Guild Wars 2

There will be Anet announcement event at PAX South 24th of January with living story was just beginning – concept.

Traits, NPE… was just beginning…omg…THEY ARE AFTER THE QUAGGANS NEXT!

HEED MY Words brethren!
puts on tinfoil hat and trousers

If you think 2,5 years passing in GW2 a.k.a 1,5 season of living story + features like NPE & Trait Update = expansion, then think about it for few minutes if there’s been anything done to add more for example core stuff to game like dungeons, sPvP maps, GvG, Guild interaction like a guild hall.

That stuff that isn’t played once to thrice through then moving on…Living Story is adding story to the game but what else does it add that keeps players involved with this game?

Guild missions for example were very good update as were Fractals. Those have replayability like no other even that people are fed up doing Swamp fractal they still do because of the Loot factor behind finishing fractals.

Longevity and replayability is the way of winner MMO.

NPE 2014- never forget.

bring out THE drrruuuuummmmss trait update 2014 and it’s TOUCHDOWNNNNN wooooyaaaaaaa.

Eventually there will be less and less people doing these trait unlock events that require multiple players to success as time goes by since without new expansion or similar kind of attraction to get new players to try this game there won’t be unlimited pool of newbies that hunt traits. And I’m pretty sure altoholics use Mostly money for their 8th+ character.

Is Anet going to adjust trait system then when there’s hard to find people doing those hardest trait unlock events (then it would fit their metric theory) or just keep it same I wonder.

SAB has lots of secrets in it that takes time to discover even with guides and whatnots, it delivers replayability in total different level than living story episodes. People like me could jump around in that magic world for many hours trying to learn all secrets and gather those weapon skins.

WWARGASMM.2301:

Liz.1497:

The reason people are so fundamentally unahppy with this is the following:
- the game is 2 years old and people have figured out what they like and don’t like. I don’t need to be hand-held to gather plants somewhere remote, or pvp as a ranger. I’ve done those things already and decided for myself that I didn’t care for them
- If you look at the first reviews of the game you will see how a lot of industry vets really really appreciated the freedom and the sense of exploration the game offered. This concious design decision that, admittedly, alienated a few people, was also what made the game unique and fun to a lot of others. Anet has been backtracking on this ever since with the NPE and now this: “play how you like” is no longer rewarded, “go x and do y”, and that is a complete contradiction to the original design decision of the game.

Brilliant.

This sums it up for me. Freedom of exploration on your own whilst doing addictive achievement point gathering was once possible in this game because there wasn’t so specific requirements for dailies. Also it didn’t mess anything with the scaling part like now it requires sometimes to kill mobs with so low health that 30lvl 80’s are having ….fun…. hunting them in small areas.

In a bigger scale, why turn this game from what it once was to hand-helding game? 2 years ago this game got good reviews and was praised for it’s freedom.

Retrospective review from Eurogamer, Kotaku or some good review site would be awesome atm, maybe to open eyes in the development section of Anet so they can see from respective side that this game’s basic elements have changed a bit from what they used to be.

Maybe there is hidden ‘’reply 10,000 times and we’ll start reading this thread’’ competition going on with Anet, you know, same kind of kitten that’s normal with social media stuff these days.

8 months later same kitten.

There won’t be any change to public relations towards players and such regarding roadmaps and stuff unless Guild Wars 2 playerbase drops suddenly or something similar happens.

I’ve realized Anet won’t use energy or resources to anything ‘extra’. They keep going onwards with their plans stubborn no matter what we say here. Impact of these forum discussions to Anet’s plans are minimum at best. If that either.

Some think it’s good way and others don’t. Can’t please everyone and if you want to then you’ll find yourself in the road of compromises and halfbaked promises towards every direction and usually that won’t end well.

In my opinion roadmap and more open doors to year ahead plans would be great like Blizzard does. But I understand Anet’s stand and who knows they might some day change their PR politics about stuff to come if they see it benefit their plans.

Best thing that hypothetically speaking could happen……drums……is that Scott Bakula takes Quantum Leap back to April 2014 and prevents infamous Trait Update.

