Guild Wars 2

Well i think the value of the game is even if you quit…you haven’t really quit. You can sit on the sidelines for months or years and not play. It isn’t like a subscription model where you are losing money by not playing.

But the disadvantage is you can really feel the lack of content with the b2p/f2p models…they simply cannot afford to provide the content a subscription game can (for a variety of reasons 1)the initial game takes up all the money (or the majority of the funding) and 2) b2p/f2p cannot make sticky content if they wish for gemstore sales).

so gw2 is just in that place right now. floundering with nothing new coming out (announcing the compact inventory button as a feature in an update is just depressing). so it works both ways…you can always come back but will you come back?

notes- for instance, gw2 cannot make a rewarding crafting system for armor sets. let’s say hypothetically that at level 80 you could craft 10 sets of armor that were great looking…that would mean anet gets zero gem store sales.

so what suffers? well the crafting systems are empty and broken(gold and time sinks…as opposed to sub mmo where crafting systems are mainly just time sinks). and players are left with that empty feeling that there is nothing they can do to make their characters individual…if everyone can just buy it off gemstore.

gw2 core game obviously has many charms-it’s expansive, the maps are gorgeous, the creatures are well done, character models look so kitten good! and the movement…deserves it’s own thread (the fluidity of character movement simply cannot be matched in other mmo’s).

now all that being said…gw2 has obviously benefited from the death of the ‘aaa’ mmo, at least in the west. nothing has been released in the last year(or is going to be released) that looks intriguing. certainly there are smaller games(albion etc..) but nothing with the production values of gw2.

but gw2 at its core is ultimately empty- a fantastic open world solo player experience that hasn’t been expanded on in 3 years in any real way. the game has no ‘stickiness’ to it. the systems present in other games (crafting, dungeons, housing) either do not exist in gw2 or are left for dead.

gw2 is the rush to 80…the pacing is off-it’s both too fast and too slow(too fast for crafting but too slow to think about leveling an alt without tomes) . and the problem is once you hit 80 you are finished with game…i mean done…there is nothing else but farming for weapon skin(err…legendary).

horizontal ‘progression’ is probably the worst idea ever introduced..it handcuffed the developers thinking(and colin isn’t ambitious to begin with). instead of playing to 90 or 100 and having new masteries and a new class and 3 or 4 new regions-we got grindy masteries and 4 tiny event maps….

now this a problem all mmo’s face…we made game now what the hell do we do ? in gw2’s case they just gave up . updates now read like patch notes. the expansion only highlighted the shallowness of gw2 and added nothing in the way of replayability/armor skins/housing/crafting/emotes etc.

so what to do? me im playing ff14 and loving it. graphics are gorgeous (nice to meet you dx11)…it has systems, you can actually craft useful things !, housing, mounts. story is hands down better…it just is-this isn’t even up for debate.

but dat subscription fee! ^^; …:D. if your paying any money at all to gemstore each month your basically already paying a sub anyways-without any of the benefits of a sub game…depth.

(admittedly ff14 has its own flaws..if you hate anime ‘style’ you will hate this game..the combat feels very slow and coming from gw2 it definitely takes some getting used too..it’s very old school in feel-this might be a plus, it is for me)

tldr gw2 core great if shallow game..hot is garbage…play ff14

thats not true. nothing in what was said even hinted at new maps. we shouldn’t confuse ‘new content’ with new maps.

the only thing that is clear is that they will no longer do any broad development like hot (new maps/innovations/etc..).

lets not muddy the water. the statement is clear. he isn’t trying to weasel why are you? and if one had doubts about what was meant by no more broad development…read the roadmap.

everything is polish and qol…

but they didn’t state or even mention that this was the last time they would focus on broad development.

i actually appreciate the honesty (if it is disingenuous …see above)…but am i supposed to be excited about the game going forward? without the possibility of new races or new maps one is left with …hot and core tyria- and the mythical fractal leaderboards.

colin’s statement is fairly clear (for anet that is). i mean it’s difficult to read ‘new maps’ or ‘new races’ into it.

