Guild Wars 2

I see no reason to restrict achievements to replay.

Focus on the story? Well sure, I will if the story is engaging. With or without achievements.

Invisible restrictions are bad. If the hero window shows that the achievements are unlocked for my second character through the story, then… those achievements should be unlocked.

Replaying instances just for achievements does not make me feel like there’s more content to the episode. It just feels like a cheap tactic to get me to play longer — like you’d find in a subscription game.

I’ve spent 4-5 hours every day for the last 3 days mindlessly farming dry top for geodes so I can open chests so I can make what I believe are the coolest and most unique weapon skins anet has released in a long time (they remind me of elder scrolls IV’s mania amber weapons), however after losing count of over 100 chests being opened, I have yet to get a single fossil, while many others have gotten 2-4 fossils in that same time frame.

Honestly its a frustrating way to progress towards a reward, and whereas some people may only need 600-700 goedes to make one weapon based on luck, I might need 1500+ geodes to make the same weapon. In short, its unfair and making me hate the living story event content. If there was another way to obtain the skins without doing the event, everything would be fine, but right now all its doing is alienating unlucky players, making them feel like they’re wasting their time and sidetracking other PvE tpvp and WvW goals just to get skins.

You may say, well these skins are permanent, you can make them any time. But thats only a possibility if T4/5 maps don’t die out as new content is released in the future. In 2 weeks or a month from now, anet could release a crafted amberite backpiece or armor, and unlucky players that couldn’t get a weapon skin will be even more disconnected or alienated based on that. And finally, its a downright slap in the face for so many people who don’t care about ever making the skins to find fossils, while the people giving up so much time that could be spent doing more fun things in the game (such as myself) spend just as much if not more time farming to unlock chests never get a single fossil.

All of this is bad rewards design. Cut the RNG or give us alternative but informed ways of acquiring these skins, such as buying on the TP or a guaranteed fossil after 50 chests or something like that.

I was playing and was fighting on a cliff edge with a vet that had a knock back that sent me hurtling over the edge. Yes I had already used my stability to save me from that once and it was on cool down. Yet when I used my knock back the vet got sent flying, but at the last possible second he does not go off the edge, oh no, all the npc’s are allowed to not be knocked off the edge.

Which got me thinking of a new idea for GW2. A Downed state for knocking someone off an edge in all areas of the game. NO I do not mean that where you go splat that you go into a downed state. I mean a new downed state that you will latch onto the edge of the cliff in a last ditch effort to save your life. It will sort of act the same as going into a downed state except these new skills will be sort of thought out to help pull yourself back up. I would think you would have a couple of skills that act the same for all players and a couple that are profession based. I haven’t thought out what these skills might be, so feel free to add your suggestion of what these could be for each profession.

And to give some indication of what I am talking about, here is a video from the KungkittenPanda movie that I think might help some people visualize what I mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zehZo-hObys

I am looking for a guild to perform music with. A band of some sort. I wouldn’t been reping it all the time but if any events of some kind the guild was doing I would join in. I have all the instruments except for the drum and can play them. If anyone knows of a guild like this then please tell me, sounds like it would be fun. If not I will most likely start one up.

TheLaughingMan.4320:

You will note that the gem store gear they release along with the living world content stays in the gem store even after the event finishes though…

And given the fact that the only new sets of armor introduced into the game itself in almost 2 years were the ascended sets, the ONLY way to get a significantly different look is through the gem store. Even the new ingame weapons introduced were connected to the gem store through black lion keys. Other than bits and bobs for achievement rewards, this game has added almost NO NEW INGAME ARMOR in a year and a half.

That is NOT a good sign of a company that is interested in its own game. And if ANet is not interested enough in its game, why should the players be?

A very good set of posts, Blood.

Frankly, now that season 1 of LS is over and the latest patch is out we are pretty much three steps back from where GW2 began.

The new wardrobe may add some convenience but it doesn’t really add any functionality to the game.

Role playing has been decimated by the megaserver move and the removal of functional town clothes.

At the end of the first living story we have no new dragon yet. No new areas opened up. Lions Arch totally empty. No significant changes to WvW. And the writing of LS was just really shallow. There was little to make you care about the characters other than maybe Rox and Braham.

Loyal guilds and alliances like TTS were totally ignored when they asked for the schedule to be altered to allow them to continue to do major bosses. I don’t know what will happen with the temple runs worlds like IoJ used to do now that world bosses spawn further apart.

We still have a grind for ascended gear, even if it can now be shared between toons.