I bet people who are justifying this update wouldn’t mind the old system either. It would be pretty much win/win scenario for players. Devs might think otherwise from their POV but isn’t games meant to be for players. At least hundreds of marketing PR persons keep telling that.

What does it need to get attention to this issue?
Bad press from gaming sites like Eurogamer, Gamespot, Kotaku?

To be honest, best way would be to rollback back to April before patch, back to the original system. There wasn’t complaints about traits like there is now.

People could get varied builds more quickly and experiment with them like it was till this update.

There is absolutely no need to change traits behind some events/bosses/map completion.

GW1 was and still is very practical/versatile/flexible with skills & builds, GW2 used to be before this trait update……

7 months…jesus.

I’m guessing they haven’t got resources to pull any changes to traits now that living story 2 is going on. Trait change came just before season 2 and now they are busy doing story.

When LS2 finishes I hope there will …finally…… be changes to traits. Changes that players have hoped for 7 months.

Well, it’s been half a year with this thread, numerous ways to fix and improve this trait has been posted by community and clearly even whitest knights can’t deny there’s major problems with this new trait system and NPE.

Nothing plans heard from Anet after they implemented this. What’s with the radio silence are you having internal fights about this system along developers some siding with community that this is garbage and some are justifying that it took resources to make this trait system so we stick with it no matter what.

It’s okay to sometimes screw things up and rollback stuff, that’s the way to improve things. Being a stubborn just restricts most positive evolution and development.

In a away, this trait system has same kind of premise that those ’’F2P’’ generic Korean MMO’s where you can play totally free but if you want to use most powerful skills buy it with credit card or do something very tedious.

Just be a man and rollback this trait system to way it was.

I’m quite sure if Anet decided now to reveal let say an expansion Cantha/Elona/Cow Level coming May 2015 there would be quite a relief amidst fans here in forums.

Giving something to wait 1 year ahead gives many that feeling ‘’oh nice I’m gonna finish doing these collections/achievements/etc.‘’ It gives that waiting excitement. I know I got that feeling always in World of Warcraft and few other games that keep you hooked with content updates and I’m not alone.

That’s my criticism towards Anet. There’s no longterm excitement amongst fans except our endless speculation if and maybe there’s something coming on the road.

Them leaderboards, bring ’em boards.

edit. but reset first too.

To give you another point of view to the matter:

In LotRO they handle upcoming patches by announcing this kinds of posts maybe 4-5 times a year. They also have public test servers and developer chat with players.

“Hello all! I’m Aaron “Rowan” Campbell, Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Online.

Update 15 is getting close, and the Dawnless Day is upon us! Our last major update for the year goes into public Beta testing this Friday (October 10) on Bullroarer. We have a lot to polish up and fine-tune in the release, but are eager to get your feedback on the new Beorning class, quests in Central Gondor, and Pelargir Epic Battle.

Here are some quick highlights:

Beorning: As a Beorning, you hail from the line of skin-changers that descends from Grimbeorn and Beorn himself. Beornings are closely related to the Rohirrim (and other Men), but are larger and more rugged. Call on the ancestral knowledge of your people with The Roar trait line, strike down your enemies with The Claw trait line, or unleash your wrath to defend your allies with The Hide trait line. When Beornings gather sufficient Wrath they can take the form of a great bear to unleash devastating attacks on their foes. Every new Beorning character will start in the brand new starting area: Vales of Anduin. Visit Grimbeorn’s Lodge while you get comfortable with your own strength.

Central Gondor: The dark clouds of the Dawnless Day loom overhead! Push forward into the Ringló Vale, Dor-en-Ernil, and Lebennin. New quests are available as you drive back the Corsairs, Haradrim, and Half-trolls who now pillage the shores of Gondor. The latest book of your Epic Story resolves in the beleaguered city of Pelargir, home to Gondor’s fleet.

Pelargir Epic Battle: This battle changes up the rules of epic battles! Instead of defending a key point, you will infiltrate the city of Pelargir and clear the way for Aragorn and the Army of the Dead. This offensive battle allows you to proceed at your own pace, completing optional objectives as you advance.

