Guild Wars 2

Wait… there’s people who don’t already just waypoint everywhere?

Personally, no, I’m not disappointed at all! I love it! And it’s really huge, I think. Basically a whole new zone with lots of new events. And even more than that, this update combined with the past updates have really gotten me invested in the story.

I’ve actually been incredibly impressed with Living Story lately. I feel like it’s been getting consistently better and better throughout the span of the game and that everything you’ve said you want to do with it is exactly what I want to see you do with it.

Perhaps even more overlapping ongoing stories could be good. For example, something like Ronah.2869 said above with the community building something big. That’d be awesome, I think, and it could continue to happen even as other living story updates came out. Achievements could be based on bringing in supply, and maybe even WvW could have an additional set of dolyaks delivering supplies to guard or something, though that might be a bad idea.

My only complaint is when updates feel too separated and like they don’t connect to each other. I like how every update is different though — scarlet, new dungeon, dragon/bosses, etc. I never know what to expect, and that’s super exciting.

Sad to see all the negativity on the official forms, but I wanted to at least take a break from playing long enough to throw in a positive word here.

This update is incredible! I don’t personally know of any other MMO that’s completely destroyed the capital of their world. I also don’t know any other MMO that releases significant content updates every two weeks! And you all have done the first in one of your regular updates and made it incredibly fun and I’m blown away!

Thank you, ArenaNet! I’ve been so impressed and enjoying this so much I’ve been gushing about it to everyone!

Ravezaar.4951:

“RLHawk you playing the same game ? 1 Good WvW patch and 1 half decent over 13months. PvE has gotten what ? 20-25 ptaches

Yes, I play it. And I play largely WvW. Perhaps you need some history? Obviously initially a lot of the focus was on seeing how well everything worked on such a large scale and doing lots of bug fixes. After a while the decision to remove Orbs of Power was made, because they did more harm than good. Shortly after that loot was improved. Then events were added to help breakout of your starting location when overwhelmed too long. Then Laurels were added with the ability to get them in only WvW, and load times were improved a lot. They made orange swords only show for larger battles, opening up all kinds of new strategies for sneak attacks. Leaderboards were added. Ranks were added, along with special abilities to use your rank points on. Culling was removed — before it was removed in PvE, mind you. More buying options were given so that more and more could be acquired through only playing WvW. Tons of improvements to siege and abilities were made. Obsidian Sanctum was given its own map. Traps were added. The ability for commanders to ping maps and draw paths was added. (Not strictly WvW, but has the biggest influence there.) Matchmaking was improved. Rewards were increased again greatly with new incentives for PvEers to do WvW for help buying ascended items. Siege blueprints were made trade-able, balancing their cost and encouraging their further use. Rewards were again increased greatly. Borderland bloodlust was added, and in today’s update again rewards have been increased as well as both incentives to play and to do well. And then seasons starting in a couple of weeks with new rewards and incentives.

On top of all of that, nearly every patch for the last year at least has WvW specific bug fixes and minor improvements to rewards, gameplay, and balance in the update notes. And new and improved rank abilities have been added almost every update since they came out, as well as new finishers.

For the gametype that WvW is, I’m really not sure what you expect or want. Do you want celebrations to affect WvW more? Do you want world bosses and events and story content to be added to WvW? I’m assuming that Borderlands Bloodlust and Ranks & Abilities are the only things you consider decent updates, and I’d agree that they’re probably the most game changing. But the beauty of WvW is that each weak is its own story. It doesn’t /need/ progressive story content added to it, because you and I playing it is what creates that story.

As I see it, WvW is a huge focus of theirs. But to make changes similar to PvE changes at such a pace would be a big mistake in my opinion. WvW is a very different game type.

difens.1326:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

After investigation by our programmers, they have determined that the fix to this issue would be too risky and could end up making the situation worse than it is. Unfortunately, this means that we’re not able to make changes to correct the issue. We’re sorry about this and we will be implementing ways to ensure this doesn’t happen in the future.

Lazy and unprofessional excuse. Like I said in the other thread, you, as a company, do not respect us as your customers, nor you value our precious time. Lack of proper testing, lack of proper planning and stupid ambition to release new content every two weeks caused this. Fine. No more excuses, no more failures like this. You won’t see any more money from me. I don’t care for laurels or achievement points, but I do care for my time. Obviously you don’t. End of story.

