Guild Wars 2

Why do people conflate their personal interest in a game waning with the entire game dying? You lost interest. It happens. Find another game. Move on. I’m enjoying the expansion and so are a lot of people.

Vayne.8563:

Fix it HOW? What is YOUR solution? Stop people from changing maps?

You’re quoting something that was said beforehand. The game has evolved. The solution is there.

It’s like someone being cold in a room and refusing to put on a sweater. This is ridiculous.

What was said beforehand constitutes intent. When it doesn’t work the way it was intended to work, it’s not working as intended.

Nothing you have said refutes anything I have said. That may explain your exasperation.

I am confident ArenaNet possesses the ability to fix this problem. The fact that I haven’t fixed it doesn’t excuse them from their responsibility for fixing it.

Majic.4801:

Vayne.8563:

Fix it HOW? What is YOUR solution? Stop people from changing maps?

You’re quoting something that was said beforehand. The game has evolved. The solution is there.

It’s like someone being cold in a room and refusing to put on a sweater. This is ridiculous.

What was said beforehand constitutes intent. When it doesn’t work the way it was intended to work, it’s not working as intended.

Nothing you have said refutes anything I have said. That may explain your exasperation.

I am confident ArenaNet possesses the ability to fix this problem. The fact that I haven’t fixed it doesn’t excuse them from their responsibility for fixing it.

Actually sometimes things change for the worse and sometimes they change for the better. You can’t say that just because intent changes it’s necessarily worse and you still haven’t answered my question.

How does Anet fix this? The only way I can see would be to remove players freedom. That would be worse than what we have now. The bottom line is you can’t really give me a good reason why you refuse to use the LFG tool to solve a problem. Clue: I shouldn’t have to isn’t a good reason.

Vayne.8563:

How does Anet fix this? The only way I can see would be to remove players freedom. That would be worse than what we have now. The bottom line is you can’t really give me a good reason why you refuse to use the LFG tool to solve a problem. Clue: I shouldn’t have to isn’t a good reason.

Shall I reciprocate by challenging you to explain how ArenaNet should fix the lack of optimization of the game engine, lingering problems with NPC pathing or some other longstanding issue, then badger you about it if you don’t? That would be just as relevant.

Berating players for noting the presence of empty maps and not instinctively knowing to use the LFG tool to taxi doesn’t solve the problem either. Your workaround isn’t a solution, nor is your professed inability to conceive of a solution evidence that the problem can’t be solved by ArenaNet.

In the case of the Silverwastes, almost all taxiing would be unnecessary if chest farming didn’t conflict with completing the meta events and map population algorithms were working as intended. There are any number of ways ArenaNet could accomplish that, such as working chest farming into the downtime period of the meta chain and locking chests out when other major events are in progress, or changing the chest and reward mechanics altogether to a form that allows players to focus on map objectives instead, such as that used in HoT.

In general, ArenaNet could also adjust the map population algorithms to account for established patterns of player behavior, such as world boss farming and moving to adjacent maps. They could also make the process of transitioning between map instances less disruptive by preserving buffs and other character state information that is currently lost, add functionality to move players seamlessly into other instances on the fly (as is commonly done in other single-shard games) and even design dynamic events to allow such transitions without losing credit or reward eligibility.

And that’s not even the tip of the engineering iceberg for improving the megaserver system. I could propose several other approaches and solutions, we could fruitlessly debate their merits, feasibility or indulge in a tedious round of the ever-popular and presumptuous zero-sum game of unilaterally assigning development priorities, and go even further afield of the topic of this thread, and that would be equally pointless, because that’s not what any of this is about.

In a broader sense, however, this exchange does relate to the future of Guild Wars 2. If both ArenaNet and we as players are willing to let problems with the game go unresolved, and presume to blame players for their continuing existence, no less, then the future of the game is bleak.

On the other hand, if we are willing to challenge ArenaNet to make the best game possible, and they are willing to deliver it, then I’m confident they can do it, and we will all benefit.

Accepting and excusing mediocrity works against that goal, against our best interests as players, and against the future of Guild Wars 2.

