What has gw2 learned?

What has gw2 learned?

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Sylent.3165

Sylent.3165

Do you all think the developers have learned from all our feedback?

There was some fantastic things they did with HoT and some not so fantastic things. Do you think they’ll learn with there next map release hopefully with next living story?

What kind of things are you truly hoping to see?

For me…..

1. Difficulty. Firstly I’m casual. My meaning of that is 2 hours a day on weekdays to play, 4 to 5 weekends. I personally have 0 issues with MOST encounters. Never really died outside an event other then new encounters against new enemies I didn’t know. So I truly hope the new maps scaled much much better to events for when I’m the only one around.

2. Timed maps. Dragons stand I think was the worse design I personally ever saw any game developer come up with. 2 hour meta event? Any adult does not have time for things like that after getting home from work yet alone getting into a map. Silverwastes was designed wonderfully to the fact you can taxi people in easier, the idea was more simple and could complete the meta with in a playable duration for most people.

3. Navigation. I like the mushrooms, I like the gliding. I don’t like figuring out a map that often times makes no sense and you can’t even find correct spots to glide or bounce to try to get to spots. I often times feel like I need a gps in this game and getting around just shouldn’t be so difficult.

4. Rewards. I do like how verdant brink set up the bladed coat reward personally. But often times could be hard just hoping on finding a good map. Would help an entire map to not have the reward simply be do this once get your armor you want and move on. Again SW did a great job at this because you had to complete it to get your chests at the end with nice rewards that were worth doing.

Just a few of my thoughts I’d really like to see for some changes on the next map.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Twice this week I was ported into dragon stand at the very end of the meta event by a guildy and just did the last boss fight. You don’t have to do the entire meta event. It’s the luck of the draw though.

No real comments about the rest of your post though.

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Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Well, it’s a tough call on what exactly Anet “learned”. The problem with the whole “learn from mistakes” thing is that there’s a million ways to rationalize, deny, and explain things away. There’s arguments that somethings are wrong, and yet there are arguments that those same exact things are right.

I’m in the camp that HoT was alright:

Difficulty: Solid. I liked the need for cooperation, the harder mobs, and a terrain that isn’t just a flat plain that is easy to navigate. About this level is where I think the game should stay, but I could still see the difficulty bumped up a bit.

Story: A bit anemic. It was fairly fast and bare bones, and it felt like the story was purposely avoiding a lot of things that it should’ve covered for the sake of “mystery”, but we all know that’s just lazy writing. Probably the weakest aspect of the expansion right here.

Mastery System: This was pretty good. The masteries need to be a bit more creative, since a lot of them were “You’re now allowed to press F on this object”. It seems like an unassailable and daunting task at first, but I soon found myself capping out points and having no use for experience again. The gliding mastery was pretty awesome, though. It really did change the way that I looked at the game.

Events: Solid again. Though a lot of people hated this because it was on a timer, that is exactly what I like about it. I like the fact that I can glance at a clock and know what is going on, and what will be going on. There’s daily rewards for hero points encourages players to group up for them, and I’ve found the awards for most of the map metas to be satisfactory and the events entertaining.

Elite Specializations: Here is the prime example of ambiguity in “learned” here. The elite specializations were way too hard to acquire at first, and this was changed. It wasn’t changed because Anet thought it was a wrong decision, but because a mass of people gave GW2 a bad metacritic score for being unhappy about how elite specs were handled. So, what did Anet learn? Did they learn that their decision was bad in the first place, or are they going to try the same thing again and just convey the grind earlier in the future?

Regardless, this was initially a mixed bag, but now it is great. Getting the elite specializations at first was like pulling teeth. You had neither the masteries to get the skillpoints, nor the knowledge to get mastery points. Running through tangled depths at launch with basic gliding and mushroom jumping is the definition of grueling. But now that the requirements were lessened, it is much better. The specializations themselves are fun, and the only bad side to them is that they eclipse the other specializations.

Precursor Journey/Legendaries: Not going to lie, I haven’t done this. Once I learned that it was a massive gold and material sink, I said goodbye and never looked back.

Guild Halls: Haven’t touched this myself. But it seems awesome, at least from what WoodenPotatoes shows in his vids.

WvW Map: Haven’t really gone here myself. I grew tired of PVP and WvW awhile ago, so this remains neutral for me.

Gear Prefixes/Runes/Sigils: These are pretty good, too. As always, there’s a bunch of “play how I want” sets in the mix, but I can legitimately see players running around in Marauder, Trailblazer, and Viper. Most of the runes are pretty meh, but Berserker and Chronomancer Runes have made it on to a few builds.

New Skins: On these I’m pretty indifferent. This is a matter of aesthetics, so it’s subjective here.