honestly who knew hot was the last time they were going for broad development? apparently they knew this while designing hot (this may or may not be true…i don’t think they actually did know this-a bit of revisionist history by colin?).

this both frustrates and astonishes…if they knew this was it for broad development why did they think so small? and what is to happen with all those empty areas on the tyria world map?

notes- about dat legendary armor…and legendary weaps….

the devs dont postin or read these forums…feels rather silly to post in the ‘official’ thread.

this thread (if allowed to stay) could be a little more independent and feisty. the ‘official’ threads are just there for damage control.

this line is particularly ominous ‘One of our goals for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ was for it to be the last time we would focus on this type of broad development and experimentation and to reach a point where we could focus more on depth.’

and begs a simple question: why? players actually like broad development(new races, new maps). who knew hot was going to be the last time they made new maps or new content?

i actually don’t disagree with a focus on depth but it cannot be at the expense of broadening the gw2 world. this roadmap reads for the most part like patch notes…2016 the year of incrementalism.

perhaps the quarterly update will be really good (but they don’t have a good track record of incorporating new events on existing maps…anybody remember mordrem invasion pre hot).

personal wishes – many more armor skins.

notes: who the hell asked for the brew of the month club!?!….

Harper.4173:

I get what you’re saying but here’s the catch – the people who are hardcore in the sense that they like super hard extreme content are also people who get heavily invested in a game – people like me.
I turned out wanting harder and harder content because I spent a lot of time in GW2 and mastered it.

People that want super hard content are usually people who have already sunk a HUGE amount of time into a game and have become very good at it – thus the need for harder content.

People who play super hard stuff in GW2 are usually people that play the game a lot religiously – they play the hard stuff because they got really good at the game and they got really good because they’re treating it with a lot of importance – theorycrafting, practicing – treating it more like a job.

And trust me – it’s very hard to quit a game after you’ve sunk let’s say 3000 hours into it.
It’s much easier to lose a casual player that only plays off and on for a few hours a week and has a total of maybe a few hundred or less hours than to lose a player that logs in religiously and has thousands of hours spent in-game.

You don’t really know a lot about “hardcore”/ “extremely high skilled players” but one thing I know and I’ve seen it with myself and others is that they don’t really migrate games.
They get good at a game or a category of games and stick with it – precisely because their investment to get to where they are are is so high (thousands of hours) the process of having to redo all that in a different game isn’t very appealing.

i think this is a fair point but i believe that catering solely to this segment is a mistake. the vast majority of the playerbase isn’t going to ‘get gud’ because then the game becomes something like learning a skill ….except this skill isn’t useful in any context outside of playing more gw2-but it isn’t even useful or necessary in this context either.

put simply…anet didn’t provide any carrots-it’s all stick. if there were rewards (armor skins/emotes/tattoos etc) for doing this unpleasant activity then more might do it. but , as is, you gain masteries to continue doing unpleasant maps with no reward other than increased frustration and boredom.

everything in game boils down to gold and that can be aquired in many ways that do not involve ever setting foot on a hot map. i used to be sad about not having gold post hot but then i realized that there is nothing to buy anyways.

most vets i imagine go thru a similar process-they have all the skins they want and if you dont like bladed and leyline armor(and even if you do just get those two and quit hot) then what is the point of hot? so without skins and with nothing in the way of other rewards there just isn’t any reason to log in and play hot.

anet cannot create ‘sticky’ content. without a functioning crafting system(gw2 crafting essentially starts at 500)/no player housing/no fun time killing activities like fishing/without rewards…we are left fighting tough trash mobs for blues and greens. and the entire time we have this question-why would i do this?

Harper.4173:

I’m going to address your post because I think something is wrong.
The hardcore burning out fastest – that’s where you’re wrong.

I’m hardcore – my time played vs number of days since GW2’s release means I’ve played an average of 3 hours ( actually a bit over) of GW2 ever since it was released – every day.
Moreover that hasn’t been very condensed – eg 9-10 hours on some days and no time on other days – because I doubt I’ve had more than 5 days in which I didn’t log into GW2 in 2015.

