Guild Wars 2

You’re complaining about precursor crafting?! Seriously?? Even a bit of grinding is better than the system we had before.

The hype train crashed, just like the economy.

Same thing for me. It started literally right after I downloaded that patch. Sometimes I activate a skill and it doesn’t go off for a full minute after. Yesterday I tried doing guild missions with my guild and everyone was rubberbanding around. My ping normally stays around 50 and since the patch it sometimes jumps as high as 450. Even if my ping stays at 50 I still have extreme skill delay.

Same thing for me. It started literally right after I downloaded that patch. Sometimes I activate a skill and it doesn’t go off for a full minute after. Yesterday I tried doing guild missions with my guild and everyone was rubberbanding around. My ping normally stays around 50 and since the patch it sometimes jumps as high as 450. Even if my ping stays at 50 I still have extreme skill delay.

HawkMeister.4758:

Ralanost.8913:

Do you honestly believe they would charge that much? Seriously? People are born with brains but it seems like precious few use them.

And YOU should stop being so naive, of course they would if they believe they could get away with it!

I´m giving CLEAR feedback that they cannot get away with it if they want my money.
You should do this too, instead of aimlessly lashing out at other people.

$50 for an expansion isn’t that much. Especially considering GW2 has been on sale like 20 times just this year. If they keep putting GW2 on sale then charge $15 for HoT, do you honestly think they will make much profit? It’s a company, you’re getting thousands of hours of content, stop being so cheap. They have to make money if you want the game to continue receiving updates. If you can’t afford the expansion, maybe you should be worrying about finding a better job.

Still having problems.

I’ve been having bad lag all day. My ping has been around 600 when I normally don’t have any problems at all. Get your kitten together Anet.

Wetpaw.3487:

Dungeons should be removed, by far the most toxic part of the community.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Waiting-to-go-faster

Actually, PvP is the most toxic part of the community.

No. I didn’t see any toxicity with the chest farm. The best chest farms were in a map 100% dedicated to farming the chests. If you came on the maps dedicated to chest farming expecting to do events, that’s your own fault. There were maps available to do both events and chest farming through LFG if you’d take the time to look instead of complaining about something that didn’t even exist. Chest farming was nerfed because Anet doesn’t know how to balance things instead of completely destroying them. It had nothing to do with toxicity, because the majority of the playerbase was participating in the farming. Previous toxicity was caused by farmers wanting to fail an event and other players wanting to succeed. Farmers didn’t get in anyone’s way with chest farming. If you wanted to do events, you could have easily found a map for doing events. Don’t get mad at us because you’re too lazy to use LFG to find a map for events instead of trying to scream at chest farmers until they start doing events just so you can be happy. Now that they nerfed it, it’s going to be harder to find a map with enough people to do the events. The area is dead now, the only thing keeping it alive is living story. Once that’s over, there will be no reason to go there. There is nothing good to obtain by playing in the area. So it’ll be fun for a while, but once you’ve done all the events 25 times and living story is over, will you be going back there? Probably not.

Well it’s called a legendary for a reason. We can’t have precursors dropping like flies for everyone. If they even increased the drop rate a little, the prices would drop.

You can do PvP or WvW if you want. There is some talk of raids in the future, so don’t assume it won’t happen.

nerovergil.5408:

Dude. gold seller?

this free player cant even wear exotic. their gear just that cheap 12 silvers items. their full set not even get 2 golds.

in the long run, this will attract more players. because they can experience the awesomeness of gw2.

players has desire for power. they will bought the game

Gold sellers have nothing to do with gear. I don’t think you understand how F2P games work at all. Go check out ArcheAge forums and you’ll understand why your idea is terrible.

Honestly, this might be the least rewarding MMO I’ve ever played. I love it to death, but there isn’t really any reason to do much of anything in the game besides dungeons. Champ bags need to be more rewarding, for one. Pretty much everything in the game needs to be reworked in terms of rewards. More importantly, someone at Anet needs to find a way to make crafting profitable. Why would anyone want to level up their crafting professions when they cost so much and aren’t really good for much?

No. Anet has to get money somewhere. If it takes away money from them, it’s a bad idea. Not just for them, but for the game in general. Less money = even less updates, and eventually a dead game.