Revenant: Love the new class. Though its build possibilities are placed squarely in a box, it’s a good box. And hey, thanks to Ventari I managed to reflect the dreaded Schrodinger Wurm (A triple trouble run where the server had an aneurysm and the in-server lag was several minutes long. Named so because the server’s processes were lagging so far behind that, at any point in time, you weren’t sure if you were alive or dead).

… I think that’s most things. There are somethings I’m not sure whether to include or not (raids and squads, for example), but generally I think they did things right.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

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Posted by: Zoltar MacRoth.7146

Zoltar MacRoth.7146

I’m happy with HOT and the jungle maps, since you asked. But as to lessons learned.. well, one glaring lesson seems to keep slipping them by: providing options rather than making global changes that change only which subset of the player base is happy rather than making everybody happy.

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Posted by: Crossaber.8934

Crossaber.8934

Do you all think the developers have learned from all our feedback?

There was some fantastic things they did with HoT and some not so fantastic things. Do you think they’ll learn with there next map release hopefully with next living story?

What kind of things are you truly hoping to see?

For me…..

1. Difficulty. Firstly I’m casual. My meaning of that is 2 hours a day on weekdays to play, 4 to 5 weekends. I personally have 0 issues with MOST encounters. Never really died outside an event other then new encounters against new enemies I didn’t know. So I truly hope the new maps scaled much much better to events for when I’m the only one around.

2. Timed maps. Dragons stand I think was the worse design I personally ever saw any game developer come up with. 2 hour meta event? Any adult does not have time for things like that after getting home from work yet alone getting into a map. Silverwastes was designed wonderfully to the fact you can taxi people in easier, the idea was more simple and could complete the meta with in a playable duration for most people.

3. Navigation. I like the mushrooms, I like the gliding. I don’t like figuring out a map that often times makes no sense and you can’t even find correct spots to glide or bounce to try to get to spots. I often times feel like I need a gps in this game and getting around just shouldn’t be so difficult.

4. Rewards. I do like how verdant brink set up the bladed coat reward personally. But often times could be hard just hoping on finding a good map. Would help an entire map to not have the reward simply be do this once get your armor you want and move on. Again SW did a great job at this because you had to complete it to get your chests at the end with nice rewards that were worth doing.

Just a few of my thoughts I’d really like to see for some changes on the next map.

I am with you on this, especially point 2 and 4, whenever i hop into a dragon stand it is 20 or 30 mins waiting, totally dead map. 2 hours meta event + 30 mins waiting, i wonder how a normal adult with a job and a family able to spare so much time to play.

I am a man with job and family, I usually left office at 19:30, reach home by 20:30, prepare dinner, eat and done clean up at 22:00, it is already very amazing if i can managed a 1 hour of gameplay…

Silverwaste was great, find a taxi, run couple events, 5 bosses, then meta bosses, 30mins ~40mins of playtime, PERFECT!!!

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Posted by: Draknar.5748

Draknar.5748

2. Timed maps. Dragons stand I think was the worse design I personally ever saw any game developer come up with. 2 hour meta event? Any adult does not have time for things like that after getting home from work yet alone getting into a map. Silverwastes was designed wonderfully to the fact you can taxi people in easier, the idea was more simple and could complete the meta with in a playable duration for most people.

I thought this at first too. But I’ve successfully done the meta from complete start to finish in about an hour. Plus sometimes I’ll zone into a map with no one on it, check Open World LFG, see people asking for bodies in an active map, join up, and already be at the Tower event right before the Mordremoth fight. That’s exactly what happened last night, in fact. Was easy loot and XP.

DS is one of my favorite maps quite honestly. If I can’t get into one with an active meta, I go to Auric Basin, my 2nd favorite.

I won’t stop because I can’t stop.

It’s a medical condition, they say its terminal….

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Posted by: Dante.1508

Dante.1508

No not looking at the latest patch, nerfing even more PvE for niche PvP, no the disconnect is greater than ever..

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Posted by: Aceofsppades.6873

Aceofsppades.6873

Anet learned that players prefer clicking bouncy chest for event rewards rather than have them automatically dumped into their inventory.

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Posted by: AliamRationem.5172

AliamRationem.5172

2. Timed maps. Dragons stand I think was the worse design I personally ever saw any game developer come up with. 2 hour meta event? Any adult does not have time for things like that after getting home from work yet alone getting into a map. Silverwastes was designed wonderfully to the fact you can taxi people in easier, the idea was more simple and could complete the meta with in a playable duration for most people.

I thought this at first too. But I’ve successfully done the meta from complete start to finish in about an hour. Plus sometimes I’ll zone into a map with no one on it, check Open World LFG, see people asking for bodies in an active map, join up, and already be at the Tower event right before the Mordremoth fight. That’s exactly what happened last night, in fact. Was easy loot and XP.

DS is one of my favorite maps quite honestly. If I can’t get into one with an active meta, I go to Auric Basin, my 2nd favorite.

