Guild Wars 2

Einlanzer.1627:

Daroon.1736:

Einlanzer.1627:

Daroon.1736:

Einlanzer.1627:

Vayne.8563:

Einlanzer.1627:

I did not say it was a “fact”, however, common sense will tell you that any attempt at unnecessarily controlling players’ time or fantasy is ill-conceived, which both LW1 and the ranger pet thing represent.

It’s also a fact that not having LW1 in the game creates a big hole in the story that should be a priority for them to address.

And yet many people are saying Season 1 was the best living story season and they wish that would happen again. So it’s not a fact that it was a bad decision. It’s only a fact that you didn’t like it.

It’s not about the quality of season 1 as a story. It’s about the decision to do it in a temporary format (shortsighted and badly planned) and then not bring it back when they revised the narrative structure, which I’ve stated multiple times.

It was a bad decision, fact. Smart people knew this at the time, and Anet (Colin) learned it from the ongoing frustration and falloff it caused among players leading to their decision to change they structure for future LW’s and move away from temporary content.

I mean Jesus, people, we’re not talking rocket science here. People love to try to conflate fact with opinion when the facts don’t agree with them. You do this thing commonly where you don’t even understand the point that’s being made and you decide to white knight about it anyway. Super annoying.

While it is completely off topic to this thread….I would strongly disagree. The decision to do S1 in a ‘temporary’ format was both bold and innovative. The fact that many players were/are not able to get out of their fixed MMO mindsets and adapt to the concept that the game world should change and evolve is and was always going to be an uphill struggle.

Yes, it was because they “just didn’t get it”, lol.

No. It may have been “bold and inventive”, but it was also a terrible idea. What it amounted to was Arenanet driving players from the game by trying to control their time and then ruining the cohesion of their own story and wrecking player immersion when people couldn’t or didn’t want to permanently conform their schedules to Arenanet’s.

At the end of the day, the only way to have a truly “living world” in an MMO is to create the world in such a way that the players manage it, like Ultima, Eve, or SWG. In other words, this concept only works in a sandbox that’s player-ran.

GW2 isn’t built that way – it’s a fundamentally EQ-based PvE structure that Arenanet manages, so this idea was never going to pan out and just led to 1.5 years of wasted content development that the game has paid for ever since.

Empty zones aren’t really that much of a problem with the dynamic server system, so you can just set aside that hyperbole.

Would that be the dynamic server system that they promised they were ‘looking into a fix’ 2 years ago? The one that still sends ten different players into 10 different empty maps instead of putting them all together into one full map? The one that is so badly broken that it is responsible for making HOT so solo player unfriendly?

Again, that’s hyperbole. I have way fewer problems with empty maps in this game than I have in every other MMO I’ve played. And it’s only the HoT maps that every present a problem, because they are expansive and altogether difficult for solo players. The way you deal with that is recruiting a friend or two to play with you, or move on to other areas of the game that provide easier content for mostly the same rewards.

A game should be designed to make it as easy as possible for players to maximize their enjoyment of the content – not having those system in place and forcing players to ‘move on to other areas of the game that provide easier content’ is not good design and reinforces the original point of this thread.

Design a whole expansion around group content and forget to ensure that the underpinning game systems support your developments – I refer you back to the supposition of my original post regarding being able to store build templates.

Einlanzer.1627:

Daroon.1736:

Einlanzer.1627:

Vayne.8563:

Einlanzer.1627:

I did not say it was a “fact”, however, common sense will tell you that any attempt at unnecessarily controlling players’ time or fantasy is ill-conceived, which both LW1 and the ranger pet thing represent.

It’s also a fact that not having LW1 in the game creates a big hole in the story that should be a priority for them to address.

And yet many people are saying Season 1 was the best living story season and they wish that would happen again. So it’s not a fact that it was a bad decision. It’s only a fact that you didn’t like it.

It’s not about the quality of season 1 as a story. It’s about the decision to do it in a temporary format (shortsighted and badly planned) and then not bring it back when they revised the narrative structure, which I’ve stated multiple times.

It was a bad decision, fact. Smart people knew this at the time, and Anet (Colin) learned it from the ongoing frustration and falloff it caused among players leading to their decision to change they structure for future LW’s and move away from temporary content.

I mean Jesus, people, we’re not talking rocket science here. People love to try to conflate fact with opinion when the facts don’t agree with them. You do this thing commonly where you don’t even understand the point that’s being made and you decide to white knight about it anyway. Super annoying.

While it is completely off topic to this thread….I would strongly disagree. The decision to do S1 in a ‘temporary’ format was both bold and innovative. The fact that many players were/are not able to get out of their fixed MMO mindsets and adapt to the concept that the game world should change and evolve is and was always going to be an uphill struggle.

Yes, it was because they “just didn’t get it”, lol.

No. It may have been “bold and inventive”, but it was also a terrible idea. What it amounted to was Arenanet driving players from the game by trying to control their time and then ruining the cohesion of their own story and wrecking player immersion when people couldn’t or didn’t want to permanently conform their schedules to Arenanet’s.

