Guild Wars 2

5) I don’t think it was planned at release. The reason why they added Ascended was because exotics became far easier than they expected. They even said since release – since before release – that they may or may not add higher tiers (and that the legendaries would always be that top tier). But they didn’t know they would, they just thought they might – and they told us this.

How they implemented the crafting side of it… I agree. Not just the cloth bit, but the time gating.

4) Anet says it’s fun to make OP skills, so you rage? That makes little sense. All of Caithe’s skills are basically OP versions of normal thief skills.

I do agree that we need a faster introduction of skills (even if they’re racial skills) and traits though.

New weapon types… honestly? I think we have enough weapons. The only weapon I can see being added that is actually worthwhile as its own weapon set is waraxes. Whips is, to be perfectly honest, very eh and iffy in design and various appearances. I don’t get why they’re so favored.

3) Not just the frequent breaks since 2014 began, but quality of the writing and the constant changing of how it’s done since Shadow of the Mad King in 2012 has been bothering me. They need to find a working model and stick with it, and improve their own skills within that model. Enough continuously changing things so that you never get settled into how you do things!

2) There’s only 3 things I find annoying about the trait redesign: 1, it’s the same for all professions (should be profession-specific, imo); 2, map completion requirements and WvW requirements (IMO, WvW should be like PvP – auto unlock all skills and traits, if not gear quality too); 3, the high expense for buying (basically saying "yeah, you can play how you want, but you have to suffer to do so).

The other things that are complained about are pointless complaints, imo. There were FAR worse things with the NPE done. Like the butchering of Chapters 7 and 8 of the Personal Story.

1) You know, the players are the one at fault for this, for taking their “we want to do this” as “we will do this” and over hyping, over expecting, etc. etc. growing their words out of proportion.

This is ArenaNet’s response to the community’s reaction to their previous more-open policy.

Good job, community.

Serophous.9085:

5. Introduction of Ascended Gear

4. Lack of new Skills/weapons

3. Living story gaps/length

2. Trait redesign

1. Anet’s Policy

5. Meh. It’s not a big deal. Ascended gives people who want something to work for, something to work for, while being completely optional generally if you don’t want to.

4. New skills need to be balanced against each other, and against all the existing skills. Many of the existing skills are rarely used, anyway. The more you add, the harder it is to balance, the more QQ there is about certain skills/weapons/classes being OP in whatever scenario. I’d prefer a good, well-balanced combat system, to one getting constantly bloated by shiny and ill-considered new skills. The fact that you specifically asked for OP skills doesn’t really help. OP skills would just further trivialise already trivial content.

3. Living story gives new content all year round. No MMO can ever give you as much new content as you want. If Anet came out with an expansion pack, the same size as the game at launch, every year, there would still be people who complete all the content in a couple of months, and then have to wait for the rest of the year for something new again. Lower your expectations.

2. Completely agree. The trait change was terrible.

1. It’s a frustrating policy, but also an understandable one. Personally, I think they attract similar amounts of complaints either way, so they may as well be open about what they’re doing.

Top 5 things Anet got wrong

5) Stacking in general, but mostly in WvW. I believe this would benefit to a better tactical WvW if the current system was not in place, and an emphasis more on healing, not to the trinity extent of course.

4) Lack of communication, soon™

3) WvW, the lack of emphasis and focus in this unique content.

2) Esport, clogs up the rest of the game in terms of new abilities, traits, builds, balance, new weapon skills, and takes focus away from WvW.

1) Living Story, frustrating, buggy, and forgettable, but nice to look at.

Mordalus.8146:

And where is the precursor crafting that we were promised?

No. You see, right here is what I was eluding to where the community takes some blame as well. THERE WAS NO PROMISE!

This, I highlight the very important bold part that people like to just gloss over

From the upcoming release of our brand spanking new Looking for Group (LFG) tool, to investigating ways to limit culling in PvE, to the two-week content schedule our Living World teams have in store, the second half of 2013 has countless more exciting new things in store for our players than I can possibly cover here. As always, the content above is subject to change as we test and iterate on these systems.

As a community, we need to stop people believe that everything can go perfect, that nothing can go wrong. They posted something like this after every update, as a ways to say “hey, we will work on it, BUT NO PROMISES”.

In fact, if they say “hey, we did work on it, it didn’t turn out right. We had to scrap it and start over.” I would be fine with that, because, i read the whole blog, and not just what I wanted to read.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

4) Anet says it’s fun to make OP skills, so you rage? That makes little sense. All of Caithe’s skills are basically OP versions of normal thief skills.

I do agree that we need a faster introduction of skills (even if they’re racial skills) and traits though.

