Guild Wars 2

Jaken.6801:

Are we really a leader of the pact btw.?
I mean we push our little team around and at the beginning we put Laranthier and the others in their place, but after that we aren`t really in any leading postition.

In fact everything else is just regulating itself.
We aren`t really part of any meetings or organize a lot of efforts.

As we are in the open world, we are basicaly one of serveral pact soldiers who help in the fight against Mordremoth.

However everything else is working itself out.

So, while we are the boss/the comander in the story, aside from being called that title and be thanked for our participation, there is just our passive involvement.

I would have liked some parts of the story, where we gather some of the surviving pact leaders and help organize anything.
I think that would have brought the open world and the story itself to a more fleshed out experience.

Technically, the personal story is just that – personal. You help the Pact as part of open world dynamic events. There are multiple instances when you’re directly referred to. I don’t remember the exact event, but there’s one wherein NPCs are allowed to stray from camp only if they’re accompanied by the Commander.

The usual MMO problem of a hundred main characters running around notwithstanding, you contribute significantly to the survival efforts in Verdant Brink, you secure an alliance with the Itzel and Nuhoch both, you essentially become responsible for providing the Pact a forward “camp” in the form of Tarir, you help untangle all of Tangled Depths and aid in the breach of Dragon’s Stand, where you also protect, fortify and lead the Pact. At least two VB dynamic event chains are centred around people you rescue in the PS, too.

Nope.

I had a love/hate relationship with the core game, with the scales slowly tipping in favour of the latter as the months went by, particularly due to the LS (even though the Zephyrite Bazaar was my favourite content update). For every thing I liked, there were two I disliked. Eventually, I moved on to other games.

There are definitely things I dislike about HoT, but of the many, many hours I’ve played it for by now, I’ve spent more of those enjoying the game than disliking it, enough to justify the price tag. Combined with QoL improvements the game has seen over these years, pre-purchasing the expansion revitalised the game for me. The future-proof nature of specialisations and the masteries, the new profession and specialisations themselves, the new and (usually enjoyably) challenging enemies. It’s been fun.

I think my greatest concern re: HoT is long-term. ArenaNet try to be transparent with their plans, more so these days than the first year of GW2, but they’ve released an expansion pack after saying they were satisfied enough with LS to have no plans for one for the foreseeable future. If I sub to XIV, I know exactly what to expect – major content patches every 3 months, with the team explicitly stating decade-long support if the finances hold up. If I sub to WoW, I know exactly what to expect as well, although that’s a little less fair of a comparison, considering WoW is 10+ years old.

With ArenaNet, they can’t even tell their community the exact time a seasonal update will end, and when I consider purchasing an expansion for an MMO, I see it as an investment in the future of the game. The future of this game has not been made clear to customers, but I made the purchase anyway. I don’t regret it, but I do worry a little.

I’m yet to see it complete, but I thought successfully completing it reveals the location of noxious chests, which you can open with machetes? Successful completion also unlocks the merchants from which you purchase various collection items, such as for your ascended elite specialisation gear.

Gorgaan Peaudesang.8324:

Jaken.6801:

Taimi
Can suddenly run at mach speed and was pretty quick to sacrifice her best mechanical friend, who she had just updated to a level where he can better protect her. Something she has basicaly just learned in S2.
She is still our technological marvel, who in my opinion shouldnt be so OP. She looks at something and instantly understands it.
By the way. Her being selfish and staying in an infested unsecure laboratory with no way out (by the way, how did we get out? That was a plot point.), with not even any sign of regret was bad, really really bad. “Hey, you got your vague answer. Now get out and let me raid this place. Shoo go save the world or something…”
That is not funny writing. She is a selfish brat, who hasnt learned anything.
Our PC saying: oh she will be allright without any real defense at the moment. is just as stupid.

The whole point of “Buried Insight” is Taimi trying to prove to the PC that she’s not a mascot nor a child, but an adult. It shows her evolution and the end shows this evolution to us (when she asks “Hey, would you ask Rytlock if he was sure? Canach?”, and we leave her alone soon after that).

In Strange Observations -> “Taimi’s out here alone? I better find her soon.”
In the beginning of Buried Insight -> “Time is of the essence, but we can’t leave her here alone.”

Taimi’s character development is fine, and the effects on our PC are great.

You explain the plot point as if it was cleverly hidden. I don’t think anyone could have missed it, the way the players were bombarded with it every step of the way – she restores power to Rata Novus, she saves Braham’s life, she sacrifices Scruffy (and understanding the cost of sacrifice is a sign of maturity in most cultures), she braves the chak horde alongside her companions unassisted by a golem, she’s the one to make them stop respawning, and lastly she decides to stay behind all on her own in an unfamiliar environment. This is on top of her S2 achievement of revolutionising waypoints and safeguarding them against Elder Dragons.

I think the complaint is more geared towards how it was handled rather than the message itself, and the message itself really was great. The line about not wanting to be the team’s mascot and especially PC’s response to it was absolutely great. Trying way too hard to prove the player that she’s independent was less so.

Daniel Handler.4816:

It speaks nothing to how it actually happened. If we infer that a charr experimented with a pistol we have to ask why such experimentation did not happen with a rifle or a hammer .

As novel charr technology (from firearms to the oft-mentioned printing press) became more widespread, no doubt countless individuals began to experiment with them. Mesmers likely romanticised the pistol, its deceptively small appearance veiling lethal power. That said, some developments in history happened with little rhyme or reason, and as such there needn’t be a hard reason for every single weapon that a profession can or can’t use. Then there are game restrictions, but…

The answer I believe is in game mechanics demand restrictions on what weapons each class can have.
The less they explain the harder it is to contradict themselves. To give a lore explanation would stifle creativity.

