Guild Wars 2

You know you’ve been playing GW2 too much when…

…you feel like dropping an AoE onto a herd of animals you see on Animal Planet.

…while taking a walk in the park, you can tell that that small tree is definitely choppable.

…you get excited when you hear “champion” on Eurosport.

…you say “Train?” whenever you arrive at a train station.

You know you’ve been reading GW2 forum too much when…

…you know you’ve seen the exact same thread about a hundred times before.

…you can tell how much sense a post will make by looking at the nickname.

…you are allergic to words “mounts”, “capes”, “guild halls”, “GvG” and “dueling”.

152. “Bags shown (slim mode)” in inventory which shows bags as a table but keeps their names in slot-sized placeholders (will help to save space by eliminating half-empty rows in “Bags shown” mode). May be a replacement of feature 29.

153. Option to display world map at 90% opacity (useful for many cases when you get attacked by a random mob who walked/spawned next to you, and you have to close the map, kill the mob and then search for the waypoint again).

154. Warning when buying a 2nd identical accessory/ring on a character who has the same unique trinket equipped, so that the player sees he will not be able to use it (case reported too often in the game and forums). Additionally: an in-game explanation of what “unique” is. Alternatively: removal of “unique” mechanic.

155. “Type in item name” confirmation box on deletion/salvaging/mysticforging/vendoring of all precursors and expensive named exotics.

156. “Unsalvageable” in description of karma/vendor gear.

157. Option to turn off contour highlighting and target ring highlighting in no-UI mode (ruins screenshots if a mob/NPC is in the center of the screen and gets highlighted, and makes it difficult to make screenshots with a mini as it often relocates and receives an outline).

158. On death on any WvW map, the map view is brought up with no way to exit it other than to return to a spawn point (to counter corpse spying).

159. Adding a right-click function to inventory items/item links to search for it on Wiki (similar to /wiki chat command).

160. Mining/harvesting always as a single long channel depending on the amount of digs/chops available (custom animations may need to be tweaked though).

161. A /world or /server chat channel to let WvW people from a single world communicate in mixed-world PvE maps without sharing information with opponents (also useful for guild advertising).

162. Ability to use the same weapon as mainhand in the 1st weapon set and as offhand in the 2nd weapon set.

163. “Close all” function for event reward medal alerts (probably as right-click to dismiss all).

164. Option to block whispers and mail from anyone except your friends, guild members and current party (addresses gold selling spam and harassing).

165. Automatically remove messages of blocked users from chat (same).

166. Automatically add luck when salvaging, or consume on “deposit collectible” (may be an option, however I do not think that first levels’ artificer refinement is worth all the clicking for all other players).

167. Free waypointing to the home city of your race (adds some lore spice, helps redistribute players, encourages “racial” communities especially if cities are removed from the megaserver system).

This post used to be a reference to another post. One more possible title of this thread was:

• ANet, Please Teach Your Players How to Play Your Game

This thread is not supposed to be inflammatory. It actually states the evident – a lot of players are too lazy to learn the basics of the game, including but not limited to:

• dodging
• consuming appropriate food
• consuming appropriate utilities
• possibilities of going outside the Queensdale train and world boss zergs

The recent whole-map events often require full-map participation, and the lack of skill of one part of players jeopardizes the experience of the other part of the players. Apart from design flaws, the lack of skill is regarded by players to be the most common reason of failure, and once these players dare to mention this fact, they’re claimed “selfish”, “elitists” et cetera et cetera.

This “lack of skill” is also evident to developers, and that’s why the 1500 citizens limit was lowered to 1200, and Knights got a 25% decrease in health. I counted the buffs once and was purely amazed at the fact that 50% of people who came to fight the knights didn’t eat a Scarlet potion, which always drops from bags and which is dirt cheap! More so, people do not get a coloured buff and do not dodge the pull even when you tell them several times it should/can be done.

So, my question is: what can ANet do to naturally teach players to dodge, to eat appropriate food, to set traits to their characters and so on?

My suggestions are:

• Introduce a required boss(es) that insta-kills you when you fail to dodge when NPC told you to.
• Introduce a required boss(es) that insta-kills you if you do not get a potion and nourishment from NPC which told you to, or a zone which kills you fast if you do not get a potion/nourishment “antidote”.

This can be done in first steps of personal story or at some point in LS and may be a way to teach people play the game in which their failure also means other players’ failure. Once that is done, maybe at least a part of players would understand that many players were annoyed with you not because they are elitists and require pink gear and inhuman skills, but because they are dead tired of failing because you didn’t even care to try your best at the game you’re playing with other people next to you despite their everyday attempts to tell you how to succeed and make everyone happy.

