Guild Wars 2

Justin ODell.9517:

Thedenofsin.7340:

While the new things are met with some trepidation, the reveals so far have brought about more vitriol and disdain than cheers and appreciation. Why is this? Primarily because the game the players want is not the game the developers are giving them.

Do not forget the nature of forums; that those that take issue with something are more likely to come forward. I think that this is one of the big disconnects that can mislead people (including us,) and cause us to misunderstand what the community actually wants/feels. Also keep in mind that no one can presume to represent everyone’s opinions.

On this note, has ANet’s team considered alternate means of gathering player feedback. I mean the CDI is awesome and all, but it seems well understood across MMOs that forums represent only a portion of the population. Has there been consideration of email surveys or in game questionnaires as we saw back during beta? It often seems that MMOs development ends up being shaped by forum rabble rousing which ultimately ignores the thoughts of all those actually enjoying the game.

Super Wilson.7408:

Ok guys … after extensive testing. I have decided on my new WvW hammer warrior build. I tried out 20 points in Arms for the unsuspecting foe… but the loss of the crit damage and 7% burst damage made earthshaker hit too weak. Not to mention I could no longer do my favorite combo of Sword flurry cancel… swap hammer stuns.

The video was recorded Today 12/28/13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjNsnC_oGR8&feature=youtu.be

The new build I run is..
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-s;4NKVP0f4kL-60;9;6T9T;41890;024A4-F0U;1qObSqObSt-kc0-g2P0;1kVq0u1zY4_Aa5i-H-2cV8;3F2-oc2Co;9;9;9;9;84k3F

I’ve been trying to find a good way to work with my warrior since the patch and one of the bigger issues for me has always been having the option for ranged when I’d like to swap out. I’ve been trying out 0/10/30/0/30 swapping out Furious Reaction, Deep Cuts and Crack shot depending on the weapon I’m running (Sword/Shield or Rifle) and I’m curious how integral Leg Specialist is to your build. I definitely get how devastating Leg Specialist can be in WvW (people get so friggin confused) but how critical do you think it is to keep in over the flexibility that 10 Arms might provide?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Meanwhile I have a question. This thread is BIG. Would the folks who have already commented on Horizontal want a new thread which is just based on Horizontal or should we just carry on with this thread?

A new thread for horizontal progression would probably make sense, it could theoretically end up even bigger than this one and starting an important subject on pg 40 of a forum thread is prob a bad idea.

Khunvyel.3972:

Trying to catch the few things addressed directly at me;

About Order Missions;
I didn’t elaborate on it because of limited character space and wanting to see how people react to it. These missions should be themed accordingly. You get stealth, reconnaissance, sabotage, etc. missions for Whispers, you get up front beating things down BUT ALSO defending & escorting things straight up as Vigil, and you get to research stuff / test stuff / acquire stuff for the previous two as Priory.
These missions should vary between instanced and open world. The open world stuff could easily work like the hearts. Just do your job until a satisfactory bar has been reached. The instanced mode would and should scale up according to the people that are with you on that mission. They don’t need to necessarily be in the same Order, just your team helping you out. Group size scaling should work into the mission objectives.
This opens up more achievement sections, and rewards would be tokens which you can trade in for new skins or existing ones of the Order if you don’t want to spend the gold on those. And all that other good stuff available for Tokens, the game has plenty of possibilities what to do anyway.

This would be awesome, it is puzzling how little the personal story has to do with the living story and the future of the game. Even something as simple as having different tasks tied to events that players were asked to do based on their order. Think about how amped people got when their old order mentors were brought up. It just comes off atm as another of those jarring disconnects in the game. I’m not sure this has tons to do with the current subject of progression (story progression?) but it is definitely a noteworthy issue.

Khunvyel.3972:

About cultural armor should be exotic, not rare:
Just look at exotic karma gear which is dirt cheap in comparison to cultural T3 armor. Karma is essentially worthless. Still, Karma gear is exotic, and doing a braindead group event to get there, is not a challenge in itself.

Nike.2631:

…Would you be satisfied if the Cultural armor and weapon vendors sold only cosmetic skins that were click-to-apply and had no stats whatsoever?