So they won’t tell us how a revenant channels the mist because when they break the mold they don’t want to be called out, they revel in the artistic freedom ambiguity provides.

That’s just not true. Ambiguity through omission is not creative freedom so much as avoidance of incompetence. It’s comparable to avoidance of a word you’re afraid of misspelling/misusing. Intentionally weaving mystery into your fiction can, however, be a good thing – it leaves doors open for the writer and keeps the players actively discussing the lore. I haven’t been around for GW1 but always thought it admirable how passionately the community discusses the lore. If ArenaNet just tossed in the mursaat with the only lore being their name plates and the need to ascend to fight them, those elusive beings wouldn’t have been a hot topic for years.

Game restrictions also don’t have to stifle writers, unless project managers decide their writing prowess is better spent elsewhere. We can’t go to the Crystal Desert? Why? It’s right there on the map, it “exists” in-universe, just not in-game. Yet there’s a reason as to why, same for Cantha. You could say they didn’t need to give us those reasons, since “it’s just a game” and ambiguity supposedly safeguards them against future retcons, but they did, and it gave us a better sense of the world and the scope of the Elder Dragon threat. Magic in Tyria is also immaculately explained, in the form of bloodstones and now ley lines (which, by the way, were also introduced while addressing and respecting the established lore of waypoints, even if they didn’t have to).

That said, I don’t really mind the lack of elite specialisation lore, personally. I think the hardest sell for me is believing that an illusionist gains access to time control skills, and I’d prefer it if a specific dynamic event (like the druid one) unlocked the elite specs instead of or in addition to the 60 points, but that’s about it. Revenant actually seemed the most straightforward to me – through research and/or a pilgrimage through the Mists, you invoke the powers of specific legends no less than how you invoke mesmer magic. It’s just different magic from a different source, tied to individuals so strong and historically prominent that they’re a veritable hotspot within the Mists.

My initial impression was that HoT in general is significantly less friendly to melee, but I persevered and kept playing, tweaking my right side as I progressed further. After about a week, for nearly every time I felt frustrated by a mob, there was counter-play for it that I discovered myself, and it felt incredibly satisfying to counter that which initially frustrated me.

I took on (not solo, obviously!) the Legendary Wyvern Patriarch with a 100% melee, largely glass canon chronomancer build, going down only once – while standing at a distance from it, ironically. I went through Verdant Brink, Auric Basin and Tangled Depths with a Knight’s/Assassin’s Reaper, and most of my downed states resulted from ignoring mobs in favour of navigating terrain. I can CC charging mobs long enough to kill them, and I keep “Suffer!” handy so I can off-load cripples or other particularly annoying conditions. If I’m swarmed, I use “Rise!” – the more mobs, the more survivability that nets me – and then sneak into that cheesy Reaper’s Shroud. Mobs that bounce away just get pulled back in by Grasping Darkness or are charged towards with Death’s Charge. If you truly dig into your build, it’s not that hard to find counters for every regular/veteran mob without changing your weapons or even your trait lines.

That said, there are some mechanics that can be countered but still feel more inconvenient than challenging. Sometimes, cripple applied post-battle (I’ve seen some spiders and Zintl cavaliers do this) lasts up to ~20s. The mordrem riding the saurians can apply torment and cripple at absurd distances, and I’ve seen one instance of them doing it after I broke LOS, although that could have been lag. Mordrem snipers firing at you from stealth recreates the frustration of thieves in PvP slicing off a chunk of your health before their model reappears; changing that in PvP would probably be too controversial, but I’d like it if mordrem exited stealth just before firing, keeping the targeted player guessing up until the last moment. Lastly, NPC evasion feels like it lasts too long; it’s not challenging, it just breaks pacing – particularly leaping itzel and mordrem doing 3x death blossoms.

Overall, though, I’m thoroughly enjoying the difficulty of the expansion pack, and I’m not even a hardcore player – I have barely touched Fractals and have no intention of doing Raids.

Awe.1096:

I have a feeling that in general HoT is a bit unfriendly to melee. I think that this was done on purpose to somehow pull players away from the stacking on mob meta. You will be able to do fine as melee if you dodge and avoid properly but ranged have it easier when playing in new jungle zones.

Ranged always was the safest choice. That safety feels more pronounced when enemies are more punishing. I felt much the same when I started HoT, but then I started noticing stuff like the legendary wyvern’s wing knockback attack that melee can avoid entirely.

DoggySpew.4529:

Can’t use any Greatsword even thought it is unlocked on my Necromancer’s Elite Specialization. I also can’t select the Elite Specialization in its build.

Celtic Nightmares.8210:

Hello. I cannot use any of the new weapons for my characters after unlocking them on the skill tree. For example, I can’t use the shield for the mesmer, even though it gave me a free shield to wield.

You can only equip the new weapons if your elite specialisation is active, and you can only equip an elite specialisation in place of the bottom trait line.

Faceless.7549:

Right, so the post has different wording per region, then.

To Europeans, it says the beta will end Sunday morning. That’s what makes 23:59 PST, Oct 4 that I keep seeing impossible, going by that particular paragraph.

This is where my confusion is coming from. “Sunday midnight” would mean Sunday night to me as well, but the times listed in UTC contradict that.

Not sure why I didn’t think to check other languages, thanks!

Right, so the post has different wording per region, then.

To Europeans, it says the beta will end Sunday morning. That’s what makes 23:59 PST, Oct 4 that I keep seeing impossible, going by that particular paragraph.

This is where my confusion is coming from. “Sunday midnight” would mean Sunday night to me as well, but the times listed in UTC contradict that.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

No it includes Sunday. Midnight on Sunday, is the end of the day, technically speaking.

The UTC times listed conflicts with that, though. According to UTC times listed in the post, short of chronomancer miracles, there’s no way it could end at 7 AM on the 4th in Europe but continue to run in NA until the following midnight, because that would be 7 AM UTC on the 5th.

