Guild Wars 2

Removing the dyes as a drop will make getting the legendary associated with collecting dyes that much more tedious. Yes they reduced the number required but being forced to either craft or buy them was a bad idea and only serves to steer the more casual gamers away from the game. As an example, One of my guildies was staring down the barrel at some serious grinding, which given that she is a new mother would have required years of her time that she didn’t have. Luckily I had a mass of unidentified dyes refunded so I gifted her the whole 100 she needed.

I’ve played enormous numbers of hours of GW2 and have largely enjoyed it but like the OP have been disappointed by the lack of substantial content improvements and additions over the last year or so. When southsun was opened and there was the huge battles with the karka, I felt that that was the way the game direction should be headed. The living story had its moments but there wasn’t the same sense of tension that you’d have fighting the karka queen because you knew you could just come back and do it again and again and again.

The patch was exactly what it was supposed to be. A change to core mechanics so future mechanics can be added. This includes the megaserver technology which makes it easier for the company to introduce new zones.

I know this isn’t your problem OP, but the game is launching in China right now and it’s a major undertaking. I don’t know of ANY game that has huge amounts of content during a major release.

There’s plenty of content in the game for players like me, there’s just not enough content in the game for players like you, which is fair enough.

Good luck finding a new game with more content.

At the end of the day, I’ll still log in and do the same things I did before the patch. WvW and same Dungeon rotation for gold.

Decent QOL patch, doesn’t add anything major to the game though.

medohgeuh.4650:

TheLaughingMan.4320:

And what do you think will happen to the mat prices for 375/400 tier dye recipes once the stockpiles are gone?

Nothing, because people are always harvesting and selling mats on the TP.

Well, the cost of that mats will go up, because people will have a reason to buy them now.

Nage.1520:

The patch was exactly what it was supposed to be. A change to core mechanics so future mechanics can be added. This includes the megaserver technology which makes it easier for the company to introduce new zones.

Megaserver technology is not “a change to the core mechanics so future mechanics can be added”. I’s more like welding and duct-taping something that doesn’t integrate well with any other mechanic in the game (hammering it into shape when necessary – and if something else goes splat, so be it). You cannot build upon faulty foundations, and that’s what megaserver currently is.

Out of all the changes, basically the only one that doesn’t have drawbacks equal to (or outweighting) the gains is the Wardrobe (though i may be biased there, as people that were extensively using town clothes might have a different view on this one).

If you consider this to be “what was supposed to be”, then obviously you have a very, very low expectations of Anet. Lower than i do – and the only thing i hoped for was for them to not make the things any worse than they were before.

Sekhmet.6153:

Yeah I really think Living Story turned out to be a colossal waste of their time and could have been spent giving everyone a couple permanent zones, dungeons, jumping puzzles, armor skins, legendary weapons and maybe even a few new skills.

Instead, they spent months and months working on and rolling out story releases that lasted less than a month each and are no longer accessible to anyone.

I completely agree with you…
The game needs more and more feature packs after april 15, so they mustn’t stop working on new game features. I think arenanet needs 2 seperate teams after the end of living story: one for constantly developing new features, one for developing permanent+new game content.(and maybe expansions?) I think, new features and permanent content is the only way to use this game’s potential. Gw2 has much more potential than current mmos, just needs some work.
I also think, temporary content just wasted developers’ effort and workforce for one year. The game would be like “gw3” if all that effort was spent for new features and perma-content.

I remember back when I played Guild Wars 1. I actually enjoyed it, despite it being something different, considering I hadn’t played an MMO like Guild Wars prior to being recommended it by a friend.

I met friends, enemies, guilds and alliances. The updates were good and it genuinely had me hooked for a solid 4-5 years, before Guild Wars 2 released.

Whoever is in charge now doesn’t have a clue. Bring back the developers who made Guild Wars 1 what it was. Bring back the permanent content, new zones and better yet, bring us an expansion.

My current feeling towards Guild Wars 2 is summed up by a few steps. 1) Log in 2) Talk to Guild, Do a Dungeon if I feel up to it 3) Log out. That’s not right. You should be hooking me ArenaNet, but you’re not. Sorely dissapointed.

raahk.2786:

I feel like this is one of the few sane posts on these forums. Everywhere else there are people praising arenanet for removing the ability to run champion trains, nerfing the already incredibly poor dungeon loot, and essentially charging you to reuse skins you’ve bought prior. And we can’t forget that nerf to the berserker armor that doesn’t change the game in any meaningful way, outside of making it so coordinated groups take slightly more time to complete a dungeon.

