Guild Wars 2

The expansion is a finished product… but it is not an awesome one. Compared to original game the global quality has decreased.
The problem is we got a lot with the original game, and especially all those free updates.

Any other company wouldn’t have done LS2 and would have bundled it with the expansion … there we would have gotten the 6 maps everyone think as standard for expansion, as well as an additional armor set and a weapon set. We would have a total of 24 story steps, almost as long as personal story but contained on the 6 maps.

On top of that, it is difficult to make a game like GW2 grow because the game is meant to not become obsolete.
Look at other games’ expansion : You have a new region where you do quests to gain a level and then you leave the zone forever until you find the last zone where everything will happen for the entire life of the expansion. If you are lucky, one patch will introduce a new map and everybody will go there again, leaving the former one as a desert. In GW2 they have to design maps so that we have to go back … that is what most people claim as being grindier than anything on earth.

So they tried to build an expansion and while it was not great, it is far from being a disaster. Desert BL are a good chunk of work… but players did not like it. Stronghold is kinda interesting… but players did not like it. There has been beta tests, a lot of them were positive, but in the end players turned really negative towards the entire additions. I am not sure if the devs understand why, nor if we as players understand why.

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Belenwyn.8674:

HoT was never planned to be shipped as one big lot. It is to be supposed to come in several batches. To evaluate whether HoT is a 100% product or not you have to wait until the evening before expansion 2.

Except that the (non-existant) big wvw overhaul has been cancelled for good.

Which will ship out in smaller pieces sooner now rather than make players wait until whenever for it to be released as a whole.

You clearly havent been here long enough. “We will focus on wvw’s core issues like population imbalance” – that was said 3 years ago. Dont speak on this subject if youve only been in wvw (and the forums) for a few months, youre making yourself out to look incredibly naive.

Are you sure that quote is from early 2013?

Ashen.2907:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Belenwyn.8674:

HoT was never planned to be shipped as one big lot. It is to be supposed to come in several batches. To evaluate whether HoT is a 100% product or not you have to wait until the evening before expansion 2.

Except that the (non-existant) big wvw overhaul has been cancelled for good.

Which will ship out in smaller pieces sooner now rather than make players wait until whenever for it to be released as a whole.

You clearly havent been here long enough. “We will focus on wvw’s core issues like population imbalance” – that was said 3 years ago. Dont speak on this subject if youve only been in wvw (and the forums) for a few months, youre making yourself out to look incredibly naive.

Are you sure that quote is from early 2013?

The quote itself is from a recent thread, im saying the claim has been made over and over for the past three years for which they had nothing to show for it other than leading wvw players on like donkeys to a carrot on a stick.

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Belenwyn.8674:

HoT was never planned to be shipped as one big lot. It is to be supposed to come in several batches. To evaluate whether HoT is a 100% product or not you have to wait until the evening before expansion 2.

Except that the (non-existant) big wvw overhaul has been cancelled for good.

Which will ship out in smaller pieces sooner now rather than make players wait until whenever for it to be released as a whole.

You clearly havent been here long enough. “We will focus on wvw’s core issues like population imbalance” – that was said 3 years ago. Dont speak on this subject if youve only been in wvw (and the forums) for a few months, youre making yourself out to look incredibly naive.

Provide a source.

There are 752 pages worth of evidence over in the wvw subforum. Have fun.

Well that’s convenient. Since you refuse to provide a source, I’ll assume you made it up for the time being.

Im saying we’ve been told that every other week for the past 3 years, but the fact that this is new to you shows me youre speaking on the subject completely from the outside. Keep your head neatly tucked in the sand.

We haven’t been told this every other week.

Not going to waste my time on a blind whiteknight who has three year’s worth of catching up to do.

Ah. So now you’re resulting to personal attacks because you cannot provide a source. If they kept saying it every other week then it should be fairly easy to prove that. The only time that I remember a dev having a discussion about it was in a thread sometime in 2024 where they were just gathering ideas. No promises were made. It may have been the CDI thread but I can’t remember for sure.

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Belenwyn.8674:

HoT was never planned to be shipped as one big lot. It is to be supposed to come in several batches. To evaluate whether HoT is a 100% product or not you have to wait until the evening before expansion 2.

Except that the (non-existant) big wvw overhaul has been cancelled for good.

Which will ship out in smaller pieces sooner now rather than make players wait until whenever for it to be released as a whole.

You clearly havent been here long enough. “We will focus on wvw’s core issues like population imbalance” – that was said 3 years ago. Dont speak on this subject if youve only been in wvw (and the forums) for a few months, youre making yourself out to look incredibly naive.

Provide a source.

There are 752 pages worth of evidence over in the wvw subforum. Have fun.