Misguided.5139:

Pretty sure what they mean is 7am Monday UTC

That’s why I’m wondering whether it was a typo or not, yeah.

According to the blog post, the event will run “starting at 7:00 PM UTC (noon Pacific Time) on Friday, 2 October, and running until 7:00 AM UTC (midnight Pacific Time) on Sunday, 4 October.”

This means that it ends Sunday morning for Europeans, and 0:00 Sunday for NA. While it is still technically 2-4, it doesn’t include the 4th. BWE2 ran throughout Sunday (and later than that even, although probably unintentionally), so I just want to make sure this wasn’t an error in the blog post or my own misunderstanding.

JLHiggs.6258:

They can’t just pretend like Season 1 never happened.

And yet that’s basically what they’re doing by going back to it instead of using it as a narrative device to naturally and fluidly propel the story in another direction.

Of course, to each their own. I would just prefer seasons to be successive and progressive, rather than parallel.

JLHiggs.6258:

It’s canon in the storyline and it will have tie-ins. How many forum threads until the detractors legitimately move forward?

Brilliantly astute, but this thread isn’t about complaining, the first post is just pointing to an article that people then discuss. That is usually what the forums consist of – discussions.

It’s a little disappointing that even though they stress Scarlet’s dead, it looks like they’re still not over her.

How many more seasons until the story legitimately moves forward?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t feel tired of the Living Story.

I feel tired of Guild Wars 2 on a whole.

The Living Story did that to me. Especially the 4 months of grinding-based achievements that started with Dragon Bash and ended with Tequatl.

Wow, coming from you, Konig, that’s strangely depressing to read.

Vaxx.3178:

After the 4 winds thing, I cared less and less for the LS after I realized all of it is pretty much temp content for AP and an ugly back piece.

Didn’t even bother with SAB. It might have been funny and “cute” once, but it does not fit into GW2. The Queens Gauntlet and Pavilion was “ok” the first day. Again, it passed and has had no impact on the “world” content. The new path in TA is “ok”. Finished it the day it came out in about an hour, got my ugly back item. Whoop dee doo.

Living World I thought would be adding content, changing the world, changing the landscape, cities, new monsters, etc. etc. After some time I have realized Living World = Temp content scavenger hunts with ugly back items.

Give me an expansion please.

This sums up my experiences and thoughts on LS almost precisely to the letter, except I didn’t even bother with TA’s new path.

Rotating content is an interesting idea rich with potential, but all of it is wasted on thematic paid-for cosmetics and soulless scavenger hunts that shoehorn you into playing the character with which you have the highest map completion.

Or you could throw it into the Mystic Forge to have another shot at acquiring something that fits your character.

As someone who has distanced themselves from the forums to avoid further criticising (and in my opinion rightly so) every single decision ArenaNet makes, Bazaar of the Four Winds is the first content that has brought me back to the game for more than just a cynical gander.

Sure, it still has its frustrating bits (insisting to shove players into the Obsidian Sanctum for a second time, the somewhat glitch-rich level design when it comes to using the Aspects, and the irrational persistence to stick to the gambling RNG model when it comes to awarding players), but the last time I’ve enjoyed content this much was the Halloween update, and this update wins over it.

The new zone is gorgeously designed, the dizzying view from below when you arrive is stunning. The fly-by view of the Sanctum could have been a vista (in fact, the area could use a few), but it’s still great. The amount of things you can do is ridiculous, and it’s all nicely concentrated within the new zone instead of thinly spread. At the same time, it encourages you to not stick to Labyrinthine Cliffs – Belcher’s Bluff and the kites encourage you to go out.

My favourite detail is probably showing parachutes fluttering in the wind, still attached to the kites that are bound to go down into Tyria proper. Of all items placed in the world, this is the first time since Halloween that they’ve been given an in-universe justification.

Thanks, ArenaNet.

Grumm.4359:

Moving on, why on earth would the corpses have notes that just so happen to explain everything for you? And why would the dredge be carrying flame legion gear? I mean, the fact that they’re fighting on the same side should be a big enough hint that they have some kind of alliance going. And attacks might seem mindless to someone who doesn’t have all of the facts… like all of us players.

If I were separated from my family and I would be on the brink of slow death, I would (given that I would have the relevant items) definitely write down my regrets and well wishes in the hopes that someone would read them, hopefully my family. And the gear comment was a mere example of subtler storytelling, as was the note, really. You hurried to refute these examples as though I was actually trying to rewrite Flame & Frost, when I clearly stated that the examples themselves were not the point and were purposefully cliché. My point was that enemy placement alone is rarely good storytelling.

Grumm.4359:

You say there’s nothing connecting the dots, but I think most people would disagree with that alone (if nothing else). There are refugees fleeing something… dot. Now there are invaders attacking settlements… dot. People fleeing attacks, and others attacking… and you’re saying there’s not enough connecting these two facts?

That is not an argument, sorry. You generally make good points, so please don’t resort to “most people would disagree…”. Especially when this thread has a slew of different opinions. All you did here was list the dots but you still don’t address the gaps between them. How would you justify the sudden appearance of the norn structure, for example?

Grumm.4359:

I’ll use a video-game reference for this, in the hopes of better expressing my point: it feels like you’ve played the first event in a long chain of events and then declared ‘Well, there’s no story to this event."

Currently, what little story there is, is poorly told. Months later we might have a much better and robust story, but I am here to give ArenaNet feedback to hopefully help them in doing so. That may sound arrogant, but ArenaNet expects feedback from their players, at least that’s what they claim in almost every interview.

Grumm.4359:

All I’m urging is patience. Wait and see how it plays out; only a fool passes judgement before everything is finished.

