Guild Wars 2

Frankly the map has too much going against it at the moment :
- Confusing layout
- “daytime” events chains that take like 15 mins to complete and then it is 2 hours of idling or doint pointless events that do not reward zone currency.
- zone population cap seems way way off for a zone of this size and an event of this scale
- I won’t add anything to what other people said about the difficulty of the event, but seriously : an event (even an easy one), that you can fail in minutes, when several group must coordinate to exectute flawlessly, with no fall back mechanic, no partial succes, all or nothing, on a 2 hours timer. Seriously ?

Masteries and collection specialization weapons, mainly.

I can’t even finish that sanctum scramble thing, let alone in bronze :/

Thus far, I have always managed to avoid things that require too much hand eye coordination, like complicated jumping puzzles, super adventure box, etc …. They were not required to really complete anything, except achievements. This kind of content is fine, and I am glad many people are enjoying it, but it is not for me. And it is ok mind you, thus far I have always managed to have these things not interfere with my in game goals.

However, with heart of thorns, I feel that this kind of content has been way too forcefully pushed into everyone throats. One one hand, people wishing to do the collection weapons, which are for 90% of their part purely PVE, event based, grinding content, and yet require a sliver medal adventure. On the other hand, adventures are like never open, and require people who have fun with them to complete the relevant meta events before they can enjoy them.

I don’t want adventures to be nerfed. They are probably, fine, I don’t event have a clue. Apparently they are also good exp and have good rewards, which is very good for the people who enjoy them. Just keep them separate. At this moment, my will to complete my class weapons is sapped. Why should I bother grinding my masteries, doing all the meta events, when I know I am physically unable to get one of the components at all :/

I don’t post very often, and will certainly be ridiculed by the expert players on this forums, but I had to get it off my chest anyway.

I do not understand. Everything has been said about what is difficult in this dungeon (can’ get past the 2 walls phase personaly, apparently last boss is hard too …) so I wont say too much about this. I won’t delve to much on my personal sad story too (I just will say that, after the fantastic experience of the Flame and Frost dungeon, I tried to use this one, without reading beforehand about what it was about, to get some friends that left the game months ago to go back and see the awesomeness of the “new” guild wars. Yep, that was a botch :p ). So I’ll stop the whining here :p

But I just wanted to say, that there is a severe lack of management of expectations here.

To this point, seasonal/living story dungeons have been both relaxed and fun. The flame and frost dungeon was absolutely pitch perfect, with a great story, fun encounter and all. To this point, we have always considered temporary, story content to be something that a majority of people can enjoy, and everyone, whatever their level, can feel part of the story. Because the story is the point, the focus.

I am perfectly fine with difficulty, especially as permanent, repeatable contant, as long as it is clearly marked, and not divisive for the community. Fractals were a great example : a progression for experienced players, and low level fractals for everyone to enjoy. Some explorable dungeons are hard, but story mode is always doable, so anyone can enjoy the content.

Soul crushing difficulty on a temporary, well advertised event, without alternative (no story mode vs explo mode) just feels wrong.

Like the philosopher says, 50% of the players are below average by definition (*). When content that caters to the most advanced part of the playerbase is created, without any alternative, that content mechanically excludes everyone else. Is that really the direction you want to follow ?

(*) well, it’s not exactly the definition of average, but I like the quote so ;p

ANet, before introducing a gear treadmill, just ask yourself those two questions …

- Are you really sure that change will allow you to keep / win back the WoW/similar game audience, while these games have already perfected this model and already have a loyal audience ?

- Is this really worth losing a good part of the audience you were originally targeting with your manifesto (plus, obviously, GW1) ?

Please, please, don’t