Guild Wars 2

Nobody but marketing thinks level gates make sense for GW 2.

Why? Because they make the game feel linear and mechanical. Guild wars 2 otherwise is designed around exploration/discovery/etc and the combat/progression fit that same running theme. Now you add a crazy super fun bonus unlock with loot thrown at my face every time we level in order to keep us playing because that’s what your marketing data told you. Try adding more interesting content, rather than a lazy way to bring in new people. Such as when a few people at Anet decided using basic behavior analytic trickery (How well did you implement your reinforcement schedules?) in order to bring in more people. I know, profit margins and all that, right? What mad mess that’s gotten us all into. But hey, Guild Wars 2 isn’t looking for a new job. It doesn’t have to fluff up its resume by doing things that add marketability. And you don’t need to cross the event horizon into the boring and sterile world of statistics to drive design decisions. Statistics can only test what’s already out there, and the MBA using them to provide “numerical evidence” for decisions is probably skewing those statistics, because statistics are easy to skew within a system that supports the biased interpretation of those statistics.

Anet (guild wars 2) doesn’t know who it wants to be, because it’s trying to squeeze the game into a standard consumer model for the genre while having an identity. You can’t have both.

They will soon remove most achievements as those you don’t achieve by simply progressing through the game have been considered to confusing and open-ended for players to handle.

Louveepine.7630:

I want to changeable weather. And armor skins sold in each map, for immersion.
With dark nights or rainy. Fog. Or snowstorms! Orages!

Elements that can make us use torches or lanterns, During deep dark nights.

They just arbitrarily locked Personal story quests because people were too confused.
There’s no way in hell A-net is going to add elements that actually require people to do more than follow a line to the next point. Arena net would probably expect a breakdown of guildwars 2 society if, god forbid, you can actually interact with the environment.

Blude.6812:

Of course—let’s add lag

You can make weather client side, then it just depends on the person’s rig.

Delmorii.6170:

I did my Personal Story up to level 10. I chose to level through map completion for a while, but after I hit 18, I wanted to pick up my Personal Story to get to level 20. But… now it’s locked until level 20, for some reason? May I ask WHY? This makes zero sense; the PS is already level-locked. I just… this change makes absolutely no sense. Please change it back.

Because a tool of money thought this would boost sales from accessibility.

Redenaz.8631:

Danikat.8537:

I’m still not entirely sure I agree with the change, but I understand why they did it.

Basically, this. I feel like it didn’t so much eliminate pacing problems as it did move them around. I can’t say if the new way is better or worse.

That’s what happens when you make ideas based on the best ‘projected profits’. Of course you’re going to see profits in things that already exist. People have to adopt new ideas before they are widely accepted. A money-obsessed economy is kittening stupid and oppressively short-sighted.

All it did is make every story quest easy and forces you to play them when they’re easy and digestable. Why do we all have to be punished because some are confused and used to having their hand held in mmos? How about A-net level locks story quests by default but have an ‘advanced’ option to unlock them so the rest of us who actually enjoy the challenge in mmos can still enjoy games like this and not expect this to be a sign of a downward spiral into mainstream dumbing down and copping out.

I wonder if the people complaining about the changing world are the ones who embraced the new "unlockable content by leveling’ Please go play a different MMo that focuses on being static and boring and linear, instead of trying to make this one into a bore-fest.

So your arbitrary content locks fly in the face of your ‘living world’ of an explorable and open mmo. I enjoyed this game immensely, but the latest patched that changed early game killed my desire to play new characters, and the arbitrary and ultimately moronic decision to limit your ability to move through story quests (from freedom to challenge challenging story quests, now you’re holding my hand! Mom?) pillaged my desire to play the game.

Congrats on the downward spiral of standardizing your game and slowly killing something that was once moved in the direction of how mmos need to go into a soulless machine that gorges itself on hollow and ultimately meaningless expanding profits.