And only a fool shies away from critique, setting aside his fears for present flaws because of a baseless hope that they will be remedied in the end. Products can and should be judged mid-production. Judgement made is by no means ‘permanent’, as in I am not saying ArenaNet is bad at storytelling forever and they should quit. I am judging the current state of affairs. As an example, once I heard of universal ammunition and co-op in Dead Space 3, I was deterred and effectively judged the game prior to launch. But would launch remove universal ammunition and co-op? No, it would not.

Well, that was way longer than intended.

Kingfisher.7213:

I think ArenaNet is still learning how to tell an unfolding story in an MMO.

The Lost Shores event taught them the downsides of telling the story too quickly.

The Living Story will teach them the downsides of telling the story too slowly.

They are still learning, they said as much. Which is the purpose of this feedback thread. I’m not condemning their storytelling, I am just hoping to give them ideas on how to improve it. I don’t think pacing is the only problem, though.

Grumm.4359:

I would argue that the two are comparable, since regardless of whether you’re telling a story via a book, a movie, a video game, a table top game, or just sitting around actually telling it, it’s still storytelling. All forms of storytelling share common traits; it’s the medium in which the story is told that changes.

That’s just plain incorrect. That is comparable to saying that going somewhere by car is identical to going there by bicycle. Yes, in the end it is transportation and navigation, but you will be taking different paths, driving at different speeds and utilising wholly different techniques (there is no clutch on bicycles, for example). I can only speak as an amateur writer and a literature enthusiast, but I’ve seen a good number of interviews with professional writers that said as much. Either you or I could hunt for them.

Grumm.4359:

As far as the freedom to roleplay in a video game goes, unless you’re roleplaying between living people it’s entirely illusory. You can pick what you say to npcs, sometimes, but it’s from a narrow list of options. Arguing that in a game you can do what you want is only true up until you reach the limits inherent in all games.

You are misunderstanding. The point is, we are given a selection of questions and responses, whereas in books it is entirely linear. In all good RPGs (for the sake of the simplicity, let’s assume ‘good’ pertains to Metacritic scores) you get to ask questions pertaining to a quest. Even in Skyrim, if werewolves attack a village, you can ask the quest giver where they are coming from and whether this problem’s persisted for a while. In a book, the character might not ask that and go look for the werewolves. Games give you that choice, games should give you that choice, at the very least RPGs. Books don’t.

Grumm.4359:

Also, many events we have no control over. You gave an example of someone sneaking up on someone undetected, and said that this couldn’t happen in a video game except for in a cutscene (or at least, that’s the only way it could happen in GW2). And yet, there are numerous times when a player moves his/her character near a tree only to have a bandit drop from it and attack, or has an enemy unstealth from nearby, totally undetected. With the bandits in the trees, no matter how hard you look, you won’t see them until they spawn.

Again, you misunderstand. My point was purely from the perspective of the narrative, and you are listing game mechanics and taking my fictitious example further than was necessary. The point was that in Guild Wars 2, you have many more layers of storytelling – visuals, audio cues, ambient dialogue, dialogue options, in-game mails, item drops and cutscenes, only one of which takes literal control away from the player to tell the story. If that is still comparable to a book to you, then I’m afraid we can only agree to disagree.

Grumm.4359:

And, as far as the heroes having something else to do, well, Logan, Rytlock, and Caithe don’t seem to be that worried about what’s going on. So far all we’ve gotten is a letter and some heralds saying ‘Hey, something’s going on".

True enough, but then why would it be worthy of our attention to start with? Each area in Tyria has dozens of far more pressing matters. The world is brimming with threat that we can recognise and fight, the obligation of the writer is to separate this threat from the rest. Why would we want to help refugees when the situation seems under control? Every story, even A Song of Ice and Fire, names an unusual threat (in milder novels the threat could be an inner conflict or some such) early on in such a way that captures the reader’s attention. Game of Thrones starts out with a patrol gone wrong, and already characters face a threat that shouldn’t be there, but is.

Continued in the next post.

Grumm.4359:

I have to disagree with you, on most points. What you’re doing is akin to opening a book, reading the prelude, and tossing down saying “There’s no story here!”

In regards to this and the other points you’ve made while comparing Guild Wars 2 to Game of Thrones, it is all completely irrelevant because you are comparing storytelling in a book and storytelling in a video game. Any writer will tell you the two are inarguably incomparable. First and foremost because we can actually explore the world of Guild Wars 2. Furthermore, it is an RPG, a game where we can initiate contact with NPCs and choose what we say to them or what we ask them. The story in almost all cases is pursued, not told. Yes, you could argue ‘reading’ is a means of pursuing, but I mean purely in the sense that a video game is interactive, on a different level than turning pages.

Grumm.4359:

In two of those examples, the threat could have been averted early on if people had just used some common sense and worked together. But they didn’t. They had other things going on. Things which, to them, seemed more important at the time.

That is a good example of how a book is wholly different from a video game. Most events in A Song of Ice and Fire cannot be prevented via common sense alone, the characters are on set paths that don’t always intertwine, and no matter how much you’d want Guy A to look behind him and spot Guy B sneaking up on him, it won’t happen. In a video game, the only instance in which that can happen is a cutscene. If Guild Wars 2 were a book, the heroes might be otherwise occupied in Lion’s Arch when they hear of refugees; you also provided your own examples, all of which were in book format. It is a video game, however, and I can teleport all the way to the refugee camps and talk to them myself. In which case, they spout the as-old-as-launch phrases like “You should visit more often”. That’s comical.

