Guild Wars 2

They could have made some traits unlockable via leveling up or mission rewards, just like what I suppose most people had in mind when asking for ways to earn their traits…

wwwes.1398:

~snip~

We need more than just title/image when living story updates are coming months later
I understand you guys want to keep some surprise in the mix, but there’s definitely a middle ground between undersharing and oversharing, and we are not in the sweet spot there yet. An example of how to slightly build upon that picture, for instance. What kind of land are we going to encounter, is it jungle? More desert? Are there going to be some new enemies to face there? Is there a new world boss? Within the next several updates, will we find a new zone? Will there be more open world events integrated with the living story?

~snip~

I’d say from what you said here that the one picture did exactly what they wanted it do, generate a bunch of questions that you want answered, and how will those get answered? By you playing the content when it’s released…makes complete sense to me to entice the player base that way.

Ohoni.6057:

If they want to incentivize players to run various content, they should do so in a way that does not involve traits.

I disagree, they did this in GW1 (whole skills were locked behind bosses in the world) and it worked great as horizontal progression.

It was just executed badly, lower tier traits unlockable in higher level areas… not so ideal. Personal story requirement… not so ideal. etc. Unlocking traits for the whole account would have also been nice, since playing alts is something a lot of people (have to) do nowadays.

Ohoni.6057:

And I feel the overhaul was a good concept, executed badly. Which they’ve acknowledged, also in the Traits topic.

But they seem to feel that they “executed it badly” merely by attaching traits to the wrong events. Where, in fact, they executed it badly was in pushing the trait tiers back by 20 levels each, and by requiring you to do various activities before unlocking them. The launch traits should not be behind unlocks, they should all unlock at each tier. If they want to incentivize players to run various content, they should do so in a way that does not involve traits.

Apologies, this is going to go off topic entirely, but . . . Trait Masteries were badly done and this is going to maybe possibly be the last time I float any suggestions on it.

First, yeah, they said that and they also said they want to look into something better. Which means they acknowledge this didn’t work well. So long as what we get is better and less problematic to work with than the current system? I couldn’t care less about what it does.

Second, I disagree with how the tiers should unlock Trait Masteries – I think some (not all but some) should unlock immediately. And by “some” I mean “let the player pick X amount, with X decreasing at each tier, freely”. You want to totally own the Masteries? Get to searching for ways to earn them.

Third, the trait point levels seems fine to me thus far, but after the NPE I would now make it so the “power dip” levels are bolstered by new trait points so there’s no “dead” levels.

Lastly, to your last sentence – what are they supposed to do to add incentive to do events which won’t get messed up by farmers or the min-max loot hounds which made Coiled Watch Fail Farms a thing? The more I watch this game and its players, and remember GW1’s few things, the more I think if ANet gives the players an inch, they are going to lose an arm in the process.

I disagree, they did this in GW1 (whole skills were locked behind bosses in the world) and it worked great as horizontal progression.

That was GW1, this is GW2. In GW2, you got all the traits at each tier, allowing you to mix and match them as you saw fit. With this new system, you can only use the ones you’ve unlocked, making it much more annoying to try them out. Imagine if you had to do a really annoying task to unlock a certain trait, and then find out you didn’t even like how it worked? And then you have to repeat the whole process over again on every character. No, it’s just a horrible system, full stop. And they also shouldn’t have pushed the traits back by 20 levels, because it makes the leveling process much more boring when so many classes don’t even “work” until you’re well into the trait trees.

First, yeah, they said that and they also said they want to look into something better. Which means they acknowledge this didn’t work well. So long as what we get is better and less problematic to work with than the current system? I couldn’t care less about what it does.

but they thought that the Spring update was “better” in some way, so their vision of what is “better” is clearly skewed, right? So if they are working on something “better” now, then it might be another three months or more before we actually see it, and then when we do, it might be even worse, or perhaps just not an improvement. Then they have to work on something “even better” and the cycle continues, wasting months and months of work that could be skipped entirely by just laying out the design they’re aiming for and letting us vet it before they actually waste time on it.

Second, I disagree with how the tiers should unlock Trait Masteries – I think some (not all but some) should unlock immediately. And by “some” I mean “let the player pick X amount, with X decreasing at each tier, freely”. You want to totally own the Masteries? Get to searching for ways to earn them.

I would prefer that to the current system, so long as they return PvP to “all unlocked, all the time,” so that you can test out traits before going through all the hassle of unlocking them. Forcing a new player to just guess which traits he might want based on vague descriptions is a bit cruel. There are plenty of traits I still don’t know what they do.

Lastly, to your last sentence – what are they supposed to do to add incentive to do events which won’t get messed up by farmers or the min-max loot hounds which made Coiled Watch Fail Farms a thing? The more I watch this game and its players, and remember GW1’s few things, the more I think if ANet gives the players an inch, they are going to lose an arm in the process.

So long as it isn’t repeatable, they can do all sorts of things. They can just use achievements. They already have plenty of achievements for killing various bosses, attacking various mini-dungeons, etc., just attach one time prizes to each, or a title, or whatever, so that people can go after them if they want that prize. Make it something that would be worth going out of your way for, but not so overwhelming that people feel utterly compelled to get them all if they really don’t want to. But you only get it once, so in terms of reward-feedback-mechanism, it would be no different than the existing trait unlocks.

There has been a lot of problems with balance which was directly caused by a-net lack of communication and transparency. Example:

Dhuumfire
Automated response
Diamont skin
Healing signet
…
I am sad that we must wait for undisclosed changes 6 months then to find out that those few changes are completely unwanted and completely out…

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Chrispy.5641:

Vayne.8563:

Paul.4081:

It strikes me as that place where your dad knows he’s lost but keeps driving ahead. This is Anet.

I recently re-installed and the TP was removed from Queensdale, uhm, why? Probably because the new TP layout is rubbish. Why is selling to bids the auto choice? This will lose new players money because they’ll assume that the game has their interests at heart.

Eg. New player get’s an exotic, bid of 1 copper is there…gratz new player you just lost a ton of gold.

Maybe I’m wrong but if I am it means the new TP is more confusing than the old one. You see my point? Lose lose, WD Anet, WD. Slow clap.

