2, but I feel it’s worth it. I participate in the forums because I want to see the game improve. ANet’s communication skills over the years has been somewhat frustrating, to say the least, but I wonder how much of that is being controlled by the top levels. As it evolves it does get further and further away from their “play your own way” mission statement which, again, I believe to be more a top-level executive decision. They need to keep people playing and they need that carrot for the hardcore to keep them interested. My fear, for myself and many others who have been around since launch, is that as the game becomes more and more “Just another MMO”, the more people who will leave, leaving only the hardcore. I chose GW2, for many reasons, not least of which the fact that it has a low grinding requirement that I was seeing many complain about with WoW and all the Korean grinders. With ascended crafting and now RAIDs which will apparently require ascended gear, RAIDS are now gated behind a massive grind and gold requirement. Even the new maps are time gated behind masteries and grinding out XP to fill mastery requirements. This is dictating how I must play.

The OP is not saying you do not have the right to complain. OP is pointing out you are complaining in a RUDE way. You have no social graces. There is a way to get a point across without being rude. Catch with honey not vinegar.

I’m enjoying the expansion. Granted I’ve not played alot of it, the one thing I really don’t like is the masteries gating everything. Masteries are not what I expected, they feel more like a reputation grind from WoW. Only good thing is that you only have to do it once.

Having a blast playing the expansion, great job anet.

Drow.2081:

The OP is not saying you do not have the right to complain. OP is pointing out you are complaining in a RUDE way. You have no social graces. There is a way to get a point across without being rude. Catch with honey not vinegar.

Yes, thank you. This is what I’m saying.

maniamsmart.7981:

Akkeros.1675:

I think a lot of the negativity, mine included, comes from the fact that many people loved or still kinda love the game and want to see it last many years. Unfortunately, it becomes evident over time, though, that the game is predictably problem laden.

I think some of the most vocal opponents to HoT have many valid reasons to be vocal and the inability to “play how you want” shines very intenesly after the new patch. Prior to this it was general lack of “equality” being given to the 3 main game divisions: pve, wvw, and pvp. Now it is completely gated by pve to progress equally in the 3.

Well I get that. But do you really think they intended to do that? I can’t see them purposely doing so for a game they love. So I don’t see why people have to treat the xpac as if it’s trash.

I agree. I do not think it is intentional, just lack of “what ifs” during planning.
The area created, itself, is just fine and not bad, just not my type of game. It reminds me of jumping puzzles or jumping being a part of fractals. Both of those I can avoid but still play other aspects of the game with full potential.
This I cannot avoid if I want to play with full potential.
That is all

The reality is that people have been complaining about the state of GW2 since 4 months in. Ever since the winter of 2013 I remember people saying GW2 is dead and won’t last, and yet here it is still going strong. There have been many legit gripes over the years and many less so legit gripes, but as a constant, ANet rarely acknowledges the problems and is notorious for merging and shutting down threads to bury problems.

People complain about the state of loot, but most playing these days weren’t around in those early days after Lost Shores was released. This seems to be the turning point where most people started to notice serious problems with the loot tables. Loot was a VERY BLEAK thing for many months and the mere mention of going after a champion or doing a world boss was enough to bring out barrage of bitter flaming on chat, because the rewards were THAT bad and typically not high enough to even cover the WP fees and cost of repairs.

People have been complaining about the horrible condition damage vs. direct damage imbalance for as long as I’ve been playing, over 3 years. They only JUST made an attempt to fix that in what, July? August? Of course, now many world bosses just melt and need better balancing, but at least a group of condi users can actually be effective now…in theory.

Many people complain about the RNG, which typically falls on deaf ears. People did complain much worse about the RNG back in the days before champ chests and daily rewards from world bosses and temples. Again, in those days, blues/greens, 99% of the time, with no daily “rare” chest.

Why are you apologizing for others? Those of us who made statements critical of HoT had reasons for doing so. It’s not your place to apologize for anyone else.

To be honest. An MMO Release without a Crapstorm would’ve been too good to be true but it was expected. Everyone has different Expectations of the Game and so it is bound to create a Crapstorm where People are rude and arguing with Reason won’t get you anywhere.
Its normal in the First few Weeks that you see mostly negative Stuff and most of the negative Stuff is about one Thing.

