Guild Wars 2

Bloodstealer.5978:

Each to there own and I guess that’s really all I see from ANETS thinking on trying to fix a problem that imo wasn’t really there… then again every MMO likes to put some new paint on old things from time to time, GW2 is no different in that respect, except maybe it needed some sooner than others do/did.

This appears to be the case. Personally, I didn’t think Arenanet was having that much of an issue keeping players. I don’t see how many of the changes will keep players, especially with those who found such issue with staying with the game in the first place.

Olvendred.3027:

Furyan.9578:

I do agree with the sentiment that a basic salvage kit at such a level is somewhat irrelevant as part of a reward, more to the extent of the quality of it at least. Though to be truthful I don’t find the rewards in Guild Wars 2 as a whole to be that rewarding.

Looking at the level alone it’s fair to say you’ve (and other players) have already been well and truly exposed to salvaging and the different qualities, so giving the more basic of kits seems underwhelming. Personally, boosters … well, I have stockpile of them I don’t use mainly because I don’t use them. Skill points: 7? That’s nice. To be truthful I haven’t done much mid levels leveling since the new experience but I do find them lackluster. But as above, I’ve found most of the rewards lackluster. That’s my opinion of course, others may have a different sentiment.

It’s a reward for leveling up (which, in case people have forgotten, we never got anything before). It’s not supposed to be mindblowing. It’s also not supposed to be worth a huge amount to a vet. It’s supposed to help out, a bit but not too much, players leveling, including those on their very first character.

I doubt they were considering ‘vets’ (such an entitled term nowadays) at all when doing these rewards. Not all rewards should be mindblowing, I wasn’t saying that at all, if you feel I was then you have my sympathies, but they should at least be relevant.

“Hey, you got to level 38. Congratulations. Here, we saved you 88 cooper!”

I do agree with the sentiment that a basic salvage kit at such a level is somewhat irrelevant as part of a reward, more to the extent of the quality of it at least. Though to be truthful I don’t find the rewards in Guild Wars 2 as a whole to be that rewarding.

Looking at the level alone it’s fair to say you’ve (and other players) have already been well and truly exposed to salvaging and the different qualities, so giving the more basic of kits seems underwhelming. Personally, boosters … well, I have stockpile of them I don’t use mainly because I don’t use them. Skill points: 7? That’s nice. To be truthful I haven’t done much mid levels leveling since the new experience but I do find them lackluster. But as above, I’ve found most of the rewards lackluster. That’s my opinion of course, others may have a different sentiment.

Considering how some of this NPE is going are Arenanet sure they want to actually keep the players it caters towards? I mean, really. How many people have actually stop playing the game because golem chess was too confusing, or watering plants seemed like such a struggle, or feeding a cow to actually warranty even a fraction of those changes, and do you really think players who’ve found the lower levels so challenging to stay are going to find the later levels tolerable?

Their heads might explode when all their skills are unlocked.

Shalloe.4867:

maybe its a delay because of working more on an expansion?

“Given that NCsoft’s major global peers
Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts are trading at 2014F P/Es of over 15x, the company
appears significantly undervalued. Most global PC and console game companies are expected
to suffer from stagnating margins in 2014. However, NCsoft is scheduled to launch an
expansion pack for Guild Wars 2 in the US and Europe in 2015.”

taken from
http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/download/182450.pdf?attachmentId=182450

The Living Story addition would, given the wording, be consider an expansion pack. If it said expansion by itself I would have been a bit more excited at reading that.

Then you could actually add character progression with personality, where choices actually held some validity unlike what we currently have. and if you could go back through and refine personal choice and attachment that’d be nice

Incorporate new profession skills maybe?

Not too sure about Orders skills (Sunspear/Luxon etc) for the older players but that could be explored, even for Orders specific content.

Not everything has to be world changing but progression can bring depth to character as well.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

Just a question here because I am curious. The idea of the Living World is that there is a storyline that you take part in, that you are involved in events that shape Tyria in permanent ways—how would you all convey the sense of progression and change without also making changes to the landscape? I see a couple of comments regarding creating things, not simply destroying. Do you all have any other ideas?