Absolutely. Either make T3 exotic (note, I am only talking about T3 because this is max level. T2 and T1 are not, thus they can stay as they are) or make cultural armor simply skins.

Just to show my support, this should be clear and obvious the current system of transmutation stones always sucked, people complained about it before and the current move toward ascended gear just makes it worse. Ideally I’d prefer just a PvE skin locker (full stop, period, I don’t care if I have to buy this in the shop but PvE skin locker is better than the current system) but yes definitely if this doesn’t happen cultural gear (which exists for no purpose but to be skinned) should come as an applicable skin.

cesmode.4257:

To take something from EQ Next(which looks to be amazing), and I have suggested this in the thread already but I want to re-iterate: discovering classes out in the world. In EQN you pick a class archetype, say a mage/wizard/elementalist caster type. You are playing the game and discover, through some method I dont know how(it could be as simple as finding it at the end of a cave in a chest), a new class such as a Monk for example. You can ‘consume it’, and now use your wizard spells and monk spells on the same hotbar…you make your own class. Horizontally.

Something similar can take form in GW2. If not in the form of complete classes, then finding skills and abilities specifically for your class. If I am in Iron Marches doing an event, I could find or be rewarded an ability specific to the class I am playing. Double click to consume and I can now use it.

This would be good beans.

Two of the things that have me most excited about EQNext are the same things that brought me to GW2. The promise of a living changing world that players can actually impact and the promise of deep horizontal progression over the standard vertical business. I’m doing my best not to get too hyped about EQNext as it is nowhere close to release, but I’m also hoping that GW2 continues to work on so many of these ideas that offered something genuinely new and fresh to the genre.

People have made some awesome suggestions in this thread, from Chris’ suggestion of vertical character (rather than gear) progression through skills to the continued urging of separating appearance from stats (skin locker) there are many ideas for pushing GW2 in what I consider to be the right direction. Ideas folks have expressed about prestige classes, specialization or anything else to separate vertical progression from the gear ladder are great and I hope some thought is put into what the value of perpetual loot-chase really is. I’m super-excited about the CDI but I also am way more “wait and see” than I once was, a game’s direction is a big deal and at the moment I’m still not so sure where GW2 is headed in the future.

Faowri.4159:

HiddenNick.7206:

You are talking like Vertical Progression is the next bad thing after meteor shower! And why is it so bad? Why do you think that Horizontal Progression is vastly superior to it? You’re not playing an ordinary game. You’re playing an MMO game. And that’s the kind game of game that grows vertically and endlessly (or to the moment when people stops playing it) whether you like or not. And characters should grow with it.

I’m not sure why you seem to think horizontal progression results in no character growth.

Regardless, I’m not playing just any MMO game. I’m playing an MMO that promised a vertical stat progression cap and horizontal progression and rewards. Cosmetics, new traits, new skills, new weapons, new ways to use those skills, new character-based areas to grow such as housing – all of this was on the cards. But I’m sure we’ll come onto that once the discussion moves on.

I wanted to reiterate this point since I’m not really sure of the value of +1 in the forum system. This is pretty critical and I think a huge part of why people were so upset throughout the entirety of the ascended launch. Certainly there are some who never heard of GW2 and just picked it up in the store. Yet there are also those who picked this game up precisely because it wasn’t meant to be the same as every other MMO, I bought GW2 not only because I thought that the game would be awesome but also in an attempt to show support for a company that theoretically dared to do something different with my hobby.

Years ago (and compounded with WoW) we were fed this idea that if you want to be an MMO player you have to spend your life in game constantly on the treadmill of vertical progression. There are dozens of games perpetuating this model, and if folks wanted to play them, they would be doing so. When I recommended this game to my friends who hadn’t heard it, I recommended it to them on the basis that it’d be different from the standard MMO loot chase.

In particular this line:

You’re playing an MMO game. And that’s the kind game of game that grows vertically and endlessly (or to the moment when people stops playing it) whether you like or not.

