But putting in this version of guesting is damaging to every guild with members cross-region, and it’s not right.
And right there is the long and short of it.
I really couldn’t care less how easy or hard it is. AN has been hyping this feature up since months before launch, telling us we can play with our friends anywhere in the world then suddenly spinning a completely different tale once our money is in their pockets.
The whole situation is reeks of dishonesty and laziness. Worst of all, it is going to put a sledge hammer though the community. The fact AN have sat there and let international guilds/alliances form for months without giving a single word of warning only to stab them in the back out of the blue is little short of complete madness. I really wish I could see AN’s motive behind this move because I am at a complete loss what could be worth poisoning so many people’s faith in the game and company like this.
Don’t take the bait, it’s not worth it. Not only does he exaggerate the difficulty involved (though there is a certain difficulty involved, I will not deny that), he presents that solution as if it’s the only one available. There have been many others, some better, some worse, presented in this thread, and there are yet many others that remain unexplored. ArenaNet are good at what they do, they can come up with ways around this. It’s just a matter of whether they choose to or not.
Yeah you are right. Just makes me wonder what goes though people’s heads when they actually see the need to actually defend AN actively screwing the player-base like this.
For those of you whining about this… do you have any idea how much it costs to keep servers synced between continents? No you dont its readily apperant from your posting. You also dont seem to realise its not simply a matter of sending the data from one data center to the other, not do you seem to realise the issues with global routing, peering of tier 3 networks, BGP and several other issues that crop up when you try to do this globally. Ya all sound like spoiled kids. wha wha I could do this in GW1.. well GW1 isnt GW2 you assume they work the same network wise but they dont.
So… AN completely changed their story on how guesting would work AFTER taking our money (while leaving the original statements still up on their FAQ and website for extra facepalm points) but yet we are the “spoiled kids” for not lapping it up?
I don’t know if I should mock or pity you.
As for literal false advertising, I’m not sure I’d go that far.
“In time, we’ll also introduce free “guesting,” which will allow players to visit other worlds as guests as long as they have friends on those worlds. This feature will be free, but guest players will not be able to enter World vs. World, and the Power of the Mists bonuses from their home world will continue to apply to their characters.”
Straight from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-world-of-choice-the-regions-of-guild-wars-2 . Not even the slightest mention of a a European/US caveat or exception. Same on the offical FAQ. It says I can play with my friends on any other world outside of WvW. Except apparently now I can’t. If that isn’t bare faced false advertising, I don’t know what is.
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No. That doesn’t work. EU accounts can’t play with US accounts in overflow right now, and they won’t be able to afterwards either. When I play with my Australian friend right now, it requires a server transfer. Obviously the 7 day timer on transfers makes that a complete hassle, hence why we were eagerly anticipating guesting. Instead, guesting (and the subsequent removal of free transfers) effectively removed our ability to play with each other.
So yes, I do know the facts.
Well said. It’s amazing people are actually defending literal false advertising.
I have to add my voice to the choir of those less then pleased. We were told over and over again we can play with our friends anywhere in the world and once again we are getting a different story now AN has our money.
There isn’t even any room for misinterpretation here like the fanboys would have you believe. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-world-of-choice-the-regions-of-guild-wars-2 clearly states US and Europeans can play together via guesting (outside of WvW).
Good lord, how is this BS even legal?
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Whatever the system is being used, it simply isn’t working productively enough.
Waiting three months for major bugs (like non-scaling Turrets or sigils not working with weapon kits) or blatantly obvious broken skills (Hundred Blades, Backstab, etc.) to be fixed and not even have them done then is nothing short of poor form.
I wish I could be more constructive but “not good enough” is the best I can come up with. WvW/SPvP were some of the brightest gems in GW2’s crown and they are simply going to waste with PvP balance being treated like an afterthought.
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What killed my interest? The dishonestly and the laughable attempt at class balance I guess were the main offenders.
It doesn’t quite know if its a skill based game or a gear based game and strives to accomplish both.
“If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.”
This old adage should be nailed to every terminal in every video game development office in the world. I have seen so many potentially great titles go to the dogs because developers or publishers got greedy and tried to put their finger in far too many pies. It looks like GW2 will also be joining that list.
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I fail to see how there is any “confusion”. A few people wanted the game to introduce WoW-like elements. AN ignored the majority of the player base and went ahead to do so even in the face of massive opposition.
