Guild Wars 2

Justin ODell explain me how we the community can take u serious?

What we got since realese?
-broken leeder?
-broken solo que?
-power creep?
-no skill killing michine wars?
-no skill condi spam necros?
-no skill mm necros?
-no skill stealth mesmers?
-no skill zoo rangers?
-maps that are not even balanced?
-ton of bugs since reales w8 for fix till now?
-and more more more more more….
-broken matchmaking?

How? Tell me how? Company like anet can act like that , ignoring us the community , u dont listen to feedback . I playied a lot of diffrent games and this is 1st game when the crew responsible for balance/designe dont listen to feedback.Tell me how often u visit class forums? We had post from dev on necro forum few months ago , so until u dont start to respect us dont think we the community gonna respect u.

EDIT:
One more thing how can u even let in this game to chain CC? ITs not funny when u are stuned,dazed,feard,knocked,stun,dazed,imob,feard,knocked,dazed,stuned………………………………………………………………………………..

Forsaker.9213:

Justin ODell explain me how we the community can take u serious?

What we got since realese?
-broken leeder?
-broken solo que?
-power creep?
-no skill killing michine wars?
-no skill condi spam necros?
-no skill mm necros?
-no skill stealth mesmers?
-no skill zoo rangers?
-maps that are not even balanced?
-ton of bugs since reales w8 for fix till now?
-and more more more more more….

How? Tell me how? Company like anet can act like that , ignoring us the community , u dont listen to feedback . I playied a lot of diffrent games and this is 1st game when the crew responsible for balance/designe dont listen to feedback.Tell me how often u visit class forums? We had post from dev on necro forum few months ago , so until u dont start to respect us dont think we the community gonna respect u.

Justin isn’t responsible for (most of) that. I’m sure he’s working proportionate to his pay as hard as he can to adjust the ones he is responsible for, like matchmaking?

I for one appreciate his straightforwardness compared to the CC’s seeing as this thread wasn’t closed on page one with a copy paste “Stop saying bad things about our esports” response.

silvermember.8941:

style.6173:

silvermember.8941:

style.6173:

I hope ANET realizes that the longer it takes for the feature patch, the higher the expectations become.

At this stage the only person to blame for having high expectations is the individual. It shouldn’t take more than a half and yearto finally realize the following “expect the worst and you will never be disappointed” especially with PvP.

Also expecations are high doesn’t seem to be benefit whatever Anet plans are.

You don’t understand how people think. It’s pretty basic. The longer the hype builds around something, the higher the expectation. That’s pretty standard in every part of life.

The flipside is that if the hype lasts too long, people will eventually stop to care and will just move onto a different game.

OMG what you said is totally new information.

It is a lose lose situation. Tell people information and they don’t deliver, they will still complain. They will always be disappointment no matter what Anet does, the ones that are probably going to be disappointed should know by now. The majority probably wont care or care enough to warrant visiting the forum to complain about it.

I see this argument a lot and generally find it to be untrue. Those who want to complain will do it whether changes to plans were made or not. The real reason this thread currently exists has been posted. If they provided us an update to the current plans, that would suffice for the vast majority. Instead, they’ve opted to leave us completely in the dark while removing pvp features. That is when people start pulling up the list of promised items and asking “umm, where exactly are we headed?” Players tend to be less polite when they do it, but that is ultimately what they are asking.

Sensotix.4106:

Seriously how long are we supposed to wait for something to happen
Warrior and Ranger Hotfix – not happened yet
Small Damage nerf on some classes – not happened yet
PvP Legendaries – not happened yet
PvP Rewards and Environmental Improvements – not happened yet

Promised since when?
- July last year

Date today?
-28.2.2014

Feedback from the community?
-yes

Feedback appreciated and implemented?
-no

Favourite Anet Dev Lines?
“Once it’s ready”
“Cool stuff coming soon”
“Guys wait for it you are gonna enjoy it”
“We are increasing rank points gained” (let’s hope people think it’s enough rewards for pvp)

Don’t delete this thread like you delete QQ threads this is no QQ thread
It’s simply facts put down black on white that are true and not made up

People give up Anet..

In December we weren’t quite happy with what happened to the balance
- Because the meta or pvp in general didn’t change at all

Now we were supposed to wait another 3-5 months till the next balance change where we can’t even be sure things are gonna change because they didn’t in all the balance changes so far

One developer…please tell me your opinion on this or make a video because these are the questions that people want to have answered

And today – what did we get today as a reward for winning a game in spvp?
-pve stuff

Man you already answered yourself

“When it’s ready”

you’re pretty old player senso…how can you possibly still hope on something? Tell me your secret…I already gave up hoping for decent fixes and improvements months ago (Pretty much since “meta” kittend shatter mez out of tpvp, no well..probably way before..), but your faith in anet is still alive…how?

