Guild Wars 2

You all can have your debates about what “casual player” means. And about HoT, and timers, and so on.

Bottom line for me is that GW2 started going downhill with the famous September 9 patch, and just kept going down and down. I never did buy HoT, and I won’t.

I LIKED dungeons. And champ trains. And the old dailies. And temple timers. And viewing the chats from RPers in Lion’s Arch and Queensdale. And “easy mode.”

I HATE fractals. And Drytop. And Silverwaste. And PvP. And the (no longer) new NPE. And raids. I’ve no interest in e-sports, none at all.

Things were already on a trajectory into the toilet, from my perspective, and NOTHING I’ve seen about HoT makes me in any way interested.

I don’t post this for discussion or debate. Go ahead and make your personal attacks, if you wish; I simply don’t care. I’m posting this to provide one person’s opinion to the dunderheads at ANet, so that they may learn from their mistakes. I doubt they will, but there’s always hope.

In the meantime, I’m outta here. And the above is why. Bye.

I must agree: I HATE Fractals. I’ve done them, I don’t like them, and I won’t do them again. I’ve been doing dailies regularly, but I won’t complete mine today.

It’s one thing to stupidly require high-level activities for those who don’t want to play those zones—at least yesterday and today that is not a problem, but I’m not going to believe you’ve addressed that issue until I see more of the pattern.

But requiring Fractals is simply asinine, and will serve no purpose other than to thoroughly torque off those who are strictly PvE’ers. Count me among them.

This pie-in-the-face is somehow a fitting conclusion to ANet’s 2014 campaign against players.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Wanted to pop by and give another update on where we stand, as well as to help provide some information on some of the more common misconceptions we’ve seen floating around as well:

<snip>

- Finally, I want to add that a few things (hello traits!) are things that can be improved for players who make multiple alts, we’re aware of this, and though company policy prevents us from discussing what’s in development: I can say we know Gw2 can be an even better game for people who love making alts in the long run, more info: when it’s ready™.

I have several questions in that regard:
- Before this feature pack, ArenaNet was saying, in essence, how wonderful it was going to be. Based on my own experience, and on what I see on Reddit and these forums, it’s less than wonderful. You say that GW2 will be even a better game for people who love making alts. Why should we believe ArenaNet now?

- If things continue the way they are, I doubt I’ll be around to see these changes you allude to. How is it ArenaNet expects I will be around to see them? And if players like me are not around, why should we care about these promised changes?

Vayne.8563:

Most of the screaming, 90% of it, is about the NPE and I’m 100% sure most people didn’t try it with an open mind.

You may well be right. I think I did go in with an open mind, however: last week, pre-FP, I leveled an alt up. Then I tried it again with another alt post-FP. Comparing the two experiences, I have to say that post-FP was far more frustrating, and far more boring, than pre-FP.

It is simply not that bad. It really isn’t. The only way people can make it that bad is if they make stuff up about it.

It limits you very little for a relatively short period of time and that’s it. In the mean time you get rewards for the character all the way up until 80.

I disagree. It really is that bad. Okay, not as awful as some on the forum say it is, but it’s bad. It’s turned something that was fun into something frustrating and boring. I don’t play games to be frustrated and bored.

People always have trouble adapting to new stuff, but the longer this goes the more people get used to it, the less bad it seems.

Well, I was apprehensive about the April feature pack, but I had no trouble adapting to it. So I find it difficult to believe that that’s the issue here, at least for me.

Anet will adjust it a bit, probably not too much, but a bit, and life will go on.

Agreed. But to use myself as an example, I’ve not logged into the game since a few hours after the feature pack. Whether or not I ever do again depends on those adjustments. I suspect I’m going to be in that unwanted segment, but I’ll continue to check the release notes and the forum for info to make that decision.

The bottom line is that if the game doesn’t have new player retention it won’t be here in a couple of years and that helps nobody.

Agreed. For some of us, it’s simply a matter of whether we care if it’s here or not. If we’re in that unwanted segment, I suggest we don’t.

Vayne.8563:

So let’s think about this. Carefully.

No one wanted this. No one likes it. No one asked for it. Yet a company goes ahead and does it. Makes a huge bunch of changes, and it is huge…for what reason? To do nothing? Because they have nothing else to work on?

Or maybe, just maybe, they know something you don’t, and without knowing that something, you can’t judge whether or not this is justified.