And before you assume I do nothing else but game – you’re wrong – I also finished university this year and have other things I do as well.

That’s what hardcore means – it means being invested in something and sticking with it.

apologies for any confusion (unclear wording on my part). when i use the term ‘hardcore’ i’m not specifically referring to the amount of time played (although this can overlap with ‘hardcore’).

i’m referring to the section of the playerbase that likes ‘hardcore’ (one could also call this ‘extreme’ ) content. they like tough trash mobs and unpleasant maps and most will at least reference raiding. this is what distinguishes the ‘hardcore’ from the filthy casual (95% of gw2’s players).

by catering to this mountain dew guzzling segment- anet has made a game that is dull and irritating for the majority of players. and the ‘hardcore’ set will move onto the next game with raids and ‘extreme’ pve (:D)…meanwhile the casuals (those that play the game for years) are left with this ‘hardcore’ silliness.

anet hasn’t had any wins in so long that it isnt just a matter of walking away and coming back to something good at some point. the road ahead is a short narrow one filled with tolls. anet thinks small and cheap and delivers ‘content’ that mirrors this vision.

i actually disagree with most on the forums when they cry poverty as the reason anet doesn’t develop anything-i think they are doing pretty well and anet, if asked, would tell you just that. this answer is more troubling than the poverty answer however. if they are flush with cash and aren’t producing content now….

the hardcore crowd is ‘happy’ for the moment (or at least they pretend to be)-they even got a ‘hardcore’ festival…10000 drinks. but this won’t last as the ‘hardcore’ are the ones that burn out the fastest.

the ‘negative’ comments are almost something of a historical footnote. hey you remember gw2? yeah used to be a good game..what happened?

the hot pollyannas needn’t worry about the negative comments. the devs do not read these forums and do not post in them. instead they prefer the sweet words of the redditors…‘This is an example of an expansion done right’, ‘Lots of new content, thrilling story’…‘A brilliantly meaty expansion’…ad nauseam.

well of course people that find fault with anet are childish and prone to temper tantrums….

while i think it’s fair to say i haven’t been happy with the game…i think the bigger worry is the people who don’t post their unhappiness. i walked away from gw2 and there are plenty more who don’t come to forums to express their displeasure..they just go away.

not every negative post has value but the white knights surely add less than nothing to a serious discussion of the game’s future. the ’everything’s rosy’ , ‘hot is a 10/10’, ‘colin rocks’ crowd are the ones in an echo chamber. but who knows i might be wrong and hot truly is ‘the best mmo expansion every made’ …:D.

could the white knights(errr ‘hardcore’ pve crew ;D ) with their incessant sycophantic ramblings actually be the ones with an agenda?

yeah you can definitely sense player frustration. the problem is that the game feels like an rpg that you love but have played too many times. so people move on or find something new for awhile (im playing ff14).

the forum complaints are real ones and anet dev team needs to really deliver in big ways (new legendaries/pvp balance just wont cut it). but the pessimism comes into play because they really haven’t delivered a winner in a long time.

anet silence is seriously troubling-i don’t think anyone believes that they are silent because they have big things in the works. but rather that they are silent because they are having trouble fixing hot issues.

we can also gather from this silence that hot hasn’t been well received by players. if hot had been wildly popular could you imagine the devs not doing interviews or just bragging about it (not in a bad way but it’s just human nature-when you produce a well received product you want to talk about it).

the stone cold silence of anet since hot release is admission that they released a flawed and troubled product and are quite stuck at the moment…needless to say players at least sense this.

gotta say emotes and more skins (and more revealing skins for both genders) at the near top of my list. been playing ff14 while waiting for something (anything!) to happen in gw2 and frankly i’ve been blown away with the emotes and fun and revealing costumes in ff14.

reminds me so much of the fun in everquest2 with so many emotes (i got a different dance emote for completing a quest in ff14). and the costumes-so much fun to see the character models in revealing armors…makes gw2 feels stodgy and stingy.

anyways-more character customization is top of my list.