You may have noticed that the Legendary Item Update is not in this list. The team has made a lot of progress on updating Imbued Legendary Items to grow with you, but we’re taking more time to balance and refine the system. We plan to release this update with Update 16 in April 2015 (or earlier!), along with LOTRO’s Eighth Anniversary Update.

Features still to come in 2015:

Osgiliath: We’re advancing north, and now almost in sight of both Minas Tirith and The Black Gate. Osgiliath is a city overrun by Sauron’s army. Expect new adventures as you journey along the Anduin.

Minas Tirith: As the war escalates even further, you will journey to the City of Kings and participate in the Siege of Minas Tirith. Minas Tirith is the largest structure we’ve ever placed in Middle-earth, and the largest city!

There are many other areas that we continue to invest in, such as Roving Threats, a new type of challenge for fellowships, in Central Gondor. Looking forward to Update 15 and beyond!

Rowan

Executive Producer
The Lord of the Rings Online™ "

There’s also mention of a delay of major thing about weapon system in that post plain and honest.

I don’t want to tell to copy from other companies but just giving POV’s to this discussion. In my opinion Public Testing is something that benefits both company and playerbase to get best results (see NPE confusion with feature pack).

First of all, nice that there are also positive experiences about this new change. Guild Wars 2 in my eyes is more casual MMO than many other it’s rival in terms of demand of commitment that it asks from players.

Still my opinion is that figuring out things by yourself is the most surprising and fun method to play sandbox/MMO games. As minimum guiding hands as possible.

Well they decided to make this game similar to the version in China. I’m not sure if they realized how controversial these toning down/removing things from starter areas changes feel to the community in US/Europe and instead some publisher suit guy might have had impact on these changes, feels like this anyways to me. Hopefully I’m wrong about this.

I’m sure there are plenty people liking this New Player Experience but leveling was smoother before because there wasn’t restrictions like there is now.

I played GW1 actively from it’s launch till EOTN without taking any pause from it.

GW2 played from launch to february/march 2014 then decided to put it on hold till new stuff comes in. So about 1,5 year in this game till getting bored’burned or whatever you’d call it.

I’m still same player with same kind of attitude, hunger for exploration in fantasy worlds, lorefreak etc. than I was back in launch of GW1.

In my humble opinion GW2 as fantastic as it is in the varied crowd of MMO’s, it would benefit a lot from meaty old-school expansion like there was in the original GW.

My view on expansion:

- New continent, consisting of 8-10 zones with 2 of them for new class leveling
- New class, tied to lore of expansion
- New skills to existing classes + 2-3 new weapon types tied to expansion lore
- WvWvW improvements what players have asked in forums
- sPVP game modes and 4 new maps to rotation
- GvG introduced with 8vs8 and CTF/Boss elimination gametypes
- Factions introduced or similar type of PvP that ties to PvE for example like Urgoz & Deep in GW1, elite areas that open up to your victory in conquering that spot on map
- Guild Halls
- Polymock + other activities like Bar Brawl, and return Keg Brawl from that random rotation
- Few new dungeons with paths and unique armours & weapon skins

Hah. That’s a wishlist for sure.
But yeah old-school expansion isn’t necessary so bad idea even if Anet philosophy dictates otherwise.

Not adding anything to the changes to NPE but instead merely saying: few MMO and some single-player game developers have player councils/beta servers of upcoming changes with closed/partially open access to players where people play with new game builds and give constant feedback and thus making new patches more player-friendly.

Some examples:
Lotro has Bullroarer Public Test Server + player council
WoW has similar PTS as well

Even then there’s going to be always disappointed players with every patch that changes stuff sure thing but player feedback of upcoming changes is a win/win situation whatever point of view you take.

Along with SAB there used to be Keg Brawl in Norn City that one could participate whenever. It was really popular amongst small group of people like a meta pvp game. I know Kegbrawl doesn’t fit the living story but could you still consider getting it back to the Norn City. It was tons of fun.

I played Leisure Suit Larry when I was 6 years old with my dad’s 386 IBM, always getting hammered by that car when crossing street.