New weapon types… honestly? I think we have enough weapons. The only weapon I can see being added that is actually worthwhile as its own weapon set is waraxes. Whips is, to be perfectly honest, very eh and iffy in design and various appearances. I don’t get why they’re so favored.

“New weapons” is also typically shorthand for adding existing weapons to additional professions as well. People have been asking for melee weapons on the engineer (mace and/or hammer) for a while. Caster weapons on the ranger could allow for druid-like characters without needing a whole new profession. And so on.

Basically, what most people are asking for there is ‘more weapon options for their characters’. Doesn’t really matter if a weapon is brand new or simply opening up new weapons to existing characters.

Mind you, I think there is some room for some brand-new weapons as well. Crossbows may be technically obsolete with firearms being an established technology… but some special forces units still use them today (because they’re quieter than even silenced firearms of similar power) and could be an interesting alternative option to firearms and conventional bows. A “polearm” weapon class could cover two-handed axes, war scythes, and land spears in a single category that could be appropriate for multiple professions. Whips I’m not too enthused over (most GW2 weapons do succeed in being practical weapons rather than powered purely by Rule of Cool… well, on the level of the weapon category, anyway. Individual skins, not so much), but flails could certainly work, and some flail skins could be whip-like just like we have some silly skins for existing weapon categories like Rusttooth, Fixer Upper, Kevin, Moonshine and, of course, Quip – not to mention some of the toy weapons like the various Wintersday skins and the Silly Scimitar.

Serophous.9085:

1. Anet’s Policy – “We talk about it when its done.” God I hate this policy. I really really hate it. Its backfired so many times already. Colored tags, ascended gear, trait revision, everything can be retraced back to this policy.
Why is it bad? Because when you want to talk about it “when its done”, and the reaction is bad, then you have two choices. Charge forward (choice mostly taken), or go back and tweak a small thing (only so far the commander colors). And in later patches, you have to change and tweak this new thing, then it was never really done, was it?

This policy needs to go. Its what hampers more communication (imo), and has affected the players more negatively than positively. I blame it mostly for no more State of the Games (most of the community takes blame for this loss too), and I blame it for much of the ire that is seen today on the forums. The CDIs are nice, but once they are over, we don’t hear the finally words on whats being done till ‘its done’.

Its just bad to tie down so much information. Unbind the straps at least a little (and I don’t mean give so many vague answers!)

My best:
We can say that there is in fact a table and that some things are on it. However, we cannot confirm what kind of table there is. A pool table? Maybe. A poker table? Possibly. A card table? Well, we don’t want to comment on it, but we can say that we are very excited about the table and what may or may not be on it.

Tongku.5326:

1. WvW. They had a cash cow without any meaningful competition on the market and ran it into the ground. Literally. Its dwindling population speaks for itself. Even if they do something that is of actual meaning now, it is far too little and far too late. They blew it hard.

Have to agree with that one. I still don’t think they ever realised the potential wvw had.

Too bad it wasn’kittens own game. Imagine how it would look after 2 years of updates then.

1. NPE

2. Traits starting at lvl 30, getting one point each 6 levels and those 100% map completions as unlocks (doing one event you may not love is one thing, being stuck on a map you don’t want to for a longer spell is another).

3. Precursors being pure RNG. I’m glad to see that in recent living story chapters gear is aquired through gameplay and taking on challenges rather then pure luck.

4. Character personality being removed. I still remember my brute necromancer persona. That thing should’ve been expended rather then scrapped. I wanted to punch some npcs, or sweettalk them into revealing something they normally wouldn’t.

5. The updates. Unless they got something BIG coming then wth am i looking at here? They created a huge world in what? 4 years? Now it’s been 2 and asides content that was there and gone (like marionette, molten facility, tower of nightmares) we’re getting one map that’s size of a single zone from the base game. Yes it’s way more complex and fun, but for pete’s sake…one permanent zone after two years!!

Thaddeus.4891:

4) Not a deal breaker for me, but… They talked about that, but never delivered it except once with the grandmaster trait. Healing skills was a disaster.

Really? I thought except two issues in design they were good:

• Too few. If this had been one skill release, with 24-30 skills releasing a year, all good.
• Forced parity. Why release all 8 at the same time? That just hampers design. If the skills aren’t intentionally overpowered, power-disparity would be negligible.

hmm lets see.. what Anet got wrong in my perception..