Well that’s convenient. Since you refuse to provide a source, I’ll assume you made it up for the time being.

Im saying we’ve been told that every other week for the past 3 years, but the fact that this is new to you shows me youre speaking on the subject completely from the outside. Keep your head neatly tucked in the sand.

We haven’t been told this every other week.

Not going to waste my time on a blind whiteknight who has three year’s worth of catching up to do.

Ah. So now you’re resulting to personal attacks because you cannot provide a source. If they kept saying it every other week then it should be fairly easy to prove that. The only time that I remember a dev having a discussion about it was in a thread sometime in 2024 where they were just gathering ideas. No promises were made. It may have been the CDI thread but I can’t remember for sure.

They weren’t saying it every other week. Quite the contrary really. Their silence was actually a big problem. However there have been several carrots dangled intermittently that didn’t materialize into much.

This from June 2013 (this was the easiest reference to pull up on my phone, there are CDIs and other older threads)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/devon-carver-on-the-future-of-world-vs-world/

• First paragraph addressed culling. Yes that’s how old that is.
• “They’ve shifted their focus to solidifying WvWvW” since 2013 and we’re hearing it yet again after HoT
• Defense still offers crap rewards
• Squads weren’t ready even when HoT dropped, squad markers even later. I don’t know what guild rewards he’s talking about hopefully not guild missions because…I’m going to stop there.
• Match Ups have remained untouched.
• Arguably, the only playstyle that’s seen support is the uber casual, all inclusive, grade school style, everybody gets a trophy blob (not the scout, the roamers, havoc, skill group)
• Speaking of the devil, zerging is still the most effective
• PPT and resulting PvD is unchanged
• Siege is still overtuned and common as salt to boot so “MOAR arrow carts!” is actually a thing.

WvWvWers have been strung along for a while.
———-
On topic, HoT seems more framework and future proofing than content so IMO it does feel unfinished.

gennyt.3428:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zetsumei.4975:

Belenwyn.8674:

HoT was never planned to be shipped as one big lot. It is to be supposed to come in several batches. To evaluate whether HoT is a 100% product or not you have to wait until the evening before expansion 2.

Except that the (non-existant) big wvw overhaul has been cancelled for good.

Which will ship out in smaller pieces sooner now rather than make players wait until whenever for it to be released as a whole.

You clearly havent been here long enough. “We will focus on wvw’s core issues like population imbalance” – that was said 3 years ago. Dont speak on this subject if youve only been in wvw (and the forums) for a few months, youre making yourself out to look incredibly naive.

Provide a source.

There are 752 pages worth of evidence over in the wvw subforum. Have fun.

Well that’s convenient. Since you refuse to provide a source, I’ll assume you made it up for the time being.

Im saying we’ve been told that every other week for the past 3 years, but the fact that this is new to you shows me youre speaking on the subject completely from the outside. Keep your head neatly tucked in the sand.

We haven’t been told this every other week.

Not going to waste my time on a blind whiteknight who has three year’s worth of catching up to do.

Ah. So now you’re resulting to personal attacks because you cannot provide a source. If they kept saying it every other week then it should be fairly easy to prove that. The only time that I remember a dev having a discussion about it was in a thread sometime in 2024 where they were just gathering ideas. No promises were made. It may have been the CDI thread but I can’t remember for sure.

They weren’t saying it every other week. Quite the contrary really. Their silence was actually a big problem. However there have been several carrots dangled intermittently that didn’t materialize into much.

This from June 2013 (this was the easiest reference to pull up on my phone, there are CDIs and other older threads)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/devon-carver-on-the-future-of-world-vs-world/

• First paragraph addressed culling. Yes that’s how old that is.
• “They’ve shifted their focus to solidifying WvWvW” since 2013 and we’re hearing it yet again after HoT
• Defense still offers crap rewards
• Squads weren’t ready even when HoT dropped, squad markers even later. I don’t know what guild rewards he’s talking about hopefully not guild missions because…I’m going to stop there.
• Match Ups have remained untouched.
• Arguably, the only playstyle that’s seen support is the uber casual, all inclusive, grade school style, everybody gets a trophy blob (not the scout, the roamers, havoc, skill group)
• Speaking of the devil, zerging is still the most effective
• PPT and resulting PvD is unchanged
• Siege is still overtuned and common as salt to boot so “MOAR arrow carts!” is actually a thing.

WvWvWers have been strung along for a while.
———-
On topic, HoT seems more framework and future proofing than content so IMO it does feel unfinished.

Yeah. Silence is what I mostly remember on the WvW subforum which is why I questioned the other poster when they made their greatly exaggerated claims.

As far as that blog linked, most of what was stated they have done. It may not have been to the degree that some players had hoped for but they did follow through. However, nothing in this blog referee to populations imoavablbces and promises to fix them.