Late to this discussion but still…

Changing the landscape is problematic as it cross the lines with the Personal Story and that can raise a lot of questions about the state of the world.

There is plenty of progression that can be achieved with or without changing the landscape of established zones too radically. Adding new areas to accommodate progression is a safe way that opens up the map more (which is nice), though there are plenty of things a Living World Experience can bring to the table and expand upon.

There are many, many elements that are established already in the world that are relatively standing still that could be explored as part of a Living World project.

• What’s happening with Fort Trinity and how is Trahearne going with the plans to defeat the other dragons? In fact, can we see the corpse of Zhaitan yet? What is the state of Orr right now? New area right there.
  • Are any of the other Elders worried about that “elder-dragon-killing-number-2-skill-pressing-players” yet? Power struggle of Zhaitan’s remaining champion creatures over what’s left while Orr gets cleansed? Gotta be lots to do with that.

• Then there’s a nice little place called Garenhoff where the Wizard’s Tower is and that Arcane Eye already use as a locale. That story arc could be brought up in a living story element and would certainly be something I would like to learn more about as it was something established back in Guild Wars.

• What about the other races like the Tengu?

• What about the established forces of the other Elder Dragons?

• Then there’s the Orders that can be expanded upon for more than just a Personal Story element. It would be nice to see that expanded and brought into focus a bit, especially with Living World stuff as I’d enjoy fighting along side my Order again in a more specific order-ly. Expanding and reincorporating the Orders and other factions in a more real way is a great way of expanding on lore and bringing some new content series in as well. A Orders bounty system. Quests, dailies etc?
  • What are the not so nice Orders like the White Mantle and the likes getting up to. How’s Kryta going right now?

• Those Steam creatures have a living story and personal story tie in and would be interesting to see how that could be played around with. Steam creatures go fully self-aware and go on mass purge? Dealing with issues like creatures becoming self-aware? Something? Anything since LS Season 1 is gone right now.

• Ebonhawke anyone? How’s all that going since Zhaitan was 2’ed to death? How’s that treaty?

• Re-establish the Hall of Monuments, actually do that place justice and answer some of the questions established back in Guild Wars (as far as I know they haven’t been answered).

• Clearly the Underworld is still around. What about the other realms? Why don’t we take the fight there?

I’m sure we could go on…

notebene.3190:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_9jl7wtBGJ5k/TQLiiAOY_2I/AAAAAAAAAq8/rOvWIh6-FJ4/s1600/100_6885.JPG

:|

Dude, no that’s not hard core NPE enough… they’re missing a plug guard

“A new build is available…”

[it’s now removed entirely and replaced with a teddy bear that makes fart noises once you reach level 11, but chooses not to explain this fact to the player.] There ya go! :P

Vanive.3804:

The thing is it would kill the NPC cities as most people would go to their lag free home instance instead. This is kinda what happened in swg years ago when they added player cities…the NPC cities died. They want people to have a reason to hang out in LA.

I avoid LA and other lag-central locations like the plague, personally, but I see your point.

Though, I would love a place with such little lag, no commander tags dancing around my minimap and no local chat. That would be sweet.

Teon.5168:

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

phys.7689:

There are some things to learn, and apply from gw1, however, it usually gets caught in gw1 vs gw2 instead of talking about what is strong, or what would transfer over well to gw1, and how to transfer it over.

I’ll give my opinion as someone who has played both Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2.

They are completely separate games. The feel, the goals, the systems… there is really nothing “similar” in the games, aside from the lore.

Talking about transitioning things from GW1 to GW2 just seems like a bad idea to me. GW2 has taken on a life of it’s own. It isn’t “the sequel to GW1”, instead it’s “that MMO that relies heavily on dodging and combat that actually makes realistic sense”.

If you really want a game that’s more like GW1, then start with a game that’s already close to it. Don’t take what people love about GW2 and twist it to fit what you think the “sequel” to GW1 should be like.

