Guild Wars 2

HandOfKane.5409:

Never stated that games with worse bugs excuse this one. GW2 has issues with its bug-fixing too *cough*mesmers*cough*. I just said that if you think this game is bad, you mustn’t have played very many games of this size.

I have.

It’s still sadly and comically bad.

HandOfKane.5409:

Tyops.5894:

First: GW2 is easily one of the worst offenders among the games that I’ve played both in the egregiousness of bugs and in how easy it would have been to spot the unintended ripples.

SWTOR, ME3, any Bethesda game, and either Dragon Age game say hi.

Have not played all of those, some of those definitely have a rep for being quite buggy that certainly doesnt help their brand. I personally never buy a Bethesda game at launch. Many others don’t either.

I still maintain that “one of the worst offenders among the games that I’ve played”.

Is the best thing that you can say about this game’s QA is that it’s …literally not the worst?

It’s still really really bad, and I believe this is a big problem.

Paradox.1380:

Well D3 is the largest ARPG on teh market with well over 3 Million copies sold? I dont’ assume anything I was simply making a point that GW2 is NOT the only game with problems, its not the only AAA title with problems.

I never said it was right, but that’s just the way it is and there is almost nothing they can do to fix it. The fact of the matter is you CANNOT possibly test for the live environment enough to stop any bugs (big or small) from making it into the live patch. Its just not possible. All they can do is hunt the bugs and fix them after they’ve happened.

Maybe someday a company will come up with a way to make all things technology/code related ship without bugs.. but until that day why should I complain about bugs? At least they are aware they exist and are working on them. You can ask for more all you like but its simply not plausible.

If the stance you want to take on this issue is that ANet it’s literally not the worst, then that’s up to you.

I maintain that ANet has a big problem with QA and that it absolutely can do better, quite a bit better.

I have no expectation of eliminating every bug. I do have an expectation for the list of bugs and unintended functionality introduced every patch to be smaller than the patch list. (and yes this is a slight exaggeration)

Tyops.5894:

First: GW2 is easily one of the worst offenders among the games that I’ve played both in the egregiousness of bugs and in how easy it would have been to spot the unintended ripples.

Paradox.1380:

Heh, No GW2 is not the worst offender. D3 makes me cry at times with how botched their crap can be and there are STILL bugs that were found week 1 of PTR for the 2.1 update….

I don’t know why you assume I have familiarity with that game, or why you believe that bad bugs in that game makes this more acceptable. Industry-wide issue or not, this just isn’t an acceptable standard.

When it’s so bad that the buggy nature is being picked up by the press, it definitely doesn’t help create a positive image of the game (i.e., attract new players) and as such hinders it’s long term viability.

It’s a big big problem.

Paradox.1380:

D3, WoW have PTRs and they test for MONTHS in advance and still have sometimes game breaking bugs. D3 is dealing with a fine collection of them from their recent patch =/

TL;DR – Bugs on Live is not a GW2 Problem, its a Gaming Problem that is not easily solved, even by QA/PTRs.

First: GW2 is easily one of the worst offenders among the games that I’ve played both in the egregiousness of bugs and in how easy it would have been to spot the unintended ripples.

Second: The difficulty of testing for live doesn’t make this anymore acceptable to players.

ColinJohanson.2394:

- There are bugs! We’ve seen the content direction system (the little arrow) pointing people at super high level maps when it shouldn’t, some systems/features not unlocking as intended for all characters on your account once your first learns them, some systems level gated that aren’t intended to be, balance issues where certain levels appear to be very out of whack, etc. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, our team is working to figure out what happened here and fix these as quickly as possible.

That isn’t just this patch. That happens every patch.

I dont think I remember a single patch (big or small) coming out without bugs and that didnt unintentionally break other aspects of the game. Often new bugs are introduced and other times there are unintended consequences that could easily have been spotted/predicted with a bare minimum of testing.

There is unambiguously a QA issue with your process. This reflects poorly on the game and casts doubt in your ability to realise future projects.

For instance, when the megaserver was announced I had absolutely no expectation that it would be working as described/intended, and it wasnt. 5 months and a whole feature pack later and we have entirely new preposterous bugs (i.e., join missing).

We aren’t your beta test.

Please take a long look at your QA process.

JonPeters.5630:

barefootstep.7026:

nethykins.7986:

I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but:
Don’t you think a well developed, clear and concise tutorial would have at least curbed some of the issues you have with new players “understanding” the game, instead of changing the core game pacing?

