(edited by barefootstep.7026)
Showing Posts For barefootstep.7026:
We do need to keep this thread on topic and constructive.
I’m almost confident that no one in a halfway official function will read this unless I start talking about procuring nuclear weapons to fight the jihad.
But alright.
I’ve been thinking for the last hours and have started writing down a few suggestions until my train of thought was derailed by an important thought:
We’re asked to give our suggestions here, but no one ever defined what for. All we have to go by right now is the implementation, leaving us guessing what it actually was supposed to achieve.
Perhaps someone in the know could outline the design goals or requirements behind the new trait system, because any suggestion we come up with that clashes with those is basically wasted time and effort.
Was the goal to make trait acquisition more challenging, locking them behind a wall of skill?
In that case, many of the suggestions here complaining about level requirements and lack of variety apply.
Was the goal to integrate trait acquisition more into the overall narrative, increasing immersion?
Then we’ll need a LOT more variety in the acquisition methods, and these methods need to be far more evenly distributed among the content. You’d need to be able to unlock the majority of traits alongside a wide variety of play styles.
In this case, it would also make sense to tie trait acquisition more closely to thematically sound methods, which would in consequence mean to personalize acquisition for each trait line of each class. Tie the explosives line of the engineer, for examples, to events in the game that actually have something to do with blowing kitten up.
Was the goal to introduce players more to traits?
Then you’d probably want short instances for each trait in which a npc will walk you through activating, applying and using the trait in play, not allowing you to leave the instance until you, for example, have hurt an enemy with acidic elixirs.
Tying the traits to hard to reach or achieve content is probably counterproductive for this goal, anyway.
Or was the goal to force the players to leave their comfort zone and try out more content?
Then stop that immediately. Because holding content hostage for that kind of goal is never a good idea, and you might want to tie that to a more positive incentive.
In the long run, some form of requirement tracking would be nice, so advancements can be judged by merit of the original request put forth by the community.
Granted, by now a lot of those requirements would be in Chinese and interspersed by confused cries to the communist party to provide an Official Guild Wars 2 Playing Guide of the People, but even those would probably help.
(edited by barefootstep.7026)
Here’s another suggestion: replace the skill points needed to buy the traits with gems. I hear they are really easy and unconfusing to get these days, especially for new players.
…kitten, I just realized that that is still an implementation actually superior to what we currently have.
sad now.
Next patch:
“The new Exchange Booster now available from the Gemstore. For only 201 gems, you gain a fabulous new booster that allows you flexible gold to gem exchange rates for 24 hours. It’s even accountbound! Use it with any of your characters!”
I’m sorry that you’re feeling frustrated, but if you’re frustrated from your personal/work life then maybe that frustration is just spilling over into GW2 simply because you felt like you didn’t like the system changing when it did. Complaining and focusing your anger on the game for making changes is not the answer.
:-) I’m not frustrated, I love my work life, taxing as it may be. And GW2 is far from my only means of relaxation, even if only counting games.
But I am sad that options – and thus player agency – were removed from a game that offered a great degree of liberty, which is something I valued.
In the case of skill points and dailies, the loss isn’t THAT great – I get my dailies done regardless, if I want to – but in concert with the much more irritating trait change in April it marks a trend that has me worried.
So if complaining is not the answer – what other option do I have as a customer, in your opinion, to let the company that produces a game I like know how I feel about their changes? Burn a candle in church? Write a letter to the senator of my state? Give the game a 0 stars rating on the retail platform of my choice?
EDIT: Fixed grammatical error.
The idea is, and this works for most people I can assure you, is this…if you give someone the same thing every single level, it becomes invisible. It may be a reward but it doesn’t feel as rewarding.
Bullkitten. Steadily watching numbers grow is a time-tested, well-loved staple of rpgs. It only becomes invisible if you have no agency in making it grow – i.e. if the raise is automatic. If the distribution is yours to chose and comes with each level, it becomes something to look forward to. Under the new regiment, however, I have no idea what to look forward to in the next few levels, because it may be anything, and follows no discernable patterns. I have no intent to study and memorize the wiki page as an entry level exam to enjoy playing.
This becomes especially jarring considering the skill point daily achievement. Previously, if you made one or two levels and got one or to skill points via map, you could usually get this in a short, after-work burst of play without straining yourself too much.
Now, unless you are close to one of the skill point levels (or have scrolls to spare), you need to explicitly seek out three skill point challenges on the map. This means no more completing an almost complete map, this means no more aiding a friend in a lower-level, already known area.
And so it is, along with the trait crucible, another step in the “One True Path of Playing Guild Wars 2”. You want the skill point daily? Play in a new area, or farm for scrolls.