Justin ODell.9517:

@Sensotix.4106

We didn’t promise anything, we shared our high level road-map plans.

This is why we don’t like sharing dates. I know you’re waiting on things, and the wait is driving me crazy too, but saying we made promises when we clearly did not does not help get the content out sooner.

If you want greater transparency, like I do, then you must accept that dates, features, and plans are not a static promise. Things can happen to shift priorities, dates, or designs, causing things to changed, be pushed back, or accelerated.

Please stop.

/personal rant

A-Net told us the revamp of the reward-system will come dec. 2013. It was clearly described on the plans for the last year. So stop telling us you didn’t promise anything. I mean I like the fact that you’re the only guy with enough balls to answer on critical feedback, but then don’t try to defend the development and the work A-Net has done in 1.5 years. Especially when you had so much suggestions from the community to work with . . . and what we get are things like immobilize-stacking?

Sorry but the majority of the PvP-Community can’t take this company seriously anymore.

i don’t usually bash anet along with the community… but when thinking about what can i say to calm the people down in here… there really isn’t anything that could prove anet are not guilty for this behavior of the community… lol idd..

like, saying something like they don’t have enough money or whatever is hard to believe… we’ve seen too many players buying stuff for 800 gems, 10 euro or dollars, and that is something we counted without including the hidden stuff you could buy such as expansions of other stuff.

this creation of high expectation is really high, get the workers working full power for 3 days in order to get our pvp legendaries obtainable, our double sigils in a 2h and the other easy methods around obtaining a precursor. i didn’t say this to sound like an order, just saying as this would probably be the stuff to be made now to provide the satisfaction needed for the community.

Justin ODell.9517:

@Sensotix.4106

We didn’t promise anything, we shared our high level road-map plans.

Justin, you kind of did (well, Colin did):

“In January, we talked about where we wanted Guild Wars 2 to go in 2013. We’re a little over halfway through the year, and we felt it was time to give you an update on where we stand, where we’re going, and discuss in more detail some of the systems you’ll see in the second half of 2013.”

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

“We aren’t quite ready to go into all the details here, but what I can say is you will see a specific way to build precursor items on your way to a legendary. On top of this, you’ll also see new legendary weapons and new types of legendary gear in 2013”

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

That “looking forward” contained a roadmap. And it did make promises. There were no dates, just a huge window. A six month window. And, somehow, something went awfully wrong and very little of what was forecast was implemented over those six months.

How could something go so horribly wrong that major milestones were missed by up to a full six months? And what does it say about ArenaNet if they were not able to communicate these changes to their customers over those 6 months?

I’ve managed large software tasks with large teams ($15m+ USD yearly budgets). I know how to lay down a schedule and manage a budget. I’ve never laid down a plan so aggressive that I miss 50% of my milestones in a 6 month window. Whenever I believe I am going to slip a milestone, I immediately let my management and customers know and replan.

Justin ODell.9517:

This is why we don’t like sharing dates. I know you’re waiting on things, and the wait is driving me crazy too, but saying we made promises when we clearly did not does not help get the content out sooner.

If you want greater transparency, like I do, then you must accept that dates, features, and plans are not a static promise. Things can happen to shift priorities, dates, or designs, causing things to changed, be pushed back, or accelerated.

Please stop.

/personal rant

Justin,

People don’t want greater transparency. They want applicable, measured updates in a reasonable time frame. Sensotix has a right to be upset. He’s been one of the biggest advocates for PvP in this game, and the lack of timely updates and broken meta (cheese meta) has soured his opinion. That’s not his fault.

Take a look – warriors are broken and the community knows it. The Balance Team, however, thinks they are fine. Thieves make all other berserker builds and all other roamer builds non-viable. The Balance Team, however, thinks they are fine.

Changes don’t arrive every couple of weeks. Rather they arrive every 4-5 months. !!! That’s insane. Take a look at League of Legends. They push balance fixes out every 2 weeks.

GW2 is supposed to be a AAA MMO. It is self-proclaimed. So, why shouldn’t the community expect the same quality and quantity of maintenance as in a AAA MMO?

The bottom line: there is no reason why the PvP community should not expect reasonable balance changes made to the game every 2 weeks. If such a reason does exist, it should be the imperative of ArenaNet to remove that reason.

