Guild Wars 2

Attended/no loot/mail

Keep in mind I was able to get the quest completed for “driving back the ancient Karaka”… so it was a simple thing to check the flags on my account. I don’t know if others who are still having issues were similarly flagged or not.

It would be nice if they would give us an update after two weeks of waiting, but I’ve had to stop expecting it at this point.

In that time, I still have yet to see anything resembling a solution (or even an update update) for those of us who disconnected. A few days is understandable and tolerable, if not a bit bothersome, but this has gotten to the point of just being silly. Anet, are we ever going to have any sort of reasonable rewards issued, or is it just one of those things we should call bad luck and consider it done? I don’t think it is unreasonable to want a response by this point, even if that response is to get over it.

Will you please provide myself (and others who might care) with a response that has content beyond, “We are looking into it”? Can you give a rough time-frame about when we can expect a final resolution? Is the plan to provide disconnected people with at least the minimum loot, such as the 20-slot bag and the exotic trinket? Can you please tell us something? Pretty please?? Thank you in advance to anyone who might take the time to reply.

I hope everyone reading this thread has a good day.

One thing that occurred to me as a means to create more diversity in game play without unfairly skewing the content to people who simply have more time and patience to invest in a game is the addition of single and double stat items, with total stats equal to their triple stat counterparts. This would allow someone to more directly “spec” into something like Power or Toughness/Vitality, without simply tacking more stats on top of the current total. It would diversify game-play even further, and it could be used to help drive the crafting market by making them crafted only items.

These sorts of more “focused” items could be weapon or jewelry only. If you limited them to non-exotic items, that would make sure that those people who were struggling to obtain ectos and T-6 crafting materials are still able to create very useful and impressive items that could help them both in dungeon runs and in WvW. While I know you worry about allowing people to create the “trinity” all over again, there is no reason to not allow people to more directly specialize to a point, and I don’t think it would create such a radical shift as to change the fundamental nature of the meta-game.

Something to think on, at least.

Elephant in the Room style question:

Will those players who participated in the Lost Shores event and yet were unable to obtain the chest for a variety of reasons (DC, short chest timer, etc.) receive anything? The various errors that occurred late in the event meant that a lot of people who participated in much of the rather lengthy quest were unable to to get the 20 slot bag or trinket, let alone have a chance at precursors. Is anything going to be done about this issue, and if so, when can we expect a resolution?

lordkrall.7241:

It is been less than a week.
They need to check quite much stuff in order to make sure that the right people get the rewards added to them. That does take quite much time.

They need to scan a database. To do that, they need to determine the flags to check for (quest/event completion, time logged in to X zone, whatever factor(s) they want) and then exclude people who have already looted the chest. The chest had unique loot, so I can only assume it was uniquely flagged in the DB. They then compile the list of people (likely between 75-90% of the people who had an issue) then mail those people the rewards they choose.

Honestly, figuring out the right factors to scan for should have been done on the Monday after the event, and by Wednesday the problem should have been resolved. That they are putting the problem on the back burner in favor of other things shows that they are more inclined towards a “cost/benefit” business model rather than a “customer first” business model. This isn’t an insult to Anet, persay… they are a company and it is the point of their existence to make money. However, as a consumer, I can be disappointed and choose not to spend any further funds on their game in hopes that it alters the effectiveness of their current model. Given their recent focus, that is likely a far more effective means of sending a message, rather than posting irate comments on various forums.

Also, keep in mind… it’s been a week where the only “feedback” given has been two terse posts (one on Facebook, the other on the MB) and the rest of the information coming from Anet has been marketing and advertisements. It is frustrating to see. Personally, I’ve given up. I’m going to guess they might eventually mail some folks the bag and the exotic trinket and then call it solved… and those that get half the reward that others got for similar levels of participation will count themselves lucky for getting any thing at all. It’s simply a matter of not wanting to get that pissed off or frustrated over a game… It’s not worth it. I play these things for fun and lately Xcom has been a ton of fun! Maybe I’ll come back, maybe I won’t… but for now at the very least, Anet has lost a customer in me.

