Showing Posts For Lightning.8397:
What I would like as a test run is the mass disabling of waypoints in the leadup to a world boss – start the dynamic chain further back and make people works towards the "last boss’.
e.g. disable (contested) Phinney, monastery, swamp, when the window of SB starts (from the underworld unrest or whatever), reduce the SB window but make people have to walk through one of the pre-event areas to make it to SB. Then it’s less camping for world events and more of a dynamic chain.
I like the optional events too – bridge building event reducing the distance to walk to final boss etc. It’ll probably cull the world event camping crowd but might help immersion.
The Harathi chain is pretty well done IMO. If only they had specific vendors once you conquered the overlord area selling event cosmetic stuff, that’d be awesome.
Just my thoughts.
The one thing I would LOVE if housing was ever implemented is to have all my alts as NPCs wandering around within my house to interact with. How cool would that be!
Housing would be a great plus for me and that Wildstar take on housing is impressive. However, I’d be happy with a simple place/area to decorate/deck out with stuff.
Emptiness in towns are an inevitable feature of GW2. If you make it such that certain features are only accessible from LA (FotM, dungeon token vendors, mystic forge etc) and no real unique content in the other strongholds then it’s inevitable that everyone only hangs out in LA.
Okay let’s look at this realistically. The OP is claiming this as if it’s something that happens ALL THE TIME. They had a single player instance and a multi player instance just last month in Southsun. Before that, they had a multiplayer dungeon that took an hour while IGNORING the single player guys.
Now they’ve given single players something to do. A short instance that in no way does anything to really further the game. Even scaled it would be relatively meaningless.
If they hadn’t included multi-player instances in the last two living story chapters, MAYBE, the OP would have a point.
As it stands, it’s a pointless complaint about something that seems to be a one off.
No, actually the complaint has a point. You may not like the point but it is a very important one. A paying customer (customers actually as he mentioned others in his OP) has become annoyed with an aspect of the product.
Also, a strawman, or putting words into others’ mouths is not a particularly honest way to support your position.
Claiming that this happens, “all of the time,” really ? Did he edit that part out perhaps ?
And for whakittens worth the solo player has never been ignored in GW2. The vast majority of the game is soloable.
Going by that logic then outside of the 2 single player instances recently introduced, the multiplayer has never been ignored either. The solo player is locked out of dungeons, fractals, etc. What’s your point?
It’s two tiny instances that take 10-15 min to complete. I really feel your pain that you can’t complete this ONE thing with your friends, family and guild. The pain of not being able to play together for 15 minutes. Really. This one (two if you want to include Southsun) instance. Anet should all commit seppuku to atone for this.
actually if they didn’t go ahead and say that the weapon skins are one time event only, it could be in the cards that they might eventually make a reappearance. In some games I’ve played, people who buy them off the event get the “luxury”/privilege of having the skins before everyone else, but they are made available to everyone down the road. Of course, it could be 6 months or even a year later, but the idea is that content made is not subsequently discarded but added into the game for the general population eventually.
Could be a solution.
Because they’d look like… a word that will be changed to kitten.
Imagine the uproar… completely new models with particle effects for the RNG boxes, an old skin in a different color for the people who don’t want to play the lottery. It would be a waste of time and cause more problems than it solves.
I do wonder why things develop so slowly, but remember when people say “Anet has a staff of over 200 people” that it’s not necessarily 200+ programmers working ten hours a day churning out code. They have long- and short-term plans to work on, bugs to track down, new content to test for new bugs, and are under enormous pressure to produce something for patch day at the end of each month.
I have a limited experience with programming, mostly outdated now, but enough that I know it’s a lot harder than people think. With so many people working on a project of this complexity, there are bound to be conflicts between what they want to do, and what they can do. I accept the idea that they are doing the best job they can and are working to improve the game as a whole, no matter how long it takes.