Maybe Guild Wars 3 will be closer to Guild Wars 1 than it is to 2. If so, then good for you. You’ll get the game you want. But me? I like GW2 how it is. I don’t want it to be fit into a mold just to be more like its “predecessor”. I like my game how it is, don’t ruin it for me in the name of nostalgia and/or legacy.

Well said….and I agree completely.

Nostalgia is one thing, but missing functionality that wouldn’t hurt the game confused me.

Replaying key missions
Saving/Sharing your entire builds
Selectable instances

How would these things break GW2 for people?

A lot of the stuff I miss from GW can’t be in GW2 simply because of how the lore of the world works, for the moment at least (/cough Dervish! /cough ), but there was nice functions that the previous game had that were great. Also, refining things in Gw2 like what choice actually means, how that functions wouldn’t hurt the game either.

Multi-class set ups, while missed, aren’t something I’d like to see.

*on a side note they could probably drop a Dervish class into the game and it wouldn’t require that much adjusting: seeing as how many weapons default attack hits multiple foes, its skills have a positive and negative effect (damage and heal), they have true Avatars , etc, but that’s just me. *

I’m not really seeing a performance increase or decrease, my PC plays the game on mid settings and since the update I haven’t seen the performance change: game still grinds to a FPS halt in boss fights or high density areas.

Guild Wars used to have the function to be able to replay key missions, and is a function sorely missed. Personally, not having that functionality in Guild Wars 2 when they had it previously confused me. I enjoyed Claw Island and was really annoyed that the only way I could play it again was to either make a new character or having to play with someone else.

Would love to see the replay options!

Thanks for reminding me I need to keep working on my Celestial gear. :P

CureForLiving.5360:

At least mechanically, man I’m not sure when I’ll ever motivate myself to finish my HoM…

I loved that place in Guild Wars, it was such a nice place but in Guild Wars 2 is was such a let down. I wanted to know what that big statue in the back was, at least, but it doesn’t even exist in the GW2 version. I was so cheesed off >:|

Zero Day.2594:

I kind of liked solo’ing stuff in GW1. Something that’s hard/ineffective to do in GW2. Kind of allowed me to play whenever, for however long. With GW2 if I want to do a dungeon I have to find a group of people (hopefully competent enough), and then I can’t exactly ditch them half way through (some paths are too long, would feel bad considering how long it took to assemble a group) if I had to go do something else (life calls).

I miss that choice to be able to play with others or just do it yourself: open world is open to all, the whole MMO aspect but dungeons are not. I miss being able to run it myself (with or without a party) as I could in GW. I miss that choice.

I feel, from my experience, that while Guild Wars 2 is flashier and incorporates elements I like (choice mainly) it’s still the lesser of the two.

I’m not sure if that’s me looking at Guild Wars through rose-tinted glasses but it had simply things I liked but in the previous game I felt more connected: felt like a hero. In Guild Wars 2 I feel more like a nanny, there just to decide which playground to take the kids (I’m looking at you Trahearne).

Then there’s simply game mechanics I miss that seem weird to not have, since Guild Wars had it:

1. The replaying main missions option – I can not overstate how much I used to replace missions in Guild Wars, just to help others, try a new team/build setup etc, and I cannot overstate how cheesed off I was when, at release, I went through Claw Island for the first time, was really excited and wanted to do it again and found out it was a one time per character thing.
2. Saving your builds <——————— why? How is it “previous gen” to have such a useful feature.
3. Henchmen / Heroes – while I do sorely miss heroes Guild Wars 2 is an entirely different beast but I do wish something like dungeon related heroes could be used – for those times you just don’t want people to leave or wait around for people to want to do the dungeons. Yes, I know a lot of people can solo-duo stuff, but sometimes you just want to play your way.
4. Saving your build and being able to share your build setups.
5. Town/Instance selection: megaserver is nice but it’s still not working right. “Right, so let’s all meet up in Metrica Province district 20.”, “done!”. Choice is nice.
6. RP: my derv (or characters) had a role to play in the party whereas I don’t really feel that some role playing connection in Guild Wars 2, though I can say that could just be because how I choose to play. You had to think a bit more with your team setups in Guild Wars (if you didn’t just copy and pasta the metas). Guild Wars 2 just seems to have a lot of flash and gimmick.