Maybe a solution lies in instanced guild missions. Technically an instance can be a whole map. Set to easy, medium, hard or horror. This way the core game and expansions can have a difficulty level playable for everyone, with some exceptions to very hard. Where the instanced missions provide challenges for those who want it harder. Also the amount of loot dropped can be handled this way. Opinions?

People will complain that harder mode loot more…
Or harder mode will be useless because maps will be empty because too much people are in easy braindead mode watching netflix while autoattacking.

Majic.4801:

For what it’s worth, I’m not a fan of “Zerg Wars” (zerging literally makes me fall asleep), and rarely spend much time following commander tags around in either PvE or WvW.

We’re definitely seeing the same phenomenon in HoT, but it does appear that many of the events are designed to reward players for not zerging, and indeed punishing zerging by causing meta events to fail if players don’t simultaneously complete multiple objectives in different locations.

It is the same perception that I have, the new maps are designed as alternatives to Zerg-intense farm Silverwastes model. Possibly it is quite experimental.

On the topic of the early complaints, which I realize is just teething problems which are overcome with the masteries. Verdank Brink becomes a walk in the park when you have the materies Glid.

In the current Tyria we have 3 models currently core map, magumma wastes and now Heart of Thorns.

keeganrms.6301:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

keeganrms.6301:

Honestly, the community is going to be responsible for the life or death of this game. for an MMO, community is everything. Ever been to a Video Game news site lately? See the comments on GW2-related posts? Disgraceful.

What’s most puzzling to me is the posters on those comments and especially here on this forum seem to reflect the scum of the GW2 community. Bottom-feeders with no self-esteem picking fights for no reason and acting like children… All while making these hilarious claims like, “I’ve been gaming since before you were born!”

Yet every instance in every map I’ve ever played on GW2 has been the polar opposite. People seem eager to help each other. Almost no name-calling or holier-than-thou B.S.

I don’t think this game will die, per se. I think the 11-year-old keyboard warriors posing as 30-year-old sex gods will be just annoying enough to make the adults leave. The demographic will quickly shift and from there it only goes downhill.

Perhaps you mean people like me, though I am 37 but I have never claimed to be a sex god. I have been very very critical on Massively OP, and MMORPG because of my frustration over HoT Open World difficulty, the hostility I received when I dared to make a forum post venting my frustration regarding said difficulty, followed by jeering Trolls sprinkled with legitimate comments, followed by a deluge of abuse after I had the audacity to give it right back, followed by an enforced leave of absence.

So yeah, I took it upon my self to spread my message out to the gaming websites where I’m untouchable.

I’ve been keeping tabs on the forum posts though and I found it very satisfying when people started complaining about empty maps, I assumed folks like me started doing Champ Trains, or The World Boss circuit, or SW; the path of least resistance. Or left to try other games as my fiercest critics have suggested I should do.

If the White Knights turn nasty don’t be surprised if we take it out side the forums, especially if we lose our voice.

Actually, I was referring to community members that are hostile to any criticism of the game whatsoever. Criticism can only make a game better. Fanaticism is how things fall apart.

Quite.

When I first started playing WoW (my first online gaming experience) I was amazed at the strength of the way certain people, blindly, defended the game against any criticism, however justified.

Prior to that, my experience of the online discussion of products (and games are just another product, after all), even on what were effectively fansites for that type of product, was far more calm and reasonable.

People allowed other people to have views.

Most people had empathy.

I’ve got used to this extreme fanaticism in gaming now, to a certain extent, but it’s still totally bizarre and unhelpful.

I pity game devs having to deal with it – but, even more so, I pity the reasonable section of the gaming community (i.e. most of the customers) for having to.

Reasonable customers limit their opinions and criticism to comments about the product.

They do not spend their lives criticising other people’s opinions about the product, or demanding that everything is taken away from the customers they don’t happen to approve of.

The fact that game devs take the, totally unreasonable, opinions of these, totally unreasonable, type of customers seriously is the true insanity here and will inevitably minimise the popularity of their games.

The only people left will be the totally unreasonable ones and a few addicts that just can’t quite let go…

Kulvar.1239:

People will complain that harder mode loot more…
Or harder mode will be useless because maps will be empty because too much people are in easy braindead mode watching netflix while autoattacking.