I think the comparison to “battered wife syndrome” is an clever one, considering the amount of people on these forums that are praising arenanet for such asinine, pointless changes in favor of actual balance and permanent content.

This update would’ve been mediocre if AT LEAST the wardrobe didn’t require you to purchase something to use skins you’ve already bought, but it’s worse than mediocre at this point.

Something tells me this thread will be removed either way. Can’t have anyone criticizing poor development choices or business practices, no siree.

Apparently you haven’t checked the forums at all before this post. GW2 forums is created specifically to hate on the company and complain, 90% of the threads are whining ones and people who have positive feedback, don’t bother checking the forums.

This thread is no different than the +1000 others complaining about the living story and lack of permenant content. People have to accept it, Anet took a path and wanted to try it and they did, that’s what this lovely MMO-industry asked for: innovation. If you want new things, you have to accept experimenting and if you can’t accept experimenting, GW2 isn’t your game.

Well I have said the same things many times before.

The game has not been moving anywhere since release. Unfortunately I might have said it too often though, as nowadays I can only post once every 10 mins as a restriction to pointing out obvious flaws too often.

I would like to praise ANet with every post I can write every 10 mins, but with this patch? I do not know where to start, but praising is not part of it.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Well I have said the same things many times before.

The game has not been moving anywhere since release. Unfortunately I might have said it too often though, as nowadays I can only post once every 10 mins as a restriction to pointing out obvious flaws too often.

I would like to praise ANet with every post I can write every 10 mins, but with this patch? I do not know where to start, but praising is not part of it.

Apparently though, you have seen what is coming and you have been active enough to bash the patch on every thread you could find the last weeks. It isn’t something new if you will start bashing again here.

papryk.6273:

BloodFallsSilent you post was so full of win
that I even bothered to login of this forum to give you a +1

I feel the same way you do. I wont probably play gw2 again until they release an expansion that will be worth it (guild halls, end game, real PvP). No pre-purchase for sure…

Same over here. I feel exactly the same way…
Spent over 1000h+ in the game(and a lot of money in the gem store) and most of the time I was playing WvW (Kodash, Germany) because this was the only reason why I kept logging in(from time to time also 1-2h for a special skin from LS).

I wont try to explain all the reasons why I gave away all my gold to the WvW commanders of my guild and why I left the game because BloodFallsSilent already explained it better than I could do with my bad english (my native language is german).

The only thing I can say is that this “balance” patch and the fact that the acc bound Wxps still arent in the game were the last updates I was looking forward in this game. I dont have a real intention to regrind all my ascended gear for all my characters, if others have the will to do that, then I wish you a pleasing time doing it. Perhaps I will come back when an expansion came out.

Edit: Ok, didnt read the patch notes carefully. Wxps are now here, but how long did it take, was annouced last year in October?!?!

I don’t think I could be let down anymore than I was already, by the painfully slow updates and no new content.

I just literally logged in for 30 minutes and couldn’t find anything to do.

Should I now be collecting all the armor skins? Why? I already have the skins I want.
Should I be collecting dyes? I already had Abyss and Celestial and 75% of the other dyes.
Should I quit my WvW guild because of the unbalanced Season to join a PvE guild and do the world bosses to get horribe loot not worth the effort – Tequati and Wurm?
Or maybe I should do my FOTM daily run (more than 500 runs totally) and hope to get the GS skin I want?
The WXP is great and all, it took me 30 seconds to redistribute my points again.

Traits for my guardian are a joke. I’m not planning on getting any of them any time soon.

ive been playin since 2012 and been through the changes good and bad and im still here playing gw2 and having fun and will continue to do so til they shut the game dwn, I don’t get hung up on trivial stuff like dyes and town clothes, my fun comes from running with my friends and gf doing the hearts, pois etc and just havin a good time

I totally agree with the op post and I have played this game a lot of hours, for last six months I was hopeful something good will come at end of ls some nice story line towards new areas but all this game is going toward heartbreaking . making all my hard work and self achievement sense to zero ankitten ot saying it just by playing like average gamer . I spent 7900 hours in this game made a lot of things most of them are now compeletly deleted . still am ok with it change is a good thing but at least dont fool a loyal player to your game with all this one month wait for what , update which is mostly fixes and not even major fixes just things to make money. First rule to any game which make money keep an eye on your most loyal gaming segment they will support your game for long , but now it feels like we are the most neglected in this game. Who care you made two legendaries of one skin suck it up, you made two infinite lights suck it up, you spend a lot of gems on town clothes and outfits suck it up and move on . but I guess not anymore

Astralporing.1957:

medohgeuh.4650:

TheLaughingMan.4320:

And what do you think will happen to the mat prices for 375/400 tier dye recipes once the stockpiles are gone?

