Showing Posts For Mr Snotty Pants.3980:
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And it’s a struggle. This was a sword/sword melee build I enjoyed in PvE.
In the old system there weren’t any GM traits I cared too much about. I dipped into domination for empowered illusions and chaos for illusionary defense but didn’t want anything higher up in those trees. But you can’t do that anymore.
So what’s the current thinking on phantasm builds?
I’m leaning towards Dueling and Inspiration and maybe Domination. That seems to push me towards interrupts and maybe mantras..?
Same thing I’ve been pointing out with Mesmer. For some builds the adept and master traits are more interesting than the GM traits. The old system allowed for this, the new one does not.
As I move through reworking my old builds that’s what I find: If my build lines up with how ArenaNet grouped the traits I’m fine (better off actually). But if it does not – I cannot get that build back.
When I talk about my choices being restricted, this is what I mean.
When you hit level 80 an Advanced button should appear. Clicking that lets you spread out into 4 or 5 trait lines, and take 2 Adept or Master traits by giving up something higher.
And then I could have my mesmer back.
Some trait lines are just poorly laid out, and with the new restrictions it’s much harder to work around that.
Mesmer traits were a mess and still are. Lots of adepts I want, few GMs. Old scheme you just spread out into 4 trait lines. New scheme isn’t so forgiving…
let’s compare build diversity in the old system to build diversity in the new system by comparing two builds…. Minon Master Necro, and longbow ranger.
…there are many more variants for builds now, compared to the old system.
At best, you showed there are more variants for META builds now. But since folks are complaining about losing their non-meta builds…
It seems some players are happy if there’s a build that works — the don’t care what it is, just that it works.
And other players are only happy with specific builds. Even if there are more valid options now, they are unhappy because their build is gone.
I put myself in the second camp. There were many mesmer build I didn’t enjoy, and one I did. So, if I cannot get back something like that one mesmer build, I will be unhappy.
Still experimenting…
Valid choices were increased, worthless choices decreased. This is a good thing.
This is probably true, but it’s also true many perfectly valid choices were removed.
I miss the ability to take 2 master traits from the same line. I use to do that pretty frequently, and I don’t understand why that choice had to be removed. Reading other folk’s comments, seems this is a common source of conflict.
I came back after being away for awhile. Many of my favorite builds cannot easily be restored, for all the reasons folks are listing:
- I can no longer pick 2 master traits from the same line, so my ranger can no longer take both Two Handed Training and Natural Healing.
- I can no longer dip into a 4th trait line, so my mesmer can no longer take both Empowered Illusions and Illusionary Defense.
How about an Advanced Build button that lets us break these restrictions, and get back our old build? What does that bust?
And why is ArenaNet so anti-complexity? The complex build system was something that attracted me to the game…
For those who are choosing not to play the game because of the daily:
Would you still play the game if it was removed entirely?
Dailies were the structure I built my casual play sessions around. They took the right amount of time, they integrated into what I was doing, and they added a little randomness. Without the old dailies I don’t know what to do anymore.
And it made me realize a troubling trend:
- Releases have been dumbing-down or delaying character development, making it uninteresting — This had been my favorite part of the game.
- They do not revisit any of these systems after they stomp on them. They seem incapable of doing anything about Traits or Greatest Fear or probably Dailies.
My fun has been stripping away layer by layer. I keep seeing enjoyable stuff trashed and shoved into the backlog. Dailies just happen to be where they broke my habit of playing.
I stopped because even for a free game, I can’t get behind the dev direction arenanet is taking it
That’s pretty much where I’m at. For how I enjoyed the game — most changes have been for the worse.
There wasn’t really anything enjoyable about the old dailies either.
Which is why I keep stressing the ease of integrating old dailies with casual pve play. You did them while you did other stuff, and they provided a little randomness to make play feel less repetitive.
My main issue with the new dailies is how specific they are. When I’m forced to go out of my way to do them, they feel like busy work.
This is not unlike the complaints non-pve folks had with the old dailies…
I suspect the majority of the dissatisfaction is coming from players like myself who viewed the dailies as a kind of incentive/motivational multiplier factor.