I don’t agree with that being the “definition” of an MMO, I play an MMO to (among other reasons) have an ongoing online environment to explore and enjoy with friends (and enemies). Endless vertical progression plays 0 role in my definition of an MMO and maybe it is worth considering that (even though everyone hates those old dev comments being brought up) the idea of not having endless vertical progression (particularly tied to gear) is actually interesting to some of the player base.

I’m not playing WoW, I’m not playing Everquest (though maybe EQNext) there’s a reason for that. GW2 isn’t and shouldn’t endeavor to be just another MMO.

EgonVenkman.1907:

3. Ascended between Exotic/Legendary – This must be a joke statement by Anet. To get the item, you need crafting at 500. To get crafting to 500, you must burn through the same materials needed for the Legendary. It isn’t some sort of checkpoint on the path to legendary, but a hindrance and delay.

This point seemed kind of worth bringing up/highlighting. While I’m not quite as cynical about the whole thing as EgonVenkman I do find it pretty irksome that you end up using up items useful in the crafting of a legendary to make the newest stopgap endgame gear. More generally the whole process of legenary creation is distinctly unlegendary and all around meh. Grind X McGillion items, get a precursor, voila you’re now really special.

Estriella Faerie.4029:

FeveredDreamer.2693:

Aren’t fractals pretty much content created just for those who like vertical progression though? Time and other forms of gating are somewhat standard in vertical progression based games (raid timers etc), so isn’t this really the sort of thing you should be totally into if you’re into fractals?

Please read the rest of my post

Ooh apologies actually you’re totally right, in my defense it wasn’t in the post I quoted at least :P

I’m not a huge fan of fractals, I largely do them just for the substantial rewards they give (compared to other parts of the game) and as a result I just grind them out with my “main” character and filter rewards on down to my alts (or plan to). I didn’t stop to think about how rough the needed AR would be in the higher tiers of fractals for those who play alts.

Estriella Faerie.4029:

I can see your point, but this gear is mandatory for fractal players, as some of the new agony can’t be dodged anymore, therefore you need more, which you can only get by:
- spending a lot of time and gold for infusions crafting
- spending a lot of time and gold for ascended armor crafting…

Aren’t fractals pretty much content created just for those who like vertical progression though? Time and other forms of gating are somewhat standard in vertical progression based games (raid timers etc), so isn’t this really the sort of thing you should be totally into if you’re into fractals? Without the time gating wouldn’t we end up with the standard vertical progression woes of people racing to the top and then complaining endlessly about “no content” until there’s another batch of levels/goals/etc to chase?

On a side note I think this kind of outlines one of the troubles with the concept of vertical progression and in a roundabout way one of the big problems MMOs are having as a genre. GW2 has done more than just about any other sandbox MMO to push the idea that you can do what you want and experience the game however, but the continuous push for more stuff to do to get “better” raises problems whenever it comes up.

On time gating:
I’ve seen it in a number of past MMOs and though it is always contentious I think it is a really healthy/solid system to mitigate the problems of developing games for MMO players. In an ideal world definitely there’d be other/better solutions for these problems, maybe GW2 can be the game that introduces some more positive solutions but time gating is definitely better than nothing imo. All of the problems mentioned by Isaiah are real problems, which have caused all sorts of fall out in past MMOs.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

In this post: Vertical Weapon progression without causing a ruckus

I provided an option for adding some vertical weapon progression without the pitfalls of adding a new BiS tier. The benefit is that making a Legacy Weapon does not actually require you to make a NEW tier but only to modify the current one.

From a Role Playing standpoint the question is: how does a Legendary Weapon get to be Legendary?
By having the very best weapons stand out above all others thru the deeds of their wielders(Legacy Weapons become Legendary over a few generations).

Now if you don’t like the idea of adding a new tier you always have to option to allow these changes to all Ascended items and make this a Horizontal progression instead of a Vertical one though I do not really like that idea as you would be taking Ascended Weapons and turning them into something different and I don’t think that is a path that you really want to tread.

Either way Ascended remains BiS.

Solid read for sure and definitely another worthwhile suggestion on how to make vertical progression moderately less painful. In line with these suggestions maybe check out the Legendary weapons from LotRO. The system is certainly contentious, some love it, some hate it, but conceptually it is a great addition to gameplay, potentially something that could be added conceptually to GW2 gear if there remains the near for vertical gear progression.