Nothing, because people are always harvesting and selling mats on the TP.

Well, the cost of that mats will go up, because people will have a reason to buy them now.

Nage.1520:

The patch was exactly what it was supposed to be. A change to core mechanics so future mechanics can be added. This includes the megaserver technology which makes it easier for the company to introduce new zones.

Megaserver technology is not “a change to the core mechanics so future mechanics can be added”. I’s more like welding and duct-taping something that doesn’t integrate well with any other mechanic in the game (hammering it into shape when necessary – and if something else goes splat, so be it). You cannot build upon faulty foundations, and that’s what megaserver currently is.

Out of all the changes, basically the only one that doesn’t have drawbacks equal to (or outweighting) the gains is the Wardrobe (though i may be biased there, as people that were extensively using town clothes might have a different view on this one).

If you consider this to be “what was supposed to be”, then obviously you have a very, very low expectations of Anet. Lower than i do – and the only thing i hoped for was for them to not make the things any worse than they were before.

I don’t have low expectations. I have a completely different view of the mega server concept, which we haven’t seen because Anet has yet to truly implement it.

I don’t know about you, but I play at off hours. Even in the busiest servers, there are dead zones at those times. Having more people around will make my game a whole lot better.

Do I care if I never face Tequatl again? I’m sure some people do, but I don’t. I play differently than you do, so I have a different opinion of the changes. The question is what percentage of people will be advantaged compared to what percentage of people would be disadvantaged by the changes.

Since we haven’t seen it in action, we can only guess the answer to that.

Just wanted to say that you put the situation well, BloodFallsSilent.1703. I’m an old player too – having played the world’s first ever 3D sandbox game (a space combat and trading simulator called —-- E L I T E —--) on a BBC Microcomputer no less! And I expect a lot out of games. I will admit to playing a couple of other games, but Guild Wars 2 keeps me coming back, but just recently the content, the things to do, the places – done it all, seen it all, been it all – so what’s next? I expected ArenaNET to release new maps, so we would have new places to explore, but no, all they have done is re-hashed existing ones; making them over into combat zones. When I brought the game it was with the understanding that they would open the world map out with a new region or two being released a year at a time, so we would have more places to have fun in. Clearly this is not the case and now I am growing tired of waiting. As a hardcore player, who often puts in sixteen hour days in here, I want to know why more content is not being developed and added? Given the staff that I am sure ArenaNET have, why we have yet to see the Dominion of Winds or the Crystal Design or a return to places which appeared in the original Guild Wars?

Agree with most of what OP said. The thing that eventually will make me leave is this constant “reminding” of gemshop.
Or maybe not. As it seems I need to learn French to understand map chat in the megaserver zones, it may goes faster.
Sometimes it feels like there is 3-4 departments that have turns at deciding where this game are going.
Still like the world of Tyria, and always will do though.

I must say, OP, awesome post.

I wholeheartedly agree, this game is such a disappointment compared to GW1. I’ve bought all of them, and after ~4 years of the game I couldn’t get bored. I loved my ranger, now I hate playing ranger in GW2 as each day passes. The game had both exciting leveling content and great end-game content, and even speedclears were kinda fun! Now dungeons have all these different mechanics and what do you do? Stack at that tree, stack in that corner so it’s all easy as cake.

Plus, I loved vanquishing. And Hard Mode as a whole..

Since GW2 released ArenaNet has always taken one step forward and one ortwo steps back. Take a loot back at Ascended gear. Putting in a new progression dungeon(fotm) was good, having upgrades that would specifically help in that dungeon was also good, but making a higher tier of gear and allowing it outside the dungeon completely negated any good that was done. Then it was guild missions which was a good idea, however small guilds need not apply so that was bad. Even this patch. New traits are a good idea, however a complete trait revamp that screws new players is bad. This list can certainly go on.

I will commend that ArenaNet is at least finally making some bigger changes(whether they are the right ones or not is very debatable), however they need to keep them up and really put thought behind their designs. Another feature patch simply can’t take more than 3 months. New games are coming and customers faith is already on it’s last legs. They cannot stick to the glacial pace of class fixes/balance, they can’t keep putting out temporary content when the core game is lacking. The main thing that has even afforded them the time they’ve gotten so far is simply the B2P model.

just repeating what many have kindly stated, i agree with the opening post and many others have stated some things better than i could

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Well I have said the same things many times before.

