GW2 Wayward Child

GW2 Wayward Child

in Living World

Posted by: chaosdeity.6287

chaosdeity.6287

Part #1

[Disclaimer] I don’t post often but I do read a variety of forums, both official and non-official, YouTube videos, developer live-streams, etc. I also played guild wars 1 for years, BUT i am no way an expert, but I did want to voice my opinions for once. I ask my audience to respect those wishes and I will treat anyone kindly in turn.

I could go on about all the ways that I was disappointed in the fractal storyline that many of the lore fans and GW1 veterans were expecting, and some of the ‘upcoming dragon hopefuls’, but the one point I have not seen anyone bring up was how the planned book for the Thaumanova Incident and the fleshed out origin stories of the Infinity Coil Reactor were completely scrapped for Scarlet, despite the general consensus of mild annoyance to fits of rage towards her character.. I think that was one of the biggest disappointments that occurred today, because a chance to get insight into a project that was planned and subsequently scrapped would have been an amazing lore opportunity. This was a massive letdown for me personally. In the previous game, they hinted at events and then delivered massive lore, back story, and extremely polished high quality, immersive content. (The introduction of Cantha as a new continent is a great example, it was always referenced as ‘A Place’ but actually getting what we did for how little emphasis was placed on it originally was incredibly hard to comprehend at the time and was more then a pleasant surprise).

It seems that a vocal faction (large or small who knows?) of the player-base is never satisfied, but with each release it seems to grow more and more, even to the point of second level news outlets and YouTube personalities openly criticizing elements of the game, a game they obviously are invested in, and a game that obviously many players have strong feelings of hope about because they care about its continued development and growth, and continue to invest their time and money into, just like a child.

To me, Guild Wars 2 seems to take the roll of the wayward child, one who lacks any sort of Filial Piety to the original product or vision.

“in Confucian thought, one of the virtues to be cultivated, a love and respect for one’s parents and ancestors”

Guild Wars 2 seems to constantly stray from it’s roots time and time again, from the decisions made which could be seen as going against the manifesto (I understand time and circumstances change), to including and using limited amounts of lore from the previous game (which I understand is intentional); yet these incidences are becoming more consistent (armor re-skins which devalue those who worked for the cultural armor, be it through gold or real life money invested in gems) are not reassuring to the community (scaling back fractal levels, as an example) and the overall lack of substance from updates.

GW2 Wayward Child

in Living World

Posted by: chaosdeity.6287

chaosdeity.6287

Part #2

I am sure many people have torn this topic to shreds, but I too wish to add my voice to the clamor and give my own personal view with some constructive criticism, which is completely well meaning, just like a concerned parent.

1.) Change/dissolve/modify living story as a priority. The quality varies but adding temporary content to a product that still is lacking core substance is going to burn people out. Quality over Quantity.

Alternative Suggestion: There are many areas of the core game that need improvement, such as bug fixes, PvP, certain events are still bugged since beta. Maybe focus on fleshing out existing areas to give players a reason to revisit them [READ: SOUTHSUN], extend story lines of meta events, create new chains altogether, rework certain maps to incorporate themed mechanics with unique/worthwhile rewards..this could be doubly beneficial by giving staff less initial work and the opportunity to polish upcoming content since a smaller percentage would be created from scratch.

2.) Expand logistical support. The last I heard/read there was a financial analyst and a single person doing many of the balance changes for the game, which literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people participate in.

Alternative Suggestion: allocate more resources to investigating alternative ways of providing rewards to players other then random (which is a big point of controversy). Normalize the trading post. (Random idea: limited amount of transactions per hour to dissuade market control by elite “Vabbian Princes” of the trading post?). Make all content feel equally rewarding, don’t force people to do specific types of events to stay competitive in a monetary/gear sense (champ trains, fractals, dungeons). Give the team doing bug fixes/coding more support. Or some assistants. Trained Monkeys would probably be beneficial at this point, events that were broken in Beta still get stuck to this day, over a year later.

3.) Give the Players what they want. People are becoming dissatisfied with the game because we as participants are continually given content that we never directly ask for but are expected to enjoy. And naturally, we do for a time because of a cycle of expectation and disappointment, but that is only going to go on so long before people become burned out. It’s an abusive relationship.

Alternative Suggestion: Give the players what they want, even if it doesn’t revolutionize any previous industry standards. People want new weapons and utilities for their classes, they want meaningful content with high replayablity, they want new land and maps to explore, they want story and lore that feels significant and is compelling, worthy of an adult audience. Some of the most well received patches this year all met this criteria: Super Adventure Box and Bazaar of Four Winds. Why? New maps, new skills, moderately appealing rewards, permanent content (belcher’s bluff, sanctum sprint), compelling story (Super Adventure Box back story was very entertaining and grounded; the elections could have used a bit more staging but I digress). Both of these updates had amazing visual presentation, well written explanations in-game, expanded the vastness of the world, and were simply pleasures to participate in. These offered the same sense of exploration and awe that the original Guild Wars offered, as well as what Guild Wars 2 gifted players originally when leveling up for the first time in a vibrant world, a world where anyone would be genuinely excited to reside in, if even for a small amount of time.

Final Suggestion: If players had to wait two-four months between updates to get high quality expansions on par with SAB or BoFW (of course more significant content due to the extra time allotted), and quality of life improvements were worked on in the intermediary time period (fixing camera problems, fixing condition damage scaling, etc.) the game would immediately see a resurgence in loyalty and this could attract more people to the game who are willing to pay money to keep the game alive, without using gimmicks or bi-weekly sales to drive revenue. These massive patches could then be turned into advertising and public relations strategies to attract new players to the game or to stage massive box/online sales to match seasonal events in the real world.

In closing, I feel that the developers are approaching an impasse where a major shift in mentality needs to occur (and it needs to be transparent to the community, naturally) if we are to set this wayward child on a straight course to a long, productive, and fruitful life.

Attached Image below summarizes my feelings precisely:

Attachments:

GW2 Wayward Child

in Living World

Posted by: Phineas Drayke.6381

Phineas Drayke.6381

Very constructive post. I completly agree with all this. Living Story doesn’t feel like GW2 any more. Some patches were really nice (BoFW, like southsun very much too). But that’s about it. Too many flaws, events still bugged. Original lore just left aside. These things are driving me away slowly. I connect once a week, only in the hope to discover something new, some announcement giving me hope back again in this game I ’ve been waiting for years…