Going free to play would also ruin the community, which is one of the biggest things this game has going for it. We don’t need little 12 year olds running around Lions Arch screaming swag and yolo. Please no.

185 for Ezrall.

fellyn.5083:

EmperorCheng.9685:

If this game had a good farm, then things like this wouldn’t happen. Isn’t it obvious that people want to farm? We want to play that way. Why can’t we? Because there are no farms in this game we resort to farming champs by scaling events, fail, then repeat. To fix this “problem”, give us our old Cursed Shore back. We just want to farm.

Apparently you’ve never been to Cursed Shore or…you know, the other farms that exist in that exact same area.

No, it’s just simple fact that fail farming Coiled Watch is too good and the people farming it only think the others aren’t good enough in comparison. Which they aren’t. And that is a problem.

You have a group of players who think they have the right to basically stand in one spot and rake in more loot more quickly than any other place in the game. All the while preventing others from finishing several achievements and living story segments.

That’s the entire issue. A group of players trying to protect their extremely easy farm that is also one of, if not the most lucrative “farms” going in the game.

There are people on both sides being toxic. It isn’t one side is better than the other, both sides are equally at fault.

Invite to NA guild please. Been playing since April and I have 3, almost 4 level 80 characters. Figured it’s about time for me to learn how to do dungeons without everyone raging at me.

warduke.1780:

This game has many problems right now, and most of them stem from the concept of champion bags. Before champion bags, the community was one of the best in any MMO I’ve ever played (and I’ve played a lot). People would do events just for the sake of doing them, and help others out. Farming was largely a solo affair.

Then champion bags arrived. First there was the Queensdale champion train – a starter zone transformed into a place of hate, greed and anger. Then Edge of the Mists, Boss Blitz, Blix and Coiled Watch, amongst others.

The common denominator here is the champion bag. The funny thing is, the rewards aren’t that great, especially after the monetary nerf – BUT, and here’s the but – there’s a chance of something very valuable, albeit very, very small.

And so people started to chase champ bags as THE endgame. There are players who, if their boasts are to be believed, are gaining thousands of champion bags a week through various exploits.

With the bags comes the toxicity and the endless war between the farmers and the regular players. As a casual MMO, Guild Wars 2 previously attracted a more relaxed playerbase. With no endgame gear-race, you could relax once you hit 80 and just tweak your look, have fun in WvW or – well, do anything you wanted to do.

Why not return to that? If you, ArenaNet, are worried about losing players over a removal of champion bags – I’m sure they’d adapt. And if not, well – I imagine you’ll lose many more over the constant toxicity the bag-farmers bring to EVERY aspect of the game (except sPvP). My former guild is now extinct because everyone had just had enough of the abuse. A friend of mine got so upset she quit not just this game, but video games in general after one player sent her a very threatening message for daring to complete an event that was being “fail farmed”.

Personally, I think that champions don’t need a reward. Sure, give them a random chance to drop random loot like most other monsters in the game, but a bag? It’s not necessary. Most of us wouldn’t miss it if it was gone. As for the farmers – I have no idea about your player numbers, but I’ve seen this pattern before in MMOs. They burn out. If they’re allowed to do the same thing for too long, they just get bored eventually. Why? Because they’re doing it far, far too much. The whole concept of farming is that getting rich is in the farmer’s hands, and they will always push themselves a little bit more. I’m sure that once they sat back in a post-champ bag world they’d realize that actually, there’s plenty of things to enjoy in this wonderful game that don’t require endless farming.

Perhaps champion bags could be replaced with something that didn’t have any impact on the economy. Feel free to brainstorm ideas in this thread!

Oh, so remove the last thing we have to farm? Then there would be even more people farming events, and then people who aren’t farming would get even more angry, and there would be even more toxicity from both sides. Removing farming is the problem, not the solution.

We don’t have many options to make money in the first place. A lot of people will say dungeons, but they even nerfed that! The solution is to add new farming methods that do not get in the way of other people’s gameplay.

Charleston Chew.1209:

Frostgorge Sound:
Drive the Sons of Svanir from Coiled Watch:
Adjusted the event timing after failure of the Defend Coiled Watch objective.

Thanks for the fix. Take that farmer boys^^

Don’t have to be rude about it.