The game has not been moving anywhere since release. Unfortunately I might have said it too often though, as nowadays I can only post once every 10 mins as a restriction to pointing out obvious flaws too often.

I would like to praise ANet with every post I can write every 10 mins, but with this patch? I do not know where to start, but praising is not part of it.

this forum doesn’t take freedom of speech or non rear-kissing criticism very well..
this entire thread may or may not get deleted, consider yourself lucky as my account tyrannically had message privileges revoked, signature revoked, and an hour spam filter placed on posts simply because a moderator with poor comprehension skills decided to lash out with even poorer work ethic.. i can’t say whether or not the developers of this game have their customers to answer to.. but i can assure you, i won’t be spending real world currency until both faces of arena net exemplify a wealth of improvement

I was actually hoping this whole patch was just a huge April fools joke ..and I guess it was though not in the way I imagined. This patch has really got me rethinking this game.

Evans.6347:

I barely logged in to kill Scarlet, and that was only because it felt I should finish what I’ve been slugging through all this time, not out of excitement.

Same here. I got so tired of the updates every 2 weeks that not only I couldn’t keep up with eventually due to work, but then getting and feeling like I’ve been left behind.
I logged in to kill Scarlet for the same reason you did. I was so tired of her. I didn’t care about her. I barely know who the “new Destiny’s Edge 2.0” characters are.

Now, when I logged on today after the update, I realized there was not much permanent new in-game content since launch.

I miss a super expansion pack.
I wish I didn’t feel like I’m constantly being directed towards the gem shop.

I just learned TERA will be introducing a new class and huge updates about a month from now. The game is free to play as well. I think I will be checking it out.

Anet, please don’t think people won’t switch out of loyalty. I’ve been an active player for over 6 and a half years since GW1…..

Edit: I agree with many posts in this thread. Anet, I wish I could help you in some way! I wish I could sit in on a meeting to hear what points you consider. I wish I had access to statistics data. I want this game to rock!

Because they don’t wanna give up on the money.

This will be a short post because I have to go in about 5 minutes, but the problem is that there are lots of things in this game that are are completely free in other games.

The Wardrobe thing exists in City of Heroes (or DC Online maybe?).
Traveling costs… there werent even any in Guild Wars.
Repair is BS. They did get rid of that but they aren’t gonna get rid of the transmutation stones?

Because it’s a paywall. For gemstone shenanigans. It’s stupid, but it’s true. Arguments go left and right, but the gem stone is put into people’s face and things are behind a paywall to “subtly suggest” pulling out that credit card.

And I had done that too. I’m guilty of it too. This isn’t about that. This is about that Greed killed this game, pure devilish greed, and it’s a reanimated corpse. now. This isn’t about the game being successful (fiancially) or not. ArenaNet will likely not understand this post. Maaybe the last sentences will help.

This is about how it was not made by people who create works of art out of love, and how the world lost another good developer team. Which is sad. And maybe ArenaNet emmployees will realize by this sentance that this post was not written for them. Really all that’s left for intelligent people, and fans of Guild Wars here is to just reflect on the changes, purely out a need to vent the emotional frustration.

The only custructive thing you can say, or advise to people, is to never buy an ArenaNet game again.

Or for that matter, never again buy games that were made by a generation that was socialized to see the customer as some kind of an animal, and use tools of manipulation and suggestion.

chronus.1326:

… and use tools of manipulation and suggestion.

This is why, every time Anet gives us free stuff in the gem shop, I feel like they do it to direct our attention to the rest of the gem things.
To make sure those who don’t visit the gem shop tab now must, if they want the free stuff.

On another note: I don’t have hundreds of dollars to buy a couple hundred gold through the ridiculous price of gems to gold conversion (if I want to buy exotic armor for all my alts, and a few nicer skins like The Crossing that I haven’t been able to afford).
If Anet truly cared, they’d have put a cap on those prices. :/

Goodbye Old Friend. “Talyn…Starburst”

nGumball.1283:

This thread is no different than the +1000 others complaining about the living story and lack of permenant content. People have to accept it, Anet took a path and wanted to try it and they did, that’s what this lovely MMO-industry asked for: innovation. If you want new things, you have to accept experimenting and if you can’t accept experimenting, GW2 isn’t your game.

So basically, people aren’t allowed to give feedback on said innovation?

Innovation just for the sake of innovation is a poort business model.