New TP isn’t more confusing than the old one and the overwhelming response to it has been positive. Even with all the people who enjoy pointing out flaws in the game,. the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Admittedly it’s hard to change from one system to another but that’s something that new players won’t have to worry about.

I’m relatively certain this is better for new players than the last one.

You should define overwhelmingly positive response. 1 person typing overwhelmingly positive posts on every thread does not mean that the response to the change was overwhelmingly positive. That doesn’t mean the response to the change was particularly negative either, but just because the response wasn’t negative doesn’t automatically make the change an 11/10.

When I say overwhelmingly positive, in every single thread that people posted negative stuff in,. more than 80% of the posts on those threads were positive. You can go back to any thread complaining about it and check that if you want.

Do you even read the forums?

You have, on many occasions, pointed out, when people point out that the forum response to something is overwhelmingly negative, that such is not representative of the response of the player base as a whole because the forum represents a tiny fraction of the player base.

You have also stated, on more than one occasion, that what is easy to understand, not confusing, to one person might be confusing to another and that no one can state absolutely what is difficult or confusing for others.

And yet you completely contradict your previous comments on these subjects with this post.

I’m just responding to this so that its easy for me to refer to it in the future, so funny

Zaklex.6308:

wwwes.1398:

~snip~

We need more than just title/image when living story updates are coming months later
I understand you guys want to keep some surprise in the mix, but there’s definitely a middle ground between undersharing and oversharing, and we are not in the sweet spot there yet. An example of how to slightly build upon that picture, for instance. What kind of land are we going to encounter, is it jungle? More desert? Are there going to be some new enemies to face there? Is there a new world boss? Within the next several updates, will we find a new zone? Will there be more open world events integrated with the living story?

~snip~

I’d say from what you said here that the one picture did exactly what they wanted it do, generate a bunch of questions that you want answered, and how will those get answered? By you playing the content when it’s released…makes complete sense to me to entice the player base that way.

It doesn’t entice me at all. In truth, all it managed to generate was a “meh” reaction.
Besides, you use that means of adverisement only if you don’t have anything good to hook people on.

There is an offtopic about earning traits on this page: only a small example how terribly bad it is implemented: I created another Engineer just for fun and also to check out the new trait earning system (luckily it was before the NPE).

Now, I just wanted to unlock a Master Trait that need me to finish a certain event in Fields of Ruin. Now, it took first a certain time to find the area where it is, I used an external source. Then the external source told me that it starts with an NPC somewhere in this area. Great, I ran around and ran around for about 30-40 minutes just to find no one (constantly pressing ALT to highlight the NPC names). And that’s it, I couldn’t find it, it was locked behind a timed event that I MAY eventuelly get after a long wait.

WHAT THE kitten. Guys: just do NOT lock such thing behind timed open world group events. It’s a horrible idea. GW1 was instanced and you just could find out where the boss is to capture your skill. IF you do something like this, make it unlockable WHEN and with WHOM I want.

Healix.5819:

Out of all the MMOs I’ve played that previewed content, it was because it was always far away, so they had to keep people interested in the meantime. A single content patch every few months is fairly standard. Expansions for example are typically announced 6 months to a year before their release, meanwhile regular releases have stopped entirely.

With a 2 week release schedule, there’s really no point in showing off the next chapter. If they were going to release something big, they would no doubt announce it.

2 week release schedule doesn’t work as an excuse when they keep taking months long breaks.

Shinzan.2908:

2 week release schedule doesn’t work as an excuse when they keep taking months long breaks.

the months are great for polish the content, too many bugs and too thin content without the additional work. I’m happy to see quality content like current season 2, it’s just a bit too much of the same (only missions and a map) compared to season 1 (world boss, dungeon, story mission, jumping puzzle, map, …)

…but it’s not over yet.

I think the big thing I am missing in dev communication is vision casting. What is the mission of future development? What are the core values against which newly implemented changes can be weighed?

I’m not talking “we are working on a precursor scavenger hunt and it will be done by X date” and forums erupting into flames when that date comes and goes.

I’m talking the kind of stuff ArenaNet gave us in spades during the development process and for a little while after launch. Things like, “We want you to be able to play whatever part of the game you find most enjoyable and still get the best rewards the game has to offer”. That could be followed up by “we have recently done X, and Y to that end, and we know that Z isn’t living up to that goal.”

That makes room for the player base to provide the other half of the conversation with “Thanks for X, it’s great, but Y isn’t exactly working like you intended, and here are our ideas for tweaking Z to make it fit that goal you said is core.”

One of the oft repeated statements in the last year or more by many different players is that there is a feeling that GW2 doesn’t have a vision, a direction. I think that’s because the vision is no longer being communicated clearly.

We may still be getting X and Y implemented, but without any idea of why they were prioritized over hundreds of other things, or why they look so different than what the players seemed to be saying back in the CDI six months ago.

We also don’t see a clear presentation when past design goals shift, and why. To continue with my previous example, “Play how you want, and get to the rewards” seems to have changed to “we want to pull people into all parts of the game, so we’re actively designing rewards to require you to diversify your activities if you want to reach them efficiently”. There have been some minor comments to that end (I remember a Devon Carver statement to that effect in the WvW forum about why the road to some reward in WvW was so much longer than in some other part of the game), but ArenaNet never came out and said “Now one of our main design goals is to incentivize participation in all areas of the game”.

It has become accepted throughout the community that ArenaNet’s original vision for the game has evolved. Witness the many “manifesto” discussions that have appeared on the forum over the last few years, and how they are decreasing in frequency.

What I think we’re missing is not so much “we have six team members spending 80% of their time on feature A with a target patch date of B” so much as “Now, two years after launch, let us tell you what we want GW2 to be. These are our highest priorities going forward. We know that GW2 falls short in this area and that, and you’ll notice that we’ve recently implemented that awesome thing as a first step to our current vision of what this game can be.”

TL;DR What we need most is not more transparency about specific things being worked on or target implementation dates, but an overarching vision for where the game is headed and a general shape of the route ArenaNet is planning on taking to get there.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Thank you for finding those links, Robert. It’s helpful for everyone to see real resources, and those who missed them (or forgot about them) may enjoy reading them.

Hey Gaile! I agree, finding these posts are important! I am always trying to find what this or that person said about something to help keep things on an even keel. Why does the forum not work properly?

Are their plans to fix this singular issue that would help us help you?