Comparing how GW2 was on the day after release to how it is now, well, it just feels like we have less, not more. It really feels like they put out the info on the latest patch, asked opinions, and then proceeded to ignore every single thing their players said and every response we gave.

It just isn’t much fun now.

frankly, the new gemstore armor, which looks like rehashed versions of what we already have, is pretty much appropriate for this game. It is a badly rehashed version of what it was 12 months ago with less now than it had then.

In some ways I think this is like EA’s move into mobile. Telling their customers “The new dungeon keeper wasn’t made for you, it was made for a new generation of fans”. Clearly, gw2 was not made to appease the people who played gw1. Maybe at one point that was the intention, but then some committee got ahold of it and now it’s just one big hot mess.

The game needs dynamic changes. Huge reworkings. Not skill balancing, not nerfing this skill and buffing that one, but big huge reworkings like when Blizz redid their starting zones with new missions and so on. The fact is, however, that if that ever happens in gw2, it will only happen when it is financially the only way left to survive. The vast majority of the things your real fans want (like the roleplayers you just screwed by taking their dyeable town clothes away, I don’t even RP but it’s clear that’s a jerk move aimed at the people who actually bother to buy your gems, and for what?) are never going to happen. You’re going to placate us with bits and pieces and hope it’s enough, and maybe it is enough for some out there. Maybe it’s enough for enough whales to keep buying those BL keys and keeping you going. I hope it is. I hope you manage to pull an expansion out in a year or two and give me someplace to actually wear those legendaries and be “proud” of them. As it is I look at that time spent as a complete waste of my life, and that’s not something I have ever felt about a game before. It’s something that really makes me re-evaluate where I want to spend my time and money, and that’s another sensation I’m not used to feeling from a game. I can name a few games I’ve played 1000+ hours of, and I have no regrets for them. No regrets for the hundreds of hours I sunk into gw1 at all. Then again, gw1 was never like “Hey break out your credit card and support me if you want bugfixes. You do really love me don’t you?”. The attempts at manipulation are transparent and unbecoming. I realize all mmo’s are skinner boxes to some extent, but you’ve really piled up the psychological impulses to buy (more! now! don’t you want the best stuff?!) in ways that are obnoxious and clearly visible. Everyone knows why the 5% listing fee doesn’t show up in the projected profits, and it’s no accident that it happened. The game is set up to make you waste money testing useless builds that require a full set of 20g armor+runes+sigils+this and that and oh you need more laurels and more this and more but you can skip it if you just. break. out. that. credit. card.

I know that this post will get flamed, and that’s cool, I don’t really plan on responding anyway, I just have wanted to express my displeasure with the direction this game has been taken for a long time, but today was finally a large enough, over-hyped letdown that I am uninstalling, and I wanted to say why before I go. I hope my criticism here has been constructive enough that it won’t simply be removed.

Yes, I spent 1000+ hours playing this game. However, that time has only made me increasingly positive that wherever you’re heading with it, it’s not going to be any place worth actually traveling to, and nothing I couldn’t find in 100 similar mmo’s, with new ones being released now on a near monthly basis. After 1000 hours, for someone to say “I don’t recommend that game, it’s a complete waste of time and a non-stop grind” is about the harshest criticism you could receive, but I don’t pretend that anyone that matters will actually see me pointing it out or care.

See you in a few weeks or whenever your new dragon comes out. Will not expect to be impressed. Feel free to prove me wrong on that one.

Thank you for your time, although, if I could go back to 2012 and do it all again, I would not have bothered to give you mine,

BFS

The other day, while I was sitting out of wvw (the only thing I like doing anymore in gw2) after a transfer, unable to actually play anything other than eotm, I thought about getting a new game. Maybe go back to WoW, maybe try some D3, oh, I know, Wildstar. I’ve heard a lot about Wildstar. I go to pre-purchase it, but it’s an NCSoft game. Right there beside gw2. People tell me NCSoft is just the distributor, but after the “experience” of feeling ignored for two years in gw2, instead of pre-ordering like I do just about every other game that comes out, I hesitated. Did I really want to give money to people related to this? Did I really want to set myself up for another game of “Well I’ve put 1000 hours into this so I might as well stick with it?”. And the answer was “No”. No I do not feel like getting mired into another unrewarding gaming experience that sees my wallet like it has a bullseye painted on it. The only devs I’ve ever not bought games from based on past reputation are Peter Molyneux and EA, if that gives you any indication of how low my opinion is at this point, but just being associated with ANet now is enough to make me put my credit cards away and move on.