Update to the idea.

The new Daily system which hand-holds clueless and aimless players is, accidentally, once again leading to additional limits and constraints for loyal veteran players, which will turn dailies for casual players into even more of a chore and annoyance – just like the Traits (67 pages) and NPE (17 pages) changes did.

PROBLEM

According to this article, players will only have 4 fixed PvE dailies, and they will have to do at least 3 of them to get the daily reward. However, the problem is not with the amount, but with the requirements of new dailies:

• Daily Ascalon Forager
• Daily Maguuma Wastes Vista Viewer
• Daily Malchor’s Leap Event Completer
• Daily Fire Elemental

Let’s look at what this means:

• Bring your character to a region you might not have or don’t want to explore yet (new Sylvari player in Caledon Forest) to harvest stuff there.
• Bring your level 80 character which you might not have to a region you might not have or don’t want to explore yet and find a vista there.
• Bring your almost level 80 character which you might not have to a region you might not have or don’t want to explore yet and look for events across that map.
• Log in at specific time after looking up times at external websites (no in-game schedule exists) and bring your character to a region you might not have or don’t want to explore yet.

How is it different from the current PvE dailies?

• Daily Kills
• Daily Reviver
• Daily Events
• Daily Gatherer
• Daily Leveler
• Condition Applier
• Daily Kill Variety
• Daily Recycler

Let’s look at what this meant:

• Kill stuff while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Revive stuff while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Do stuff while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Gather stuff while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Do enough stuff to get a level while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Spam different skills while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Kill different stuff while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Salvage stuff you get while playing the game when, where and how you want.

In other words, you were rewarded for simply playing the game; unless you were an achievement hunter, it felt natural and it was rather hard not to get dailies while playing PvE. (I think it would be safe to assume that most casual players do not ever step into WvW/PvP; however, the new PvP dailies will have variations of the same problematic concept, like “win a game on a class you don’t know”).

With NPE in mind, I see where there problem lay: completely new players felt clueless and didn’t know what to do! So just as with “go to this vista and press F, go to this PoI and you don’t even have to press F…” system, the new dailies are telling people what they can do. The problem is, though… there are next to no options!

BACKGROUND

These threads from the past are worth noting:

• Only 10 Daily Achivements? – an 8-page thread from 7 months ago where players are annoyed since they’re forced to do specific PvE dailies because of lack of choices. Result: increase in choices.
• Please make dailies feel more natural – a thread about making dailies feel enjoyable instead of forced.
• Daily Orrian killer – adding a daily with unnatural requirements caused a lot of distress, and it was still only a subset from a large pool.

SOLUTION

Unsurprisingly, the solution is simple: add at least 3 permanent choices for dailies which come naturally while playing. You know, something from this set:

• Daily Leveler
• Daily Kills
• Daily Events
• Daily Gatherer
• Daily Recycler
• Daily Dodger

This way, playing players will be happily getting rewards for playing, and those who need directions or extra rewards, can do the specific stuff.

WHY THIS THREAD IS IMPORTANT and SHOULD NOT BE MERGED

Because threads like this one will appear in tens, if not hundreds when the patch hits. We’ve seen it with megaservers, traits, town clothes, commander tags, gem exchange… well, with all the changes which had easily predictable outcomes which were pointed at by the community, but were implemented regardless because they were already planned to.

So maybe, this time it’s better to listen to players before making this change? It will save so much time for everyone. Thank you.

Losing people who can only “play” Queensdale train and consider a week’s worth of dungeons “hard” to get full exotics for tokens, is definitely a good thing for this game.

“Where do all exotics I put into the Mystic Forge go?”
“They all flow into the same sewer system, and that all goes out to sea…

(spoilers ahead)

Zephyrite’s ships have crashed, and Morning just died in front of Marjory. Obviously, that’s the best time for Marjory to check if her hair looks alright!

Marjory’s sister is dead, and Kasmeer is delivering the sad news to the rest of the team. Must not be such a big deal, though, as she’s casually stretching herself.

Usually I’m the last person to complain about immersion in video games, but default idle animations like these were designed to make characters look attractive and somewhat “hot”. So it’s not at all surprising that it looks utterly jarring in completely inappropriate situations, which we have a lot (and will have more every 2 weeks) in the new LS S2.

I suggest adding another “neutral” set of animations for all races and genders (at least females) which can be used in story instances and similar situations. As a semi-solution, this set may even be a part of the usual animation with the most “casual” parts cut out.