This is absolutely not true, difens.1326. As a professional programmer myself (non gaming related) who rolls out updates to several clients semi-frequently, it is pretty much impossible to test EVERYTHING thoroughly enough to not have ANY bugs. If you want to make perfect software, you’ll never release anything EVER. Because it can ALWAYS be better. And yes — I’ve messed up some things that have been irreversible, like this. It’s part of the job. So you can bash on ANet or bash on me all you want, but every piece of software you use will have issues from time to time, rather you run into them or not.

And for everyone complaining about 10 or 20 laurels — what in the world is wrong with you?! You’ll get your 10 just like every other time! And if someone gets 20 (which is just speculation atm anyway afaik), why is that a problem? Isn’t our “in this together” attitude something we pride ourselves on as a GW2 community? We revive our fallen, help out strangers with tough battles, and don’t/can’t steal kills/loot/harvesting nodes. It’s certainly something I pride us on as a community and brag about to outsiders who’ve had bad experiences with MMOs. So if my fellow hero played a ridiculous amount and got his monthlies in the first 2 days of the month and gets rewarded extra, then to him I say congratulations! What is there to be envious of? They’re not taking anything from me, and I’m given everything I deserve.

If you were close to getting monthlies and had them reset, I can understand being disappointed. But if you got them that fast, you’ll have no trouble getting them in the next 27 days, and it seems like a small price to pay for all the incredible content ANet delivers constantly.

Aye.8392:

I would have thought they’d move to free trait re-specs at some point, but instead they put them in the gem store.

Is 3 silver really that different than free?

This is purely a convenience item, which is exactly what /should/ be added to the cash shop.

Ravezaar.4951:

Fix thw WvW now, we wont fall for your Marketing plot and do your new Dungeon anyway or jump onto your baby “sPvP”. we want only one thing… The Massacre we come to Love as WvW.

Nice try but you failed now give us WvW back

This is pretty silly. ANet loves WvW, and doesn’t want to take anyone away from it.

Sontor.6314:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I hadn’t done that particular path yet, and now I know I never will.

I WAS going for completion. I did believe though that with the existing permanent content (especially the content linked to permanent achievements), it was safe to wait until I had some free time.

Kitten me, right?

Thanks, ANet.

To elaborate a little more on why this is so disheartening for me.

1. As if the living story achievements didn’t put enough pressure on me, now I learn that the permanent content can be taken away at a moment’s notice, so not wanting to miss out, I am now under the additional pressure to complete all dungeon paths, all jumping puzzles and whatever else as soon as possible, leaving nothing to be explored at my own pace (which is what I loved (past tense) most about Guild Wars 2).
2. I am actually fine with the Living World concept making permanent changes to the world. Things change, they evolve. I have always been a supporter of the Living World. But please consider giving us some advance warning (more than a single day) to give us the chance to catch up before taking content away. I think this is not unreasonable.

Thank you.

This is also exactly what I feel like.

Does anybody know if people are now missing the possibility to complete any achievements or so? Or getting a special item from any of the NPCs in the path that was replaced?

It only adds achievements, doesn’t remove any. He specifically said in the stream that as far as the dungeon master achievement and paths achievement, the new paths replaces the old one, meaning if you did the old one you’ll still have that achievement, and if you didn’t but do this one, you’ll get that achievement. There were no special items from the path being replaced, but there are in what’s being added.

The problem is that what would happen is you’d have, say 59 players, and then say 5 more people join. If you don’t scale the time when more people come in then people would just leave until the event started, then flood in and easily beat it. If you did scale it immediately though, you’d have people getting mad at people for joining the fight, and that’s not fun for anybody.

Your suggestion might kinda work for scaling instanced content, but if it was instanced then your suggestion wouldn’t really be needed.

Cool to share your ideas though! Thanks!

Erebus.7568:

as an ele i feel like we got the finger compared to every one else-.- once more, and we are properly the class who needed a real buff the most… bs

do this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Attunement-and-Traits-Revamp-idea/first#post2825766

As an Ele, I feel the exact opposite. I’m super excited and happy about this. Perhaps it’s because I’m a staff ele, but this one /is/ focused on support stuff, right? Which is kinda what staff is meant to be better at than other weapons…

shrug I really really like my ele though, and for the hundreds and hundreds of hours playing him I’ve never felt under powered, not even in PvP.

Shinzan.2908:

It’s not about the crafting stations but the gem store pass.