The Lost Shores Feedback thread is full of complaints about.

There was a thread with well over 1000 posts on the LS page when it was active.

Dozens of other threads have been made.

Their Facebook has inundated with posts about it.

They replied with a boiler plate “We will look into the issue” and have said nothing since.

Anet has bigger issues, like Black Friday sales.

There are solutions to this issue, the problem is that if you fix it for the solo/duo… you end up breaking it for the full party. Scaling spawning is one such solution that might be a good way to “split the difference”.

Lets say, for the sake of argument that there are 100 mobs in an area at maximum and the spawn rate is currently X. You could add a modifier onto the spawn rate where, if 90 mobs are present the spawn rate is X*1.90. If only 10 mobs are present, then the spawn rate is X*1.10.

This creates a system where people who moved through slowly would still have a certain degree of back-spawn, without having to be worried about it spawning right on top of them a few moments later.The higher the rate of depopulation, the more

Another, even simpler solution that I have use when creating scripts is to simply set different spawns to different rates. Some monsters spawn every 40 seconds, others ever 100, etc. This creates a flow of respawns with a varied experience that allows solo players the ability to hack through content without being overwhelmed, but still provides enough to do for parties.

Basing the respawn rate off the current zone population is not ideal. That creates issues with people being off in their own little corner of the world suddenly dealing with a lot more than they can handle due to a large scale event over 5 minutes jog away. Basing the rate either on current mob density in a fixed area or simply having varied rates of spawn are two solutions that can be used to address these issues, especially in lower level zones that are likely not as populated as 70+ zones now a days.

This post is in regards to the issues myself and many players had when it came to fighting the final boss, and the rather underwhelming response from Anet thus far:

Due to a lack of response on the part of Anet about the Disconnect/Overflow server issues, I’ve gotten to the point where I just don’t care to play anymore. The only thing that really still interested me in GW2 were the events and the thought that things would be more dynamic than previous MMOG titles… and seeing how the company responds to a fumble like this does not inspire me to feel great amounts of hope for future events. All companies make mistakes, but how they respond to those mistakes is as important as anything. How they handled it was a token “We will look into it” post and then nothing. It should have been job one on Monday to figure out what they are planning to do about it, or at least to do more in terms of damage control.

This could have been spun into a PR positive by giving more updates and a very quick response, as well as giving out world-wide rewards to everyone. Imagine if, as a kind of apology gift, they gave every one who logged in during the event 100 free gems, or a BLTC key, or a Consortium Chest? Then, on top of that they spend all day Monday figuring out how to “make right” the issues with people who were unable to finish the Ancient Karaka event, posting about it multiple times so that customers knew they were getting some attention paid to them. All of a sudden, they go from looking like just another gaming company to one that really cares about its fanbase. This would have likely received a high degree of praise from the gaming press and been touted as how a developers should handle a bad situation. Their losses would be negligible, and the long term return on investment in terms of customer goodwill would be highly profitable.

In the end, I feel disappointed. Anet is not a bad company, but they are not showing themselves to be great company either. Honestly, I play these games for fun, and I have gotten a lot out of this particular title… but as the time passes without a reply or any sort of real solution offered… the more I am finding my desire to continue on in Tyria is waning. This is just my opinion of course, and I offer it in the hopes that someone on the Anet team will read it and be able to use it to really improve their handling of future missteps. I also really hope that their response to this situation is enough to make me go, “Wow, was I ever wrong. I need to learn to be quiet!” Until then though, this is my opinion.

Due to a lack of response on the part of Anet about this issue, I’ve gotten to the point where I just don’t care to play anymore. The only thing that really still interested me in GW2 were the events and the thought that things would be more dynamic than previous MMOG titles… and seeing how the company responds to a fumble like this does not inspire me to feel great amounts of hope for future events. All companies make mistakes, but how they respond to those mistakes is as important as anything. How they handled it was a token “We will look into it” post and then nothing. It should have been job one on Monday to figure out what they are planning to do about it, or at least to do more in terms of damage control.