What I just don’t understand is one Thing. The CoF Farm now. I’ve seen many People who complained about the amount of XP needed for the Masteries saying that they aren’t about getting everything on a Silver Platter or handed over instantely and now? Guess next Time I should throw this as an Argument everytime someone says that he denies that he wants to get everything on a Silver Platter. ( Just hope that the ones here complaining are reasonable enough to not use is and then saying Stuff like this )

maniamsmart.7981:

Drow.2081:

The OP is not saying you do not have the right to complain. OP is pointing out you are complaining in a RUDE way. You have no social graces. There is a way to get a point across without being rude. Catch with honey not vinegar.

Yes, thank you. This is what I’m saying.

They’re big boys and girls at ANet, they can handle it. Especially when they have all of the cash we spent on this expansion pack to stuff their pillows at night.

This expansion isn’t something they made out of the kindness of their hearts; they made the expansion to get paid. And paying customers often feel swindled when they’re deceived about certain aspects of the expansion just to lure in pre-purchases.

Kanebrake.6192:

Why are you apologizing for others? Those of us who made statements critical of HoT had reasons for doing so. It’s not your place to apologize for anyone else.

I had to scratch my head a little over this, as well. Certainly comments like “Anet sucks” is purely emotional and just venting. However, I’ve seen a lot more comments where people were passionate, but remained considerate, articulated themselves, and didn’t resort to name-calling.

Certainly, they put in a lot of work, and it shows in the beauty of the maps, the intensity of the storyline, and a bunch of other things. Some things however, just aren’t working for a lot of people, and there’s nothing wrong with voicing your disapproval of it.

I understand the gesture, but I think most people have behaved themselves fairly well, all things considered.

My brain will literally implode if I ever head to a games forums after a content release and see an entire community in lockstep praise for a developer.

I’ll play the hypocrite and apologize for you for apologizing for others.

RustyMech.9876:

I’ll play the hypocrite and apologize for you for apologizing for others.

No thanks. Because the things that I’ve seen in map chat, forums, and Reddit are uncalled for and plainly rude and disrespectful. You can voice your opinion and give feedback without being a kitten. It is possible.

maniamsmart.7981:

RustyMech.9876:

I’ll play the hypocrite and apologize for you for apologizing for others.

No thanks. Because the things that I’ve seen in map chat, forums, and Reddit are uncalled for and plainly rude and disrespectful. You can voice your opinion and give feedback without being a kitten. It is possible.

There comes a time when the kid gloves come off and you deal with adults as adults. Including saying/writing things that might not be all hugs and cuddles.

Kanebrake.6192:

maniamsmart.7981:

RustyMech.9876:

I’ll play the hypocrite and apologize for you for apologizing for others.

No thanks. Because the things that I’ve seen in map chat, forums, and Reddit are uncalled for and plainly rude and disrespectful. You can voice your opinion and give feedback without being a kitten. It is possible.

There comes a time when the kid gloves come off and you deal with adults as adults. Including saying/writing things that might not be all hugs and cuddles.

Still doesn’t justify it as right or okay. I am an adult and I certainly don’t call “this xpac is garbage, so much for the hype train kittening idiots” as adult talk.

Believe me I understand where you’re coming from. But my post is mainly towards those who talk like that quoted message in map chat and come on the forums to only complain, list no suggestion, and have no respect to then never come back to their own thread.

There’s a difference between “hugs and cuddles” and helpful feedback and plain insulting.

“We’ve all been wanting raids”

? Who the kitten is ‘We’? I sure as kitten didnt want this game to become a PvE fest. I have other outlets for PvE if I so choose to do that (FFXIV)

The complaints are completely warranted, the expansion is not very good. That being said there’s no need to flame the devs, we can complain without losing out minds. I really hope they make some swift changes though.