Dosvidaniya.3260:

silvermember.8941:

style.6173:

silvermember.8941:

style.6173:

I hope ANET realizes that the longer it takes for the feature patch, the higher the expectations become.

At this stage the only person to blame for having high expectations is the individual. It shouldn’t take more than a half and yearto finally realize the following “expect the worst and you will never be disappointed” especially with PvP.

Also expecations are high doesn’t seem to be benefit whatever Anet plans are.

You don’t understand how people think. It’s pretty basic. The longer the hype builds around something, the higher the expectation. That’s pretty standard in every part of life.

The flipside is that if the hype lasts too long, people will eventually stop to care and will just move onto a different game.

OMG what you said is totally new information.

It is a lose lose situation. Tell people information and they don’t deliver, they will still complain. They will always be disappointment no matter what Anet does, the ones that are probably going to be disappointed should know by now. The majority probably wont care or care enough to warrant visiting the forum to complain about it.

I see this argument a lot and generally find it to be untrue. Those who want to complain will do it whether changes to plans were made or not. The real reason this thread currently exists has been posted. If they provided us an update to the current plans, that would suffice for the vast majority. Instead, they’ve opted to leave us completely in the dark while removing pvp features. That is when people start pulling up the list of promised items and asking “umm, where exactly are we headed?” Players tend to be less polite when they do it, but that is ultimately what they are asking.

My point ultimately is that they have decided that telling us is not in their best interest YET. I can try and rationalize it for them all I want, but the fact they haven’t told us seem to show they weighed the options and the option of not telling us won.

Thedenofsin.7340:

How could something go so horribly wrong that major milestones were missed by up to a full six months? And what does it say about ArenaNet if they were not able to communicate these changes to their customers over those 6 months?

I’ve managed large software tasks with large teams ($15m+ USD yearly budgets). I know how to lay down a schedule and manage a budget. I’ve never laid down a plan so aggressive that I miss 50% of my milestones in a 6 month window. Whenever I believe I am going to slip a milestone, I immediately let my management and customers know and replan.

Lucky for them they work in the gaming industry. If they were in any other business with such lack of accountability they would be out of customers/jobs very soon.

My view of Anet get in the direction, that they probably are not even interesting in making people stay.

After they have bought the game, most players are just a stress for the servers -which means costs.
ANets profit increases, when the time the customers play decreases.

So why dealing with complaints? The more the people play, the more they cost ANet.
As long critics stay in the forums and dont scare potential new customers, they probably are fine.

Yes, there are microtransaction, but averaged over the total amount of players, that’s probably far less, than the earnings with the game sold.

Justin ODell.9517:

I completely get that, and while I have no idea how/why sPvP got off-track around launch, I’m determined to keep moving sPvP forward to be what many of us hope it can be. I’m very proud of the work the team has been doing, and I think we’re heading the right direction.

I generally try to be very understanding, and put myself in the shoes of our players, which is usually very easy because we often share the same concerns. Occasionally it just gets on my nerves how myopic some people in the community can be at times.

You can’t rag on the community for being “myopic” when it takes 5-6 months for even the smallest hotfix to happen and you leave us almost completely in the dark aside from a few “yeah you guys will really love it when it happens!” and “soon!” posts. Basically nothing Anet says has any merit at this point, because there’s very little consistency or follow through and the pvp team doesn’t have enough of a track record showing effort and competency to complain about the community being fed up with it or judging it on the actual work it’s put out.

Put up or shut up essentially, because nobody cares about your good intentions for pvp when they don’t ever materialize into anything and the spvp community is pretty much all out of good faith at this point. Start producing tangible results instead of excuses and the community will have your back.

Oh, and one last thing. If ArenaNet isn’t going to make the timely changes to the game, as has been their pattern, then for the love of God please just put the knobs into custom arenas to allow the players to balance the game!

Im sure you have grand plans, but you NEVER stop balancing classes. That is a fatal error in MMO’s. This whole problem would be diffused so easily if you just put in: -%8 healing signet fix and fix bugged spirit of nature in this upcoming patch. These 2 outlier abilitys are the main reason for all the angst at current class balance. The sad thing is they are simple coefficient tweaks which don’t take any time or effort to fix and have been broken for over half a year.

Just because you want to impress us with a big feature patch doesn’t mean you hold back on fixing broken outlier skills. This meta which we’ve been stuck with for over half a year is as skill-less as you can get. 2 of the most skillfull classes Ele and Mesmer have been replaced with Spirit rangers, Hambow Wars and Pistol Whip thieves.