7. Portal Entre/Exeunt.

• Received a skill fact in tooltip in 15AprFP.
• Has no range indicator. Impossible to tell whether it is in range or not.
• Has no “cast time left” indicator for Exeunt. Impossible to tell when it times out.
  Solutions:
• Introduce 2 icons for portal in the same way that conjured weapons have. One icon will have a timer, another will toggle between active/crossed out/grayed out icon for displaying the range. And this can even be a single icon.
• Semi-solution: disable casting of Exeunt if out of range; enable it back when in range.

8. Illusions and invulnerable mobs. DEV: “Intended, same reason as LoS… Counter-play.”

• An illusion skill gets totally wasted if cast onto an invulnerable mob (many Orr events, Marionette, etc). No illusion cast, skill goes onto a full cooldown.
• Extremely annoying for PvE players. Discouraging to be a mesmer in large-scale events, especially with lack of AoE skills and a lag between the time an illusion is cast and the time it starts attacking.
  Solutions:
• Cast an illusion on target and let it hang around it. If the mob is still invulnerable when e.g. a Berserker is whirling through it, it still will not die and will not break anything, but the illusion is not wasted and can scratch vulnerable nearby mobs.
• Disable casting with a “skill requires a target” text.
  Trollution:
• Just waste as well all classes’ AoE skills which get casted under invulnerable mobs and which melt those down that fast that an illusion can’t even touch them.

9. Blink not blinking. DEV: “Intended, follows standardized shadowstepping rules. No repro otherwise.”

• Not blinking when it should, just teleports you where you already are and enters a full cooldown.
• Possibly caused by uneven terrain and anti-exploit mechanics paired with lazy blocking volume placement on maps. However, this behaviour is extremely inconsistent: you may be able to blink over stairs and fences in Lion’s Arch but then fail to move forward through a presumably flat surface.
  Solutions:
• Fix it to always work.
• At least inform us (change the indicator to red) when your broken pathing system decides that we will not be blinked – BEFORE we try to.
• At least block casting and do not force a cooldown when you know the skill will not be able work.

10. Phantasms and enemy pets/mobs. (reported by frifox) DEV: “Fixed some now, will fix some later.”

• Phantasms will NOT attack a pet/mob that has been summoned by an enemy mob. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj24fR7zN48

11. Phantasmal Haste. Fixed in 15AprFP!

12. Friendly projectile reflection bug. (reported by Xaylin) DEV: “Intended. Those skills bounce to allies and only grant the POSITIVE effects “boons” its not attached to reflect. (Trick: use your reflect to grant extra bounces:D:D:D)”

• Friendly projectiles are reflected.
• Happens with Mirror and F4 with Masterful Reflection.
• Negatively affects the use of Staff Clones, iMage and iDisenchanter.
• Probably also affects other friendly projectiles.
• More info here and here.

13. Warden’s Feedback trait. Broken in 15AprFP.

• May damage only the target but not other reflected enemies? Repro.
• May not reflect (block instead) unless the target is on top of Warden?
• May reflect projectiles upwards?
• Temporal Curtain is too short (most projectiles will fly over the curtain) and is unreliable (some of the ground projectiles do not reflect, even at point-blank range)?
• Warden will continue reflecting even past its whirl animation?
• Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWU6s5EBrz4

14. Illusions not spawning after weapon swap. (reported by Reesha) DEV: “Server-side, can’t fix at this time. “Lag related” Blame living world updates:D”

• If an illusion (like Leap or Berserker) gets casted instantly after weapon swap, it does not get spawned, but triggers a full cooldown.
• May be caused by starting a same-button skill on the first weapon set and then swapping to cast the same-button skill on the second set.
• Video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tnbspsl2a8o478p/Mesmer%20not%20spawning%20bug%28s%29.mp4

15. Torch phantasm’s and scepter clone’s projectiles miss._15. Intended. This is how projectile/missile “tracking” works._

Removing skills from picked up aspects with “weapon swap” button (like any bundle) instead of skill 5 (like tonics) would be very welcome if aspects are going to appear again in the future episodes.

The tonic mechanic was fine in Cliffs where you rarely had to fight and transformation had no time limit, but in both Dry Top and LS where you can pick up (often randomly) respawning aspects by mistake and use them instead of your weapons, it is an annoyance which can lead to you getting downed or jumping/rushing off a cliff to death. Maybe even interacting to get aspects instead of insta-receiving them would’ve been better for a zone full of enemies.

What did the Risen Noble say when an adventurer stole Deep Glacial Sky Dye from him?
“Return. Dye.”

Disliked it 5 days ago, dislike it now.

