Guild Wars 2

I just saw the trailer for this new expansion and some of the detail notes about it and what its including etc. You know this all sounds great f you are into PVP. But not all GW2 players are into that setting. As a matter of fact I’m going to probably guess that folks are going to rush through the storyline and then sit around and wait for the next expansion. So far I am not seeing the solutions to the problems that are existing in the game that the devs are still not stopping or fixing and the community has been asking nicely. For example the Mastery point system is lame. Its a grind fest that brings us into more and more farming. Their is very little for the PVE folks to do apart from the old dungeons, fractals (which stink to find groups on the various levels), a legendary crafting system which is actually worse than it was originally (hint folks all you have to do to fix the original problem was to increase the drop rate for precursors or add world bosses for the precursors to drop like you did in the original gw2 game and adding more things to an economy that is so far gone from being useful its ridiculous (35 different currencies in the game) and why continue to force your players to do things that they have no interest in like WVW, fractals and PVP to earn things to get the better rewards that are necessary for things like legendary weapons and gear (your pushing your gamers away from even wanting to purchase new material for the game or playing because you are limiting that amount that they can do in the areas they like the most). From what I am read your setting yourself up for the same kind of loss to revenue that you got from HOT. Your loosing the support of the people that can afford to invest in the game and actually make it profitable. It just stands to state how far the developers have gone to destroy a game that was once at a pinnacle to be great over other games that have long histories. At this stage I am hoping that you are looking at what was working and keeping your gamers in their seats versus forcing gamers to do parts of the game that they really do not want to do. This all needs a big overhaul. And you really need to consider those players that like to play solo and those player that maybe in a small guild but cannot find support to do some of this – If necessary please bring back NPC heroes that we can claim at the beginning of large cities to run with. Thanks

Well, since it’s not an expansion, and it’s free of charge, I’m not sure what, exactly, is the issue.

you seem to have misunderstood what the trailer is for, Rising flames is the next episode of the living story, not an expansion.

Yes you are correct its an expansion of the Living Story but using the same abilities and mapping system as HoT. My hope is that they will kill the whole HoT idea and go back to the originally this game was introduced to their community. I’m tired of seeing players leaving because they hate HoT so much and being forced to do something they do not like or want to do like Fractals, WVW or even PVP. But we have to do these for the items for precursors and/or an ingredient like Gift of Battle which is a reward track in WVW.

No expansion of anything, it’s the next (free) Episode of the Living World, to be followed by (hopefully) several more.

There is nothing ‘forcing’ players to create the new Legendary weapons. All other Legendary weapons can be created using the ‘Core’ methods. No one is ‘forced’ to play PvP; though those interested in the PvP backpack do so. Fractals were introduced long before HoT, as was WvW.

Mapping Bloodstone Fen was a cakewalk. It even included enough Mastery Points to unlock Gliding alone.

I would like to ask you OP, what do you like about the game exactly ? Because to me your rant listed things Anet rely on to provide content well long before HoT was even announced. Just an example: you" grinded" events to accumulate gold in order to buy your precursor off the TP or try your luck with the mystic forge just like you grind events now in BF and And other hot zones for money and masteries now

My opinion of the game as a whole is that its a great game and I have been putting time, and money doing this for very long. Its just my humble opinion that we went from a system that was well laid out and working fine (prior to the release of HoT) to adopt a system that seems to be well ludicrous. And yes I do realize that farming seems to be the tried and true method out here but lets face facts folks it take a long time to create, or purchase anything out here or farm the necessary mats to make said item. But what remains is still many issues in game that haven’t been fixed yet. For example the condition damage is still weak – especially for bleeding due to a change in the formula that game developers used. The way skills are learned in our builds is weak this circular method stinks. I was better to progress your way through the build by selecting what skills you wanted to unlock for the build rather than having to take skills that you are not going to use because they are not part of your build.

The prior fractal system was much more in line to give players a better feeling to jump around to the different fractals but now we are grinding the levels to climb higher to get into the areas to obtain items say for legendary weapon crafting. And shockingly as this comes many people don’t like fractals so why put in having to do fractals to get the mats to craft Legendary Weapons or Precursors like the Legend.