But that’s existed every since the Queen’s Jubilee in the form of the Royal Terrace. It’s nothing new.

muni.4830:

Timze.7980:

I expect NO more responces from Anet regarding this issue and this topic just vanishes slowly then, quite sure that is what Anet is trying now…-.-’’

Yeah – I suspect you’re right – it’s not like we’re paying monthly to play so they don’t have to worry about players cancelling. The most they’ll see is probably a dip in Gems sales as some folk decide not to bother any more. They’ve had our money so they don’t need to worry about us – it’s all about the new customers they can get between now and the New Year. Hopefully some of those prospects Google and wonder “Hmm – that doesn’t sound good….”

I truthfully cannot comprehend how you can radiate such hate for such an amazing team and amazing game. Nor how issues like this can possibly take away all the positives they have done and continue to do. I pity you all.

Kal Spiro.9745:

So we’ve gone from Disappointing to Super Epic? I have seen a lot of threads about Disappointing, and I’ve seen a handful of threads saying they enjoy the event, but I haven’t seen any posts, let alone threads claiming this event is “SUPER EPIC.”

It’s a fun event, I’m enjoying myself, but it’s still just another event. It is cool to see a zone so drastically changed but I don’t think many if any are rocked in the boots by this, and I certainly haven’t see anyone claiming to have been, so where exactly is this even coming from? Who is actually saying this?

Actually I do think it’s super epic. Along with lots of their other updates! And I’m rocked in my boots (whatever that means) enough to be gushing about it to all my friends, so there’s that.

Shinzan.2908:

Most of the complains and issues people post about are valid and shouldn’t be dismissed.

Bugs are one thing. But people complaining about not having crafting stations in Vigil Keep? Crafting is way better in Rata Sum anyway, but that’s besides my point — my point is that I personally think it’s awesome when the story/updates affect our gameplay. It makes it more like a real world. So it makes me probably more frustrated than it should when people complain about not having their crafting stations next to their trading post and I’m like, “Guys! Everyone around you just had their homes and livelihood destroyed! And you want to complain because the settlement they’ve retreated to doesn’t have all the amenities you desire?!”

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

They can at least do something! Like, I don’t know, add some easier monthly options or something? Just something! anything!

Not promise a fix and then suddenly say “Sorry too risky guys, later”.

And maybe they will. Time will tell. But everyone insulting them and talking about how horrible they are and making it into a huge deal is plain ridiculous IMHO. The very best of the best make mistakes, and I really don’t think this is as big of a mistake as some people are acting like.

Lucyfer.9517:

Completely destroyed? pffft it will be back to the hellhole it was within next 2-3 patches.

Have you been there? Yes — it’s completely destroyed.

Why act like it’s stupid to enjoy the update merely because you’re SPECULATING about what future updates will contain and pre-assuming that you’ll dislike them?

I’m on Ehmry Bay, and I absolutely love the new Tequatl fight! Me and some friends tried (and failed, of course) to kill him a few times last night and didn’t even get him down to 80%, but we did a tiny tiny bit better each time. And that’s super exciting! The fact that it’s a huge deal for Blackgate to have gotten it is so awesome, and makes me so excited about it! Last night I dreamed that Ehmry Bay was the 3rd world to bring him down. You know something’s cool when you dream about it and can’t stop thinking about it at work the next day!

One thing I will say though is that the vocal negative side of the community makes me laugh at shake my head at the same time. Here’s some examples.

“RIP, low pop servers.” (said while in an overflow)
“This is impossible.” (Said on the 3rd time he’s ever been fought.)
“He has too large of a health pool, and still requires no actual skill. Look at Blackgate, they killed him with pure DPS without even dodging waves. Nerf his health and increase the time limit and make skill actually important!” (This one just makes me shake my head and want to bang it on my desk. News flash — by using even more skill than BG did their first success they/we can get his health pool down even faster by not wasting time and buffs rezzing, etc. The statement makes the assumption that we’ve already mastered the skills and that BG’s success was the only way, neither of which are true.)

So, anyone else wanna share anything that people have said negatively about the new Tequatl that made them facepalm?

EDIT: tl;dr: I love it and dreamed about it. Some of the negative comments about the new fight make me facepalm.

John.8507:

No word from ArenaNet about any of the Bugs! Hopefully someone replies here on the forums. as we have only had one minor fix so far

They’re very much aware of this thread and have directed people here to report bugs (See https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/3-16-15-patch-bugs/4885176)

And they’ve already fixed a few. Give them time. It’s still early in the day at ArenaNet and we don’t want them accidentally pushing out more bugs in a rush to fix these. I don’t think there’s really any reason for them to reply when they’ve already acknowledged the thread and directed people here.

Just wanted to stop by the forums and say that my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed playing Stronghold last night!