This could have been spun into a PR positive by giving more updates and a very quick response, as well as giving out world-wide rewards to everyone. Imagine if, as a kind of apology gift, they gave every one who logged in during the event 100 free gems, or a BLTC key, or a Consortium Chest? Then, on top of that they spend all day Monday figuring out how to “make right” the issues with people who were unable to finish the Ancient Karaka event, posting about it multiple times so that customers knew they were getting some attention paid to them. All of a sudden, they go from looking like just another gaming company to one that really cares about its fanbase. This would have likely received a high degree of praise from the gaming press and been touted as how a developers should handle a bad situation. Their losses would be negligible, and the long term return on investment in terms of customer goodwill would be highly profitable.

In the end, I feel disappointed. Anet is not a bad company, but they are not showing themselves to be great company either. Honestly, I play these games for fun, and I have gotten a lot out of this particular title… but as the time passes without a reply or any sort of real solution offered… the more I am finding my desire to continue on in Tyria is waning. This is just my opinion of course, and I offer it in the hopes that someone on the Anet team will read it and be able to use it to really improve their handling of future missteps. I also really hope that their response to this situation is enough to make me go, “Wow, was I ever wrong. I need to learn to kitten ” Until then though, this is my opinion.

HyDraLiNsK.2470:

Bugs and glitches aside, they are doing a great job with new content for a f2p game so soon from release.

Bugs and glitches aside? That would be like going to a restaurant and saying, “Getting my order wrong and delivering the food cold aside, it was a good meal”.

Also, it’s not a F2P game. It lacks a subscription, but that doesn’t make it free to play. You still have to pay real money in order to gain access to the game.

I hope we get a resolution posted soon as I am still feeling pretty bitter towards the whole affair. Honestly, I don’t want to play as when I did try everything just serves as a reminder about how frustrated and annoyed I am with the event… Needless to say it’s left a sour taste in my mouth that running around in WvW or even the new zone seems unable to cure.

The solution is really simple, and it’s already built into the game.

“One time” event does not need to be limited time event. What you do is you make the event into a one time instance where people who haven’t actually done the event yet are put into version A, and those who have done the event are put into version B. If someone who has done the event wants to group up and help out other people, that should be allowable, but without anything other than the normal dropped rewards.

Just because it is “one time” doesn’t mean it needs to be limited time; that is the lesson I want to be taken away from this debacle. What Anet could do is accept that the servers just cannot handle the events as they have crafted them and instead focus on creating content that is for a group of 15-20, rather than a group of 50-75. I know that it is more epic to have tons of people and tons monsters, but what is in no way epic is dealing with such horrendous lag and model culling that I don’t see half of the stuff going on 10 feet in front of me.

Anet, please… part of what made GW1 so much fun was the instanced system that gave any player the feeling of seeing content as it was happening. There was a sense of story and achievement. I really enjoyed that, and so did a lot of other players, to my understanding. I think you should be using that well honed technique to greater advantage in GW2. You have a fantastic base to work from, use it.

Please invite Emanuel Valintide
To the server

Were it not for the fact that due to a disconnect/crash/whatever I was unable to join the overflow server I was previously on, I would have been willing to call this a reasonable event.

The lag was stunning in places, yes… but even that is something I can find forgivable. Personally, once I saw what the rewards were via guild chat, I was actually getting happy about seeing the event through rather than feeling like a nap would be more thrilling. Being teased with the EPIC reward (the named items can cost up to 200G on my server) only to be denied due to a server hiccup or glitch or whatever… that turned this from “alright” into “Hmm, I might want to uninstall.”

Honestly, please consider some way of giving out some rewards to those of us who were nearly finished (flagged for getting the Ancient Karaka into the cave) or I might just consider my time in Tyria at it’s logical end-point.