Take a look at the posts around here…

If I were the devs, I certainly wouldn’t be in any hurry to serve up any new content for the entitled jerks that believe it’s their right to constantly berate the company giving them free updates on their $60 game.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to quickly provide additional content.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to try to deliver truly high quality content.

Because at the end of the day, they only thing they’ll get in return from the community is more complaints and more finger pointing.

Dahkeus.8243:

Take a look at the posts around here…

If I were the devs, I certainly wouldn’t be in any hurry to serve up any new content for the entitled jerks that believe it’s their right to constantly berate the company giving them free updates on their $60 game.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to quickly provide additional content.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to try to deliver truly high quality content.

Because at the end of the day, they only thing they’ll get in return from the community is more complaints and more finger pointing.

You will have a hard time in your future life, if this is your mental attitude.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Dahkeus.8243:

Take a look at the posts around here…

If I were the devs, I certainly wouldn’t be in any hurry to serve up any new content for the entitled jerks that believe it’s their right to constantly berate the company giving them free updates on their $60 game.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to quickly provide additional content.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to try to deliver truly high quality content.

Because at the end of the day, they only thing they’ll get in return from the community is more complaints and more finger pointing.

You will have a hard time in your future life, if this is your mental attitude.

Please, don’t try to spin my point into some armchair lecture/personal attack.

It’s a proven fact that you get better efficiency and higher quality work out of people who aren’t filled with entirely negative and toxic environment, which is pretty much what these forums have turned into.

While criticism that points out shortcomings is important, what we have here has gone way beyond that.

If you want a dev community that is highly inspired to give you the best game they can provide, you have to treat them like human beings. If you want them to keep you in the loop of communication, you have to be able to communicate in a mature manner.

If you decide to act like an entitled brat, you’ll just get treated like a kid.

Dahkeus.8243:

It’s a proven fact that you get better efficiency and higher quality work out of people who aren’t filled with entirely negative and toxic environment, which is pretty much what these forums have turned into.

While criticism that points out shortcomings is important, what we have here has gone way beyond that.

If you want a dev community that is highly inspired to give you the best game they can provide, you have to treat them like human beings. If you want them to keep you in the loop of communication, you have to be able to communicate in a mature manner.

If you decide to act like an entitled brat, you’ll just get treated like a kid.

They turned into a negative and “toxic” (hate the overuse of that word btw) environment because they haven’t done anything in 18 months.
Worthless “leaderboards”, 3 bad maps – and they are bad, that’s why they are not in team arena, and what.. some glory vendor? But the worst thing is the lack of balance patches – that is what we are asking for the most – constant and regular balance patches.

And it doesn’t matter if we are all nice and cuddly with them or if we act like “entitled brats”, the result is still the same and will stay the same = nothing will change.

Dahkeus.8243:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Dahkeus.8243:

Take a look at the posts around here…

If I were the devs, I certainly wouldn’t be in any hurry to serve up any new content for the entitled jerks that believe it’s their right to constantly berate the company giving them free updates on their $60 game.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to quickly provide additional content.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to try to deliver truly high quality content.

Because at the end of the day, they only thing they’ll get in return from the community is more complaints and more finger pointing.

You will have a hard time in your future life, if this is your mental attitude.

Please, don’t try to spin my point into some armchair lecture/personal attack.

It’s a proven fact that you get better efficiency and higher quality work out of people who aren’t filled with entirely negative and toxic environment, which is pretty much what these forums have turned into.

While criticism that points out shortcomings is important, what we have here has gone way beyond that.

If you want a dev community that is highly inspired to give you the best game they can provide, you have to treat them like human beings. If you want them to keep you in the loop of communication, you have to be able to communicate in a mature manner.

If you decide to act like an entitled brat, you’ll just get treated like a kid.

Well, as working in the Management I can tell you that:

- if someone is not capable of doing his Job correctly he gets fired (well A-Net has not the option to do that with their low salaries)
- if a client is not content with a product/service, he has the right to complain
- if the product/service gets worse, even when the client made tons of suggestions and tips to improve it, then he has the right to complain

. . . etc. (hope you get the point freshman)

Noone here behaves like an “entitled brat”, People are just frustrated with the progress and the promises this game came with. This should be motivation enough to better the game and not to let off, as you said.

Dahkeus.8243:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Dahkeus.8243:

Take a look at the posts around here…

If I were the devs, I certainly wouldn’t be in any hurry to serve up any new content for the entitled jerks that believe it’s their right to constantly berate the company giving them free updates on their $60 game.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to quickly provide additional content.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to try to deliver truly high quality content.