notes- this is just one races thread with costumes in ff14 (arguably nsfw ) http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/64427-Show-your-Roe%21%21/page156
started here because some of the older pages the images aren’t showing.

even the gw2 sub reddit is pessimistic about the way forward https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3yjxdr/what_are_we_expecting_in_2016/

coso.9173:

how is gw2 in “maintenance mode” just a few months after their first big expansion??

this is a good question? how indeed? the expac is exceedingly thin with very little replay value (tougher monsters and unpleasant maps…and no reason to do them-no rewards). everything about hot is cheap and mean and without soul and players pick up on this rather quickly.

so that leaves us with recycled holiday events (that are shells of the originals) and a weekly release of gemstore items.

there is no talk of the big things that people want/expect (again mounts/player housing/new races/new maps/reinvigorating the crafting system/character customization options) instead what little information we get from anet involves legendary weapons and perhaps legendary armor at some point.

these are very tiny additions to the game. tinkering at the edges when broad ambitious plans are called for. the tyranny of the stingy mind-thanks colin and john smith!

notes-i do realize some people like hot but some people also like 2 and half men. bad taste isn’t proof of popularity nor quality.

the actual problem is when players compare gw2 launch and it’s first year to the next 2+ years.

in the first year of development(including launch) we got a tremendous amount of content. since then…not much. a paltry ‘expansion’ (3 dry top style maps with shared textures and creatures..and 1 event map) and some very limited holiday ‘events’(recycled from years past with bugged out features).

it’s very difficult in any sort of creative endeavour to break out of the small minded mindset of the accountant. once the goals become small it is a vicious cycle with the goals become every smaller. without vision and ambition gw2 is just in maintenance mode with the intention to bleed out the veteran players and string along the new ones for as long as they can-this is colin and john smith’s actual ‘vision’.

so that is the root problem…this dev team has no victories to show for the time and money spent. and nothing is being developed (legendary weapon skins and raid wings have very little broad appeal) for the fans of the franchise.

and when people cry anet poverty let’s remember they spent 200k just for prize money for espartz (total investment probably at least a million)…one wonders what they could have done hiring some passionate content developers for that same money.

we have to remember that an mmo isn’t a non profit. i would argue they are actually doing fairly well monetarily but they have squandered the money and time and now are quite stuck(and unfortunately us with them ^^;)-they haven’t the talent or will to be ambitious anymore.

lord kuru is right. the problem isn’t money (altho it might be a symptom). the problem is the dev team has zero understanding of what made vanilla gw2 so enjoyable. they have turned a game with big ambition into a micro transaction harvesting game. gw2ville anyone?

Swagger.1459:

I agree with things you are saying, but the cost cutting measures are not anet’s fault, nor individual developers or staff.

yeah and i don’t want to make it seem like i’m blaming the mid level people (many of whom are just glad to be working and gw2 might not actually be the game they even like-a point brought up by the lotro devs). but someone is to blame and colin has to be that someone (as the most prominent voice/figurehead for the game).

everything they do now is so small and limited. they spend years designing weapon skins for legendaries (no talk of mounts/player housing/or even fun things like fishing). the player base has actually gotten sucked into the limited ideas of colin and john smith-to the point where we are basically begging for things that should be a given (new armor sets).

the entire spectacle is disheartening (hey i used to love this game!). the game has been diminished so much that if you couldnt play core game (could only play hot) it would feel unrecognizable. everything is so small in design and evidently so complicated that by the time it arrives it feels pathetic.

here’s hoping we have something grand in store(pun not intended) for 2016-but based on the track record i dont think we can expect much. more bleeding of the loyal fanbase all in the vain hope that new players will like this diminished product.

notes-perhaps its best that anet doesn’t try to include mounts. even thinking about the systems they would introduce causes headaches (perhaps mount for free but the halter costs 1000 elonian squares and saddle a multiple of that).

you can feel cost cutting measures at every turn with hot. everything feels cheap and mean. it’s as if john smith took over and everyone else is just sitting in their cubicle hoping they have a job next week.