Good post that sums up some of my thoughts as well. I left around 6 months ago but still keep reading forums & dulfy in case there’s going to be some overhauls in this game.

What bugged me most was lack of what people would call meaty updates to the core elements of this game and I’m talking about dungeons/PvP maps/Guilds/adding alliances. That type of stuff. Those things add longevity like no other, especially compared to living story which I can predict people won’t replay after getting all achievements so much than PvP/dungeons.

Anet chose different path and it’s their right to choose. Impact of negativity shows that number of decisions they have made in this game really hit hard against especially fans of original Guild Wars and all-around veterans of the game. With veterans I don’t mean elitists like some have said on other threads but I mean players that have been playing 2 years and are still waiting for core elements to be added to this game.

You cannot use that item right now. M’kay.

Infinite Coin 600 Gems it’s so awesome.

Just throwing my 2 cents to discussion about features of GW2..

GW1 & GW2 veteran here, stopped playing around february 2014 because of growing tired of the state of GW2. Same has happened to me with WoW between last content update of one expansion and their next upcoming expansion be it for example Burning Crusade’s Sunwell and then waiting for Lich King expansion. So I’m not saying GW2 is different and should keep a player hooked like a neverending stash of cocaine.

GW2 feels different with WoW or other it’s rivals because Anet doesn’t give players any content that they have been waiting for 2 years and I’m talking about things that players like to do together and go hand2hand in Guild Wars: GvG, dungeons, Guild Halls, armours&weapons that you get from PvE and not from trading post, Elite Areas like FoW/UW/Urgoz with 8 or 12 parties. Those are some examples these forums have screamed for 2 years.

So with the september feature pack coming, maybe there will be some meat around bones that gets old school players excited.

Doing dailies used to be something like this: ‘’Oh nice I can do things I love/like in this game and get daily chest’’

Now it’s: ‘’Oh maybe I get lucky and today from 10 choices 5 are something that I can complete without having to do something that get’s me irritated and into bad mood be it PvE if I’m more PvP player and don’t like killing 50 rabbits in some random zone or PvP if I’m more PvE player and just get killed by PvP elites’’

What is the logic behind this – ‘forcing’ a player to do every aspect of game – .

What is greater thing in MMO than freedom of choice? Can some Anet fanboy/zealot explain it to me what’s greater thing to do than choose what you want to do and get rewarded from that.

Posting experiences just in case this is a bug. This has happened in Desolation EU as well regulary in lane 5 but I didn’t notice this in first week of marionette or then I didn’t pay any attention. And furthermore if the barricades are suppose to slow’em down this champ takes it as a challenge and leaps over it like Magic Johnson!

I’ve had that ‘Error in attempting to sell’ few times and only way to go around it for me is that when that error pops up with for example selling Mithril ore, I wait 3-5sec then sell another item in inventory and come back to Mithril ore after that.

That seems to work to that particular error at least for me. In rare occasions even that won’t work and then I have to just close down TP and keep the items in inventory.

Currently can’t sell or buy in TP. Only giving blank page on both of those options. Gandara EU 9:48AM +2GMT.

It would be awesome to have similar auction house like in lotro or wow, not a browser based.

On a more serious note:
Their publisher is Asian NCSoft with a history of Asian MMO’s that are (in)famous for having this kind of garbage in their ingameshops. Little things like gathering tools that make your character bit more special with a 20% chance of getting extra material.

There’s nothing you can do about it except leave the game if you want to protest or make threads like this. Developers do what they want to do to please their publisher and shareholders.

Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man’s world
Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man’s world
Aha-ahaaa
All the things I could do
If I had a little money
It’s a rich man’s world

This new wurm encounter is for those who can CAMP in the main server from early hours till evening. Otherwise you’ll end up in overflow and with a ferry (this sucks for those who don’t have guildies in the main server) you’ll might get there.

Whole idea of bosses who need 150-200 people to beat in GW2 is kinda controversal because of the overflow system and no proper raid tools to organize parties for example.

