Yes to all of that. If you want to do those tasks, great. Those can be the quickest and easiest ways to do it, but there should be alternatives that might take more time and effort to achieve. Like with other elements of the backpack, “I want a Clay Pot but don’t want to grind T6 for geodes, so I can just buy one on the TP for about 11g.” Options. It’s also worth noting that this is not a standalone item, but rather the extension (possibly not even the final extension) of a multi-stage quest item. Players have put a lot of time and effort into developing their plants to this stage, only to be told that they have to do something extremely distasteful to continue. The “QQing” is perfectly understandable.
Coucillor Phlunt: "Not so fast, my muscular friend. In light of this new development, I have decided to add further stipulations to the deal. ", It’s a classic bait and switch. I was almost 2/3rds of the way in before they pulled out that particular requirement. Not a fan of Fractals, never have been and holding desirable items from other game modes hostage isn’t about to change my mind.
What really gets me though isn’t so much what I feel is a bad design choice but that people who will in no way be handicapped or otherwise negatively affected by the OP’s proposed alternate to FOTM are so strongly opposed to it. /sigh
In a word, “not happy” (well 2 words .. never did like Math), the Spring 2014 update made leveling an absolute chore. Stuck with it though, ‘nose to the grindstone’ and all that but yeah, with the September 2014 feature patch I think I’m done with that .. I just can’t make heads or tales of it, not the “new” system, I mean the decision to implement it. Why? As I see it, it’s a step backward and I’m no business major or great visionary but that’s generally the opposite direction you want your development to take is it not?
Indeed, good to see that it will be changed based on feedback (did anyone actually think otherwise?)
Not so good to see that this will basically mean that people will start raging everytime they don’t like something, since it is shown to work twice in a row now.
While I didn’t join the “angry mob” this time around, they have valid points. Whether or not Anet listens is almost secondary to the fact that the impression that many have is that they don’t, hence the rage. Had Anet dug their heels in in an attempt to forestall any future demands, which they could have, it would have further damaged the relationship between themselves and the player base and it would not have solved the problem merely exacerbated it. Open lines of communication and a happy player base is good for them and its good for us, if players feel they are being heard and their concerns are being taken seriously they won’t feel the need to resort to raging.
Those goes more money grabbing scheme instead of fixing the game.
Let’s clarify this for Gaile; as there seems to be a special disconnect when it comes to understanding player desires. (see recent Gem Conversion thread).
It is not that you are adding new items to the game. That is great. Players like new items. It is that too often, as is this case, the items are locked behind an RNG wall with no way to obtain other than Insane Trading Post Pricing (if an item is even tradeable) or sacrificing your first born to the RNG Gods. These should have been added to the Candy Corn Cob Vendor. Even as much as I disagree with the price points on that guy, it at least makes it obtainable without relying on luck. Personally, I think all Holiday items would be a good addition to the laurel vendor as well, similar to the Season 1 Rewards.
You do realize of course that were they to be made available via the Candy Corn Cob Vendor the pricing would have to be balanced around the other methods of obtaining the skins right? Meaning at the end of the day they wouldn’t be any easier to get this way .. which is fine in my books, you need a few high end things floating around out there for those that are interested in that. (see GW1’s Obsidian armor) It’s their relative rarity that gives them value.
Adding holiday items to laurel vendors just isn’t feasible, why earn them any other then and you’ll have lost one of the key motivators of people actually going through the content. Season 1 rewards are available via laurels because those events aren’t going to be developed further so there’s no other way to earn those items.
Don’t misunderstand, I’m more than happy to call Anet out on a number of things, I’m not shy of joining the “angry mob” when I feel its justified but I also think we need to think about our arguments and structure them well in order to be taken seriously and to get what we want, within reason.
You beat it no problem while others floundered and found it difficult / challenging, well done! What more do you want a gold star? a noddy badge? Honestly I have no problem with those that found it easy, I myself finished it without too much trouble, but I don’t know that it excuses the condescending and self important attitude it’s given some people.
“We want to give players the opportunity to try things they may not normally experience”, I’m reserving judgement till I actually use the new system but that sentence is 7 kinds of ominous. I’d rather not be given the “opportunity” to be lead around the game on a leash any more than I already am.
Didn’t really play the first game or the expansions, read up on the lore though for context, so I prob can’t say much in the way of Lore that hasn’t already been mentioned. Speaking from the writers perspective though I assume the Charr are as they are because that’s their niche role. They weren’t particularly cultured or advanced in the first game because they didn’t need to be. They were the antagonists as seen through the perspective of the PC and humanity in general, taking into account racial bias, the constant warring and the resulting hatred between the two is it that much of a surprise that they seemed (as I’m fairly certain was the intention for you / us to) little more than animals. They were also not playable, interaction with them was usually limited to fighting so they didn’t have to be particularly well fleshed out or have much of an Identity outside of their role which was to play the antagonist.
