Guild Wars 2

(cont)

I want this MMO to succeed so badly, but you have got to either find a way to fix the numerous issues that are plaguing your events, or stop shining a huge spotlight on how glaringly broken your setup is are by creating events that can’t work with the issues your game currently has. Every release seems to be failing harder than the last, and the most frustrating thing is you’re probably trying harder with every consecutive attempt. I genuinely feel bad for you guys and your predicament, but at the same time the whole reason I’m playing games like this is to have fun, and this isn’t fun.

A beautifully constructed post. Well done Edge.

I agree with the sentiments stated in the OP, I lack the skill to write such an eloquent post myself.
For me personally I feel Anet are trying but failing and it will reflect badly on sales (both cash shop and box sales)
I beg you to stop with the one time only events. The “idea” is good but in practice, as have been proven in many other MMOs that have tried such content, it fails because too many people try to be there at the same time.
I so want this game to be a success!

Very well said. I agree with everything.

I think it should be said that the same flawed design principles are hurting profession balance as well. Professions are being balanced around bugged skills and traits which is only going to require further re-balancing once those bugs are fixed.

They really need to get their priorities straight and start communicating with their players.

I would like to add. What is with the one track mind on everything created. I applaud the new Sea of Sorrows area, but 90% of the creatures are vets and champs that DROP NOTHING BUT TRASH, if they even drop anything at all.

Voices has been raised on the risen of annoying snares and contested mobs, and slow downs, and how much it annoys most players. What do these new creatures in SoS have. ALL the same as the Risen. Annoying snares, etc, etc. Also the zone seems to be the Mists but a PVE version of it? You can not navigate this zone unless you have a zerg with you or you will die fast.

All this hype about ascending gear and in the new SoS area if you do get a drop, it is just the same ole same ole, I had not yet seen anything new dropping except the normal trash we all ready have, or nothing at all?

i couldnt agree more, if ppl like us simply are enraged, and they dont care about something, they simply quit, and kitten off…

but its not this the case, we are here, we are screaming because we love this work, but this last patch have a really bitter taste…(some part are very very good, some others are forgettable) and the way the are handle the community and the related problems, are a lot bitter.

Ganzo.5079:

i couldnt agree more, if ppl like us simply are enraged, and they dont care about something, they simply quit, and kitten off…

but its not this the case, we are here, we are screaming because we love this work, but this last patch have a really bitter taste…(some part are very very good, some others are forgettable) and the way the are handle the community and the related problems, are a lot bitter.

This being the free trial weekend also means any potential customers have all seen the game at its worst. They’re not just pushing away their loyal customers; they’re scaring off potential customers too…

What’s even more frustrating is that you’re aware the problem exists, but continue to release content that will never function correctly as long as the problem is around. It’s like you’re designers are creating content for a game that has already licked the issue, when in reality you haven’t. Why allow this?

Because writing to the limitations of the medium seems a lost art in video games.

Your special events keep breaking after being activated repeatedly. And I wish this was something that I had confidence that you could fix, but the truth is even your normal events have been suffering from this same problem since launch. If you haven’t been able to fix those, you’re not likely to fix these anytime soon. This, to me, seems like another reason to stick these special event NPCs in private instances. At least then the players have the option of resetting the instance if something in the scripting jams.

I’m going to try and defend ANET here. Their stated method is to fix the underlying cause of the problem, not to band-aid each individual occurrence. Which is the better long term solution.
But then we see that they keep making events that hit the same bug, we are back to your first point and my defense fails.

How often do the writers ever talk to the bug fix guys ?

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

Ganzo.5079:

i couldnt agree more, if ppl like us simply are enraged, and they dont care about something, they simply quit, and kitten off…

but its not this the case, we are here, we are screaming because we love this work, but this last patch have a really bitter taste…(some part are very very good, some others are forgettable) and the way the are handle the community and the related problems, are a lot bitter.

This being the free trial weekend also means any potential customers have all seen the game at its worst. They’re not just pushing away their loyal customers; they’re scaring off potential customers too…

Now think about what those potential customers are thinking when the person that was pushing them to try GW2, and maybe even gave them a trial key, is now telling them not to buy it.

Excellent post and I agree with OP.