This. So much this.

Actually not. Generally speaking tutorials are hard to implement, boring for experienced players and overwhelming for new players. The best tutorial is a system that slowly puts the content out to players because it gives experienced players something to achieve while reducing complexity and option shock for new players.

In other words we cant make a “well developed, clear and concise tutorial” because bad tutorials are “boring for experienced players and overwhelming for new players”.

Also good tutorials are skipable (for experienced players).

Sorean.5379:

@EDIT
WHAT THE
Mini Lynx went from some silver to 20g,WHAT IS THIS SORCERY? /sad

Working as intended.

You’ll be able to parade around the minis that you already had, or your story based minis. But most TP minis will significantly jump in price.

Also… the big guilds that had setup a system to share minis and unlock achievements are kinda screwed if I read this correctly.

Player: “Maybe we should look into how traits are unlocked”.

Does not justify…

JonPeters.5630:

TLDR;
We added this system as a direct result from the horizontal progression CDI.

This new system (for good or bad) is entirely ANet’s. Don’t bring the CDI into this.

With the mega server it doesnt matter at all where you are for PvE.

CC Danicia.1394:

The Feedback threads we designate on patch days are incredibly important so we can get as much information (good, bad, broken, bugs, whatnot) as possible without the Dev Team spending time looking all over for the feedback. Specific staff will be looking for the feedback pertaining to their job. As example, we try to forward all bug reports to the bug forums so QA can track it and submit. They’ll be the first to notice the patterns and get the ball rolling.

Does that help?

So how often will we have to bump/necro the mega server and other feature patch threads before we get a meaningful response?

Or alternately…. if we pretty much never will you may as well lock them, because leaving them open like that with no hope is a little cruel.

Yeah rangers got a CDI, but that ready up essentially showed that they didnt read any of it, or take much of it int account.

Also… there is literally zero evidence in patches since the CDI that the CDI had any impact whatsoever.

Why would they work on developing an expansion that will retail for $60 when they can release 1 each of unlimited gathering tools and an a set of collection expanders (literally a simple database increment) for about the same price.

Wolfheart.1879:

Fast forward a couple of months, and where are we? Anet have fallen almost completely silent, meanwhile very little has changed in terms of the Megaserver.

But they havent. They still post and ask for feedback from the community about other things. For instance, we’ve just recently had dev threads asking about build templates and balance feedback.

To me, this is was makes the silence on a change to the game’s dynamic as fundamental as the mega server so hurtful, confusing, and appalling.

lordkrall.7241:

To be fair we have been given at least one acknowledgement in this very thread.
But I suppose it is more fun to claim they haven’t even bothered.

Xar.6185:

To be fair you can’t count Anthony’s response in this thread since his post is before the implementation. (and is over 2 months old)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Questions-MegaServer/4071145

The only other red post is CC danicas post here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Questions-MegaServer/4071145

Over two weeks ago, which basically says, we are looking at it.

I think what people want is a more direct acknowledgement of what Anet sees are the problems with the megaserver. Or if they even think that there are issues with it. Are they 100% happy with the fallout / reaction ? Or is there something being done.

This thread, like the boss scheduling thread and oh so many others is left to languish. While the players pass the dislike around, damaging attempts at building a better community.

Really hurting their goal of comunnicating more with the players and being more ‘black and white’.

Pretty much what Xar said, but you can keep defending devs as much as you like.

I’ll readily grant that that there arent many responses that would satisfy at this point, but this is pretty much entirely attributable to their appalling approach to communicating thus far.

We’re talking about over 4000 posts here between 2-3 threads. Some constructive, some not, some pleading, some snarky, doesnt matter.

On the other hand, devs will readily plead community involvement and collaborative approaches. The sheer hypocrisy of on one hand polling the community for ideas about how to improve PvE, WvW, or sPvP (other communities) all the while implementing destructive changes like this without a whisper just boggles the mind.

Here’s a response that I would accept even though it probably be great “we’re sorry… it’s about money. It’s just the way it has to be.” It would have been honest and final.

Instead… it appears either someone clearly lacks the courage to speak up, or someone still thinks this is a good idea and choose to leave the community hanging.

Here’s the thing though. Since launch there hasn’t been a single bug-free patch or release. In fact, there are dozens of bugs that have been around form well over a year, some even since release. I have no idea what madness could have possessed any manager/member of the dev teams to think they could have pulled this off, or even think that they could tweak the system into perfection on the fly after rolling it out about a week to all the zones and then shoving off to China.