Personally I’d still prefer that progression be more attached to one’s character than one’s gear, but at least if progression must be gear based it shouldn’t revolve around throwaway gear and RNG. Few things feel less epic/heroic/legendary in an MMO then the standard blue/yellow/orange/purple gear system where over their career a character finds McGillions of magic items only to junk them because they aren’t best in slot.

Oghier.7419:

Vertical progression should be more about the character than the gear — my characters should not be mere vehicles to transport pink goodies to battle.

I think you put this much more clearly in a sentence than I did in a few paragraphs

Ultimately I’d love to see GW2 be a MMO that is more based around player and character skill (ie player ability & developed character traits/features/etc) than random gear. I think that the MMO obsession with “spear & magic helmet” type play is one of those DnD throwbacks that even DnD is slowly growing to realize just kind of sucks.

From a storytelling point of view it ends up just as poor as it does in gameplay, as nowhere in fantasy literature do we see ye olde hero junking his “Excalibur” in favor of “Excalibur +2” throughout their career. It’d be great if vertical progression could be more angled toward things attached to your character or the improvement of what you currently have, rather than the random loot piñata approach that is MMO standard.

As I sort of gather that ascended gear is here to stay, it’d be nice if perhaps upgradablility were the justification for ascended gear’s absurd initial buy in cost. Thus in the future when ANet decides we need more gear grind you can keep your current gear and just jump through whatever hoops are necessary to improve your stats (I’d prefer not) rather than getting a new item and throwing out the old stuff. Perhaps ascended gear might even be an option for a component for future legendary item crafting (ie ascended sword + 3 of the standard ridiculous legendary components = legendary sword). This might also make ascended seem like less of a huge sunk cost for anyone considering the creation of a legendary.

I realize this is a bit behind the current debate but it was a good question which seemed worth answering.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Agreed. Let’s spend a little more time discussing and brainstorming the following questions:

Controversial: Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Try to tie these ideas into the core foundation of GW2’s systems and mechanics please.

Chris

While I prefer horizontal progression, vertical progression does not in and of itself suck, the problem is that ANet chose perhaps the poorest quality way of developing vertical progression. Vertical progression via items is particularly terrible because of its innately “temporary” feeling, bottom line sooner or later all of the effort you’ve put into vertical progression via item grind becomes pointless. I’ll try to explain my thoughts on the subject succinctly below.

What is fun about vertical progression?

• The feeling of character growth
• The thrill of progress and the feeling that your efforts are being rewarded
• The ability to display your time and effort spent

What is not fun about vertical progression?

• The invalidation of all of your past efforts
• The feeling of monotony

What might be done to make vertical progression in GW2 more enjoyable?

• Attach more progression to your character rather than gear
• Make gear upgradeable rather than disposable

People rarely point out SWTOR as a brillaint show of MMO ideas, but lots of the account unlock ideas worked into SWTOR would work nicely in GW. This material was all doubtlessly vertical progression but it wasn’t attached to RNG and the newest “Sword of Pwning +1” that would soon be made worthless by your “Sword of Pwning +2”. Even in GW2 the new approach to infusions (though it sucks that they can’t be removed, fix this) is built on developing strength rather than replacing it. You combine your +1 infusions to get +2s, rather than just throwing those +1s away.

timmyf.1490:

You Can’t Please Everybody

In theory, adding another tier of gear should have kept my friends around longer. But truthfully, once they got their Ascended gear, they probably would have left anyway. Meanwhile, I now feel the pressure to gear out 8 characters in very expensive, long-term-goal gear that isn’t supposed to be in the game. Or at least wasn’t supposed to be in the game at the time I purchased it.

Whatever You Choose, Please Make It Clear

If Ascended is the end of the treadmill, that’s fine. I can manage. Most of my toons will never have Ascended armor, but Exotic is good enough. If, however, you continue to add more vertical progression, you should make that known. I don’t want a vertical gear treadmill and I can leave and find another game.

It is your decision to make, but all I ask is that you respect the player-base enough to let us know your plans.