there was quite a stir when an ex lotro dev posted on forums revealing missteps turbine made with development http://lotrocommunity.com/forum/topic/3465-lotro-pvpersare-they-really-that-bad/?page=3#entry112183 (for those interested scroll down to the posts by aylwen) . this is a long read so get your popcorn. but so much of what this dev is saying rings true with gw2 now.

i’m not saying the situations are identical but certainly we see the same lack of vision and the release of a small expansion with lotro that we are seeing now with gw2. anet obviously has vastly more resources than turbine does but…the games feel eerily similar in development terms.

gw2 is obviously healthy but how long can it endure the stinginess and lack of vision of colin and john smith? and not just how long can it last (lotro has endured) but how long will it maintain it’s appeal to long time fans of the franchise?

they have moved so far from the original game’s vision that one has doubts they are even aware of the damage they do..surely they are aware of players leaving but their solution is to design another grindy system.

notes- check the wintersday ‘event’ (a truly empty and lazy shell of an event) for the most recent example of anet cheapness …further examples abound of course

i agree with the sentiments of most posters. ls 3 is desperately needed-the game has almost completely devolved into node gathering/farming.

coming out of hot they should be blowing us away with armor skins/new content/new ideas…but the reverse has happened-they released a very thin ‘expac’ and walked away. the present dev team hasn’t had a well received release in so long one wonders if they are capable of making good content at this point.

and they seem to be like ostriches with their heads in the sand…seriously has anyone heard dev team even talking about anything going forward? the level of silence and secrecy post hot is absurd-but if there is nothing to say….

game feels as if there are 10 people doing server maintenance, 10 people working on gemstore and an accountant(err ‘economist’)-the devs are nowhere to be seen.

so i honestly don’t know what to expect. i mean i know what we should be getting (ls 3, exciting new content and plenty of skins). but what is realistic to expect? maybe a new hat or shoulder piece with next holiday event.

notes- but hey at least we got espartz now ^^;…

Zera Allimatti.2541:

Not going to happen, unfortunately. ArenaNet does not have the time or resources to do this. They’re focusing on LS3 and the next raid wings. After 3 years and no changes to small things like this, it’s safe to say it will never happen. I gave up on emotes a long time ago. I don’t even use them anymore because of it. ArenaNet knows this, that’s why they won’t dedicate resources to something that most players probably don’t use. Remember that the RP community is very small and is very much a niche player base.

yeah i have to agree. the creative people seem to have left and what we have now is a caretaker crew (running holiday events..trying not to mess up core game). i don’t think they could add anything to the game if they wanted to (and i don’t think they want to try ).

the game definitely needs more emotes. i came from everquest 2 with so many emotes -gw2 just feels flat.

to those that say the modeling is too hard (they think everything about the game is too hard to design)…check out the emotes from black desert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b35RCKUj1aU . this is a modern game and they have zero problems animating their models…but gw2 is stuck at the same point since release.

:D…its kind of up to you-i mean just try to make the crotch area of the pants the same as skin color. any of the colors should work well but i had the best luck with the lighter colored skin-peach or pink. something about the lighter colors makes them more ‘nude’ looking.

so if i was going to create a new one i would prob go with pink skin then experiment with whatever pink/orange dyes got closest to the skin color.

:D..sylvari cultural ftw …but medium armor only.

pippi peppermint … sylvari engineer

hat-festive hat
coat- sneakthief
legs- firstborn leggings (sylvari cultural)
boots- magitech
gloves- nightmare court

Eirdyne.9843:

Ditto, all of it.

