Guild Wars 2

lordkrall.7241:

Which very much tells us why they are currently not active on the forums.

Yes. Apparently, this is not anywhere on their list of priorities. Which again bring us to the original point – their communication policy is… well, let’s call it not very good, to avoid using harsher words.

As long as they will be creating new armor sets at a similar rate as when they were in gemshop, it’s good news. I’m not so sure they will manage that, though.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Glad to hear that it was just misinformed players that were feeding me false information and that it is now cleared up. Still, 10k is a lot to grind for nevertheless.

10k of the nougats/skulls/fangs is still plain impossible to grind in allotted time. It seems that again someone assumed, that the only valid way to get gear in this game is to farm gold and buy materials off TP. And it’s not like the gift itself is cheap or anything…
I just don’t understand the reasoning behind this change.

AliamRationem.5172:

If the complaint is that raids will have legendary armor first, so what? Nobody promised that they would prioritize your specific wants and needs before everyone else in every case.

At this moment, the complaints aren’t about raids getting it first. They are a result of Anet strongly suggesting that other options aren’t even considered.

AliamRationem.5172:

I don’t see why it should be a requirement that people who participate in content you don’t appreciate must not have access to exclusive rewards simply because you don’t like their attitudes and you don’t feel like participating in raids.

Now think about it. You say the above, but at the same time completely support people that participate in content you don’t appreciate (casuals) not getting access to exclusive rewards you can get. Simply because you don’t like them not finding raids fun.

AliamRationem.5172:

Seriously, just go play in your own sandbox and leave the raiders alone.

I’d be happy to. As soon as raiders will stop telling me what i can and what i cannot get as rewards in my sandbox.

AliamRationem.5172:

The only issue I see here is time frame. How long will non-raiders have to wait to see their equivalent legendary armors?

At this moment the answer is “no shorter than it takes to persuade devs that non-raiders should get it too”. Which topics like this one are all about.

AliamRationem.5172:

I see nothing wrong with providing raiders with legendary armor first, particularly as we’re several years into this game and the first raid has only just arrived. But ANet should take extra care to ensure that non-raiders are prioritized in a timely fashion following this release. Fair enough?

Assuming they won’t wait with this too long, and inform us about their decision as soon as possible. Because until they confirm that this is what’s gonna happen, people will continue complaining. And raids may end up a casualty in a resulting crossfire.

Sird.4536:

When will you casuals understand that Legendary armour is the same as Ascended.

The moment you agree that if it’s really the same, there’s no problem in having it be accessible outside raids.

Sird.4536:

Stop feeling like you are entitled to the gear because you have played for years but don’t have time.

Oh, the bad E word. Let me use it too. Stop feeling entitled to exclusive gear simply because you are liking a different playstyle than i do.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Everytime I’ve been in a dungeon or fractal, there’s always been at least a death or two, and most of these deaths could have been avoided by wearing a safer set.

That’s the problem. Most of them really couldn’t, and as for the rest… For every one fight that succeeded due to someone surviving thanks to a more tanky build, there will be 10 that ended up as a wipe because they lasted too long as a result of not enough dps.

Apart from that, there’s no specific gear that should be used by casual players. Every such player can decide what they can (and should) wear on their own. For many, it will be zerks (because zerks do make the fights easier even on average skill level – you don’t need to be a “hardcore speedrunner” for that).

As the current fractal meta shows, survivability is an important factor, but doesn’t need to be achieved by using less optimal gear.

Nimrud.5642:

Gibon.1705:

http://qtfy.enjin.com/dps

:O

So does that mean that I can finally gear up my druid for condi dmg without being a drawback compared to necros and engies?

Remember that these are the dps golem tests, so, in case of necro, do not include the huge dps boost from epidemic.

Oh, and here i thought the opposite – that a lot of armor is definitely better designed for males, while females get plated thongs and bikinis.

Vexx.3169:

Thoughts? She’s awesome – She’s promising Asura Progeny personified.

Anet – props for making that adorable little ball of snark.

Yeah. Taimi’s probably the best thing in this patch.

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

Here’s an update: You are not supposed to like the villain. You’re supposed to hate the villain, hate what they do, hate that you don’t understand why or how they’re doing it and get so emotional that you call for their early demise.

Again, you don’t seem to understand. We do not hate Scarlet for being a “good” (well-written) villain. What we hate is her writing. That’s something completely different. And i do understand why she’s doing what she’s doing – it’s because Anet has problems writing a good and compelling storyline and defaults to most simple, repeatable plots, and “monster of the week” approach.
And i don’t want her dead. I want her removed from the game.
So no, i’d hardly call that a “success”.