Because at the end of the day, they only thing they’ll get in return from the community is more complaints and more finger pointing.

You will have a hard time in your future life, if this is your mental attitude.

Please, don’t try to spin my point into some armchair lecture/personal attack.

It’s a proven fact that you get better efficiency and higher quality work out of people who aren’t filled with entirely negative and toxic environment, which is pretty much what these forums have turned into.

While criticism that points out shortcomings is important, what we have here has gone way beyond that.

If you want a dev community that is highly inspired to give you the best game they can provide, you have to treat them like human beings. If you want them to keep you in the loop of communication, you have to be able to communicate in a mature manner.

If you decide to act like an entitled brat, you’ll just get treated like a kid.

Quality feedback and constructive critisism was given for over a year before things really started going sour. They have pretty much just themselves to blame. You don’t get that long to fix your product in other industries.
When you do something for a living and charge people money for something you do your best regardless , you don’t have the luxury of getting your feelings hurt from unpleasant feedback and crawl to the corner to cry/hide.

now lets focus on the aim of this thread again..we do the developers talk about stuff that is coming one year later and not even anytime soon

You’re arguing right past me. I have never said that people shouldn’t complain. Feel free to scroll back through and read closely. Complaining is perfectly valid.

However, if you really think that people don’t act like entitled brats, then please allow me to provide some counterexamples:

ramorambo.6701:

So i did one, feel free to insult the map since Anet probably still hasn’t seen players feedback if all of my last solos were on this map.

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/I-see-no-skyhammer-topics-on-front-page/first#post3706727

style.6173:

Archaon.6245:

ye you get 40 bags full of crap each tpvp win (Dunno in soloq, don’t give a kitten bout soloq xD)…just pile them up like tournament chests and you’re good to go..

account bound ofc

Just wait until this PvE bag is your only PvP reward.

#greatideasfromanet

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/New-reward-for-tournament-win/

Amplifier.1704:

Wow this is exactly what the hardcore PvPers want!1!11oneoen! How did you guess? SERIOUSLY WHAT THE …. I’m speechless…

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Bags-of-Alliance-Goods-now-in-PvP/

Romek.4201:

and @Arenanet

plz stop this stupid trend to give double rewards in teamQ

teamQ sux hard and is no fun and to force your players to play this is bullkitten

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Bags-of-Alliance-Goods-now-in-PvP/

The point is that you can express dissent without making snide, sarcastic comments or spamming ?s and !s like they’re confetti at Mardi Gras.

Guys, stop picking on Justin. He is always active on forum and actually gives us his opinion instead of some standard formatted messages. You should respect that because it’s very, very rare to see from big companies.

Anyway, they obviously are working on improving PvP. Criticism is always good, but it should be more constructive than this.

Rezz.8019:

Guys, stop picking on Justin. He is always active on forum and actually gives us his opinion instead of some standard formatted messages.

/agree

Rezz.8019:

Anyway, they obviously are working on improving PvP. Criticism is always good, but it should be more constructive than this.

/disagree

Unless “working on improving” means “90% smoke and mirrors and 10% casual player updates twice a year”

Well I havent lost faith yet, keep at it anet, you can do it.

Justin ODell.9517:

@Sensotix.4106

We didn’t promise anything, we shared our high level road-map plans.

This is why we don’t like sharing dates. I know you’re waiting on things, and the wait is driving me crazy too, but saying we made promises when we clearly did not does not help get the content out sooner.

If you want greater transparency, like I do, then you must accept that dates, features, and plans are not a static promise. Things can happen to shift priorities, dates, or designs, causing things to changed, be pushed back, or accelerated.

Please stop.

/personal rant

Did or did not promise is irrelevant. Transparency is irrelevant. Dates and priorities shifted around are irrelevant. You can keep all your dates and projects and everything you want hidden, as long as at the end of the day you bring quality updates that are worth the wait. The community is hardly at fault, and these threads will never stop. There are systematic problems in anet HQ that have created this situation, and the situation will remain until anet decides to transform all those "soon"s and hype into hard facts. The problem is with anet.

Thanks for posting. Don’t take this or any of these other posts so personally.

We will have to wait until A-net finds a way to make spvp profitable, otherwise you will get scraps and posts with “you guys should stop whinning we are doing everything in a near future” blah blah

Dahkeus.8243:

Take a look at the posts around here…

If I were the devs, I certainly wouldn’t be in any hurry to serve up any new content for the entitled jerks that believe it’s their right to constantly berate the company giving them free updates on their $60 game.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to quickly provide additional content.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to try to deliver truly high quality content.