The problem is that, while most people enjoy a challenge from time to time, most people can’t (and don’t want to) keep that level of concentration up for hours on end.

So, games have to choose to either make people work harder, for a shorter time, for lots of loot; or work easy, for a longer time, for less loot.

Or, ideally, a combination of the two – so, people can choose, according to their ability/mood at the time.

You can’t expect people to suddenly have to work really hard, for hours on end, especially for next-to-nothing.

Most people just won’t do it.

Tigaseye.2047:

The fact game devs take the, totally unreasonable, opinions of these totally unreasonable type of customers seriously is the true insanity, here and will inevitably minimise the popularity of their games.

Granted, I haven’t seen everything, but so far I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone at ArenaNet appreciates players who devote themselves to attacking other players for giving honest feedback. Indeed, they seem to resent it as much as — and perhaps more than — players do.

Admittedly, much of the criticism directed at Guild Wars 2 or ArenaNet is unsubstantiated, a product of frustration (which everyone experiences in a game at some point or another) or, in extreme cases, a patently infantile perspective. But a lot of it is relevant, constructive and deserves to be heard.

What all feedback about the game — pro, con or indifferent; cogent or confused; polite or profane — has in common is that it represents the opinion of a paying customer, or at the very least, someone interested enough to comment.

Whatever form it may take, product feedback is information of immense value to a business, and anyone seeking to discourage it or isolate ArenaNet from it for any reason does a grave disservice.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Forums are drying up
Overflows are on the decline

WvW is a literal desert which made it so much easier to map
The white knights are getting what they want and that always leads to the death of any MMO. They dwell in the forums attacking all opinion instead of playing because there goal is that people shouldn’t play and it should be only them.

Going to bring up WoW if your not subbed into WoW you can’t post on the forums this game needs such a thing. The white knights always dry up with such barriers in place because it’s the people who actually play the game and know the actual problems who make the most complaints. A single barrier is all it takes to flush out the company can do no wrong group because this is just a form of psychology meant to push people out of the game its like they say if you don’t like it then leave which is what they desire.

Tigaseye.2047:

Kulvar.1239:

People will complain that harder mode loot more…
Or harder mode will be useless because maps will be empty because too much people are in easy braindead mode watching netflix while autoattacking.

The problem is that, while most people enjoy a challenge from time to time, most people can’t (and don’t want to) keep that level of concentration up for hours on end.

So, games have to choose to either make people work harder, for a shorter time, for lots of loot; or work easy, for a longer time, for less loot.

Or, ideally, a combination of the two – so, people can choose, according to their ability/mood at the time.

You can’t expect people to suddenly have to work really hard, for hours on end, especially for next-to-nothing.

Most people just won’t do it.

I agree. I also think there’s more middle ground than just extreme challenge or wanting to be able to play in your sleep.

For example, when I come home tired from work I like to play the game to blow off steam. I’m not multitasking or just hitting 1 over and over, but at that point I also don’t necessarily want something that requires a lot of coordination between players or twitchy alertness from me. An extended difficult meta-event is probably not going to happen for me right then, not because I want everything in the game to be faceroll easy but because at that moment I just don’t have the energy to do something hard or the time to get involved in something that will take an hour and a half to finish. On a day off, though, I would be happy to tackle the harder stuff.

It’s good for the game to have varying activities and difficulty levels – not only do different players want different things, but the same player may want something different depending on what’s going on at the time.

You’re right we are going to flame you.

Majic.4801:

Tigaseye.2047:

The fact game devs take the, totally unreasonable, opinions of these totally unreasonable type of customers seriously is the true insanity, here and will inevitably minimise the popularity of their games.

Granted, I haven’t seen everything, but so far I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone at ArenaNet appreciates players who devote themselves to attacking other players for giving honest feedback. Indeed, they seem to resent it as much as — and perhaps more than — players do.

Admittedly, much of the criticism directed at Guild Wars 2 or ArenaNet is unsubstantiated, a product of frustration (which everyone experiences in a game at some point or another) or, in extreme cases, a patently infantile perspective. But a lot of it is relevant, constructive and deserves to be heard.

