Guild Wars 2

pdavis.8031:

Ashen.2907:

pdavis.8031:

Ashen.2907:

pdavis.8031:

From what I understand is that people who complain and are dissatisfied about various aspects of the game, are generally dissatisfied with their lives in general.

More than a bit of a stretch there.

“Being dissatisfied with aspects of GW2 means that you are dissatisfied with your life.”

Not really. People who are generally dissatisfied with life in general tend to complain more and be dissatisfied with more then those who are not.

That is not what you claimed. You claimed that being dissatisfied with aspects of GW2 meant that one was dissatisfied with his life.

So yes. generally speaking, being dissatisfied with ones life can lead to dissatisfaction in other areas, including Guild Wars 2.

Again not what you originally claimed. You claimed that being dissatisfied with aspects of GW2 meant that one was dissatisfied with one’s life.

No one here is contesting the idea that if you are unhappy with your life as a whole it may or will influence your opinion of things you interact with (such as a game). What is being contested is your claim that if you are dissatisfied with elements of gw2 you are disatisfied with life in general.

Driften.8716:

Personally I think it come down to the type of community a game caters to. I have been playing MMOs since UO (I am showing my age) and different games attract different communities.

For example: UO started out with a bit more of a hard core community, required a monthly fee, and was originally open world pvp except for in town. This was later pulled back by creating Trammel and Felucia. The game went into more of what the vet gamers referred to as “car bearish” and it became more about economy and open world sandbox than pure PVP.

If you were around for the 1st guild wars, the community was a bit different as well. When it first launched it was driven more toward the diablo 2 community/phantasy star crowd. Most stuff could be soloed in story but end game required guilds or friends to assist. The game was originally developed for end game to be more PvP based hence the name “guild wars” and they based most income off of selling expansions and the periodical vanity outfit for the holidays. Later name/character change items were brought into the mix. As for game development the story lines got more in dept and they attempted to make 2 Raid dungeons. However most of the end game became working the same content but in hard mode, earning prestige gear and working through faction ranks to increase faction skills and earn elite skills. The game all around was geared toward people who would grind for things such as the Hall of Monument, gear, skills and titles. The game was never about lvl as the max lvl was 20 and about the gear/skill/faction progression.

Than you have Guild Wars 2. This game was originally developed for the Guild Wars 1 audience but making content more group interactive than single player and creating a more open world (less hub based). However Anet simply turned it’s back on them about a year before launch. Once Anet figured out they could steal a bit of the WoW community as well as other audiences interested in a more short term lucrative “eastern” market they started introducing there own cash shop (gem store) and started gearing toward an audience that wanted instant results without having to play with others or spend much time in the game to accomplish objectives. These as well as other changes in wrongful balancing of classes, not keeping promises with content and ignoring such problems as the still broken HoM ended up alienating a lot of the GW1 community. I myself left for about a year after the failed balance of thieves, gem store and the failed promise to release new content ever 2 months. The final stab was when they started making it easier to lvl to 80.

GW2 was missing a lot of stuff that held attention of the GW1 crowed such as a primary and secondary profession, endless amounts of skills. GW1 has roughly by the end 150 skills per profession. This was outside of the faction skills. An attempt at end game raids/dungeons, prestige faction armor and faction title/skill grinds. Long story short end game still had a lot to go back and do while grinding for better things/skills. GW2 only has legendary weapons which was a huge turn off being that when they first release they required a lot of PvP grind that alienated PvMers (half GW1’s crowd). Now they a totally obsolete due to ascended gear unless you want the skin/effect.

Fast forwarding to HoT expansion, Anet has a lot of distrust from there core GW1 audience. There audience of gamers who wanted instant gradification have since become fickle and moved on. The gem store cash cow has since left the barn and now Anet struggles to make amends with it’s GW1 community. At this point Anet is off making a lot of promises such as total class re-balances, more faction grinds in the expansion to create new legendary weapons and a new class to bring back some excitement. However in doing so a lot of the promises they are making have no teeth in there bite as we still have 1. no release or a hint at a release for the expansion even though they are taking pre-orders for a month now. 2. Re-balancing the classes so they are all playable which is just killing thieves again as well as introducing a butt load of bugs and glitches. In the mean time no acknowledgement or even a word on any fixes. 3. Promising there new class will not be OP, but making it so that it fulfills the spot for any other class in a party and slowly removing any limitations in order to make it elite and sell more copies. 4. Still missing 4 specializations (5 if you include reverent) with again no talk about this for months.

I can go on an on about Anet and what they need to do to earn the GW1 community back and how they are failing at it. However time will tell all.

Thank you. You said for us how many of us felt about Anet. Unfortunately, they think they can string us along without a living story or release date. Then again, every game has a shelf life, I think GW2 is getting there.

Ashen.2907:

pdavis.8031:

Ashen.2907:

pdavis.8031:

Ashen.2907:

pdavis.8031:

From what I understand is that people who complain and are dissatisfied about various aspects of the game, are generally dissatisfied with their lives in general.

More than a bit of a stretch there.

“Being dissatisfied with aspects of GW2 means that you are dissatisfied with your life.”

Not really. People who are generally dissatisfied with life in general tend to complain more and be dissatisfied with more then those who are not.

That is not what you claimed. You claimed that being dissatisfied with aspects of GW2 meant that one was dissatisfied with his life.

So yes. generally speaking, being dissatisfied with ones life can lead to dissatisfaction in other areas, including Guild Wars 2.

Again not what you originally claimed. You claimed that being dissatisfied with aspects of GW2 meant that one was dissatisfied with one’s life.

No one here is contesting the idea that if you are unhappy with your life as a whole it may or will influence your opinion of things you interact with (such as a game). What is being contested is your claim that if you are dissatisfied with elements of gw2 you are disatisfied with life in general.

Yes. Being dissatisfied with elements of GW2, and raging and complaining about it, is a sign that you are dissatisfied with other aspects of your life. Perhaps I worded it wrong, and implied an absolute were none exists. If thats the case, then I apologize. But my point still stands.

Again, I see many of the complaints as those people taking out their frustrations in other areas on Anet and the game. That is not to say that GW2 and Anet are perfect, but many of the complaints are really trivial in nature, and really have no bearing on the game as a whole.