5. balancing trait unlocks. While I like the new trait unlock system personally there is a large disparity between some unlocks. Most of them can be finished in 15 – 30 minutes which is great. Some though like map completion or finishing personal story can take weeks to accomplish. (Can be done much quicker if you grind it but personally I dont grind so it takes me that long)

4. Difficulty. The game is just too easy overall would be nice if it were a bit more challenging. MF was a missed opportunity imo. it could have been used to implement a sort of hard mode. MF should have been a lot more punishing, not applicable to Dungeons / WvW but reward increase should have been more substantial across the board.

3. Lack of housing. In a game thats all about cosmetics having a good customizable housing system could add a ton to the gameplay.

2. Lack of Guild halls. Unlockable guild hall customizations through guild play could be a great incentive to get people to play together and make their guild hall the best looking guild hall in the game.

1. Ascended tier level. While to be fair they did a great job of making this tier level optional and I can fully understand why it had to be done for me personally having to invest a substantial amount of game time to get more powerful is not something I enjoy.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

5. The updates. Unless they got something BIG coming then wth am i looking at here? They created a huge world in what? 4 years? Now it’s been 2 and asides content that was there and gone (like marionette, molten facility, tower of nightmares) we’re getting one map that’s size of a single zone from the base game. Yes it’s way more complex and fun, but for pete’s sake…one permanent zone after two years!!

That’s an interesting observation. When people complain about the lack of new material compared to the growth of GW1 when it was still their main priority, a common response is that GW2’s genuinely three-dimensional maps are more complex to make than GW1’s quasi-3D maps.

While this is true, we can look at GW2’s development time to get an idea of how long things take. ArenaNet shifted tack from Campaign 4 to EOTN and GW2 aroundthe end of 2006/start of 2007. GW2 released mid-2012. So that’s about five and a half years… and that’s not including time and resources spent making EOTN, or the basic engine work needed before the map designers could really start working at all.

During GW2’s development, they developed twenty-five open-world zones, eight dungeons, effectively two WvW maps (since the borderlands are practically copies of one another) and three sPvP maps. Since the PvP maps are much smaller than the others, let’s consider them to be one map – this gives the equivalent of 36 full-sized zones in five and a half years. Extrapolating, we could thus reasonably expect the equivalent of 6 new zones over the course of a year (and this is being conservative).

So, how does this measure up?

We probably actually do fairly well in the first 12 months, even if it doesn’t feel like it. The fractals represent a lot of mapmaking effort – the initial eight fractals are probably roughly the equivalent of four maps on their own. Lost Shores brings it to 4.5, the Halloween labyrinth to 5, Wintersday stuff is probably another map’s worth, bringing it up to 6. Flame and Frost is probably at least another map’s worth of map design. SAB World 1… call that up to 8, Aetherblades and the Zephyrites bring it up to 10 I’d say, and the Jubilee makes 10.5. We also had three PvP maps come in during that time, so we’re at a total of over 11. That’s blown my conservative estimate out of the park… even though some of that was temporary.

In the second year, we had SAB World 2 and Twilight Assault – removing one of the TA paths wasn’t great, but call that 2 maps worth. Blood and Madness didn’t add much, but throw in the Tower of Nightmares and Thaumanova fractal, that’s at least another 1. Edge of the Mists brings it to 4, and let’s be generous and count reworking Lion’s Arch as half, making 4.5, and then bring that up to 5 with additional map tweaks from that period and the Courtyard PvP map. Gates of Maguuma scrapes in to bring us to 5.5, Dry Top being roughly half the size of a normal map.

Uh-oh, that’s starting to cut it a little fine. Still not too bad, though.

In the third year, we’re about halfway through now, and we’ve had…

Silverwastes. Let’s also give a little credit for the Wintersday decorations of Divinity’s Reach. Still, we’re looking at a degree of productivity much lower than they achieved in development or in the first year after release.

Either there’s something big being planned for next year, or they’ve really let themselves slip.

Different perspectives.
For me the only thing on your list is sort of traits acquisition and that can be tweaked to be an issue only for people who enjoy creating issues for themselves (which is a high percent of the more vocal forum posters granted).
For me guilds where done strangely and again not wrong in a sense but not what I think is the best way.
Reality hits every game with content release. When that magical day comes where one person just needs to type in a precise of what the game should be like and a programme takes care of the rest in a few minutes then maybe, possibly the consumers will be satisfied but I doubt it even then.

My top 5 things Anet got wrong (played from release day):-

1) Too much temporary content, wasted probably 10,000’s of hours in development time, adding stuff then removing it 2 weeks/a month later. What a waste!

2) 90% of there focus on living story.

3) Not enough attention given to WvW or sPvP.

4) Not enough content added that you could keep building up and replaying over and over again, like WvW masteries or fractals.