Completely disagree with you on many points. (and bare with me, people on here know my reputation as one of the most vocal against certain things on this title, so your post is actually kind of ironic in many ways imo)

1: the game is beautiful one of the most beautiful I’ve played, it’s one of the things that I sincerely like about it.

2: the game absolutely needed these changes to help offset the use of zerker builds. I agree they could do more to improve the damage and healing of the other two types of builds in this game, they could even improve the use of CC but to fret over an over abused stat that the community has all but held this community hostage over (and oh yes they have with things like class prejudice, and gear score tactics they absolutely have) what they’ve done to zerker is the right thing to do.

3: when they nerfed to the ground condition damage, those of us who liked diversity in builds were very much against it, but we were told by the community at large that this game just wasn’t for us, to adapt or gtfo, that was literally the answer from many of you. Many of us did leave for a while. For me it was only the use of the CDI that brought me back to be curious as to what they’d do to fix these serious problems with their community.

4: In many ways the grind is unbarable for items, but I plan on waiting to see what all of their CDIs bring to the table before making final judgement, and who knows maybe they’ll have completed the changes necessary to bring diversity back, maybe they’ll have learned their lesson on how harmful to a community DR is, and maybe just maybe they’ll figure out that what they promised early on about content is what we really want, as you stated, permanent DE/metas every month instead of LS. But I plan on staying long enough to find out the final outcome. This IS the first of many updates they will be adding. Heck they’ve only had 2 count them 2 CDIs that’s hardly enough to find out anything and neither is 1 patch.

5: I too was curious about NCsoft titles, which is why I’m watching just how Wildstar will do especially as a sub only game. I am going to be watching closely to see if they too suddenly get a loot nerf, if they too require enormous materials to make anything worth while, and if they too get an NCsoft representative for their economist slot. I totally agree with you there, and I would suggest as a matter of long time perspective on these games and how they develop after launch, that you not pre-order, but I am at least giving them time enough to fix the plethora of problems with this game using the CDIs before making final judgement.

6: I’m the ideal person they’d want as well in marketing. I contracted a disease that harmed a vital organ and as such I’m restricted in many ways to home much of my time, but as you’ll see in my history, I’ve been very vocal even while taking a hiatus to vote with my wallet, that I was not happy with what the game had turned out to be. (a zerker filled champion trained gear treadmill grind fest through content that was not only temporary but boring for gear that should never have been allowed to be used in the open world or WvW in the first place) but like I said I’m willing to see what happens next with their CDIs.

So far the changes I’m seeing are actually positive ones even tho there’s still much more work to be done.

I kinda find this ironic to some degree, early on when this kind of nerf to a who class of PVE builds occurred this community told us to basically get over it and go play something else. Why isn’t that happening to the Zerkers I wonder? hmmm.

As far as I can see, the “Zerker” nerf is the least of the complaints.
Even so, the nerf was not even a solution to the problem. People will still play Zerker, they will just do less damage. It won’t change the mentality at all, just lessen it’s effectiveness to ‘still a little better than all other options’.

tigirius.9014:

Snip~ and stuff

Oh no I agree Zerkers needed a nerf. I do think that zerker gear should be allowed to restat for free, however. Because allot of people made their Ascended zerk gear because they were told, over and over again anything else was stupid and a waste.

I also think that the artstyle is generally good in GW2. Though its actually gotten quite a bit less appealing since launch. (I think the change they did to LoD did that for me. The older painterly look LoD had was way nicer)

But honestly, its the townclothes and megaserver and PVP change and well, everything. Wardrobe too. It just hurts. It feels like they walked up and spit in my eye. The fact is the game does feel like it just kind of floundered since launch. Nothing new worth raving about. (Fractals were nice. But honestly they have had the same issues since launch without any bother to address them)

A couple new armor sets (gems only, of course!) a bunch of temporary armor/gear/weapons. (Of course again, nothing non-gem or extreme grind only)

The extreme lameness of Living Story. The lack of anything.

Or perhaps just the improvement of mob mechanics so “stack and use melee” wasn’t the best strategy for every encounter. Perhaps enemies that used “We have lots of health and can oneshot you no matter the build” wasn’t the balance strategy of the game. I’m sorry. I still think eliminating the Trinity was a good idea. But there was nothing to replace it. There’s no roles. There are no real ‘classes’. There’s a series of stat bonuses that can be arranged in a certain pattern to allow optimal passing of content. Is it AC? Better have an Elementalist. Is it CM? Better have your guardians. There’s quite often a single class and then the best method of stacking might and fury while dealing the most damage possible during said process.