Which is fine, I suppose, if you like your activities to be structured, if you like someone taking you by the hand and telling you what is wrongbadfun and what is the good and true way to play. But some of us get that in their job aplenty, and GW2 has always been a nice way to unwind, playing the way one feels like for an evening.
Guess we better say goodbye to that liberties.
its unfair to others who likes the feature patch.u made it seems game gonna die tomorrow while majority have no problem with this patch.it is just unhappy guys speak more.u can just delete the game and leave if u dont like it,but whats the point to post it here.nothing changed on every map. ppl still enjoy this game.could u just leave it alone and play someting else if it bothered u so much.
No. And I’m saying that overall liking the patch, too.
The lesson ‘players don’t like their freedom taken away’ is something ANet could have learned from the April traits ‘feature’.
But they didn’t bother, and sending their lead designer in four month later to stumble around, admit that he can’t be bothered to read the whole thread and ask the fans for a quick fix for the problem isn’t going to fix the discontent.
Same here, have a decisive statement acknowledging the problem and promising to hot fix it would quell the complains. But no, community ‘management’ is happy to twiddle their thumbs and let the kittenstorm blow over and into the face of the community.
So every thread is on ANet and ANet alone. If that’s how they want to handle things, that’s how it will be handled. Kitten and bile and all.
EDIT: Disclaimer: ‘Kitten and bile and all’ does, of course, not include heavy profanity and threats and personal attacks and all. Thought I’d add that in the light of the last weeks.
(edited by barefootstep.7026)
80% of the people here complain because they like to complain. […] This game imo is the fastest game to level in but they are all “hardcore” gamers so they will attack anything that isn’t WoW (gear treadmill) or a game that forces you to have 5 skill bars open because THATS HARDCORE!!! YEAH!!!! HARDCORE!!!!! ( Hey I can be sarcastic too! Awesome! I never knew! )
Honestly feels that people take the low level area like a direct insult to their own intelligence. People have self esteem issues :/ point of low level area? To teach you the game.
Since we’re being all positive here: I absolutely love how you try to convince others that their own opinion is wrongbad by casually insulting them. How very ANet of you!
As a tangent: exploration. I love it, and so does Anet, judging from the previous design.
I love the sense of wonder when stumbling upon a cave or a mini dungeon or a bend or a nook that I haven’t seen before.
So for the love of Melandru, don’t turn Tyria into an obligatory theme park ride with these “go see this underplayed content” trait quests. It’ll kill the game for the explorer type. Honestly, I didn’t know there was a sunken ship mini dungeon in the straights before. Now I know, because I had to research it. Felt like a spoiler.
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.
So…your argument basically is:
“Of course tutorials don’t solve the problem; tutorials stink.
That’s why we just implemented a clear and concise process that solves the problem by tut…ehm…teaching new players about their options one by one.”
Huh.
Secondly, your “hard to implement” line is bullkitten. I’ve seen your game, I know that challenge doesn’t stop anyone in your team.
And finally: The one tutorial worse than a bad tutorial is an unskippable (and, to a lesser degree, non-repeatable) one. You acknowledged that with the feature pack, to a degree, but the traits (remember: the focus of this thread) are mandatory. For alts as well as the builder type of new player that grasps rules quickly and likes to tinker better than fulfilling shopping lists.
So please: make unlocks account bound.
Oh, and thanks for reading, and joining the discussion. Having information we don’t like beats having no information at all by a long shot.
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.
I’m beginning to wonder if there is a disconnect between Anets requirement management and game desgin team, like if the teams can’t stand each other and don’t really communicate.
The requirement „Give us a sense of advancement and immersion by tying trait acquisition to content like (new) quests etc..“ becomes the design „let’s tie trait acquisiton to badly designed, rare, random, tedious and/or buggy content that few play for the aforementioned reasons“.
The requirement „Make the game friendlier for new players by actually explaining the game features in-game with guided tutorials and such“ becomes the design „let’s put options behind level gates and add wall-of-text info boxes when those gates are reached“.
I can’t help it, but think that something is off with the development process there.
On the other hand, stuff like that IS one of the traditional drawbacks of the waterfall software development process and it’s children. So it might just be the effects of Anets „hush, hush“ communication policy, which is the antipode of the constant customer feedback from more modern, agile processes.
I would seriously consider starting sPVP just to get this.
Also necroing the thread to return it to the first page. :-)
Well, she’s basically Jenna’s master of spies, so her demeanour may be either natural, or intentional.
I’m quite sure though that she did a lot of dirty work for the queen so that Jenna could keep her hands clean. Which would also explain why the queen goes with the barefoot, white-dress disney princess look.
And hopefully Anet keeps Anises manner ambigious. Being more approachable than the queen, the countess serves as reminder that humanity is ruled by master mesmers that play a truly deep game of intrigue. Which is cool in it’s own way.
