Guild Wars 2

Strongback.6420:

They already did deviate from their design philosophy when they released an incomplete game.

I can name over 6 traits on my class that either don’t do anything, or do not do what they claim to do.
Hell there is an entire STAT that doesn’t give ANY benefit on engineer. (the one you get from tools trait line)
The way the dungeons are designed? Jesus Christ how horrible.
Don’t get me started about Zhaitan.

The way I’ve seen it over 80% of the criticism is valid, if often poorly articulated, 15% is apologist stuff like this and 5% is the trolls and moronic posts.

I just wanted to note (since I main an engineer spec’d into tools most of the time) that the stat does actually lower the cooldown of toolbelt skills. It’s a display issue as far as I can tell. Look at “Toss Elixir R” with cooldown numbers turned on. Spec’d into Tools, it has a 60 second cooldown. Not spec’d into Tools, it has an 85 second cooldown.
I’m not saying there aren’t bugs. I’ve had my fair share of frustrations with bugged events or skillpoints. The problem I see is that people get so heated about things that it’s very hard to filter what the actual bugs and issues are.

I happen to like the way the dungeons are designed. In fact, (I’m so going to get flamed for this >.<) I find many of the paths too easy. Does this mean I don’t see any balance issues? No. Magg’s path in CoF for example: The problem isn’t that the path is too hard or that the defense portion is too hard. It’s that the rest of the path is too easy in comparison. I’d be perfectly happy with them nerfing the defense portion IF they increased the difficulty of every other boss. That feedback however, is buried under pages and pages of “OMG TOO HARD FLAME ARENANET” posts. A (possibly) valid complaint is completely masked by what reads as a temper tantrum. Even the quoted post. A levelheaded analysis of “why” you believe Arenanet has deviated from their design philosophy (as opposed to a vague judgement). A list of “which” 6 traits you don’t believe are working properly. A description of “what about” the engineer specific stat that doesn’t look like it’s working. That’s what’s called constructive criticism. Most people post rants.

The problem and the reason why people believe they’ve deviated from their design philosophy is that everyone interpreted it as “They’re making the game the way I want it.” The reality is that some people are bound to be wrong about that. I don’t believe they’ve deviated from their design philosophy, and I agree with the OP’s hope that they don’t let the flood of negativity that plagues every game pressure them into doing so.