Kuldebar.1897:

Resubian.5823:

I have 3 level 80s. I levelled 2 through map completion, and only levelled my mesmer through EotM, because it’s a mesmer. I’m currently levelling my thief through dynamic events and story (not map completion).

It’s really a personal choice, and a lot of people who have multiple 80s are tired of doing the same hearts over and over to level. It’s a good alternative.

I’ve only levelled 2 80’s and had alts of various levels, 47 being the highest during the last two years. I’ve also stopped playing GW2 for long stretches.

Out of curiosity, how has the Trait Changes of April impacted your alt leveling?

For me, it’s the one thing that has put a chill on my motivations because it takes a lot of spice away from playing lower level characters.

They no longer feel like a satisfying work in progress to me, more like a grindy project that I want to rush to completion so I can polish out the details. (Map Completion, Trait Unlocking, etc.)

I started playing after the Trait changes, so I don’t have experience with the previous system, but I really don’t mind the current system. Sometimes it’s fun to run around unlocking them, and I was amazed at how challenging it can be for some of them. But then with some classes, like thief and mesmer, I prefer to buy all of my traits. So basically I unlock them through adventuring when I’m using a class that I like for PvE, but when I’m using a class that I primarily like for PvP/WvW, I prefer to buy the traits.

I have 3 level 80s. I levelled 2 through map completion, and only levelled my mesmer through EotM, because it’s a mesmer. I’m currently levelling my thief through dynamic events and story (not map completion).

It’s really a personal choice, and a lot of people who have multiple 80s are tired of doing the same hearts over and over to level. It’s a good alternative.

Name: Resubian.5823
Main Character: Ezrall (Ranger)
Additional Characters: Twiggy Mcleaf (Mesmer), Gordem Quickpaw (Thief), Rokastro Daetir (Necro), Seigmund Brakdorn (Guardian)
Current Region/Server: Darkhaven (NA)
Interested Activities or specific things you want help with: Socialising, PvE, exploring, whatever
Active: 9AM-11PM CST
Additional Comments: Never done dungeons before, so if anyone wants to teach me I’m down
Do you want to be a member of the guild Legion of Honour Y/N: y
Are you happy for people to contact you directly (whisper/PM) Y/N: y

DonQuack.9025:

ArchonWing.9480:

I will not jump on a high horse and look down on your behavior, nor offer some pretentious internet psychologist life changing advice, because I have no idea of your life experiences and personality and there is way too much of that nonsense already around these parts. If you really do have severe anxiety problems, then it is real and it can be overwhelming causing you to do everything to escape from an uncomfortable situation. And I would just come across as an insecure know it all on the internet if I claimed that such a thing could just be turned on/off and one could “get over it”.

But on the other hand, I can’t just tell you that you did nothing wrong and everything should be sugarcoated— neither approach has any value whatsoever.

You have to look at it from their perspective, rather them as bullies that are there out to get you.

Honestly, the people getting mad is to be expected. I’m not saying they are right, but you definitely could have been a bit better in communicating what had just happened a bit better and going afk would seem malicious. It was not, but they don’t know that. You really should have just make an effort of some kind; even if it doesn’t accomplish much at least you can display that you are just new in good faith.

I understand that 90% of people simply don’t care and will be abusive anyways, but at least they’d be wrong and now it’s their fault since you did your part. You could now just report and block. Sometimes a lot of stuff would have been stopped if one just “said so”— and this has applied in game and out of game so it is worth learning to do.

It often takes two to tango, to say; that often these things happen because of wrongdoing/negligence/impatience from BOTH sides.

No you come across as a person who cant read. But then again I lack sentence structure so its understandable if what I write comes across as mean. or where I told him how to fix his anxiety.

data.4093:

OP, you’re giving young people(i’m assuming you’re a young adult) a bad name:
http://www.vanityfair.fr/culture/livre/articles/generation-wuss-by-bret-easton-ellis/15837

The victim narrative part fits so perfectly….:\

Funnily enough there was an actual study done by a university that highlighted more or less the same things. I cant remember it clearly but it went something like this. Boys when young beef up their “mental toughness” by “constantly” fighting/calling names/ pulling pranks etc. It enables them when older to cope “better” with the realities of the workplace and life. that trend has changed overall with the (i forget what word they used so Ill call it) emotionalizing, of schools. Children who fight back in self defense are expelled with the attacker. Most forms of verbal attacks end up in suspensions. Children are being overprotected from the very things they need to learn for adulthood.

but that is a bit offtopic. Ill have to look for that study.