So what am I doing? I will be going back to WoW. If I am going to have WoW-elements forced upon me, I might as well do it in a game that is designed around it. Also as a PvP fan I find the admission that the entire class balancing/testing is handled by two people comical if also downright depressing. I’ve seen higher quality standards in indy titles.
Either way, I suggest people opposed to the new “form” AN is taking to do whatever they feel comfortable with. If you are unhappy with the direction GW2 and AN are taking, find a game which does satisfy you. We have done pretty much all we can to make our voices heard but AN refuse to address to issue and seem content in letting a successful MMO slowly bleed out. They have proven to be both untrustworthy and disinterested in what the majority of players have to say so there is little hope in getting them to see reason.
It is a crying shame to see so much potential go to waste but that is the cards AN have dealt. There is little point getting emotionally invested in the situation any more when AN themselves have shown they simply do not care about the majority of players or even their own design tenants.
Apparently the “big” thread was closed, so newcomers to the forums won’t notice the big bunch of negative responses so easily. It’s still disappointing that the only information we got is a link to the post we all knew, that does deal with the issue by saying “no it’s ok, everything’s gonna be alright” without any substantial point.
It would seem AN are switching to the Bioware PR method which is “delete everything that disagrees with them”.
I would really love to know what the devil is going on inside their offices there to prompt such a massive shift in business ethics.
Yes.. it was nice. I was disturbed that it didn’t mention any of the controversy over the new gear. But, I’m hoping that’s just PR-spin and not necessarily ANET ignoring the issue.
Considering that is all they have done to address the problem so far, I wouldn’t be holding your breath in anticipation.
All MMO’s have shaky starts.
I disagree. GW2 had the BEST launch I have ever seen from an MMO.
The launch wasn’t the problem. The problem is the poor post-launch development, the complete and utter lack of respect/communication to the player-base and this new direction that flies in the face of their own tenants and design manifesto. That is what is going to cost them players and money as a result.
There was nothing wrong with the launch. AN had success in their grasp but then let it slip through their fingers.
If you read the notes, you’d see that in the patch they nerfed every build APART from Backstab.
It’s like the only build we have left.
Deal with it or take your whining somewhere else.
So instead of having all your weapon-sets viable, you rather one broken, OP one?
And Thief players wonder why they got such a bad reputation…
If it wasn’t in trouble, I doubt the would be resorting to such radical measures like completely flying in the face of their own core rules and tenants.
Not that anyone should consider that even a remotely worthy excuse, mind you. Dishonesty is never a valid way to do business.
i dunno, i was doing pretty well 1on1 against a thief lastnight on my necro
A D/D Thief? They are the only really dangerous ones. P/P for instance is a complete joke.
To be fair, he is right. D/D Thieves and GS Warriors make SPvP a complete joke.
To quote Murphy’s Law, “The light at the end of the tunnel is the lamp of an oncoming train.”
The sad thing is I agree completely with the OP. The poor post-launch development and class balancing was bad enough but sell out on your own rules and manifesto is inexcusable.
So much awesome potential gone to waste. It really is a crying shame. Maybe one day there will be a development team who can come up with similar goals/values and actually have the conviction to follow through on them but it won’t be this one.
Oh kitten off. I play games to enjoy myself when I am not working. I do not pay for a game just for more work.
You will have to forgive him. WoW-type games have conditioned an awful lot of people to view this as acceptable.
You can keep a game fresh and interesting without going back on your word and betraying the customers that put you on the map.
GW2 players are not opposed to change. We are opposed being lied to.
If you want it to do well, be positive and constructive! That is the ONLY way to make things go further and develop. Try to be mature, try to give a meaningful contribution and try to enjoy! Don’t just try with all your guts to hate everything and then something more!
We tried that in beta. We tried that post-launch.
Short version? It didn’t work.
The answer is simple do not buy anything from the Gemstore, do not buy a single thing, do not give Anet a single penny, dime or whatever of your money. Now you see they are banking on the extra money from locusts to give them a cash flow increase, but what they fail to realize is these guys and gals aren’t going to buy anything.
They won’t be buying Stones, since they don’t care for looks just stats, (BC outland clown suits anyone?), they won’t be buying exp boosters since alting isn’t their style of play, karma boosters they don’t need those for these dungeons, magic find boosters? Don’t need for this content. Dyes? Don’t need. Town clothes? Nope.
There is nothing these guys and girls need from the store to grind content.
Obviously some one at Anet, or more likely their Bosses at NCsoft and Nexon, have mistaken this for a Korean game.