The “Anet lied” threads, the “Game is all about grind” threads, the “Its pay to win!” threads. etc. Those, at least from my point of view, are someones frustrations and issues manifesting themselves and being focused on Anet and the game when the source of those attitudes and complaints come from outside the game.

Doam.8305:

Buy this SAB coin for $10 and then we remove SAB….(Sab infinite coin)

Play this PvP map its different it has water invest in some gear for it then we remove all water from PvP and pvp lobby… (Water areas in PvP)

Spend time, currencies(Gold, spores, and skill points), and energy unlocking this heal skill and then we will remove it from the game…. (Anti-Toxin Spray Heal)

We feel after three years we need to completely axe some playstyles and force people to change thus tossing the balance of pvp into chaos…(Removal of clone death mechanic in mesmers)

Anet is the worst dev I’ve dealt with thus far not even Blizzard does this type of thing so it makes sense that people are disgruntled as is and certain things are indeed enough to push them over the egde. Tuesday was supposed to be the bi-weekly patch day adn we got nothing not even a fix for WvW glitches. My WvW is dead since my server is apparently the smallest in the game(Kiening). But according to Anet they are all highly populated so they can overcharge on transfer fees. There are many things wrong with this game and unlike other MMO’s it’s not the game itself it’s the developers so people are more upset with Anet/NCsoft than they are about WvW. WvW is just the last push to get them moving along.

Well, to be fair, this too. . . .

Timiok.1048:

I don’t see this in other games that often. Now all I hear is people saying they won’t participate in certain parts of the game because of quite simple bugs or problems that just haven’t been addressed.
For example: This whole wvw thing that is going on for a WEEK only has somehow convinced people to quit the game and/or never play wvw again.

If we have absolutely no trust in a game, how can we support it? There always seem to be angry comments about the most simple things like a trait being over/underpowered, or a specialization weapon. I’ve seen people honestly quit about such small things within the year I’ve been playing the game and it astounds me. I don’t like to call the community sensitive but, in other games I see problems much more signifant than these and those communities are much calmer. Don’t get me wrong the community of this game is by far the kindest community. This game is like the ‘Canada’ of online games. I just think it is kind of sad that people overreact this frequently over such small things.
That is why I think here was such a crazy amount of rage over actual problems like the pricing of the expansion, and the current wvw golem bug.

Thats because its only a small thing to you. Myself, as many otehrs are PvX players focused on WvW. We do PvE but would rather play WvW but cant due to various issues with the game, or at least we would rather spend much more time in WvW vs PvE, but again can’t.

personally, so far since game launched I have been forced to server hop due to dying WvW, and have had to spend too much time outside of it, those are just 2 things right off the top of my head.

I dont care for living story, at all. I know there are some players that do, but myself and those like me just do not play this for the low end crappy content LS provides.

I care a little bit about dungeons and challenging content – both of which the game lacks (mainly no raids)
I care a LOT about community, the kind of which you can not find in this game outside of WvW. In other games you can, here, you can’t, for whatever are your insertfavorite reasons here, it just does not exist. While it is more “filtered” and artificially (sometimes sickeningly) nice, it simply lacks in all departments.

With the continuous deminishing of WvW and thus the community, this game is losing a lot, on all fronts. Without these, you might as well turn this into some sort of a massive tetris or MOBA or alike, the server community and people you can talk to in TS is what makes or breaks this for me.

Sure there are PvE guilds, speedrunners etc. but they can’t even come close to being in the same league on this aspect. Again, might as well load up tetris on my phone while in voice chat on hangouts or something.

We are also very disappointed with A-Net, and the general lack of competence they have demonstrated over the years. They truly laid down an awesome foundation, then abandoned it. Now some minor stuff is coming in and a new map, but its just too little too late, and still nothing, not even a single word about the biggest issue that lays entire servers bare: The Population Imbalance and off time capping.

Everything else besides the above is like trying to put a band-aid on a hacked off limb, including the new map, the guild halls with gvg possibilities etc. Those are all just a part of that band-aid.

the only one major problem that I see which they are addressing and is actually changing for positive, is stale meta. though there are still imbalances, things are improved over what they used to be.

short and simple answer. Anet is entirely opaque. They don’t share their intentions. They hardly reply to players.

Most of the people I know came from GW1, we know the Anet of yesterday. The kind Anet with developers that made themselves part of the community that involved themselves in the every day occurrences of their playerbase. Todays Anet is a pale shadow of that great Anet that we all loved and we wish they’d wake the hell up and start caring about the quality of their game instead of penny pinching again.

Timiok.1048:

Actually, I understand how the people feel, and I understand their anger about the big problems, it just confuses me when I see such anger towards small problems. I don’t want the community to go all rogue on the game and its devs because I’ve played games where that has happened and it ended badly for both sides.

The devs look at what we say and they respond quite quickly, which is much better than many other games. In fact, perhaps the amount of rage about the WvW problem was an offset of the devs practically ignoring the community, about something that is very prominent and visible, which they haven’t really done before, and I do agree that this is very uncalled for and appalling on behalf on Anet.

I guess I’m just bad at presenting my arguments, but everyone should be aware of the fact that we have it better than we think sometimes, and now definitely isn’t the time, but we could appreciate a dev team that actually pays attention to the game sometimes.

P.S. I am not complaining about those who chose not to pay for the expansion, that is your choice, your money, and I think it is completely rational to not get something if everything is going to be bugged, there is plenty of time to get the expansion anyways.

Focusing on the small problems are something of a double edge sword in game development. It tends to mean you have no huge issues with the core game, and that the game operates intuitively enough that common standards can be established across the entirety of the game. But thats the “frustration” starts.

Its a major problem in the industry at the moment, with more causes then I can cover here on a forum. But one of the more pressing ones is the “80% implementation” syndrome. It results from Devs trying to innovate (with mostly positive results), but then at some point doesn’t want to “innovate too much”, falling back on commonly accepted ideas whether they are compatible with the game or not. Players become upset when they recognize greatness could be achieved if the Devs simply “pushed it a bit more” to get it over the top. They then stumble on the iteration process, by breaking away from their standards in design in order to “innovate” a solution to a problem that often requires refinement.