Actually, no. If you are a fan of Skyrim Nexus, you’d see that the fan made armors are not just reskinned/recoloured versions of the base armor, but have evolved to a point where some of the beautiful armor sets are not even remotely close to any base armor in game. I don’t have the technical knowledge to really look into the specifics, but if these armor sets are created as a map over existing 3D objects (I’m just requoting lingo here) that a guy/girl at home can come up with that during his/her spare time..
In GW2 we already have dyes to play around with in game, so recolours are a no-go. Even particles are not added, I for one would be happy to see more armor sets/weapons added to the game. Again, the creative redesign I’m thinking is more along how different inscriptions/etchings can be made into the armor or a play on the look of the material (darkened/grooved), or rearrangement of pockets/greaves etc rather than reproducing the same armor but in .. red.
I imagine it wouldn’t be too difficult for Anet to hold a contest for armor set designs based on specific parameters (i.e. something the existing 3D model can work with) with game gems as prizes so Anet is not out anything at all. They can then just work these armor sets into the game, give one complimentary set to the designer FOC, and sell the same on the gem store before releasing it to the general public … 6 months down. That way, you pay for the privilege of having exclusive armor for 6 months, but everyone gets it eventually. Win – win.
It takes a long time to do anything with 3d modeling. It’s just hell. I used to alpha test for a company that made 3D graphics clip art for other companies to use…you would not believe the amount of testing that goes for each piece.
For one thing, you have to test it/scale it for every race. You have to try it with different components to try to minimize clipping. Stuff that looks great on a charr, could look like crap on an Asura. Small details like seems and that sort of thing really throw a monkey wrench into things.
Most people who design stuff for Skyrim aren’t designing a 3d object, they’re throwing a map over an existing 3D object. Essentially they’re just retexturing something that already exists.
Creating armor sets is a very different animal.
I get that coming up with completely new armor sets can be very time consuming if 3D modelling is involved. However, using the Skyrim example, there are so many ways you can (using the lingo) create new maps over the current existing 3D objects to create new armor sets without actually throwing everything into the bin and starting over. From experience, just different shades of dyes already can create radically different looks – I think that if they were creative in their reconstruction, they could create a number of sets of armor from essentially the same 3D object – I mean, if people could come up with thousands of different armors from the same 3d object over there, why not here? (on a side note, I’m not graphic design savvy but some of the armor mods there are mad awesome, they look completely different from any base armor available in game so if that can be done… ).
Not to derail the whole discussion, but I’ve often wondered why it seems to be impossible to increase the quantity and variety of skins offered to the public (via the gem store if necessary) instead of deciding between highly priced one-time purchases or RNG chests.
Again, unless I’m missing something very fundamental, it seems to me that designing a new skin isn’t really that much work (well, not as much as it’s being made out to be) unless the implementation system is radically different from other games (one that immediately springs to mind is Skyrim). If anyone bothered to even glance at the Nexus, you’d see multitudes upon multitudes of fan-made skins, of which a surprisingly large number are equal, if not better the default skins made by the developers.
I’m sure it does take a fair amount of work to come up with one, but I honestly don’t think it’s something that is effectively “if we don’t make $20,000 from this skin, we’ve lost money coming up with the skin” kind of scenario.
On the RNG issue, I think the issue is pretty well laid out – consumers should know that they should not engage in the RNG chests, but ultimately sufficient numbers do to make RNG chests the more profitable venture and as long as that remains the case.. I’ve personally seen people not blink when dumping thousands of dollars to get an item a month earlier than everyone else and RNG is perfect answer (from the company’s perspective) to this demographic.
The main beef I currently have with this patch is just that a lot of people are left wondering about the reasons/justifications for the changes made during this patch. Whilst it is all good to speculate (e.g. quickness nerfed due to warrior frenzy; quickness nerfed to balance TW; etc), wouldn’t it be better to just sit the designers and balance team representative to bring us through the patch and the justifications behind the changes made (major ones, nobody is asking devs to explain why there is mouth flapping).
