Guild Wars 2

Dear Arena.net. Im enjoing with every GW2 update and find it interesting to expect something new every 2 weeks.
But. Last patches showed a lack of testing in developement. By the way the most of content obliges to finish it in 2 weeks and causes some stress to people with work and education.
I dont wanna say that your “content making” speed is a bad thing. Dont you think it will be better if you increase the gap to 4 weeks (for example) so people can enjoy the update with more time to complete the achievements and so you have more time on testing and developement in general?

I think you are mixing two things that are unrelated.
The amount of bugs in content released is in my opinion actually lower then it was a few months ago. There are still some things that needs fixing, but the amount and the severity is getting lower. So it is not an argument that arenanet is not taking enough time. they have doubled the amount of people working on these things as well and they are working in teams on rotation. so it is not that after release of Queens Jubilee they started working on clockwork chaos, but every chapter had a long prep time. So yes, there are still too many bugs, but it is getting better with the current rotation system instead of worse.

As for the discussion if people with jobs etc can keep up. There is absolutely no need to do anything. But I do think the game also should be interesting for people who are (unhappy enough) unemployed or not able to work due to a handicap. If you have limited time you have to make choices. I just think the time that we could do a monthly living story content in less then 4 hours was ridiculious and am very happy there is currently more content to play with.

I don’t think they have an issue with testing.

But I do think they’re releasing too fast for the player bases’ and in turn their own good. I would agree with moving 2 week updates to 4 week updates. We don’t really need bi-weekly updates. As someone who has a lot of time on his hands (sadly), I support pushing things back.

I don’t think those who don’t have as much time should be forced to “pick and choose” what they want to do. And for just about everyone – either you do the LS content, or you ignore it. It feels… restricting and punishing. And don’t give me “if you don’t want to do it, don’t” because what if folks do? Then they’d never progress in the older content.

In my opinion the whole living story content feels very… random. As a player who came back to gw2 after a long time (missed the whole living story content) i find it very messy and completely non-solid. It’s like “ok guys, we have some unused assets, lets put them together and attach some random story to it”.

Updates that add permanent new areas would be much better. For example bazaar of the four winds. Making this wonderful area avilable for a short period of time feels like a big waste.

Also, in terms of storytelling, why not extend personal storyline and let everyone expirience it in their own speed? MMO game needs more reliable and long-term content. If we want the true storytelling do in a pure way. Personal sotryline is the thing that distinguishes gw2 from other mmo games, let it shine than! :P

Content that will dissapear from the game should not attempt to achieve grandeur. They will only fail, and that focus should have been put into something more permanent.

Adding more locations with living world is not a good idea, as the problem is that many of the current areas aren’t populated enough.

My suggestion is to periodically come with small overhauls, adding something new to an area, and that the living world is the story of how this change came to be.

The starter areas are great, but most of the other areas are not very well made. They have less beautiful stuff, and they have a lack of locations that aren’t filled with homogeneously spaced red mobs.

Areas that have few locations with friendlies or yellows are depressing. They are claustrophobic. They need green pockets of air (friendly npc’s).

Higher level areas tends to get more difficult because mobs have more skills. This is a good way to increase difficulty.

Higher levels areas also have fewer green and yellow npc’s, there are few locations without red mobs, and they respawn faster. This is a horrible way to increase difficulty, and they simply make the areas depressing.

Example: Firebreak Fort

Firebreak Fort in Mount Maelstrom is anything but well defended. The 2 normal risen mobs that spawn near the siouth gatee will kill the guards protecting the entrance , and they’d kill anyone inside if they’d ventured there. This fortification is a good candiate to make some alterations to.

Act1:
Firebreak fort and the surrounding areas have been overwhelmed by risen. The survivors have set out camp to to the north of the fort. Merchants, repair, trading post and bank npc’s are dead along with most of the guards. A powerful necromancer servant of zhaitan, is responsible for this uprise in risen. By killing Risen, he will eventually show up and you must fight him. By succeding you will only weaken him, but it will reduce the number of risen for a certain period (and give some nice rewards).

Act2:
The necromancer were unsuccesful and decided to retreat (you’ll may meet him again later). Firebreak fort has been reclaimed, but it lacks proper defense and there are a large number of risen lurking outside the walls. The fort is to be improved and there’s a series of smaller events related to this.
Caravans are coming in with supply to repair damage dealt to the base, and new recruits are arriving and they are in need of safe passage to the base. Also soldiers needs more training, and there are events related to soldiers going on patrols to gain combat experience, and players need to help them stay alive.

Prologue:
After Act2 there will be some changes

- All damages to the fort have been repaired (possibly improved and better looking).
- Risen will be gone from the vicinity.
- The two entrance guards at each entrance will be veterans, and there will also be a few veterans inside the base.
- There will be a safe passage from Fort Firebreak to the base right to the south, with a patrol containing one veteran and two normal npc’s.
- A new event will be available, where some soldiers at Fort Firebreak will launch a raid into the risen infested murkvale bog, south of the fort. The npc group consists of 2 veterans and 4 normal soldiers. They can handle most encountered fights on their own, but to continue between fights, all npc’s must be rezzed, and atleast one of the normal npc’s will tend to die, which imposes the need for a player.

I agree with the OP, living story should slow down.

I disagree with Fergus. I find the world has too many friendly havens in hostile territory, and always an outpost nearby. It takes the away the impression that you are actually in untamed areas or enemy lands.

I don’t mind if it slows down but I want more content with meat on it. I’m sick of running the same dungeons over and over. I want new dungeons with new stories. I want more instanced story content (think missions or some of the bigger quests from GW1) so the in game story is more satisfying.

Less mini-games, less grind achievements, less recycled achievements, less pumpkins to carve, less “kill 10 rats on this map” achievements (that’s not content), less “consume x of this new item” achievements. I want actual real content instead of all this filler designed to be a time sink. Most of the achievements don’t emphasise content, they are just tacked on grind to inflate how long it takes before you are done. The biggest offender is probably Southsun Survivor.

A lot of the “too much” complaints would go away if they dropped the temporary content, added more permanent content and scrapped the filler achievements. Focus on gameplay, not on grind.

A funny thing is that you play when you grind