The Ranger is a prime example of something they’ve had huge trouble getting a handle on. They don’t want to abandon the Pet mechanic; and despite the large number of calls to remove it, most people simply want it to work in a way thats as seamless and utilitarian as the other classes. The potential solutions are many- but the current state of the AI leaves it too unreliable to bring it in line with the other classes, and in PvE is more of a liability then anything else. But the Devs refuse to change it, because they believe it works.

You get this feeling all over the place with the game’s PvE. Moments of greatness stumbled by seemingly amateurish mistakes, poor quality control, questionable design choices, and huge disparity between how players and Devs rank particular issues. HOT exacerbated this issue with Dev claims of fixing QoL and game flow issues (which at times they had denied existed), but not wanting to tackle the most important ones upfront; instead wanting to keep it as a “surprise”. Needless to say, this doesn’t instill much confidence given their past track record. The Rev’s weapon swap (which they didn’t want to consider initially) was actually a quick fix to the underlying issue of Rev Specs being too single threaded. About 3 months down the line, once the current Rev hype train dies down, the limiting nature of its Trait/Legend/Weapon themes, and and the lack of cross Trait synergy will be the long term complaint for the class. The irony here is that I bet the Devs designed the class that way to emphasize non-combat builds as being viable in the game; something that has been a long standing complaint from players.

Summed up, the wavelengths between different parts of the game are completely scattered all over the place. Players recognize usability issues, but sometimes have trouble putting it into solid feedback due to the intricate nature of trait and skill synergy. But even some of the flat mechanical issues (like the durability of summons), it seems like the Devs and the Players are not seeing the same issue at work.

And past claims from the Devs about not being able to implement certain low level fixes due to “it being too hard” or “we can’t change that part of the engine”, only to be doing it now 3 years down the line brought up the question of their competency back then, and what it might be now; considering they are still using the “this is too hard to do” card to skirt issues like Orr’s buggy events, and or changing existing skill mechanics (see Ranger Auto Attack chain).

Behellagh.1468:

Sephius.2876:

• They said they would do a patch every two weeks to adjust balance in light of the huge balance patch. Have they? Nope. Have they even mentioned anything about it? Nope.

Show me where they said that. Of course you won’t because you can’t be bothered to find it. But you heard someone who said they did and that’s good enough to get mad over.

Let me refer you to another post.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Where-s-the-22-july-patch/first#post5308913

alright if youre asking

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/02/guild-wars-2-major-updates-every-two-weeks
http://www.pcgamer.com/guild-wars-2-planning-a-two-week-update-schedule/
http://www.gamesradar.com/guild-wars-2-ramps-new-content-every-two-weeks/

that’s only 3… i could go on and on and on, and if you were the lucky few who kept getting their ads, it would say “free dlc every two weeks”

ps the dlc was first hand account.

Ashen.2907:

JediYoda.1275:

@Ayrilana.1396 thank you

the key word people are missing is “intention” 1.a thing intended; an aim or plan:

If a merchant announces to its customers, whose use of their product is affected by recent changes, that they intend to make bi-weekly adjustments in light of those changes, it would be a good idea to also announce when/if they decide to not follow through on those intentions.

But, Ashen! That’s expecting too much information! It’s unreasonable to expect to be kept up to date on a situation! It’s unreasonable to expect an update four months down the line after you’ve been told a fix is coming “soon” !

Can’t you see how unreasonable you’re being by expecting ANet to actually keep us up to date on the situation!?

((I can uh, I can jam in more sarcasm if need be. Just let me know.))

pdavis.8031:

From what I understand is that people who complain and are dissatisfied about various aspects of the game, are generally dissatisfied with their lives in general. They are the same type of people who will complain and pitch a fit if their order at a restaurant is wrong. Their complaints and dissatisfaction stem from other areas and bleed out in more areas. They also tend to focus on the negative much more.

Using the restaurant example: Person A and B both order a burger without onions. The order comes out with onions on the burgers. Person A gets upset, demands that the order is remade, and a discount applied to the check. Person B is disappointed, but picks off the onions, informs the server, and moves on. During the meal, Person B is enjoying their burger and isn’t concerned about the onions. Person A become hyper critical of everything, the service becomes too slow for them, the tables haven’t been cleaned yet, the floor has crumbs on it, everything the server says or does becomes an affront and personal insult to them. They don’t enjoy their meal and are too focused on the negative.

Person A was dissatisfied and complained about one thing, the onions on the burger, but it soon grew into how dirty the restaurant was, how terrible and rude the server was, etc. and had a terrible experience.

Person B was dissatisfied with the onions on the burger, and did complain, but focused on how good the burger was and had an enjoyable meal.

That is not to say that the complaints are wrong, and that we shouldn’t complain when things don’t meet our expectations. But the difference is letting those dissatisfactions and complaints cloud everything else. So it then becomes not about a bug in WvW, but about how much the devs don’t care, how they are letting the game go down the drain, how they are trying to kill off WvW, etc. etc.

Your restaurant example is flawed. Studies show that 80% of patrons with a complaint won’t complain in your store. 80% of people just simply won’t come back. This example is why I smile when people trot out the old “vocal minority” bit.

For me personally it’s been some of the decisions over the past year or so that have started making me disgruntled. I started by raging on the forums and taking a break from the game and kept my wallet shut. I eventually came to the conclusion that such actions made no difference to anet so now I just take longer and longer breaks with every bad decision they make and refuse to spend money on the game. There will be plenty of new players to replace me so it’s not a big deal.

pdavis.8031:

From what I understand is that people who complain and are dissatisfied about various aspects of the game, are generally dissatisfied with their lives in general.

Yes. Being dissatisfied with elements of GW2, and raging and complaining about it, is a sign that you are dissatisfied with other aspects of your life.

Just so I understand, you’re clarifying your original statement, above with the later one, also above. So, it’s not a matter of being dissatisfied with life in general, it’s a matter of being dissatisfied with other aspects of one’s life. Also, you’ve gone beyond just complaining to raging and complaining.