Yup, the folks against this change mostly talk about old dailies in terms of how it integrated with their play. Some even admit to enjoying them as background tasks.
The folks for this change mostly talk about how quickly you can get the new dailies out of the way before playing. Very few talk about enjoying the new dailies for themselves.
Am I the only player who wasn’t too hung up on the daily rewards? I just liked having the dailies as a framework for a night’s play. It made the game less repetitive to have random background tasks I’d complete while going about my normal business. They were a key part to how I was playing the game.
The new dailies lack that easy integration with play. They tend to be: Go to this exact spot and do this exact thing — I can do that before or after, but not during play. It’s busy work and I avoid busy work (yes, some old dailies were also busy work, but I could usually avoid those).
To me that’s the big loss — old dailies I did while I played, new dailies I get out of the way before I play. Actually, I just don’t bother…
I realize other play styles already had to go out of their way with old dailies — that doesn’t mean you have to rip out my content to improve those areas.
And I realize this is meant to encourage me to play other types of content. I’m fine with that sort of thing — offer me new incentives. This strange fixation with removing content, I just don’t get…
You don’t lose out by ignoring it. It’s purely additive, it gives something more than the activity it encourages you to do already gives on its own.
They subtracted old dailies to create this new system. If old dailies were part of how you played — that is gone. The way old dailies integrated into casual pve is gone.
I’m not complaining about how new dailies are implemented. I’m complaining about what got paved over to produce them. To me, this is just like Traits all over…
Crazy as it sounds, some of us liked the old content of dailies, as much as the rewards. Or, more specifically, the way you could integrate dailies with an hour or two of casual PVE play — it was good background content.
That’s what’s gone with the new login and dailies — it’s much more get out of the way content. I don’t know how to enjoy this content — it doesn’t seem to have been built for enjoyment — just to gate rewards.
I prefer to spend my limited okay time dungeoning. Most of the dailies indeed require me to go out of my way…
I wasn’t saying the old dailies were great for all play styles — they were pretty scant for other than casual PVE. I’d totally support new options.
I just never understand why ANet has to rip out the old options when making changes. What dailies use to do for me — they don’t do anymore. I realize they work better now for others, but I bet that could have been accomplished without trashing my option.
Same with traits, same with greatest fear. Why does ANet feel compelled to slash and burn?
You previously had to do 5 dailies.
The old dailies were easy.
You received 5 ap for doing 5 dailies.
You now only need to do 3 dailies.
The new dailies are easy.
You now get 10 ap for doing 3 dailies.
The old dailies were mostly general. You did them as you played. They might divert you down a slightly different path, like you might actually do that jumping puzzle you’d otherwise skip, but they were easy to incorporate into your play.
The new dailies are specific. They are quick, easy tasks you clear before you start playing. They feel like stupid old NPC delivery quests to get your daily hamster pellet.
Big difference.
Old achievements was content some of us enjoyed. Content, not rewards (sure, we might have liked the rewards too). Not as a specific thing to do, as a framework around which we built our daily play.
Rather than leave that in place and add new stuff, they rip it out. Stuff I enjoyed — gone.
Same with Traits, same with Greatest Fear — All these improvements that involve ripping out old stuff folks liked. I have never played a game that ripped out so much stuff folks were using.
That’s it — nothing about morals or stores or all that other goofy stuff.
For the record: I seem to have stopped playing. Without achievements to frame an evenings play, I haven’t felt compelled to log in. Certainly not for a login reward / hamster pellet…
What I get from this post is that lots of players were doing (or not doing) dailies for a bunch of different reasons. Depending on why you did them, this change shifted your enjoyment (or lack of).
What I don’t get, what I never get with ANet changes… why not leave the old option when adding a new one? Let the PVE track have as many picks as it use to have, with the extras coming from the old mix. If you want to do the 3 quick specific ones – go do those. If you likes the slower, more generic ones – continue to do those.
Everyone happy!