I know people are going to point out that I got my money’s worth from gw2. Fair enough, I certainly did. But it’s not 2012 anymore, and we’re still playing 2012’s mmo. That’s really clear to a lot of people. I’ve played mmo’s since everquest 1, been playing muds since they were back on compuserve and AOL online “was” the internet to most people. Only in the most pay-to-win games do I see new people join and drop out like they do in gw2. I see many, many new people (low ap scores) buy the game, join a guild, play for 20 or 30 levels and quit. They don’t even bother to max a single character, because everyone in their guild has told them, repeatedly “There’s nothing to do at 80, leveling is the fun part”. They don’t believe it at first. Surely there’s more to it. But eventually, after they’ve been told by several people “No, really, there’s nothing special at 80 except more dungeons” it finally sinks in that they’ve totally wasted their $25/$50/whatever.

I want to support this company. I feel strongly, however, that whatever made gw1 great (seriously, that’s my all time fave mmo, you really outdid yourselves in a lot of ways) has been watered down and neutered into something boring, formulaic, and so startchy-clean and perfect looking that there isn’t a spec of dirt on a norn. Giant sweaty dudes wearing leather and carrying axes, killing things all day, but every single one gleams like the top of Mr. Cleans bald head. That was ok in 2004 with 2004-era graphics, it’s not ok a decade later.

I can’t do it anymore. Between the writing (those hiccups to break what laughably little tension there was in the Scarlett final scene are a perfect example), the family friendly until it’s painful art style, the npc’s in major cities constant spouting about how wonderful war is (as a veteran, “I had a dream about a war, I must go fight in it” is the single stupidest reason I’ve ever heard to volunteer to be a body bag, fantasy situation or no), and now this… modifying of things, instead of adding content, and acting like it’s something special… It’s the last straw for me for a while. I’ve put a lot of hours into this game, waiting for it to get good. It’s not getting good. I understand that now. This update has been upsetting to a large portion of your userbase, and I think most of them are going to sigh quietly and either go back to wvw or just move on to another game. Normally I would join them, but things have been wrong (to me) for so long here, and I’ve abided it patiently, that I feel I should speak up.

I’ll come back for the next LS event. I won’t expect there to be more than an hour or two’s worth of new content, and I will expect to grind that content until it gets boring because it will be the only thing there is to do in gw2 that I haven’t already grinded into the dirt.

There are a lot of people out there with 3x/4x/5x the achievement points than I do. People who never stopped defending you. If you go to reddit and mention that you’re disappointed with gw2 you’ll be downvoted to oblivion. It still took you two years to give those fans account-bound legendaries and account bound WxP. The phrase “battered spouse syndrome” comes to mind.

I feel like this is one of the few sane posts on these forums. Everywhere else there are people praising arenanet for removing the ability to run champion trains, nerfing the already incredibly poor dungeon loot, and essentially charging you to reuse skins you’ve bought prior. And we can’t forget that nerf to the berserker armor that doesn’t change the game in any meaningful way, outside of making it so coordinated groups take slightly more time to complete a dungeon.

I think the comparison to “battered wife syndrome” is an clever one, considering the amount of people on these forums that are praising arenanet for such asinine, pointless changes in favor of actual balance and permanent content.

This update would’ve been mediocre if AT LEAST the wardrobe didn’t require you to purchase something to use skins you’ve already bought, but it’s worse than mediocre at this point.

Something tells me this thread will be removed either way. Can’t have anyone criticizing poor development choices or business practices, no siree.

[Continued…]

You’re taking something that we bought and we liked, and exchanging it for something we dislike, did not ask for, is not functional, and have no use for. Are we supposed not to feel ripped off? Am I not supposed to feel disappointed?

I used to transmute high level armors into low level ones so that I could start using them early on. I upgraded my armors every 10 levels or so, and transmuted them again. Guess how many transmutation stones I used per character? But your new system feels like a way of squeezing us to buy transmutation charges. This makes it hard to feel inclined to buy them.

This was obviously a design decision. I ask you: why? Why did you choose to
‘update’ the game in order to remove a very much functional feature that could have benefit from, but did not require improvement?

I thank you for offering refunds, but the fact that you anticipate that an update will require refunds, already means you’re doing something wrong. Especially considering
there’s various alternatives that would have kept everyone happy. Generally, people want their money back when they feel like their purchase wasn’t worth it, or when you take something away from them.

Refunds are not the solution. We do not want refunds. We want to have no reason to ask for refunds.

The motivation behind an update is improvement and enhancement. You could have made everyone happy simply by enabling all future and existing town clothes pieces to be visible instead of armor with no need to transmute them or require extra inventory space to carry, as in Guild Wars 1. This would also have allowed people to retain customized colors and pieces rather than being forced into defaults.