Lishtenbird.2814:

The new Daily system which hand-holds clueless and aimless players is, accidentally, once again leading to additional limits and constraints for loyal veteran players, which will turn dailies for casual players into even more of a chore and annoyance – just like the Traits (67 pages) and NPE (17 pages) changes did.

PROBLEM

According to this article, players will only have 4 fixed PvE dailies, and they will have to do at least 3 of them to get the daily reward. However, the problem is not with the amount, but with the requirements of new dailies:

• Daily Ascalon Forager
• Daily Maguuma Wastes Vista Viewer
• Daily Malchor’s Leap Event Completer
• Daily Fire Elemental

Let’s look at what this means:

• Bring your character to a region you might not have or don’t want to explore yet (new Sylvari player in Caledon Forest) to harvest stuff there.
• Bring your level 80 character which you might not have to a region you might not have or don’t want to explore yet and find a vista there.
• Bring your almost level 80 character which you might not have to a region you might not have or don’t want to explore yet and look for events across that map.
• Log in at specific time after looking up times at external websites (no in-game schedule exists) and bring your character to a region you might not have or don’t want to explore yet.

How is it different from the current PvE dailies?

• Daily Kills
• Daily Reviver
• Daily Events
• Daily Gatherer
• Daily Leveler
• Condition Applier
• Daily Kill Variety
• Daily Recycler

Let’s look at what this meant:

• Kill stuff while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Revive stuff while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Do stuff while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Gather stuff while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Do enough stuff to get a level while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Spam different skills while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Kill different stuff while playing the game when, where and how you want.
• Salvage stuff you get while playing the game when, where and how you want.

In other words, you were rewarded for simply playing the game; unless you were an achievement hunter, it felt natural and it was rather hard not to get dailies while playing PvE. (I think it would be safe to assume that most casual players do not ever step into WvW/PvP; however, the new PvP dailies will have variations of the same problematic concept, like “win a game on a class you don’t know”).

With NPE in mind, I see where there problem lay: completely new players felt clueless and didn’t know what to do! So just as with “go to this vista and press F, go to this PoI and you don’t even have to press F…” system, the new dailies are telling people what they can do. The problem is, though… there are next to no options!

BACKGROUND

These threads from the past are worth noting:

• Only 10 Daily Achivements? – an 8-page thread from 7 months ago where players are annoyed since they’re forced to do specific PvE dailies because of lack of choices. Result: increase in choices.
• Please make dailies feel more natural – a thread about making dailies feel enjoyable instead of forced.
• Daily Orrian killer – adding a daily with unnatural requirements caused a lot of distress, and it was still only a subset from a large pool.

SOLUTION

Unsurprisingly, the solution is simple: add at least 3 permanent choices for dailies which come naturally while playing. You know, something from this set:

• Daily Leveler
• Daily Kills
• Daily Events
• Daily Gatherer
• Daily Recycler
• Daily Dodger

This way, playing players will be happily getting rewards for playing, and those who need directions or extra rewards, can do the specific stuff.

WHY THIS THREAD IS IMPORTANT and SHOULD NOT BE MERGED

Because threads like this one will appear in tens, if not hundreds when the patch hits. We’ve seen it with megaservers, traits, town clothes, commander tags, gem exchange… well, with all the changes which had easily predictable outcomes which were pointed at by the community, but were implemented regardless because they were already planned to.

So maybe, this time it’s better to listen to players before making this change? It will save so much time for everyone. Thank you.

in centaur’s voice

FOR THE TAIMI!

“Hey, we fixed your Warden!” – “Great, nothing changed, and also reflects are broken.”
“Hey, we fixed your fractal drops!” – “Great, they are now lower.”

→ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QdnzHDHiOM

I rolled a mesmer and went on killing low-level grubs to level.
I rolled an ele and had to go craft not to get killed by same-level mobs.
I then rolled a warr and steamrolled +3-4 level mobs rarely even using healing.

So maybe, because highest-armour highest-dps warrs are just a slightest bit overpowered?

“Be careful what you wish for, ANet may give it to you,” they said.
We wished for build templates.
We got build templates… predefined build templates.

— Oh, so it’s Imbued Shaman now. Lemme slot in Medic’s Feedback, Glamour Mastery and Warden’s Feedback so that I can safely rez those wannabe zerkers at level 50. Too bad I do not have enough slots for Mender’s Purity as well…

• Eeeehp! No, you are not allowed. You can no longer slot in Adept/Master traits in other tiers. Allowing it will make you overpowered and hard to balance.

— I’m way too sleepy and it’s Mai Trin. Lemme trait a bit into Chaos for a safe net, then into Inspiration for reflects, then into Dueling for extra fury or maybe longer blinks or lower CD on Blurred frenzy, and finally into Domination for more phantasm damage and lower CD on GS… Or should I go for Illusions for more illusion spam?