Recent ANet changes always seem to needlessly rip out old stuff folks were enjoying. Traits, Greatest Fear… they all follow this pattern…
Those people that are complaining about this must only have around 15 minutes a night to play.
It is easy as pie to do, and the rewards are much better than before.
Seriously, quit whining, suck it up, go commit a huge 15 minute chunk of time, and do the daily. It is not rocket science.
I did the old system for fun. It framed a casual night of play.
The new system feels like busy work. I don’t care if it only takes 15 minutes, it has all the thrill of an old style delivery quest… chop 10 trees, click on a vista… yawn
So, just like traits, ANet pushes us towards content we don’t want to do by limiting options we use to have…
What happened to play like you want to?
People have unrealistic expectations of software companies that they do not apply to car makers, TV shows, authors, construction, or other industries. No one (almost) demands Ford have a public detailed five-year plan, or that an architect make detailed plans available to everyone who might someday walk into the new building.
Well, I do work for a software company and our customers do expect to know what is coming soonish, and what it coming later. If we told them we cannot promise so we cannot tell you they wouldn’t be our customers. We treat our customers like, well… adults.
I’m not saying ANet should have the same policy as we do. I’m pointing out that the expectation is not unreasonable. Some customers will not dedicate their time to something unless they have a good idea of the roadmap.
Thanks for the feedback!
ANet would make lots of folks happier with just simple stuff like this. Most of us don’t need to know exactly what and exactly when. We simply need to know our issues are understand and something will eventually happen. Then we know we can stop complaining.
Otherwise, we get 2 months of Greatest Fear and 7 months of Traits.
If the answer is: We are on a skeleton crew and can only deliver main features and quick bug fixes — maybe they feel silence is less damaging.
I realize what your thread is about but I still feel the same way … why do players insist they need to know about what’s coming down the pipeline? How does knowing that impact any players’ interaction with the CURRENT game version on live?
There are folks who will not start Chapter 7 of the Personal Story because they don’t know if Greatest Fear was removed on purpose or by accident. If ANet puts it back, but they’ve advanced the story past this step, maybe they’ll miss it anyhow. So they keep waiting.
The complaints that linger on page 1 for months are not about new features, they are about old features ANet changed for the worse. This is stuff effecting folks now.
(edited by Mr Snotty Pants.3980)
The one character I raised under this system has only the traits that match his initial build idea, and about 3 more I randomly bumped into. Actually, I am still missing one trait I want.
I feel locked into this one build. Experimenting means hours of work, or a bunch of gold. Neither is appealing, and so I don’t experiment.
When I was new I was clueless about laying out a build — it took lots of experimenting to get to where it feels comfortable. How are new players suppose to learn when the time/gold cost is so high?
Their communication policy really doesn’t help them with these sorts of ongoing issues, where the central complaint is ANet does not care.
The initial change felt like ANet does not care. The lack of any fix feels like ANet does not care. How do you drive the final nail into this coffin? Let the complaint linger on page 1 for months and months without comment.
Thing is, I think ANet does care. But this iron-clad, never-talk policy makes us think otherwise. At some point you do more damage with silence. Greatest Fear is at that point, Traits is way past that point…
you can BUY it straight of a trainer! OMG!!!!! so insane!!!
Having raised a character under this system, I found it killed the urge to experiment.
If I knew I wanted it, and the unlock was too painful, I bought it. But, if I thought maybe I should try this, and the unlock was too painful… I skipped it.
I’ve said it before: I don’t mind that they changed traits, I mind that they did such a lazy job with the implementation. This needed new content so trait unlocks were of similar difficulty. It makes no sense that one adept trait requires 20 minutes solo and the next takes hours and a group.
I hope this means someone is looking at the mixed-up, final chapters of the Personal Story. Missions were shuffled/dropped, but the references in other missions were left as-is. So stuff tends to conclude before it happens, or didn’t happen.
A mess. And the first story new players see.
Now I suspect they’re trying not to make a move on this until they can feel things out better than they did the first time.
I wonder. Traits and Greatest Fear feel very similar to me: Big restructure, sloppy on the details. Not like they didn’t understand — like they were short handed, in a rush, and figured they can fine tune later.