If you have the flag for the completion of the event involving driving the ancient Karaka back into it’s lair, and you did not collect the reward chest, you should be mailed it. Simple as that.

They can do a quick scan of their DB for those two parameters and solve a large chunk of the problem by implementing that fix.

I was up to the final stage on my overflow server, in the middle of a huge Rez party about to take on the boss for the final time down in the Lava and BAM… disconnect. I was unable to join another server that still had the event active. This took me about 3 hours, give or take a few minutes.

I’m gonna give it a day or two, but I am seriously thinking about uninstalling this game. Something I do for entertainment shouldn’t be this frustrating or disappointing. I play these games for fun and I was really looking forward to a new 20 slot bag and that awesome trinket… now I am just fuming mad and rather disillusioned with this event and potential fun of future events.

ArenaNet, please help to restore some good faith by giving anyone who was flagged for the quest/event completion in driving back the Ancient Karaka the quest rewards as if they were finished. That would be awesome for you to do and fairly easy to implement.

Mesmers are WvW Gods, when played right. They can kite small armies and are kitten near impossible to kill if they use their clones and escape abilities correctly. They have good damage output and they are one of the single most annoying things to try and fight I’ve run into.

First of all, I want to say that I think the new zone is absolutely awesome! The layout is a ton of fun, and the various new monsters are well designed, dangerous and properly balanced. The art is great and the sound is equally impressive. The art I have seen from the Fractal is equally as impressive and I hope to enjoy all it has to offer before too long.

The issues I have are with the large-scale events and buggy quests. I think there is a consensus among the players that the execution of these events was sub-par. It is a wonderful idea, don’t get me wrong… the main city in the game being besieged and the citizenry forced to fight off the invading menace is good in-game story telling. The problem comes down to the fact that the delivery of such a story was so lag ridden, so buggy and so generic that it took a lot away from what could have been awesome.

There was never a sense of “danger” as much as there was a sense of annoyance and frustration. That same feeling translated to the broken and bugged quests that were supposed to give us a sense of discovery, and instead gave disappointment. I don’t want to descend into hyperbole and vitriol, but I feel as those these are accurate words to describe the feelings of most people who attempted these events.

As a suggestion, I would say that you could have taken a lot better advantage of your instancing system, creating a version of LA that was essentially a dungeon for maybe 20-30 people, plus a gaggle of NPC types. This would allow the initial wave to “overwhelm” the first line of defense, forcing a general retreat and regrouping, then moving through the city to clear out the infestation. The “main town” would then be the damaged, smashed up aftermath, with the supplies used to rebuild that. The damage as it is, comes across as superficial and unconcerning. That is just one idea for how to handle it… and that method also allows everyone who wants to to experience the “one time event” or opt-out as they so choose. Take advantage of the instance system you have in this game more heavily! I think that would be awesome.

The underlying issue is that this event felt extremely rushed. You had just come off the Halloween event, which set the bar rather high, and so nothing until a winter-tide event would be totally understandable. Honestly, if you’d waited until after the Holidays and put some deep polish into the various parts of this, it could have been truly spectacular. I personally would rather you have less events with more refinement then a hurried and broken event every month. Please… take your time, do it well! I promise that even if I stop playing for a bit, I’ll come back to enjoy these events, as long as they are fun! The more buggy and underwhelming they are, the less likely they are to be able to draw me back in as my interest in current content wanes.

If you fight them underwater, they don’t seem to use their spit attack at all. Where they are a serious threat to my thief on land, when I get me into the depths they become quite easy prey.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

We’re all waiting for that MMORPG that doesn’t see this huge decline in numbers after the first few months. GW2 has all the design elements to be that game but it’s a bug ridden, unbalanced mess. I love the game. I played it five hours yesterday, I’m not leaving it, but I’m also not sugar coating what it currently is because that does no one any good. It’s not good enough to loose 40-50% of your user base and then say “well, they will come back when new content comes”. If that happens to your game then as a MMORPG developer you have failed.