At the end of the day, the only way to have a truly “living world” in an MMO is to create the world in such a way that the players manage it, like Ultima, Eve, or SWG. In other words, this concept only works in a sandbox that’s player-ran.

GW2 isn’t built that way – it’s a fundamentally EQ-based PvE structure that Arenanet manages, so this idea was never going to pan out and just led to 1.5 years of wasted content development that the game has paid for ever since.

Empty zones aren’t really that much of a problem with the dynamic server system, so you can just set aside that hyperbole.

Would that be the dynamic server system that they promised they were ‘looking into a fix’ 2 years ago? The one that still sends ten different players into 10 different empty maps instead of putting them all together into one full map? The one that is so badly broken that it is responsible for making HOT so solo player unfriendly?

zealex.9410:

Daroon.1736:

rapthorne.7345:

No. Devs have said they are aware people want build templates, but they are not a priority and will not be a part of PoF release

This pretty much sums up the state of the game.

I think it was more like it was too much work to get on time for pof. Which tru spagetti code rarely allows us to have nice things.

When you have a car with a broken engine and you have promised a passenger you will get him to his destination 20 miles away, you have 2 options:

1 – The difficult one – find the fault and fix the engine
2 – Push.

Zaklex.6308:

Daroon.1736:

The reason I specifically asked about build templates was because with 9 new elites specializations coming, coupled with the fact that the recent direction of the game has been towards harder ‘group’ content that requires players to be easily be able to switch builds to get into groups – A build template system should have been something the Dev’s considered as an essential game system that they should have developed years ago in anticipation of where they were taking the game, rather than something that players wanted and ‘not a priority’

This and all the other examples we have had over the years of ‘things’ introduced to the game without proper thought or planning which resulted in them either being abandoned or having to find ‘fixes’ after the fact, really do sum up the state of the game.

Anet needs to work on ensuring that underlying game systems and mechanics are in place, before, not after introducing content.

Alternative, let those people that insist on specific builds for the ‘group’ content form their groups, then follow along with what ever it is you use and complete the content anyways. The only place it makes sense is for FotM, Raids, PvP and WvW…you can get away with practically anything in PvE.

So that what you are saying is that; because the underlying game systems are not in place, players shouldn’t bother playing the 80% of content you mention?

Thanks – you illustrated my point perfectly.

The reason I specifically asked about build templates was because with 9 new elites specializations coming, coupled with the fact that the recent direction of the game has been towards harder ‘group’ content that requires players to be easily be able to switch builds to get into groups – A build template system should have been something the Dev’s considered as an essential game system that they should have developed years ago in anticipation of where they were taking the game, rather than something that players wanted and ‘not a priority’

This and all the other examples we have had over the years of ‘things’ introduced to the game without proper thought or planning which resulted in them either being abandoned or having to find ‘fixes’ after the fact, really do sum up the state of the game.

Anet needs to work on ensuring that underlying game systems and mechanics are in place, before, not after introducing content.

rapthorne.7345:

No. Devs have said they are aware people want build templates, but they are not a priority and will not be a part of PoF release

This pretty much sums up the state of the game.

Specifically will there be a system for saving and swapping builds when the expansion is released?

At the very least, I was hoping for World 3 Map 1 – Even something the size of one of the world one zones would have sufficed.

Anything that removes the possibility that I will ever again be subjected to the horrific sound of ‘that’ bow for extended periods, gets my vote.

SeanConroy.9580:

We’ve been monitoring discussions about the Hearts and Minds instance and I’d like to take a moment to communicate the plans we have to address your concerns. The recent release of the Caladbolg content made it increasingly clear that we should take the time to make Hearts and Minds a more polished experience for all players. I picked up this project and am happy to say that we have a multitude of fixes in progress that we will release in a future update.

I would like to be clear on the scope of the changes being made: It is my goal to fix all blocking bugs within the instance and to address as many QoL issues as are quickly actionable. A major mechanical overhaul of the encounters is not in the works, but I will incorporate small changes that should result in noticeable improvements to the fun and quality of the experience.

When this update goes live, we hope you will share your thoughts about the changes on the forums. As always, we welcome your feedback.

Like many I am very happy to hear this but, over a year to even acknowledge that the climax to your first expansion has been broken since day 1 – Really?

Also, over a year ago, John Smith, said he was working on fixing mega servers. Since then, the countless and endless threads about empty maps keep on coming – Any chance, this might be addressed eventually?

It does indeed – happened to me twice. I’m surprised more ppl haven’t reported it.

It’s been over a year since they posted that they were looking at a fix for mega servers.
Don’t hold your breath.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Due to an potential exploit related to drops from Jade Fragments, we have temporarily disabled the drop of Jade Shards from the fragments. Players may continue to mine Jade Fragments for Unbound Magic and Bloodstone Dust, but will not get Jade Shards until we have addressed the issue. Thanks for your understanding.

One word – Mega-servers.

At some point someone has to realise that it is much more sensible to address the root cause, rather than constantly applying patches or fixes to the unwanted effects.

It’s been about a year since John Smith posted that he was looking into addressing some of the problems the current implementation of Mega-servers is causing.

Any news?