Both of these need new content to work. My guess is there just wasn’t time for new content.
Greatest Fear you could just put back, and fix the related plot issues. The content still exists.
Source of Orr is harder. You need to shuffle the NPCs at the start (to avoid the haven’t met Sayeh al’Rajihd yet type issues) and probably switch the boss (so the Eye reveal doesn’t come before the Eye investigations).
Doesn’t that cover most of the plot troubles?
I’d love for you to get a roundup of ideas and thoughts from the ANet team on why they made the choices they made, and what their intentions were.
Totally.
Over on Greatest Fear, folks ask if the missing missions are accidental or intentional — no answer. But it’s hard to provide meaningful feedback when you can’t even be told the goal.
Same issue here. They ask for suggestions, but we don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish…
Nope. Kind of amazing: Big plot messes, final 2 chapters of the personal story, and somehow not a priority.
If they don’t care about this story, why should we?
I hold out a dim hope — probably easier to fix this while they’re working on similar content and dealing with art/voice assets.
A very dim hope…
Be enough for me if they’d just add new content gasp for unlocks, so they’re all straightforward and solo-able. I don’t really mind the ones where you spend 10 minutes jumping and killing a veteran, I mind the ones where you spend hours zone completing or hoping enough folks gather for a chain of group event.
Bonus points: make alternate unlocks for WvW, etc.
Just like Greatest Fear, it doesn’t bother me that they changed it. It bothers me how lazy the change is.
Has there been any word at all?
Recently, no.
Months pass and all we get is another we are listening?
How about telling us what you’ve heard — that way we know you are listening.
It’s like reading about gambling addiction… Not at all healthy…
As someone said above: Unreasonable folks are impossible to please, so don’t set your policy on their behavior. Assume folks are reasonable, cause they are the ones you can please.
The current communication policy leads to frustrations like the Traits and Greatest Fear discussions. Months and months of no communication at all — that pleases nobody.
I haven’t been following this for a while. Have they even said whether the changes were intentional or not yet?
Don’t think so.
The plot of chapters 7 and 8 remain mixed up. You get references to events that no long happened, reunions with people you haven’t met, revelations to mysteries that haven’t been introduced.
It’s a mess. Worse, it’s obvious when you play these chapters. And yet this thread is a month old and nothing has happened.
Clearly it was okay to alter the plot without confirming it still made sense. Clearly it’s not a high priority fix, if it’s even on the list of things to fix.
Conclusion: The plot just doesn’t matter much.
Pretty sure the quick revert was damage control.
Sticking folks with left-over gems is a well understood monetization scheme. Heck, they already do it with gems-for-cash.
It’s possible monetization wasn’t the main motivation behind this change, but there’s no way they weren’t aware of the benefits of making 400 gems the minimum.
They may have underestimated the outrage, but they knew what they were doing. Pinning this on new player experience was a half truth at best.
I suggest they provide periodic feedback on the threads that have been going on for months. Even if they just summed up the suggestions, we’d know they were reading and thinking about it. Many of the big, never-die threads start with them asking us for suggestions — show us the suggestions are going somewhere.
The feeling now is they are actively ignoring Traits, actively ignoring Greatest Fear. If that’s not the case, then they should figure out how to provide some communication here…
At a minimum, they should provide feedback on the threads that just don’t die: Traits, Greatest Fear. Clearly there is ongoing concern here.
What good is communication is you won’t provide it where folks want it the most?
My hope is that, given how poorly it went over this time, the for the new players excuse is dead!
The problem with not talking about what they are working on — they of course don’t talk about what they aren’t working on. It all looks the same to us.
But this they actually busted… I would think they could talk about stuff they busted… A simple play through shows the plot is all mixed up… maybe the plot doesn’t matter?
I guess I can start downloading the patch then…
The bad press got to them. You folks saying rants and tantrums don’t work… remember this!
Now we just need official word here
I am surprise there hasn’t been some word from anet by now.
This is where their brand of communication fails. On difficult topics they don’t provide it. Traits, Greatest Fear, and I guess this.
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