I didnt read all of that, but got the jist and Im in/was in the same boat. These updates are good, but not enough for me to reinstall. Living story, for me, ruined the game. All it did for me was show me that arenanet likes to give breadcrumb story and lore bits, with breadcrumb fluffy “content” in the form of zergs and mindless #1 key mashing, achievement hunting, and skin hunting. I see no form of true content, with true difficulty for both the solo and group play. I see no true open world system that encourages us to play in the open world and experience the dynamic events that launched with the game, and be handsomely rewarded. Living story borked this game far more than made positive change.

I play D3, and the expansion has me ADDICTED. I freakin love it. So much that I nearly regret my pre purchase/digital delux purchase of Wildstar. But Wildstar is a fantastic game as well with huge huge potential. Just some minor QoL changes with that game and we are in business.

GW2 still has a chance to correct some wrong doings. If they put out a blog saying they are going to head toward more traditional content updates instead of living story “zone of the week” crap, more open world dynamic event encouragement, and make ascended gear MUCH easier to acquire, I’d probably come back. In a heartbeat.

As a pure SPvPer, I cannot agree with your post more. The game shipped (in SPvP) in a beta-like state, and instead of adding to the amazing foundation (seriously, the combat in this game is brilliant), they chose to continue to spend time on nickle-and-diming the player with features like Paid Tournaments (that costed tokens, or gems to enter) and then eventually had to rip it out once the players screamed loud enough that Anet could hear it through their fingers in their ears while going, “la la la”.

It’s as if the people that made the game are captured German scientists in the 1930s. They want to do good, but they are forced to practice these terrible experiments. It feels like some suit walks into the office once every six months and says, “Well, if paid tournaments didn’t work. Try getting them to buy gems to play hotjoin. We’ll call it….custom arenas..but don’t really spend a lot of time making it so they can customize it too much. Get back to making gem store items”.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed your post. I hope maybe you will only remove the “i am now uninstalling” part, for fear they may blanket the entire post as an “I quit” post instead of the constructive criticism that it is.

1 final thought: I totally echo your feelings about “playing over a thousand hours and feeling like I’ve wasted my time”. For me, the combat keeps me coming back and the game itself lets me down. It’s like you keep going back to a woman, because of the…you know…but while you’re asleep, she always thumbs through your wallet, takes out your visa and goes and bails her boyfriend out of jail with it.

And no one is complaining about the blade shard merchant. This was announced BEFORE ANY OF THIS CRAP and its still not here.

Its the only thing i looked forward to aswell.

What a kittening joke..

Thank you BloodFallsSilent,

thank you for writing this insane post. You´ve said everything i have to say about the current state of this game.

Maybe A-Net will learn and listen to the players if we stop playing and buying gems now! I don`t know why it’s so hard for a developer to listen to the community and try to analyze what they want…

greetz
Gramlär

Well said OP, i have been feeling quite similar lately.

After the LS season 1 ended i suddenly realized there is absolutely nothing i have to log on for.

Wardrobe is nice but it feels more like an additional cash grab than anything else.

They did this same crap with GW1, which turned off a lot of people.

Shen Slayer.3058:

They did this same crap with GW1, which turned off a lot of people.

Elaborate. I never played Gw1.

chronus.1326:

Or for that matter, never again buy games that were made by a generation that was socialized to see the customer as some kind of an animal, and use tools of manipulation and suggestion.

…this is your first MMO, I take it?

And THANK YOU BloodFallsSilent. Great post. I am incredibly disatisfied with this release as well. I have been waiting for new maps and adventures but instead got more grind, nerfs, costs and many others additions/changes that will have a negative impact on many.
So many fundemantal fixes were needed and not in this patch. I should really thank Anet for breaking my daily habit/routine of playing daily.

So here is what I got out of this long winded, petulant and utlimately whiney post.

So, like you, I’ve been playing games for years. I played muds. I played EQ when it came out. I was there in UO slogging it through what we had hoped would be a wonderful rp game and was instead griefer heaven.

And you know what I learned over time?

Your post, that you spent so long crafting? Thats … common.

Its so common its almost pointless to read it all. Its just someone complaining that the game doesnt meet their own desires. It doesn’t fulfill all their expectations.

If only it would change to do this.

Usually its filled with anecdotes about how they were doing some such thing they enjoyed, when they were hit with this epiphany. Why am I doing this? What is the point.