Because at the end of the day, they only thing they’ll get in return from the community is more complaints and more finger pointing.

If you were a dev with an attitude like that, you would have been thrown to the curb toot sweet.

Justin has always struck me as a guy that has nothing to hide. I’m guessing his work product is high quality, with few issues. But, he’s working in a box. And while his work in that box is probably excellent, I’m guessing the problems lie outside that box.

Justin, I understand the player base can be frustrating. However, I don’t believe we are myopic. The problems are real. The lack of progress is real. The lack of communication is real. I don’t see how that can be construed as being myopic.

this game is dead and a.net do not give a kitten about pvp players … deleted the response as usual when you do not like a comment, stop saying that you have not promised anything and that you are doing your best, you are just a company that has ruined a community around a game called Guild Wars 1 …. you are just kittens … for the rest I have already left the game after he had hoped so much in something that would start the pvp … kittens

Seriously, why does it take so kitten long for balance patches? I understand not making knee jerk changes and testing them first but months and months for balance changes is completely ridiculous. Why are you tying balance patches to features patches? Is this your lame way of hyping up patches?

Smaller balance patches on a more frequent basis is far more healthier for the game. Oh but I’m probably going to get infracted again for being “negative” again.

Justin,

Justin ODell.9517:

I completely get that, and while I have no idea how/why sPvP got off-track around launch, I’m determined to keep moving sPvP forward to be what many of us hope it can be. I’m very proud of the work the team has been doing, and I think we’re heading the right direction.

You have no idea how gratified and hopeful the above paragraph made me. This was the first time I’ve seen anyone from ANet acknowledge that spvp is indeed “off-track”! It gives me confidence that there really are some people among you who realise that there are some fundamental problems that need fixing and you’re trying to work things out.

Frankly, I can tell you exactly where things went off-track. I know I’m nobody in the community and you have no reason to pay attention, but I think my answer is simple and undeniable, and it’s this:

I generally try to be very understanding, and put myself in the shoes of our players, which is usually very easy because we often share the same concerns. Occasionally it just gets on my nerves how myopic some people in the community can be at times.

This. With your very next sentence you revealed the problem perfectly: the problem is that the players have no idea what the problem is! You’re sitting in the office all day, reading abuse and whining on the forums, and you’re resentfully thinking to yourselves “these plebs have no idea what kind of problems we have to overcome here! Ingrates!”

And you’re absolutely right, we don’t, and when someone who has no clue what hurdles you’re trying to overcome is telling you you’re not doing your job right, it’s understandably annoying! So here’s the thing Justin: why won’t you tell us???

What’s wrong? Is there not enough manpower in the pvp team? Is the process of testing and certifying a patch internally too onerous? Are you getting conflicting feedback from different sections of the playerbase and you’re not sure what we actually want? Are there technical problems preventing you from implementing certain things? WHAT’S WRONG? Months and months after the CDI thread on this forum, why have we not had new game modes? Why are we still waiting on the new reward system? Why have we had THE SAME HATEFUL METAGAME SINCE SUMMER? When you started the collaborative development initiative, you certainly did offer greater transparency, and things like “feature X has to be pushed back 6 months because of such and such a problem” is a part of that. If you don’t do that, people will take your words as simply smoke and empty promises and you’ll lose all goodwill you gained by starting that initiative in the first place.

When the community is kept in the dark, and a developer lets slip something like this:

we’re just waiting for the LW season to come to an end.

Then people read it and wonder “Why??? Why do you have to wait for the LW season to be over? What in all the living hells does the LW content have to do with pvp?”

If, otoh, you explained that, for instance, there’s too many devs working on LW content and you don’t have enough hands on deck to work on pvp stuff. Or that pvp patches needing to be bundled in with other content to keep the number of patches at a minimum. Or whatever other reason you can possibly have for linking spvp development to LW, I don’t know, but that’s the whole problem: I DON’T KNOW JUSTIN, I JUST DON’T KNOW!! If I knew I would accept it – hell, I might even understand, and agree that the plan is sensible! But being told simply “wait for living story to finish and THEN we might tell you what’s happening and when” seems arbitrary and dismissive.

I’m glad you opened up. I know you guys have problems too and we don’t understand. But when people are unhappy with your game, you need to make them understand why you’re not making it better yesterday already! So if you want to win back the goodwill of the community and reduce the number of hateful invective and moaning on this forum, you better open up about more than just your personal frustration and start sharing some of the problems that are holding things up!