Camera issues have been a known problem in the game since day 1, yet In the same patch that they removed a roof of the Khylo pvp map – ‘The Clock Tower has had its roof removed to improve visibility and camera behavior.’ they design a boss fight that requires lots of evasion and total awareness of your surroundings, in a small enclosed room.

Enough Said.

6 achievements are already auto completed from last year too, so unless it’s a bug, can’t earn those again this year either.

I’m not sure what the ‘spending items for karma’ reference has to do with this but I also noticed that these 6 achievements automatically appeared as completed.

A simple test will solve this problem now and for all future items – Do the following 2 rules apply? If so, the item in question should be in material storage.

1 – Its description states ’crafting material (profession(level))
2 – It is a first tier crafting material ie It cannot be in itself crafted

Conncept.7638:

As someone who has been playing since the first halloween event, casually at that, there is literally nothing for me to do but work on that nightmarish bullkitten of a backpiece, the ascended bat themed one. Which is a giant wast of time with how much resources/gold/dumb luck it takes, could spend all my playtime with no guarantee that I’ll even get everything to make it with before the event ends, and that with spending obscene amounts of gold as well.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I don’t want new Halloween content. I want more changes to the world (Living World & current events) and more festivals that are mostly repeats.

Put another way, I’d rather see dev resources applied to changing the game’s permanent content rather than on a festival that lasts only a few weeks.

Why not both? They could pull this off when they first launched the game with the bare bones of a plan for what they were going to do for both the holidays and the living story, with just as many or possibly even fewer developers and resources than they have now, and with less experience under their belts at that.

How exactly they have they become worse at pumping out content with time? It doesn’t make any sense, if anything they should have been improving and developing a more consistent pipeline over the last four years.

It’s very simple – The vast majority of the team are working on the next expansion.

Ayrilana.1396:

Daroon.1736:

Ayrilana.1396:

Daroon.1736:

Nordom.3485:

Daroon.1736:

A very reasonable request.

Why anyone should object; other than the fact that certain posters believe everything Anet does is beyond criticism, is beyond me.

What anet does is criticized multiple times a day in these very forums, what you’re suggesting is that every criticism is beyond discussion which is practically against the very concept of a forum

I believe that the concept of guilds was to band together towards a common goal and beating missions that would be otherwise impossible; and as time passes your guild grows and you can do more and more, therefore progressing and leveling up your guild.
Allowing 2-3 people to clear this content would make guild missions lose their meaning since everyone could just make his own guild and solo them whenever he pleases. It’s like asking raid content to be cleared by 1 person and still yield the same rewards, it’s counterintuitive.

What I’m suggesting is that some players actually need to read the posts and take time to understand and then critically analyze what is being discussed before going into ‘everything is fine’ ‘I love Anet’ mode.

For instance, you state “Allowing 2-3 people to clear this content would make guild missions lose their meaning” yet the current requirement that the OP is discussing is already 3 players.

People could use what you said and argue for anything such as mounts. The vast majority of guild missions can be completed by a group of players. I want to say that every mission can be done by five players but I haven’t personally tried it for some.

Anet tends to balance group content towards the number of players that they would consider a group. Dungeons are balanced for five players and raids are balanced for 10 players. Claiming a guild hall was balanced to either 5 or 10 players. I can’t remember which was stated by Anet. What I do remember is that Anet claimed anything less than five players not what they would consider a guild.

The problem is that if you were to change the balancing to accommodate those that are in guilds of less than five players, what’s left to stop people from wanting guild missions to all be capable of being completed solo? Balancing it around 2-3 players isn’t too far from that.

Please take the time to read and understand the points the op is making and which I was discussing.

He states ’ If that guild only has 2-3 players, there is no reason to have arbitrary requirements for participation so long as the mission is otherwise doable with any number.’

Nowhere is balance discussed – what is being discussed is the requirement that 3 players are REQUIRED for example for the WvW missions sentry and camp captures.

Q: How does it negatively affect you, the game or any other player in any way whatsoever, if this requirement was dropped?

A: It doesn’t

Telling me to read their points again, when I have, and disagree with them serves no purpose.

Just because something doesn’t affect someone else, doesn’t mean it should be made available. One could use that as a means to argue for anything in the game. Sorry but no.

Guild missions were meant for a large group of players although the vast majority can be done with as little as five.

Perhaps you should also read and understand the Anet post you directed me to:

“As a result, we decided that in the new system, guild missions will be free to run as much as you want. Each mission will give its bounty of favor only once per week, on the first successful run, but each member can get their personal commendation rewards by running the mission at any time during the week, even if the guild has already completed it.”

Quite clearly each member cannot get their personal commendation rewards by running the mission at any time during the week because the requirement is set at 3.

Ayrilana.1396:

Daroon.1736:

Nordom.3485:

Daroon.1736:

A very reasonable request.

Why anyone should object; other than the fact that certain posters believe everything Anet does is beyond criticism, is beyond me.

What anet does is criticized multiple times a day in these very forums, what you’re suggesting is that every criticism is beyond discussion which is practically against the very concept of a forum

I believe that the concept of guilds was to band together towards a common goal and beating missions that would be otherwise impossible; and as time passes your guild grows and you can do more and more, therefore progressing and leveling up your guild.
Allowing 2-3 people to clear this content would make guild missions lose their meaning since everyone could just make his own guild and solo them whenever he pleases. It’s like asking raid content to be cleared by 1 person and still yield the same rewards, it’s counterintuitive.