Even though there may be redeeming qualities to mr. mega for some players, the way communication about this was handled is inexcusable and leaves me, probably at least a few others, with nothing but the deepest cynicism about any “community sourcing” that the devs may do.

I am deeply concerned. Someone needs to rethink this communication strategy.

2 months and not even an acknowledgement.

Well done ANet devs and mods.

slow clap.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Or, it’s compiling it all into one, easy-to-read spot for reference before and during the stream. It’s not like these guys don’t have a lot to do besides reading the forums and trying to separate the whining from the well backed complaints.

No.

Either they are professional developers with a strong vision and a keen design sense, in which case they don’t need this, or they really need to source ideas from the community in which case they need to roll up their sleeves, do their homework, and read their kitten ed forums. Not only that but they need to go all the way with communication which clearly they are not willing to do.

This middle ground approach confuses much and achieves little.

One more… I assume I need to make separate posts.

Race: Norn
Sex: Fermale
Class: Mesmer
Armor: Acolyte Mask

The character’s forehead clips through the mask at the bridge of the nose. Disregard the name of the mask in the gear screenshot, gear names dont make sense anymore if they were transmuted.

Race: Norn
Sex: Fermale
Class: Mesmer
Armor: Council Ministry Shoes

The shoes clip at the knee whenever the character’s legs are bent, either in attack motion or while jumping as illustrated in the image.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I feel much the same. I have hopes this mega merger wreck can be resolved, but I’m in no mood to play when I see no attempts made to even acknowledge legitimate concerns. I check these forums to see what is being done, or lack of response.

I would like to know if the “team” tasked to repair this flat tire is actually repairing it, or designing fancy hubcaps to make the flat “shiny”.

For all we know they are working day and night updating the skill facts for the mega server.

The cone of silence is still in full effect. This is all the more obvious/annoying as illustrated by the rapid response to other issues and community concerns.

<—- My feelings are hurt.

Shepherd.5839:

Honestly what I’ve learned most from the current release is that megaservers were a poor idea, certainly as an only option. I would love to see a megaservers option so that people could seek those larger groups if they want.

However right now I’ve never even seen silver reward on Boss Blitz in over ten attempts, severally of them where a large concerted effort was made to try and organize but simply not enough people listened and far too many piled onto one boss making it scale up far too much to kill.

What this made me realize was just how much the megaservers ruined. Content like this is now barred to only guilds, it really is. I remember in the last few hours of the Battle of Lion’s Arch us on Blackgate managed to get Six Minutes to Knightfall. What guild was running this attempt? No guild just Blackgate and the people that guested there. How could a server full of pugs accomplish such a feat? Well it was the community on Blackgate and its reputation. Those of us from Blackgate really wanted to succeed at all these big events and put in the effort, and listened to good commanders, to accomplish these things.

Additionally many knew about this fact about Blackgate and for every person who guested over to get a free achievement there were at least two who guested over to actually try and work together to accomplish this. Now with megaservers all the people, dedicated and otherwise are lumped together. With no dedicated community either many people don’t feel the same connection to the people around them to actually try and give it their all either.

To be honest, it isn’t some Blackgate elitism that makes me post this. After all, I’d be a fool to think we accomplished what we did on our own. When we got the NA first wurm kill many of the people there were guests from different servers. Why I post this is because I miss getting the chance to actually beat this content. Looking forward I cannot see a point to any more of this great and challenging large scale pve content. From my experience the megaservers have set us so far back in progress and our ability to beat this content that there is no point to release anymore.

I may be a part of a large pve guild that can handle this content, but I miss the days we could just show up and have a good shot at beating it because of our strong community and the guests that supported us.

So please, please remember the players who aren’t from China again. Give us a chance again and give us back our main servers. Megaservers have their pluses, but with them the only option then the world content has been destroyed.

QFT

With the odd hours I play, there are many meta events I would never have succeeded on if not for being a semi-regular guest on Black Gate and a few other servers who come together like that.

The Pied Piper.9827:

Why bother Customer Support when they are aware of the problem and are working on it. We didn’t get our chest when we were suppose to, not big deal, we can not even use the tickets until Tuesday.

That would be a fine attitude in the strange and enchanting parallel universe where ANet didnt already have this issue and people arent still missing their season 1 rewards.

trouble.3562:

I did not get it either. But i did notice that if u were onlie during daily reset u might not get it; but another person who wasn’t online during daily change and which logged ON after the daily , did get it.
please fix, thx

Nope.