I just want to add that I too don’t understand the decision of having a free trial this weekend, knowing full well that the game struggles whenever you combine population and events. It’s really hard to recover from a poor first impression, and it’s one thing to combine a trial and a special event when you know you have the delivery nailed.. but the same problems are still there and there should be no surprises at this point with how things went.

I also refuse to believe that they’re designing and testing these events in even remotely similar conditions to how we eventually play them. It just seems impossible that the developers go through this content the same way we are and walk away from it thinking “well that was a lot of fun”. I’m sure it is a complete blast when it’s working and 5 devs are running around testing it together. But that is far from the way we’re experiencing this content.

I agree wholeheartedly!

A well thought out and important post.

ANet, please pay some serious heed to this person. Our game is being wrecked, and that’s a crying shame, because we love it.

It just seems impossible that the developers go through this content the same way we are and walk away from it thinking “well that was a lot of fun”.

They do not test their shiat. There are so many obvious bugs still left in game. The players are the ones that test it, and since I had not once seen a post at all in these forums from anet about their considerations of the player base. Honesly I think they do not give a rats ars about what their customers are concerned about.

The only post you see in here from aNet are when they move a thread.

My thoughts exactly.

I have decided to give this Lost Shores event one last shot tomorrow. Too bad I already know the finale will be just another unplayable lagfest.

Well written post. Details concerning issues and doesn’t rely on hyperbole.
Your events are proving to be a time when we should avoid logging in rather than be excited to be involved.
They have been an exercise of frustration this weekend and really not worth the time to be involved in.

I am feeling pretty bad for the art design team as well. I haven’t really caught up with the amount of lore because it’s buried under a heap of annoying flawed technicalities which have been outlined and experienced already. I would have loved experiencing the whole event but alas it didn’t happen. I am afraid that in the end I won’t remember the event quite in the same manner which ANet intended to and at this rate the announcement of one time events might scare people off.

Overall I believe it’s a case of great ideas being wasted a bit and in addition to that I also believe releasing massive amount of content at this stage might have been a bit over-ambitious. It’s the same cognitive dissonance which caused the Mad Clock Tower drama among other things just in an escalated form.

What I believe they should do besides considering to make feasibility studies and more intensive test is probably scratch the idea of one-time-one-zone events as long as their technologies cannot guarantee it to be an enjoyable experience. Sometimes some things are simply not possible and have to deferred until they can be realized and implemented as you wanted. It’s better to have a simple idea – such as small-scale and repeatable events – which works and is enjoyed by many than an overgrown ambitious idea which is only enjoyable by designers after reading their design papers and while doing small-scale tests.

Great post OP.
Well thought out and constructive, I agree with everything you said and I really hope that this post gets seem by the appropriate people.

+1….good post.

Well said. My first impression of this game was “Wow, what a groundbreaking leap from Guild Wars 1,” until hints of vertical progression began to eschew Guild Wars’s famed horizontal progression. I find myself allured by the now-F2P SWTOR more every day over exactly what the OP laments.

Agree 100% with OP. Anet we love your game and want it to work as much as you do so please fix it!

http://i.qkme.me/3opzfm.jpg

Those are some wonderful points.

I didn’t even think of that idea but the “scavenger” hunt events would be best suiting to a personal instance similar to the personal story. In fact they could really expand on them there and tell the lore in a more compelling way.

I know they didn’t do that because they want the world to appear alive but the fact of the matter is that their events can not handle hordes of people. Even when they don’t break it isn’t fun fighting with other people to tag mobs that disappear in seconds.

I just wanted to say, that your post was well written & well said OP, and you bring up a lot of valid points, which I hope arena net sees & takes into consideration.

These are great points, but I disagree that ANet’s reach is exceeding its grasp, because it is by now crystal-clear that what it is reaching for is scamming, tricking and fooling customers in the hopes of ripping them off. Black Lion chests. Releasing new content while core old content remains broken. Saying they would never create a gear grind and then creating one. Scheduled events that are trivial let-downs. Content that, as you say, is not even reasonably playable or render-able on their engine. Badges/commendations that offer rewards you can buy for 24 copper pieces on the trading post—a lingering problem of the game and re-introduced yet again in Lost Shores. Plenty of cool ideas and innovations in the game, but ultimately it is, like all modern MMOs, a psychology experiment into trying to get customers to enter a positive feedback loop to spend money. Problem is, Blizzard is still genius at it and companies like this are clumsy so those with brains see the flaws.