5) Total lack of any character progression when you get to 80th level and unlock all traits/skills. Not enough useful skills/traits, no variety.

In my eyes GW2 was brilliant on release day but they failed to build on that in any meaningful way other than some quality of life improvements, fractals and WvW masteries.

Serophous.9085:

Edgar – I didn’t mean in the way of “introduce 50 traits all at once”, do a few a year, that’s fine. I said I understand balance needs.

Look, the cdis were/are a great start for communication. I love Chris for starting them, and other devs joining in at times. But the other reason I like them because they show WHAT they are looking into and perhaps working on. Chris stated and made clear things there are not promises, and both he and those participating made sure that was known.

I want to see that happen in state of the game blogs. Just a " here is what we are looking in to, what may come, but no promises!" Just like the CDIs. If anything, make it a list of potential cdi topics.

But even if you introduce one new trait or skill once a year, in the end there will be an overflow of trait/skills that will just be a waste of space.

Even if you say that you won’t use what they said against them if Chris says " here is what we are looking in to, what may come, but no promises!", people will be angry and complain that they didn’t stick up to their promise and even post stuff that chris said but neglect to point out the part where it is said " here is what we are looking in to, what may come, but no promises!" it has happened so many times before and not only in this game.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

5. The updates. Unless they got something BIG coming then wth am i looking at here? They created a huge world in what? 4 years? Now it’s been 2 and asides content that was there and gone (like marionette, molten facility, tower of nightmares) we’re getting one map that’s size of a single zone from the base game. Yes it’s way more complex and fun, but for pete’s sake…one permanent zone after two years!!

One new zone in two years…? Am I counting wrong? 4 years? You are of by a year… The game was released in august 2012 and they have learned their mistakes with LS Season 1 so you should start new map count from the start of season 2 as it’s from there we have got all permanent stuff… So from July the first 2014 until now we have got two new permanent zones. That is in 6 months we have got two new Advanced Zones, that is pretty neat if you ask me!

everything……..

5. No transparency and bad communication (communication, showing roadmap of the company/game)
4. Lack of customizability (UI), no addons (DSP meter etc.)
3. Lack of meaningful high-end content and unique drops (see #1)
2. Very little content released (see #1)
1. Living Story – this was the most horrible and bad decision they made in the beginning. This lving story that isn’t bi-weekly since a long time (rather 2 monthly) is horribly executed and didn’t live up to the expectations. Sure season 2 was a bit better and had a bit of more story and at least presistent content added to the game. But compared to the industry standard of MMOs the content added is ridiculous. Most MMOs will add what Anet calls “Living Story” anyway with free updates every couple of months. Adding one or two new maps, 2-3 dungeons and a new raid. Additionally we get an addon with a whole new continent, new mechanics, new classes, additional PvP modes, professions etc etc. The sheer lack of meaningful content – we had nothing at all, there is still one and only ONE PvP mode after 2.5 years! – is just a result of mismanagement and a lot of wasted talent.

Well but now to the point: If they announce something meaningful on January 24 at PAX South I revoke those points. But if there is again a ridiculous announcement with tiny changes here and there this game is dead for me.

I want to add another one. Just one that stands out and has been slightly touched on.

The kitten TP. Something rare pops along, something only available for a limited time, and its sellable on the TP.
As a result the droprate is so abysmally low that you, the player, can never really work for it by doing the events. The best and really only way to get it is to buy it from someone on the TP.

This results in two things:
1) The TP lords buyout all these rare items and relist them with a steep mark up, constantly pushing the price higher and higher. Further out of reach of people who don’t have a significant bank already.
2) The best way to get a lot of these rare items is through gold. So you are basicly just doing the same thing over and over. Rare headpiece from Aether blades? Better farm some gold. New backpiece from Molten Alliance? Better farm some gold. New BL skins? Better farm some gold. New gun from Scarlet? Better farm some gold, and so on.

Diablo3 messed up with their auctionhouse that resulted in very disappointing and lack of meaningful loot drops for its players. Where farming out gold was really the only way to actually get what you wanted, and the same holds true for a whole bunch of stuff in GW2.

Serophous.9085:

5. Introduction of Ascended Gear

I liked the way they INTRODUCED Ascended Gear, as something slightly higher than exotics that accept infusions to help you progress in a unique dungeon (Fractals). Rings and Amulets are available through a variety of content, Accessories are more limited but still doable.

It’s the Armor/Weapons that are make no sense to me. If agony is used only in fractals, shouldn’t ascended armor/weapons be available through fractals? Those who actually strive for min-maxing their characters are running harder content like dungeons, you can go to the open world in full White gear and never notice a difference (unless you solo), yet ascended isn’t available through dungeons either. And finally, Ascended can make some difference in WvW, but there is no option to get those in WvW…

Of course they kinda lowered the impact of ascended by making it account bound, that’s was a very good change.