Now the Mastery issues I am going to explain this as clearly as I can. When this game was released years ago the system was in place was learn as you go. Meaning if you wanted to say be a master in a Greatsword you actually had to go out and use the greatsword to learn it. It was more realistic. The way the Mastery system is set up now is you get to farm for an ungodly long time to unlock an area while also farming for the points to unlock the skill. Very boring and very time consuming. I’d rather earn the abilities one at a time through progressive playing using the item. I’d like to go back to capping skills from bosses through out the game hunting points to open skills from them than using this Mastery point thing and have to once again farm the points for something that should have been opened in game play through the storyline . And I very much want to see the stackable maps (like in HoT) be thrown out.

I want a challenge not to be bored to death to have to farm all the time in an area of the game that I enjoy like PVE.

Well, as others have said, it’s not an expansion, it’s a Living Story update.

As for the rest, I disagree with you entirely. I love what they did with HoT, legendary crafting system etc. Fractals are also one of my favorite things to do.

Also, finding groups for dungeons and fractals is pretty kitten easy with the lfg.

You’re entitled to an opinion, but I personally love the mastery system, it’s a welcome change from leveling up and getting all your skills boosted a tiny bit, and reaching level cap. However, the way you’re suggesting we do masteries really could only work for gliding. All the other masteries include things like talking to exalted, or eating mushrooms, or countering bloodstone magic. Some of these things aren’t remotely connected, and would be even more tedious to do a billion times.
I also love the new maps, as do many others. The verticality makes the area on the world map seem small, when really the map is jam-packed with events and lore. I love it tbh, and it makes Heart of Thorns unique from WoW. I always manage to find a good group for fractals, even though it may not always be the fractal I originally wanted to do. If you don’t like the legendary crafting system, don’t do it dude. I didn’t, and I don’t feel like any less of a player because of it.
Also a helpful tip: masteries go by way faster if you use xp boosters. I used one for Bloodstone Fen, and was able to complete countermagics within an hour and a half.
I’m the definition of a filthy casual, and I love gw2 and the state it’s in right now. So the things you’re proposing, such as scrapping what I see as the best maps in the game, or dumbing down all the finely toned systems they JUST implemented, aren’t plausible, or really at all rational except because you don’t like it.

The update on Tuesday is geared for pvers. There’s probably a new map for pvp coming (I don’t pvp so don’t follow any updates for it), but most of the focus has been on pve. So this is something for all those pvers.

I love the mastery system – I am a big fan of metroidvania games and so this system appeals to me. It’s also been developed from ideas given during a long collaboration with the community, so I don’t blame them for taking this direction. I understand why players found the mastery points a bit of a chore, but I think adventures hurt that the most and I’m guessing that idea is being dropped in favour of the more accessible Hearts.

As an open world pver, at no point am I forced to do pvp, wvw or fractals, except where Legendaries are involved. Legendaries are the exception where they absolutely should cross into other game modes and take players out of their comfort zone imo.

The Mastery System stinks. It should be replaced with the original system which was working great. And I applaud you for playing games center on a Counsel gaming system but that not what’s happening here nor should it. If you want to do first person shooter that please go do that elsewhere. This game was design with maps and quests and that is what the community has been doing and is use to doing.

If the new material being released on September 20 has the same map system and existing system its not going to change peoples opinions and very well could drive more people away. Do keep in mind that their is a reason they are showing the next dragon either they are trying to gain players back because HoT forced a lot away or they are going to be doing a full expansion for the holidays. Either way with the existing system and the way its implemented I cannot see it being successful.

Oh almost forgot in order to unlock the masteries you have to have the points as well. Not that easy to get considering we are farming a lot right now on many different levels or the 35 currencies in the game has been overlooked. I still would like to see a one currency system throughout the game so things can be translated and earned easier.

I’m not sure why console mechanics and highly successful and critically acclaimed ones should be jeered away. MMO’s need to adapt and that’s what GW2 did. The original system was criticised heavily by the community, not because it was bad, but because it needed building upon. To this end, the devs held a collaborative discussion with the community to pool ideas on how to build a new progression system. Why would I go elsewhere when I like and agree with the new system?

A “metroidvania” system was one of the popular ideas in that discussion and was clearly the one the dev team felt fitted the game best. Frankly I agree and a lot of people do as well, although of course some people would have been put off. That would have happened if they had n’t have added it anyway, since players were vocally unhappy with how it was as well.