You CANNOT just wake up one day and be like “Oh, I’m tired of having anxiety, I’ll just turn it off!” Telling someone to “just get over it” DOES NOT WORK. It might seem like it works, because then that person won’t want to talk to you about it anymore, but the problem is still there, just not in plain sight. There are many kinds of anxiety, sometimes you get over it with time, and others require help from professionals.

Gizmo.5078:

What is up with people in MMO’s forgetting that they were new to these types of games once and figuring things out? I hop into a PvP ranked math be accident not knowing there was a starting place in PvP and I said hey I’m new and I am attacked by my whole team and then I said fine I’ll just leave, because I have bad anxiety and I don’t play a game to be looked down on so I tried to leave, you can’t leave ranked so I sat there and went to get food till it kicked me. I understand that in itself is bad, but they won the round anyways and i avoided to much harassment since they had to focus, and still they tried to get me a 72 hours ban which if I get I’m just gonna say screw it and go back to sandbox RPG’s where I can be in isolation away from the people who think they matter because they WASTE time and money like everyone else who plays video games on a fake world that gets you know where and teaches you nothing in life and they just happen to be better at it lol.

If anyone attacks you in the future for being new, report and ignore them. Also, welcome to Guild Wars 2! Don’t let those people bother you too much, there are a lot of good people on this game. I also have anxiety and I had an experience with rude players when I was new as well. It made me very upset, but I had my guild there to let me know that there are more good players than bad. If you need help ingame, feel free to message me.

Xillllix.3485:

I will take side with the people farming trying to make their legendary. I relate more with them than the new players that would expect everyone to stop farming to read a few lines of text.

All of this has to do with the Orr nerfs. Anet is responsible for the farms because the game gives no meaningful rewards for completing events and there is still no precursor scavenger hunt.

Those “new players” have every right to complete their story. If you succeed the event once, it only takes an additional 15 minutes until you can start failing it again. For those 15 minutes, there is a champ train in Frostgorge.

If only Anet would let us create private mini-megaservers, with maybe a 15-25 player limit. I would gladly create one and invite people who need to complete it.

The problem is not that people are farming the event, the problem is that BOTH SIDES have people who do not care about the other side, and do not show any consideration for them.

Solution to current toxicity and all future toxicity: Anet should have a zero tolerance approach to this, and ban any player displaying toxicity for a week. If they are still displaying toxicity after that week, permanently restrict their chatting options. They could put the trial chat restrictions on them: no map chat, can’t whisper anyone who does not have them added, etc.

This way, only the toxic players are affected, and the toxicity is removed.

Turn your volume down. I received feedback that my mic was too quiet, so I boosted the volume for this video and I guess I boosted it too much.

Blaeys.3102:

If that’s your thing, there are plenty of other champions to farm – including a chain right there in Frostgorge. It isn’t like you’re going to have to wait 10 minutes to kill another champ if this event succeeds.

I have never – and will never – fail an event on purpose. I say, let the whiners whine. If you want to do this event, do it – then report/ignore anyone giving you too much grief.

Anet made their stance on this very clear multiple times in these forums. You have every right to finish the event and griefers have to either respect that or face the consequences.

The worst thing you can do is argue back at them. Just report/ignore (if it gets too bad – not frivolously) and move on.

Don’t just call us griefers. We have every right to fail the event as well. It’s two different playstyles, neither are wrong. Anet said themselves that we are both right and wrong. None of us are griefers, we are all just players with opposing playstyles.

DanteZero.9736:

Resubian.5823:

DanteZero.9736:

Just now, I was running around on my engineer hoping to catch up on the living story episodes since I thought the event failure farming was gone, but it seems that it’s still going on. In fact, people got together, purposely scaled up the Coiled Watch event, and failed it for the champions that spawn. Normally, I really don’t care for farmers, but when they purposely fail events that block progression for other players, then we have a problem.

Have you tried asking nicely for them to succeed once for you? Most of the time when people ask nicely, they will agree.