I’m the opposite. My favorite maps are TD and VB. I dislike DS most of all. The rush to the boss seems to take forever, and there are too many people involved. I feel like my contribution is minimal. It’s just a long, boring run for me.

I also enjoy the exploration aspects of all of these maps, but again find VB and TD the more interesting maps to explore. Learning the tricks to getting around in these maps felt very rewarding.

On difficulty, I’m pleased with it overall. I think it could be toned down a bit in places, but not too much. I’ve found some classes that I enjoyed leveling were less enjoyable in HoT because the difficulty forced me out of a preferred playstyle. This was a particular problem with classes that I didn’t like the ranged option for, as it seems essential to be able to drop back and deal damage from range at times.

Scaling? They did fix most of the more obnoxious instances of poor event scaling, I think. But I suppose if they could get the scaling down perfect, you could have most events be solo and then scale up as more players arrive.

All in all, I’m enjoying HoT. And if I could get a new map or two like VB and TD now and then, I think I’d be a happy camper. But it’s obvious that not everyone agrees that maps like VB and TD are a good thing. So why not mix it up a bit and offer something for everyone? I’m not interested in more flat maps, but there are plenty of players who prefer them.

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Posted by: reapex.8546

reapex.8546

Do you all think the developers have learned from all our feedback?

For me…..
2. Timed maps. Dragons stand I think was the worse design I personally ever saw any game developer come up with. 2 hour meta event? Any adult does not have time for things like that after getting home from work yet alone getting into a map.

1) Dragon Stand is awesome, imo.
2) Use LFG Tool to get a map.
3) “Any adult does not have time for things like that” I don’t know what adults you know of but your sampling base must be incredibly small.

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Posted by: General Health.9678

General Health.9678

I am with you on this, especially point 2 and 4, whenever i hop into a dragon stand it is 20 or 30 mins waiting, totally dead map. 2 hours meta event + 30 mins waiting, i wonder how a normal adult with a job and a family able to spare so much time to play.

Is this also how you watch TV? Sit in front of it for 20 or 30 minutes waiting for your favourite program to come on then sit in front of it with the “channel off air” message for two hours?
No? Well you’re doing DS wrong. Use the LFG tool and look at a timersite to find out when is the best time to be on this map if you want to do the meta. I randomly checked LFG when I toon hopped last night, ran mid for the first time, got a bunch of mastery points, poi’s and vistas and we successfully finished off the dragon in under an hour.

Blame Abaddon, he loves your tears.
pve, raid, pvp, fractal, dungeon, world clearing, legendary questing.. Zapped!

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Posted by: Crossaber.8934

Crossaber.8934

I am with you on this, especially point 2 and 4, whenever i hop into a dragon stand it is 20 or 30 mins waiting, totally dead map. 2 hours meta event + 30 mins waiting, i wonder how a normal adult with a job and a family able to spare so much time to play.

Is this also how you watch TV? Sit in front of it for 20 or 30 minutes waiting for your favourite program to come on then sit in front of it with the “channel off air” message for two hours?
No? Well you’re doing DS wrong. Use the LFG tool and look at a timersite to find out when is the best time to be on this map if you want to do the meta. I randomly checked LFG when I toon hopped last night, ran mid for the first time, got a bunch of mastery points, poi’s and vistas and we successfully finished off the dragon in under an hour.

You don’t understand everyone got their own schedule.

I play a game on my own schedule, i watch a show on my own schedule. If I have to wait for the show to begin on TV, there are tons of ways for me to recap the show later. I always download drama and only watch while i am free. A game is entertainment, for people to enjoy during their free time…

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Posted by: reapex.8546

reapex.8546

I am with you on this, especially point 2 and 4, whenever i hop into a dragon stand it is 20 or 30 mins waiting, totally dead map. 2 hours meta event + 30 mins waiting, i wonder how a normal adult with a job and a family able to spare so much time to play.

Is this also how you watch TV? Sit in front of it for 20 or 30 minutes waiting for your favourite program to come on then sit in front of it with the “channel off air” message for two hours?
No? Well you’re doing DS wrong. Use the LFG tool and look at a timersite to find out when is the best time to be on this map if you want to do the meta. I randomly checked LFG when I toon hopped last night, ran mid for the first time, got a bunch of mastery points, poi’s and vistas and we successfully finished off the dragon in under an hour.

A game is entertainment, for people to enjoy during their free time…

So, is a tv show.

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Posted by: General Health.9678

General Health.9678

I play a game on my own schedule

And how is that working out for you?
If you want to create an excuse then that’s up to you. I guarantee you could, in the timeslot you have, be doing DS if you use the tools provided. Timer and LFG, job done.

Blame Abaddon, he loves your tears.
pve, raid, pvp, fractal, dungeon, world clearing, legendary questing.. Zapped!