I just wanted to quote these two points as I think they’re really essential not only to the future development of GW2 but maybe more broadly to MMOs as a genre. To the first point “you can’t please everybody”, one MMO after another has tried this, always with the same sort of wishy washy rhetoric about not serving one group over another. There are some things these groups fundamentally disagree on and I don’t know that they can be reconciled. The horizontal v. vertical progression issue is one such point I think.

Part of the value of vertical progression is in showing off one’s successes by being tangibly better than those who have not progressed to your level/ability/whatever, this just doesn’t mesh with the idea of being on a level field with freedom to experiment and explore different options. When you try to serve both these groups, you really end up serving neither. Ascended gear is not nearly enough to please someone who genuinely wants deep vertical progression, but it is more than enough to wreck the gameplay of those who prefer horizontal progression.

On a more basic level “whatever you choose please make it clear”, this should be basic when working with any community. Folks want to know where stuff is going and whether or not it is worth their time to continue to invest. To ANet’s credit, GW2 has become /way/ better about this recently, and and the CDI is a great example of the right way to do things. Yet its not very valuable if it ends up being a marketing tool, in this thread you’ll surely see lots of people talking about the pre-release statements and the spirit of the game etc. Reasonable or not, people take that sort of stuff seriously, if it is decided that GW2 needs to move toward being a more standard vertical MMO please, let people know, it is helpful to everyone to know where the game is going.

For more than a year now (since Ascended gear first came out) the discussion over vertical vs. horizontal progression has been going back and forth among the player base both here on the forums and on varied sites devoted to GW2. Throughout these discussions there has been a great deal of conjecture from either side about what the game’s “vision” is, how GW2 has veered away from its pre-launch mission statement and what where the game is headed in the future. It would be seriously awesome to read here, from the game’s developers where we as a players can expect GW2 to go in the future. While I understand that the CDI isn’t intended to discuss what is currently in development, it shouldn’t be a problem to express to players what the game’s general direction is intended to be.

On launch GW2 offered something very different from what currently populates the MMO genre. It may have been a far step away from GW1, but it was also a far step away from most of what the industry offers as “the norm”. Gradually over time, and suddenly with the introduction of ascended gear that has changed. Please note that I am not attempting to state that ascended gear is impossible to earn by any measure, or that it is even particularly difficult, it is however sharply limiting in some of the things that were once GW2’s greatest strengths when contrasted with other MMOs.

• Alts:
  Increasing the range of GW2’s gear ladder makes it harder for people to play multiple characters and sufficiently gear them out.
• Build diversity:
  Where previously players had the flexibility to play different builds and gear sets in the different parts of the game (WvW, Open World, Dungeons/Fractals) now build diversity is much more sharply limited based not only on the gear one has to carry but the challenge of getting that gear. It is more costly for players to experiment with builds over time and dramatic class changes have a more negative impact on players due to invested time.
• Value of old content:
  As the rewards systems of the game change and become more vertical, old content becomes (as in most other MMOs) much less rewarding. Dungeons officially offer nothing but gold and armor skins (that you have to waste transmutation stones on) at this point.

One of the standard arguments against the above is that the vertical progression is shallow and ultimately optional. “You don’t ‘need’ ascended gear” after all, but if it isn’t necessary, why is it around? Once stats start getting raised through gear grind either old content has to be made more difficult, or old content becomes trivial to run either of which seems a poor choice.

I could complain about ascended gear and vertical progression until I’m blue in the face, but in an attempt to be constructive a few suggestions:

• Gear could have swappable stats (like legendaries)
  This would at very least place less confinement on horizontal progression by allowing players to try out differing builds without having the character defined purely by their gear.
• Gear could cap out at ascended with things like infusions being account unlocks
  This might help to limit the impact on those with alts, while still offering the opportunity for vertical progression.

There will always be some new MMO to offer players the hottest new gear ladder, but I think the genre can and should offer more than that. An MMO shouldn’t have to be your life for players to be on an even scale.

I mean I’m glad to see that some attention might be paid to the subject, but it seems kind of laughable to discuss this right after the ascended armor gear grind is revealed. Hopefully something useful comes from the discussion but my expectations are decidedly low.