Grumm.4359:

You’ve said that there isn’t any coherence or story so far. When it began, there was just a trickle of refugees coming through. We weren’t told why, other than vague hints about an invasion. Now, we get to see the face of the invasion, the Flame Legion and the Dredge, but we haven’t been told why yet. So, the ‘who’ has been answered, but not the why. A coherent chain so far. There are hints of what’s to come, but they’re implied, not explained. The next link in that chain will likely either be a full invasion into charr and norn territory, or will actually allow us to seek and and discover what’s going on.

You are right on this one, and it’s more difficult to argue on this front. Yes, we started out just with refugees, and now we know it’s the Flame Legion and the dredge wrecking havoc. However, coherence is lost because there is nothing connecting the dots. Compare this to the rebuilding of the fountain of Lion’s Arch. It was gradual. February update introduced the norn structure that you can ask no one about, and it appeared overnight. The dredge and the Flame Legion attack settlements mindlessly. A good writer would build up by, say, (and this is a quick, purposefully cliché example) having you find notes on the corpses, or better yet have only the dredge attack, but have them drop Flame Legion related gear.

In a way, ArenaNet is building up, I sadly cannot argue the truth of that statement. However, it’s the how that is bothering me. Like I’ve mentioned in the original post, it feels more like a series of ‘shots’. It feels like a collection of photographs rather than a seamless progress of the plot.

Although I haven’t been getting along with monthly content updates, I greatly appreciate ArenaNet’s efforts. It’s truly amazing that an MMO that doesn’t have a subscription fee offers new content every month for free. It’s not always a cornucopia of new goodies, but each month I see the forums cooperatively anticipating the next big patch. Sure, fights break out shortly after the patch goes live, but at least there is a moment of serenity before the storm.

Speaking of storms, I also liked the idea behind Flame & Frost: The Gathering Storm, particularly that it is a months-long story and promises gradually escalating dynamic events. It’s almost like a monthly TV series. Earlier this year, I thought that if content itself wouldn’t hold my interest, then at least the ongoing story would keep me interested. Although I probably spent more hours playing competitive games – UT99-III, Quake 2 and 3, Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, CS 1.4-GO, L4D, TF2 et al – I love the adventure genre because of stories told. Good ones, bad ones, I’ve played them all. The death of that genre sort of gives away the fact stories became of lesser importance. That is why I was excited to see how the Living Story would unfold.

The problem is, it doesn’t. The Living Story is yet to have a story and yes, I am well aware that both January and February updates weren’t supposed to substantially progress the story. The issue here is that it doesn’t even tease us with what’s ahead. ArenaNet did a better job of teasing plot lines with the post-Halloween update when they hinted at Lost Shores. What are these creatures sighted in the waters? Why are there beached whales? What are these new ships? To whom do they belong? Post-Halloween update introduced hooks. Flame & Frost feels like a hurriedly scribbled draft – “refugees flee from threat, some don’t make it, collect mementos, fix signs, also earth opens up, svp fwd to Colin”.

January began with a subtle introduction of a threat. Refugees began to stream into the Black Citadel and Hoelbrak. The biggest and frankly inexcusable flaw in writing is that we never get to directly ask the refugees themselves what the threat is. How did their homes collapse? Where are their homes? Guild Wars 2 boasts that there are no ‘off-screen’ locations or actions, yet we never see the actual destruction this unnamed threat unleashed. We’ve seen a few geyser-related dynamic events, but unless they opened up directly below someone’s house, how would they pose a threat? Instead of chasing story crumbs, we chase broken signs and dead refugees. One would think our priority would be looking for survivors.

Then February’s update came along, and the story continues to stomp in one place. With no build-up, there is suddenly a norn-themed structure by the road to Diessa Plateau, and everyone’s contently ignoring its spontaneous existence. Refugees continue to grow in numbers, but you still can’t ask them what’s going on. Dynamic events now include the Flame Legion and the dredge, so at least we know now what the threat is, even if that should have been defined last month. Just like with the geysers earlier, however, we’re once again given a stage with no hooks alluding to the future. Yes, the dredge and the Flame Legion are working together. Is it hinted why? Is it hinted how? No, it’s not. Once again, storytelling in February’s update is a draft, a collection of Powerpoint slides instead of a seamless web of intrigue.

After two updates, there is still no story. If you combine the two updates, you get a semblance of it – the dredge and the Flame legion are destroying homes, creating a stream of refugees. But the writer fails to note what makes this threat different than the other hundreds of dynamic events? What prevents heroes from culling the threat locally and then helping the locals rebuild? There must be something that’s scarring the inhabited land, something that truly gives players a sense of, “This is a threat that’s currently bigger than us”. That is intelligent story-telling. Gating the story in a way that has slayers of Zhaitan loot refugee carcasses is not good design by any measure.

I’m aware I am not opening much room for discussion given the nature of the critique, but I am hoping that ArenaNet will see this thread and pass the feedback on to relevant people. They claim they want to create a Living Story, but it’s been two months already and the story remains static, unimaginative and sorely lacking. Saying it’s teaser content is a safe cushion to fall back on, but it isn’t true. There is no active teasing involved. There is no coherence in storytelling so far. Teasing is presenting minor content that’s closely inter-connected and suggestive, while making sense within the context via which the content is presented.

Exterminans.9723:

Some Champs got their healthpools increased by an serious amount, damage also ramped up by an insane amount. Most of their attacks will onehit you now.

So, instead of being mind-numbingly easy, their fights will be mind-numbingly long?

MentalPause.9183:

I’ve never given up on a class before, but i’m seriously thinking of playing an Ele, because apparently if I want true versatility that’s the direction I need to head. Its extremely unfortunate as I really like the feel of the class: gadgets are a lot of fun, Tool Kit in WvW is super fun, elixirs are boring but effective, BUT I don’t know how long I can play a class that isn’t afforded the option to be really good at something just for the sake of apparent versatility.