Korean games having a different subscription method, where you don’t buy a monthly subscription you buy a card of X amount of hours, that are spent by being in game. Hence why Korean games have successful cash shops, because if you’ve only got ten hours to play, you’re going to want those ten hours to be as rewarding as possible, so you’d buy exp, drop, potion boosters and so on.
Somewhere along the design chain they’ve forgotten that the grinders they are now catering for don’t need to buy anything from them.
So if we make this change fail, maybe they’ll remember they’ve got a market that kept their previous game running for seven years, and return to the manifesto.
The sad reality is like I said earlier, it’s the loyal fans that loved GW2 for what it was designed to be that will lose. Trust me, I will likely never be giving AN another cent but I also know full well we are kitten no matter what happens. Either GW2 will die or it will become some awful mutation of what it once stood for.
Either way, we lose.
That’s what SWG NGE taught us, as cited in the first post:
“The mistake was to not just think we know the right direction without bringing the fans into the mix. We made the cardinal sin of not listening, but assuming, and we were wrong.”
The irony is AN made all the claims they would respect and listen to the player all up though development then just…didn’t. I really don’t understand how they could think they could get away with it in the age of the internet. http://www.arena.net/blog/the-golden-rules-of-guild-wars-2 is a great read if you feel like a bitter laugh or two. The last two tenants especially are a complete joke knowing what we know now.
You guys need to remember 3 things:
1) ArenaNet has access to data you will never see and your opinion means nothing compared this data (not in a mean way but because facts > opinion).
2) ArenaNet is way smarter than you are. And they’ve proven this time and again. This is compounded by the attempt at doing something different which people just aren’t getting (or worse, think they get it but really don’t). When it comes to these philosophical outlook points, ArenaNet is going to stick to their guns (such as with dungeon difficulty). In other areas they’ve proven they listen (more back slot items in game and FOV changes are just two quick examples). But for any point where they seem to not be listening, see point number one above.
3) You’re not a game designer, and what you want to see in a game only speaks for your own desires and not the rest of the player base. You never speak for anyone but yourself. And in case you think you know more about game design than ArenaNet, please refer back to point two above.
I swear I see this exact same post every time every time an MMO starts to struggle and die. It’s like a Kübler-Ross model for failing video games. Denial is the first step…
The dishonesty is the worst problem I think. All the months of reading “The Golden Rules of GW2” or Design Manifestos that turned out to be nothing but rubbish. No one likes being lied to and hates being made a fool out of even more. AN has done both in the space of a single week.
I also think they handled the post-launch development poorly. For example there seems to be a gross misallocation of resources if there is only two bloody people working on balancing and testing every profession in the game.
If it isn’t dying, it soon will be.
You simply cannot lie to/betray your core player base and expect to get away with it. SW: Galaxies is a perfect example of that.
Jon said
‘’ I do still believe ranger is the profession in most need of improvement after this patch…’’ so ranger was the profession in most need of improvement before this patch too and they did 28 changes on elementist , 31 changes on engineer, 24 changes on necromancer , 17 changes on thief and finally 14 changes on Ranger . Well looks like we dont have enough population as rangers so we dont have the priority to getting fix .
To be fair, the 31 changes for Engineer were tooltip fixes, useless tidbits (like being able to swap kits in air) or nerfs.
The core bugs since beta like sigils not working on kits or turrets not scaling? Completely unresolved.
No MMO in history has done well by changing radically the player base after release.
That was pretty much the point I was trying to make. GW2 was hyped for years as the “MMO you will love if you hate MMOs!”. Now whatever powers that be at AN are trying to morph it into the very game people tried to escape.
It’s not going to end well for anyone involved.
Or it might work out but create an entirely different playerbase, game and mindset.
No game in history has done well by trying to mimic WoW. I can only imagine a game that was built to be the anti-WoW of sorts failing even more spectacularly at such an attempt. We are already starting to see the initial signs of such an event.
The hilarious thing is, if we compare gear grinds, WoW is WAY more fun. Each tier of gear actually comes with unique-ish effects, unlike a plain stat boost in this game. Heck I might actually play WoW now!
That is the core of the matter; WoW is a game built from the ground up to be a gear grind. GW2 was not in any way, shape or form.
Add to this straight-up lies and deception from AN and you have a textbook guide on how to take one of the most promising titles in half a decade and ram it into a mountain of stupidity and greed.
“Why would I play WoW 2. If I wanted to grind for gear every day i could stay at WoW.”
It’s funny how us unwashed masses seem to able to understand this but a “professional” development team completely fails to grasp such a basic concept.