What I’m suggesting is that some players actually need to read the posts and take time to understand and then critically analyze what is being discussed before going into ‘everything is fine’ ‘I love Anet’ mode.

For instance, you state “Allowing 2-3 people to clear this content would make guild missions lose their meaning” yet the current requirement that the OP is discussing is already 3 players.

People could use what you said and argue for anything such as mounts. The vast majority of guild missions can be completed by a group of players. I want to say that every mission can be done by five players but I haven’t personally tried it for some.

Anet tends to balance group content towards the number of players that they would consider a group. Dungeons are balanced for five players and raids are balanced for 10 players. Claiming a guild hall was balanced to either 5 or 10 players. I can’t remember which was stated by Anet. What I do remember is that Anet claimed anything less than five players not what they would consider a guild.

The problem is that if you were to change the balancing to accommodate those that are in guilds of less than five players, what’s left to stop people from wanting guild missions to all be capable of being completed solo? Balancing it around 2-3 players isn’t too far from that.

Please take the time to read and understand the points the op is making and which I was discussing.

He states ’ If that guild only has 2-3 players, there is no reason to have arbitrary requirements for participation so long as the mission is otherwise doable with any number.’

Nowhere is balance discussed – what is being discussed is the requirement that 3 players are REQUIRED for example for the WvW missions sentry and camp captures.

Q: How does it negatively affect you, the game or any other player in any way whatsoever, if this requirement was dropped?

A: It doesn’t

Nordom.3485:

Daroon.1736:

A very reasonable request.

Why anyone should object; other than the fact that certain posters believe everything Anet does is beyond criticism, is beyond me.

What anet does is criticized multiple times a day in these very forums, what you’re suggesting is that every criticism is beyond discussion which is practically against the very concept of a forum

I believe that the concept of guilds was to band together towards a common goal and beating missions that would be otherwise impossible; and as time passes your guild grows and you can do more and more, therefore progressing and leveling up your guild.
Allowing 2-3 people to clear this content would make guild missions lose their meaning since everyone could just make his own guild and solo them whenever he pleases. It’s like asking raid content to be cleared by 1 person and still yield the same rewards, it’s counterintuitive.

What I’m suggesting is that some players actually need to read the posts and take time to understand and then critically analyze what is being discussed before going into ‘everything is fine’ ‘I love Anet’ mode.

For instance, you state “Allowing 2-3 people to clear this content would make guild missions lose their meaning” yet the current requirement that the OP is discussing is already 3 players.

Spook.5847:

Small guilds already got completely hosed in HoT, so it would be nice if guilds, and guild missions (esp in pve) got a looks see for rebalancing in general, but one thing that is super annoying is that there is no scaling whatever for guild missions and quests now that they are the ONLY way to get guild points.

All guilds should have a choice as to how their missions are completed, just as all guilds deserve a chance to get and complete reasonable missions. If that guild only has 2-3 players, there is no reason to have arbitrary requirements for participation so long as the mission is otherwise doable with any number.

Also, it is clear that Anet’s idea of what an “easy” mission is can be very far removed from the reality of in-game play. So I would suggest you take a look at mission classification, and adding new missions, too.

A very reasonable request.

Why anyone should object; other than the fact that certain posters believe everything Anet does is beyond criticism, is beyond me.

I don’t understand why the decision was made to put all of the ‘expensive’ elements of the legendary collections in stage 2.

I’m sure like many, I unlocked most (all in my case) of the tier 1 collections and found the tasks quite enjoyable, particularly when there was a content gap.

Having now completed them all however, it really is only feasible to complete tier 2 for one or two weapons, which means that all of the dev time and effort that went into the tier 3 collection journeys is not being utilized as playable content for most players.

Would it not make sense to swap the tiers 2 and 3 around and thereby unlock a huge amount of content that could be experienced by many, many more players.

mauried.5608:

Whats the average ingame income of a GW2 player?

As others have indicated, you would need to clarify the question in order to get an answer.

Do you want to know how much an average player earns per hour or per day? or are you asking what is the average total wealth of players?

Ayrilana.1396:

Zoid.2568:

OriOri.8724:

They literally just said a day ago that they are going to stop interfering with the economy and let it sort itself out. We just lost any chance we would have had of ANet actually fixing the leather market

That’s insane. How would leather fix itself when it’s all ArenaNet’s fault? it’s the drop rate that is the problem. How can we as players change that? We can’t change the code, as we don’t have the authority to do so.

I don’t mean they have to manipulate every item in the game, but when something is as severe as this and they just let it be, then it’s a sign that they don’t care about their game and their players.

Drop rate hasn’t changed since launch from what I recall. Anet is only at fault for adding additional sinks for it with HoT and after. You then have players who are holding onto their leather or intentionally stockpiling large quantities.

The drop rate has absolutely changed.