This patch was the straw that broke the charr engineer’s back, for me. I have immensely enjoyed the engineer in the beta. Yeah, it had many flaws at the time and a lot of people complained about it, but I stood by the profession regardless. I invested in the game, I trusted the developers. Things were looking up for the engineer at first, like the dreadful mine kit being changed to a lovely skill that benefited both the engineer and his allies. But then Lost Shores happened. I have hardly played the game since then, and my engineer is the least played level high level character.

To clarify and to add to my original post, though, my frustration isn’t from seeing a large percentage next to the words ‘decreased by’, under a profession of my choice. Every patch in many MMOs shakes up the community like an angry hive. People are liable to be upset even with a single digit percentage. But it’s different in this case. I am not so much complaining about the grenade kit changes alone, but rather the direction of the engineer as a whole. Not only do Lost Shores and Wintersday engineer changes contradict each other (separating PvE vs. PvP damage, then putting them back together again), the developers keep dictating how you should build your offensive build, all while opening up more opportunities for most of the other professions.

It makes me wonder whether anyone on the team responsible for gameplay design (specifically professions) plays engineer. The decisions are completely superficial and uninformed. ArenaNet claims they make small changes because they don’t want to go wrong with large changes, but that’s an incredibly flawed philosophy – some aspects of a profession will require a big change at once, and as they have themselves demonstrated, small changes do not guarantee safety, e.g. PvP and PvE grenade damage separation, or the ability to swap kits in mid-air, which did not work properly at the time of Lost Shores, and probably still doesn’t.

Between them ignoring the flawed to the core turrets, ignoring stat loss between kit swapping, ignoring poor trait placement and implementation (engineer is the only adventurer profession with an endurance boosting trait sitting at grandmaster of a trait line not even related to mobility), I’m honestly done with the engineer until a time ArenaNet happens to hire a designer who will hopefully play and love the profession enough to do it justice.

As ridiculous as the grenade nerf was, all I wanted was to understand the madness that drove the decision. I found the class philosophy summaries, and it really feels like all of them were written by different people.

The engineer one says: The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.

That makes sense, to a point. Versatility at the cost of damage is not a new concept of balance in RPGs. Except grenades are not a main hand weapon, they are part of kits that the engineer is encouraged to use. That alone contradicts the nerf. But what completely undermines this explanation is the elementalist’s summary.

It says: We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.

It is, then, a class that offers even more versatility than the engineer. The logical next step would be to assume that ele’s damage should be inferior still. Yet somehow the opposite applies; they can apparently dish out ‘great AoE damage’, while the only mention of damage in the engineer paragraph says he has to give it up for versatility.

Whoever wrote the engineer paragraph seems conveniently ignorant of the fact, that, y’know, the game offers the possibility of builds. If I want to build my engineer for versatility, then that should gimp my damage. If I want to build my engineer for damage, then that should gimp my versatility. No profession in the game should rely on gear or (especially) sigils to be effective. I thought ArenaNet clearly stated many times before that the game is skill-based, not gear-based?

That is very pointed of you, OP, but I have only one question, how will you know who on WvW has Ascended gear? Currently, it’s only the back piece and rings, the former of which can have its visibility turned off on a whim. Even if it is not, you’ll waste time looking for players who actually sport the back piece.

Even if you decidedly ignore the gem shop and Ascended gear, there will be a vast majority who don’t, either because they don’t mind it or because they deem it necessary. I find I will eventually (inevitably) get the necessary ingredients for an Ascended gear item, and I will not pass that opportunity up, even if I am strongly opposed to their inclusion.

Think hats in Team Fortress 2. Sure, there were people who were against them and decided they would never use them, but you’ll be hard pressed nowadays to find a single player who doesn’t sport some sort of hat or non-vanilla weapon. If something has the power to change the mind of a developer, it’s active feedback, not passively ignoring/hating the content they introduce. Unless whatever they changed hurt the game enough for you to not play it entirely, which TF2 did for me and GW2 is encroaching on for me as well.

Giseth.9708:

Some people doesn’t play the game for fun, they just want better stuff…
Horrible..

This is what inevitably happens if you give out unique and rare rewards in one spot. While people struggled with annoying RNG for three months, Lost Shores gave the best drops in the game’s history to date.

ArenaNet had claimed in the past human behaviour like that is why they would never give any single event preferential treatment, and that all events would offer equal rewards to solve the issue of one event being favoured over another.

yurtshone.7325:

+1 for the OP. Are you listening Anet?

Of course they are. Just wait until one of the CCs comes and copy pastes “Thanks for your feedback”, right before either locking this thread or merging it into the neutrally named feedback thread.

I agree with OP, as well. It’s like one company developed the game, and an entirely different one works on it post-launch.

The only thing preventing me from stopping playing engineer is the fact that the grenade nerf is sPvP only.

At least the reason behind the lack of communication is made clear – they don’t browse the forums. The patch notes show complete ignorance of the state of their own game. Ignoring the fact that the most important faults of the class remain unfixed, the team decides to nerf a build that was still outdamaged by half the roster, and engineers still needed to immobilise/stun/be in close proximity to chuck grenades reliably.

I can somewhat understand the blindness nerf, but to think that ArenaNet focussed on nerfing the class instead of fixing it is unthinkable and betrays broken priorities.

I can’t help but arrive to the conclusion everyone at ArenaNet plays glass cannon warriors and thieves, and died to grenades one time too many.

Magic Find? Really? It’s nice that the stat is actually employed in the game, but I don’t think this is the right solution. People will either come completely decked in MF gear, consequently lowering their efficiency and usefulness in the group, or they will come with their proper gear and inevitably have low MF.

In order to benefit from this change, people will be forced to consume MF food or buy your MF boosters.

I like the other changes, but the MF-influenced special drops are just a terrible idea.