I’m guessing you didn’t see my screenshot response to another poster. Anyway, they didn’t bother with helping anyone other than themselves. If you’d like to help, I will gladly extend the offer I made in a previous response to you too. I’m absolutely serious about it.

Next time I go to Frostgorge, I’ll let you know. Might be today or tomorrow, since I’m running around unlocking waypoints on my mesmer. Maybe I’m getting put in the good megaservers and you’re in the bad ones for some reason.

Automatix.2947:

Wondering what Profession to begin playing with, I bought the game at release but left quickly for various reasons and am looking to come back. Did some research on classes and was thinking I’d play a Warrior or Thief but I’ve had another look and there seems to be a lot of conflicting opinions over the latest balance patch and I was hoping to get some clarity. Lots of people seem to think that Thief is no longer viable and Warrior got nerfed a bunch, is that true? I realise all I’ll be getting is more opinions but I figured it’s worth a shot anyway! Any general advice on all the Professions and their interplay would be great too but that’s probably a tougher ask so I thought I would try to constrain myself to 2 classes. Thanks!

Edit: Forgot to mention my main focus would be PvP but want to PvE almost as much.

Warrior did not get nerfed that much, and thief is still extremely deadly in WvW from what I’ve seen. However, I would advise against thief for a new player just because it might be a little more difficult. If you’re up for the challenge, go for it, but otherwise I’d suggest playing Warrior for your first character.

For a new player, I would recommend against playing mesmer, elementalist, or engineer for your first character. Mesmer is known to be more difficult, and I have a friend who chose ele as his first character and he was constantly dying. As for engineer, have to swap skillsets might be a little rough on a new player, so I wouldn’t recommend it either.

What I would recommend is ranger, guardian, or warrior.

Ashandar.2570:

Resubian.5823:

Have you tried asking nicely for them to succeed once for you? Most of the time when people ask nicely, they will agree.

I tried asking nicely for 2 hours earlier today, and the answer was always “No, change maps.” And every time I tried to do that I got back into the same map. I wish there was a way to choose map shards, that would solve the problem for me :p

I haven’t farmed this event in a while so I don’t know its current state, but I have never seen people refuse to succeed once. But then again I am in a very friendly guild and I have Darkhaven as my home server, so maybe I’m getting put into the good map shards and you’re getting into the bad ones.

If it’s just one or two people, report and block them. There will be those kinds of players anywhere you go ingame. Instead of making the majority suffer for the few rude players, just report the players who are being rude. I reported a player who was being extremely rude in EotM not long ago, and also sent a support ticket about the player, and they took care of it.

DanteZero.9736:

Just now, I was running around on my engineer hoping to catch up on the living story episodes since I thought the event failure farming was gone, but it seems that it’s still going on. In fact, people got together, purposely scaled up the Coiled Watch event, and failed it for the champions that spawn. Normally, I really don’t care for farmers, but when they purposely fail events that block progression for other players, then we have a problem.

Have you tried asking nicely for them to succeed once for you? Most of the time when people ask nicely, they will agree.

There really isn’t much toxicity that I can see in those screenshots. Sure, a few people are rude, but that’s about it. There are rude people all over the game. I farmed this event a few times myself, and everyone was really friendly. When someone needed to succeed, sure, there were a few complaints, but we still succeeded. The majority of the people farming the event will help those who need to succeed.

Your first mistake was probably playing mesmer as a first character. Mesmer is more difficult than most classes, and levelling a mesmer is known to be a pain. I even joke about it with my guild. Definitely try a different class. I would suggest ranger, since I think it is a giant heap of fun.

Another suggestion is to find a guild. Every game is more fun with friends.

As for being behind in levels, they have changed the levelling system dramatically. Since you don’t really have much experience with the game I would suggest just playing through the game at your own pace. This is not a game where you rush to level 80. Stop and smell the roses sometimes. Or stop and gather the blueberries, same thing.

Edge of the Mists does give XP. You can level up extremely fast by finding the little dorito (commander) on the map and following him/her while completing events.

If you need help, feel free to add me.

Gaile Gray.6029:

zenleto.6179:

Torsailr.8456:

Scipio.3204:

Alright, I’ll try.