There is a huge difference between someone saying “I’m not buffing Rangers because I think they are fine” vs “Ranger buffs and improvements are coming!” and then deliver this.
Very very huge difference.
Not really. They got two frigging guys working on it. Over eight professions.
There are still issues from beta that have not been resolved and we are nearly three months since launch. The reason why a class is in a sorry state ends up being pretty much irrelevant when AN clearly do not have the manpower to properly devise and test and possible solutions in a realistic time-frame.
Two developers…for all the class balancing…
Sorry, I’m still finding it comical.
i may understand the lack of effort to fix the rangers, because it well costs some effort, but why were they putting so much effort into missinforming the rangers untill the very day of the update? couldnt all that effort be put somewhere else, like in fact fixing rangers? Such behaviour is disrespectful towards customers, we arent your friends, we are the customers please try to maintain at least minimum professionalism.
And whats up with removing and infractioning the posts? its called “feedback thread” only positive feedback is welcome?
ok so to make the point more clearly related to the topic as apparently some moderators cant graps any point:
the update didnt fix anything from the known bug list but introduced new positions, please try harder.
Agreed. They did much the same thing to Engineers, promising over 30 changes. Those changes? 90% tooltip fixes, 10% nerfs that make no sense (Grenade Kits? Really, AN…?).
I just cannot fathom why they would even spin BS like that. They must of known it was going to explode in their face when the patch was launched.
All three of them are pretty much up a particularly foul smelling creek without a paddle.
I would say Rangers have it the worst though. Engineers have a truck-load of bugs that AN are in no hurry to fix but Rangers just seem so “meh” in performance even with everything working right.
We don’t want tidbits of information, we want to know why there are 2 people working on class balances and why Warriors and Engineers and nearly every other class got some significant changes while all we got was Harpoon damage increased by 50%.
My expectations of them fixing our utility skills was NOT a 10% increase in chance for a 100hp spirit to give me 2 seconds of +10% damage.
Not that I don’t feel your pain but Engineers got nothing but tooltip fixes and nerfs. Not sure why you envy us exactly.
I am not trying to be mean, but i do not understand this whole “give them a chance” mentality.
This is not this companies first rodeo. I just dont understand. They are supposed to be professionals who have been doing this for years and years.
I think they lost any chance of being called “professional” when they blamed the terrible class changes on having TWO people to design and test them.
Where do you even begin with that…?
Zero. I am getting enough flak from my friends who I encouaged to try the game already after this week’s train-wreck of a patch.
Yeah, there’s been a lot of constructive feedback given in a calm, rational way – even from people who are extremely upset about the changes.
But good luck giving feedback when 1) Every thread with a cogent, constructive discussion is shuffled into the garbage can thread where not only is it drowned in the sea of high-speed posting, but the posts of any particular discussion are shuffled into random spots over ten pages, meaning that nobody can actually follow the conversation, and 2) There’s essentially no two-way communication – all developer commentary so far has been delivered from on-high in a marketing format, or in the one developer post that’s been made on the subject, which almost immediately contradicted itself and left people with more questions than it answered.
So much for “Respect the Player” golden rule, huh? I’ve seen better communication from Bioware.
Frigging Bioware!
People seem to think anet can just wave a wand to fix problems in a jiffy.
We have been waiting three months for promised fixes like turret scaling and working sigils for Engineers since beta. Four or so months is not a “jiffy”.
Fixing bugs and adjusting balance isn’t easy. I’ve done coding and have spent hours fixing issues in code I’ve made entirely on my own. I can only imagine what a pain it is when part of a larger team.
They have played with HB and Backstab damage all throughout beta but for some reason broke the knob off on “11”. They can easily change it, they just don’t want to for whatever deluded reason. Like the same reason that prompted them to nerf Grenade Kits in SPvP because they were the real problem, right guys?
Rather than just raging people need to constructively give feed back of what has been fixed, and what needs to be fixed. It makes it easier to find issues for the devs, and players can easily look over issues and check them. Belive it or not screaming things like “nerf thieves!” doesn’t help the dev team. If a specific problem didn’t get addressed make sure to mention that it didn’t.
Been there, tried that, gotten nowhere. This patch is picture-perfect proof of that.
Because Engineers with Grenade Kits were the real problem.
Remember when a Warrior or Thief ripped out your spine and played it like a banjo within 1-2 seconds? That apparently was the work of an Engineer with his devil-forged grenades. Somehow.
Yeah go frigging figure.