Complaining via raging is not necessarily a sign of general dissatisfaction. Neither is it necessarily a sign of dissatisfaction with anything other than the object of one’s ire. Depending on the context and the issues, it can be, for example, anything from righteous anger (justified or not), passion about a subject, or a lack of maturity.

Ashen.2907:

JediYoda.1275:

@Ayrilana.1396 thank you

the key word people are missing is “intention” 1.a thing intended; an aim or plan:

If a merchant announces to its customers, whose use of their product is affected by recent changes, that they intend to make bi-weekly adjustments in light of those changes, it would be a good idea to also announce when/if they decide to not follow through on those intentions.

“After that our intention is to make balance and bug fix changes to this stuff every couple of weeks leading up to the release of HoT.”

Where did they say bi-weekly? “Couple of” definition is more than two but a small number. This whole kerfuffle is once again players leaving out or misinterpreting meaning of words. Intention does not mean promise and “couple of” most definitely doesn’t mean two.

So we went from “planning on several balance patches between now and HoT’s release” to “promised a balance patch every two week”. Why do people actively misread statements like this?

Also Golem Rush was not for active WvW players but an attempt to attract other players to WvW but letting players have the game’s equivalent of armor cavalry that for this week had zero build costs, double hitpoints and speed as well as change up the game for the regulars. For a week. All it took was tweaking a couple a values and they got a “cheap” event as I imagine that HoT is consuming a sizable portion of the development staff.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Complaining via raging is not necessarily a sign of general dissatisfaction. Neither is it necessarily a sign of dissatisfaction with anything other than the object of one’s ire. Depending on the context and the issues, it can be, for example, anything from righteous anger (justified or not), passion about a subject, or a lack of maturity.

I would say this is true if not for the general mood on the forums and in the game itself. I cannot speak for the community, but I will speak from my own experience: I log in for my daily reward, do the minimum or so dailies to get the ten achievement points, and then log right back out to do or play something else.

And if I had to guess? I’m not the only one . . . if people are even logging in anymore. So why is the community so easily discouraged?

History.

Again, keep in mind, this is what the expansion crowd wanted. Given that, the ‘every two weeks’ statement is moot. That was then, and this is now.

Welcome to the new Guild Wars 2.

Tigaseye.2047:

Timiok.1048:

I don’t see this in other games that often.

You, clearly, haven’t visited the WoW forums…

GW2 is a beautiful game, but to anyone used to a game like WoW, for example, this game does seem to fall a little short, in terms of class/build/weapon type balance and basic gameplay design (boss and mob movement/AI etc.) and so on.

…have to be honest.

It also seems to allow certain issues to carry on occurring, when they would almost certainly be stopped sooner in some other games.

It places the (in theory, admirable) idea of beauty and fun over everything else.

Apparently, forgetting that the game is (unfortunately) full of people who value maximum efficiency over everything else (and so, will happily challenge others, if they make a sub-meta class/build/weapon/gear choice, for example) and that it (also) involves some PVP (where balance is always king).

To people only used to playing this game, or even less finely-tuned games, I’m sure it seems (fairly) fine, though.

I’ve seen WoW fans carve up WoW as effectively as forum dwellers her carve up Guild Wars 2. Your assertion about WoW forums being better may or may not be true, but then, how the moderation works might be very different there too.

I know quite a few WoW players who have simply stopped playing the game because they can’t stand it. Literally cant’ stand the changes that are made. And this happens every time a new iteration of that game comes out.

The skill trees have been simplified. LFR has taken the challenge out of raids and people who liked raiding before hate it. There have been long periods of imbalance and people complaining about the OP of one or another profession.

Saying that there WoW fan base isn’t chocked full of complaints is simply wrong. In fact, I know very very few WoW players that don’t complain about the game constantly.

Behellagh.1468:

Where did they say bi-weekly? “Couple of” definition is more than one but a small number.

Fixed that for you. Yep, that’s the definition. However, there’s also the definition of couple, which is: two items of the same kind; a pair. I’d be willing to bet that most people don’t look up “couple of” when they read “couple of weeks.” I’d bet ANet staff didn’t look it up either.

going back to the OP, many guilds suffered on our BL due to the wvw thing. Many left, however most of the hardcore WvW players did not leave and agreed to unite under a new flag.. www.uranus-squad.com

IndigoSundown.5419:

Behellagh.1468:

Where did they say bi-weekly? “Couple of” definition is more than one but a small number.

Fixed that for you. Yep, that’s the definition. However, there’s also the definition of couple, which is: two items of the same kind; a pair. I’d be willing to bet that most people don’t look up “couple of” when they read “couple of weeks.” I’d bet ANet staff didn’t look it up either.

Wrong.

Dictionary.com

Idioms
14. a couple of, more than two, but not many, of; a small number of; a few:

Merriam Webster.com

4. : an indefinite small number : few <a couple of days ago>

If he meant two weeks he would have said two weeks. He realized he can’t promise that so he used “a couple of” as it would be less upsetting than saying the more realistic “monthly” or “every month or so”.

MMO players in general get easily discouraged. Hop over to any popular public forum for another MMO and you’ll see this everywhere.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Your restaurant example is flawed. Studies show that 80% of patrons with a complaint won’t complain in your store. 80% of people just simply won’t come back. This example is why I smile when people trot out the old “vocal minority” bit.

This is a valid point, but it too is not without fault. While you are right that many will be more inclined to silently stop playing, the circumstances surrounding the restaurant industry and the gaming industry are very different.

In the restaurant industry, people eat out and they get dissatified with the meal. But by the time they get home, most will not be bothered to log on to their computer and submit a negative review, unless they are that way inclined or the meal was so terrible they feel people really need to be told. In the restaurant situation, because they will not want the confrontation of a face to face complaint, most will simply not go there again.

In the gaming industry you are already on your computer, so it is a lot easier to quickly alt+tab to the forum and leave a comment. The experience is still fresh in your mind and your energy to complain is still raging through you. There has been no calming period on your way home, as is often the case with bad restaurant experiences.

