Guild Wars 2

There are a lot of new and “reimagined” things coming with the xpac, so I’m just wondering if some other stuff is going to be given the NPE treatment?

Some examples of “stuff” below…

Stealth and counter stealth mechanics…
*Watch the video below and imagine you are a new player and encountering gw2 pvp for the first time…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=2QVy_C-Z0-k

So, after a few combat experiences against the current stealth mechanics, the player(s) come to the forums seeking advice to deal with the stealth scenario and are told to “Make sure you equip a melee weapon and swing it around randomly to hit the stealthy opponent!”, “Equip a superior sigil of fire!”, “Learn to predict where the stealthy opponent is and when they are going to attack!”, “Most build options don’t work so you must create your character specifically to deal with the stealth to have any chance!”, “Just break stealth with an aoe and melt face!”… While all of these may sound good in theory, they are not realistic, well-thought-out or balanced solutions to the poor stealth and counter stealth mechanics that have been designed and implemented. It is unfortunate that players are left with extremely limited build options in a pvp environment to deal with stealth mechanics and are pigeon holed by lack of developer attention and “development”. Also, the current stealth design severely limits growth for the thief profession.

Conditions…
New player(s) walk into pvp fights and are continuously carpet bombed with conditions and stacking immobilize. fun stuff right? not at all, and I don’t need to say anymore about conditions in pvp.

On the flip side, player(s) with condition builds hit the mass pve boss and champion trail and are basically rendered useless with the condition caps. This experience feeds even more into the auto attack meta that is prevalent in much of the game. It’s not really fun or engaging to sit there in large battles letting the #1 button on the keyboard, a couple dodges and an emergency heal win the day (this happens in wvw too btw).

Ascended gear…
New player(s) level up to 80 and look how they can equip their awesome character. “Cool beans, through regular gameplay I can buy some ascended trinkets!”. “Now let’s look at some high end gear…” (Player(s) go to Dulfy site and sees the obnoxiously long shopping list…) "Whoa, forced to level up crafting to 500 and then all that time gated stuff…) “Hey, maybe there is an alternative, let’s look at the bltc!”… “Hmmm, maybe I can cash in all the badges from wvw?”… Looks back at the bltc… “Wow, precusors and bis legendary weapons for sale…”.

By design, you have created 1 reliable path to gear up with ascended and the rest is a poorly implemented mess. This should be fixed. You had a perfectly good system with ascended trinkets so I don’t see why you could not have the same laurel time gated- crafting mat required-gold sink and badge of honor ascended gearing system in place. Multiple paths to gear progression needs to happen to cater to all types of players and as Chris Whiteside said, “earned through lots of different parts/activities of the game”. Also, if you are going to continue to allow players to sell precursors and legendaries, then all ascended gear should get the same treatment. It doesn’t matter whether ascended is needed or not, it’s the principal of the matter with regard to acquisition.

My overall thoughts…
It is disappointing to see major topics and flaws ignored for years while random things are implemented and/or changed. There has been enough community feedback and time to address many red flag and poor design issues, but they are completely ignored. I don’t understand why a talented team of developers and coders, that have a great game engine to back them up, would squander a potentially great game by not improving or fixing core game elements.

If you want to increase player retention, bring back some old players, add new customers and boost revenue in the process, I suggest that players and their concerns be taken more seriously. I’m hoping that the “new new new” efforts to communicate produce more transparency with community concerns and that we see more meaningful and substantial new player experiences in the near future.

Edit- I understand there are many different opinions about these topics, but we can all agree that it is in everyone’s best interest to have a growing player base and that the game needs to be more accessible and less alienating.