What all feedback about the game — pro, con or indifferent; cogent or confused; polite or profane — has in common is that it represents the opinion of a paying customer, or at the very least, someone interested enough to comment.

Whatever form it may take, product feedback is information of immense value to a business, and anyone seeking to discourage it or isolate ArenaNet from it for any reason does a grave disservice.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Well yes, I agree and I hope you’re right in the case of Anet and that they don’t appreciate, or try to appease, players like that.

I was really speaking more generally, though, as I know pretty much for a fact that developers at Blizzard have been doing just that, lately.

Having said that, if we think about who, normally, calls for greater difficulty/intensity in all aspects of games and for anything “easy” (or easy to organise), or relaxing, to be removed:

Is it, normally, the reasonable people, who understand that some people may be too busy to play one game 24/7 and/or may have other reasons that prevent them from enjoying exclusively difficult and/or very intense games?

Or is it, far more often, the people who say “Get used to it, or leave.”, if anyone voices concern?

So, assuming we agree it’s the latter, just by making the game, universally (and unavoidably) more intense, you are effectively (albeit, perhaps, inadvertently) catering to those types of people.

…and if that is how people view the situation, that will turn them off.

Because, there is nothing more annoying than bad behaviour being seen to be rewarded.

Tigaseye.2047:

So, assuming we agree it’s the latter, just by making the game, universally (and unavoidably) more intense, you are effectively (albeit, perhaps, inadvertently) catering to those types of people.

While there certainly are “those types of people”, including a die-hard contingent in these very forums, I don’t think increasing the difficulty of content necessarily involves catering only to them.

ArenaNet has gotten a lot of feedback from a lot of different kinds of players, and many have complained about things being too easy. Indeed, threads on the subject are common enough to be a stereotype in the forums.

A similar assumption could be made about raiders and raid culture, but again, the extremes tend to stand out the most, and in reality, most raiders are just like any other players. They just like raiding, and raiding is all about winning big or losing big.

I say that as a former raider of some experience in other games (and a veteran of a particularly nasty pirate corp in EVE, for that matter), so I may be biased — though I’m no longer into raiding and tend to prefer content that’s less structured or “on the rails” these days. But seriously, there are good and bad people in just about any constituency, stereotypes notwithstanding.

I think it was sensible for ArenaNet to design HoT to be more difficult, though I think it would have been wise to introduce it more gradually through the zone progression to help players adapt more naturally.

And regardless of that, some things are currently just silly and need adjustment. Getting popped for 17k out of stealth by a single frog just doesn’t seem balanced.

Done right, however, I believe HoT can appeal to almost any kind of player, even a really laid-back casual player, as long as the content is properly scaled, the mechanics and game systems function well, and the game environment doesn’t drop too many pianos on peoples’ heads.

HoT’s not quite there, and getting things just right is never easy, but I really don’t think it’s that far from being a good fit for most GW2 fans.

But of course, Your Mileage May Vary, first and foremost, ever and anon.

Vayne.8563:

Majic.4801:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you can think of a way for all servers to be busy all the time, I’m not sure what else there is to say.

An explicit purpose of implementing the megaserver model was to prevent players from finding themselves in underpopulated maps. If the system was working as intended, players would not be placed in underpopulated maps, which is something both you and Sicarius agree is happening.

As explained by Colin Johanson:

The biggest benefit of this new system is that you’ll always find other players to adventure with in the open world, no matter what time of day it is. There are some maps in the game that tend to have smaller populations in them on each world; with megaserver technology, these lower-population maps will be full of players from the same global region, so you can always have a great experience and play any of the content in those maps. People online during nonpeak hours will be able to play in populated zones with other players, since they will all be sorted together to create fuller maps.

“Taxiing” is a workaround for the failures of the current system, but is not a solution to the underlying problem, and chiding players for not using it is a direct acknowledgment that the system isn’t working as intended.

The solution is for ArenaNet to fix it.

Fix it HOW? What is YOUR solution? Stop people from changing maps?