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Posted by: Crossaber.8934

Crossaber.8934

I am with you on this, especially point 2 and 4, whenever i hop into a dragon stand it is 20 or 30 mins waiting, totally dead map. 2 hours meta event + 30 mins waiting, i wonder how a normal adult with a job and a family able to spare so much time to play.

Is this also how you watch TV? Sit in front of it for 20 or 30 minutes waiting for your favourite program to come on then sit in front of it with the “channel off air” message for two hours?
No? Well you’re doing DS wrong. Use the LFG tool and look at a timersite to find out when is the best time to be on this map if you want to do the meta. I randomly checked LFG when I toon hopped last night, ran mid for the first time, got a bunch of mastery points, poi’s and vistas and we successfully finished off the dragon in under an hour.

A game is entertainment, for people to enjoy during their free time…

So, is a tv show.

Yes, indeed, therefore i don’t watch a TV show if it don’t match my schedule, same as gaming, all i’ve said is i agree with OP, i think silverwaste is a good example of what i think is good map design, and it is also my favorite map so far beside chest farm train.

You can put your focus back to OP, thank you.

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Posted by: Crossaber.8934

Crossaber.8934

I play a game on my own schedule

And how is that working out for you?
If you want to create an excuse then that’s up to you. I guarantee you could, in the timeslot you have, be doing DS if you use the tools provided. Timer and LFG, job done.

It don’t work very well with me, timer or LFG, i am not living in NA or EU time zone, when i am up for gaming, most players in america are sleeping. When these map are alive, i am at my office desk.

I sometimes login during lunch time in office, i do, i just pick the easy one anyways. I never met a successful AB meta at home, but when i did multiple times when i was in office. Just FYI, if i am in office, i have roughly 10~15mins free times for getting the dailies done.

I’ve made my choice to let go of these timed event, i’ve never complain, it just happens i come across this thread and agree with a fellow player’s opinion on forum.

I know i am not alone, all my RL friends have the same problem, i am the only one’ve seen a succeed AB meta among them.

(edited by Crossaber.8934)

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Posted by: General Health.9678

General Health.9678

I’m fascinated by what time you play that nobody is doing an AB run.
Ever.
Seems to me that such a timezone should be targeted by one of the big, global guilds.

Blame Abaddon, he loves your tears.
pve, raid, pvp, fractal, dungeon, world clearing, legendary questing.. Zapped!

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Posted by: reapex.8546

reapex.8546

Yes, indeed, therefore i don’t watch a TV show if it don’t match my schedule, same as gaming, all i’ve said is i agree with OP

Focus is on anyone that responds to this thread, since it’s public and no problem.

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Posted by: reapex.8546

reapex.8546

I play a game on my own schedule

And how is that working out for you?
If you want to create an excuse then that’s up to you. I guarantee you could, in the timeslot you have, be doing DS if you use the tools provided. Timer and LFG, job done.

It don’t work very well with me, timer or LFG, i am not living in NA or EU time zone, when i am up for gaming, most players in america are sleeping. When these map are alive, i am at my office desk.
.

Odd, when NA isn’t active EU is active. I would recommend using the HoT timer on Dulfy’s site. Then check the auric basin map 20-30 mins before the event spawn for a LFG ad. You’ll see ads in the squad and party section. If you don’t see one, advertise yourself. Someone may invite you, if not. Stay on a map that it looks like people are doing events on. Don’t transfer maps, go back to doing work. Check back on the map when you have free time at work before the event starts (you can see the event timers on Dulfy’s site). Check LFG then too, you’ll probably find an ad or you’ll be on a map where people are preparing already. The checking time should take about 3 mins approximately. 1 min, if you’re using the timer on dulfy.net’s site.

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Posted by: Bris.7984

Bris.7984

Straight answer is : Nothing. Don’t know if is buget related,but definely they need better management,better communication,better…better…Need better market research amongs mmo gamers.

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Posted by: Sartharina.3542

Sartharina.3542

Straight answer is : Nothing. Don’t know if is buget related,but definely they need better management,better communication,better…better…Need better market research amongs mmo gamers.

Guild Wars 2 isn’t strictly targetted to MMO gamers – in fact, that’s an oversaturated market. Instead, GW2 markets itself to “Sick of traditional MMO” gamers as well. Remember – “If you like MMOs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. If you don’t like MMO’s, you should Definitely check out Guild Wars 2”

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Posted by: ZeftheWicked.3076

ZeftheWicked.3076

Here are areas they should seriously do their homework on:

1. basic economy and marketing. In a-net’s case very, very basic. Like the fact that if you sell something cheaper, then you get more buyers, and it evens out or often outclasses the gains out of selling less copies for bigger price.

Also a great move PR wise as even if the offering is not 10/10 if it’s sold for reasonable price you’ll get far less voices of discontent (like you do now for xpac just being too small for it’s price).