A few months ago, I quit GW2, went loaded up WoW again, subscribed for a month, logged in… and found that meh… the game had moved on without me. I hardly recognized it. I played some Diablo III, not bad, certainly fun, might try it some more. Played some Champions Online. Lots of FPS and such, and ultimately found my way back here.

Why? Simply because its fun for me.

And really that is what it comes down to. Is the game fun for you? If the answer is no – then move on. Try something else out. If you get the itch to return, indulge it.

There are a lot of games out there, there are lot of options. Options that were certainly not available in the early days of MMOs. Why limit yourself to one? Why try to play just one? Why even spend all the time and energy to write a long huge post about how this particular game is not what you want to be playing.

Now before people proclaim that everyone has the right to criticize, remember that right flows both ways. Yes, people have the right to criticize and suggest improvements, but other people have the right to criticize those that are criticizing.

My point is this – if you figure out that the game is not for you, then… the game is not for you.

Minami Kaori.2548:

chronus.1326:

… and use tools of manipulation and suggestion.

This is why, every time Anet gives us free stuff in the gem shop, I feel like they do it to direct our attention to the rest of the gem things.
To make sure those who don’t visit the gem shop tab now must, if they want the free stuff.

On another note: I don’t have hundreds of dollars to buy a couple hundred gold through the ridiculous price of gems to gold conversion (if I want to buy exotic armor for all my alts, and a few nicer skins like The Crossing that I haven’t been able to afford).
If Anet truly cared, they’d have put a cap on those prices. :/

oh my god, advertisement, a truly fiendish machination…

Everyone has their opinions, I love the game I really do but I’m not going to debase myself by being blind to the fact that they are clearly putting monetization ahead of everything, every decision being made. Secondly the op did hit the nail on the head, go to any website anywhere and you cannot in all honesty tell me that people are not clamoring for new major content updates. No living story will ever amount to an expansion, period…even Asheron’s Call which had monthly updates for a decade still added major expansions so Anet can’t even begin to claim they are being revolutionary with respect to LS.

They are bleeding and will continue to bleed for as long as they think they are safe then will overpromise and under deliver a content update. As far as I’m concerned, I will continue to play without paying until such time that a major content expansion is added and if that time doesn’t come and LS is all we have my wallet is closed. My family has spent hundreds of dollars supporting them but that stops until something is given back in return.

Finally read the whole post. Very nice OP. Very nice.

Lets hope this one stays open and not removed because there might be one “out of line” negative comment about the game. The OPs post was well thought out and written and expresses what many of us have had tried to express over the past year. Many people like the direction of the game with living story and pointless updates, but there are an equal amount of people with displeasure.

And yes, you can find a dozen similar MMOs to GW2. The whole “you dont need ascended gear to play other than fractals” argument is moot. I don’t need raid gear in WoW to play either, aside from raids and even then it takes a whopping day or two to get geared enough via dungeons and rep to get into LFR. So if you think about it, WoW’s content is almost or even more so available to a broader band of people.

Beside the point. Ive said it a hundred times since ascended gear, living story, stupid decisions…gw2 is no special unique snowflake.

Dear BloodFallsSilent, I second what you said. Let me remind you (and all other disappointed players, myself included) of the following ArenaNet post which I deem quite revealing, at this point: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success/

I agree.

There’s just a bunch of nerfs. I felt my combat effectiveness as an individual player reduced -and hence my feeling of individual importance within a zerg crowd- without even doing calculations. (and yes, ive updated my traits)

World bosses became somewhat tougher, but dont give considerably better loots in return. Otherwise still doable by the same amount of people in approximately the same amount of time up to a certain degree.

Traits changes dont matter much. Cosmetic changes to interface. New traits aren’t that interesting.

Megaservers are not up on the areas that matter.

So many minor changes to mechanics since Ive been playing since the release of this game but NOTHING feels different in a significant way.

I understand what all of you are saying, both the negatives and positives. However, I think people are missing the point here.

The living stories, in my opinion, are the driving force behind the game. They want the game to be driven by narration, sort of like the classic JRPGs like the FF series. I started playing this game with the mind set of grind to win and left 2 months after launch. I came back earlier this year and “actually” paid attention to the story line. I spent most of my time running around doing quests, talking to NPCs, walking around listening to the conversations so I could understand what has happened, to understand why this game even exists, why we are even fighting the dragons.

Since I came back only earlier this year, I missed out of 80% of the first season of LS. Did I really care about how all of this came about? Yes, I did and I was confused plus lost. However, if you actually cared and paid attention to the details places in the event zones, they are NPCs talking about it, sort of like recapping what has happened. Heck, even following the yellow points on the maps for the main story brings you back and if you actually paid attention and listened/watched the cut scenes, the story, a bit predictable but nevertheless interesting. (C’mon, every flipping Marvel movie is the same thing!)