All I know is I wish I had the musical and vocal talent to record parody of Afroman’s “Because I Was High” because looking at the changes to the professions, that is about the only way I can explain most of them.
“Now I’m nerfing Grenade Kits and I know why….”
Afterwards, I think the community might feel more comfortable with longer deadlines, provided communication is handled with care.
Indeed. It is almost like the developers and PR department are having a competition to see which one of them can cause the most problems.
Two Developers are working on fixes.
To be fair, I believe he said two designers were looking at the class skills. That probably doesn’t count programmers, engineers, QA testers and so on.
I think we should also respect the work that any creative and talented employee puts into an immense project like this. I doubt even the designers have free reign to make any changes whatsoever just based on their own personal feelings – they are still constrained by the overall business priorities, project vision and accountabilities.
Also, I think that the quality of the content that has been delivered so far has been quite extraordinary, for which those developers deserve a lot of credit. The fact that things are missing or not put in at the right times is something that has less to do with the designers and more to do with the management of staff and resources.
I’m not saying I’m not disappointed by some of those missing things (mostly from release rather than from a recent patch), but I agree that feedback should still be kept civil, fair and respectful of the accomplishment so far.
You are kidding right?
You want us to respect the developers when they see the frigging Grenade Kit as a bigger problem in SPvP then Backstab or HB?
You want us to respect the developers when they promised Engineers over 30 updates and they wound up being 90% tooltip changes and 10% seemingly random nerfs?
You want us to respect the developers when it has taken over three months to get weapon sigils working with Engineer kits? Or turret scaling? None of which has been done BTW.
I’ll let the other professions speak for themselves but from the background noise, it sounds like they got burned just as bad. Rangers especially.
I am sorry but what is to respect exactly? This has been the biggest flop of a content patch I have seen in an MMO to date. I am the first to give credit when it is due but I’ll be kittened if there is a single element of this patch so far that is worthy of respect or praise.
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I honestly don’t think AN will come back from this. The last week has been a PR train-wreck that in a time where they were desperately trying to draw in new people.
Instead they have divided the once solid community, introduced elements in to the game many of us left other MMOs to escape and completely ignored the feedback on such issues. Not content with that, they release one of the WORST content patches I have ever seen, with bonus points for an event most of us cannot even attend, an absolute joke list of class changes. Engineers were literally trolled with the promise of over 30 changes only to find a page of frigging tooltip changes and some of the most mind-boggling nerfs I have seen to date (grenades? Seriously…?). Other classes apparently got slammed just as bad if not worse but Backstab and HB get off scott free yet again. (Yeah go figure.) The cherry on top of all this was the announcement that the entire class balancing is handled and tested by…two people. Because GW2 is apparently an indy title now or something? Your guess is as good as mine.
You say to give the game and AN another chance but I am not really sure how they can salvage this. The community feels let down and in many cases, lied to. The patch is a sad, sad joke and with the news that translates to “Don’t expect meaningful class changes pretty much ever because we don’t actually have a team for that”.
At some point you have to look at the train that has derailed, burning from end to end and admit to yourself “I don’t think the 5:15 is going to make it on time after all.”
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Wow there’s a lot of anger in here. Let me just say this – 2 people working on traits/skills may seem like little but it’s not that unusual. I do think there should be more, given the massive number of skills/traits, but it’s not unusual for small teams to deal with specific aspects of a massive game. If you put all the small teams together you’ll have lots of people. Indie developers definitely don’t get 2 people to work on skills – they usually have what, 2-10 people, at most, working on the whole game? Big difference.
That said I doubt Jon calls all of the shots regarding what gets pushed and what doesn’t. There is a possibility the 2 designers screwed up and there is a possibility the balance/bug fixes were too complex to test properly.
Which doesn’t mean I’m happy, myself – I do have a ranger. Also I’m not sure how the longbow is good beyond its AoE attack (which is the only reason I keep one) – its regular attack is so slow that I do more damage to things while downed…
As for the trap cooldown, don’t worry; it’s a bug and it’s been stated it’s slated for fixing later tonight.
I’ve seen bigger balance teams on indy titles. And considering Jon actually blamed that as the reason the class updates are a joke, well yeah.
Least we all got a good laugh; a triple-A MMO title with a class balance team of…two people.
I’m still chuckling to myself
I noticed they made a “PvP” monthly achievement.. but left WvW in the non PvP monthly still… so maybe they dont consider it PvP…
At this point I question if they even consider it at all.
But hey you got them tooltip fixes right? Not like working sigils or scaling turrets were the things we really wanted.