This is part of my problem with the level of communication that has been provided. I keep track of daily issues and comments, but in a few months time, when these things get twisted and repeated ad nauseum, there is no way, short of digging through months of posts, to refute silly issues. That is not a job I sign up for. I just ignore the misinformation and move on. Unfortunately, the misinformation gains traction, creates distrust, and away you go.

So to bring this back on track a little, my expectations when it comes to transparency is that a companies forums function properly so I can provide facts to discussions based on developer interactions. Without a proper functioning forum, those that misinform, regardless of intentions, eventually win the theory and stifles those that would be able to help out.

On the topic of the forums, I was actually incredibly disappointed when I signed up to find that the forums are so restrictive (no avatars, no searching, no content embedding, etc etc) which I didn’t know until I bought the game (can’r access the forums without an account), so it would be great if there’s an upgrade in the works long term.

I feel like when you’re in a “kitten ed if you do, kitten ed if you don’t” situation like ANET is, it’s not so much important which way you choose to present information, as it is important to OWN the way you do it. MAKE it the right choice.

To expound on that a bit, they’re in a situation where they want to keep the player base happy, however they do not want to tell us anything that may raise our expectations higher than what they can ultimately produce, which will lead to a negative effect on player morale. So the ultimate solution is, choose a path and DO IT WELL. If your solution is to tell us nothing, tell us nothing. But do it in a constructive way.

For Example: If someone is asking you “when are we going to a new freaking area of the world omg it’s been two years and you’ve only opened up two new zones”

Answer with: “well, we’re working on the new CDI for guild halls right now, we’re just finishing up the new WvW season, we’ve got the living world and halloween events ramping up in the next couple of weeks, and we’re going to potentially be looking at new PvP maps in the next CDI (or whatever the case may be), so… we’ve got alot going on right now and who knows where living world will take us next! ”

DON"T include the phrases:

well, we can’t really go into details yet.
or
without giving away too much let me try to explain.
or
nothing is off the table at this point.
or
I’m not at liberty to go into specifics.
or

ANY OTHER PHRASE THAT INDICATES YOU KNOW SOMETHING THAT YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO SHARE. Even more specifically, you should never be evasive with an answer while using the words “can’t, not, won’t, without, shouldn’t, nothing, etc.” The way to effectively evade a negative with a customer is by using only positive words, including a laugh, smile, or winking emote, or other manipulative crap like that. I know that computer guys aren’t the best customer service people, but it’s a new world. You gotta step up your game if you’re going to get involved with the customers. You know who was amazing at that, was the former host of POI who just quit. She may have had various intangibles (for example, she was a hot gamer chick), but she also knew how to FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE AT ALL TIMES WHEN DEALING WITH THE CUSTOMER and… alternatively…. AVOIDING THE NEGATIVE AT ALL COSTS DURING HER INTERACTIONS WITH THEM.

Here’s the biggest hint of them all: If you can get your customer to laugh, you’ve won. It’s that simple.

Also, I’d like to say that I do realize capslock for emphasis is a touch belligerant… but c’mon. Learn to customer service.

[quote=4480921;Gaile Gray.6029:]

My biggest dissapointment is that Anet number of employees is shrinking (bad sign for future content), and that Anet is hiding this fact, as thought they are scared to admit, we will never see an expansion pack anymore. I get it, we will rage, quit blablabla. I once did that already, but I came back cause no mmo has the quality of this mmo (especially for the price), even though content amount is lacking. That being said, if we have to pick up small signs, to see that the ‘motivation’ behind the scenes of Anet is slowly taking a dip, then it feels worse then admitting ‘we are short on people’. Then again I know some people wouldnt accept that and ragequit.

Fact is, Anet lost 4 employees at least (Kate Welsh, Jonathan sharp, Allie Murdock, CC Danicia, etc). And there’s no sign of them being replaced (Hugh norfolk isnt replacement, cause his own spot, most likely isn’t getting replaced). A friend of mine who claims to have friend amongst Anet (Wich i think is true, she’s proven to know a lot that she shouldnt), says Anet is not willing to replace those employee. My question to Mike O’brien, and Gaile Gray, how do I have to think/Feel about this? Cause I don’t know tbh.

Fyi I won’t quit, wathever the answer is. The only thing that can make me quit is new huge ‘we remove this ultra nice content without good reason and give nothing/almost nothing to replace it’. There’s been some small signs of this (Ap’s getting retired like mini’s, not getting fixed, SAB not coming back – not soon anyway, removing the permanent access of Keg brawl, removing water pvp map), luckely no huge content removal yet. Please keep it that way.

I think the problem is double. In the super ‘man power’ mmo’s like world of warcraft, even there people complaint. So if you give us answer, those people will definitely complain here. The second part of problem with guild wars 2 though is, that the staff is shrinking (and the experience, cause those people took the experience with them away), and that bugfixes, Unnecessary stuff like NPE are taking up so much manpower that true exciting stuff (apart from living story, i like season 2 a lot), cannot be producted atm, and that silence is the only way to cover it. That’s a bit sad. I’ve done my research, and there’s no indication of huge behind the scenes gw2 projects. I may be wrong, but I think the chance of that is low. Kinda sad i gotta do a lot of research to know this, Rather then hear it from community coordinator.

They have lost a bunch of people, but at the same time they are also hiring quite a bunch of new people, so I think it evens out or even ends up with a net increase rather than decrease.

I don’t think it amounts to the number of new people they put on, or the people they’ve lost regardless of reason; the underlying problem is still there. Fix your ‘policy’, talk to your playerbase at large, give us something to get excited about and I think a lot will go right for you in the end.

“Testing the water” in these forums, it’s still toxic and needs to be flushed. That flush starts with better communication (thanks Gaile), an overhaul of policy and asking what the players of your game would like, timely implementation and explanation of why something didn’t make it into a patch. I personally would prefer this than have you telling us what we got in the form of Patch Notes, and making the communication feel like we’ve been stonewalled after all.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’ll start:

I love books. But I never read the slipcover or the back of the book. Why? Because usually it says too bloomin’ much! I don’t want to read something like, “Ingrid takes a vacation in Crete and meets a mysterious stranger who isn’t all he seems to be, which she discovers when checking the lining of his suitcase and finding four passports in four different names all containing (insert imagined gasp here) her new lover’s photograph! What will Ingrid do? What will she do?”