Jatacid.3725:

What would your method be? How do you think you should get the new Ascended gear?

As fast and easy as possible. I do not enjoy regearing.

Absurdo.8309:

We both know that ascended and legendary have the same stats. So why do people really want legendaries?

Because, in the mind of players, they are better. Don’t try to deny it, seeing as you suffer from it yourself. By trying to defend legendary armor exclusivity to raids all you do is only help enforcing that view even more.

And, as i said before, if you really believed legendary and ascended is the same, you wouldn’t even bother to protest against nonraiders getting it.

Fafnir.5124:

People ask for realism but do you really want it?

We’re not asking for realism. We’re asking for sense.

So, basically, you want to make it harder for buyers and most sellers in order to decrease competition for the current TP barons? Or to make it easier for some sellers to scam the buyers?

No, thank you. I’ll pass.

Obtena.7952:

Leather farm is simply that … a place to farm leather.

If the intended “leather farm” place is the worst place to farm leather on the whole map, something is wrong.

AliamRationem.5172:

This really makes no sense to me. If I don’t want to participate in certain content such as PvP, or adventures, or open world events, why should I expect to receive the rewards for doing so?

That’s not a good question. The real one is “why should i expect to get better rewarded just because i like a content that majority of the players dislike”.

AliamRationem.5172:

Having said that, I don’t view legendary armor as mandatory content.

Neither do i (after all, nothing in this game is truly mandatory). But i do see them as developers’ signal to the community about which content is favoured by them (and which isn’t).

AliamRationem.5172:

There is no justification for making every legendary item attainable by all content pathways.

And why exactly is that?

AliamRationem.5172:

Raids should have exclusive items, as should PvP, as should adventures, open world achievements, and so on. As long as they are all equivalent, ANet stays true to the original intent.

You might use skins for that. When you start using gear tiers, things stop being equivalent.

AliamRationem.5172:

If that means I have to participate in undesirable content if I want to get a specific legendary skin, then so be it.

You may think that way, i don’t. Especially if the content is extremely unfun for me.

AliamRationem.5172:

That doesn’t mean I’m being forced to do anything.

Sure, i’m not forced to do anything, including playing the game. It still makes the game much less enjoyable.

AliamRationem.5172:

Finally, I recognize that the time frame matters. If raids have access to the only legendary armor pieces for a significant period of time, that isn’t really fair to those who don’t raid. But what do you propose we do? It is not acceptable in my mind to grant exclusive raid legendaries for non-raid content just as it would be inappropriate to provide PvP legendaries for open-world content. But they do need to provide reward paths to suit various types of players. Based on what I’ve heard of this game’s history, it’s only fair.

If they cannot provide a second set soon, then giving an alternate way to obtain this one will be the only solution. Because while you might think that’s inappropriate, i think that withholding legendary armor from the majority of player populace is far worse.

They may fix some small issues with the armor, but that’s all. What you’re asking for is a complete redo of the chest piece, which simply isn’t going to happen.

They worked for a year for what we have now. Any such major change as you’re proposing would take a lot of time as well (chestpiece is the major part of the medium armor, after all). If they had that time and workload to dedicate for it, it would be more cost-effective to make a second set for non-raid content.

Which they definitely should do, for reasons that reach far beyond just aestethic ones.

Nokaru.7831:

Astralporing.1957:

At this moment, the complaints aren’t about raids getting it first. They are a result of Anet strongly suggesting that other options aren’t even considered.

Why are you thinking this? What’s the source on this?

Last AMA. When asked about alternate ways to obtain legendary armor, they answered

We designed the rewards for raids around the acquisition of Legendary Armor. It’s similar to how players are working towards their legendary backpiece in Fractals or the new Legendary Weapons that are largely something acquired in the open world.

Additionally, today Mike O’Brian announced that all current work on legendary weapons from the second set gets suspended indefinitely (because apparently they need that workforce for LS and other stuff). If they are delaying something they have announced already, the chances of them working on something similar which they haven’t mentioned yet are practically nonexistent.

Nokaru.7831:

I’d be happy to. As soon as raiders will stop telling me what i can and what i cannot get as rewards in my sandbox.

I’m not telling you what you can or cannot get. In fact, the only “demands” I’ve seen are those being made by you.

I’m not aiming them at you. I’m not telling you how you should play the game. I’m not suggesting you should not be rewarded. All the suggestions i am making are about the content aimed at me and players like me.
And yet the raiders for some reason do not like that.