Plenty of people who weren’t online for reset (including me) did not get it.

mistress.8034:

Log out and log back in. My chest was waiting for me.

Nope.

The ANet QA team strikes again!

Stellar.

Every achievement complete here, no rewards.

Seriously ANet, you only had 9 weeks to test this and get this right.

rfdarko.4639:

Low hanging fruit-
Make a wvw type queue for full pve maps.

Perhaps harder to implement -
Let players see the instances of the maps and pick the one the want to enter directly. Use low, medium, high and full if you need to obfuscate the actual number of players in the map. That way for big guild missions and tts events, people wont have to rely on RNG to find a relatively empty map, and people who DC have a way of getting back to the same instance they were in before.

The “do nothing and say nothing” fruit hangs even lower and has often been plucked by ANet.

Spiral.3724:

So why are we being ignored by ANet?

Perhaps at one point a friend of yours, or even you yourself, has been in a relationship where the other just didn’t have the courage to break up so they just stopped calling.

Well… ANet is busy having relations with China right now.

I’m sorry western world, we’re just not as bountiful as we used to be.

Step 1 – Release a megaserver plan that:
a) Makes it nigh impossible for large communities/guild to get together on the same instance;
b) Downgrades the usefulness and value of community wide communication for PVE tools like server TS servers etc. (many servers had them); and
c) Removes the sense of shared community and desire to cooperate as a server.

Then…

Step 2 – Release content that works best if 1a, 1b and 1c are present.

Step 3 – Profit?

Would pay gems for a devpost about the megaserver.

Yep, no more pvp gear chest. Would have been nice to still get a few random skins.

Day 31….

My fellow survivors and I are still adrift on some forsaken ocean, forgotten in the wake of the Megaserver apocalypse. Morale is low. Many of us didn’t make it this long, leaping overboard with broken spirit and hoping the fates would see to give them a better life in the great beyond.

Our supplies have dwindled and soon we’ll have to draw straws to see who will be eaten for the others to survive.

With nary a devpost in sight to offer us hope I fear we will not last long.

I’m certain the captain has been lying about how much fresh water is left. I don’t think I’m going to make it.

Gold spam at an all time high
Lag lag lag everywhere

Community worse
World events worse
Temple zergs worse
Guild missions worse

Cone of silence in full effect. I’ve even have had older posts deleted even though they werent particularly negative,

This is just shameful and all the CDIs in the world wont buy you back the good faith and community good will you’ve squandered with this.

The mega server continues to be an impediment to my gameplay. All the points I could bring up have already been mentioned ad nauseam (nausea?).

Also lag lag everywhere lag.

NTDK.4897:

my daily shows 5/5 done which I did yesterday. There’s a new one daily revive that wasnt there before patch which I guess is today daily.
Timer is not 00:00 anymore but 23h left.
But those 5/5 are from yesterday. There is daily mist invasion defender done and I havent been in wvw since today reset.

Ditto for me

Just noticed this. Please fix.

I think a lot of people in this thread are probably lacking perspective on the what and why of this change. This is most assuredly ANet devs making the best on what is probably a cost cutting measure to try and save money on servers that are up for empty maps.

Bsed on the way this is affecting waypoints/dungeons/temples I would assume that this is a change that is happening more quickly than the devs were prepared for.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I would also like to do a Guild CDI soon.

Chris

Please don’t.

You already know what people want.

• Guild halls.
• GW1 style GvG.
• Guild management tools.

Get to work on those and once those are in, then think about asking for a guild CDI.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Re: “Shot down” ideas

• The only thing we are not open to is a real permastow option that would essentially take away the pet completely (ie an option that said always stow).
  • We kicked around the idea of giving the ranger an “aspect of _______” which we moved to a new thread because it is elaborate and should be a single topic in itself. The idea is that it would give the pet more utility with swapping/stowing, but it wouldn’t retire the pet completely.
    • We want to fix issues with the pet AI and general usability before we consider doing something to this extent.
• We acknowledged that Pet AI does need help, but we did not say we would not be doing this. You will see some changes in the coming feature patch that should help with the pet’s usability.

Respectfully, I think you have this reversed.

We are 18 months into the game’s lifespan and the pet command (F2) still isnt even at an acceptable level of responsiveness. Pet AI is still monstrously bad. I am skeptical that working on AI is a more productive avenue than looking at the aspects or other stow option. Putting other solutions on hold until you fix the AI seems misguided.