2. Communication on the forums. No, i don’t mean forum mods. I mean devs actually speaking with players in the first and foremost place such discussion should take place. A nice roadmap is always nice. And no 6 moths silence when players are wondering what’s next? Few mmos can get away with being absolutely silent on upcoming content for longer then 3 months.

3. New sales and marketing team. A-net had a great reputation for being class AAA honest dev. Now with HoT sales policies which were to put it bluntly a straight up war with veteran players on nearly every step don’t expect neither the hype or pre-orders/pre-purchases for the next xpac to look as good as for HoT. And that’s just the stuff that happened before the launch. Post-launch is the “it’s feature not content rich” issue which doesn’t sit well with everyone for their 50$.

A-net’s now got a loong haul to get back into community’s graces (least a lot of veterans), and it’s gonna be one tough crowd after the numerous pricing/pr/content failures of HoT.

(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)

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Posted by: Tumult.2578

Tumult.2578

Couldn’t agree more. #2 is spot on. Notice how we don’t even make threads to catch the developers attention anymore and have settled for discussing game issues ourselves?

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Posted by: Sylent.3165

Sylent.3165

Couldn’t agree more. #2 is spot on. Notice how we don’t even make threads to catch the developers attention anymore and have settled for discussing game issues ourselves?

Sadly the devs don’t communicate with with the community how they should.

It may be possible a dev read this though. But it would be very helpful if they replied to us more often. Most of them play this game as well so they should communicate like players.

Even if they personally hate every suggestion hop on and say I disagree with this suggestion because x y and z.

We can at least get ideas of there goals in the game for the future.

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Posted by: Sartharina.3542

Sartharina.3542

Couldn’t agree more. #2 is spot on. Notice how we don’t even make threads to catch the developers attention anymore and have settled for discussing game issues ourselves?

The latter situation is the primary purpose of a game forum.

And… #3’s point is just nonsense.

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Posted by: ZeftheWicked.3076

ZeftheWicked.3076

^ if you mean my #3 about sales and marketing team then let me remind you their “slight” flops such as:

- forcing veteran players to pay full game price with xpac, when it should’ve been much cheaper for them – “Do not Pre-Purchase Heart of Thorns” from that time is a legendary topic on reddit, probs the biggest one ever regarding GW2.

- refusal to add a free character slot for revenant in xpac that costed 50$ at it’s cheapest. Only after HUGE flames from players did they change that to “IF you pre-purchase” (so basically cough up money for a cat in a bag at that point).

- not letting a lot ppl test out the xpac before they buy. Only those who pre-purchased had a guaranteed beta slot, rest was either lucky or had to wait for official launch and reviews.

- bait & switch with “need a core game to play xpac” which pushed core game sales, only to discover some time later that no, you don’t need core game. After solar storm level flames erupted they had to refund quite of lot of core game purchases after that, and that’s a plus for them that they did, but this “mistake” shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

- inadequate price vs content. Notice the metacritic player reviews. Recently they are bad and i don’t blame them. The xpac is great, but it is too small, forcing it to be too grindy, and many a person strongly dissatisfied with price vs content ratio. And thus negative reviews pour our like a river. Can you blame them? Having to pay nearly (or completely if with slot) full game price for something that’s clearly not even 1/3 core game size, regardless whether you own a core game or not?

All these “small things” pile up in a mass of angry players (that will probably once again get real angry when next xpac launches with 50$ tag for 4 new PvE maps + 2 or so guild halls) if you’re not a newcomer to the series (while offering said newcomers best deal on the market).

Be it honest mistakes, or a push to sell HoT copies at 50$ no matter the consequences (you decide which) sales and marketing team managed to seriously tarnish a-net’s crystal clear reputation as extremely honest dev when it comes to both amount of content and sales policies. If i were their boss ppl responsible for this damage would be flying out of their job the first chance i get to replace them with someone who knows how to appeal to customers instead of sinking the hard earned good name of my brand.

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Posted by: Sartharina.3542

Sartharina.3542

^ if you mean my #3 about sales and marketing team then let me remind you their “slight” flops such as:

- forcing veteran players to pay full game price with xpac, when it should’ve been much cheaper for them – “Do not Pre-Purchase Heart of Thorns” from that time is a legendary topic on reddit, probs the biggest one ever regarding GW2.

That’s because people are stupid and feel entitled. The developers made it clear they were making the core game free to everyone, with HoT alone costing $40. The developers simply chose to charge people new to getting into the game $40 instead of $80 (Especially since said new players missed out on the three years worth of content prior to HoT, such as Old Lion’s Arch. This is also one of the reasons WoW used to be so unreasonable with its xpac pricing – demanding players pay full price for a game that no longer had its content relevant – You had to buy the base game, despite the Ahn-Quiraj war being reduced to just another leveling zone, the raids completely obsolete, the entire community shifted away from the old player hubs, and the legendary weapons worse than trash drops. You had to buy The Burning Crusade, even though Shattrath was a ghost town, the reputations were useless, etc.)