So while there is some merrit to the idea some will quit silently, the statistics for one business type cannot necessarily be transferred to another. Also, because it requires a lot more investment to play an MMORPG than it does to eat out at a restaurant, people are more inclined to try to salvage the game, before giving up on it and feeling like they wasted several hours, days, weeks, months or years of their life.

At the end of the day, we can all use terms like ‘vocal minority’ (I am guilty of this too) and ‘silently lost business’, but only Anet will know the true picture. All we can do is give them constructive feedback. Anything else is of no use to Anet, in terms of making the game better and improving their profit.

Vayne.8563:

I’ve seen WoW fans carve up WoW as effectively as forum dwellers her carve up Guild Wars 2. Your assertion about WoW forums being better may or may not be true, but then, how the moderation works might be very different there too.

I know quite a few WoW players who have simply stopped playing the game because they can’t stand it. Literally cant’ stand the changes that are made. And this happens every time a new iteration of that game comes out.

The skill trees have been simplified. LFR has taken the challenge out of raids and people who liked raiding before hate it. There have been long periods of imbalance and people complaining about the OP of one or another profession.

Saying that there WoW fan base isn’t chocked full of complaints is simply wrong. In fact, I know very very few WoW players that don’t complain about the game constantly.

And yet WoW still has move active PAYING players per month than GW2 total sales in 3 years, so they cant be all bad,

The problem here I think which has been mentioned is that there does not seem to be a direct link in what the playerbase ( the actual players playing the game want ) and what the devs want the game to be like, and until them 2 sides come together and seriously discuss in the direction they want the game to be going, there will always be this problem, every game suffers from it at some point, the ones who get the balance right survive, the ones that don’t, die a slow death,

For PvE, I don’t think they know where they are going, the nerf long running builds, remove popular traits etc, then fall silent when the wall of hate comes there way, its always been there reaction, just sit in silence, the only time ive seen them come back and actually answer and try to fix something was from the PR nightmare fallout from the HoT, and had that only been kept on these forums, we wouldn’t have gotten that outcome, things like removed loot, nerfed events etc will continue.

Everyone knows that sPvP is where Anet want to be, they want that esports soooo badly, they will bend over backwards to make this game mode work, they will nerf or buff as needed to try and keep this game format alive, its been proven time and time again,

WvW, I think if they could get away with removing this format completely from the game it would be done, im sure everyone has seen the video where the dev said that all WvW players are really PvE players, that says it all, within the next 18 months WvW will be phased out completely from this game, they have no real interest in it, for all those seriously expecting the new map to be all that, get ready for a world of PvE dropped into it.

For me im more frustrated that a game and company ive supported for over 10 years seems hell bent on destroying it, they make changes that do not need to be done, and others that should have been done years ago, then they sit silent, its like we are playing 2 completely different games, I have friends who have left this game and will never return, I have some who now play FF14 and are trying to get me to play it, and honestly with the updates and support that game is getting, its making it hard to resist.

The whole argument about we are all hard working on HoT doesn’t really work, if you don’t have someone on here actively talking to us, you wont have a community left to play your HoT.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Vayne.8563:

I’ve seen WoW fans carve up WoW as effectively as forum dwellers her carve up Guild Wars 2. Your assertion about WoW forums being better may or may not be true, but then, how the moderation works might be very different there too.

I know quite a few WoW players who have simply stopped playing the game because they can’t stand it. Literally cant’ stand the changes that are made. And this happens every time a new iteration of that game comes out.

The skill trees have been simplified. LFR has taken the challenge out of raids and people who liked raiding before hate it. There have been long periods of imbalance and people complaining about the OP of one or another profession.

Saying that there WoW fan base isn’t chocked full of complaints is simply wrong. In fact, I know very very few WoW players that don’t complain about the game constantly.

And yet WoW still has move active PAYING players per month than GW2 total sales in 3 years, so they cant be all bad,

The problem here I think which has been mentioned is that there does not seem to be a direct link in what the playerbase ( the actual players playing the game want ) and what the devs want the game to be like, and until them 2 sides come together and seriously discuss in the direction they want the game to be going, there will always be this problem, every game suffers from it at some point, the ones who get the balance right survive, the ones that don’t, die a slow death,

For PvE, I don’t think they know where they are going, the nerf long running builds, remove popular traits etc, then fall silent when the wall of hate comes there way, its always been there reaction, just sit in silence, the only time ive seen them come back and actually answer and try to fix something was from the PR nightmare fallout from the HoT, and had that only been kept on these forums, we wouldn’t have gotten that outcome, things like removed loot, nerfed events etc will continue.

Everyone knows that sPvP is where Anet want to be, they want that esports soooo badly, they will bend over backwards to make this game mode work, they will nerf or buff as needed to try and keep this game format alive, its been proven time and time again,

WvW, I think if they could get away with removing this format completely from the game it would be done, im sure everyone has seen the video where the dev said that all WvW players are really PvE players, that says it all, within the next 18 months WvW will be phased out completely from this game, they have no real interest in it, for all those seriously expecting the new map to be all that, get ready for a world of PvE dropped into it.

For me im more frustrated that a game and company ive supported for over 10 years seems hell bent on destroying it, they make changes that do not need to be done, and others that should have been done years ago, then they sit silent, its like we are playing 2 completely different games, I have friends who have left this game and will never return, I have some who now play FF14 and are trying to get me to play it, and honestly with the updates and support that game is getting, its making it hard to resist.

The whole argument about we are all hard working on HoT doesn’t really work, if you don’t have someone on here actively talking to us, you wont have a community left to play your HoT.

I would hate for WvW to die off. It is a unique game type that is really fun to me. I couldn’t really see myself losing much interest in it. I also very much doubt that thgey could completely phase out WvW, unless pve becomes 10 times (No seriously, I’m talking 1000% better)better or pvp merges with WvW somehow.

It doesn’t neccessarily matter if they have little interest in it (Which is definitely not the case but we’ll look at your argument.) , players have interest in it, so they’ll be more or less forced to invest in it, if we show enough support. I mean, the whole idea of WvW is awesome and epic. A huge map where 3 servers fight for control, in addition to several challenging champions and enemies that fight everyone too. WvW kind of reminds me of planetside 2 to be honest.