• Eeeehp! No, you are not allowed. You can no longer choose more than 3 trait lines at once. Instead, you will have to take 6-6-6 points into each line, even if everything else is utterly useless (or can even hurt your teammates like clones on dodge in PvE). Allowing it will render content too easy for the build you carefully tailored for this encounter.

— Wow, this 6-2-2-2-2 staff ele build is great! So much power, but great utility and versatility! I love it!

• Eeeehp! Say goodbye to being versatile. For one, the Vital Striking trait has been moved – sorry, merged! – from Adept to Master. And please remember you cannot trait into more than 3 lines anymore, yes. So if you want to get that damage trait, please fully take the healing line.

— Nice, this one small trait in Water will give me a necessary damage boost! It’s nice I don’t have to take extra useless stuff along with it!

• Eeeehp! Traits have been forcefully merged. For example, that offensive Vital Striking trait (Deal extra damage when your health is above the threshold) has been merged with a defensive Aquamancer’s Alacrity trait (Reduces recharge on all water weapon skills). Makes a lot of sense for a staff elementalist camping Fire attunement after the initial rotation, right?

— Ok, so there’s my new character. What this stuff does? Teleport? Good, I’ll take it, I want to travel faster. And this one? Passive effect speed signet? Nice, I’ll take it, lemme just get some skill challenges. Oh, that’s a nice AoE – I can tag more mobs and get more XP! The other skills look kinda useless now – no need to waste time on them at the moment.

• Eeeehp! No, you are not allowed. You can no longer choose what utility skills to unlock first. You will have to grind all through the linear reward track to unlock that one signet, that one teleport and that one AoE – three times until you get to the ones you need. Because reading tooltips and choosing is too confusing for new players, and because full passive signet builds are fun.

Doesn’t it all remind us of something? Oh, right!

The new build system is now “outfits”: there’s no mix-and-match, there’s no variety, there’s no tailoring, you’re just playing what has been defined as “good” by developers.

By locking traits to tiers and reducing the overall number of traits, we’ve made each choice much more compelling.

That’s what they’re saying. But with just a couple of viable options which will be left alive (as always, since “balance” patches happen at best 2 times a year), the new build system won’t be fundamentally different from a Korean MMO grinder of ~15 classes where each does exactly one thing. It is effectively dumbing down the game, taking 90% of the choice which could be too confusing away and replacing it with predefined builds. That way, it is hard to be a bad player when all “choices” are so evident and lackluster.

Why do it? The answer is simple: creating virtual “build presets” means easier (= cheaper in terms of costs) balancing, since the developers can now define what the meta is, and not smart players exploiting the full potential of the class by min-maxing within the system.

Now the question is: is not having a choice “fun”? Is “balance” worth taking stuff away from players, shoehorning them into cloned builds and making buildcrafting boring and bland?

My answer is NO. Honestly, I’ve been disheartened by many decisions over the past year, but this one has a very large chance to actually break the game for me. If I wanted to play a no-customization game, I would’ve chosen one of those free MMOs with preset race-class bindings, preset character body types, preset full-body dresses, 111 skill bars (and cute graphics on top). If I chose GW2 and stayed here, it’s because there are so many options that it keeps me busy for a long time (despite a desperate lack of content) – and once you take all of it away in favour of “streamlining” and making “less confusing” and “more compelling”, I’m out.

Part 3. The Infamous (Mis)quote: Play How You Want.

Yes, some farms are toxic, (borderline) exploitive and harm other players’ progress. But this is not an excuse for saying “farmers are baaad”. Firstly, because this is not true: farmers are the same players as you, they just have different priorities. Secondly, because gamers are human, and human psychology has been studied enough to make wise game design decisions preventing toxicity in the first place.

• You may be playing for “fun”, spending an hour on a CoF path with your Nomad’s rifle warrior killing every single critter, and the process itself is what you seek. You might never go out of your way to get something you want, because doing boring stuff is boring, and you may just buy gems or skip on the item altogether. That is fine as long as you enjoy it (and have 4 more people who share your view in the party, that is).
• Other people grind mindlessly for months, looking for best places to maximise gold per hour, because a shiny item in the end of the journey is their definition of “fun”. They will do it until they reach their goal, even if they have to act like zombies. And this is also fine as long as they enjoy it (and do not offend other players or block their progress, that is).