- refusal to add a free character slot for revenant in xpac that costed 50$ at it’s cheapest. Only after HUGE flames from players did they change that to “IF you pre-purchase” (so basically cough up money for a cat in a bag at that point).

Eh.. that’s just player expectation, but still a valid point. (This is the only MMO I’ve played that even has character slots restricted by purchase instead of sweeping game-wide limitation)

- not letting a lot ppl test out the xpac before they buy. Only those who pre-purchased had a guaranteed beta slot, rest was either lucky or had to wait for official launch and reviews.

… wat. Entitlement much? You don’t get to play a game you haven’t paid for.

- bait & switch with “need a core game to play xpac” which pushed core game sales, only to discover some time later that no, you don’t need core game. After solar storm level flames erupted they had to refund quite of lot of core game purchases after that, and that’s a plus for them that they did, but this “mistake” shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

… what? The rhetoric for the entire time during the Xpac’s pre-release was “The Expansion includes the Core Game with it.” If there was any sort of firestorm, it’s because people are complete idiots who couldn’t be bothered to read, and as soon as the developers realized people were buying the game (Not through them directly, though, because they had disabled that option. But either through other places on the internet, or in stores), they upgraded every account purchased after the announcement of the Xpac to an Xpac. But not because they mislead people, but because those people were either idiots, or simply just tried carrying their own preconceptions over.

- inadequate price vs content. Notice the metacritic player reviews. Recently they are bad and i don’t blame them. The xpac is great, but it is too small, forcing it to be too grindy, and many a person strongly dissatisfied with price vs content ratio. And thus negative reviews pour our like a river. Can you blame them? Having to pay nearly (or completely if with slot) full game price for something that’s clearly not even 1/3 core game size, regardless whether you own a core game or not?

Okay. So you’re made two points so far.

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

Do you all think the developers have learned from all our feedback?

There was some fantastic things they did with HoT and some not so fantastic things. Do you think they’ll learn with there next map release hopefully with next living story?

What kind of things are you truly hoping to see?

For me…..

1. Difficulty. Firstly I’m casual. My meaning of that is 2 hours a day on weekdays to play, 4 to 5 weekends. I personally have 0 issues with MOST encounters. Never really died outside an event other then new encounters against new enemies I didn’t know. So I truly hope the new maps scaled much much better to events for when I’m the only one around.

Scaling is still buggy. For example why are lv82 mobs spawning when there are only 2 people at an event?

2. Timed maps. Dragons stand I think was the worse design I personally ever saw any game developer come up with. 2 hour meta event? Any adult does not have time for things like that after getting home from work yet alone getting into a map. Silverwastes was designed wonderfully to the fact you can taxi people in easier, the idea was more simple and could complete the meta with in a playable duration for most people.

Key point being player driven versus timer driven. SW isn’t entirely player driven either since all everything still has a timer. Some of those timers are just hidden. SW isn’t necessarily designed better. It just does a better job of hiding things.

3. Navigation. I like the mushrooms, I like the gliding. I don’t like figuring out a map that often times makes no sense and you can’t even find correct spots to glide or bounce to try to get to spots. I often times feel like I need a gps in this game and getting around just shouldn’t be so difficult.

This is a tough one. I don’t have much problem with it but I’ve gotten 100% a dozen times already. The minimap is more or less unless in several spots. It could do without those.

4. Rewards. I do like how verdant brink set up the bladed coat reward personally. But often times could be hard just hoping on finding a good map. Would help an entire map to not have the reward simply be do this once get your armor you want and move on. Again SW did a great job at this because you had to complete it to get your chests at the end with nice rewards that were worth doing.

Just a few of my thoughts I’d really like to see for some changes on the next map.

It is no longer necessary to get to t4 to get the coat box. Not sure about what the real requirements are. Getting to t4 gets you are armor box which lets you select a piece for any of the slots instead of just being coats. There are other things that requires a t4 as well such as the vigil/priory/whisper backpacks but unfortunately those also have a hefty price tag attached.

I would like to see fewer useless masteries like itzel leadership/exalted purification/nuhoch proving. Also better mob design but since this hasn’t seen much improvement since launch I am not holding my breath.

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Posted by: Hyper Cutter.9376

Hyper Cutter.9376

That’s because people are stupid and feel entitled. The developers made it clear they were making the core game free to everyone, with HoT alone costing $40. The developers simply chose to charge people new to getting into the game $40 instead of $80 (Especially since said new players missed out on the three years worth of content prior to HoT, such as Old Lion’s Arch.