As a long time fan of GW since the early years I’d like to wade in here at the defence of ANet but I can’t without looking silly. All the reasons for discouragement have already been well listed above and I agree with most.

I visit these forums during work hours and log onto the game in the evenings. I won’t say play the game as a lot of the time I’m standing in DR while chatting with guildies. Throw in farming and dungeon runs and that’s what this game is to me now. It’s more like a chat room with nice scenery.

I think I stay from habit and the hope, the real hope, that one day upon loading a patch I’ll realise ANet finally started to fix problems. Lol, I imagine that patch would take a while to download!

Its actually quite depressing, its like people are always looking for the next witch hunt or at the very least seem to enjoy shooting themselves in the foot. First you get people complaining Anet never really cared about WvW, they complain how some servers have population imbalance. So what Do anet do? they decide to do something nice, a little fun event that might actually entice some new players to WvW.

Things go wrong because hey no good deed can ever go unpunished.

Once again end of the world, people threatening to quit, endless attacks on Anet for not bending the laws of physics etc…

I dont know, perhaps its because people arent used to development but it simply doesnt make sense to fix a bug in something that runs just for 1 week.

I am not sure when the issue was reported but lets say it was the same day. Obviously on day 1 nothing is going to happen, someone needs to see the report, support would need to replicate it, it has to be assigned to the section in charge and assigned to a developer. So 2nd day work starts on it. First whats causing it needs to be identified. It may be something simple which can be pinpointed in an hour, it may be something complex that needs days. Lets be optimistic and say it takes 1/2 a day. Then it needs to be fixed. Again it maybe be simple to fix or it may once again be complex. There are other similar bugs related to golems that have been plaguing WvW so I am going to be its pretty complex to get this fixed, likely needs days of work to sort out. Then you need to test the fix and I bet testing department is pretty busy right now. Then you need to package the update and release which also need to be scheduled especially when your code is likely in flux while working on the expansion. By the time they’re ready to release the event would be over or close to over. Whats more they’d have to impact expansion development / testing and for what? to fix an event the same people complaining about the exploit have been complaining how horrible it is and that it should be stopped prematurely?

Now fine maybe this was a poorly thought out event and sure if you dont like it share with Anet why you dont like so next time they do better. But seriously does everything have to reach the I quit, major attacks on anet and the world is falling level?

Galen Grey.4709:

Now fine maybe this was a poorly thought out event and sure if you dont like it share with Anet why you dont like so next time they do better. But seriously does everything have to reach the I quit, major attacks on anet and the world is falling level?

People did share. They shared when the event was announced, they shared in the days leading up to it, and there is now a 1000+ post thread (plus many others) sharing their thoughts on it for the last week.

Anet has been completely silent throughout the whole thing. So it really shouldn’t be that surprising that people are mad when they feel that their opinions don’t matter and that an entire set of the user base is being completely ignored. If you want to be part of this conversation you really should read those threads to see what’s really been going on. I know it’s 1000 posts, but give it a go.

Teevell.1684:

Galen Grey.4709:

Now fine maybe this was a poorly thought out event and sure if you dont like it share with Anet why you dont like so next time they do better. But seriously does everything have to reach the I quit, major attacks on anet and the world is falling level?

People did share. They shared when the event was announced, they shared in the days leading up to it, and there is now a 1000+ post thread (plus many others) sharing their thoughts on it for the last week.

Anet has been completely silent throughout the whole thing. So it really shouldn’t be that surprising that people are mad when they feel that their opinions don’t matter and that an entire set of the user base is being completely ignored. If you want to be part of this conversation you really should read those threads to see what’s really been going on. I know it’s 1000 posts, but give it a go.

Thats fine, I dont mind people not liking the vent, thats not where my issues lie. Its the “overreactions” that are the problem.

What do you expect Anet to do? IF they came out and said sorry we regret the exploit but we’re not going to fix it cause it is not feasible to allocate resources for something thats going to be over in a few days anyway. Would that make anyone happy? or will it again backfire on Anet because then you’ll have more people saying Anet dont care about WvW, that it is just not important enough ?

Galen Grey.4709:

Teevell.1684:

Galen Grey.4709:

Now fine maybe this was a poorly thought out event and sure if you dont like it share with Anet why you dont like so next time they do better. But seriously does everything have to reach the I quit, major attacks on anet and the world is falling level?

People did share. They shared when the event was announced, they shared in the days leading up to it, and there is now a 1000+ post thread (plus many others) sharing their thoughts on it for the last week.

Anet has been completely silent throughout the whole thing. So it really shouldn’t be that surprising that people are mad when they feel that their opinions don’t matter and that an entire set of the user base is being completely ignored. If you want to be part of this conversation you really should read those threads to see what’s really been going on. I know it’s 1000 posts, but give it a go.

Thats fine, I dont mind people not liking the vent, thats not where my issues lie. Its the “overreactions” that are the problem.

What do you expect Anet to do? IF they came out and said sorry we regret the exploit but we’re not going to fix it cause it is not feasible to allocate resources for something thats going to be over in a few days anyway. Would that make anyone happy? or will it again backfire on Anet because then you’ll have more people saying Anet dont care about WvW, that it is just not important enough ?

The one time someone from Anet posted in that forum this week, their post was met with thanks and appreciation. So yeah, it would go a long way. It’s the lack of communication (for multiple years, not just 1 week) that is making people angry. This event was a tipping point, not the start of it.

If you want to join this conversation, you really should read all of it, even though I get most people in this thread/forum haven’t been in it from the start, and are just coming on it at the tail end.

Behellagh.1468:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Behellagh.1468:

Where did they say bi-weekly? “Couple of” definition is more than one but a small number.

Fixed that for you. Yep, that’s the definition. However, there’s also the definition of couple, which is: two items of the same kind; a pair. I’d be willing to bet that most people don’t look up “couple of” when they read “couple of weeks.” I’d bet ANet staff didn’t look it up either.

Wrong.

Dictionary.com

Idioms
14. a couple of, more than two, but not many, of; a small number of; a few:

Merriam Webster.com

4. : an indefinite small number : few <a couple of days ago>

If he meant two weeks he would have said two weeks. He realized he can’t promise that so he used “a couple of” as it would be less upsetting than saying the more realistic “monthly” or “every month or so”.