There is no challenge in anything after two years,

Hmm, hardcore mode? If the character dies, it’s gone for good. Can not WP back to life, can not be rezzed from full dead(dead, not downed). If the character has any rare or better equipment it gets auto-sent to the mail box, otherwise it’s deleted along with the character. Make a new char and start over.

How far can you make it on one life?

Permadeath. I have two character slots for this. Fun times.

How far can you get? ~curious~

Randulf.7614:

Well over 100 words, so try not to shoot me with the Smiting Bow of Fools

Yes, it is with regret that I inform you that you are totally smote.

I wasn’t doing any sort of permadeath, but I managed to get my ranger to around level 60 without dying. And I was soloing champs and group events. It was a group event that killed me, unfortunately. I did go back and finish it though!

As for there being no endgame, I think some people say there is no endgame because the game is what you make it. You create your own endgame. It’s like when people want to know what the meaning of life is: life is what you make it. My endgame is making a bunch of alts and getting them to level 80. I currently have 3 level 80 characters: a ranger, a mesmer, and a warrior (which is going to be deleted and replaced with a necro). After I finish getting a character of each class to 80? Well, then I have my ranger/thief for PvP, mesmer/necro/thief for WvW, and guardian/ranger/thief for PvE. Not a big fan of ele or engi so far because I don’t like having to swap skillsets, but who knows, I might get into it.

khani.4786:

There really is no reason in my mind that a player that focuses on a single game mode should be to get a legendary as it (in theory) proves you’ve at least some some of all of the game modes except sPvP.

I have more gifts of exploration than I know what to do with and I’m about to get 2 more to add to my pile.

There is nothing wrong with requiring people to explore WvW…you need to get to a certain rank to get your gift of battle (It really should have been lvl 30 imo). So get in there, take your time, get what you can and come back every day during the week til your color of the maps is complete. When your color changes, do it again.

Don’t expect to get an entire map in one go unless your server owns everything.

That’s fine and all, but what if your server sucks and/or is always the same color. I’m on Darkhaven and we only changed color like once or twice. Are you going to tell me I have to go pay money to transfer servers just to get a legendary? I do WvW, but I gave up on map completion. I do WvW because it is fun. But I do not want to have to run around and do map completion there, because there is no time for map completing when you have an enemy zerg on your tail.

Do whatever you want. Do map completion, do dungeons, do world bosses, do Orr temples, do champ trains, do PvP, do WvW, do EotM, do fractals, or make another character and start all over.

Also, if you want someone to run about and do map completion with or something, feel free to add me. I just finished my third 80 character, and I’m probably going to finish up getting waypoints then make a bit of money and play around a bit before starting on my fourth.

I would recommend against starting with warrior, because it gets extremely boring after a while. I ended up deleting my warrior to make a necro. If you’re set on a warrior-type class, I would suggest guardian.

You guys can defend it all you want, but I’d like you to open your world map right now. Now, can you show me where on the map WvW is? It isn’t there. So why should it count for map completion if it isn’t even on the map?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Vayne.8563:

Resubian.5823:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Traveller.7496:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

There are definitely bugs and some external miscommunication with the system and I want to listen some more before discussing.
Chris

This is interesting.

Chris is saying there has been external miscommunication about the new system. Could it be that you guys realize you went too far with the removing of functions and level gating it too extreme, and it was not supposed to dumb down the game quite this much?

Hi Traveller,

No not really. I m referring to some videos etc that aren’t quite factually correct in all areas and thus there are some misconceptions being propagated by those that have not played the through NPE yet.

Chris

You mean the Magic Mike video? I played through the NPE and I found it to be pretty accurate from the point of view of a person playing on an alt.

Well it was at least incorrect in that he claimed the new patch was responsible for not being able to die in the tutorial instance, when that was true at least a year ago, when I discovered it. So not the new patch.

He did show that the compass in the charr area was broken. However, it isn’t broken in Queensdale. It worked perfectly.

So he found a bug and demonstrated it. Whee.

Agreed. Multiple bugs have been exposed that we are focusing on fixing.

Chris

I get that some things are just bugs and are supposed to be account wide unlocks, but which are bugs and which aren’t? I’m under the impression that the weapon skill unlocks are not bugged, and that is my main issue with this feature pack.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Traveller.7496:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

There are definitely bugs and some external miscommunication with the system and I want to listen some more before discussing.
Chris

This is interesting.