Anet thinking HoT was worth $50 by itself is still a bad thing. It’s not, $50 is like Factions/Nightfall-level content and HoT isn’t even remotely close to that. If they’d charged people who already owned an account, say, $30 for HoT, none of that backlash would have happened.

Also, let’s not forget them dropping the whole “I hope you didn’t want to actually use those elite specs anytime soon” literally days before release, after spending months hyping them up.

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Posted by: ZeftheWicked.3076

ZeftheWicked.3076

Looking forward to challenge your statement on their “success” when the next xpac rolls, and it will soon.

Currently gw2 does rake almost twice the money as it did before HoT. But key thing to remember is that before HoT it was a barren wasteland in terms of content updates – so it was naturally at an all time low in terms of active players and ergo gem store income.

Also with HoT it went F2P which gathered lotsa new players that weren’t interested in B2P GW2 at all. A great move to be sure, but that works only once. The next xpac will not get tons of F2P new players, because they’re already here after HoT. While the tarnished opinion of anet’s honesty and shady sales practices will reap it’s harvest when it comes to next expansion pre-purchases and hype.

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Posted by: General Health.9678

General Health.9678

Anet are the only people who know what their success criteria is. It’s probably box sales with an expected uptick in gemstore sales. But for all I know they have millions in the bank and their success criteria is how many times Tequatl gets killed at a weekend. Or how many badges of honor are spent a month.

Before HoT it was a barren content wasteland? LS1, LS2, Karka, Scarlet.. barren you say. And we have no metrics about active players or gemstore purchases. There’s probably way more casuals paying with real money for gemstore items at weekends than veterans as vets can use in-game currency conversion if they want gems. That’s certainly how I do it.

F2P will work fine on the next xpac too. New stuff always brings new people. Like milkshake to a yard. And the next xpac will hopefully see old and new F2P triallers convert. I certainly advise people to as soon as they realise they actually love the game. There’s so much more in the boxed version that it’s worth converting from F2P.

And it’s $40-$50 depending on deals. That isn’t a lot of money to get all excited or upset over. If you have it and love the game, convert. I suspect a lot of people wont but it’s not because of HoT, it’s because they play casually. Probably play a few things casually. Gets expensive buying them all. With the right xpac tho… who knows, playable Quaggans or Tengu could see millions of boxes shifted.

Blame Abaddon, he loves your tears.
pve, raid, pvp, fractal, dungeon, world clearing, legendary questing.. Zapped!

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Posted by: reapex.8546

reapex.8546

With the right xpac tho… who knows, playable Quaggans or Tengu could see millions of boxes shifted.

Quaggans probably won’t happen, people would want to use existing armor on them that won’t fit xD.

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Posted by: General Health.9678

General Health.9678

Double the gemstore sales, playable quaggans means quaggan racial outfits. Quaggan in a tux as city clothes would be mega cute. Maybe surfboards to get around.. fish based backpacks, “I can swim faster than a dolphin!”, underwater dance emotes. And the ultimate farmable item.. unlimited tonics to turn your quaggan into a human/norn/charr/sylvari/cat/ogre/ etc etc..

Blame Abaddon, he loves your tears.
pve, raid, pvp, fractal, dungeon, world clearing, legendary questing.. Zapped!

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Posted by: Sartharina.3542

Sartharina.3542

That’s because people are stupid and feel entitled. The developers made it clear they were making the core game free to everyone, with HoT alone costing $40. The developers simply chose to charge people new to getting into the game $40 instead of $80 (Especially since said new players missed out on the three years worth of content prior to HoT, such as Old Lion’s Arch.

Anet thinking HoT was worth $50 by itself is still a bad thing. It’s not, $50 is like Factions/Nightfall-level content and HoT isn’t even remotely close to that. If they’d charged people who already owned an account, say, $30 for HoT, none of that backlash would have happened.

Possibly. But they made it clear what their price point for the game was from the very beginning. I got more than 4000 gems worth of content out of it though, so meh.

Also, let’s not forget them dropping the whole “I hope you didn’t want to actually use those elite specs anytime soon” literally days before release, after spending months hyping them up.

… I was able to use my Elite spec immediately upon resuming the game.

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

Forgot this in the previous post. 2 hours is not the requirement for DS, it is the time limit. In my experience the average time is closer to 1h20m including the time spent looting all the pods and cleaning inventory. The actual rate is partially influenced by players.

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Posted by: darkace.8925

darkace.8925

That glider skins in the cash shop are quite lucrative.

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Posted by: Machiavell.7396

Machiavell.7396

They have learned something but also didn’t learn a lot of things still. Desigining of items overall is really badly behind or with silly mistakes like Ad Infinitum lacking any trail effect that basically every glider in game has, not to mention it should be fractal-ish trail. Legendaries postponed indefinetely, knowing that those were promised as part of HoT and some players are striving for this particular part of game. Raids and exclusivity of legendary armor only to them is hit in the guts for some players, and that is only 1st collection as we don’t know what will be next.