At one time, a year or so ago, there was a scarcity of silk and an abundance of leather.
this was due to the tiny percentage of light armour drops Vs heavy or medium in particular (which made up most armour loot)

Anet came in and did a ‘fix’ and what we now have is the reverse of what was happening then. lots of light and heavy armour Vs very very little medium armour drops.

This is not a players holding on to items problem, this is a ‘Anet fixed one problem and created another’ issue.

Greener.6204:

Out of curiosity (as I am a previously proven non-economist), would you believe it healthy for some people to view the economy more as a barter system than a monetary one?

Edit: To add an anecdote (as I believe perspective plays a big role), I’m currently in need of a lot of empty kegs. I’ve been gathering flax for months. I’m also currently annoyed with the overflow of linen scraps on my main character (I guess I just filled my bank). Yet at no point up until now did I think, “Hey, my friend Tippy over there has some kegs and wants some linen; maybe we should trade.”

Yes, this is exactly how you should be thinking. Trying to gather just the materials you need is not the way to go – if you need 1,000 flax, go gather 1,000 other resources and sell them for the item you need.

sophiewhite.3149:

Fifth.8169:

SO AURIC BASIN continues to behave as unintended ???

All you gots to do really. is add a 5 minute account wide time out on map swapping by the user.

auric basin is fine sure. but the issue is map swapping… remove the option ?

you ever thought they think its ok?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0nyv3h?context=10000

John Smith also appears to be the dev in charge of Megaserver implementation (which is at the root of the AB multi loot issue).

The pattern seems to be – If it’s not working properly, do nothing and hope it goes away.

Now if I was a cynical person, I might translate this statement:

Since the last disappointing Quarterly sales report, we have seen a nice increase in Gem sales revenue in the last few months. This revenue increase is mainly due to players converting gems to gold in order to purchase materials which cannot be easily farmed or obtained consistently through regular game play, and as such, we are very happy with the current economy and won’t be applying any measures to try and ease this situation until such time as Gem sales start to fall again.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I have nothing against alts, but why do the event with all alts? Likely, the reward, whatever it should be, will be one per account.

Just curious.

For the time being I am personally holding off doing so, but no one has any idea how important or useful a fully upgraded device may be in the future.

What if, when the next set of destination rifts are added, some are in locations that are inaccessible by other means or required for future story steps? In these cases, anyone wishing to participate with an alt will need to fully upgrade their devices.

Also, if a third number range is added to the device if/when it is upgraded again, the possible number of combinations (and therefore locations) is going to be well in excess of 1,000, which would make it an extremely useful device to have on any character for getting around to out of the way locations.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Yes, I was surprised to find the devices/stabilizers soul-bound. I would not have used the character I initially used, had I known.

Otoh, I did open some map areas, easily, that character had not been to before.

I’m not sure if I want to start over with my Main, or not.

It would be nice if a Dev could feedback whether this was intended or not – 13 locations to upgrade to level 2 is going to be a major task for those with many alts, but it’s doable.

If the item upgrades to level 3 however and it requires visiting over 150 locations, well…….

I have a couple of comments regarding the rift events, one obvious and one not so.

Firstly, I would implore the Devs to look carefully at the design of all future events, so that the amount of time players are expected to ‘stand around’ waiting for things to happen is minimized.

Unless you are very lucky (and the destination rift is open), whilst completing all 13 rifts, the vast majority of your time is going to be spent waiting for a rift to open.
Yes, I know you can map back to the pond to continue but in general, a lot of the events recently involve too much standing around and it is an issue I think the Designers should consider more carefully.

The second issue may well be a bug, but for those with Alts, The Rift device is currently soulbound so can not be used on other characters. Assuming that the device may well be essential or be very useful for getting around in future, and considering that the number of possible locations you will need to visit to upgrade the device further is going to increase exponentially – obtaining one for all alts is going to be a hugely time consuming task.

Djinn.9245:

Daroon.1736:

Djinn.9245:

Daroon.1736:

Not valuing players time seems to be a major issue Anet needs to address. Aside from losing progress after disconnecting or being ‘forced’ to change maps (I also had a 3hour+ SAB trib mode that bugged out right near the end), the story instances need to be designed so that all ‘chat’ can be skipped upon replay.

As for megaservers – both AB multi loot and all of the problems with DS (in fact HOT as a whole) can be attributed to the way megaservers are set up.

Wow, this is cow doodoo.

No prizes for well reasoned counter argument for you them.

I don’t understand your response – did you think I was criticizing you? I was saying that the situation was bad.

My mistake, I obviously misunderstood what you were referring to.

Djinn.9245:

Daroon.1736:

Not valuing players time seems to be a major issue Anet needs to address. Aside from losing progress after disconnecting or being ‘forced’ to change maps (I also had a 3hour+ SAB trib mode that bugged out right near the end), the story instances need to be designed so that all ‘chat’ can be skipped upon replay.

As for megaservers – both AB multi loot and all of the problems with DS (in fact HOT as a whole) can be attributed to the way megaservers are set up.

Wow, this is cow doodoo.

No prizes for well reasoned counter argument for you them.