Dictionary.Com, huh? Apparently online dictionaries don’t always agree.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/a+couple+of

“… more than one but indefinitely small in number;”

I was going to point you to an interesting discussion on stackexchange.com, but your attachment suggests you’ve been there already. The gist of it is that some people interpret it literally and some less so. Used literally, a couple is “two.” Used less literally, it means “indefinite small number.” At least the discussion was interesting.

My point was that I doubt that ANet staff looked it up before using it, and that it’s obvious that forum visitors are taking things literally, which is hardly surprising, while ANet is equivocating, which is also par for the course.

Finally, something else to consider. We’re nitpicking the use of a phrase in a post on a game forum. We’re taking this stuff way too seriously. I’ll stop now.

pdavis.8031:

From what I understand is that people who complain and are dissatisfied about various aspects of the game, are generally dissatisfied with their lives in general.

Way to go personal in order to ignore arguments you don’t agree with, when you can’t actually address the arguments themselves.

Teevell.1684:

The one time someone from Anet posted in that forum this week, their post was met with thanks and appreciation. So yeah, it would go a long way. It’s the lack of communication (for multiple years, not just 1 week) that is making people angry. This event was a tipping point, not the start of it.

If you want to join this conversation, you really should read all of it, even though I get most people in this thread/forum haven’t been in it from the start, and are just coming on it at the tail end.

Thing is and this is crucial people ask for communication but at the same time make it impossible for Anet to communicate. In this very thread someone said “They said they would do a patch every two weeks to adjust balance in light of the huge balance patch. Have they? Nope. Have they even mentioned anything about it? Nope.” and that has started a whole debate on what was actually said and meant by Anet.

Everything Anet say will be analysed, people will interpret stuff the way they want to interpret stuff. This has been happening since the manifesto as I am sure you well know. What Anet say people will gladly use against them when it will suite them. You say they will be thanked for their feedback? by a few players sure but unless that feedback makes everyone happy which is impossible it will also be used as proof how clearly Anet must hate their own game or their player base or something even though both statements are clearly wrong.

Not only have I been following this conversation but a lot of the conversations that happened since before the game launched.

Astralporing.1957:

pdavis.8031:

From what I understand is that people who complain and are dissatisfied about various aspects of the game, are generally dissatisfied with their lives in general.

Way to go personal in order to ignore arguments you don’t agree with, when you can’t actually address the arguments themselves.

Actually my response was in answer to the question posed by the OP: " Why is the community so easily discouraged?"

As I said in another post: this doesn’t trivialize or invalidate the complaints. As I am not a dev, or Anet employee, there is really nothing I can do about complaints, except to agree or disagree. However, my point, as stated several times, is that at least some of the complaints we see about the game here in the forums, often stem from stress and/or disappointment in other areas of life, and not strictly from the game itself.

Galen Grey.4709:

Teevell.1684:

The one time someone from Anet posted in that forum this week, their post was met with thanks and appreciation. So yeah, it would go a long way. It’s the lack of communication (for multiple years, not just 1 week) that is making people angry. This event was a tipping point, not the start of it.

If you want to join this conversation, you really should read all of it, even though I get most people in this thread/forum haven’t been in it from the start, and are just coming on it at the tail end.

Thing is and this is crucial people ask for communication but at the same time make it impossible for Anet to communicate. In this very thread someone said “They said they would do a patch every two weeks to adjust balance in light of the huge balance patch. Have they? Nope. Have they even mentioned anything about it? Nope.” and that has started a whole debate on what was actually said and meant by Anet.

Everything Anet say will be analysed, people will interpret stuff the way they want to interpret stuff. This has been happening since the manifesto as I am sure you well know. What Anet say people will gladly use against them when it will suite them. You say they will be thanked for their feedback? by a few players sure but unless that feedback makes everyone happy which is impossible it will also be used as proof how clearly Anet must hate their own game or their player base or something even though both statements are clearly wrong.

Not only have I been following this conversation but a lot of the conversations that happened since before the game launched.

No one is making it impossible for Anet to communicate on their own forums, they’re choosing not to. And even if you were right and people would still be angry (and of course some people will never be pleased), good companies don’t hide from their customers.

And I find it hard to believe you were following this conversation at all when you started off saying people need to share their opinion with Anet. Obviously you were completely unaware of all the sharing that has been happening. Either that, or you just want to be right, regardless.

1/10 valid complaints, 9/10 nitpicking.

Vayne.8563:

Tigaseye.2047:

Timiok.1048:

I don’t see this in other games that often.

You, clearly, haven’t visited the WoW forums…

GW2 is a beautiful game, but to anyone used to a game like WoW, for example, this game does seem to fall a little short, in terms of class/build/weapon type balance and basic gameplay design (boss and mob movement/AI etc.) and so on.

…have to be honest.

It also seems to allow certain issues to carry on occurring, when they would almost certainly be stopped sooner in some other games.

It places the (in theory, admirable) idea of beauty and fun over everything else.

Apparently, forgetting that the game is (unfortunately) full of people who value maximum efficiency over everything else (and so, will happily challenge others, if they make a sub-meta class/build/weapon/gear choice, for example) and that it (also) involves some PVP (where balance is always king).

To people only used to playing this game, or even less finely-tuned games, I’m sure it seems (fairly) fine, though.

I’ve seen WoW fans carve up WoW as effectively as forum dwellers her carve up Guild Wars 2. Your assertion about WoW forums being better may or may not be true, but then, how the moderation works might be very different there too.

I know quite a few WoW players who have simply stopped playing the game because they can’t stand it. Literally cant’ stand the changes that are made. And this happens every time a new iteration of that game comes out.

The skill trees have been simplified. LFR has taken the challenge out of raids and people who liked raiding before hate it. There have been long periods of imbalance and people complaining about the OP of one or another profession.

Saying that there WoW fan base isn’t chocked full of complaints is simply wrong. In fact, I know very very few WoW players that don’t complain about the game constantly.

I didn’t mean that the WoW forums are better (although they obviously are, purely in terms of functionality); I meant that they are the same.