I continue to hop on and play for a while. But I’m not playing new content and I’m not spending a penny on this deceptive game. It ain’t failure, my friend—it’s scam.

Wasselin.1235:

Those are some wonderful points.

I didn’t even think of that idea but the “scavenger” hunt events would be best suiting to a personal instance similar to the personal story. In fact they could really expand on them there and tell the lore in a more compelling way.

I know they didn’t do that because they want the world to appear alive but the fact of the matter is that their events can not handle hordes of people. Even when they don’t break it isn’t fun fighting with other people to tag mobs that disappear in seconds.

I get the whole “wanting the world to feel alive” desire also. And I do understand that some players like to see others around rather than the lonely feeling that can come with private instancing (particularly if you’re playing solo).

But when we make our way to one of these event NPCs and the intent is to have a conversation with said NPC that ultimately leads to a fight with said NPC.. well, just look at the NPCs “Noll” and “Canach” from the Lost Shores event. You have dozens of players standing around these NPCs waiting to kill them (especially because the content is only available for a day or two), most too nervous to even blink lest they miss their opportunity to progress past the current stage. There is no opportunity to even read the opening dialogue of these NPCs because the moment players can activate them the AOE effects start flying and three seconds later the fight is over (much to dismay of anyone naive enough to be pacing themselves through the dialogue boxes).

So, that entire stage of the event becomes a joke on a number of levels. Yes, we’re in the open world and, yes, we’re feeling alive and social, but even when nothing is breaking we’re being reminded the entire time that the entire setup is ludicrous. Compare that to a private instance where you may be alone (or alone with your party), but at least things move at a pace of your choosing, you can actually take the time to read the dialogue these NPCs offer, and the fights at least have a semblance of being challenging. ANet could fix all the bugs, but in the end there’s just no way we’ll ever get that sort of reasonable “realism” out in the open game-world.. not when we’re standing around with dozens of other players waiting to mug one NPC before everyone else can.

op is the best I red in the forum so far.

For the money I paid, gw2 has amazing value. The amount of content and gameplay will keep me going for months to come.

But it’s better not to do something then do it poorly. We did not need this event. The new pve map, the fractals and the new pve zone would have been enough. Now the lag and bugs of the event casts a long shadow over the rest of the content, and over Arenanet in general.

The game is so good, but please get the big events right in the future.

Good post by the OP. Me and a few friends have been talking about all those things since yesterday.

They had to know the limitations of the engine and that it couldn’t possibly handle 500+ people in one area spamming abilities. It happens in wvwvw why would it be any different in LA?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg of all that’s wrong with the event. I wanted to enjoy it but it’s just been frustrating experience.

All that being said, the fractals are lots of fun. Except for the swamp one which is just sadistic.

Excellent post, agreed on all points

I want to add that I was disappointed in seeing no casual PvE content in this patch. Many of us have no interest in dungeons and were looking forward to the new Lost Shores zone which seems to be just a big open dungeon.

This was the first and most likely biggest free trial weekend, instead of bringing Guild Wars content to the table and selling that to the trials they brought WoW content to the table and buggy WoW content at that.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

I’m going to try and defend ANET here. Their stated method is to fix the underlying cause of the problem, not to band-aid each individual occurrence. Which is the better long term solution.

BOTH solutions need to be done at the same time – a band-aid fix for the problems that come up while the underlying problem is investigated and fixed.

However, the band-aid is completely ignored and, in many cases, might not even be possible, given how they’ve set up the game. Is there any other MMORPG where they can’t set quests to specific stages (or reset completely, as needed, to bypass a spot it’s getting stuck at), reset NPCs or spawn ones that should’ve shown up but didn’t, etc., on the fly while the game is up? It’s been possible (and done routinely) in every other MMORPG I’ve played for any length of time… (CoH, Vindictus, WoW, Toontown, Free Realms, Rift, and a couple of others)

WHat I find the most telling and the most sad.

On my server we went to the new land, opened all the areas… then everyone vanished to go back to grinding the dungeon.

This isnt the Guild Wars I was looking for. This is Grind Wars

Peetee.9406:

I want to add that I was disappointed in seeing no casual PvE content in this patch. Many of us have no interest in dungeons and were looking forward to the new Lost Shores zone which seems to be just a big open dungeon.