Frankly I don’t mind the changes too much, they suck but we all knew they were going to suck. What I didn’t appreciate was the total lack of discussion/explanation of any of this or of broad strokes of what their goals are for the classes. Particularly in light of this new push being made toward community communication :/

ElDudemeister.5108:

I just wanted to chime in and say that it’s really disheartening to learn that you’re “nerfing” hammers after we just spent 100g + many hours crafting our way to 500 weaponsmithing and then another 40g on making an ascended hammer. We might not have done that if we knew you were going to contemplate pulling the rug out from underneath this staple of WvW warriors.

The changes suck a bunch but they aren’t the end of the world, your hammer will still be useful in WvW just dramatically less so. That being said, you’re totally right regarding your ascended weapon, at least you didn’t go for a legendary. On release this really wasn’t an issue as exotics were always fairly easy to get, one of the (apparently constantly overlooked) issues with the implementation of ascended gear is that it makes it more and more difficult to have any build flexibility.

It is pretty unpleasant having to farm up new gear any time balance changes are made, standard in MMOs typically but exactly not what was expected with GW2. I’m glad that I decided to sit on my materials to delay making my ascended weapon until after the updates. My hammer is definitely going to my guardian at this point, since Hammer is for control on Warrior not much point in bothering with a top end one.

However the balance patch ends up in the end, I just wanted to voice my appreciation for this aspect of ANet’s changed approach to community management. Hearing the team’s thoughts and justifications on why changes were necessary is great, as is reading the thoughts of others on the set of changes. Please do keep this sort of approach in mind in the future of GW2’s development.

Overall I don’t think any of these changes are too rough. I’m sure everyone who wasn’t kidding themselves knew that Hammer would have some changes coming, particularly anyone who spent time in WvW. My only concern really is the same concern I typically have in MMO balance runs, it sounds like a good deal of material is changing at the same time. Have you all considered how these changes will interact with one another and the possibility that in concert these changes will impact some builds viability more than initially planned.

On another note, although it came off as somewhat dramatic I can understand where Scoobaniec is coming from. Warrior has always been one of those classes (going back to the days of ZOMG 100 blades is overpowered) with highly telegraphed moves that are really easy for a competent foe to avoid. Do these design decisions also play into your balance discussions? Indeed the skullcrack change is only a fraction of a second but combined with a more telegraphed animation that’s a hefty impact in PvP, no?

Personally I’m ok with the changes all around, everyone knew the Hammer changes were coming and they’ll be easy to rebuild around. The longbow ones really do suck though, I’m a big fan of the weapon and the hits it took sting quite a bit more than the hammer ones. Still, I’ll wait to see how they play out.

BobbyStein.2315:

Player Agency
For many players, their feelings of “playing second fiddle” likely began with Trahearne’s introduction in the Personal Story and have persisted somewhat with the Living World releases. This is partially by design and partially due to constraints both budgetary and technical. The quote below is from a forum response I posted after launch.

I wanted to chime in specifically on the issue of “player agency” this has been a subject of discussion in lots of MMOs for a good while now and I think it is one of the areas that GW2’s personal story really floundered on while in contrast the living story has been doing a great job.

In any MMOG it makes like zero sense for the player to be “the one”, this trope is a throwback to single player RPGs and it really needs to go the way of the dodo. One of the things another MMO (The Secret World) does probably better than any current game on the market is its story, and I’d argue that part of that is due to writing a story for the MMO genre rather than around it. MMO’s particularly themepark MMOs could do so much better regarding story if only they’d work with the idea that the player is one of many.

Surprisingly to date GW2 has been better than many MMOs in this field precisely due to some of the living story updates. It is really quite positive to the genre as a whole to recognize characters as taking part in communal efforts, rather than being “the one” (just like everyone else who participated in the story) who saves the world.

One of the concepts heralded on GW2’s development was the idea that the game is “your story” and in the first and second arcs of the personal story this is done brilliantly. In the first arc, stories are relatively small in scope/scale yet personal, relevant and meaningful. In the second arc stories grow a bit grander as each player is participating in a broader effort as part of their faction, yet still there is meaning.