And if that’s not an option, if Mike O’Brian would sack you for sharing your internal development processes, then do the following, in this order, and you’ll at least mollify the community if not outright win them back:
1. More frequent, incremental balance patches, decoupled from feature patches and other releases.
2. New game modes. Just a single team deathmatch map sometime within the next 3 months is a good start!
3. Simpler rewards structure. Hell, if you simply introduced skins that are transferrable between pvp and pve, and increased gold rewards and achievement points a bit, I’d personally be happy.

Thanks again for posting and I hope you’ll take my advice to heart.

The pvp community is so toxic. Full of piranhas who want a taste of blood. The nastiness that some display clutters the truly intelligent posters attempting to communicate the needs of this community. For shame.

MailMail.6534:

The pvp community is so toxic. Full of piranhas who want a taste of blood. The nastiness that some display clutters the truly intelligent posters attempting to communicate the needs of this community. For shame.

Quoting this because it’s true. So much entitlement. And for everyone’s information, just because Anet asks for suggestions doesn’t mean that they’re then obligated to implement your terrible ideas. I’ve seen plenty of instances where Anet has changed something based on community feedback, but they are the game designers, not you.

I play spvp and I’m still having a great time. I know changes are coming and I’ll enjoy those too when they arrive. I don’t feel personally betrayed by Anet. It’s hilarious how many threats of “I’m gonna quit I swear!” there are in this thread. Honestly we’d all be better off if those of you making those threats made good on them and went and played something else. We all know it’d be a matter of days before you’re on the forums of that new game complaining about something.

The most broken thing about spvp is it’s forum community.

This thread is so deep. Self proclaimed professional and experienced gamers bashing at a company for trash balance, threatening to quit – before logging into the game and abusing the same “broken” mechanics as the ones introduced here.
Why should they (ANet) take you all seriously? This is the community forums. While your cries are loud, they won’t reach the people making the decisions about this game, and more importantly they won’t pay for the changes you want made.
To those of ANet that respond here: idk how you guys can put up with all this. There are some great guys posting here some positive feedback at times but that is rare now.
To the professional gaming community: if you’re so keen on being the best in a competitive game why do you even play this one? It is obvious now that GW2 lost all its potential right around 2 months after release when it became appearant that a game that has to be balanced around 3 game modes and is split in population around those 3 will never have a serious PvP aspect and will have nothing to do with esports for sure.

@ Joonks. How is your post not entitled? You are basically saying that everyone is wrong on critiqueing and there is nothing wrong with the game. And that it is ok to take 9 months for small balance tweaks. Also you might agree that it is ok to hold those double standards in communication like they are doing?

can you just split pve and pvp skills please
also bring in the 16-25 year old nerds who are really good at this game to help with balance. they’re socially inept but they know what they’re talking about when it comes to video games. middle aged 5 signet warrior rabbit ranks can’t possibly balance the game properly as we’ve seen.

ellesee.8297:

can you just split pve and pvp skills please

It’s no joke, but this is exactly the reason they won’t do small balance updates. And it’s what’s needed.

Dahkeus.8243:

Take a look at the posts around here…

If I were the devs, I certainly wouldn’t be in any hurry to serve up any new content for the entitled jerks that believe it’s their right to constantly berate the company giving them free updates on their $60 game.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to quickly provide additional content.

If I were a dev, I wouldn’t have an ounce of motivation to try to deliver truly high quality content.

Because at the end of the day, they only thing they’ll get in return from the community is more complaints and more finger pointing.

The only thing you get in the short-term is that indeed.

However, the only thing you get in the long-term is a tarnished brand that people will refuse to play should in due course GW3 come out. GW2, after all, is not going to be here forever. The average life-span of a MMO (with the exception of the likes of WOW and EVE) is only a few years. After Warhammer, is anyone really going to play a MMO by Mythic? After SWTOR is anyone going to touch a MMO made by EA?

Your argument is very short-sighted and no respectable company will take such a course as they shoot themselves in their own foot. It’s business 101.

“Soon”, “When its ready”

Fire.7459:

this game is dead and a.net do not give a kitten about pvp players … deleted the response as usual when you do not like a comment, stop saying that you have not promised anything and that you are doing your best, you are just a company that has ruined a community around a game called Guild Wars 1 …. you are just kittens … for the rest I have already left the game after he had hoped so much in something that would start the pvp … kittens

Considering the game is making hundreds of millions of dollars, I really doubt “dead” is the proper adjective to describe gw2. Considering that they are more people doing PvP now than ever before, I really doubt “dead” is also appropiate for spvp.