Instead of improving the functionality of town clothes, it has been hampered.

Let me provide more alternate solutions that aren’t ideal, but still better than the current update:

1.- Convert previously purchased town clothes into independent, dyeable pieces that can be transmuted using the new system.

2.- Keep the old town clothes system, and add a secondary wardrobe for town clothes only. Allow customized dyes and do not enforce matching sets.

3.- Keep the old towns clothes system AND give players copies of the town clothes they purchased, that can be transmuted into armor pieces.

4.- Primary and secondary equipped armor sets, swappable out of combat. One of them to transmute into town clothes.

We would have used those, and you’d have actually gotten me to buy transmutation charges.

You know that I’ve been a BIG supporter and a fan. I purchased most GW1 things a player could possibly buy with cash. I had to make special arrangements to pre-purchase the GW2 Collector’s Edition because it wasn’t available in my country. I bought gems during beta. Bought gems on day 1. I’ve bought a very high number of gems from you since the game launched, spending monthly amounts that greatly surpass the equivalent of a subscription fee. I’ve bought additional copies of GW2 for my friends, who in turn have purchased gems for themselves. I’ve bought the books. I’ve bought Rytlock plushies. I bought the soundtracks (all GW 1 and 2 soundtracks). I’ve written and am writing lengthy fan fiction. I may not have agreed with everything, but I’ve always kept my faith in you and provided my continued support. And this issue makes me feel so disappointed and insulted, that it makes me wonder if that kind of support was a good idea. If this is your latest ‘update’, what will the next one be like?

Finally, I’d like to add that the interface of the new wardrobe system doesn’t seem very streamlined to me and if I could go back to the old one, I would. I understand this may be a matter of personal preference or maybe I just grew too accustomed to the functionality of the old one, so I will ignore this point, and will not consider it something negative. The town clothes, however, require your immediate attention.

This is one of several issues that your update has arisen. It also makes me wonder why you didn’t take an extra month or three to deal with these issues, before launching it?

She was digging for answers to the horrible LS.

Unfortunately we killed her, before she could tell us if she found one.

This is what I’m fighting for since pre-release…
AN has a statement on “FREE market” which isn’t really free now, just abused/exploited/mainipulated.
However, since Anet not selling things straight and not using GemStore as well as should, the grey market rising & it becames more and more sweet candy to the people who really wanted to just have fun instead of suffering for things. But we’ll se…

The tendency of upgrades aren’t on the side of grindless playing anyway……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..!!!!!

It would be epic if they perma destroy it make tengu’s a playable race and open up some new area’s of Tyria or start opening up cantha or elona. along with new weapon’s and perhaps class’s and skill’s

Tried out Necro, seems to be absolutely perfect for me. Thank you Syrpharon.

I don’t know if it’s great yet, but it’s certainly good and getting better!

I think the biggest flaw in the writing of the Living Story, is the delivery of information and the amount of information delivered.

Only recently have they given us hints, or dabs of information, to speculate the future story on. They should have been doing this all along, and now be giving us major reveals in these final four releases.

Also, when they first started the current LS chapter, most of the important pieces of story and lore were only available on the website. I think all this has crippled their LS to live up to its full potential. However, I expect the next LS chapter to dramatically improve in these aspects.

Yet, imho, the destruction of Lion’s Arch is exactly what was needed to make them playable – lion’s arch and the dominion of the winds were too nearby, after all.
Imho, what will happen is that the ruins of lion’s arch will be contamined by the powdered-up toxic spores, making them uninhabitable. During the next two living stories there will be negotiations with the tengu’s, and it will end with us getting access to the dominion of the winds and probably some sort of encampment built there to accomodate all the refugees, making it the new central hub. Along with it, with the content and balancing patch released after the end of the first season of the living story, tengu may be made a playable race.

Kalarchis.8635:

Opening up the Dominion during the destruction of the city and introducing Tengu as playable shortly after would be a wonderful move. This is absolutely the perfect opportunity to bring them into the fold and I think Anet would be making a huge mistake not to.

It’s what I think.

Elbegast.6970:

this game, the game I have been playing, it doesn’t deserve the title of ‘Guild Wars’.

Quoted because it sums up my feelings perfectly. Doesn’t even feel like Guild Wars anymore. Not trying to be a party pooper, it’s just depressing.

Scarlet is a terrible plot device. I don’t hate Scarlet. I hate the poor writing and implementation. I hate the lack of in-game storytelling. I just really feel that the LS writers and developers completely missed the mark.