Then in the third arc Treahearne enters the scene, and we’re fed the exact same garbage storyline every MMO (and every single player RPG) has fed us for the past decade or more. The player becomes a key figure to destroying the dragon and saving the land. It seems like the quality ideas developed in the first and second arcs were just thrown out the window. Another of the game’s core ideas (the ability of the player to shape the world) gets thrown out as a byproduct of this terrible storytelling as the entirety of Zhaitan’s being defeated really is only ever represented in the personal story instance… why even bother?

Worse yet from a storytelling point of view, once players are saving the universe everything else becomes relatively meaningless and trivial. Much better imo to have small scale conflicts/issues that players can contribute to and see the actual impact of their work.

The solution to this problem is easy, as others have pointed out above. Please just make WXP account bound. We’d all love to see more neat, wonderful things out of WvW, but there is no need to complicate this issue. New maps, awesome, new rewards awesome, none of this has anything to do with a very clear problem created by a design that made WvW such a sharp contrast with the rest of the game. In a game that started out super-friendly toward casual players (still ok) and those who play alts, there was no reason to make WXP character bound.

Fix this issue, don’t complicate it, make WXP account bound.

I’m having the same problem, alas. Good to hear they’re investigating at least.

HTXL.2598:

There’s no subscription, you’re not paying a dime, and you’re complaining?

But you got your $60 worth, right?

What on earth does a subscription have to do with anything?

The decision is a poor one (imo) and moves away from what was advertised as the foundation of GW2’s design. We don’t know the specifics of how this will work out so far, but at least in part that’s due to AN’s “surprise!” approach to releasing information. Personally, I don’t think people are overreacting here any more than they were about DE a month or so ago. Basically its one more aspect of the same tired argument we’ve had to deal with in MMOs for ages. Some people like grinding (particularly dungeons) I’m sure all of us understand that, but this game was presented as something that would buck that trend.

If one wants to grind gear in dungeons, there is pretty much /every/ other MMO for that. GW2’s approach to cosmetic changes over stat improvement was a refreshing change of pace, and the decision to dump that seems overall more negative than positive.

It’s been said before but yeah, nothing cute about the sudden inexplicable shift to an SOP gear ladder game. I’ll probably stick around playing, but it seems pretty crappy to put it lightly. So much for GW2 being “different”.

I like the idea that OP presents quite a bit, and think that generally DEs are one of the best things about Guild Wars 2 but that they have so much more to offer than the system currently does. Though they are a complete blast at the moment (particularly when not swarmed with players) they tend to have limited impact, refresh entirely too frequently and don’t react as well to changes in player numbers as would be reasonable. I look forward to seeing the changes due for release today as a sort of peek into the type of ideas we should expect to see in GW2’s future.

While I don’t necessarily expect it, I would love to see more like this in the future of GW2s storyline. Personally I really enjoyed the storyline to date even if it is a bit archetypal black & white. I would definitely love to see more complexity in moral choices, repercussions and overall character depth. There are a few well written characters in GW2 but they’re definitely in the minority.

Delofasht.4231:

Normally I don’t post on subjects such as these. . . especially since I think a universal token system generally leads to overfarming of a certain dungeon, however, there is something not being said here that I feel is rather relevant.

I could care less about the token system as it is right now, except for one minor issue. . . They take up bag space. Can a tab in the collectibles be made for this? Or a Soulbound Collectibles window be created?

I have 4 different token types taking up space in my bags that I’d like to get out but would really not have to go to my bank to find out how many I have when deciding which dungeon my friends and I are going to run for that evening.

I likewise would be pretty strongly against universal tokens, I think that people should have to do the appropriate dungeon to get that reward. That being said I couldn’t agree more regarding the issue of token/inventory space. Is there any reason for this aside from urging players to spend gems on bank upgrades. There are plenty of reasons to pick up bank upgrades without having players have stacks of tokens for each dungeon + WvW. It’d be really nice to see this changed, please consider making tokens and honor badges either collectibles or just currency as they should be.

skullmount.1758:

This. It seems they only cater only one type of person, the one with ALOT of free time to be able to play (or ones that are on all the time), not us that have a great love of the game but have work/family that don’t allow us to be able to play for looooonng stretches of time (in one game session). I’m not really for unannounced one time events. If they reset from time to time, maybe (because that way I have another chance, possibly, to experience it).