I strongly agree with OP. It’s both insulting and disappointing that ArenaNet was so transparent and open when they were developing the game, communicating with their fans even before official forums existed, and all of that changed the moment the game launched.

Nowadays, patch notes go up sometimes hours after a new build (or, in this latest case, they haven’t even bothered at all and merely tweeted that they “fixed some bugs”), and usually ArenaNet employees indulge in casual, inconsequential conversation, rather than openly discussing hotly debated issues with their community. Martin Kerstein’s affinity for patronising posts and tweets should also be put to a stop.

I do appreciate the occasional well-written posts (Chris Whiteside’s post on Ascended gear allayed some of my fears, none of which were addressed in the blog post), but they’re few and far between. One week into the game’s launch, we were promised a clean and informative method of relaying patch notes; it made sense back then, what with the pressure of launch, but it’s been two and a half months.

Any other qualms I have with ArenaNet’s policies have already been mentioned in the first post. I sincerely hope ArenaNet considers changing their etiquette, rather than dismissing this critique with a, “oh, those silly entitled MMO gamers!”

Ryuujin.8236:

dirtyklingon.2918:

http://www.buffed.de/Guild-Wars-2-PC-169660/News/Guild-wars-2-November-Update-mit-Item-Progression-1034934/

i wonder who they got this feedback from?

Well, I know quite a few friends leaving GW2 because as much as they like the IDEA of no grind. The reality is they can’t find goals of their own to keep them playing; they need their skinner box to keep lighting lights and dropping food pellets

Then they reach the goal they set out to reach and leave the game regardless. If you need grind to maintain your interest rather than the game itself, then you should simply cease to play the game, either entirely or until an update catches your attention. People quit WoW because they run out of things to do, introducing a gear treadmill isn’t going to keep people’s interest in GW2.

Curiously enough, only MMOs are expected to have a grind. Any other game, you play it because it’s fun. MMOs? Kitten that ludicrous concept of entertainment, let’s work towards an arbitrary goal that will be rendered obsolete within a month or two.

Zen.2450:

To get people to do the invasion events requires a bit of coordination in the chat. You can’t just expect them to organically happen anymore, you have to recruit. :/

Oh, I tried. I didn’t even get a ‘no’. No response.

Most of the time Gandara isn’t even trying to take Balthazar’s temple. It’s always contested. Everyone hates Straits of Devastation, so no one is doing the invasion events, which in turn never triggers the event to take Balthazar’s temple. I kind of gave up on the idea of ever doing the event by now.

Project Shrine Maiden.9623:

honestly im glad it took them two months to remove orbs from wvw entirely. imo that just means they took that long trying to figure out a solution, rather than remove a feature of the game that could possibly be fixable. If they said, “oh orbs are being hacked!” and removed them on the spot, I would have been annoyed to say the least. acknowledging that your creation is flawed is one thing, giving up on it without putting in the effort to fix it is quite another. i think Anet has been on the right track since launch. this game is awesome.

An issue as severe as hacking, which is upsetting something as vital as scores in a competitive multiplayer environment, requires immediate attention. I’ve personally come to expect no less from developers over the course of over a decade. But that’s off-topic.

I pointed that example out not because downed mode in PvP issue is as severe as orb hacking (it’s nowhere near as severe), but because it took them two months to take action on a severe issue. It just scares me to think how long it will take them to address smaller issues, like downed mode in PvP.

As a footnote, I’m not saying this game isn’t awesome. I followed almost every step of its development: I haven’t passed up a single blog post from ArenaNet. I am still playing the game on a daily basis and enjoying it. There are some aspects of it, however, that inarguably need changing, like the downed mode.

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

nice point. maybe if resets when attacked player is out of combat or just put a radius around attacker? or both?

The problem with that is that if the tagged player is ‘forced’ into combat by being attacked, he might be downed on a different point and that’ll help someone who tagged him earlier rally. Say, if I down Bob at point A and flee from a pursuing attacker (that keeps me in combat) to point B, where I am ambushed and killed, Bob will rally. The short tag duration would also be easier to implement, either as an intermediate hotfix or a permanent solution.

I just want them to take action. I applaud that they want to roll out perfect patches, that’s nice, but sometimes you’re better off without that luxury, especially if it’ll take you months of agitating silence. It took them nearly two months to address orb hacking. Two months to remove orbs from WvW entirely, rather than present a solution. In July, when people were worried that profession shortcomings were too great to resolve before launch, Jon Peters stressed that five weeks is a lot of time for them.

So, I just came from a game where I chased a ranger halfway across a map, downed her, camped her and the point nearby, and she just rallied and took me down. Downed mode is an interesting mechanic in PvP, and it encourages teamwork in 5v5, so I don’t think it should be removed entirely. Personally, I don’t like that you are very nearly as effective when you’re downed as when you are not, but that’s subjective. The way rallying works, however, is objectively bad.

The easiest way to fix it is to introduce a short tag lifetime – if you dealt damage to a player, you won’t rally if that player gets killed a minute later. If there is such a limit, it should be reduced to a very short duration – something like ten seconds, reset every time damage is dealt again. Rallying should be a conscious effort, tag-and-forget shouldn’t be a valid tactic. The counter-argument is ‘l2p’, so that they don’t have anything to rally off of, but there is such a thing as attrition and mistakes. My death is punishment enough, reviving my enemy through my death is just adding insult to injury.

Please, ArenaNet. Do something about downed mode. Just because something works in PvE, doesn’t mean it will necessarily function in PvP.

We’re nearing the third month mark, and audio glitches and shortcomings went from amusing to annoying to infuriating. There are events where I just turn down or turn off my audio, whether or not I do them or am near them. Has anyone on ArenaNet played Mass Effect? Do you guys remember “ENEMIES EVERYWHERE”? That’s what your audio is like, sometimes.