Why not?

I have done this multiple times with MMORPG style games. For example, I played DDO when it first launched, capped my character and then stopped playing for a year or more. When the game went F2P I actually signed back up, paid the subscription fee and played for another 3-4 months to see the new stuff. If a game has 80 hours of content in it until I feel it is “done” and I play it for 80 hours… then go back when they add another 20 hours of content, how is that failure? I view games as having a limited life span rather than being an endless experience; even MMO titles. Even online shooters get dull after a while… I enjoy novelty. I am a casual gamer.

I would imagine I am not alone in this. It’s not that the game has failed… it’s given me my monies worth and I feel satisfied with that. I have “been there and done that” so to speak. I’ve helped killed a dragon, I’ve saved the damsel in distress. I’ve fought in pitched battles and seen keeps fall and driven off invaders with an army of cohorts at my back. I’ve played the game, it has been a blast and I just don’t have the desire to do it all over again. I rarely watch the same movie multiple times without months or years between viewings, and the same goes for video game content. I almost wish the game took longer, hence my comment about slowing down the level progression and making the game take a little longer to get through, allowing me to savor the novel experience a bit more.

Guild Wars 2 is NOT dying.

It is, however, going through the normal population balancing that occurs in every major modern MMORPG title. There is an explosion of population for the first month or two, and then a dramatic drop off. That is one reason why I think Anet did not scramble to buy up new servers, but used the Overflow system instead.

The reasons behind this decline are fairly easy to figure out, and include;
1) People lose interest and/or it failed to meet expectations.
2) People complete the game to their satisfaction.
3) Something else becomes more interesting.
4) People want to wait until the game is done being balanced/patched and they will come back “later”.

The first three reasons apply to any video game, really. The fourth is the only one that Anet has any real say in at this point. In every MMORPG the game launches and undergoes changes, sometimes very large ones. From the various reboots of Star Wars Galaxy to the ever changing classes of WoW, the game you play at launch is rarely the game you play a year later. Quite a few gamers are aware of this, myself included, and so we are waiting to see what direction Anet will take this game in terms of content progression, balance and content addition. Will we need to “buy” content packs, ah-la DDO, or will they release more traditional expansions? How will the game move forward in terms of balance?

As to the first two points the “game” itself, its core mechanics and world-scape are done. I highly doubt that any of these things will be altered dramatically. Personally, I would love to see every weapon and weapon set gain an alternate ability or two that can be placed on the bar and swapped like utility skills, but I don’t think that will happen as it would be a huge amount of content to create, along with animations and etc. They couldn’t include it in an expansion only, as that would severely impact PvP balance.

Right now, after getting a character to max level, seeing 50%+ of the content and doing some WvWvW… I don’t feel the desire to do more. The “Effort Vs. Reward” ratio jumps dramatically at this point, requiring me to grind for hours to get better gear than the 80 rares that I have. Simply put, that isn’t fun to me. Because the leveling is so fast and so easy, I think the game creates an expectation that all of the progression will follow that same rate. Personally, I think increasing the XP needed to level on every level by 25-50% would have been a good idea, as it would give players more time to see all of the content in an area as well as giving them more incentive to see more areas in the world. Right now, it’s almost too fast, but that is simply my personal opinion. The cat is out of the bag in that regard, but it still could have helped make the game feel more drawn out so that way people wouldn’t be “done” with it so soon.

This is all just my opinion, so take it as that alone.

If the game doesn’t have build VoIP, then it is not a tool that should be required in order to beat a dungeon. I have an expectation that the game will provide me will all that is necessary in order to be able to overcome any PvE content provided. The minimum level, for example promises that a challenge will not be impossible or otherwise awfully frustrating past a certain level. Before that point, I do not have all of the “tools” necessary to over-come the challenge. (Hit points, armor, elite skills, etc.)