From a guy with a full time job, several side projects, an amazing family, great friends and limited play time this seems like a really selfish attitude. It isn’t the end of the world if I miss something, and I think one of the greatest things developers can add to a game is events that actually shape and change the world. For all their “dynamic” nature, MMO worlds tend to feel very static and ultimately it really feels that in any non-sandbox game players have 0 ability to impact/shape the world. That is a pretty big failing imo in a genre that is supposed to be about community.

Part of the current issue (as I see it) with endgame is that it is just a cyclical churning of events, if you miss something no big deal since it’ll happen again in just a handfull of hours. I think that both holiday events and one time events (even if they take a really long time) are great things.

I hope they stick to their guns on issues like this. The whole LFG debate has been ongoing in every new MMO and eventually every game caves and we end up playing lobby-wars. There are many games out there already that offer all of this, there is no reason for GW2 to be one more in the pile. A global LFG chat channel might not be the end of the world, but even that honestly seems unnecessary. There are many ways to get yourself a dungeon group, people can use them.

Thrumdi.9216:

Compare the graphs of Tarnished Coast to Dragonbrand.

It shows without a doubt that there is an off-peak capping issue. Dragonbrand has huge spikes in queues, when Tarnished Coast has none.

Hopefully this data will spur ArenaNet to do something about the issue.

I think that (hopefully) everyone realizes that there are issues, but to a degree these issues are to be expected in WvWvW PvP. Many problems arise when developers attempt to add varying rules and structures to “world PvP” and I’m sure that the struggle to find a reasonable middle ground between unregulated PvP (which some prefer) and a system maintaining the possibility of competition (which others prefer) must be difficult.

I think that some great suggestions were made so far in this thread, ideas like an underdog achievement offer rewards for players who stick it out and fight for their server rather than just evacuating. It is surprising to see players complaining about free server transfers, but it serves as a great example of the difficulty of pleasing everyone. I’m not sure that barring people from joining the “obviously going to win servers” is a good idea, it feels pretty knee-jerky to me. The idea that these servers are being flooded in part due to their WvW dominance though definitely deserves consideration, ultimately how much should devs be responsible for regulating player behaviors?

I think a slightly broader interpretation of this issue might just be the importance of maintaining different builds in GW2 for different activities. Any number of builds are 100% feasible for standard PvE solo or with a group of friends, however in other parts of the game (WvW, sPvP, Tournaments and Dungeons) what a player probably wants to bring to the table is much different. On one hand I think that multi-build features in games tend to water down the importance of player choices, and really prefer systems where choices matter. On the other GW2 has a great set of features in this area already and I think the game approaches these choices in a new and interesting way.

When a PC is underwater in GW2 their skill set changes, when a PC is in sPvP their whole character changes. Would it be feasible or worthwhile to allow players to have a Dungeon build and maybe a WvWvW build as well?

Magzillas.4865:

Behold. The power of calm, reasoned discussion.

Seriously, I was looking for a Reddit +Karma button until I realized that this sort of reasonable discussion was indeed occurring on a game’s official forums. Nice to see.

I seriously find posts like this puzzling. I know that it is SOP to complain in MMO forums that your class is underpowered and/or other classes are overpowered, but seriously do people really feel the Guardian has durability issues? Is this a PvE focused issue or a PvP one? In PvP even my offense specced Guardian has crazy survivability. Is this strictly an argument over numbers rather than how the classes play?

flasper.1968:

Not if the groups were only allowed to be 2-3 people.

I play pretty regularly with my fiancee, if we sPvP we sometimes get put against each other… we knew that going in. sPvP is great for practicing, and figuring out new builds etc, there is a mode for organized team play, it is tournaments. The lack of team queue for sPvP is one of the things that (imo) contributes to this mode being fun in GW2.

You can join tournaments solo or with 1-4 friends, it might be challenging as tournaments tend to offer more “competition” but that is the option for playing with friends. Personally I’m glad the game supports sPvP for learning rather than as a way for organized guilds and pals to stomp random PUGs.