We PvP a lot together, and all of the matches we played were incredibly fun! We had no problem understanding the mechanics quickly, and it was a blast figuring out how to balance helping our wallbreakers push forward, get more supply for more of them, and defend our own lane at the same time. And the 5 players seems like a perfect number for making it slightly difficult to do all 3 effectively while still making it possible and creating fun fights.

I wish I had recorded my favorite match to share here — both teams were playing well, but they were a little ahead of us breaking down our gates and engaging our lord. In the final seconds of the game both of our lords were in the downed state and we just barely managed to get off the stomp before them.

In another match they broke through to our lord before we even damaged their gate because we spent too long just fighting over supply. So we changed up and 3 of us focused entirely on defending our lord while my wife and a necro focused on pushing through their gates. We ended up loosing the match, but not before getting their lord to half health. I never felt like a game was past being able to be turned around, and I’ve never had so much fun defending something! I can’t wait to play this along side Conquest in the future!

Thanks for an incredible time last night!

Would also love a Linux client. And know for a fact that my dad would buy and play the game if there was one.

linuxotaku.4731:

You think it’s awesome? I guess that means you’ll be buying them? There is no way I will; and this offering makes me less likely to buy gems from them in the future. I spent a lot of time and money, but it was fun at the time.

A consumable for trait resets doesn’t make the game more tedious — but it does seem to kill the hope I had that it’d get better.

Personally — I hate being forced to make a choice between wasting money and wasting time — having that decision thrust into my face is a constant irritant. Previously it wasn’t a choice as they didn’t have functionality for resetting traits in the field; now that they do, I either have to pretend that this doesn’t exist or stew.

My objection to this is that — based on my personal response — I think it’s a poor business decision. If you or others respond by spending cash to buy these and are happy to have them in the gem store, then perhaps I’m wrong — and if that’s the case, have fun.

But I get the impression that you’re probably defending this offering out of loyalty, rather than happiness at seeing this in the gem store. If that’s the case, consider that my comments might be sincere.

Hehe. Perhaps I am defending it out of loyalty. So far I haven’t bought any. I have bought several revive orbs and some repair canisters before. I can see picking some of these up from time to time if I’m wanting to re-trait in the middle of a failing dungeon run and have a few gems leftover from buying other stuff.

But here’s my point of view — as far as deciding rather to spend time or money on something, are not most of the items on there somewhat similar? All boosters, picks, salvage kits, etc. Even pack space is primarily bought to save time — as a convenience.

Now, Gasoline.2560, above, argues that the convenience argument holds no merit, but I would disagree. I tend to think that convenience items are really the main way that microtransaction funded games can/should work. If you sell power, you divide the community between paying and non-paying players, which is bad. I think everyone agrees on that. But if you sell purely aesthetic stuff, then either you don’t provide a whole lot of incentive to buy anything, thereby not funding your game, OR, you make the very best looking stuff pay only. Like if legendaries were only obtainable in gem store. And by doing that, you exclude top content from non-paying players. I recognize that GW2 has aesthetic items in the cash shop, and I personally have never bought any. I don’t really mind them though, because they don’t hurt me and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on any content of value because of it. The best looking items (though admittedly this is just personal preference) are the items obtained through playing, not paying.

But with convenience items, I feel like you can provide a very good balance of incentive and choice. Incentive, because the convenience is very nice, and time is valuable. But also choice, because it’s not necessary and the game is still just as fun without it.

If your argument is not against any of that and is instead simply that you should be able to re-trait from anywhere regardless, then that’s not really a complaint about the item, but rather a complaint about how traits/builds work.
I think wanting to re-trait any time freely is a valid suggestion and I can kinda see both sides of it myself. On the one hand, I feel like your traits are your build, and should maybe be even more locked in, since skills are what you can freely change about. On the other hand, since it is such a minor deal to change your build, why not just make it no deal at all? But to me, that’s not really related to having this item in the game.

Gasoline.2570:

You wouldn’t believe the lengths people go on defending this sort of business practice. A well written reply, ought to be replied by someone who will just dismiss your opinion once again with a simple convenience argument that practically holds no merit.

I do agree that linuxotaku.4731’s reply was well written and respectable, and appreciate him taking the time to do that. I apologize that my argument may have been somewhat dismissive. That was not my intent, though re-reading it I can see how it may have come across that way. Sorry. I would ask though that you read what I wrote above about the “convenience argument” and let me know what you think. As a developer who hopes to one day develop games, I’m truly interested in any better ways of doing things. But so far the GW2 model is really the best I’ve seen.