Colin said, straight out, that retaining new players as they level isn’t good and that they’ve tested this and this system does better. Every MMO needs new players, because natural attrition exists. Even if 20% of the playerbase hated this change and left, it wouldn’t be enough to stop the change from going through, if it was going to get more new players into the game, to stay in the game longer.

Businesses do things for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with what existing players want. Sometimes they do it because its’ good for business. And if it’s good for the business, the game will have more long term success, even without the people who don’t like it.

It’s a gamble like everything else, but if you think Anet made this change without any data or forethought, I don’t know what to tell you.

Vayne, I agree with you, you’re spot on.
The toughest decision any business has to make is what customer segments they’re NOT going to go after. Businesses that don’t make that decision, and try to please everyone, go downhill. It’s just not possible.
But it’s not fun to find out you’re in that not-wanted segment, especially when there’s a lot about the product that you love. And that’s what all the screaming is about.

Thank you, ANet!

Ant.3415:

These forums need mandatory drug testing.

LMAO!!! Best post I’ve seen.

Elothar.4382:

Was playing my ranger tonight…but didn’t try this out. Definitely gonna give that a shot. Thanks.

pun intended?

Ashen.2907:

Aicus.3174:

So where did you get the numbers that those who dislike the patch outnumbered those that like the patch by 2 to 3 times?

He probably pulled his numbers out of the same orifice as the OP. When a thread starts with an OP that invents numbers to support his position it seems all too likely that others will follow suit.

As you know, 64.32% of all statistics are made up.

BlueOcean.5380:

I actually bought several copper-fed for my alts that never will become over level 10. I planned to park them at certain jumping puzzles because I’m not good at jumping. For e.g., Dark Reverie. Just for the convenience of not needing to carry copper stuff when they will be gathering the occasional ore node. Now I find they are all useless. Lol.

This opens a precedence of an existing Gemstore item being nerfed. Based on this—my faith in the store has gone down, and chances are I will be leaving this game anyway. Not feeling like playing at all after all the nerfs that were unannounced prior to this Feature Pack. I had been very excited, now I’m totally disillusioned. Sigh… What do you say when a company advertizes a car with a certain engine then is able to change it to a lesser one, with no responsibility to the customers who purchased it based on their ad-stated ability.

Your customers made decisions based on your ad.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Reminds me of EQ over again. How many times expansions were announced with all sorts of “exciting improvements”, then the nerf bat swings out from the left field. Whoa… I’m getting too old for this.

Fool me once, shame on me.

I agree. Where do I apply for my gem refund? I’m serious, I paid for this and ANet is not delivering what I paid for. I deserve my money back.

Vayne.8563:

Till level 5. In the new system, that takes about 15 minutes.

It’s not all about the speed. In fact, it does appear to be faster to level up. But it’s FRUSTRATING and BORING to do so. It wasn’t so before this feature pack.

GreyMouser.1235:

Um, what? You can typically unlock the first three skills on your first weapon just by running around the beginning zone to your objectives. By level 2 and following a couple of hearts, you could have at least one weapon fully unlocked, and at least one more halfway unlocked. In 10 minutes of play. Now, it takes 45 to 50 minutes, if you’re grinding hard. This isn’t working smarter.

Have you ACTUALLY tried leveling a new character? Pre-patch, my keyfarmer always had two weapons fully unlocked by the end of the key storyline, after 20 minutes (and we’re talking about a speed run, not going out of my way to kill things). It took an hour to level them to 10 post-patch, as I wasn’t actively trying to participate in every single event that occurred (leaving me underleveled for most of the hearts after level 5…)

Yes, I HAVE ACTUALLY tried leveling a new character. It’s not about speed—it may indeed be faster. But it’s also frustrating and boring, and THAT’s why it’s hated.

ColinJohanson.2394:

You can also go do jumping puzzles any time you want for example, the game just gives you a heads up they exist at level 21 if you haven’t found one by then, etc.

BUT, if you want to do jumping puzzles at low levels, and you’re playing a Ranger, you can’t stow your pet to get it out of the way to see where to jump! What sort of idiocy is that?

Not being able to stow a pet until level 5 makes no sense. I hate the new gating in general, but this is the only item that fits this particular thread.

I’ve run this three times now, from start to complete, and no credit. BUGGED!