Thanks all for the feedback, I’ll be trying out a new build sometime in the next couple of days and if it works dramatically better, I’ll be sure to either post in this thread or make a new one explaining the differences. Right now I am enjoying running around the world doing boss events to help build up my money supply (and my morale :P )

What spec do you recommend? What gear is optimal? Should I focus on Vitality or Toughness? Should I stick with pistols or accept I need to use my bow? What skills do I need to be using?

I tried to run CM Story Mode a few times post patch, and I have found that the group spends more time rezzing me than they do actually fighting. I am not built to tank, as I prefer to be the single target DPS machine/de-buffer all of my class mechanics suggest I am supposed to be. I use my pistols when in dungeons so I can stack vulnerability and/or blind, depending on the situational need. Melee means a quick and pointless death, and I find the short bow skills quite boring.

On the first fight, I was being one-shotted by the rockets the golem fires even when I was standing BEHIND a bush or pillar. The only thing that seemed to block the incoming rockets was the central fountain, and even that seemed to only work occasionally. He was firing them so quickly that I burned through my dodge and it didn’t have time to come back up. I’d be having to dodge his grab as well, as he seemed to want to target me primarily.

We managed to beat the door guard just fine, but then the new ambush just leveled us, along with the fight that followed. The bombers who can spam their VERY LARGE AoE dmg/knock downs were insanely frustrating, and in the confines of the narrow corridors, it was difficult to see if there was a RRoD on the ground. If I missed just one, it was pretty much instant death for me. For the record I am level 80 and have full 80 yellow gear, which should allow me to survive a couple of shots from something. I read mobs target the person with the highest AC. We had a warrior in our group who was level 45, but I guess even with the scaling I was still a “bigger threat”.

A lot of people on the forums seem to think I should build my character differently, with different gear to boot. I enjoy being a glass cannon when I can actually do my job. What I don’t enjoy is that I now have to choose between my normal “fun” build and another build which I am required to farm up money/mat’s for, and will have to pay for every time I want to go between a dungeon and WvW/PvP. If it takes about 5 silver to change your build each way, plus the cost of the inevitable repairs, you are looking at a good 20-30 silver for every dungeon run, AFTER you’ve acquired another set of gear.

What can I do as a thief to make myself more useful to the group without changing my build? I use my AoE stealth/heal whenever I see a good moment, I summon my Thief buddies for added DPS and to give the mobs more targets whenever we are getting rushed, or during boss fights. I’ll lay down traps if there are good places for them, but it all amounts to me getting killed in just a few seconds, and watching the fight from the floor.

TL:DR
Do I need to build myself as a tank in order to be successful in a dungeon? What skills should I be using in a dungeon to help me not get downed in the first few seconds of a fight? Is there something about Story Mode dungeons I am just not understanding, and if so, what advice can you give?

2/10

Simply put, the most recent changes were a step in the wrong direction. Story Mode on CM was well balanced. That is the difficulty that ALL story mode dungeons should have, in my opinion. Instead, I feel like the one dungeon I could succeed at with minimal deaths has been turned into another grueling slug-fest that makes my group treat each other poorly, ruins the fun and experience of the game, and makes me feel like I’d rather be doing anything else but playing this game.

I know I am one voice among many, but I hope that if enough people post about the same issue, Anet will change their direction.

Now, why 2/10 instead of something else? Because I feel that all “paths” in explorable mode should be of similar difficulty, and that one path shouldn’t be exclusively farmed. That concept is correct. I did like half a dozen CoF runs in one day and it was boring, tedious and just plain annoying. It also got me a lot of coin.

I understand the desire to have dungeon gear be something “hardcore”… but that is maybe 10% of your player-base. There is a LARGE portion of people who will get so beaten down by bad dungeon experiences that once they cap out their level and do some world-events, they will be done with your game.

So, in short, PLEASE make Story Mode more in line with world content, and leave your explorable mode for those who want to be Hardcore. I don’t care if you make Story Mode give 50% less reward in terms of XP/money for every run over the course of a 24 hour period… but make them more FUN to play through casually.