Skip ahead 250 in-game years and they are playable, need to be more fleshed out, are now multifaceted / complex and they’ve advanced technologically (even given my opinions on this all I’ll admit to be taken by surprise by just how far they’ve come on this last front but what we’ll give the near archetypical little green men from mars with space-age technology aka Asurans a free pass because they slap a “its magic not sci-fi” stamp on everything but when the Charr have Industrial Revolution level technology with a few WW1 era military additions we cry foul?) The reason I figure the other races haven’t changed much is because they already have a niche, they have an established place in the narrative. The Charr are re-defining theirs outside of being the brutish antagonist of the earlier games. The other race that is still finding their place / niche in the story are the Sylvari. Imagine that, the 2 races still carving out their roles / niche taking prominent roles (in terms of important characters met, leadership roles and general input into the story) … Hardly a coincidence.
Yeah, the Legendary blog post left me without a lot of hope. It seemed to describe a long process of “do exactly what we tell you, no choice, no options, PLAY IT OUR WAY.”
That seems to be the opposite of fun to me, and the opposite to the first three years “play it your way” promise. I really hope they clarify all this that you will have actual options, and not be forced into specific lanes if you want specific rewards. There are plenty of activities that I absolutely love in this game, but there are also plenty of activities that I want no part of, and I don’t want the game telling me that I have to do a little bit of everything if I want certain rewards.
Again, you are taking the quote out of context again and again. This is the 7th-8th time I counted. The play it your way has always referred to play the class you want. It was never meant to be do whatever you want we hand you the same reward anyway. It couldn’t be taken out of context worse than this. Goodness. Write honestly. Don’t misrepresent the information for your personal gain agendas.
“The play it your way has always referred to play the class you want.”, really? You think that being able to play different classes in a MMORPG is that much of a draw that it would justify making it a games main selling point?
“Honestly” speaking the new system is a grind (defined as engaging in a repetitive task over and over for some gain or reward), its not the worst grind out there but calling salt sugar doesn’t make it any sweeter. There’s no point in faffing about on that point, besides depending on how grinds are handled they aren’t even necessarily a bad thing in gaming.
I think this particular change is so-so, it’s not outstanding but neither is it terrible. There are positive developments and negative developments. The main negative development point for me personally is this recurring idea of pushing players into content they do not like by hiding desirable rewards that are exclusive to that game mode. Rewards that are not merely cosmetic but have real advantages over anything comparable that can be attained in other ways.
I acknowledge that there are many factors in developing and refining systems that limit what you can do within a specific time frame and in a specific area of the game *bold*but*bold* Anet courted a diverse player base, they went out of their way to do this, why should they be any less beholden to part of that player-base than others if the numbers make it viable to do so?
There’s not much I could add that hasn’t been covered in the last 34 pages (honestly though, only read a few to get the general idea), all that’s left to do is wait for an official response …
They seem to be playing around with how they structure boss battles, trying new things and all that. I ranged the entire thing so can’t comment much about how it was in melee but in the same way that ranging it or being condition heavy isn’t always optimal (read “just about never optimal”), why should melee? Admittedly I’m not exactly unbiased but whereas power melee generally works well in much of the content across all game modes, having situations where it still works but not quite as well as it normally does isn’t a bad thing.
Oh, that … To be honest not being able to reset via stealth bugged me quite a bit more the clones issue, those buggers kept tracking me invisible or no. I run a clone factory set up so I suppose that made things easier for me with regards our clones being Aoe’d into oblivion shortly after they’re spawned. Phantasms are another matter altogether, so yeah it took a little longer than it could have but I figure it’s still manageable.
We weren’t the only class to have drawbacks in that boss battle, I would think Necro MM’s would have similar issues, to a lesser extent Rangers too, what with their pets. What separates us from them however is that so much of playing the Mesmer class revolves around illusions in one way or another with no way to get around it. Necro’s don’t have to go the MM route, they have options they could play around with. Rangers, well they have a pet whether they want one or not but they can still do a fair amount of damage and function fairly well without one up all the time. Mesmers can’t reasonably get around using illusions, I think that was a mistake in the design but since it is what it is all you can do is work around those shortcomings.
The changes make it easier on the people who grind AP and I’m happy for them, I am but for the rest of us (or at least for me) it’s not an improvement, really. It’s kind of a schlep .. It’s the carrot and stick method (carrot = slightly better reward, stick = more effort & less freedom), “slightly” better mind, not nearly enough for me to go out of my way to do dailies, whereas before I’d do them just by playing the game. Its safe to say I’m no fan of the new daily requirements .
Public Relations is all about controlling your image. You try to control the pace, frame discussion, set the stage because if you don’t someone else will and not necessarily to your benefit or in a a direction that will prove helpful to your goals. Keeping quiet is counter intuitive to that.
Granted CRM (Customer Relations Management) and PR (Public Relations) aren’t exactly the same thing but they’re similar enough for certain things to apply regardless. A “minimal communication” communication policy makes things kitten the CRM and downright frustrating for customers which makes it harder on PR.
Call it a lack of imagination or maybe an unqualified opinion but this layperson fails to see the benefit.