My perspective here is the exact opposite Gaile. I’m a voracious reader and have been since early childhood. But if I’m in a library or bookstore and pick up a book and notice that it has no summery on the slipcover, I put it back on the shelf. If the author doesn’t feel confident enough to give me some information about whats in their book, I’m not interested.

Furthermore, covers usually tell you virtually nothing about whats in the book. I want to know what the book’s about before I get it. I don’t want to pick up a book with a tank battle on the cover, expecting a war novel, and find myself reading a romance.

Galen.9042:

Furthermore, covers usually tell you virtually nothing about whats in the book. I want to know what the book’s about before I get it. I don’t want to pick up a book with a tank battle on the cover, expecting a war novel, and find myself reading a romance.

I’ve had similar experiences. Covers always lie, you know

More to the point, my most cherished series of books I spent/spend an inordinate amount of time reading . . . and rereading, have really bad covers for what’s going on in them. Which series? Why the Vorkosigan Saga.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Can you give me a few examples, where players would really like to know everything, but where there is a level of disclosure that meets the basic info request?

I can do that…

Let’s think of a few examples, and a general window of expectation. Say… three months? That’s a long period of time in MMO years. What I personally would like, is if you told us the “what”, with a vague “when”, potentially followed up with a “why not” if it fails to be implemented. The “why not”s I’m about to list are imaginary, but I feel that it’s necessary to follow up with the player base so we know that you are making decisions based on some semblance of reason, vs. anything else our imaginations can conjure that would create the failure of the “what”.

Example 1: Precursor Crafting

The What: We are introducing a method of crafting precurors.
The When: It should be done in 6-8 months.
The Why Not: We haven’t figured out a way to do it without throwing our entire game economy into chaos.

In this example, we never got the “why not”… which ideally should occurred and have been followed up by a new “when”.

Example 2: Guild Halls

The What: Implementing Guild Halls
The When: 9-12 months
The Why Not: We need to decide if we want to devote the necessary resources, because designing this is going to be a kitten.

Note – In this example, we got the CDI. The CDI itself is great, however without future of implementation of Guild Halls it will leave the player population filled with mistrust of all future CDI initiatives. It’s great and all that you’ve covered your tushies by shouting to the highest heavens that “WE PROMISE NOTHING”, but It’s sort of a “fool me once, etc.” situation.

Example 3:

The What: New PVP Maps and Game Modes
The When: New map every 6 months, New Game Mode once per year
The Why Not: Like 40 people out of 3 million play PvP, so we’re devoting our resources to other things.

Note- In this example, my “why not” is obviously something that would need to be sugar coated to the player population.

Example 4:

The What: New open Areas of the game (I.E.- Northern Shiverpeaks, Cantha, etc)
The When: We’re going to open a new region once every 5-8 months
The Why Not: We are afraid to waste the opening of a new region, in case we decide to do an expansion at some point in the unforseen imaginings of the lead developer’s mind, and need box sales

Note- Now I’m just being difficult

Gaile Gray.6029:

Can you give me a few examples, where players would really like to know everything, but where there is a level of disclosure that meets the basic info request?

I already did, several weeks ago.

Lemme find it for ya. Here ya go. Something like that.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-are-devs-working-on/page/2#post4327523

Yeah, I remember that actually. See here’s the thing… they really have no interest in telling us anything that we want to know. At some point, either Mike O’Brien, or the powers that be, or the leader of the customer communication team, or whoever, decided that ANET as a company was not going to tell us anything outside of deliberate, controlled, uniform statements. They decided this most likely because of how people act on the forums. Why they didn’t just shut the forums down and keep the site up with news, support, and wiki only is somewhat strange to me. The only thing that would have changed is that people would have copy/pasted the news items on another site and a conversation would have taken place about them there, where the dev’s rules would have had no importance anymore. People could have argued amongst themselves, and that would have been that.

Now, that being said, by keeping the site up and continually reminding us of the rules and their previous responses to inquiries, they are also in a sense “blaming” us for forcing this decision by reminding us continually of our less-than-pure past. Maybe we deserve that blame. Maybe as a group we made them feel badly about things, and their response was this. Maybe we were the cause of the effect. I’d argue against that because I’ve followed this game from it’s announcement and they sold us the moon and the stars in those early days, but it doesn’t really matter.

Who knows? At any rate, we could push the blame back and forth. We could argue it out forever. The fact remains, they do not want to communicate openly with us. They have provided the CDI as an outlet and an organizational tool to control the conversation in such a way that maybe we’ll get something out of it… or maybe not. It depends somewhat on their goals for this forum and for the game in general, which aren’t something they’ll speak to us about. I think about the fact that they keep the forums up a great deal. After all, they are not entirely required to exist. I’ve actually never played an MMO with an official forum before, so this was a somewhat new experience for me. I thought at first that it would be really cool to actually interact with the devs of the game…. until it became more like interacting with my employer’s HR department. And now that’s exactly what it feels like. They know the rules because they’re the ones writing them, they’ll tell you the rules you should live by, but they won’t tell you whether anything you want will actually happen at all. But hey! We value your time and commitment. Please feel free to contact us at any time about ANY concerns you may have. Don’t forget to check the gem store for the new items available!

So the question in my mind, is if they don’t want to communicate openly with us, why keep the forums up at all? Is it so that they can keep tabs on people’s complaints? Is it because they know that this way a great many of the complaints will be focused on a forum that they are in charge of, versus other forums they are not, like Reddit, or Guildwars2guru, or whatever? Is it because they actually care about us underneath it all, and are waiting for the right time and/or inspiration to begin moving in some type of direction? The new CDI on guild halls is an amazing thread. It is a very exciting read, of course if you are assuming by reading it that they create guild halls, which they are quick to point out has not been promised by any means. After all… it’s just a conversation. A conversation with people’s hopes and dreams for this game pinned to it, without a single guarantee from ANET that any of it will happen. Because…. I mean….. what if it fails? What if they can’t? What if it’s not possible? They seem to be a company driven by fear. That’s the reason for their lack of transparency, their lack of communication, their lack of direction. That is their driving force.

Fear.

I guess time will tell.