Chris is saying there has been external miscommunication about the new system. Could it be that you guys realize you went too far with the removing of functions and level gating it too extreme, and it was not supposed to dumb down the game quite this much?

Hi Traveller,

No not really. I m referring to some videos etc that aren’t quite factually correct in all areas and thus there are some misconceptions being propagated by those that have not played the through NPE yet.

Chris

You mean the Magic Mike video? I played through the NPE and I found it to be pretty accurate from the point of view of a person playing on an alt.

Selene.9415:

Resubian.5823:

Rose Solane.1027:

Odeezee.7362:

Carbon Footprint.3421:

A quote from the Forbes website on customer retention:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexlawrence/2012/11/01/five-customer-retention-tips-for-entrepreneurs/

“Never Underestimate the Value of Retention

For those who feel that customer retention plays a relatively minor role in helping a company grow a healthy bottom line, here are a few statistics you might be interested in. According to Bain and Co., a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%. And if those numbers don’t impress you, Gartner Group statistics tell us that 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers. Still not sold on customer retention? One final statistic provided by Lee Resource Inc. should give you plenty to think about: Attracting new customers will cost your company 5 times more than keeping an existing customer."

Just sayin’

no one is arguing that ANet should not retain customers, what people such as myself are saying is that ANet are going after the WRONG people to retain first (non-existent/brand new players) and not their current customers.

This is probably not something you want to hear but from a business point of view ArenaNet is probably going for the correct group of people. I don’t know how your situation is but I spend much more on gems in my first year than I did in the second year. And the same goes for a lot of my friends. So making sure new players stay in the game long enough that they start buying gems makes more sense business wise than entertaining the veterans who don’t buy gems any more.

The problem with veterans not buying gems is something ArenaNet should address in a different way. But you are probably aware that ArenaNet does not want to do that. And they probably have the numbers to back that up. I guess the current pricing is more profitable. I don’t like it (the gem situation and the focus on new players), but that is what it is.

I just started playing 4 months ago. After my first month, I spent around $100 on gems. I was planning to spend another $150 on gems this week, but after the levelling changes I quit playing altogether. They are doing the opposite of what they thought they were doing.

You started playing 4 months ago, before this change, so I don’t think you classify as a new player.

And if this change had been in place before I started playing? I would have read about it and watched gameplay videos of how boring the levelling is and I wouldn’t have bought the game at all.

Sparks The Rescue.5043:

In this second feature patch, ArenaNet has done nothing but listen to the community, and give new players better avenues to do content while at the same time feeling more powerful and learning the core mechanics and concepts of the game which are needed at level 80.

I think the important thing to understand is that you started the game, with no previous knowledge of how the game was prior to the initial rework of the trait system and leveling process, yet you said how much you were enjoying the game! This is important, because you are an example of how the first leveling rework has been fun and exciting for new players. In my opinion, the second rework was only improving on the first (ie, giving new characters items and bonus chests / stats that make them feel more powerful and give them better ways to go through content to help ease the trait nerf from the first feature patch, which is coincidentally EXACTLY what players were asking for.)

If you’re level 20 on most of your characters, then you already have most of your unlocks already. Do you mind going into detail what you don’t like about it? You said most of the stuff is blocked off, but level 24 is the final unlock and that’s your f4 skill (and not all classes even have an f4.)

How much is Anet paying you to rescue them?

Rose Solane.1027:

Odeezee.7362:

Carbon Footprint.3421:

A quote from the Forbes website on customer retention:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexlawrence/2012/11/01/five-customer-retention-tips-for-entrepreneurs/

“Never Underestimate the Value of Retention

For those who feel that customer retention plays a relatively minor role in helping a company grow a healthy bottom line, here are a few statistics you might be interested in. According to Bain and Co., a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%. And if those numbers don’t impress you, Gartner Group statistics tell us that 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from just 20% of your existing customers. Still not sold on customer retention? One final statistic provided by Lee Resource Inc. should give you plenty to think about: Attracting new customers will cost your company 5 times more than keeping an existing customer."