Also,
- Login, think about scribing… think about the cost… log
- Login, gather empyreal shards for ascended weapons for raids, finish… log off
- Login, take empyreal shards to craft with… discover the price of this or that thing is now 1/8th a precursor… log off to come up with plan
- Login with plan, imagine time sink, …log off, not worth it
- Stay logged off because logging in is pointless until I have a plan
- All plans involve a year’s investment
- Desperately hope Anet does something positive

it really does feel like like its been a long time since anet has done something that was well received. they are on a string of ill conceived and badly received releases and ideas.

this sort of thing makes you angry at first then sad then ultimately apathetic-how long can you wait for people that fail constantly to make something good?

after 3 years the game was due for a real freshening up/facelift-we should be blown away with new armor skins/ways of customizing our characters (new faces/body types/tattoos/emotes/animations). we get nothing with hot…and nothing on the way.

still logging in for daily chest and some socializing but nothing more..

yah i think its a fair point. other games are out there..people probably trying to find something new or waiting for something else to come out (blade and soul or whatever). gw2 just doesn’t scratch any itches anymore.

yeah my time pretty much mirrors op. log in and do some pvp dailies, go to dr and hang out with guildies, hit my alt and gain a level and farm some nodes, go back to dr and hang out with guildies…log off.

the new zones are such a turnoff that i havent been on a hot map in 3 weeks and i don’t want to ever go back. gw2 is turning into a browser game for me…

it’s a good question. the map is huge and while i don’t think most of us thought it would be completely fleshed out…i do think there was an expectation that more than 1 jungle area would be added in the 3 years since launch.

i think the original design team was remarkably ambitious and actually did plan/concept work for some of these regions. but alas the talent left and we are left with the tighfisted ‘vision’ of an accountant (err..‘economist’).

it’s very clear that john smith took over and even though he keeps a low profile now-a necessary thing as his public postings caused widespread disgust amongst fans! you can still feel his hand with every system introduced.

what does this mean going forward? well largely it means we won’t see much of anything for the next 2 years and then perhaps an expansion…then gw3 (the engine is already showing signs of age). it isn’t realistic to expect this development team to produce content in any reasonable period of time.

As an effort in designer vanity (albeit limited even as that) hot still fails…none of their ideas have any appeal. But as an expansion to the core game (which is very good) hot is surely exposed as a thin reed…a corner cutting cheap to the bone flop.
And it is widely recognized as just that.

I dont say these things to be mean (although i am saddened by how tiny and pathetic hot is) i say them because this is the honest state of things.

The talent just isn’t there to make any meaningful additions to the game. Could you imagine colin and this dev team adding a new race to the game? How long would it take? This team is stuck..they have nothing else. 4 tiny jumping puzzles (with textures and creatures reused on each ‘map’).

I would sincerely love if colin and his team proved me wrong-if they had numerous armor skins…new content…a new race on the horizon. But they have nothing. You can carry water for them but i won’t.

sadly no. this development team has proven they can’t develop very much in a year and a half. hoping for improvements much less new content from this group is a pipe dream.

they will milk holiday events (possibly new hat or something small) but they are incapable of developing qol improvements/armor skins/new content in a timely fashion (or even an untimely fashion).

what little we got with hot is all they have. nothing else in the pipeline. dev team is prob split (5% trying to fix hot bugs, 50% designing systems to impoverish players -john smith’s team, and 45% working on next expansion to be delivered in next year and a half or so).

edit-john smith’s team is actually probably split itself…20% player impoverishment and 30% gem store outfits.

neither . spvp rewards are a guarantee for poverty-most of the tracks are fairly bad…there are only say 3 or 4 tracks of any interest. and in terms of time investment they are a total waste. 1 run in silverwastes is worth a day of pvp.

now that being said pvp is much more fun and challenging than pve but if you participate you just have to know that your pve counterparts will be swimming in gold while you trade in silver.

nerf thieves. dat backstab is op!

there really is nothing to judge. they issue cryptic statements periodically but other than that it’s total silence-one gets the feeling that they say so little because there is simply nothing to say. so without any sort of statements (yay or nay) we can only judge colin and his management team by what they produce.

when comparing hot to the core game hot looks and feels so tiny and pathetic. which isn’t to say the expectations were that they could replicate all of the features of the core game (frankly the talent and will isn’t there anymore-they couldn’t do it if they wanted too).

but we did expect more from hot.. 20 armor sets, new city map… new tattoos/emotes/bodyshapes..something that says we have actually been to the jungle. but instead we wander around the jungle in our 3 year old armor and when we are finished we go back to dr. or i suppose we could go to a guild hall where everyone is broke buying chairs they cannot sit in.