Unofficial Master Bugfinder and Design Critic.
“He will improve everything that ArenaNet added to infinity and beyond.”

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Posted by: General Health.9678

General Health.9678

Legendaries postponed indefinetely, knowing that those were promised as part of HoT and some players are striving for this particular part of game.

Anet know their own metrics, I suspect not enough people are interested to justify the cost of producing them. Same reason you stopped needing wvw for gift of exploration.

Raids and exclusivity of legendary armor only to them is hit in the guts for some players, and that is only 1st collection as we don’t know what will be next.

Raids aren’t exclusive. There are many clearing/training guilds you could join and if you really wanted legendary armour you’d already be doing this with a guild or guilds.

Blame Abaddon, he loves your tears.
pve, raid, pvp, fractal, dungeon, world clearing, legendary questing.. Zapped!

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Posted by: Renkku.7451

Renkku.7451

A lot of negative feedback in here.. I’m almost scared to comment, but I think HoT made some very clever improvements to the game. They took some risks and some promises they couldn’t fulfill, but in general most of what they delivered was challenging, fun and something that has never been seen in an mmo before.

There was a need in the game for challenging content, which they delivered with raids and HoT maps. The maps are not too hard. It takes a little while, but you can learn to navigate and handle the tricky mobs in there. And most of the masteries help in that too. I’ve only raided a bit, but what I’ve experienced has been fun and challenging as well. So definitely I feel like GW2 has learned map and encounter design very well.

It’s very hard to please everyone who plays the game. The content Anet provided with HoT is clearly meant for players, who have already played GW2 for a while, since it’s important for them to keep their long term customers.

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Posted by: Quaggan.2630

Quaggan.2630

I hate hard content, so i did not play any jumping puzzle in the past 3 years.

After HoT releasted,
1) the mastery system forces me to get the rest mastery point in tyria from those content i hated!!
2) the mastery system forces me to do many jumping and speed run in adventures

In the past, the game is optional, i can choose the content i like to play. I enjoy the cooperation in world boss fighting.
But I need to spend all the time in the hate content for the legendary journey. It is not fun anymore!

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Posted by: Zoltar MacRoth.7146

Zoltar MacRoth.7146

I hate hard content, so i did not play any jumping puzzle in the past 3 years.

After HoT releasted,
1) the mastery system forces me to get the rest mastery point in tyria from those content i hated!!
2) the mastery system forces me to do many jumping and speed run in adventures

In the past, the game is optional, i can choose the content i like to play. I enjoy the cooperation in world boss fighting.
But I need to spend all the time in the hate content for the legendary journey. It is not fun anymore!

When you say you don’t like hard content, does that mean you don’t play in the jungle?

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Posted by: Dante.1508

Dante.1508

I think they need to do more email polls or something, less listening to this forum and social media..

They really need to poll the customers that left and why..

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Posted by: BrotherBelial.3094

BrotherBelial.3094

What have the Devs learned from the feed back left by players?

That most will complain about having to play the game to get the things they want.

I’m not saying everything they do is perfect, far from it. I don’t think maps should be on timers. I feel they should be player driven like SW. The pip system in PvP league is a joke, but that’s just my view.

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Posted by: vesica tempestas.1563

vesica tempestas.1563

optionally spending your money on something that you subsequently realize you don’t enjoy is not being ripped off, its being stupid and not researching properly and not taking responsibility for your own actions.


“Trying to please everyone would not only be challenging
but would also result in a product that might not satisfy anyone”- Roman Pichler, Strategize

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

What have the Devs learned from the feed back left by players?

That most will complain about having to play the game to get the things they want.

I’m not saying everything they do is perfect, far from it. I don’t think maps should be on timers. I feel they should be player driven like SW. The pip system in PvP league is a joke, but that’s just my view.

Hmm … SW is also on timers, just slightly different ones.

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Posted by: Sylent.3165

Sylent.3165

What have the Devs learned from the feed back left by players?

That most will complain about having to play the game to get the things they want.

I’m not saying everything they do is perfect, far from it. I don’t think maps should be on timers. I feel they should be player driven like SW. The pip system in PvP league is a joke, but that’s just my view.

Hmm … SW is also on timers, just slightly different ones.

Well DS is on a gw2 timer. Meaning the event starts when they want it to on each map. So it’s always on the same set pattern. Same with VB. Each map is always at the exact same time

While SW on the other hand is player driven, so multiple maps are always going to actually be different. Each map can be making progress and when one meta ends you can possibly go to another map halfway competed and play there.

While in DS you complete the meta you can’t again for another two hours. The concept of SW always kept the maps very busy and encouraged more people to join because you could always join in at any time to do the meta