We were hoping for another Frostgorge.

We got another Orr.

Personally, I’d prefer it if they used the first few months to fix all of the bugs, especially the ones concerning professions, rather than constantly releasing new content. Kinda frustrating. I’m not really interested in new content, if my class traits are broken and I feel less effective.

I really hope the devs see this

Usagi.4835:

Personally, I’d prefer it if they used the first few months to fix all of the bugs, especially the ones concerning professions, rather than constantly releasing new content. Kinda frustrating. I’m not really interested in new content, if my class traits are broken and I feel less effective.

Yes, I’d prefer time be spent fixing the underlying problems that are causing all these events to suffer, rather than allocate those same resources towards supporting these events. I realize the event team is probably not going to be working on culling issues, for example, but I suspect there may be some cross over in shared resources with the programmers at least.

That said, the content team can either create content that works properly with the game’s current state, or create content that doesn’t work properly with the game’s current state. I think we’d all prefer to see the former, but they seem to be doing the latter. I get the desire to make these events as epic as possible, but I sincerely believe the biggest impressions they’re making lately are negative ones.

I think kill credit also needs to be reexamined when it comes to these larger events. I do pretty well when it comes to getting kill credit (obviously you don’t get loot with every kill credited to you, but you will get XP) on the normal dynamic events that are part of the every day game world (even if there’s a dozen other players around). But my ability to get credit for kills changes dramatically (for the worse) on these special events that attract a hundred-plus players to a single encounter.

At first I thought it was simply a case of me just not doing enough damage (and, to be fair, it is). However, it occurred to me that it’s quite possible that many monsters during these encounters are killed and nobody in the player-zerg receives credit for the kill.

According to developer interviews, to receive credit for killing a mob (and thus be rewarded XP and a chance of a loot drop) you have to be responsible for at least 5-10% of the damage required to kill your opponent. Let’s be on the safe/generous side and say 5%. Well, once you have more than 20 players fighting a single opponent, you’re obviously in a situation where people are guaranteed not to get kill credit no matter how hard they try.

In fact, once you have ~25 people attacking one of these event monsters with large health pools, it is theoretically possible for nobody to get credit for killing the mob if all 25 players are responsible for no more than 4% of the total damage. Throw 50 or 75 players at a champion boss in one of these events and the likelihood of no one receiving XP (or the possibility of a loot drop) increases dramatically. It would be fairly difficult for an individual to be responsible for at least 5% of the damage done to mob (with a large health pool) if you have nearly a hundred other players attacking it also.

I would just suggest that spending five minutes attacking a champion alongside a group and not even seeing an XP reward message pop up when it dies is disheartening. I know it makes me feel like I’m not contributing.. that maybe it doesn’t even matter whether my character is there or not.

I’m another player who enjoys the games lore and agree with the OP’s original post. Let’s fix the bugs we have before the new content. I’ve been a loyal fan for many years but if I can’t enjoy the games lore and play at my own pace then I may have to stop. I don’t need everything now and I don’t want it now, getting there is half the fun. I also realize there’s things I may never acheive but honestly let’s fix what we have here first so we can really enjoy the rich lore and what the dev’s are trying to give us. You have some awesome and creative people but the ways in which their ideas are being added to the game leave so much to be desired the effect is lessened if not completely destroyed.

Areann.1304:

I really hope the devs see this

The forums move so quickly, and I’m not sure how many opinions are every really seen by them. But I did see an associate producer commenting within a recent event picture thread indicating that he had a “a blast” during the latest event, and so it’s difficult not to wonder what is really going through their heads when they’re participating in these events alongside players.

Surely they see the complaints in chat about the sometimes constant 5-10 second lag time between initiating actions and the server responding, or the massive culling issues causing an unfair amount of deaths, or the NPCs breaking down and blocking the progress of quest chains. Do they just accept that this is the way things are and try to ignore it? Or are they coming back to the office on Monday saying “we have to fix these problems before we put out another event, we can’t keep shooting ourselves in the foot like this..”?

As for “having a blast”, I’m glad they had fun; there were certainly fun bits to be had and I think the effort has to count for something. But I think it’s difficult to deny that these events aren’t being severely marred by the many problems they have. I understand trying to make the best of things when you’re around players, but when they’re back at the officers with the development team I really hope they’re being a little more honest with one another about how things went.