I don’t know how HoT has performed, I’ve heard and seen mixed reports, many seem to conflict, but the feeling I’ve got is that where HoT has been a let down has not been down to the mastery progression as a system, although it clearly needed a bit more tweaking to make MPs a bit more accessible for a wider audience and less gating for the story. The concept itself though appears to work and fit well for the game.

You have to understand, a lot of the things you state aren’t ringing true to everyone. Lots of players really enjoyed the precursor crafting system. Some of the content in the Chuka and Champawat collections was inspired. Players wanted this kind of system, not a system based purely on rng. Same with the Mastery System.

If you don’t like it, well that’s fine – feeding back where it can be improved is what the devs will want, but when they spend significant resources to develop a horizontal progression system based on an idea touted by the community and which mostly appears to be working, I doubt they are going to then scrap it outright.

macon.4065:

Oh almost forgot in order to unlock the masteries you have to have the points as well. Not that easy to get considering we are farming a lot right now on many different levels or the 35 currencies in the game has been overlooked. I still would like to see a one currency system throughout the game so things can be translated and earned easier.

I don’t think a single player in this game would disagree that we have way too many currencies right now. A lot of MMO’s streamlined their currency system, whilst GW2 seems to have gone in the opposite direction. The one currency system (karma) was a recognised failure, but 35 is too much to manage, especially when so many are inventory based.

Randulf I’m always glad to speak with you. But I am not sure how the developers actually talked to the community as a whole. As often the community as a whole is so often spread apart. But in consideration of this thought – I’d like to know where the evidence is behind the so call community support for this. So far from the Forums, Reddit and other Reviews I’m not seeing the success of this as a whole. As a matter of fact I wonder if we lost more people than gained with the new system as it is currently.

Here ya go: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi

Happy reading!

The subforum cedo link contains all the collaborative threads which helped drive HoT and other releases, whilst cumbersome, they did form things like elite specs and masteries and many other in game things.

As far as I have read on forums and reddit, the mastery concept is critically well received, it is things like the gating and points being stuck behind content like adventures and harder content which are the problems the devs will be looking to overcome. It is why most of the mastery complaints revolve around HoT maps and very little around core maps.

I might be alone on this one but hot was an amazing expansion it was just god awful short in terms of story. The mastery story even tho its abit uninteresting yes its no longer a grind you can go to BF and be done with it as fast as all hell and if you consider it a grind well the new map is also a great source of gold so you dont do it for nothing. You could argue that pvp got abit messed up by the power lvl of elite specs (elite specs not condi meta that has nothing to do with hot ) but the pvp scene was always skill>everything and still we saw non hot players getting top spots.The legendaries were always OPTIONAL since they are only for the skin the crafting system might be a golddfest but that because if they were that would ruin the economy and let me tell you i just finished The chosen —> going for The flameseeker and let me tell you im so glad theres a type of quest and immersion to it now instead of just farming gold to buy it off the tp. The ls ep 2 is supposed to bring Free content for you to experience i dont really get whats your issue with that it brings a (hopefully) big map a jp (Yasss) and more story and events to do it also come with a pvp map class balancing and prob more quality of life changes. the last patches did nothing else but made the game much better .

Randulf.7614:

I don’t think a single player in this game would disagree that we have way too many currencies right now. A lot of MMO’s streamlined their currency system, whilst GW2 seems to have gone in the opposite direction. The one currency system (karma) was a recognised failure, but 35 is too much to manage, especially when so many are inventory based.

Its a system to keep maps relevant :/ and unlike other mmos the lvl cap doesnt rise so we get more and more maps for end game its only logical that some might not see play without these currencies keeping the relevant, take wow for example every past expac get forgoten after the new one comes out and now they took the gw2 idea of zone scaling to keep all the maps in the new expac relevant

as quite a few have said by now—→ WOW :legion:guildwars2 xD

macon.4065:

The prior fractal system was much more in line to give players a better feeling to jump around to the different fractals but now we are grinding the levels to climb higher to get into the areas to obtain items say for legendary weapon crafting. And shockingly as this comes many people don’t like fractals so why put in having to do fractals to get the mats to craft Legendary Weapons or Precursors like the Legend.

