I’ll stick to bullet points:
• REMOVAL of diminishing returns. It serves no good purpose and only creates confusion and stress among the community.
• REMOVAL of RNG based progression. What’s so legendary about gambling for a legendary? Exploiters/TP players destroyed precursor market. You have a better chance of getting a precursor from the mystic toilet.
• Solid, enjoyable and permanent content. One time events are good. But not one after another. Anet needs to spend some time on decent, permanent content within Tyria..
• Dungeon re-design. No mob/boss skipping, reduce trash mob hp, boss fights are boring enough, this is why the majority of mobs are skipped in the first place. Spending a half hour hitting at a silver/gold enemy isn’t fun.
• A more diverse selection of skills. Since it’s obvious we’re not getting extra skills for the current weapon sets. Enable classes to have access to a wider range of equipment. Why can’t rangers use rifles? Why can’t warriors use shortbows and daggers? Why can’t ele’s use swords and axes? Right now you can max every weapon skill even before level 10, then you end up using 1 or 2 for the next 70 levels.
• No ascended gear beyond accessories. Guild Wars has never been about fancy stat items, but clearly they want to cater to a certain crowd. This only creates more barriers.
• Addition of items worth buying from the gem store. Unlimited harvest tools (why were the sales limited? These were huge sellers, bring them back). More armor/weapon skins. More variation of town clothes (we have enough tops I think). I highly doubt the majority of people are paying real cash for things like boosts and a portable mystic toilet. Repair canisters? Revive orbs? Who buys these? I’ve still got the ones given to me from Traeherne on the 2nd to last mission, just taking up bag space. Give us things we really WANT to spend our money on.
• Guild Halls, Guild Halls, Guild Halls. Need I say more?
• More sPvP maps and game-modes.
• Target cast bars.
• Almost a year on, where is the in-game LFG tool? Surely we can’t rely on a third party app until the end of time. RIFT managed this tool in a few months of release, and a month or two later, even made it cross server/realm. Is it really too difficult?
That’s all the important things I believe are missing from this game. Other than that, keep up the good work Anet, and hopefully NCsoft will get their stuff together and focusing on their MAIN MMO.
I 100% agree with the above post. Pretty much the same list I would have put together.
For the Living Story, I’d be fine if the temporary content was used to provide the transition to permanent changes to the game world. When I read about the F&F LS, that’s what I assumed they were doing. Unfortunately, we had four months of temporary content that resulted in no notable changes to the zones effected and no new permanent content. What a waste of potential and development time.
For the Gem Store, I’m just as confused as I am by the LS. Priorities of what they develop for the gem store are all wrong. Much potential wasted and much revenue left unrealized.
What two things do I think the game needs the most?
1.) A new team put in charge of the Gem Store and Economy, with the staff, talent and resources needed to realize the full potential of the gem store, lead the transition away from RNG lottery scams and towards a store stocked with items worth buying, along with an intelligent analysis of what’s wrong with the economy and specific plans to fix those problems.
2.) An “A-team” of developers tasked with efficiently adding new Dynamic Events in every zone on an ongoing basis, as well as planning permanent changes to the game world that will provide the “end points” which future Living Story events will support.
Whether this requires a staff reshuffle, or new hires, it’s clear that there are some internal issues that need to be addressed while the game still has time to get back on track towards realizing it’s full potential.