4. Lack of new Skills/weapons

Giving current weapons to more professions makes more sense to me than adding completely new weapons. But more importantly, new utility skills, new traits (not just a couple of grandmaster ones) and even some extra customization for weapons, like choosing between 3-4 skills to put as your Sword skill 2 or 3. Extra character building within the SAME weapon.

3. Living story gaps/length

It’d be fine if they kept the two-week schedule even if there was a feature pack coming out.

2. Trait redesign

I will always post this on the subject of traits:
http://web.archive.org/web/20101202160501/http://guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/traits-overview/

I still wonder what happened to that game! when is it going to be released? :P

1. Anet’s Policy -

Although the community is to blame for their silence, still I agree. Some more transparency wouldn’t hurt.

Agree with all, but #3…just living story in general.

I’ll say it again. No one clamored for something like living story. It just happened. For every person that enjoys living story, theres someone that does not enjoy it, or someone that has quit the game because of it, or someone that would prefer an expansion.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

5. The updates. Unless they got something BIG coming then wth am i looking at here? They created a huge world in what? 4 years? Now it’s been 2 and asides content that was there and gone (like marionette, molten facility, tower of nightmares) we’re getting one map that’s size of a single zone from the base game. Yes it’s way more complex and fun, but for pete’s sake…one permanent zone after two years!!

Don’t forget the eminently forgettable Southsun Cove (though I’m pretty sure that map stays empty until 10m before Karka Queen spawns)

I suppose for me: (in order)

1-Living Story-No one asked for it, but it is the #1 focus of dev…when there are people clamoring for attention in other areas. I don’t like it. Not at all. Not one bit. And when the development focus is centered around it…I feel like I get no content at all. So for me, taking out living story, this game is a hollow shell with a great leveling experience. Beyond that, its a missed opportunity through and through.

2-Ascended gear. Whether we are at peace with it and whether or not it changes how we play, we had our BiS pieces and then this was shoved in our face without warning.

3-No dungeon revamp/update/additions/attention. Weren’t they going to work on dungeons? Revamped AC and thats it? Stopped? Oh, because of Living Story focus…right.

4- No new skills/abilities that have a meaningful impact. Sorry, a few healing skills and an anti toxin skill is not what the masses wanted and thought we would get. 9/10 builds do not center around a healing skill.

5- The ever-continuing lie about pre cursor scav hunt/crafting system/<insert idea here>. I farmed for months for mats and at the chance I would get a precursor. Nothing. A bit bitter, I am.

Carighan.6758:

Thaddeus.4891:

4) Not a deal breaker for me, but… They talked about that, but never delivered it except once with the grandmaster trait. Healing skills was a disaster.

Really? I thought except two issues in design they were good:

• Too few. If this had been one skill release, with 24-30 skills releasing a year, all good.
• Forced parity. Why release all 8 at the same time? That just hampers design. If the skills aren’t intentionally overpowered, power-disparity would be negligible.

Well they released 9 healing skills. Out of those, only 2 are really good, maybe another 2 are used from time to time. But nobody used the rest of the them, they are just terrible healing skill that don’t heal at all. I call that a bad attempt.

So ya if you want, you are right. There is way too few and for the skill, some of them were just bad in design.

All of OP’s complaints (other than ascended gear) are really about lack of content updates. He would be satisfied if we had better updating to keep the game fresh.

As for Ascended gear, it is non grindy / trivial these days, the materials market shocks long over and the Dragonite grind trivialized with new acquisition methods.

Where Anet really blew it is WvW.
————————

They were sitting on a cash cow. All they had to do was eliminate night capping (short matches would work, but there are other easy workable solutions), and maybe design a new map for the borderlands to keep gameplay fresh (even a new coat of paint over the old map would work).

WvW is the best product on the market and it is unplayable except on a tiny few number of servers.

1. They stopped working on their game since launch.

1. Not enough of new permanent content

2. Poorly made dungeons … spliting short dungeons (except Arah) into 3 even shorter parts? Why? Poor boss mechanics, stacking, skiping of way too many trash mobs etc. They could fix it with new dungeons , they even did it right for once with Molten facility but point no. 1 :-/ They made 1 good dungeon and they removed it… I still cant believe they did it. It is simply beyond my comprehension.