When I hear people talking about “No perma content”, I agree with them but I ask “how big of a game do you think will be enough?” Even the best RPGs like FF7 was grind, grind, grind, grind and 5 hours boss fights. Do you want this? Will this be enough for your “end game” content? Wait, sorry you just get one shotted because you dont have the “end game gear” required.

The living stories are great as a driver. There are interesting and I like being entertained.

To summarize because most people can’t read,
1. LS is perfect because they want the game to be narratively driven.
2. End game content is just endgame gear in MMOs.
3. Listen to the stories, NPCs, chatter instead of whining “zerg fest events”
4. Grind fest? Look me in the eye and TELL ME FF7 is not a GRINDFEST.

This is an MMO. It is grinding. This is a RPG, it is supposed to be grinding!!!

I must say, OP, awesome post.
I wholeheartedly agree, this game is such a disappointment compared to GW1. I’ve bought all of them, and after ~4 years of the game I couldn’t get bored. I loved my ranger, now I hate playing ranger in GW2 as each day passes. The game had both exciting leveling content and great end-game content, and even speedclears were kinda fun! Now dungeons have all these different mechanics and what do you do? Stack at that tree, stack in that corner so it’s all easy as cake.
Plus, I loved vanquishing. And Hard Mode as a whole..

I think people sometimes forget how much Anet offers compared to most other MMOs. Sure there might be some better but on GW2 you have variety, more so than most other MMOs offer. You have a variety of dungeons which is pretty standard in a MMO then you have massive world bosses. There is also fractals which are fun and rewarding. There is the option of roaming the game world gathering, crafting, etc turning that into gold. I could go on but I think this covers what’s important. GW2 offers a lot to do and anyone that can’t find something fun to do that can also make them some gold is just not trying.

Well that didn’t work right lol, was going to wholeheartedly agree with subparticu (sp). Just liked the flow of gw1 better than this game. I liked my minion master build, or switching to SS and murdering fools myself. Miss there being a reason to progress further in the game, not just so I can loot another zone. Miss PERMANENT add on content.

Really don’t like that all friends want to do in this game is train champions, and they get better stuff from it when I’ve played the game twice as long. Kind of makes me tired of playing. This update was good, the trait thing is ok, but how about start adding some new zones, cause if not I’m gonna go back to my console games.

GW1 was a different game. I played GW1 and GW2 and see them as different sides of the same coin. GW1 was not balanced at all. I had no pre-conceived notions about the patch and there is good and bad, just like every other patch in every MMO I have played.

It is done and OP whining about it like you have does no one any good. Unlike other games, A.Net does collect tons of data which tells them what is working and not working. The changes are there to make ALL builds viable, just not the player decided meta game.

I think that Blood has just created the best post in forum history. Not only are his criticisms completely accurate and spot-on, but they are also constructive and incredibly articulate. I applaud your efforts and empathize entirely with your misgivings about this game.

This game has gotten so stale and the Living Story and misguided dev priorities are entirely at fault. Instead of getting meaningful content that adds depth and variety to the game, we get biweekly achievement point laundry lists that are tied to dry and temporary content. On top of this, the entire game revolves around the beloved Gem Store and the best way to get rewards and access to new content is not through actual gameplay but rather through swiping your credit card.

As a big fan of the original Guild Wars, I had high hopes for this game and avidly followed it throughout its development. However, when I see what this game could have been and should have been versus where it is now, I can’t help but feel empty, bored, and albeit a little sad.

I’m tired of ANet shelving player concerns (check out the WvW and sPvP forums if you need a refresher). I’m tired of the extreme focus on temporary content and Gem Store additions. And most of all, I’m tired of the perpetual carrot-on-a-stick blog and dev posts that constantly suggest that some major, cool updates are on their way that ultimately fall through.

I’d like to hope that ANet can get their act together, but like Blood, I’m more than a little jaded at this point.

Paradise.1692:

Dear BloodFallsSilent, I second what you said. Let me remind you (and all other disappointed players, myself included) of the following ArenaNet post which I deem quite revealing, at this point: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success/

The majority of updates always had varying tones of “is it good for the economy” for me. I’ve never had this feeling in other games before. Combined with the gold conversion and the almost forced TP-pvp it leaves a sour aftertaste.

Otherwise I don’t see it as negative although a lot of points have merit.