Basically LoL patch notes – makes me feel involved and that devs are communicating. While I might not agree with the justification, at least we would know exactly why the team felt the change was needed. This is especially so in a game with PvE, PvP and WvW – right now I nobody really knows which aspect the nerf/buffs made were supposed to balance :P
As a genuine question to satisfy my curiosity:
If ascended gear was removed entirely from FotM (agony replaced with an alternative mechanism to scale the difficulty) and replaced with exotics (to be redeemed with relics) with no better stats than prevailing exotics, how many of you would still run FotM daily because that’s majorly enjoyable and you loooove FotM?
-edit- asking because I saw comments on how FotM was the best addition and how it’s something better than dungeons overall.
oh kitten just make the rare and all derivatives from the said rare account bound already. There! No more farming for ecto to sell, no more selling rares on TP, only farm for own use or for own farming to legendary. Removes the bots from the equation and reduces populations attending these events? Done? Done.
Ya, who needs trading in an online multiplayer RPG anyway? Right fellas!?
You can trade the rares from the multitude of other sources (fractals, dungeons, open world, guild missions, etc) which do not encounter the overflow problem. Removing ONE source of rares will not break the economy and will remove the cause of unhappiness of a lot of people. Why not?
-edit- a word which actually did not default to kitten?! omg.
oh kitten just make the rare and all derivatives from the said rare account bound already. There! No more farming for ecto to sell, no more selling rares on TP, only farm for own use or for own farming to legendary. Removes the bots from the equation and reduces populations attending these events? Done? Done.
It saddens me to see people post “Not happy? Why not leave?” Some of us post because we actually like the game and want to see the game improve. The game does not improve if everyone adopts a “devs must know what they’re doing because they are developers, we aren’t”. Pointing out stuff due for fixing and giving feedback on new patches are faring is how the game progresses and improves.
Again, constructive criticism is key for this – otherwise, they should just have a weekly dev video (something like LoL patch notes), where a dev steps up and explains their design decisions in a 3 minute clip and the reasons behind why they made the changes they did. In one shot, devs connect with the community and people will stop having to second guess what the devs were thinking when they implemented said changes.
(edited by Lightning.8397)
Playing the game for 46 days (or roughly 1100/24) is not the same as being here the entire time. You talk about ‘wait and see’ when we have.
Sorry to say, the game keeps getting worse. You just need to get out of the honeymoon phase and realize it.
I am posting in response to the OP and those who are interested in what the OP has to say, I quoted someone to make an example.
So I want to make it a point to note that every single game that has an active community on the forums is typically going contain a lot of negativity within said forums. Content creation can never and will never be on par with how quickly it is devoured by the players. People always want more, it’s natural for us. Unfortunately some people are not aware of how development works nor do they understand how some things would affect the games that they play. Most of the time what you see on the forums are selfish desires for individuals and naysayers who do not respect and/or do not understand how intricate and time-consuming it is to create good and engaging content.
Now I will make an example of the quote at the beginning of this post. It’s a prime example of what I was talking about. The Devs of ANet have listened to the majority of the community voicing their concerns, and taken in their own design philosophy to balance in the content that have created for us in the short time this game has been out. There was once an extremely vocal outcry consisting of players “Having nothing to do at endgame” so the Devs responded with something that didn’t perfectly fit into their philosophy; Fractals and Ascended gear. The beauty of this is that ascended gear, even though it is better than Exotics, it does not win a fight. It is a very minute increase but it’s also hard to get compared to exotics, and gives those people something to do. Now, we have a lot less of those outbursts.
That’s a perfect example of ANet listening, acknowledging, and acting for the community. Even though there are many who hate ascended, it really doesn’t change their experience. If you don’t want to grind for it, that’s okay because you’re not really at a significant disadvantage against someone who does have it.
ANet just today came out with a patch that removed culling from WvW, on top of that they have incorporated popular exotics such as Knights, Berserkers, and Rabid stat allocations to be obtained via Badges of Honor as well as unique skins that can also be purchased with badges. That is yet another thing the community has asked for a lot.