I think there should be some pretty strong thought put in to proverbially stop the bleeding with issues with pets, pet AI and all pet related gameplay by providing rangers with some form of an out while you take the time and put in the appropriate amount of effort to fix AI and other issues.

Pets are really really bad.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Rangers have some cool things coming too! Much needed power ranger lub! It’ll be all positive reactions right?!!

Ask yourself one question. You can ask your self this question several different ways.

“Have we fixed ranger pets this patch?”
or
“Are ranger pets still a liability?”
or
“Do rangers still benefit less from ascended armour because of the way we implemented pets?”

You’re 18 months in, still plucking them low hanging fruit.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Tyops,

Thanks for posting about your concern. Could you clarify what you mean by insular in this case please? This way I can have a better understanding of how to reply to your concern.

Chris

Certainly,

Sorry I couldnt get back to it until now what with being at work. To be perfectly fair I was probably being overly cynical, but part of the concern remains.

I am a habitual lurker in the CDI threads and routine dev-post stalker, and through natural progression it appears to me that the CDI threads have already become quite clique-y. There is a small group of high-volume high-profile poster who tend to discuss more or less only each other’s posts and also tend to draw most of the interaction from devs.

Although this evolved entirely naturally, unless you’re in it, it can make the community appear insular.

Taking it a step further and codifying how this community interacts with a series of semi-arbitrary rules developed by that community can make it appear markedly less accessible to outsiders, lurkers, and other low volume users.

That is largely where my concern resides.

I appreciate the aims of the CDI. I am really looking forward to seeing what comes of it. I feel GW2 is near a tipping point and that many of the enhancements discussed in the horizontal/vertical development threads really really need to happen quite soon. Then I look at how long it’s taking to get the WvW account wide ranks and I am terrified.

edits to fix typos.

This thread is reading more and more like a step by step guide on how to make the CDI threads even more insular.

Anyone who buys a $10+ dollar gathering tool from the cash shop is already making a dubious decision. Draw your own conclusions from that statement.

Given the scope of the balance summary posted today after nearly a full quarter since the previous one, what results can we reasonably expect to see from these CDI threads over the next 12 months?

Either some serious resources need to be allocated to associated development or we wont see results for years. By then it wont matter.

I intend this to be a constructive comment.

Where is the rest of it?

Seriously. You have a newly launched balance subforum as well as 8 dedicated class subforums with laundry lists of suggestions, constructive discussions of balance issues, and extensive lists of bugs and other longstanding issues. How is this short list of minor patches even remotely acceptable? ANet I feel that you are not doing enough to address the concerns over balance expressed by your population.

As an aside to this. I understand that ANet is very concerned about power creep. One of the consequences of this is that ANet uses a “nerf first” approach to balance, hammering down the nail that sticks out to even out the balance of various classes. In general we very rarely see a set of buffs where nerfs would do.

Sadly, one of the main outcomes of that approach is that every balance patch I want to play a little less. Something is taken away almost every patch (a build, a gear set, a rune set, whatever). This is a destructive approach to patching with the hopes that players will make somethings out of the shattered remains. In the long term this isn’t good for the health of the game. You need to generate excitement for patches, not dread.

This list of patches is extremely underwhelming given the quantity and depth of the issues that need to be addressed for every class. Please stop addressing the low hanging fruit and start tackling the major issues with classes (i.e., dumbfounding trait lines, useless traits, deeply flawed class mechanics, poor weapon sets).

By the time this patch comes out you will have had almost a full quarter to address balance issues and this is just simply not enough.

JonPeters.5630:

I replied to a similar thread with this as well. We are taking some steps towards shifting the meta in the near future. I suspect some concrete info will come out about this next week.

Jon

Reason #1 why ascended weapons and armor need to have stat switching.

Player spends 600g + worth of mats to get his Ascended Zerk set for PvE.
ANet decides to shift the meta.

There will be much kicking and screaming. I Hope you have a plan.

Personally I’ve been partial to the 15/15/0/20/10 (+10 pts somewhere) hammer builds so I have no horse in the pure DPS discussion but….

fadeaway.2807:

To be honest at this stage I’ll take anything zerker over the altruistic healing tanks.

Definitely this.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I generally try to make a point of not watching “check out my phat armor” videos that serve no other purpose that a written guide doesn’t.

Your lack of understanding of the content and intent of that video is both spectacular and comical. Nice try.