3. Living story… this soap opera is as uninteresting as it can possibly be. Chapter one was basically the Power Rangers rip off with Rita Repulsa a.k.a Scarlet (they even looked same ffs) and her terribad minions vs Power Rangers… wait wait they are called Destiny’s Edge in this game. Chapter 2 is better (still boring though) but only because Chapter 1 set the bar so low. And yet it is their main focus and everything else is ignored :-/

4. Class balance vs content, same meta for too long, useless traits, useless weapon skills everywhere etc. Did they disbanded their balance team too?

5. Loot tables, rewards and almighty RNG… Blizzard did it too in Diablo 3 but they fixed it, Arenanet did not… idk why but it is one of the 5 big things they did wrong. Now combine this with being stuck with same uninteresting dungeons for 2,5 years, zerg world events and stale meta… ugh.

Time-gated crafting was the biggest WTF about Ascended gear, AFAIC. Made it completely worthless as a goal which might have otherwise been worth pursuing.

“Let’s take the worst misfeature of crappy freemium games and apply it to the endgame!” If they sold bypasses for gems, then they’d be as scummy as Zynga et al, but at least it wouldn’t melt my brain trying to figure out how anyone thought it was a fitting idea.

1: You know people are going to defend this but really it’s not anyone’s fault but their own. If they had more integrity and had not built a legacy of not fulfilling their promises since launch there wouldn’t be a need for silence would there.

5: I would add this really because it’s not just that they added a gear treadmill 2 months after launch it’s that they also made the game heavily reliant on the TP to do anything meaningful in progression. Are there any karma vendors with Ascended? Nope. They nerfed everything, karma, material farming, the basics for any kind of sensible time table are gone really in this game and as we’ve seen in countless titles when the TP becomes the focus of the game the game loses it’s fun factor entirely because you spend all your time trying to gather enough gold to get anything done.

exp.3178:

it’s their game, so they are they are entitled to it.

Their game yes, but they have no game without players either. End of the day, the player base has just as much claim.

exp.3178:

it’s their game, so they are they are entitled to it.

This has got to be the worst logic ever. We are paying customers so we are entitled to leaving criticism and feedback.

RoRo.8270:

exp.3178:

it’s their game, so they are they are entitled to it.

This has got to be the worst logic ever. We are paying customers so we are entitled to leaving criticism and feedback.

Celestina.2894:

Their game yes, but they have no game without players either. End of the day, the player base has just as much claim.

Who exactly is the “we” that the two of you are talking about because I can’t find a thread where there is even a trace of consensus about anything.

I never had a problem with any of the ascended stuff. In fact, I like it. I can feel the improvement on my character, so it’s something to work toward. However, it’s in no way a requirement. If I could just get dungeons group PUGs to have a solid build for once, only THEN could I start fussing about gear. (+25% run speed passive utilities I’m looking at you…)

As far as LS goes. Well nobody remembers this but I TOLD YOU SO! Back on Guild Wars Guru I TOLD YOU SO! There’s a reason why I don’t buy DLC but I buy expansions. Getting back into a game is a slow process. DLC or in this case, LS can only really offer 2-4 hours of gameplay at a time.

However, LS2 has been a massive improvement. The Zephyr Sanctum in LS1 was good too. Providing new maps with a variety of new things to do and work toward is the way to go.

Southsun Cove could use some love by the way.

5. NPE
4. Trait Acquisition Overhaul
3. Eventual elimination of water combat (both PvP & WvW)
2. Fractals & Dungeon systems both abandoned.
1. Did I mentioned NPE and traits?

1. The notion that removing the ‘holy trinity’ would make for a fun gaming experience and wouldn’t result in anything other than a stand there and hit ‘1’ DPS zergfest at 10fps.

2. That kittening infernal broken camera system that causes it to zoom in and out on random pieces of the environment if you get too close and the idea that such a camera system was conducive to a game with so many jumping puzzle. I mean, did they not kittening test this kitten out before release?

3. The Living Story.

4. Stacks only being 250 and having to pay to increase this. Stacks should’ve been10,000 from the very start.

5. The lack of two handed great axes.

Wetpaw.3487:

Top 5 things Anet got wrong

5) Stacking in general, but mostly in WvW. I believe this would benefit to a better tactical WvW if the current system was not in place, and an emphasis more on healing, not to the trinity extent of course.

4) Lack of communication, soon™

3) WvW, the lack of emphasis and focus in this unique content.

2) Esport, clogs up the rest of the game in terms of new abilities, traits, builds, balance, new weapon skills, and takes focus away from WvW.

1) Living Story, frustrating, buggy, and forgettable, but nice to look at.

I agree with all you have said except for 1, Living Story. While it may not have been perfect, I enjoyed it a lot and my only real issue with it would be not enough and too infrequent.