That’s only a few, I could really make a list. And yes, that’s just my opinion.

Guild Wars 2 has a lot of good stuff to it. Do not get me wrong, I enjoy the game when I play, but for a next-gen title I expected an MMORPG version of Guild Wars on steroids, all the best options and then some. Guild Wars 2 is successful but part of that success was due to it’s hype, it still misses a lot of stuff that keeps people playing. Again, my opinion.

As long as it had mouse and keyboard support (and I had a PS4) I’d be down for it. I own a console but personally favor PC gaming, because I like to mod. Though, as others have said (and probably many more) it most likely won’t happen. Guild Wars 3 maybe but most likely not GW2

ChoChoBo.6503:

I feel like I’ve done just about everything you can in the game.

It is OK to take a break and play something else. If you’re feeling you’ve done everything you can I would recommend going off and doing something else, come back later. I remember getting burnt out with the game – considerably early on in comparison to when I felt I burnt out with Guild Wars – where I would only log in for dailies, or to get a crystal a day for my celestial gear. I ended up going off and playing other things. I always boomerang back at some point, do some more and go elsewhere for a bit. Even Arenanet would say go do something else.

[going on the notion this is a Star Wars reference]

Just make an underwater play in one of their little cities. We already have weapons that can look like lightsabres.

Sokia.3710:

Furyan.9578:

Yes, we don’t need a dual class system but that doesn’t mean it won’t come about because new players like that kind of thing.

I mean, it is a possibility. Anything to keep new players coming to the game, right?

You’re totally right. New players would probably love a dual-class system. In fact, I think we should have a tri-class system. That way, you could finally be surrounded by warriors who are doing nothing but facetanking mobs with Echo Mending.

lol. Echo mending. I remember those days. lol

However, we just don’t know if Arenanet will follow what was initially established with Guild Wars 2 or if it will explore already traveled roads in a means of retaining new players, or even attracting new players. The recent reactions to the patch is largely about new players, the overall effects may just be a start point to a shift from what was: traits change, starter areas are changed, middle level experience could be next. Who’s to say? Without real evidence we have no indication of what the state of the game actually is.

Such things happened with Guild Wars itself. Again, we don’t know. How bad are the figures to warrant the low level changes? And who’s to say that once new players pass those points it fixes the retention issue?

If there is level based content all that content needs a clear indication that it is as such and what the requirement it.

If the skill points are going to continue to have a level requirement at low levels, it should have an indication on the message when you either hover over the icon on the map/mini-map or when you interact with the skill challenge itself so clarification is made. This seems a reasonable functionality seeing as how all these changes were supposedly made to help new players. How is it helping new players, especially those who came in just before the update, when you don’t clearly indicate it? None of this is especially hard since it already has the functionality in place to check your level.

It seems counter intuitive to have other elements display the fact that they have a requirement (or recommended level in some cases) and then some not, especially when it breaks the flow of the established elements around it. To me it seems backwards to have events and hearts around a skill point all with some indication of their level requirement (especially when they start to develop a region divide – ie 5 – 10 level content exists here on the map, levels 10-15 over that part and 1-5 over that way) and then skill points run off a different thing all together.

Sokia.3710:

The first Guild Wars had even worse class balancing than this game. So… no, we don’t need a dual-class system.

Yes, we don’t need a dual class system but that doesn’t mean it won’t come about because new players like that kind of thing.

I mean, it is a possibility. Anything to keep new players coming to the game, right?

This made me laugh. You must work for Arenanet, Mr Wizard. lol

Good job.

Pandaman.4758:

Honestly, if ANet is going to be trimming features in their own game to make it less intimidating to new players, then we’re going to have to talk about the elephant in the room: the Holy Trinity.