At least there should be support for playermade addons like in WoW if you’re planning more world bosses that require whole map to participate. I’m an ex-WoW raider and did very long hours late at night beating new raid content and theorycrafting. I’m ok with that and love it. Things is that in WoW you still could do that hardest of hardest content WHENEVER it was nice for you and your guildies. So we could go to work and then at evening do our 4 hour raid. These events like Wurm if I log in to my server after work at evening I’m in overflow with few people and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Some serious flaws in the ‘’hard content’’ in this game to be honest if the hardest part is to try to GET TO THE MAIN MAP of a server where we have enough players with a will to use Teamspeak or otherwise organize.

all in all, fun fight but seriously mechanics in this game are back from 1990’s in terms of camping whole day to stay in main server for a decent try with the Evil Wurm.

19:30 GMT+2, no lag like it was when this problem was going on. Every aspect of game is working as intented here. It seems to be fixed. I’d love to hear what exactly was wrong and how, whoever is fixing these, did it. This wasn’t just some few hours of lag it lasted through January so something major was going on.

Fingers crossed this’ll last from now on

Ok. 9:51AM +2GMT Finland, Gandara Eu. First day without lag so far. It’s still early so I’m not sure about the rush hour lag.

Still, I’m positive at the moment since this lag was permanent before no matter what time tried to play.

It’s 6:53AM +2GMT from Finland here and no lag at the moment haven’t tested PvP yet. Might be due to low amount of players. Early hours it seems is possible to play without lag at least. After others wake up then not sure.

I got kicked out to logging screen though after playing keg brawl activity and was coming back to Lion’s Arch so defo problem still exists.

Gonna run diagnostics again this day to see what server is causing the packet loss.

I’m hoping this thread will bring more attention to a BIG ISSUE that is affecting many players hoping to enjoy Guild Wars 2 and I hope this current Living Story could be prolonged.

There are tons of players from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, England, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Romania and many other countries that started having really bad lag in GW2 servers all around Europe and other continents. Those players can play other online games without similar problems so it is not ISP that is messing. Problems started bit after Christmas holidays around same time than the large DDOS attack that occurred then. DOTA game had similar problems and rerouted their servers and problem was gone.

Overall experience is that player logs into game, no noticeable lag at start but soon there’s 5sec skill delay and worse. Many get Error 7 in the end. Doing Living Story marionette event for example is impossible and that is the main part of this LS. This lag renders PvP, WvW, Daily Activities unplayable as well.

Two big threads in Tech Support with no response from Anet.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Network-Lag-Merged/page/35#post3534481

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Crazy-lag-past-couple-of-days/first

Smaller threads are there as well from individual players that didn’t notice these ones.

For me this’ll be first LS that I am missing and thing is that I have time to do it but can’t get it done because of massive lag that starts shooting me through chest. Before this lag I really enjoyed this game but this has been going on for two weeks or so without any update to the situation.

Regards,
Mertine of Gandara EU
Avid GW2 player since September 2012

Tried again to see if things are better. Logged into Lion’s Arch and there was no delay, I was thinking ‘hey nice maybe this is over’. Went to do daily activity (Crab Toss) and lag was back. 3-5sec delay pressing skills. ALT + F4.

:) yippee

So far there’s been ppl with these problems from Norway, Finland, Russia, England, Canada, USA, New Zealand and possible from other countries too. Only temporal fix for us is using money to buy VPN or try trial-mode VPN to get somewhat lag free Guild Wars 2 experience.

It can’t be our IPS (company called DNA for me) that is doing it wrong, why is Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, Rift, Online FPS shooters, regular web-browsing and everything else working as intended (I’ve tested them all).

Gonna try one of those VPN tonight but for the sake of subscription free game I’ll try find a VPN that doesn’t take money from me. Posting results later on.

Okays, tried again just few minutes ago to see if the lag that has been in this game for past week or week and a half is gone…Nope. It seems some GW2 servers that connect players from Europe (Finland in my case) are kitten poor at handling traffic. Loads of players have said it in game or in many forums including this one.

As of last week this game has been mostly unplayable with lag everywhere in the game from interacting with Trading Post to Crafting to PvP. Everything has a considerable delay that eventually leads to Error 7.