People, mostly, go there to complain, too.

I feel WoW is more balanced than this game, now (and has been for some time).

GW2 is almost like travelling back in time, to Cata WoW, from that POV.

The talent trees in WoW are now far better, IMO, as you can now choose any talent from a line, to suit your playstyle and/or situation and all of them directly relate to each other.

So, in each line, you now have a DPS boost, or a healing boost, or a defence boost, to choose from (for example); rather than them all being jumbled up.

So, it’s all very logical and balanced.

There are no red herrings, anymore.

Whereas, in GW2, even after the changes, it’s still a bit of a complicated jumble and that makes it far more inclined to be imbalanced and for people to just end up looking up cookie-cutter builds online.

Rather than trusting their own judgement.

LFR hasn’t “taken the skill out of raids”, because it is easier than “real” raiding (and actually, has been made easier still, lately).

It’s more like a fairly gentle introduction into raiding, or a fun thing you can do (not so much this xpac, but previously) if you want, without requiring too much organisation, in between doing more challenging stuff, like guild raids.

But, we’re not really here to debate the pros and cons of WoW, are we?

I was just mentioning it, to demonstrate that some people still, also, complain there and because I think it is less imbalanced than GW2 is.

nacario.9417:

Every community consist of different people. It is those who scream the loudest that gets heared, and their views usually dont represent the community. So no, I dont see anything special about the GW2 community compared to others. We are consumers and we all play and want different things.

Well, it’s not quite that simple, as you’re assuming all requests are created equal and are all made by reasonable people.

When the truth is, that some people want fairness and balance and some people don’t.

For example, some people want to be able to play any class, or build, with equal chance of success.

Whereas, some other people want there to be “meta” classes and builds, so they can play them and dominate the others.

Fairness and balance is something that should be provided, as it isn’t up for debate whether it is right, or wrong.

Every, reasonable, person knows it’s right and something all games should aspire to.

Hopefully, Anet is capable of sorting the wheat from the chaff, however loudly the “chaff” might shout.

Reading these forums seems to be the source of my discouragement. Really, this place is downright depressing. I’ve noticed my time in game has significantly been reduced since I started reading in here. I would love to see something of substantial value posted once in awhile instead of pages and pages of useless comments like this one.

(/me wonders why forum reading is so addictive?)

Teevell.1684:

No one is making it impossible for Anet to communicate on their own forums, they’re choosing not to. And even if you were right and people would still be angry (and of course some people will never be pleased), good companies don’t hide from their customers.

It is not about hiding from your customer its about damage control. Some people think exaggerating points and unfair comments are not a problem but they are. They can do a lot of harm, I know cause back when the original guild wars launched I didnt buy it at launch because of such exaggerated points people were repeating. Things like its not really an MMO, its mainly a PvP game etc.. Then I bought it on a whim and surprise turns out not only most of the criticism I heard was not exactly true but this was actually my favorite MMO for a long long time.

So yes if what Arenanet say ends up twisted and used against them generally in fairly (quoted out of context, miss interpreted, attributed meaning it didnt really have in the first place etc..) they end up with no choice but to limit their damage as much as possible. What options do they have in that regard? silence people, they cannot do that naturally, the only thing they can do is limit communication on their part.

Teevell.1684:

And I find it hard to believe you were following this conversation at all when you started off saying people need to share their opinion with Anet. Obviously you were completely unaware of all the sharing that has been happening. Either that, or you just want to be right, regardless.

No most people arent sharing their opinion and they’re outright attacking. Want an example check out the Golem rush thread in the WvW forum. You need to get down to post 41 in order to get an opinion rather then an all out attacking which simply states in 41 different ways the event is bad without explaining why. And even post 41 had no suggestions on how to make things better only what the event broke. Still has some valuable insight compared to the other 40 posts but hey isnt it in everyone’s best interest to focus on what can be improved rather then what doesnt work?

Jimson.5168:

Reading these forums seems to be the source of my discouragement. Really, this place is downright depressing. I’ve noticed my time in game has significantly been reduced since I started reading in here. I would love to see something of substantial value posted once in awhile instead of pages and pages of useless comments like this one.

(/me wonders why forum reading is so addictive?)

You shouldnt let forum opinion affect your view on things. Nothing in game because better or worst based on opinions on the forum. Besides a lot of things are open to interpretation / subject to personal play style like the never ending fight regarding if this is the grindiest game of all time or one of the few MMOs that has managed to conquer the grind beast.

Like any company it is a mix of good people and bad ones. I know companies that are FAR worse and ones that are better. I always have good interactions with their customer service (yes, I hade the script they have to follow but know they need to follow it). Some of the content people are great!

As to changes that require development remember, you are not the one coding it. Things users see as ‘a quick fix’ are not to anyone that knows the code (and vise-versa).

Carighan.6758:

The majority are playing, or waiting for the xpack. Those already angry snap at every change and then take to the forums, doesn’t make what it actually is.

As the game sold more than 5 million copies, and the number of players seems smaller with each day, i guess that the majority of the players have quit or are doing something better waiting for the expac to freshen things up.

Aenesthesia.1697:

Carighan.6758:

The majority are playing, or waiting for the xpack. Those already angry snap at every change and then take to the forums, doesn’t make what it actually is.

As the game sold more than 5 million copies, and the number of players seems smaller with each day, i guess that the majority of the players have quit or are doing something better waiting for the expac to freshen things up.

as is its absolutely impossible to know many people are playing.

You cannot simply based that on how many people you’re seeing on the map you’re currently playing on. Never mind players might be on other maps or doing other content at that moment but also because there is no way to tell if your map instance is the only one running of there are more / how many more.

Ergo in your map you might be seeing absolutely no players but if there are another 10 full instances of your map running with 200 players in each that doesnt mean no one is playing the game does it. Likewise if you’re seeing a ton of players all around you there is no way to tell how many more instance there are of that map. Ergo sure your instance might be busy but it could also be the only instance running which would still make it low pop overall.

In essence there is no reliable way to tell how the population is fairing. Probably the most reliable way is by watching revenue and that was never very reliable in the first place.