Not valuing players time seems to be a major issue Anet needs to address. Aside from losing progress after disconnecting or being ‘forced’ to change maps (I also had a 3hour+ SAB trib mode that bugged out right near the end), the story instances need to be designed so that all ‘chat’ can be skipped upon replay.

As for megaservers – both AB multi loot and all of the problems with DS (in fact HOT as a whole) can be attributed to the way megaservers are set up.

So I set an hour or so aside to do the new JP and around checkpoint 2 , I get the ubiquitous mega server map is empty pop up box. Suffice to say, I get kicked off the map about 5 mins before completing it and (of course) no achievement and no reward because all progress was lost when I was forced to change maps.

Mega servers – working as intended.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Itzel Vendor, for example:

Obsidian Shards – Airship Parts and Karma (no Gold)
Pruning Shears – Airship Parts (no Gold)
Personal Airship Cargo Voucher (akin to a Home Instance Node) – Airship Parts (no Gold)

I find Unbound Magic extremely easy to come by. Just the Dailies award quite a bit, and one can always salvage Blood Rubies for more.

I suppose the added Gold cost is a bit like the Season 1 and Festival items acquired with Laurels and Gold. Truly, for many players, Gold is not that difficult to come by, anymore.

I couldn’t think of any but glad to see there are a few which don’t require gold.

I agree that for most players the additional gold is not a problem, but it still feels kind of cheap have to earn map currency rewards and then have to pay additional gold for the item.

I think Anet has done a good job of creating a ‘well I don’t think this fair/right, but I’ll put up with it anyway’ player mindset .

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Well, you can purchase things in the Heart of Thorns other maps for Map Currency alone. So, I guess it’s not a complete trend. /shrug

Doesn’t bother me; the very first thing I purchased in Bloodstone Fen was the Home Instance Node.

Hmm – I’m not sure about your first statement, I’m pretty sure all the vendors also want gold for items.

My question is why did you HAVE to pay 50g for the node? If collecting 10,000 unbound magic was seen as too trivial, Make it 20,000 or 30,000 but the rewards should surely be free?

Can anyone justify the increasing trend for ‘reward’ vendors to charge gold for items in addition to whatever currency that particular map takes?

For some time now (Since Silverwastes?) this practice seems to be the norm, culminating in the staggering 50g (in addition to 10,000 unbound magic) for the bloodstone home instance node.

Can anything be purchased for the map currency alone in either Dry Top – Silverwasters or Bloodstone? Off the top of my head, I think not.

Surely rewards should be given – The opportunity to purchase something, is not in my opinion, a reward.

There are enough gold sinks in the game and ‘oh but [insert map currency here] is so easy to collect’ or ‘you don’t need to buy those rewards’ are not valid reasons, nor do they provide any explanation as to why Anet has decided to go down this route.

Thoughts?

Chad.6104:

What is the point of having a minus (in combat for a minute)? You can’t use these in raids, WvW or PvP. That leaves dungeons and regular PvE. Are so many people doing dungeons that a full minute of in combat is needed?

Maybe arenanet needs to rethink this item. It’s expensive to buy for what it does and most of the time there’s a waypoint nearby so it’s easier to waypoint then run back rather than use something like that.

You’re assuming that Ring of fire and all future zones will have multiple waypoints.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Daroon.1736:

I concur that this would make much more sense than the current system but clearly the Dev’s responsible don’t agree. Apparently players who might want to play on a map are far more important than those that actually want to play on it – Go figure.

“A small buffer is reserved so parties can generally get into the map together” doesn’t at all indicate that they’re “far more important;” only that they’re worth a small amount of compromise to please as many people as currently possible. And, anyone who’s ever tried to get into Teq or Tarir late knows there’s a chance they won’t be able to taxi… demonstrating that at some point the map is going to be full of people who actually want to play on it.

edit: I also suspect none of us would be able to tell the difference between a map that is full with that reserve buffer unfilled, and a map that is full with that buffer also full.

~EW

I completely agree, but the evidence suggests that the ‘buffer’ is way too large at the moment which is resulting in way too many ‘empty’ maps being created and then closed after the grace period for those who might want to join expires and the system decides the map is underpopulated.

If each map was filled to at least 3/4 full before another was created, there would always (except on the map currently being filled) be enough ppl on any given map to complete any given meta and taxiing could be used (as intended) in those situations where players wish to join others on a different map.

Having a situation where a player arrives on a map 1 and within 5 seconds, is informed that the map is underpopulated is pretty inexcusable, particularly when, after they accept and change to map 2, the same dialogue is popping up again within minutes.

Lyp Sao.1375:

Daroon.1736:

…

Interesting statement from anet devs.

Why not let the guild members choose the MegaServer district?
“We meet on dis 24 guys, bring food …”

I concur that this would make much more sense than the current system but clearly the Dev’s responsible don’t agree. Apparently players who might want to play on a map are far more important than those that actually want to play on it – Go figure.

Vayne.8563:

Daroon.1736:

Vayne.8563:

GreyWolf.8670:

Nage.1520:

The “big” mega server complaint I remember was maps closing when people were doing the metas. That complaint has indeed been fixed. The other two complaints you have brought up, I can’t really address, but the pop up is something I"m not sure how they’d handle, because sometimes maps are closed simulatenously as a big event ends, or fails. As long as the server doesn’t close and you can stay on your server, I’m not sure if it’s an issue worth of a huge time investment.