When you have both types of people in an MMO, you can get a healthy economy and a healthy community, where some people spend their time and provide supply (and find it fun) and some people spend their money and provide demand (and find it fun). The Silverwastes chest farm was a good example of how a farm can be healthy (just open LFG and choose a farm/non-farm map) and fun to an extent, as well as showed us how collective farming can actually draw prices down. I think this was an interesting case, and we will learn something good from it.

Cheers, and good luck with your “mindless farming” or “casual playing”, whichever you prefer!

Behellagh.1468:

And there isn’t aesthetically room for a third piece of information in that layout.

Here you go.

For me, the extra space there looks exactly like something to put “projected profit” into.

(Also, while making these images, I once again saw that having leading zeros would’ve been really good for improving clarity).

I thought that was an error at first…

When they said “merged”, it clearly meant we got more options. But no! I’m forced to do more of what I don’t want to now if I’m eager to get that laurel.

Why? Is forcing people to do things they don’t like the ANet’s concept of “enjoyment” and “achievement”?

• “LOOK AT ME!”
• “I’m rich, you know”
• “My mother won’t be happy when she checks her credit card”

I may not be used to the new TP yet, but for me, it looks more confusing than helpful.

Here are some things that I find disturbing:

• Cannot insta-buy/sell multiple items easily. Say, I need 4 foxfire clusters; they’re sold for 40s 01c (2x), 40s 02c (1x), 40s 09c (1x). Previously, I could skip setting the price and just buy 4 of them; now, I have to buy 2+1+1, clicking several times instead, or tick the price and change the quantity later! The (!) colourful notifications are more confusing than helping. If we stick to the current interface, an “auto match price for instant sell” tickbox which removes restrictions on the quantity bar and greys out the price field may solve the problem. The tickbox setting should persist. However, I do not think this is a perfect solution – some kind of unified “max quantity + auto price” button could’ve worked faster, but it’s extra buttons in a small UI, so..

• No real “projected profit”. Discussed thoroughly before, over and over again in this thread. No, I don’t want to use an offline calculator or alt-tab to a browser in 2014; that javascript can subtract for me.

• No “max” button. The slider is nice, but as for me, it isn’t really helping set max amounts.

• “My lowest listing” no longer visible. This is a step back: it is not nice for trading in markets which like to shift.

• Number of buyers/sellers no longer visible. This is a step back: seeing these numbers lets you get the idea of the market at a glance.

• Hard to tell whether you’re selling or buying at a glance. If you’re selling/buying while doing other things (like chatting) and lose concentration, you get the unified interface when you return, which is confusing. “Just look at the buttons!” – you say; “Why not make it clearer regardless?” – I say. For example, by changing the backgrounds of buy/sell popups – like blue/yellow. While writing the post I realised that there was color differentiation, but it is too subtle to be noticeable. And an extra title wouldn’t hurt – there’s enough space on top.

• If we stick to the current button positions, than moving the [Ok] [Close] buttons on the green popup a bit to match positions of [Sell Instantly] [Cancel] would speed things up a bit – double mouse click without moving the mouse.

• “I hateAnnoying Animations” mode extra to the “I amEvon Gnasblade” mode, or whatever it is spelled. Please, please let us disable animations! I’ve always found them annoying and distracting in all OSes and applications and disabled them; I understand that it is “pretty, cool, modern” for some people, but for others it’s just an eyesore.

I still don’t think the suggested changes would make the new TP perfect, because I believe that the whole “Sell/Buy instantly” concept of trading should get a larger, separate focus – as before (tabs? auto buttons?), but those can make TP a bit better and less confusing for people who’re really using it, at least.

More suggestions on how to fix the newly introduced UI confusions are welcome.

Edit 1:

• No way to refresh listings while thinking about selling/buying.
• Cannot see your previous buy orders in listed order.

Get More Gold!

Remember that you can exchange gems and gold at our currency exchange on the second tab of the Black Lion Trading Company! Currently, you can get 1 gold for about 15 gems and 50 gold for about 670 gems!

Source.

Did I answer your question?

With the current world boss timer system but respective event chains still active, a part of the gameplay became really messy: you have to open a browser page with a schedule each time you want to do a world boss, then find a time, then convert to your timezone while taking account of DST. Or you may waste time on doing a pre-event chain for abysmal reward which ends with nothing simply because you didn’t know that bosses were changed.

I’m pretty sure at some point someone will rewrite gw2stuff.com to display active world bosses, but playing a XXI century game with a clock and a paper is not really fun.

That said, I would like to suggest a way to display active and upcoming world bosses in game. Possible options are:

• Event Tracker on the right side of the screen which can be clicked to display a complete schedule in your time zone and current/upcoming bosses.
• Asura News Stone inventory item which basicaly does the same.
• Event Fairy/Event Golem – a summonable NPC which can tell you what’s happening in the world.