it feels like they spent the majority of development time designing systems that are cruel and cynical (see here guild halls/precursor crafting/masteries…) and they forgot that players like playing the game for rewards and fun. but i honestly don’t think they forgot-the cold reality is they just cannot produce engaging content anymore.

colin has somehow managed to produce an expansion that has repulsed every segment of the game (wvw/pvp/pve/fractals and dungeons/fans of story and lore/..). the expac is paper thin and the rough edges show most obviously on the maps (everything is recycled and reused for each map). but dig deeper and it is even more apparent what a dog and pony show hot truly is.

they are milking the core game (races/emotes/animations/armor skins) for everything it is worth and adding nothing. strip mining the game we love and delivering nothing but gem store grabs. pathetic and disgraceful. to have faith in colin and his dev team after this cynical expac is simply foolish.

you can feel the cheapness and corner cutting at every turn with hot (all 4 maps are jungle to reuse textures/creatures etc). expecting this team to release more armor skins is fools gold.

the concept artists have literally hundreds of designs/mockups drawn and ready to model…but are strangled by stingy management and the mindset of people like colin.

sad to say but there is nothing more coming…perhaps a set in the distant future but that’s it. the game has taken on a cynical and cashgrab feel (problem is we paid cash for it). it’s incredibly discouraging to see anet rob the game of all it’s charm and fun…but this is the way forward-very limited ‘content’ and no customization.

the armor set offerings with hot are pathetic. for a 50 dollar expansion the lack of skins is a slap in the face. the arguments that it’s too hard to make armor sets are simply lies-the sheer number of armor sets in core game readily disprove this.

i don’t even know what to say to those claiming otherwise (in fact they seem to insist we got too many armor sets!)…

it is very clear that anet has stopped making armor sets but this is also in line with the entire game going f2p/gemstore. the stinginess and frankly greed of anet are truly on display with the lack of qol (emotes/hairstyles/body shapes) and armor sets in hot.

everything that could give characters any sort of customization is via gemstore…and in the case of armor sets they are simply removing customization. everything is an outfit. this is a calculated decision on the part of anet.

forcing people to buy outfits ( outfit buyers are on the treadmill..they must buy new outfits to look different) is definitely one of the goals of the ‘rewards’ team.

pride is exactly right. it is only useful to look at the number of options available in wardrobe for each weight class. if we do this we see that core gw2 offers 50+ sets for each weight class. hot has 3 sets (if one counts guild armor).

im tired of the ‘well it’s so hard’ to make armor sets argument-you know we paid money so anet would do the hard things…not like they are running a nonprofit.

it is rather obvious that the ‘rewards’ team(more than a bit of an orwellian name..the ‘nerf’ team would be more accurate) was directed to focus on outfits solely with the hopes that players would forget armor sets even existed.

if this were a free dlc it still wouldn’t be acceptable. a year and a half of no content and we get 2 armor sets?!? and nothing can seem to stop the flow of outfits at gemstore?

i mean we all of course realize the game is going in a gem store/outfits direction but the lack of armor sets is really grating. again 50 armor sets in core game per weight class and 2 for an expansion that is 10 bucks less than core game…

the thinking is not only are outfits cheaper to design but the people buying outfits need to buy more of them (zero customization leads to a constant purchasing of outfits to look ‘different’-if only for a week).

an armor set however might provide a ton of fashion enjoyment..even just legs or a chest piece or a cool helmet…creates a ton of possibilities combined with the existing sets. so anet is loathe to introduce new armor sets (in fairness there is little in the way of skins of any sort in hot).

and again i think this conditions new players to only think about outfits-they don’t even know the core game had 50 armor sets per weight class. everything is an outfit via gemstore.

the sad thing is there is nothing in the pipeline. it’s rather obvious this is all they have in the way of skins and they have no plans to add anything else.

we were told that armor sets would be in game ‘rewards’ …so far we have seen outfit after outfit in the gem store and nothing in terms of armor sets. new players only know outfits..and i don’t think this is an accident. dungeons are nerfed so how would they know about dungeon sets? and the many sets available in core game?