Meglobob.8620:

My top 5 things Anet got wrong (played from release day):-

1) Too much temporary content, wasted probably 10,000’s of hours in development time, adding stuff then removing it 2 weeks/a month later. What a waste!

2) 90% of there focus on living story.

3) Not enough attention given to WvW or sPvP.

4) Not enough content added that you could keep building up and replaying over and over again, like WvW masteries or fractals.

5) Total lack of any character progression when you get to 80th level and unlock all traits/skills. Not enough useful skills/traits, no variety.

In my eyes GW2 was brilliant on release day but they failed to build on that in any meaningful way other than some quality of life improvements, fractals and WvW masteries.

this almost entirely summarizes my thoughts on the subject (especially no 5), with the exception that I would merge 2 in with 1 (since the living story is temporary content), and add another “5”:

- very meh armor designs and rendering. For a game that is so heavily focused on cosmetic progression most of the armor designs are actually not very nice. The designs lack variety (pants for female light armor anyone? more skimpy options for both genders), and are often times really badly rendered (square shaped tops, umbrella-like skirts, weird clipping issues). And finally of course the fact that we’re only getting outfits in the CS anymore (as opposed to individual armor skins).

tigirius.9014:

1: You know people are going to defend this but really it’s not anyone’s fault but their own. If they had more integrity and had not built a legacy of not fulfilling their promises since launch there wouldn’t be a need for silence would there.

Yes thats exactly it… They listed a number of things they planed to do in the future. Clearly stated that it was all subject to change. They changed a few things here and there and then the response they got was “built a legacy of not fulfilling their promises”

Only solution to that, dont say what you plan to do until its set in stone which is why we are where we are.

tigirius.9014:

5: I would add this really because it’s not just that they added a gear treadmill 2 months after launch it’s that they also made the game heavily reliant on the TP to do anything meaningful in progression. Are there any karma vendors with Ascended? Nope. They nerfed everything, karma, material farming, the basics for any kind of sensible time table are gone really in this game and as we’ve seen in countless titles when the TP becomes the focus of the game the game loses it’s fun factor entirely because you spend all your time trying to gather enough gold to get anything done.

Ohh but the game is not heavily reliant on TP to progress at all. Its heavily reliant on playing the game which alas few seem to want to do. no need to buy a single thing off tp to get an piece of ascended armor. Going to TP to get it done as quickly as possible is a player’s choice not a game requirement.

Galen Grey.4709:

Yes thats exactly it… They listed a number of things they planed to do in the future. Clearly stated that it was all subject to change. They changed a few things here and there and then the response they got was “built a legacy of not fulfilling their promises”

“A few things here and there” like the entire design philosophy they sold us on for years but barely survived two months post-launch.

My top 5:

1) Guild Wars 2
2) Guild Wars 2 Forums
3) Guild Wars 2 interviews
4) Guild Wars 2 presentations
5) Guild Wars 2 merchandise

Snorcha.7586:

The top 5 things that Anet got wrong is company arrogance. The disconnect between what players are asking for and what they are receiving is really making GW2 a massive example of how to squander a golden opportunity.

They didn’t squander anything. They are still raking in money hand-over-fist or would have been out of business long ago. The ‘fact’ that they kitten d the good name of GW1 (if reports are to be believed; I never personally played it) and buried The Manifest in a shallow grave next to “Play as you want” does not mean they didn’t make (and continue to make) money out of the (uneducated/gullible) masses. Who needs one veteran player, when you can fool three NPEs into parting with the (deluxe edition) box fee and a couple of gem purchases before they invariable move on in disgust.

ArenaNet did not do anything wrong. If I were a shareholder right now, I’d be laughing all the way…

I just want to be able to save/load my traits

KyreneZA.8617:

They didn’t squander anything. They are still raking in money hand-over-fist or would have been out of business long ago. The ‘fact’ that they kitten d the good name of GW1 (if reports are to be believed; I never personally played it) and buried The Manifest in a shallow grave next to “Play as you want” does not mean they didn’t make (and continue to make) money out of the (uneducated/gullible) masses. Who needs one veteran player, when you can fool three NPEs into parting with the (deluxe edition) box fee and a couple of gem purchases before they invariable move on in disgust.

ArenaNet did not do anything wrong. If I were a shareholder right now, I’d be laughing all the way…

See, I just don’t buy this. Not the cold logic, that makes sense, but that this model is more profitable than providing an actually good service.

GW2 is barely advertised that I see. Given the age and nature of the game, word of mouth is a very strong tool. But I know the last time I convinced someone to buy the game was when SAB first came out. Since the traits change, I’m actually usually hesitant to even suggest it. I’m not alone in this.