In the meanwhile, I would appreciate it we at least had an official AJAX webpage with live schedule.

This way people who’re not used to digging up forums will at least be able to plan and organise – just like you wanted them to when you were talking about the megaserver system.

P.S. I’m opposed to the new fixed world boss schedule as a whole as it leads to zerging and lack of choice, but since it’s not going to be changed, I’m looking for ways to make it less frustrating.

P.P.S. I hope this topic deserves a separate thread, but if doesn’t – well, so be it.

Improving the visibility of the fees incurred while using the Trading Post was also important. Previously, we’d show you the listing fee and projected profit when selling, but this left out the successful exchange fee that comes out of the seller’s profit on every transaction. Feeding all those birds that shuttle your wares to the Trading Post isn’t cheap, or so Evon claims. It was better than nothing, but we got a lot of feedback that the projected profit was confusing because we weren’t calling out all the fees. The new selling UI in the Trading Post explicitly calls out both the listing fee and the exchange fee, so there shouldn’t be any surprises when selling.

What I find disturbing is that “projected profit” got removed and replaced by two fees. I am afraid that this was done on purpose, to make people do all the math themselves. The main complaint about “projected profit” (as stated in the post) was not that we wanted to see the fees… the complaint was that it didn’t calculate all the fees.

Dusty Moon.4382:

I can’t help but feel this would be the wrong message to give out – a school girl outfit? No- sorry no.

Capes? Yeap, not a problem.

Nearly topless Marvel heroes/Avatars? Sure, here you go.

Outfits of executioners with skulls and axes designed to chop off victim’s heads? Come on, that’s just a game!

School uniform? OHMYGAWDNO-WRONGMESSAGE-YOUPERVERTSGOTOJAIL!!!!111

/shrug

Imagine you’re on a trip to Madagascar and want to buy a souvenir for 25 Malagasy ariary; unfortunately, the currency exchange guy only lets you exchange 400 Malagasy ariary. ‘Why?!’ – you ask; ‘Some travelers found it confusing that you can exchange any amount of dollars,’ – he says. ‘What? I’ve never seen such people, everyone I travel with can deal with currency exchange quite fine!’ – you say; ‘I tell you there are such people. Period.’ – he says. ‘What I gonna do with the extra 375 Malagasy ariary?’ – you say; ‘Spend it the next time you visit Madagascar,’ – he says; ‘But I’m never coming here again!’ – you say; the currency exchange guy smiles and shrugs.

Gaile,

thank you for jumping in and posting the reasoning behind the change, but I’m afraid it doesn’t really help in this case. I feel like explaining.

Why people are raging:

• They feel like ANet is covering marketing decisions with good intentions, this being not the first time. The new system forces to buy extra amount of gems for small purchases; once done, the extra amount of gems forces people to get more gems to spend on something else as otherwise it will feel like wasting money. Unfortunately, many people past the teenage age have seen similar systems many, many times and know how they feel about those.
• ANet’s gem shop has always been the best in terms of honesty among many non-sub games: only cosmetics and convenience, no P2W. Tactics which can be considered by players as dishonest undermine the trust in the model for many people (me included). Similar marginal tactics have already been used previously with 900 gems, 500 gems pricing.
• They feel like they’ve seen it before and know how it ends. Windows 8 told us it was comfortable easy; I spend most of my day at a PC and I hate it at how unintuitive, non-customizable and counterproductive it is. Microsoft knows better, as always… yet the sales were awful and now Microsoft has to roll out a free OS, removing their “improvements”.
• They feel they can come up themselves with similar “required” reasoning for anything which requires a change, depending on the goal. Like, “cannibalism is okay because human body requires meat to function properly”. The evident faults in the reasoning are omitted for the sake of the goal.
• Game designers have known for a long time how “removing things” affects players, especially loyal ones. If you remove freedom they had once, they are not happy. If you do it multiple times (limited skins, server identity, traits, phasing out BL key skins, mixable town clothes, PvP armour skins, NPE level gating, estimated profit, variable amount gem exchange), they start raging with torches and pitchforks. It kind of builds up.

Why people are not giving feedback:

• Because previous system worked for them.
• Because there is one best source to model currency exchange after (if you’re aiming for increasing usability, not gem sales): real world. Look at the example in the beginning – it describes the situation perfectly. Luckily, 375 Malagasy ariary is less than a dollar; this is not the case with gems though.
• Because artificial limits are nothing but usability, no matter how many times you say it. Even if we omit the currency exchange model, one can always take out their wallet and see what banknotes they have inside: 1, (2), 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 dollars. Why? Because it was determined to be efficient. Now tell me of an ATM which only gives you 400 dollar banknote – I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that; when they give out money, they even mix large cash with small cash!
• Because customization (along with backward compatibility) is the core of usability which has been used for a long time. That’s why so many people prefer Linux to Windows. Want a new UI without testing it? Okaaaay… but then just add a large horizontal arrow bar on the bottom which switches to the old UI. Here, I fixed it!