My friends, guild, family are loving this expansion. Not everyone hates it, and most of the time the maps have been well populated despite the naysaying and Halloween

For me personally, I am disappointed at the amount of grinding involved with the new specs, which were the main reason I got HoT. I really didn’t have much interest in the new areas as I hadn’t even fully explored the old world yet and I was hoping to be able to do it as a druid and I had saved about 100 points which I had hoped was enough to unlock enough of the spec to be useful but sadly, it wasn’t.

That being said, I do think that the mastery system is probably a decent way to do horizontal progression for those who want it but I don’t feel that the new specs should be so intimately tied with them.

For me personally, I am disappointed at the amount of grinding involved with the new specs, which were the main reason I got HoT. I really didn’t have much interest in the new areas as I hadn’t even fully explored the old world yet and I was hoping to be able to do it as a druid and I had saved about 100 points which I had hoped was enough to unlock enough of the spec to be useful but sadly, it wasn’t.

That being said, I do think that the mastery system is probably a decent way to do horizontal progression for those who want it but I don’t feel that the new specs should be so intimately tied with them.

Overall, though, from the bit I played in HoT, it seems good but I do wonder what happens when people move on and the zones become less populated.

Kanebrake.6192:

maniamsmart.7981:

RustyMech.9876:

I’ll play the hypocrite and apologize for you for apologizing for others.

No thanks. Because the things that I’ve seen in map chat, forums, and Reddit are uncalled for and plainly rude and disrespectful. You can voice your opinion and give feedback without being a kitten. It is possible.

There comes a time when the kid gloves come off and you deal with adults as adults. Including saying/writing things that might not be all hugs and cuddles.

Even adults know that you don’t get change by saying "Your stuff sucks, you’re a bunch of liars and thieves. Seriously, what world do you live in where this works? Diplomacy and empathy tempered with a strong frame is what gets stuff done in the real world, not selfish, childish ranting.

The internet has seriously turned into this rotting cesspool of bile and filthy thanks to the anonymity it offers. People hide who they are, chest thump and just in general say and do things they would never do in real life.

Do you guys seriously believe that insulting anet is the way to get things to change? They even have a thread titled HOW TO GIVE FEEDBACK! Whether or not they’re emotionally affected by it, the mods have thousands of posts to read through. If there’s one gem hidden in 10 pages of bile, they’ll skip it. That’s just common sense. It’s naive on the parts of you guys to think anyone has time to read every single post, word for word just because you’re a customer. Do you seriously think someone’s job is to sit there and read every single comment you put in the comment box, especially when everyone is blowing problems hugely out of proportion? Hero points are the biggest complaint I’ve seen, yet last night in about 4 hours I got 150ish hero points, and gliding 2 done at the same time without using any guides. This is hardly what I’d consider end of the world talk that people on the forums make it out to be. Maybe 10 hours invested to get your elite specialization is this daunting task, maybe it’s not fun (personally, I had a blast); I don’t know. “Fun” is relative/subjective to the individual, therefore it’s worthless in helping the dev team do anything to help you. Give details about what would make this fun for you. Complaining then saying “fix it” is not constructive in the slightest, yet that’s 99% of what I’ve seen on the forums. Even reddit has had more constructive feedback, REDDIT!

Then realize that anet’s team is quite good about giving updates. You paid $50 for an expac that comes with years of support, changes, story updates, etc. I paid $50 for gw2 and between the living story updates, balances, updates to old systems, etc, I’ve more than gotten my money’s worth. I doubt HoT is going to be any different. Considering that most MMO’s don’t get that level of support, $50 is a bargain bin price.

Ive seen so many people enjoying it, its kinda weird coming onto the forums and seeing the complaints.

I am intrigued.

I personally love the expansion, even the “grind” (which isn’t really a grind at all) and I know tons of other people have as well. To the people saying this isn’t what we payed for, it sure is because they delivered what they said. You got all the new content, if you don’t like it thats your problem not Anets. I know they have worked very kitten this and to have people call it trash or threaten a dev, its just rude as kitten. I know it seems like a lot of people are complaining, but the ones who love it are usually playing the game and not raging on the forums.

Thank you Anet for all you have done and can’t wait to see whats next!

Forums mainly attract negative comment.
People like me who are having fun with HOT wont bother posting about it.
No one was forced to buy HOT.