They could easily convert the game to a trinity system, I mean there’s already a watered down version already, and if they’re trying to retain players then they’ll have to explore that option. Is it worth to their bank account keeping a non-trinity system or not? I mean, if it’s what a large group of players like to have and all…

Swizzle.7982:

Your own poll shows that 82% of voters do not like the new changes (to varying degrees). You can try to spin it however you like, but I don’t think it’s reasonable or believable for you to suggest that these people are blowing it out of proportion or are irrationally angry and discontent.

There isn’t much point to try and reason with him/her, like you said their own poll suggests something different then his/her standpoint but will still argue from his/her chairtop just trying to angle it this way or that. Then, when he/she can’t carry it forward he/she will just dismiss the whole thing as not being that important in the first place.

It will be months before we’ll really be able to see how the new player experience is going, and seeing as how very few people actually use mediums like this forum etc, we’ll have to wait until Arenanet comes out and say it was a success or if they need to rethink their approach.

What I’d love to see is the actual data that is saying that new players are actually have difficulties and where.

Ishtar.6457:

practicing my lap dance with the cow all day everyday nao. aww yizzzzz dats how we roll in tyria now.

[jumps on a female character] Don’t worry guys, I can resolve all Tyrias issues by jiggling my breasts and butt! <—— I was going to say a three letter word starting with ‘a’ and having ’s’s in it but they put the word “kitten” instead, but seeing as how feline names can be slang for a lady’s lady place I thought it best to change Arenanet’s censorship issue O.O

“Come on, Zhaitan, I got the cure for the thing that’s bothering you.”

Anet answer to everything: boobs!

Looking at the new “new player experience” what other games out there share similar leveling experiences?

Odyssey.2613:

Eponet.4829:

Zhaitan fight was too confusing for new players. Cannons removed. He is now killed by jumping off the ship and climbing up his body in mid flight so you can stab his heart tail.

Fixed that for you :P

I like this game. If they had to make these changes because people couldn’t understand them then… O.O does that make me a genius.

“You’re a genius! I’m a genius! We are all geniuses!”

I thought they were making it so they were removing the cannons and allowing ranged weapons to reach and to complete the new player experience that is now being developed you just need to press one, allow it to auto cycle, so you can go and check your emails, forum posts and cook yourself some noodles.

O.O does this mean they’ll pull Teq in line. I mean, there’s no really events available to new players like it, and Shatterer is a “look, I swung a sword. Hey, a swung a sword again” kind of fight.

Redenaz.8631:

ColinJohanson.2394:

I want to make it clear: what we used to have absolutely wasn’t good enough for our standards of retaining new users. Before we do some of the other things we want to do with Gw2, we had to fix this, period.

Or maybe they weren’t retaining people because… well, they didn’t like the game that much?

It was never “this is my story” in the sense people think.

Its “This is my story – in the way Arenanet wants it to be your story.”.

Barabbas.8715:

Furyan.9578:

Guys. Guys! You don’t see, they’re establishing the changes into the game to prepare them for the “just click one button” approach to defeating Zhaitan.

They’re actually remaking Zhaitan so you have to defeat him by going up his butt like Lemiwinks.

I heard they were reworking the Zhaitan fight so half of your team had to distract it with dancing so the midget on your party can repair a big gun so a norn npc could shoot Zhaitan with it.

Guys. Guys! You don’t see, they’re establishing the changes into the game to prepare them for the “just click one button” approach to defeating Zhaitan.

Yesterday I was a little bit “kittened” off with Arenanet. Now? Now I’m just waiting until they start going through the higher levels for new players.

I personally still don’t get it. I was a new player in this game at one point too. If the game had been set up like this when I started I probably wouldn’t have stayed, to be honest.

Vayne.8563:

Because they really did run tests with new players and this kept new players playing longer and staying with the game longer. This is what Colin said directly. A year of testing on new players.

The thing I find fraudulent about that is we were all new players once. I don’t know anyone out of all the players I know who had difficulties with how the systems worked before this patch. After the patch is a different story, so saying its to help new players is a self-defeating standpoint.