Auric Basin tried to shut down right in the middle of the meta on us last night. It’s not fixed.

Tried to shut down, or the map closed? There’s a big difference.

The fix stopped maps from closing, not from getting any kind of message.

In the past maps closed. They don’t any more. That’s a fix. The message popping up…that’s an inconvenience. It only causes problems if someone actually clicks that they want to transfer maps, and furthermore, it only really matters if they’re not in a squad at that point and they can’t get back in.

The problem of maps closing has been fixed.

One of the reasons it pops up in AB by the way is the meta exploit. People are trying to get from your map into a multimap situations or they’re changing maps. As people move around, population changes and then the mega server message is triggered. They fix the multimap that will help AB as well…but the problem I was talking about, as far as I can tell is fixed.

The zone didn’t close.

I would agree that maps no longer close without warning, that indeed seems to be fixed.

That was not however the issue I was addressing. The problem of too many ‘Empty maps’ is still very much a problem (just look at the number of threads related to this issue that have appeared in the last 6 months) and as Anet have stated that Taxi’ing is not ideal, why have they not fixed it yet?

Just because something is not ideal, doesn’t mean there’s an actual solution that’s more ideal. It also doesn’t mean a solution can be performed in a timely manner. It also doesn’t mean that the solution won’t breed new problems.

It’s easy to say why don’t they fix this to a programmer. I’m pretty sure that most things we think are easy to fix are really really difficult to fix.

Why haven’t they fixed it? Because it’s not game breaking and other things are going to take priority.

Am I annoyed when a box pops up asking me if I want to transfer to another map. A tiny bit. Not worth a huge amount of effort from my point of view and I’m pretty sure fixing the megaserver generally, on any level, would make it prohibitive.

They absolutely had to fix the zone closing, because that’s infuriating. A hundred people on a DS map that closes being cheated out of a reward is absolutely infurating.

Having a warning pop up on a map to change zones a handful of times a day is far more bearable.

Did you look at the last of recently fixed bugs? It’s not like nothing is being done. Plenty is being worked on. Asking why a specific thing hasn’t been fixed, is ignoring how many things are being fixed.

I would have to respectfully disagree on both counts.

Firstly fromDev AMA on Reddit – March 2016
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/

‘Megaservers does what Gw1 did ala districts, except automatically. The downside, which really became apparent with HoT, is that we have an almost impossible problem to solve: how do we reserve space for all the people that will want to play together but are not currently playing together? Fans have solved his problem with taxiing, which is amazing, but obviously that is not the best solution. Or perhaps if it is the right way to do it we should make it easier. But the basic problem is a map holds N people and if we leave space for M people that may or may not show up, then it really only supports N-M people and if M is large, the map is mostly empty. Megaservers favors parties when grouping, which is why taxiing works: a small buffer is reserved so parties can generally get into the map together. But reserving say for an entire guild, where we don’t know how many will show up for any particular map, is a hard problem conceptually, never mind the programming of it. I’m open to suggestions.’

As you can clearly see it is not a technical issue – its a conceptual one ie they are insisting that prioritizing reserving space for players who MAY want to join friends is more important that full maps.

And with regard to this not being ‘important’ enough – I would suggest that when you design a whole expansion pack around Meta events that require full maps – fixing the system that controls those maps should be a top priority.

Vayne.8563:

GreyWolf.8670:

Nage.1520:

The “big” mega server complaint I remember was maps closing when people were doing the metas. That complaint has indeed been fixed. The other two complaints you have brought up, I can’t really address, but the pop up is something I"m not sure how they’d handle, because sometimes maps are closed simulatenously as a big event ends, or fails. As long as the server doesn’t close and you can stay on your server, I’m not sure if it’s an issue worth of a huge time investment.

Auric Basin tried to shut down right in the middle of the meta on us last night. It’s not fixed.

Tried to shut down, or the map closed? There’s a big difference.

The fix stopped maps from closing, not from getting any kind of message.

In the past maps closed. They don’t any more. That’s a fix. The message popping up…that’s an inconvenience. It only causes problems if someone actually clicks that they want to transfer maps, and furthermore, it only really matters if they’re not in a squad at that point and they can’t get back in.

The problem of maps closing has been fixed.

One of the reasons it pops up in AB by the way is the meta exploit. People are trying to get from your map into a multimap situations or they’re changing maps. As people move around, population changes and then the mega server message is triggered. They fix the multimap that will help AB as well…but the problem I was talking about, as far as I can tell is fixed.

The zone didn’t close.

I would agree that maps no longer close without warning, that indeed seems to be fixed.

That was not however the issue I was addressing. The problem of too many ‘Empty maps’ is still very much a problem (just look at the number of threads related to this issue that have appeared in the last 6 months) and as Anet have stated that Taxi’ing is not ideal, why have they not fixed it yet?