While the list goes on, it is very clear that ANet is listening to the community and acting in favor of it while at the same time running a very fair business to keep the game running. You are right about some people being short-sighted, and unfortunately we will have to deal with that in any game community. However, then there are also people who are very aware and understanding of the development process, and who also understand how amazing this game is compared to other MMO’s considering its youth, and the best thing we can do is show our appreciation to the awesome dev team for their hard work.
While I can commend the devs for listening to the players (or at least some demographics), the glaring point I saw was that Ascended was introduced in direct counter to their own philosophy that there would be no gear grind. You can say that it does not make a significant difference, but the fact remains that there is a difference, just as there is a difference between rares and exotics, and once stats are involved, people are obligated to grind for it.
Incorporating popular stat allocations only brings one question to my mind – why weren’t these stat allocations available on introduction? It’s like saying, hey! After listening to car owners, we’ve decided to add a passenger seat to our car design, since, well, apparently it’s pretty popular.
Putting the new skins into Black Lion Chests is not a popular decision. Balancing around PvP while disregarding the effects on PvE is not listening to the community (or listening to specific demographics).
While I applaud the notion that constructive criticism should be given, sometimes I feel like we are obligated to applaud when they do something that should have been done ages ago. Remove culling so we can actually SEE what we are fighting?! Someone give that man an award! I guess we should put them up for a Nobel Prize if it ever gets ported to PvE (looooove fighting invisible centaur hordes btw)!
I’m not saying that they’re doing BAD work. I’m just saying that reserve your credit for when credit is due. On the flip side – just saying “NERFED?! LAME PATCH. OFF TO ESO! KTHNXBYE” doesn’t help either. But asking for reasoned, logical arguments backed with proof in a forum is always going to be an uphill task..
A Net clearly hates new players because they are intending to reward players who have been playing faithfully and/or slogged their kitten off for achievement points since launch by letting them keep their status/achievements in the leaderboards!
Write some placards! Gather some people! Grab a pitchfork and let’s go!
The chest spawns once per day per character. You get a chance to get rare/exotic/percursor from said chest.
Guaranteed rare is triggered when one of your characters completes a world boss event, rewarding you in the form of a daily achievement box.
So yeah, you get a chance every time you open the box, not every time you kill the dragon. Whether or not the box spawns on your 2nd/3rd/4th kill…
Geez, the dev has stepped into this thread to clear this up already, just scroll through till you see the giant Dev banner and read his replies.
You get one guaranteed rare per world boss per account each day, given in the form of an achievement chest style (similar to when you complete a daily). You will continue to have a CHANCE to get rare/exotic/percusors from the chest that pops when the world boss is killed.
NO, it does not mean that you are limited to one rare per day. NO, it does not mean that thereafter, all drops will be fixed to be capped at greens and below.
YES, it does mean that you will continue to have a chance to get rares/exotics/percusors if you keep hitting the world boss with your alts, it is just not guaranteed.
I for one welcome the upcoming changes. Firstly, it encourages people to actively seek out and try the other world bosses instead of sticking to the same few (sunless, maw, jormag, shatterer, sb) and doesn’t guarantee ridiculous amounts of rares per day (at one per toon per day you could get 50+ guaranteed rares a day).
I agree that the basic drop rate on chests needs to improve though (dungeon, world boss, otherwise). Too often I’ve done tough (IMO) fractals or cleared dungeons runs only to get to the final giant chest and find… 3 blues. Or killed the boss of the stage for .. one blue. Seriously? Even 3 bags of coin would have been better than that :P
I also liked the suggestion to tie in pre-events to world boss participation i.e. players need to have taken part in at least one of the pre-events to qualify for the guaranteed loot. This encourages people to help the pre-events along instead of mass afking at the dragon spawn spot.
BTW, you shouldn’t need guaranteed loot lures to play your alts. If you are not interested to explore other professions, test playstyles, and/or generally have fun/utility with your pool of alts, then you probably should just stick to one. :P While I will probably never deck my alts in ascended at the current state of game (so many laurels and letters needed to do each alt), but yeah. At least I had fun running the different professions and I still whip out different characters based on the style I feel like playing that day.