I have my kids who are now 11 and 13 (who were 9 and 11 at the time of release) who could pick up the game fine before the patch who are now wonder what’s wrong with the “new players” this patch is aimed towards. From my point of view if a 9 and an 11 year old could pick up the game and play fine with little to no gaming experience but something like this has to come out… somethings wrong somewhere.

I don’t follow commander tags for multiple reasons mainly the fact that it’s purchasable with enough gold and it gives importance when someone doesn’t deserve it. I also don’t like the fact I can’t turn off the commander tags on the maps. Having it visible shows importance, visually puts it on par with waypoints, vistas, skill points etc. And they’re not.

Now, I know Arenanet likes its gold sinks but it’s just ridiculous now. Give us the option of disabling it on our end. But, I don’t see Arenanet doing anything, it’s what a lot of people are now asking for and seeing as how they now made it possible to change the color (maybe as a “hey look at this pretty thing” for the chinese market they’re trying to get into) … yeah I just don’t see it happening.

In the aftermath of the September patch I just want to post this.

http://youtu.be/FU1JUwPqzQY

Does anyone remember that? I’m sure Arenanet doesn’t. Just past the one minute twenty mark seems very fitting.

The more I read peoples responses to the patch the more you realize that Arenanet is drifting from it’s original statement, but not because its established base is shifting back to last generation gaming but the only reasons I can find for this happening is because the release in China.

Arenanet, if you released this patch as a means of combining the two game version (effectively stating to your established base that the Chinese game community is more important than your original mission statement or the already three million or so Guild Wars 2 product buyers) then have the balls to come out and say it for what it is. It may only affect low level areas (now) but you’re already drifting from the premise a lot of people brought your game for.

And how long until this stretches beyond the starter areas? How long before your actions to impress the Chinese market screw over further the market that has supported you for two years?

Above is just my opinion but you have to start thinking: what are they going to screw over change next?

So pretty <3

Gear is more than looks, isn’t it? Pretty sure you get slightly better stats for every level of rarity, so if you’re a stats buff it’s worth it for that bit of extra.

Most of the big fights are the same kind thing: they stand around, occasionally do an attack (which is generally mass aoe) and everyone goes to ranged weapons.

Arenanet have said in the past that they had to tune the Shatterer down otherwise it would focus too much on players (basically wipe them out faster). A lot of people complained about the relative lameness of the fight.

And for a big selling point for the game, and one of the major events in it, the rewards are often… well, they suck most of the time >_<

Removing the notification won’t tame the zerg, since people will just shout it on map or simply ask.

The notification is the “hey, I just met you, and this is crazy but and event’s up maybe?” poke to get people playing the actual content. It’s point of the "Ok, we’re not going to have big “!” over NPCs heads for content, but still a form of notifying players there’s something to be done."

Had the same thing with my girlfriend the other night. Seems that there are some missions/quests of the personal story that may be solo. Kinda annoying, hard to tell either way since there’s no text saying “SOLO ONLY” or if it’s a bug >_<

This quest is bugged.

Handing in pieces did nothing for me the quest is referencing an earlier section of itself.

To complete I had to go to the hidden camp of Centuars and wipe them out to get points towards the heart.

Hi there. This is a minor issue, but I thought I’d bring it to your attention.

I was playing around in the Orrian mission: Air Drop, the one where you get the super awesome golem suit (absolute asuran awesomeness).

Anywoo, even though this suit is only available for this mission there are a few issues with it. Namely the Teleporter Relay Device , it’s spammable with no recharge and no aftercast, and I was able to spike over 370,000 damage with it. It very much removed all challenge from the mission. It was fun though, I even made a video lol

The other thing with this that bugs me is that I achieved the Overkill achievement by using T.R.D., and I was wondering if you could be able to reset/restore the achievement to my last ranking. It seemed a bit over the top to do that to a level 80, I believe. Probably can’t but even the standard attack was occasionally spiking for 260K damage. Max damage was well over the 300K for the achievement.