Just sayin’

no one is arguing that ANet should not retain customers, what people such as myself are saying is that ANet are going after the WRONG people to retain first (non-existent/brand new players) and not their current customers.

This is probably not something you want to hear but from a business point of view ArenaNet is probably going for the correct group of people. I don’t know how your situation is but I spend much more on gems in my first year than I did in the second year. And the same goes for a lot of my friends. So making sure new players stay in the game long enough that they start buying gems makes more sense business wise than entertaining the veterans who don’t buy gems any more.

The problem with veterans not buying gems is something ArenaNet should address in a different way. But you are probably aware that ArenaNet does not want to do that. And they probably have the numbers to back that up. I guess the current pricing is more profitable. I don’t like it (the gem situation and the focus on new players), but that is what it is.

I just started playing 4 months ago. After my first month, I spent around $100 on gems. I was planning to spend another $150 on gems this week, but after the levelling changes I quit playing altogether. They are doing the opposite of what they thought they were doing.

Tried it, and I hate it. I haven’t played the game since.

MatthewMedina.5419:

SkiTz.4590:

You want to retain players? that’s not going to help. No one is going to keep playing this game because of the early levels…every MMORPG maker knows that endgame is how you retain players, not the early stages that get completed in less than a week…. so for the 10000th time, please work on a CONTENT PATCH FOR VETERANS. thats how you get new players to commit to this game and stay commited…. not by this pointless NPE.

I want to clarify one point I’ve been seeing expressed. This is one type of retention. There’s another type of retention where new players try the game and churn out before they even get to the point where they’re seeing the potential the game has to offer. Yes, a certain amount of people will just do that; they’ll log in to see what it’s about, have their curiosity satisfied, and move on. But we were seeing a lot of places where people who would otherwise have become active users were churning out prematurely because of the issues that we’re addressing with the NPE.

As Colin stated above, we can’t talk in detail about the ongoing development to drive retention for our veteran players, but I just wanted to make the point that the NPE was deliberately designed to address the early game retention issues, and ensure that Guild Wars 2 can benefit from a strong and steady influx of new players into the game.

I understand what you’re saying about people just jumping on and making assumptions based on first impressions. I am one of those people. But the first impression the game gave previously is far better than the first impression it gives now. I only bought the game 4 months ago and I played almost every day for like 12 hours per day after I bought it. My plan was to level a character of each profession to level 80 to see which one has to offer. When I heard there was going to be a new levelling system, I decided to wait to try it before starting my third character. When I tried it, I hated it. I was extremely excited about levelling my character with this new system, but I couldn’t bring myself to get past level 5. I haven’t played the game in 2 days. I’ve gone back to games I thought I would never go back to because they just didn’t make the cut for me. I understand what you’re trying to do, but this is definitely the wrong way to do it. A better way would be to make a tutorial that gives a glimpse of everything the game has to offer. That way it doesn’t make the game feel any slower and it doesn’t affect people who just want to play new characters. The levelling experience was fine before, and I understand wanting to make it feel more rewarding as well. But instead of locking features to use as rewards, why not give items as rewards? Perhaps items related to whatever they unlocked. The early levels could give harvesting tools or salvage kits, since I know I went through a ton of those early on. The mid-levels could give choices of weapons, armor, or dye, since when I played my first character I loved getting new weapons and armor, and I was obsessed with making my character look good. Then the higher levels could give maybe some gold, higher tier crafting materials, or more dye. That would be way more rewarding than just locking features behind level requirements, and everyone would be much happier. Or you could sell scrolls in the starting zones that give you 10 levels for around 5-10 gold each. That would add another money sink to the game and most people who are levelling alts have enough gold to get their character to around level 40+.

This new system makes the game feel like an MMO in its early beta stages, not an MMO that has been around for 2 years. I mean that in a bad way, in that it seems like the devs aren’t sure what their players want yet and the whole game is a little buggy and confusing.

OMNIBUS.2913:

Veteran players seem the most upset by this which i dont get. I started since release and its not like i dont hav 8 experience scrolls and 80+tomes of knowledge sitting in the bank. If your a veteran how do you not have any?

I started around 4 months ago. I don’t have any experience scrolls or whatever that other thing is. But I know how to play the game. Too bad, apparently 4 months isn’t long enough to know how to do anything other than auto-attack.