It felt half-kittened.

They use their company line about all the things that were in the release, but one game mode (wvw) got totally messed up with a map few people like or want, 3 zones to explore in – dragon stand is just a mass instance since the entire map is wrapped around the meta event, guild halls that have been pretty lame IMO and just a handful of promised legendries. Yes the revenant and some of the elite specs are fun, but as an expansion goes, it felt small and unfinished. Unfinished for sure since they didn’t finish it and are abandoning things they said they would do.

@ Ayrilana

Nah they didn’t address most of what’s in the blog post. Not defense rewards, stale match ups (while managing to mention it repeatedly in multiple paragraphs), PPT, OP seige and they even went ahead and made a maze like autopilot borderland with insular objectives which took pretty much everything but ktrains out of the picture (so much for supporting player roles). I could go on.

Heart of Thorns is by no means a ‘finished’ product. Hell . . . two parts of Dragon Stand’s map are still missing, so you can’t even do the achievement there.

WvW and Legendary weapons? Not completed.

Two new classes got one beta test before they shipped out. One. And then got nerfed with a bunch of nonsense.

And on and on and on. No one can say HoT was ‘finished’ with a straight face. No one sincere anyway.

I really think that this is all coming from bad decision 2 years ago when they started to work on the new expansion.

They didn’t plan for an expansion when the game was first launched and with all the demand for an expansion, they changed their mind. They decided to put everybody on the expansion and announced it too soon, when not enough work was done.

That put a content drought that make people mad to begin with and put too much pressure on the expansion. At the same time with a deadline set so early and pressure from the community for content in that drought, the team just didn’t had enough time to complete everything. We clearly saw it with the elite specialization. If there had enough time, all elite spec would have had at least 2 or 3 beta testing.

They obviously also put small team with way too big large on some project. Fractal and WvW are the biggest example there. These team were there only to make filler to make the expansion look bigger, but their work was minimum, lacked polished and was just bad in several aspect. Mostly because of lack of time and resources.

What should they have done in my opinion? Well exactly what they are doing now. (they learned of their mistakes at least). They should have put a LS3 between LS2 and the expansion so there was no content drought. The expansion should have been pushed back of 6 to 12 months. Why 6 to 12 months? Well even with everybody on the team, they were still missing at least 1 or 2 months just to finish the expansion (elite spec). With a portion of the resources put on LS3, those 1-2 months would be more like 4-6 months.

Now that don’t fix the problem of filler content like Fractal and WvW. With a delay of 6 to 12 months they would had time to put a proper fractal update with maybe 2-3 new fractals and a solid system not like the Triple Swamp we see today. They would have time to add the Fractal legendary back item from day one. Probably would had time to put the WvW big update in it too and maybe a complete new legendary weapon set up. Or at least abandon the idea before announcing it.

This would have been a expansion worth 50$.

And like I said, they seem to be doing that right now for the 2nd expansion. But of course, this is all speculation on my part.

gennyt.3428:

@ Ayrilana

Nah they didn’t address most of what’s in the blog post. Not defense rewards, stale match ups (while managing to mention it repeatedly in multiple paragraphs), PPT, OP seige and they even went ahead and made a maze like autopilot borderland with insular objectives which took pretty much everything but ktrains out of the picture (so much for supporting player roles). I could go on.

Yeah. I’m not sure where they were going with defense rewards. There’s the reward that you get from the defending event that pops up but that appears it. This also existed at launch. Unfortunately how could you improve this without not having a lot of people choosing to AFK at tower? How do you reward someone scouting and not someone just wandering around aimlessly?

The problem with stale matchups is that all servers perform different. T4 servers cannot compete against T3, T3 servers cannot compete against T2, and T2 servers cannot compete against T1. You may have those servers which hop between tiers. Within the tiers, it can be lopsided or fairly even. The main issue is that not all servers are the same so no matter how much work they put into a new system, it’s going to get the same result.

They’ve modified PPT a few times. I think they recently did this with points from player kills. They’re not going to prevent nightcap ping as this harms players that don’t play in their region’s prime time. The server with the most points is how a winner is determined so naturally have a higher PPT is desirable (if you care for winning). How else would you prefer that they measure it?

The siege seemed relatively the same pre-HoT other than what your WvW abilities provided. It hey mentioned arrow carts in the blog and they fixed the LoS issue that caused issues for defenders. I haven’t really played WvW after HoT released as it’s been fairly stale. They also didn’t specfically state anything against what some people perceive to be OP siege. They just didn’t want people to refer to a particular siege for any given scenario.

Yeah, the new borderlands didn’t look all that appealing from what I have seen. It’s just too large among other issues.