Tagus Eleuthera.7305:

snip…So the question in my mind, is if they don’t want to communicate openly with us, why keep the forums up at all? Is it so that they can keep tabs on people’s complaints? Is it because they know that this way a great many of the complaints will be focused on a forum that they are in charge of, versus other forums they are not, like Reddit, or Guildwars2guru, or whatever? Is it because they actually care about us underneath it all, and are waiting for the right time and/or inspiration to begin moving in some type of direction? The new CDI on guild halls is an amazing thread. It is a very exciting read, of course if you are assuming by reading it that they create guild halls, which they are quick to point out has not been promised by any means. After all… it’s just a conversation. A conversation with people’s hopes and dreams for this game pinned to it, without a single guarantee from ANET that any of it will happen. Because…. I mean….. what if it fails? What if they can’t? What if it’s not possible? They seem to be a company driven by fear. That’s the reason for their lack of transparency, their lack of communication, their lack of direction. That is their driving force.

Fear.

I guess time will tell.

If something suggested is possible, people get might get what they want, a compromise of what they want and what Anet wants, or not get it at all because (insert reason here). If it’s not possible, nothing was promised and the expectations set by Anet were met. Consumers often don’t care about the why they didn’t get what they wanted, only that they didn’t. Some people care, but that’s not going to stop others from hopping on the angry train regardless of the explanation. I don’t think that Fear is the sole motivator in their decision to temper expectations, although it does inform one on where to tread lightly. I still think it’s being realistic. I mean….just look at the Manifesto. They used the language of idealism and it still haunts them.

Personally, my big problem isn’t that i want to know whats about to come – but whats about to change.
I like surprises – i like the current approach for teasing living world. I don’t have to know whats happening in the episode beforehand – say attack on Lion’s Arch was brilliant. I really felt involved, because i learned everything through playing the game content, not from the website beforehand.

What i think is the bigger problem is transparency about current things that are considered issues by the community – things that are generally disapproved of. This is much less specific towards actual content that’s going to happen in the future, and hence, its not really spoiler-able. What im talking about is things like the “lack of permanent endgame content”, “outfits not having individual pieces”, Town Clothing tonics, Engineer Hobosacks and Super Adventure Box, (okay, i know SAB has had a reveal, but its a pretty good example looking at the past).
Rather than wanting to know whats going to happen with it, i think the transparency that would be nice here is one of “We don’t like this – please tell us whether you plan to fix it, and if not, why you will not”.

All of the above are honestly stress points for me. I’ll take the clothing tonics as an example. I used my “common” town clothes very often – i’d dyed them a nice shade of blue and black, and i’d run around lions arch with them and my dance book, getting away from the feeling of combat for a bit. People would join me in dance parties and we’d generally have a good time.
Now, my town clothes come undyable, in the form of a tonic, which prevents me from using any other “transformation”. This is a big sore point for me, yet i’ve never seen it adressed – i’ve never seen an official reply from Anet stating they could change it back, or why they wouldn’t (these things were items before – i currently can’t imagine it being super hard to turn them into an outfit, or skins that you can apply to armour).
This is where i think transparency needs fixing – not for the actual identity of the future content, like whats going to happen in it and could hence have spoilers, but for future changes to current content. Fixes, rather than spoilers.
Hobosacks – another prime example. They currently annoy alot of people, and we all feel left in the dark with them with no official response from Anet on it for almost two years. Okay if they dont get fixed, but at least tell us why.

Most people i’ve met know, and i do too, that development of things can take a long time, but i’m willing to wait, as long as they can live in peace knowing that the issue is known and will be adressed sooner or later.

Also – i must have missed that announcement of SAB. Just wanted to show my gratitude here – this is exactly the kind of thing im talking about. The community, me included, obviously wants SAB back. For me, it doesn’t matter that it could be a long time away. I know its eventually going to be continued now, and thats enough for me.

I have a feeling something in ArenaNet’s development department is fundamentally broken. It’s just a hunch, but I think there is a disconnect between management and the remaining developers (talents who have not left the company already), where management is mistreating them or something, or plain living on another planet.

This product is going nowhere.
Updates, if they come, are superficial and uncaring (not tested or in bad taste). The world is a stone-cold repetitions of recycling events, some on a 3 minute cycle, some on an hour cycle, not changing a single blade of grass anywhere. Armor is released as outfits, items as gem-store only, useless minis, female animations, fractal reset insult, clothing bugs that killed my favorite look (reported time and again yet rest assured no one else had any fix either), story plot still stuck since release (dragons-story where I see dragons like GW2’s logo), loreless legendaries, and many many more aspects I feel like repeating myself in these forums already stuck for 2 years.

On the one hand I really wish I could mentally break into the company and dig in their brains on just what-the-kitten-is in there. Yet on the other hand just be sad about the good intentions on making a good world gone by.

You don’t listen to us. You don’t care. Your manifesto was a joke. I had fun playing the game after release but your company just didn’t give a da— afterwards.

Gaile I don’t expect anything to be changed even if you do forward this inside (you wont, nor will you answer me anything), I just wanted to express my disappointment – now reaffirmed with your “we will tell you nothing haha” post.

Edit; To the guy above me
No one told you when SAB will return. Given the Soon™ mentality and company track-record – SAB is expected to return in Q4 of 2019.

December too.

31st if possible, end of day.

So I wouldn’t be happy about it if I were you.

Korossive.7085:

I have a feeling something in ArenaNet’s development department is fundamentally broken. It’s just a hunch, but I think there is a disconnect between management and the remaining developers (talents who have not left the company already), where management is mistreating them or something, or plain living on another planet.

I’m inclined to think the same thing. There are some decisions that I simply don’t see how they could have been made by devs who, I honestly believe, do care about the game:

1) I don’t see how anyone involved in writing and designing the story of the game could have thought it was okay to simply move things around with no thought to coherency.

2) I don’t see how anyone familiar with the game’s mechanics could think the trait update would increase build diversity and experimentation.

There are other smaller issues, but these two are glaring. This is why I complain on the forums. I know the devs care, but you can’t really tell your boss that they’re doing something wrong very easily. A customer (or, rather, HUNDREDS of customers) can.

There really needs to be some aditional outlet for information.
Ready Up! seems to be working great for PvP as it often explains what are the reason for changes and is also often focused on a particular topic.