That’s my share of feedback. I don’t think it will change anything, really, because businesses are ruled by marketing departments nowadays, not the “we want to create the best game ever and make all the gamers in the world fall in love with it for the rest of their lives and never feel cheated or tricked” departments.

A team of 11 players enters a football field.
1 player goes to sleep on a bench, 1 player goes to runt about how bad the looks of the prize are, 2 players are catching butterflies, 3 players go to charge fans for signed photos, and 4 players struggle on the football field with their inexperienced opponents and manage to win the match in the last second.
All 11 players get the same amount of prize money, trophies and contracts with advertising agencies. (Butterflies and money from fans not counted.)

This is exactly how I feel every time on Piken Square when we hit 1200 at the very last moment despite of hordes of zergs saving children, AFKers hidden around the map, heirloom runners and mapchat trolls telling us how bad the ultimate reward is. I counted that during a rescue cycle I could save around 20-25 “unique” citizens; with a hypothetical 100 players in a map, that makes 2500 saved citizens… yet we only see 1200. So, the question is, where did the other 1300 citizens go?

I know this has been discussed many times, but here I will be constructive and I ask you not to derail the thread and to be constructive as well.

The main reason why these problems arise is the multiplication of specific game design decisions and psychology of most people players which tells them to maximize returns and minimize investments. Some casual-player friendly concepts of GW2 do work in open world to an extent, but they simply fail in recent large-scale events, with Escape from LA and Twisted Marionette being the most recent and evident ones. Here’s the list of issues and the proposed solutions.

ISSUES:

Counter-productive goals

• Whole-map content should not be designed in a way that player A’s goal hurts player B’s goal in cooperative PvE. I’m speaking here primarily about heirlooms and things like AP for destroying bridges in EoTM; Marionette Warden achievements and hit-and-AFK Hologram achievements can also be counted as such.

Counter-productive incentives

• Even more so, whole-map content shouldn’t be designed in a way that player A gets his reward PLUS a reward for what player B was doing, but not the other way round. I’m speaking about both zerging and heirlooms runs here.
• With the current system, you can get both the reward from group effort done by other people and lots of bags from zerging by upscaling events; from my experience, you can get around twice as much bags by zerging. Same goes for heirlooms. In Marionette event, it was often more rewarding to swap lines and farm keys instead of fighting the Warden which would have been failed anyway.
• The final reward is too random and unrewarding compared to guaranteed rewards from farming bags. Furthermore, rewards from farmed bags are better than the ultimate rewards in short term, and that is a big problem: you may never get your jetpack skin, but you may get some unlimited tonics and airship tickets and fabric from bags – and that’s additional to champ bags and greens-blues.

Leeching

• The way current whole-map content is designed at the moment, you can easily AFK the whole run (Escape from LA) or hit several mobs and then AFK (Marionette) and still get the guaranteed reward which other people had to earn.
• It is often very difficult or next to impossible to tell a legitimate AFKer (sudden real-world problems) apart from a leecher.
• There is no mechanics to report leechers (apart from botting), and even if you do, see above.
• Hiding properly is the easiest way of avoiding being reported.

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS:

All activities count towards the same goal

• In case of Escape from LA, both heirlooms, encouraged/resed citizens, miasma events, escort/defend events can all count towards “good deeds” counter instead of “citizens saved”. Events actually did it, but zerg + scaling was a large problem with them.
• LS meta achievements should contain a large portion of achievements which are tied to the main source of goal contribution – in our case, encouraging and reviving citizens. Current meta achievements (not dailies) did not have a SINGLE achievement towards encouraging citizens; it did have a counter-productive heirloom discovery achievement, on the other hand. These achievements should require a high score to fulfill and a reward tied to it, and they would clearly tell players who open the achievements panel on the release day what they’re supposed to do in the new event. However, the achievement which has a reward tied to it is the same heirloom counter-productive one.

…is what a sylvari mesmer would be happy to see as a meta achievement reward for the next episode of LS.

Seriously, I miss meta achievements and their rewards. Now that we have episodes permanent, absence of the meta reward makes me think “Nah, I can just do it later if I need APs one day…” and postpone replaying of the story for achievements till never.