The only dead thing was the idea that gw2 was going to be an “esport”, but since being an esport only affected the top end of the pvp spectrum, it didn’t really matter for the game proper. Also esport is a concept that the community creates not the developer, they can aim for it but ultimately the community has to the driving force.

I want to be clear: I genuinely feel sorry for people like Justin that provide their honest opinion on here. You become a punching bag, because you are the only one brave enough to show your face.

Having said that…. We provided quality feedback with constructive posts for 1.5 years. We watched the community crash and burn around us as good players and quality people left. We then have been hit by a few situations where the words conveyed by the developers has been, “wait a bit longer”, then eventually that turned into, “You should be providing better feedback”..essentially blaming us. The community is now so fed up and disgusted, we can’t contain our disgust in our posts. The forum posts are not the work of internet trolls, for the most part it’s people that were so hyped up for this PvP they stuck around even while it rotted around them, now the rot has begin to overtake them as well.

What I am about to say is 100% true and all hyperbole has been removed: I have never been as disappointed in a game as I am in this one. It had everything to be the best PvP MMO of all time. All it needed was quality support and staffing that allowed it to adapt on the fly and continue to build on its amazing foundation…and Anet (or possibly NCSOFT) squandered it. Completely squandered it.

It’s like watching a model devolve into a drug addiction, eventually selling herself for a few bucks for that next fix. It’s not only depressing, it’s hard to watch.

Guys, when you post in this thread, can you please end each post with something positive to say about Justin. Like:

Justin, I like you. You have balls. I like balls.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Justin has always struck me as a guy that has nothing to hide. I’m guessing his work product is high quality, with few issues. But, he’s working in a box. And while his work in that box is probably excellent, I’m guessing the problems lie outside that box.

Justin, I understand the player base can be frustrating. However, I don’t believe we are myopic. The problems are real. The lack of progress is real. The lack of communication is real. I don’t see how that can be construed as being myopic.

Yeup, and it’s sad he has to deal with the blunt of our ire instead of the people actually causing it…
Justin seems like a nice guy doing all he can, just ‘all he can’ is not really all that much.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Guys, when you post in this thread, can you please end each post with something positive to say about Justin.

What a coincidence.
Seems my post kinda went that way anyways.

Thedenofsin.7340:

snip

i love you

oh well they closed the positive thread so i guess this is the next 1 ;(

Juan Ignacio.8903:

oh well they closed the positive thread so i guess this is the next 1 ;(

To be honest, only the first post was positive.

The replies were just pure, hard sarcasm.

manveruppd.7601:

When the community is kept in the dark, and a developer lets slip something like this:

we’re just waiting for the LW season to come to an end.

Then people read it and wonder “Why??? Why do you have to wait for the LW season to be over? What in all the living hells does the LW content have to do with pvp?”

I’ll take a guess and say it’s because PVP and PVE skills aren’t separate, and any changes to PVP skills, will also change the PVE versions too, so the LW farmers might have to change their builds and ruin their optimal farming routine.

Alissah.9281:

Juan Ignacio.8903:

oh well they closed the positive thread so i guess this is the next 1 ;(

To be honest, only the first post was positive.

The replies were just pure, hard sarcasm.

oh i did not notice at all………………………

MailMail.6534:

The pvp community is so toxic.

Uhm, that’s what happens when any game is dying.
People act kitteny when a game is dying.

The community wasn’t near so bad around launch, actually the community was the best community I’ve ever seen around launch (constant thought out well meaning posts, the community in general actually scoffed-at/downvoted/ignored anyone saying anything bad about the game or the devs).

Right now the ball is in Anet’s court, if they want to bring that good community back, they easily can, they just have to make GW2 a game worth supporting…

garethh.3518:

MailMail.6534:

The pvp community is so toxic.

Uhm, that’s what happens when any game is dying.
People act kitteny when a game is dying.

The community wasn’t near so bad around launch, actually the community was the best community I’ve ever seen around launch (constant thought out well meaning posts, the community in general actually scoffed-at/downvoted/ignored anyone saying anything bad about the game or the devs).

Right now the ball is in Anet’s court, if they want to bring that good community back, they easily can, they just have to make GW2 a game worth supporting…

The ball was in Anet’s court , +-8 months ago.
Anet then decided to mutilated the ball with a knife , tourched it and said “oeps”

Still the pvp community hanged in there, they bought a new ball and again gave it to anet……. and we haven’t seen any balls from anet since .

Pretty sure that ball should be flat by know. Same as the pvp scene

kitten leaving this game half a year ago was best thing I could do since this game launched. Being Anet employee that cares about PvP must be the most frustrating job ever made.