As for WvW there is only hope at the moment as we know you are working on something , but overall people are getting a bit impatient I believe, since that is the gamemode who did not have the amount of love it could (though the last efforts were amusing. I would have loved to adopt a dev If i was an active WvW player… and no.. you wouldn`t get him back)

PvE is a mixed back so far (because it is the main focus for many players, casuals I might say). Infos are everywhere, but not focused. Sure there are many problems, but the amount of time to get some answers are disheartening.
I can accept the fact that you are looking at the feedback first, but for bugs and other stuff a Fix-List after an release, which will be updated would be a nice feature.

Things dont have to be implemented at once, but If things pop up on the list, we know we will see a change within the next few days, instead of a sudden fix, or patch down the line, where we groan about the fact that issue XY hasn`t been dealt with.

Oh, i wish for some more lore and story transperacy. I know you want to be mysterious, but If it is an easy answer I just want to know and not strung along for too long to the point it gets annoying or not paying of (LS1 left scars…)

Perhaps what bugs me the most is communication with player base that establishes a sense of “You ask for it, we’ll use it to guide our decision.”

Followed by…

Changes that make absolutely no sense in the context of the discussion with the player base.

Ranger CDI is a great example.
I’d argue the LS CDI is a great example (what happened to two week releases?)
Dhuumfire is a great example.
Health scaling on Necro siphons (lolwut) is a great example.
Signet of Vampirism pre-release notes versus reality is a great example.

Over and over and over again, ANet makes a pretense at communication—at bringing the player base into the studio and asking, “What would make the game better for you?”—and then turning around and, in several cases as listed above, doing nearly the exact opposite.

When the player base responds negatively, the response is either 1) We have our reasons, and we’re not telling you, or 2) This is what you asked for, so we gave it to you, but it a bizarrely misinterpreted fashion that defeats the purpose of the original request.

Without transparency (the “whys,” “wherefores,” “sowhats”) it feels like ANet devs enjoy taunting and disappointing their players.

Gaile Gray.6029:

. . . “I’m encouraging my entire gazillion-member guild to jump to Game Z].”

I just wanted to say that if Anet don’t want that, do your job better. No offence.

It’s pretty clear to me the forgettable “living story” will lead to an expansion but PvE & loot should still be more interesting to keep casual PvP players like me interested. The expansion – or whatever you call it – will be make-or-break .

GW2 ended up being too ambitious. Less is more. Show me I’m wrong!

Phenn.5167:

ANet makes a pretense at communication

Pretty much this.

When it comes to the forums, the Staff is more often than not producing just some random interventions in discussions like these. They do post, but hardly communicate anything about the issues at hand. This thread is a prime example of this, basically going around in circles…

Just to say, I really can’t believe two glaring issues like Traits and the messed-up Personal Story are yet to get an official response about a possible solution. Sure, both threads have “red replies”, but do we know if these problems are being addressed at all? No.

Sorry im late for the party but im always on time!

Its really, really, really simple honestly; we just want knowledge. FF14 (sorry to name drop an inferior title) announced the names of their two new classes coming out and gave an eta, and that was it. answered no questions, avoided all drama, just said it was coming and thats that. Now, this week I believe, the classes are coming in a patch and the community is super happy. I forgot what its like to be happy when it comes to GW2 news. The entire method of information release is borderline terrible. I know more about upcoming WOW updates than I do about GW2 and I have close to 4k hours in GW2 and ive never played WOW.

Lets all be serious here, we just want a yes or no if theres an expansion coming. We dont need an exact date or anything, just say, yes there will be an expansion 2015/16. Thats it.

We were told classes would get other weapons to use…. 2 years, both of my eles are beginning to get tired of their vast weapon selection. My thief? lets not even get started on him.

Hobosacks! Show some love to the class forums please. This hobosack issue is a huge reason engis arent more popular… 23 page post on their forum and no one really cares at all to give them any update. Poor Engis.

Theres nothing wrong with transparency. I see you used the book example, and its the perfect example because that slit shows you exactly more info than youd care to know. ITS THERE, and you didnt read it. The point is, some people do, and they have the choice. We, as GW2 fans, might possibly be the most knowledge restricted fan base ive ever seen. I come from a time when Ultima Online was the dominant MMO, over 15 years ago, when we had close to no forum and updates came when you logged in randomly. You know what? The GMs (thats what we called devs) actually logged in and stood in town telling us stuff that was to come. This is without a map chat, it was only people on screen that could see it. People would come by the hundred to crowd around and listen and then run around and tell people all the updates that were coming and they delivered. Even if it took longer than expected they tried to keep us informed as to what was going on at all times.

It comes down to choice; you guys can sit here and watch new players come in while veteran players slowly dwindle down due to being annoyed, OR, you can open up the curtains, invite the older players back in, give them a REASON to WANT to log in, and you wont lose not a single new player, heck ,you may even get MORE.

Im accepting job offers btw.

There are folks holding off on Chapters 7 and 8 of the Personal Story until they know what happened to Greatest Fear, and if the reorder-induced plot wackiness will be fixed.

Early on there were a couple we’ll get back to you posts from ANet, and then nothing. Now it seems to be on the not allowed to even mention it list, along with traits.

This is what I’d point to when talking about transparency — these topics that are import enough to us that they don’t drop off the forums, but never get concrete feedback.

Agreed. A couple of days ago I posted a question “Why are we getting a lump of coal for Christmas?” when it seems every other game under the Sun is getting an Expansion this year. I was expecting a sly “wait until Nov 4th” type of response. The question was never answered. In the absence of Light, Darkness prevails…

I’m thinkin we’re tied to the China version and that puts an expansion way out in the future. If ever. From that, I infer that telling us The Truth would cause even more Forum Fires than The Wall of Silence does. Expansion news is only one example of the weird stuff that Must Never Discussed. Lag, Female animation, DDOS attacks, etc should all be answered without question.

Meanwhile, Anet could give Cursed Shore a much needed makeover and turn SouthSun into more than a one trick pony. That would give us long term players something without causing major issues for any new players worldwide.

Saying you’re working on better communication repeatedly is kinda pointless. Better communication isn’t something you say… it’s something you do.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Oh, and I don’t even want to go into the whole “I saw a trailer at a movie, and every good joke and/or pivotal scene in the movie was telegraphed in the trailer.” That’s not good teaser-ing — that’s giving away the store!