I really don’t get why people can’t understand the simple concept that guesting exacerbates the existing overflow problem, even if it is not the single cause of the overflow.
Before dragon loot patch – 100 locals, 30 guests – 200 slots in map = everyone is happy, all is fine and dandy.
After dragon loot patch – 200 locals, 80 guests – 200 slots on map = 280 people fighting for 200 slots = 80 people pushed to overflow.
Did guesting CAUSE the overflow problem? No. Did guesting CONTRIBUTE to the overflow problem? Yes. What’s so difficult to grasp?
I for one would be happy to see to loot patch come in.
Dailies are simply an inelegant way to obtain end game gear. And yes, Ascended, not exotics, are end game gear. If they were meant to be optional, they would have had the same exact stats as exotic gear (the only difference being the ability to be infused with AR for FotM). Since they actually carry higher stats, it means that they outrank exotics and are the end gear. Why is that so difficult to comprehend? Legendaries are optional – they do not confer ANY benefits whatsoever other than the look. Ascended are already significantly better than exotic (about 6.5 – 8%) from calculations provided by others and the gap will only continue to widen as better infusions become available.
If you say it’s about skill – then in a WvW between two equally skilled players, on a scale of probabilities, can an exotic geared player beat an Ascended geared player? It gives the edge to the Ascended geared player, and that means to even the odds, one would have to … that’s right. get Ascended gear even if one had no intention to ever do FotM, or dailies. With the arrival of Ascended gear, dailies, guild missions and FotM are rendered mandatory, not optional.
Finally, the main crux of my unhappiness with this is the fact that having exotic as end gear meant that I could stack 5 different characters out and rotate them based on what I felt like playing. Now that I am only able to get Ascended from a month’s work, I am forced to main a character and default to that because of the better stats offered by Ascended gear.
The other thing I really hate about Ascended gear is this – one could do a zerker build and switch to knight two months down if one decided to change playstyle. However, refarming Ascended accessories/rings/amulets? Good luck with that :\ They need to introduce a trader which allows you to repick your accessory/ring/amulet at a fee (3 laurels or 5 pristine frac relics + the ascended item) so that you dont have to redo it all over – kinda like a trait retrainer but for ascended stuff since it seems like ascended is going to stay a kitten to get.
It doesn’t make sense to say that highly populated servers create overflows within themselves for world event, therefore guesting is not the problem. I don’t know if people are closing their eyes but guesting WORSENS this already existing problem by adding more people into the mix.
So if 150 locals want to get into a 120 persons event, it doesn’t matter if you throw in another 50 guests because… 30 locals weren’t going to get in anyway? Seems legit.
The key problem here is that native players are increasingly unable to attend their own events because of overflows, and it has gotten to the point where overflows are created even 10-15 minutes before pre-events starts.
A few suggestions to mitigate this problem until they increase the limit for these events:
1. Make people bind their servers to a maximum of 2 other servers i.e. you can only guest at 2 other selected servers and not go server hopping farming dragons.
2. Impose a separate limit for guests – e.g. each world allows for 30 guests at one time, and if there are more, they automatically are redirected into overflow until a guest leaves even if the map isn’t technically full.
3. Impose a 2 hour cooldown between each guesting instance. Since the original intention was to allow you to play with friends from other servers, this shouldn’t be a problem. You can alternatively create a link between two servers and not have any cooldown if you continue to go between that server and your own, but cooldown applies to any attempts to guest a third server.
4. Limit chests obtained from guesting to 2 per day, such that any dragons past 2 killed while guesting no longer yields chests. Alternatively, chests obtained during guesting do not guarantee rares; only chests in home servers guarantee rares.
It makes no sense that natives are unable to attend their own events and instead told to go guest for their dragons, therefore kittening another server over and perpetuating the problem.
(edited by Lightning.8397)