Awesome, and long overdue. Thank you Anet.
As for ascended food, I want food that summons a (fighting) monster and is usable once a day.
We already know that Candy Corn Elementals exist, now I want Marshmellow Golems and Minty Minotaurs.
Realizing at the end of the Sylvari personal storyline that it was probably the last I’d see of Larra. I loved her endless stream of colorful insults.
I do agree with the OP that sandstorms appearing like clockwork is kinda jarring to immersion. If ANet had at least added some in-game explanation like:
“The Zephyrites had a great magical hour glass, and every half hour, after the wind crystal sand has run through, it would whirl upwards again into the upper half for another hour. But now the glass is broken, and the crystal sand has mixed with the sand of the desert, creating a deadly storm that you can set your clock after.”
Like Hybrid, I’ve been at a steady amount of tokens, on both the old and new system. And I usually only do casual PVE in up to level 70 zones, and have to support eight characters.
Can you perhaps describe your usage of the tokens, and why you need such a steady supply?
As an active rper, I have only a vague idea what you are complaining about. In fact, referencing rp is of little help here as personal styles and preferences may vary along several axes, for example story railroading and sandbox play.
Since you sound like you like your railroad train hootin’ and tootin’ tight, I kinda can see from where you’re coming, seeing how we got provided with an (actual) sandbox so far.
But on the other hand: What urgency is there? So Modremoth might be up to something. The what, the how, and the where to strike aren’t known yet, and research takes time. Meanwhile the other dragons continue their siege of Tyria.
Most events in Dry Top are aimed at rescuing Zephyrites and preserving their secrets from the natural causes and the grasping hands of the Inquest. Which is – no, has to be – a higher priority than constantly prodding Taimi to quicken her research so you can have a go at Modremoth, because without Glint’s legacy all may be lost, regardless.
During the second LS mission, in the fight against the 2 veteran golems to free the zephyite, my ranger fell through a crack in the platform and to the ground below.
There he remained in the face-down fallen position while still able the move and even jump normally.
Kasmeers speech loop for teleporting the character back up was triggered, but the portal didn’t take effect. Only when I jumped farther up again (in fallen pose until I used my heal) I was suddenly yanked back to the fight again.
By then I had already used the lightning stone and was almost back in the fight by my own means.
I might add that my computer had quite some performance issues during the mission, maybe that contributed.
Just upgrade your hardware people, (…) and enjoy the game the way developers intended.
I’m quite confident that in a F2P MMO which requires a large userbase to pay off, the way the developers intended the enjoy the game includes playing on machines ~2 years or even older.
Excluding a largish part of your users just to satisfy the edge demographic of graphic whor…graphic kittens isn’t exactly a sound business strategy.
Google “crytek financial trouble” for reference.
+1, had to abort the second ls mission (not even open world) because of this.
Fighting was basically impossible since the graphics and the input devices were literally on a different page.
At page 26 I don’t think another verbose post adds to the discussion, so just let me add my +1 to all said above:
- progression far too slow
- experimentation hampered
- grindy and railroady implementation
- kitten the kitten’s kittening kitten-kitten
I’d like to provide full support for this notion. Granted, for solo PvE I just didn’t care anymore at some point and simply don’t have my character wear boots.
But in any form of group play that would be unfair to the other players.
ArenaNet, please remove the renown hearts from the game.
- They’re boring. They’re like traditional MMO quests – kill ten rats, pick up twelve pieces of junk. The only thing is that they’re a “mixture of all traditional MMO quests into one” and every heart is the same. Sure the theme behind them is different but the actions are unchanged.
ArenaNet, please don’t remove the renown hearts from the game.
I’m currently leveling my fourth character and I’m enjoying immensely that doing renown hearts has not yet felt repetitive to me, due to the varied forms of completing them.
I do, however, realize that for a seasoned MMO player, who’s perception of quests has been blunted into checklists of usual tasks, they may feel samey. Since there is enough other content to level up on, however, I don’t see why a mechanic enjoyable to some should be replaced on the whims of some others.
However, like I said I don’t like content being removed. In order to make the world feel more fluid, these hearts should be turned into a series of events. One event per optional objective of each heart. Completion of the event(s) would result in the former heart NPC to become a karma vendor until the event(s) reset. They would also affect the NPCs’ dialogue just as other events typically do to related NPCs.
Doing this would result in the world feeling less static, and a better explanation for eventually altering the world. Either just one event could be removed, or when it’s a case of the ambient enemies related to the hearts get removed (say, risen in Lychcroft Mere), the enemies can be returning only for the event (periodical risen invasion of the swamp, per example) which becomes less frequent (longer timer) due to the smaller presence. This would allow future events to be added, without conflicting (much) with older content and without the need to completely remove the hearts content (or work around it).