That reminded me of Seth Rogen’s movie Neighbors. Every funny scene was IN the trailer. What a waste actually watching it in the theatre…

Harper.4173:

The problem is that a lot of stuff was thrown around to generate hype. Stuff like : Precursor Crafting, Fractal Leaderboards, new legendary weapons and other legendary types etc.

These are things that players care a lot about and as a result when nothing else was heard on this front and all these were kinda left to disappear into thin air with no news players got a bit doubtful.

And that’s probably exactly why they’ve stopped talking about anything that’s not almost ready to be deployed, because anything they say that they are working on or intend on implementing with generate type and players will care about it a lot and they’ll get angry if it never happens or doesn’t happen for a long time.

Phenn.5167:

Changes that make absolutely no sense in the context of the discussion with the player base.

Ranger CDI is a great example.

Actually, I think several of the Ranger changes in the last patch reflected things people asked for in the Ranger CDI thread — specifically, the removal of Signet of the Beastmaster and having signets apply to the Ranger as well as their pet by default and improvements to longbow power damage to make power and burst damage longbow builds more viable. Did people get everything they asked for in that thread? No. But what did get changed suggests that they actually did pay attention to that thread.

Note that I do have serious concerns over the direction the game is going in, but I also see evidence that they are also paying attention to what players are saying, though I don’t always think they get the right message when they interpret the comments.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Yes, that’s definitely true. As Mike O’Brien said in a recent post, “We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development. We don’t want to string you along. Creating fun is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t; sometimes we go back to the drawing board over and over before we get something right. If we make optimistic promises and then can’t deliver on them, everyone suffers. So when we attend a trade show or give an interview, we’re there to talk about what we’re getting ready to ship, not to speculate on what we might ship someday.”

The problem is, you don’t talk about current development either. You only talk about it when it’s complete, bad ideas and all, and ready to be thrown out to the public.

I think we’ve all seen how well that works out, haven’t we? And it’s not just the bad ideas, it’s also the good ideas that could have been great ideas if we’d been able to give feedback on them.

The CDI threads are great for finding a starting place and giving some general ideas and guidelines, but that’s all they can do. As you’ve said yourself, sometimes the plans get scrapped and it’s back to the drawing board. Sometimes, it’s just scrapped and that’s it, we’re not even told. At that point, all the feedback on the CDI is pretty much rendered worthless.

Just as the vet players of GW2 don’t see the problems the game has for brand new players (and thus the NPE), so too are the devs too deep into the game to see things from the players’ point of view.

Devs and players used to be a community at beta and launch times, some practically friends. Too bad its now sank to an oiled PR machine with reviews and considerations on a per-word bases … if any answer is given at all (especially if unfavorable posts like mine sorry to tell ya).

Those days are long gone :-|

Imo you can spare the CDIs altogether.

Korossive.7085:

Imo you can spare the CDIs altogether.

Nah, the CDIs are good tools for giving Devs some great ideas for their game.

And that’s not just the ANet devs. No, there’s Devs from other companies reading them as well. Where ANet drops the ball, someone else may pick up a good idea and run with it.

I have no real faith in ANet these days. I speak up in the CDIs to make the next wave of MMOs better.

Gaile Gray.6029:

optimistic promises

There you go. Just don’t do that. That’s what gets you in trouble.

“We’re working on a new pimento cheese recipe that’s so excitingly innovative it’s going to bring about world peace!”

No, it isn’t. Try this instead:

“Hey guys, we’re looking at adding a pimento cheese recipe somewhere down the line. You guys like pimento cheese, right? So, what do you think: Cheddar or Monterey Jack – or both?”

And talk about it along the way.

“D’oh! We were hoping to release the pimento cheese recipe in the next patch, but for some reason the ears of any asura that eats the resulting pimento cheese sandwich turn green. We’ll keep you posted.”

Etc.

TL;DR – lay off the hype. Just talk.

Gaile Gray.6029:

~snip for brevity~

The point of the matter is this:

The devs may indeed be listening. They may be sending emails, and talking over player suggestions/input in department meetings.

But the Grand Canyon stands in between what the players asked for and what the devs give them.

We’ve heard this same line over and over and over and over again. Saying that “the devs are listening” has become a joke here and, at the very least, all over Guru.

Why?

Because what the devs produce as a result of their “listening” looks nothing like what the players asked for. And it usually contains stuff the players have specifically said “Don’t give us!” And it is always sold to the player base with the line, “We think it works best this way.”

All in all it’s created one single thought in my mind, my guildies’ minds, and several of my fellow Gurus’ minds: The devs don’t play their own game.

So what’s it got to do with transparency?

The player community cannot be more clear on many, many of its requests. Something is being lost once the door to ANet’s offices slams shut behind those requests. Transparency would, at the very least, allow the player base to see how their beautiful input gets mangled into Frankenstein’s monster.

And maybe, just maybe, we’d start to understand why ANet wants us to play with Frankenstein.

I think I have to speak my mind here:
The game doesn’t need transparency, it needs new content:

PvP: No new map in over a year (but you removed one?!), no new gametypes
WvW: No new map in over a year (competitive stagnation for months), no new gametypes
Guild missions: No new missions in over a year (..?), no new upgrades
PvE: No new explorable area for the first have of the year and then 1 month of content (beside the relatively small explorable area Dry Top) followed by a long break. No new dungeons, no new classes, no new skills, no new nothing that would somehow last more than a few hours. Just the bare minimum of story to keep a bit of interest.

No guild halls, no GvG or “Guild wars” support.

This game has the best battle system for any MMO and you aren’t even capitalizing on it. No new fields? No new combo finishers? No new skills? No new weapons types?

Even the Living Story is basically single player content, it doesn’t even encourage the team-play combat features.

Just what is Anet doing for each game modes? Answering that simple question is all the transparency we need.

Every other MMO game have community post on what to expect in the future for all the game modes. They do it because they know it keeps the players interested and creates hype. You can’t just post a screenshot of a portal once or twice a year and say “Wait 2 months there might be something interesting happening in PvE, meanwhile go play WvW…”

Of course you guys worked on nice new “features”, which are generally-speaking interface tweaks, but why you would want to release these without new content to play is something I simply can’t understand. And then the new player experience… after removing a PvP map, removing SAB, removing Southsun story events, LS1 story chapters, it’s like you guys are forgetting the game has already been release and we need more content not less.