chances are the new player only sees outfits in gem store and perhaps the 2 (!) sets offered in hot.

why so defensive my friend? who knows…you publicly brag about making 500g in one day trading flax. one imagines you either sit on huge stacks of gold for the sake of it or you are doing something with it. but this risks derailing thread.

and no one is envious of you..why would i want to play an mmo like an excel spreadsheet? the discussion is solely about the very real nerfing of loot for players (the ones playing the game…doing events/hearts etc..).

i think foefire is actually the worst ‘conquest’ map. it should be moved to stronghold.

yeah i agree. the maps are a failure. zero fun to be had here. hot is frustration piled on top of boredom gated behind a mushroom mastery.

I think dh traps might need a buff . Ideas…reduce cd’s to 1 second for all traps. Second increase range of traps. Make them the size of the map (atleast). Making them bigger than the map might be op tho.

completely agree. feels like a ripoff. more like f2p dlc with gem store-problem is we paid for the expansion!

notes-the core game actually has 50+ sets for each weight class. expansion which is 10 bucks less than core game has 2 sets.

2 surprising things about the metacritic reviews.

1) there is little to no middle ground (22 mixed reviews out of roughly 450 ‘reviews’). so people either love it or hate it. that the reactions are so polarized is notable in and of itself. the turnoff factor is very extreme for many gamers.

notes-a note here on the 10 out of 10 zomg reviews…many of these are reactionary in nature. these reviews typically spend at least half of their length insulting the more critical reviewers/casual fans.

and in fact i would say 90% of 10’s aren’t even ‘reviews’ at all just sycophantic ramblings about anet and its glories…much like reading gw2 reddit-these couldnt be the same people writing these fanboi reviews could they? .

2)very strange that the game has so few ‘official reviews’ (only 3 so far). this indicates either a total lack of interest in hot by the gaming press or the game sites are pulling their punches and scared to post a review.

lets say this is true-anet is suffering because players are buying gems with gold instead of with cash. in that case wouldn’t it make perfect sense to bankrupt players (lower their gold making opportunities)? in fact forcing them to buy gems with cash. this isn’t hard to understand and makes perfect sense-from the company’s perspective.

the dyes are of course artificially priced. once the artificial price is established then the speculators can operate within some framework of ‘rationality’ but the supply is completely irrational.

the ‘market’ no more decided the price of this product than it decides anything else-which is not at all. again the price could be 100 gold or it could be 10 silver(if the dyes dropped in game)…the traders/speculators have room to manipulate but that is largely it.

with no control or even idea(for how could one have an idea about the supply of something infinite-digital items) of the supply of items one is simply playing betting games on arbitrarily ‘priced’ items. applying rw economics to an ‘economy’ with one producer (and that producer also has the power to set purchasing power!) is simply foolish.

john smith and the traders pretend this is an ‘economy’…john smith to attempt to put a figleaf of legitimacy on what is an obvious farce(the markets) and the traders tell these lies so they can make gold and make it all seem above board.

and as outlined above i’m not against the company making money (i paid for the expansion) but there has to be some balance between pure greed and the price of the expansion.

notes-should have hit refresh when i got back from lunch …this post is a response to a post earlier. the points still stand on their own but might be a bit confusing at first glance.

talking about real world economic ‘principles’ (not an exact science btw) while discussing digital items is ludicrous. there certainly is an economy and that economy is built on driving gem store sales/gold buying.

but even this ‘economy’ changes rather dramatically at the drop of a hat based on needs for cash-and the need to drive players into certain areas(core areas not profitable anymore..hey buy hot! ). none of this is based on ‘economics’.

to pretend the gw2 ‘economy’ is based on rational rw economics is patently absurd.

notes-take the new dyes for instance…the white one is listing at around 100g. this price is artificial. if the dyes dropped in game (what an idea!) the price would be a fraction of this.

on it’s best day the gw2 economy works like some sort of mutant stock market (with traders as speculators)..to pretend it’s a functioning player driven economy is frankly lying.