You’re quoting something that was said beforehand. The game has evolved. The solution is there.

It’s like someone being cold in a room and refusing to put on a sweater. This is ridiculous.

Vayne, Vayne, Vayne.

Tell me one thing – when the layoffs begin, are you going to be mature enough to admit how you are partially to blame for GW2’s failure?

Using your example, it’s as if someone is being cold in an office room that is always kept at freezing temperature by air-conditioning and, instead of listening to the sensible idea of simply raising the air-conditioning temperature, you tell people to just bring more coats or leave.

That’s what you always do. You blame the players for ArenaNet’s design failures, and insist on claiming the game is perfect and there’s nothing for ArenaNet to fix, even when faced with things that are obviously broken. The only impact you have is making players think of leaving the game, while deafening ArenaNet to the things they should be fixing. It’s a small impact, but for someone who has more than 17.500 forum posts like you, that’s not negligible.

In other words, you are making the game worse.

Are people right about having concerns about the future of GW2? Definitely. All signs are there: the game went free to play, key people are leaving, they did a 180° change on their plans, finantials are not looking good, and so on.

Are there things ArenaNet has to correct? Definitely. People keep seeing empty HoT maps and, unless the situation is REALLY dire, what is happening is that the megaserver system is not working properly. ArenaNet said they had fixed it, but looks like the issue is still there; and meanwhile, players still don’t have any half decent tool for navigating through the servers, so they are improvising with features that have clearly not been made for that (the LFG tool). There is a lot of broken things that ArenaNet could fix, and that players are right in asking a fix for.

Telling players they are “ridiculous” for having concerns and asking for fixes is not really helping anyone – not the players nor ArenaNet.

To me, HoT is awesome.
I would call that average content, it’s nothing to hard, and if it’s to hard, you’re simply used to play no-effort-content which is the reason why i couldn’t enjoy PvE for 3 years now, now i enjoy PvE. It’s not about grind it’s about level of difficulty, AI’s are not dumb.

I was just hoping for more event oriented loot, better rewards and something to keep me going, but there is lack of content in PvE. So i’ve ended very quickly, because LayLine armor is ugly. Bladed is fully done, got Grinder, and i don’t feel like playing events for bad reward.

What i think is happening:

• We have a new guy around to design content, which made PvE interesting to fight. LOVE IT, this guy needs to be noticed and have a bigged word for future of GW2, because for the first time, PvE bosses are interesting. Tyria content is just plain boring, sorry anet it is, who ever is in charge of designing HoT VB is amazing person.

• Reward team didn’t change, and they still think we are rewarded enough, but we aren’t i’m not saying about fluent gold. Issue is in GEM STORE…………..#moredots, why? Because a lot of armors nearly 80% of things that we get are in the store or locked behind BL chests. Which makes us not rewarded, but GEM purchased, and this is the reason why PvE in GW2 is boring even with good mechanics. We need armors, we need weapons, unique stuff, unique loot, unique things what so ever to keep farming those events. So reward team has to do something about that, simply putting in 2 armors for entire expansion was a very small effort made.

TL;DR: GW1 had way better expansion which were without subscriptions as well. GEM store destroyed GW2 PvE fun on large scale.

Test.8734:

Tell me one thing – when the layoffs begin, are you going to be mature enough to admit how you are partially to blame for GW2’s failure?

I kinda think you recommending people ask for refunds and continuing to ask them to do that even when they said they didn’t want to do so would make YOU the one partially to blame… What on earth is your motivation?!

Firelysm.4967:

TL;DR: GW1 had way better expansion which were without subscriptions as well. GEM store destroyed GW2 PvE fun on large scale.

100% nailed it for me. Watching the skins roll out just after the expansion was ridiculous, made more so by the complete lack of skins being put in the product people just paid for.

Coulter.2315:

I kinda think you recommending people ask for refunds and continuing to ask them to do that even when they said they didn’t want to do so would make YOU the one partially to blame…

Yep, but mostly because I didn’t buy HoT and I’m also not buying gems from ArenaNet. The thing is, I’m freely willing to admit it. I wonder if people who try to drive away those with constructive criticism are also willing to admit it.