Again… I posted this at the end of the other thread, right before it was closed.

Part 2 – Horizontal progression – Weapon skills

Other kinds of horizontal progression should cover skills and skills and utilities acquisition.

When I first heard of the skill system for GW2 (as an avid GW1 player) I never imagined that it would be so static. For instance, I fully expected that although swords would come with 3 skills, that there would be more than 3 “sword” skills with multiple types of swords with different skill combos to be found. I expected some swords would be more offensive and others more defensive.

For example:

• Bonetti’s rapier: (1) Auto attack, (2) Riposte, (3) Bonetti’s defence.
• Gladius: (1) Auto attack, (2) Gash, (3) Hamstring.

Introducing skill variety within weapons could be a great way to introduce build diversity. This seems very long term.

Horizontal Progression – Elite Skills

I also feel that a good avenue for horizontal progression would be to have a long and hard look at Elite skills in GW2.

There is a pretty big difference in philosophy regarding the role of elite skills in GW1 and GW2: GW1 elite skills were build defining and the majority of GW2 elites are not.
GW2 elite skills have such high cooldowns that they are often an afterthought (with some exceptions like war banner in a banner build on warrirors). In general, GW2 elites are in an odd place, they have low uptime, high cooldown, and their impact is debatable across different play types (PvE, PvP, WvW).

It would be nice to see some progression related to class skills and class elites in the following forms:

• Class-related personal story elements
• Class-related crafting

This would lead to unlocks of new and reworked elites (think necro guild, warrior guild, etc.).

I really would like to see “build-around-me” elites that really help define a build. These elites could have a lower immediate battlefield impact than something like the Guardian tomes, but a more sustained and reliable impact on gameplay.
For example (forgive me if my examples aren’t the best but you’ll get my point):

• A skill like GW1’s broadhead arrow (i.e., a low cooldown source of daze) could open up more controlling builds for rangers.
• Warriors could have elite battle stances that either increase adrenaline gain or reduce the cooldown on certain types of skills.
• Necromancers could have an elite effect similar to aura of the lich (on a signet with with a drawback maybe?) that could really support minion master builds.

I think that there is a lot of potential to be found in elite skills, and in as much as it doesn’t strictly involve a level/stat/gear upgrade I think it’s something that should seriously be considered as a key aspect of horizontal progression.

I’m probably forgetting a few things but I’ll probably end this post here.

Thanks for reading.

This is a bit of a re-post of points I made in the original threat right before it was locked (with some details added).

Part 1 – Horizontal progression – Cosmetic

In my experience, cosmetic horizontal progression is in a similar place as the ascended gear. There have been lots of great skins introduced in the game, but I’ve barely been able to bring myself to use any of them because I would only want to use then on best-in-slot gear, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to craft best in slot gear. I have several issues with the vertical progression associated with ascended gear (I think swithcable stats or some kind of unlock system are adeqate solutions).

Summing up the issue, it goes like this with skins as they currently are.

• I can only get one of one type of skin per world event
• I only want to use a skin on best in slot gear that I would keep using
• I only want best in slot gear for a build/stat combo that looks like it will remain relevant
• We are always one balance patch away from a build/stat combo getting nerfed, it has happened several times already

In that paradigm it is nearly impossible for me to actually commit to using a skin. I still collect them, but they are all collecting dust in my bank. This, to me, speaks of a fundamental flaw in some aspects of design. Ultimately you would want players to get their skins and use them immediately, not to be paralyzed about the prospect of having to spend X amount of gold to buy cash shop items to keep using their skins when the game evolves.

I truly believe that horizontal progression is at odds with and hindered by ANet’s monetization strategy. Many of the services offered to players in the cash shop should simply have been quality of life improvements added to the game, to players costed in gold rather than gems, and at a much lower price.

I think skin lockers like those that have been suggested elsewhere resolve this issue for me regarding cosmetic progression. There could be a moderate cost associated with producing a new duplicate skin if it is judged necessary to tax the players who want use the skins multiple times, but it should be affordable to even casual players. Skins are a great draw to almost all players but players shouldn’t feel punished if their one single use skin was used on a piece of gear that was obsoleted by a patch, or other change.

In my personal experience, the current state of legendries and legendary crafting is fine. Legendary armor, Dyes, Back pieces etc… are all items that could (should?) be pursued and could be very interesting. I strongly feel that the stat-changing ability of current legendries should be transposed to ascended weapons and armor. The only “core” aspect of legendary gear should be the unique look.