Moreover, who is buying the game due to the NPE who wouldn’t have bought it anyway? What market knows enough about GW2 to know what it is, hasn’t bought the game already, and will be attracted by what they’ve heard? China?

Finally, the game is an MMO. Part of the appeal of an MMO is the MM bit. As vets leave, one of the major aspects of the game goes with them.

I understand the logic of screwing over your loyal customers to make a fast buck. But screwing over your loyal customers in a way that will actively cut off a major source of advertisement and product appeal?

1) ascended tier

2) ranger pets

3) excessive particle effects

4) ascended tier

5) ranger pets

5) 2 year old Mac beta client

4) particle effects

3) engine optimizations

2) china

1) the camera

As a veteran player, I partly agree on the trait system being wrong at the moment. Especially since, as a vet, you can level up a character without ever actually playing the game with it (tomes, EotM, crafting, buying/switching dungeons) then you have a lvl 80 char, without traits.

A greater variety of armor/weapon design would be welcome (which looks to be on the way), along with armors better fitting charrs.

I have loved the NPE, and I think I would love unlocking my traits if only I knew I would be only doing it once.

The trait system needs a rework so that it needs to be done only once per account (or once per profession, provided the unlocking tasks are different for each profession). Then some more redesign on the unlocking tasks, some of which are inappropriate at the moment.
But I would not be surprised to learn that such a rework will ship with the first 2015 feature pack.

That put aside, I disagree on all other points and am happy we at least got one company willing to experiment and stop sticking to the WoW-like principles. They may sometime miss the spot, but at least do they not rehash the same old recipes.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I understand the logic of screwing over your loyal customers to make a fast buck. But screwing over your loyal customers in a way that will actively cut off a major source of advertisement and product appeal?

It’s short term hit-and-run style business planning. Get in, make as much money off the “suckers” as you can, then close up. I haven’t seen much evidence from anyone at Anet that they have any designs on being around for any length of time.

Neural.1824:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I understand the logic of screwing over your loyal customers to make a fast buck. But screwing over your loyal customers in a way that will actively cut off a major source of advertisement and product appeal?

It’s short term hit-and-run style business planning. Get in, make as much money off the “suckers” as you can, then close up. I haven’t seen much evidence from anyone at Anet that they have any designs on being around for any length of time.

I hope you come back in five years and admit you’re wrong about that.

Vayne.8563:

Neural.1824:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I understand the logic of screwing over your loyal customers to make a fast buck. But screwing over your loyal customers in a way that will actively cut off a major source of advertisement and product appeal?

It’s short term hit-and-run style business planning. Get in, make as much money off the “suckers” as you can, then close up. I haven’t seen much evidence from anyone at Anet that they have any designs on being around for any length of time.

I hope you come back in five years and admit you’re wrong about that.

I hope I am, but do note that if GW2 is sold off to another company, I will consider that the same as simply shutting down. This entire game is a cash grab orchestrated by NCSoft. The best thing that could happen would be for Anet to be bought out by a company that wants to run an MMO, not a short term high yield investment scheme.

Neural.1824:

Vayne.8563:

Neural.1824:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I understand the logic of screwing over your loyal customers to make a fast buck. But screwing over your loyal customers in a way that will actively cut off a major source of advertisement and product appeal?

It’s short term hit-and-run style business planning. Get in, make as much money off the “suckers” as you can, then close up. I haven’t seen much evidence from anyone at Anet that they have any designs on being around for any length of time.

I hope you come back in five years and admit you’re wrong about that.

I hope I am, but do note that if GW2 is sold off to another company, I will consider that the same as simply shutting down. This entire game is a cash grab orchestrated by NCSoft. The best thing that could happen would be for Anet to be bought out by a company that wants to run an MMO, not a short term high yield investment scheme.

NcSoft owned Anet before Guild Wars 1 launched.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

See, I just don’t buy this. Not the cold logic, that makes sense, but that this model is more profitable than providing an actually good service.

I dunno, I can get behind that when I consider the publisher perspective. Committing to a specific game means you invest a huge amount of money, money that is at risk if the game flops.

If you release X games over time Y, you can then compare, given expected success rate, whether it is more profitable to commit fully to each game, or to keep-it-basic for each. And I suspect even given the increased income from the games that succeed, that the money you waste on the ones which falter after you commit makes up for it.

That’s a very cold-hearted perspective ofc, but that’s how I imagine publishers think about this. Games don’t matter, individual dev teams don’t matter, projected profits vs money-at-risk is what matters, as that’s what the shareholders want.