First off, the interval between lines spoken is ridiculously short in specific DEs. See attached image. I get that the idea here was to tell the players where krait are attacking, but the waves come so quick that the lines are spoken too often, and it doesn’t help that there’s zero variation (which in itself is fundamentally flawed, because if the gate attack has a line with a differently phrased beginning, a veteran player will immediately know what’s being attacked). In my opinion, events like these, with NPCs announcing the direction from where enemy attacks, only announce it when enemies come from a direction different from the last one.

Granted, some DEs suffer from redundant line repetition and they have zero information to offer. Southwatch Post in Sparkfly Fen has a DE event where the hylek keeps yelling something along the lines of “GET EVERYONE TO THE TEMPLE! NOW!” every thirty seconds or so. Makes me just want to stop doing the event. Doesn’t help that no one has to go to any temple, so this line only serves to confuse new players.

Second and arguably the biggest issue is the non-existent ratio of distance/volume. I get that everyone in the DE area has to hear potentially important information or an invitation to the event, but does everyone within a hundred mile radius has to hear it, as well? I already have DEs popping up on the top right, my mini-map, a big NEW EVENT NEARBY on the screen and NPCs running up to me and asking for help. I don’t need the krait witch in Timberline yelling ‘DESTROOOOOOY’ when I’m not even in the lake she’s in, with the volume too loud even if she were right next to me.

Since the associated distance/volume glitches have been largely fixed, I can only assume the rest is intended. If it is, please consider changing it. It’s not only driving me away from certain DEs, it’s driving me away from certain areas completely.

I agree that the defeated state should have more finality to it than it currently does. My suggestion is any one of these:

- have revival progress on defeated mode tick down when no one’s reviving the person;
- give a limited time of being in defeated mode, eventually the person becomes impossible to revive;
- skip downed mode and send the person straight to defeated;
- greatly reduce the amount of HP you get in downed mode, or
- greatly reduce the damage output of downed mode skills.

When I down a person in competitive multiplayer in any game, I expect him/her to be out of the equation until a specific mechanic determines otherwise, such as defibrillators in Battlefield 3. Player A defeats player B, player B is out of the fight and player A moves on to player C or secures his or her position. Elimination is key to a lot of sports, and is key to competitive play in video games.

Besides that, the one thing that consistently keeps me from WvW is the knowledge that I spend more time running than fighting. I take less risks because death will have me start far enough away that action might end before I get there, and even if I don’t die, I still have to move to the next objective on the map, which actually might take up to 30 mins. I understand balancing reasons, but I think it’s a very clumsy method in an otherwise elegantly designed game. The mechanic of contested waypoints is in, why not make greater use of it? Why not add another objective for solo players/small groups – setting up (destructible) waypoints in positions predetermined by ArenaNet?

WvW still feels very rough and unfinished.

Candy corn ore nodes, candy corn elementals, skeletons, spiders, new events, new worldwide mini-game (costume brawl), a dungeon, a new area with unique four activities and a redesigned central city with three varying stages. This special event has a lot of care and custom content, some of which will stay with the game after Halloween.

Then there are gargoyles. Having vanished without a trace between the two games’ timelines, they now reappear without a word of recognition from any NPC, and they’re basically reskinned rock dogs and griffons. Why? Neither look anything like Guild Wars 1 gargoyles or any gargoyle, for that matter. The griffongoyle sort of looks like a grotesque, I suppose. New models could also be used post-Halloween, to explore the story of where they’ve gone.

This may sound like a weird thing to note given the overall quality of the event, but that’s exactly why the “gargoyles” stand out like an eyesore. I’m just really curious why they weren’t modelled but included anyhow, when (in my opinion) the Halloween-themed monster count was sufficient and they bring nothing to combat (unlike, say, glowing skeletons).

I’d greatly appreciate an answer from ArenaNet, since this has been bothering me ever since Act 2 started.

He just sounds like the many charr his VA has already given his voice to, just with an ekittended. Sort of wish they brought in a new VA to do his voice, but I guess it’s financially unsound to hire a new VA once a year for a few lines.

The easiest solution would be to turn everyone into the same model upon entry, like a mummy or something else that’s humanoid. The more difficult solution would be to make it instanced per player/party, and then make fitting adjustments to preserve whatever mysterious goal they had in mind when they decided to control when and how you do the puzzle.

It’s hard to believe that this is the same game, considering how many times Colin and other ArenaNet members have stated that you will never see other players as competition for content, and the tower is designed from the ground up to make you dislike the presence of other players. It’s not even a discussion of difficulty, but it’s just going against the core design of the game.

I whole heartedly agree with the first post.

To be honest, I didn’t even mind Trahearne’s forceful injection into the story up until there was a sudden shift in the narrative. He has studied Orr, so surely his knowledge would prove invaluable once my adventures coalesced with Tyria’s expedition to Orr. However, the writer is sorely blatant about voicing the fact your character is in second place. The game is so vocal about reminding you that you are not the hero, that it almost feels like there’s some sort of conspiracy going on. You barely receive any thanks, just further orders from a self-appointed marshal that treats you coldly.

I’m currently level 71, and I am yet to see Trahearne accomplish anything. That includes strategy, and no, yelling at soldiers ten times as experienced to ‘stay away from the dragon’s poisonous breath’ is no strategy. He doesn’t even do inspiring speeches. His legendary weapon is yet to do anything spectacular in his hands. He doesn’t share actual information about Orr. I am yet to see him contribute to the Orr invasion in any palpable way.

I am utterly disappointed, considering the personal story starts out amazingly well. Everything seems to weave together, and hooks are seemingly left for the future for you to attend to. With the whole infamous Kormir ordeal, I thought ArenaNet wouldn’t have done the same mistake twice. But now I’m not sure which is the worse character, Kormir or Trahearne.