Sourde Noire.5286:

My biggest gripe is probably the disconnects. Especially because some instances seem to be more prone to them than others for whatever reason. I think I had to do the PS instance where you and Trahearne go into a cave to rescue a team and in the end fight a Lich and Abominations about 20 times, even though I’ve only done it on 10 characters. Mostly because I’d get a disconnect right at the end of this 20-30 minute dialogue fest.

The reason is probably, as usual, that they don’t know how to easily do it given the code and that they have more important things to do, but really. This existed in GW1 and it’s just the best feeling, knowing that, if you disconnect during the super long instance, you have up to 15 (?) minutes to attempt to reconnect with your progress being saved.

I mean, you may return to a wiped party and failed instance, but that’s better than a definitive kick.

I’m pretty sure they could do it quite easily – It already reconnects back to the same map or instance if you are in a party and if you disconnect from a PvP game you go straight back into the map you were playing.

Anet needs to place more of priority on fixing issues that values players time.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’m not sure why everyone brings up Districts. There were almost always only 1 or 2, except during Holidays/Festivals, and then one could not get into the popular districts, as they were always full. Districts only ‘spun up’ when the 1 or 2 existing ones were full.

I guess the big perceived advantage is being able to move to an unpopulated district voluntarily, as opposed to being placed in one here. /shrug

As you correctly state, there were only ever 1 or 2 districts because the system filled up one at a time and only created another when the district neared capacity.

This is NOT how Megaservers are working – if it were, they would be fine.
Megaservers create maps and reserve space for guild mates and friends for every player on the map. So if you have 10 players on a map – the system might be reserving 10 spaces for each of those players and therefore 10×10=100 and the map is considered full and a new one created.

^^^This is why there are so many empty maps.

It really isn’t rocket science, they just need to change the programming to fill one map at a time – they know this, they have stated this and yet they haven’t.

Nage.1520:

The “big” mega server complaint I remember was maps closing when people were doing the metas. That complaint has indeed been fixed. The other two complaints you have brought up, I can’t really address, but the pop up is something I"m not sure how they’d handle, because sometimes maps are closed simulatenously as a big event ends, or fails. As long as the server doesn’t close and you can stay on your server, I’m not sure if it’s an issue worth of a huge time investment.

I’m not convinced that any sort of ‘fix’ has taken place as you describe. What has occurred is that players are using the taxi system to try and get to ‘full’ maps as events start. This is fine for the few that succeed but the problem is that many can’t because there are so many players on empty maps, that when they all try to join the advertised one or two, they end up staring at the ‘the map you are trying to join is full’ dialogue, they give up in frustration.

The system should be filling one map at a time (similar to how the old district system worked in GW1) but at the moment, because the priority is to ensure that each new map created has reserved space for friends and guild mates to join – too many ‘empty’ maps are being created.

I’ve probably forgotten quite a few things here. but there seems to be an ever growing list of pretty important issues that Anet have commented at some time in the past ‘they are aware of’ that they have either;

(a) forgotten about
(b) hope players have forgotten about
© are still in the process of being being ‘fixed’

For brevity I’ll only list the two I feel cause me the most frustration – other can add more.

Mega Servers – Judging by how regularly the ubiquitous ‘empty map’ box pops up, particularly in HOT maps, either the game has so few players that it is struggling to fill maps or more likely, someone needs to get a grip and fix this. TD and DS then might actually become playable maps.

Disconnects – why oh why (particularly after the same issue was identified and fixed in GW1) are we still waiting for a system to be introduced that automatically puts you back on the same map/personal story instance/activity etc without progress being lost, if you disconnect and reconnect within a 3-5 min grace period?

Any chance of some sort of comment/update Anet?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Daroon.1736:

New Activity NPC, one day after launch.

I can only assume that there are major bugs with this activity that need fixing:

1- Missing Indicator so that players have some reasonable chance of seeing who has the tiny ball

2- No rewards

3- No related achievements.

If not and the game is ‘as intended’ – well……..

Or you could presume that they added it to let people try it out and let them know if it needed adjustments before adding it to the rotation. If that was their plan, they would:

• Not include rewards …yet.
• Not include achievements… yet.

And the lack of an “Indicator so that players have some reasonable chance of seeing who has the tiny ball” is exactly the sort of feedback they would want before making it permanent.

Do you really have that little confidence in the competence of the developers and testers, that you think that after 10 seconds of playing this game for the first time, they wouldn’t have spotted that it’s virtually impossible to see where the ball is or who has it?

Either it’s a bug or some sort of early April fools joke.

New Activity NPC, one day after launch.

I can only assume that there are major bugs with this activity that need fixing:

1- Missing Indicator so that players have some reasonable chance of seeing who has the tiny ball

2- No rewards

3- No related achievements.

If not and the game is ‘as intended’ – well……..

BrotherBelial.3094:

Kegger.4012:

The entire time I’ve played GW and GW2 there has never been an issue like this. They have no experience in situations like this.

I’d say they handled it pretty kitten well with that in mind. Good job Anet!

^all of this.

Pretty much agree with this – S*** happens, you know.

What I will say though is, as long a go as the Southsun opening event in LS1 , players were asking why Anet doesn’t have a public test server where new builds can be tested in a live environment by real players and major issues like this identified and fixed before being put out.