I look back on the past year and I find myself wishing that it were all a bad dream and that GW2 hadn’t been released yet. Because, this game, the game I have been playing, it doesn’t deserve the title of ‘Guild Wars’.

Well, Logan has a history with running away…

I think something that would really help tie together the living story and your characters’ personal storyline is if ArenaNet implemented monthly profession-based missions. Basically, these would be side missions for each of the professions that would complement the main living story missions.

Think about how cool it would be to run along the rooftops as a thief on a mission that involves sneaking past Scarlet’s minions to steal her battle plans without being seen/getting caught. Or being a guardian and teaming up with the Lionguard on a mission to protect Lion’s Arch while Scarlet’s minions attacks the city. There are a lot of fun possibilities!

It would help to really feel like you are part of the living story and that your profession is more than just a bunch of skills. What do you guys think?

Ahh…you meant possible ways to garner support. None of which are viable at this time. If, and when, they release in China, I am sure there will be an influx of revenue, so yes, that would be support for their game. I am not sure they will ever have licensed products out, GW1 never did, though that would be great. The model now is free content (including more maps), so paid expansions may never materialize.

I, mistakenly, thought you were referring to current ways to support the game.

I have an issue with the current state of Legendary items.

They are hard to get only time wise.

If you sit and farm for hours champions do dungeons and such you will get the money and you will be able to just buy one and that is commonly accepted by now.

For me Legendary item would be something that consts you hard work to forge it and only by yourself. If in RL you have items that are priceless that means you wont normally buy them at any cost.

GW2 should have it like that also.

We will soon hit the legendary armors or accessories maybe new legendary weapons and I would ask you people from ANet to make it better this time.

At first Legendaries were supposed to be those items that were supposed to be indication that you explored the game in every way, exploring doing events, dungeons and spending time on it. Now you can just farm money.

I know that whatever you do people will farm – sure let them, but make them farm around all the game instead of looking only for the easy way for the money and money will let you buy all your happiness and legendary items.

Now Legendaries are only considered hard due to the money and of course every needed resource will jump into the price once you add new legendaries, economy will fluctuate etc.

Instead then idea is to make legendary weapons only by the means of materials that are bound to account. We have a lot of them Gift of Exploration, Karma, guild commendations, all kinds of dungeon tokens, fractal relics, all ascended materials (rave form), charged quartz crystals, badges of honor, laurels even glory.

You can add to that some materials like tokens for each dungeon path you make (similar to tokens from SAB tribulation mode), maybe tokens for meta achievements in each Living story?

This would make a grave difference between people who actually go through hardship of playing instead of flipping and gathering gold.
Gold can and should be used to make ascended items that were meant to be hard but common weapons and as far as I saw many people had them in the first day. People just were spending money on crafting materials and materials that were supposed to time gate the process but those were on TP in refined form.

Legendaries should be something more.
For example: They should be timegated by resources for some time, not too short, not too long. Something like 100 days (by materials: laurels, quartz and raw ascended materials) that would make new legendaries undoable quickly in some sort of berserk farming mode. Instead players should in those 100 days have time to gather other materials needed for it and after 100 days your epic quest would be done.
Dungeons, especially if you would have to do each path few times (like 5) would work great for those

I would also ask to make it so that you could craft armors as a set (box with all the pieces like you can with normal armors) instead of creating each of 6 pieces individually.

If any of you like the idea add your opinion or maybe some additional ideas how to make legendaries more content hard instead of making them grindable as they are unfortunately now.

Time should matter, but the problem with GW2 is that time is pretty much the only thing that matters in PvE. An MMO should reward both time and skill, with the latter being something that a casual player could have as much of as someone who plays ten hours a day.

Here comes my first armour sketch…. The quality is quite low-res but I Think u get the Picture. It’s a tribal inspired armour.
Charr have a tricky body to build armour around so I can totally see the challenge the Devs have here.

It’s made out of griffon feathers and leather/fur patches and leather straps.

As a shoulder protection (asymetrical) there is a turtle Shell. The helm/mask is made out of a big skull, decorated with feathers ans 2 silk bands on one side. There is a necklace that belongs to the chest peiece that is made out of claws and a crystal feather (holds the magic stats perhaps).
The gloves and shoes are very simple. Fur patches atatched with leather strings and the gloves are decorated with feathers. as are the “sleeves” that belong to the chest armour apart from the lower part on left arm that acts as protection from Arrows. Evan the tail have got some decoration here. There is also some warpaint/bodypaint here.

Plz be honest and say what u Think:)

I will soon make a similar sketch with a view from the back.