People experiencing these problems are turned away from this game even if they want to play it. I haven’t been able to complete daily achievements or PvP and can’t do that tonight as well. Living story marionette fight gives error 7 or in best case just lags so bad that I cannot interact with the enemies that spawn during defense of gate. Doing Living Story achievements is pretty much impossible and thus it’ll be first LS that I miss in this game. I bet the situation is same for many others in playerbase.

So far Anet has been quiet for all these days and I’m a little bit worried about that. Hypothetically speaking IF (I know, I know) this would be subscription based game customer support would be way more active. Imagine this kind of thing happening in World Of Warcraft. But I guess without a subs fee things don’t go so smoothly.

Let’s see if things are better in next month.

Rawkan.3749:

Yay, got 5 minutes before disconnect….

What a pain.

It’s like the longer I’m logged in, the higher the ping gets, until nothing responds at all.

Yeah first it feels somewhat minor rubberbanding but it gets worse and worse after few minutes till it gets unplayable. Snowball effect or like running out of stamina.

Well, I downloaded the patch pretty fast and went to do Lornar’s new boss event. I noticed from start that the skill delay lag was still there but continued. As the group event started I was defending some energy wall from waves of enemies and delay started to be some 3-5sec and then after 2-3min it was so much I couldn’t activate any skills… then ERR7.

It’s weird that from the launch of GW2 till last week this game has run like a perfect Ferrari for me. After the last ’’maintenance’’ patch or something that came during Christmas time these problems started to occur.

There’s a whole lot of us here having problems and no response from any tech guys at Anet. I’m thinking they don’t know what’s wrong with their servers and are searching still.

At the moment new living story group events are unplayable for me, sad to say but it’s true. Just getting ERR7 while trying to do new LS events.

Finland, Gandara EU, ISP: DNA

Same kitten. I made another thread under BUGS section. Just did Sanctum Sprint, I usually can finish it in top3 it’s my favourite of activities. NOW I managed just in time before timer… all the skills had really awful delay or just wouldn’t work. I pressed jump button but I ran into pit without jumping….>__<………

Champ train is also nerfed at the moment with a giant CAST IRON BAT for me because pressing buttons does NOTHING on bosses. I can’t get them tagged I’m just running around them or standing near them while they go down…BAZINGA I say…

I can roam in PvE and slowly do tasks but champ train, pvp & activities are unplayable at the moment…

There’s some of my experiences from past two weeks.

Edit. I’ve also started to sometimes get those errors that kick you back in character selection screen.
Also tried Bell Choir but pressing them buttons didnt activate skills in time and my character just stood still with them BELLS so I dropped from the circle everytime even in easy songs. I can’t finish the daily achievement in Bell Choir xD

After few days it’s still going on. It gets worse in daily achievements like crab toss. Suddenly I cannot press any skill buttons and the delay is awful.

I test with other online games and it’s ok. There’s something rly wrong with GW2 servers at the moment.

I really hope Anet knows this…

Gandara EU here.

Been getting this for past couple of days anywhere in game plus some random DC every now and then. Worst is in daily activities and PvP, skill delay is some 3 seconds at worst.
Some other players are experiencing same thing (asked in Lion’s Arch chat) and it seems there’s at least one thread in Reddit about the same thing.

My connection is OK I play other online games and there’s no issue whatsoever so it must be server side problem.

Posting this up since there seems to be no threads about it here yet.

I don’t get it how this new skin got into release. If there is any person working in Anet thinking about immersion of the game, lore, anything like that she/he must have thought this would bring turmoil.

With this kind of Pandora’s Box open they could release any armour to any race, give us automobiles, whatever..I get the idea of fun items like charrbaby backpags and stuff but this kind of thing breaks the immersion and roleplay aspect + people like me who have bought 119g armour + transmutation stones and could now buy same with flame effect for half the gold…I mean what is going on really…..These are basic things in a roleplaying game.

MC Hammer is 6th elder dragon.

Hey!

I’m an asura but I’d like to get my hands on to other cultural armours. Now the cultural armour vendors tell me to bugger off but could I please buy an INFINITE MAGIC JIM token from TP (1200 gems) so I could hustle some of those heavy armours for my ranger.

TY