The Fractals you need to do to finish the precursor collections do not require any specific Fractal level. It requires you to do/find something specific in a Fractal, regardless of level. You will get it if you do T1 Fractals, as well as when you do T4 Fractals. So you must’ve misunderstood how this works. The only T4 Fractals you need to do for a legendary item is for the last Ad Infinitum collection. And with the exception of the 4 HoT legendaries you can still get your precursors the old-fashioned way (RNG drops, Mystic Forge RNG, buying off TP).

I also don’t know where you get the idea that many people don’t like Fractals (or WvW and PvP, for that matter). There are plenty of Fractal lfg’s to be found every day. WvW is anything but lifeless. Haven’t done PvP for a long while but I see plenty of Ascensions when running around open world maps. Maybe you and your relatively small circle of friends (relative compared to the entire GW2 community) don’t like that content, but you are not the common denominator for what the entire community likes or doesn’t like.

macon.4065:

If the new material being released on September 20 has the same map system and existing system its not going to change peoples opinions and very well could drive more people away. Do keep in mind that their is a reason they are showing the next dragon either they are trying to gain players back because HoT forced a lot away or they are going to be doing a full expansion for the holidays. Either way with the existing system and the way its implemented I cannot see it being successful.

Of course it has the same system, since it’s all still a part of the story that was advertised as continuing with HoT. HoT has been out for almost a year now and I see so many people with mastery points running around that I don’t get the feeling it’s driven so many people away. Sure, some will have left, but a lot haven’t. And it has drawn back players too, as well as brought in a new influx of players. I don’t know where you get the information that they are showing a dragon to keep players in the game. Do you have inside information from ANet staff themselves? A full expansion for the holidays? I doubt it. Expansion are advertised well in advance. No news of a new expansion yet, so don’t count on one being released this year, or for the better part of next year. Remember there was almost a year between the first HoT announcement and the actual release of the expansion.

Regarding the mastery system and the new way traits are unlocked, all I see is you voicing a personal opinion. Presenting that opinion as fact and saying most of the community feels the same way does not make it true. I have no problems with the mastery system (took my time and maxed them out in 2.5 months; didn’t feel like a grind at all, but I guess it would feel like that if you don’t like the HoT maps, which you professed you don’t, again coupled with the assumption that most people feel this way). Traits are learned quite easily. Level to 80 and you’ll have all the regular traits. Do 25 HoT HP’s and you’ve got your elite specialization unlocked. Doesn’t feel at all like a chore to me.

All the different currencies are ANet’s way of keeping all the various maps relevatnt. Making you farm those currencies for other objectives (like crests and geodes for precursor crafting) ensures those maps won’t be abandoned but will continue to be played throughout the game’s existence. It’s the same principle as their dynamic level system: a way to keep the entirety if the game relevant, instead of leaving old maps behind when new ones are introduced.

The point is, GW2 was made with the express intent to set themselves apart from other MMO’s. And in a lot of ways they are still achieving that intent. People can agree or disagree with the way they go about it, but as a daily player I still see all kinds of people running around every map: people without HoT, people with HoT, people who have maxed out their masteries. You find all of them everywhere. Maybe a lot of your friends have left GW2, but that doesn’t mean the entire community is bailing on the game.

Nothing personal, but all I read in your posts are personal opinions on the game as it currently is, and the assumption that your views are shared by the larger community. Actually playing the game tells me you couldn’t be further from the truth. Your opinions certainly do not reflect mine.

I hate to agree with you but perhaps we will agree to disagree. I don’t see the relevancy in supporting a system that takes only part of the community and ignores the rest. I myself have been playing the game since the launch of Guildwars Vanilla all those years ago. And contrary to your belief their have been players disappearing. I would like to know who’s left with one account that plays regularly – more than once here on the forums players announce that areas are dead. Their not dead for no reason. And yes I agree GW2 is setting itself apart from many of the other MMO’s out their, so far apart that the original value of Guildwars and what made that game popular (and built this company by the way) has gone extinct. But the Devs know that the old material worked and keep tapping back into it to bring those ideas forward. Their was a Twitch conversation with a developer of the Revenant character (I believe) that took concepts from the original game and ideas from that game to create the specializations out here. Have you not noted the Necro looks a lot like the Dervish, or the Dragonhunter the Ranger trapper or some paragon skills like Arias showing up in builds all from the original game. My humble opinion is if it was working why mess it up.