In regards to map completion, I’m not sure how to replace hearts. Perhaps something akin to the event skill challenges where you have to complete specific player-triggered events (but don’t get skills) that vary more than just fight 1 enemy or fight a small group of 3-5 enemies.
There already are a lot of events that tie into heart completion. Turning hearts into events would just turn the minimap into an even smaller map, as the borders would be alight with event markers.
Now, if you would like to argue for ArenaNet to create a greater variety of and thus a longer reset interval for events tying into renown heart completion, I’d be with you.
Ascended gear is useless outside of Fractals. By giving World and Dungeon bosses Agony attacks it would make it worthwhile and help thin out the leechers.
It also helps to thin out anyone who carries his or her own weight in boss battles, but hasn’t gotten into the <5% of the game where ascended gear becomes available.
You know, the ‘casuals’.
One of the main reasons I like Guild Wars 2 is that it is mostly non-intrusive. Guild duties left aside, the buy to play business model and the emphasis on ad-hoc cooperation almost never makes the game feel like a chore.
The Living World events, however, are a different beast.
The limited timeframe combined with the rewards create a psychological pressure: once you start, you kinda wanna go the whole way and get the final achievement, and the reward.
And so you force yourself to keep working on that goal even though you’d rather do something else at that time. It is simple psychology: once you invested into something with a limited resource (in this case, time), you try to optimize your gain.
I realize that this may not apply to all players, but it applies to me, and I’ve been shunning the Living World events for that reason. Participating feels too much like a job to me. Which is a shame, because I always had fun playing some of the Living World content.
That is the problem.
My suggested solution: introduce generic Living World tokens.
The idea is simply: create a place (probably an NPC; the Black Lion weapon traders offering Living World weapons might be a good idea) where, after an event is finished, you can ‘cash in’ your achievements for generic Living World tokens. This only applies to those players who did not complete the final “complete x achievements”-achievement and got the grand reward of the event.
The tokens can then be used to buy yourself a Living World reward without completing all necessary achievements. Exchange rates may be abysmal in such a system.
The main idea is that you can explore a Living World event at your leisure and get something out of it(*), even if you don’t go all the way. And if that something is the ability to explore other Living World events at your own pace and occasionally still get that reward you really fancy, even better.
(*) Yes, you get achievement points, I know. But I don’t need Living World events for that.
[Daily change]
Too much freedom in video games is bad arena net. Sometimes we just want you people to create a challenge and tell us to go do it. If you have this huge world, with level downscaling so we can revisit every area (something I proposed you guys did on GW1 and I was very happy to see in gw2) , but the daily doesn’t force us to go to a specific one, people will always go to the lower level zones since its faster.This is a game, and people will always take the most optimized option if they can.
“Too much freedom” is a rather subjective criterion to apply. I think the amount of freedom is just right, with 7 pve, 1 dungeon, 1 activity and 3 WvW achievements. It allows for personal preferences and daily moods, but at 5 to complete feels like an achievement, something you worked for.
I also know a lot of people who do their dailies in level-appropriate zones, for map completion, level-appropriate loot and gatherings, or simply because they can’t be bothered to interrupt normal play and travel to the low-level zones and back.
I would change the daily, to instead of broad options, to just one, such as “do dungeon X, or do dungeon path X”, “gather 50 stuff at Lornar pass”, “complete 3 mini-games” and so on. This will make this game just seem much more varied. People will have more fun with this and really go throug the whole content of the game.
…meaning you don’t feel compelled to go through the whole content of the game?
Besides, I already have an activity where I’m forced to execute a specific task if I want to achieve; it’s called my day job.
And I kinda don’t see how I’d have fun if I don’t feel like interacting with people but am forced to because the daily is a dungeon run. Same applies to evenings where I can’t commit a full 30 min of constant play because I have to, say, watch over a toddler.
[New equipment set screens]
Currently we have an “Armor” icon and a “Town clothes” icon. Give us another armor icon for our secondary set. Having the option to associate a set with a dual trait system automatically would be great too (changing specs could be forbidden in WvW unless you are at the waypoint area)Let us choose if the new armor slot should a) be empty b) use whatever is equippped on it c) use whatever is equipped at armor slot #1
That idea I’d like to support.
[Make living world less frequent]
So we can play the “normal” aspects of the game as well (dungeons, wvw). Or just do something else like real life obligations. Also, more people will experience the content.
+1, although you can just not play the living world content; I’ve been doing that for some time now.
The limited timeframe combined with the rewards apply a psychological pressure to complete the living world event before the time runs out; perhaps you don’t feel like reacting to yet another invasion by Scarlet, but you want that shoulderguard, so you force yourself to go there. Which is not why I play Guild Wars 2, thank you very much.
I support this notion…obviously.