I totally understand the “no speculative discussion”. However that means than nothing is certain: we don’t get anything. Also it is somehow implied that changes were decided upon metrics (I still wonder who the testers are, maybe the Chinese who were forced to use only that build?) and completely tested (you know, “when it’s ready”). The fact many changes resulted in game-breaking bugs or removal of content is a proof that the released that are not talked about are more speculative and untested changes than the great improvement they were supposed to be.

We don’t know what we get and when we get it parts of it are quite bad.

Gaile, you said you don’t want to get book spoiled on the cover yet you don’t like certain kind of literature. That’s what happening to us: we don’t get “spoilers” anymore but we’re still excited to “read” action and adventures stories. And when the “book” come out, it’s not what the title promised, full of typos and missing parts. And when we ask the author they say “oh I’m working on it”, and in the next book they made it worse.

Why can’t the higher ups understand we don’t want details, but just as many said an idea of what is being worked on (I assume some things have a huge probability to make it), and not the usual dodgy “nothing’s off the table/soon/being worked on” poor excuse.

I’m sad we are not a community anymore, just because of a too extreme silence.

Phenn.5167:

Gaile Gray.6029:

~snip for brevity~

The point of the matter is this:

The devs may indeed be listening. They may be sending emails, and talking over player suggestions/input in department meetings.

But the Grand Canyon stands in between what the players asked for and what the devs give them.

We’ve heard this same line over and over and over and over again. Saying that “the devs are listening” has become a joke here and, at the very least, all over Guru.

Why?

Because what the devs produce as a result of their “listening” looks nothing like what the players asked for. And it usually contains stuff the players have specifically said “Don’t give us!” And it is always sold to the player base with the line, “We think it works best this way.”

All in all it’s created one single thought in my mind, my guildies’ minds, and several of my fellow Gurus’ minds: The devs don’t play their own game.

So what’s it got to do with transparency?

The player community cannot be more clear on many, many of its requests. Something is being lost once the door to ANet’s offices slams shut behind those requests. Transparency would, at the very least, allow the player base to see how their beautiful input gets mangled into Frankenstein’s monster.

And maybe, just maybe, we’d start to understand why ANet wants us to play with Frankenstein.

On the community voice thing, I still don’t see how so many people can say that the Guild Wars 2 community speaks with one voice. At least, that is what it seems like you are implying with the community being clear statement. We aren’t very clear from what I’ve seen. Not that individuals are bad at expressing their ideas but when looking at the community as a whole, there are many topics that the player base is split on. The nature of combat (passive stats versus active combat), travel (mounts or no mounts), cosmetics (outfits good or bad?), story (living story vs expansion), and the list goes on. Usually, there’s not even a dichotomy of thought on these subjects but a gradient of opinions. And what may seem like Anet acting in their own interest may simply be a compromise of the desire of another player whose opinions are not shared by you. There may be some subjects where a consensus is reached on the forums but even that doesn’t represent the sum total of opinions on the subjects broached here. I’m merely urging that we keep in mind that we don’t speak everyone and Anet has an uphill battle trying to please one group while not upsetting others.

We truly understand the interest that our loyal players have in knowing more, but we’re not able to share too much at this juncture for the reasons that are stated above and outlined in more detail in Mike’s post.

Rest assured — and my daily e-mails confirm this — the devs are reading the forums daily to keep abreast of your input on a wide variety of game elements, in addition to which they’re analyzing, prioritizing, weighing whether to and how to address areas of concern, considering how to implement positive changes, and much more, based on the input you give us on the forums.

Yes, but again, it has to be a two way street. “The devs are listening to your prayers at night” solves nothing, because they’ve been listening for the last two years and still get an awful lot of things completely wrong, like the trait overhaul, the NPE, the very limited number of new zones, etc. Even trusting that the devs are reading our comments, we have no idea if they are taking the right lessons from them or not until the content launches, which is far too late in the process.

We need more than “the devs are reading what you say,” we need the follow-up to that, “and here’s what they think about that, and what they plan to do about it.”

As Mike also said in his post, much value has come through the CDI’s. I just prowled the hallways to see if I could find out more about the timeline for the current and future CDI. Alas, Chris Whiteside is in a meeting, but I know he’s committed to the format so I hope you’ll be involved in those and if there are some dates he or I can provide one of us will do that later.

The CDI has been about guild stuff for the past month now, there’s been no sign that it will move on to more important topics since it started. The CDI alone is clearly not up to the task.

Tachenon.5270:

Gaile Gray.6029:

optimistic promises

There you go. Just don’t do that. That’s what gets you in trouble.

“We’re working on a new pimento cheese recipe that’s so excitingly innovative it’s going to bring about world peace!”

No, it isn’t. Try this instead:

“Hey guys, we’re looking at adding a pimento cheese recipe somewhere down the line. You guys like pimento cheese, right? So, what do you think: Cheddar or Monterey Jack – or both?”

And talk about it along the way.

“D’oh! We were hoping to release the pimento cheese recipe in the next patch, but for some reason the ears of any asura that eats the resulting pimento cheese sandwich turn green. We’ll keep you posted.”

Etc.

TL;DR – lay off the hype. Just talk.

I remember the now infamous State of the Game Blog that talked about feature X (wasn’t Pimento cheese, might have been Precursor crafting). The blog wasn’t all that “hyped” … and at the end there was a disclaimer that any item discussed in the blog might not make it into the game.

So, it’s not always the hype that’s the issue, in that case it was the lack of follow-up. Although, I believe that if ANet had said, “Hey, we’ve had to back-burner (or cancel) precursor crafting for a bit because reasons.” significant numbers of “But, you promised!” complaints would still have taken place.

Still, I have to agree that if a feature has been mentioned, it’s better to discuss progress or lack thereof than to leave people up in the air.

It would be really nice to see more red tags in the controversial discussions. They’re certainly not easy threads to jump into, but seeing more than decidedly neutral responses to those controversies is what makes it feel like the forum is a two-way highway (and is why I enjoy reading replies like the ones here and in the “Communicating with You” thread a few weeks ago).