You are asking me to leave you alone in your sandbox, but it’s you that are unwilling to leave me alone in mine.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Fay.2735:

Apparently it was because people were using it to deposit baubles while in the super adventure box and thereby bypassing the bag upgrade system and 500 bauble limit without ever needing to leave to use a city bank (Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s the rumour I heard).

Bauble Limit. Now this makes sense. And even more infuriating if this idiotic nostalgia “temporary” april fools crap is the reason.

If that is so, then i fully expect the guild bank access upgrade be returned to what it was before after SAB is removed in May. Or to make the vault inaccessible from SAB.
The best way to fix exploits is to fix exploits, not to change the game around them.

Hystery.8415:

Oh.

My.

Goodness.

Someone answered.

Champagne, everyone!

Hold on on this champagne. Someone posted. I don’t see any answers there though.

Come to think, the very fact such post is enough cause for champagne tells us how bad the communication with Anet is lately.

stale.9785:

Censorship – the principle that adults must live on pablum because baby can’t have steak.

Actually it’s more like “civility – the price we have to pay for functional society”. Yes, any restriction to personal freedom is a negative thing, but at the same time often the price of not restricting those things is even greater.

Tigaseye.2047:

The trick is to know when it is acceptable and when it isn’t.

Exactly. Unfortunately it seems that some people think that self-restrain is something that should happen to others, not to themselves. And think that internet anonymity should make them immune from repercussions for their behaviour.

Behellagh.1468:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Behellagh.1468:

Tornupto.2304:

I always carry 3 Armorsets, 3 sets of trinkets, ~20 Weapons, bufffood (~8-10) and some other items around. Doing dungeons or even normal open world events can result in a full bag. Sometimes you even carry some materials because your vault is full and so on…
In times where i cleaned my bag completely of any mats, exos and whatever doesn’t have to be there i have like 40 free inventory slots. Thats not that much.

This isn’t Dark Souls or The Witcher. This is a problem of your own making because you don’t want to stop at a bank to swap gear.

What if bank tabs are full?
How is having more bank tabs any different?

Cause the devs decided that 160 slots plus 14 shared on a character should be enough for anybody and a player needs to learn to manage it.

Yes. And, because their original estimations about the amount of space needed for anyone were final, they introduced shared slots, then increased their number 2 times, and increased the number of bank tabs.
Which gets us the current number, that is definitely final. Just as the previous ones were.

STIHL.2489:

Astralporing.1957:

STIHL.2489:

• I don’t see this happening, with the legions of cosmetic fluff in the game, I think people would be able to grasp “it’s just for show”

Read the previous mount threads. Usually the people that asked for purely cosmetic mounts on page 1 specify, that “purely cosmetic” means “with only basic speed boosts” on page 3 and then go on to state that anything less than 200% boost would be stupid on page 5. That’s a pretty consistent pattern.

This discussion is not that discussion.

Here we have pretty much established that we have ‘mounts’ in the game already, and if we got more added, they would follow the existing theme.

As for “Purely Cosmetic” giving any kind of boost, I don’t recall my “Purely Cosmetic” outfits giving me any kinds of bonus, so not sure how they figure “Cosmetic = Bonus”

That’s on them, and maybe for the best the topics don’t get merged.

lol, basically few posts down from yours and we get this:

Einlanzer.1627:

Being purely cosmetic is silly. They obviously need to provide a modest travel speed boost to be attractive. It shouldn’t be as much as it is in WoW. I would say 25% or so – the same speed boost some of the class abilities provide.

Already people asking for speed boosts

Jhoul.6923:

Now that I think about it, they could add a Mastery for mount, and allow certain content to be accessed via the mount of the mastery lv.

or locking content behind having a mount.

See what i was saying?

Better nuke it from orbit. That’s the only way to be sure.

Now you know what the white mobs everyone keeps attacking feel.

serenke.4806:

Coldtart.4785:

The logic that defends these dailies is bizarre. ‘You can’t finish your daily without doing something you don’t like, but some of those things are easy so that makes it OK’.

The idea is to pick which dailies you do. You CAN finish your dailies without going into fractals, so the logic you mentioned is flawed.

Both WvW and SPvP players can easily do their dailies always without dipping into PvE. Why PvE players should be encouraged to move to PvP for their dailies? There’s a double standard here at play.

Dengar.1785:

Can you at the very least explain why you want your fully unlocked guild hall yesterday?

Because he would want to get back to the point his guild was at before HoT nerfed them into the ground?

Drakz.7051:

I think it should only be obtainable from the raids. If pvpers want it then they need to earn it from the raid like the rest of us xD

Why? After all, if it is to be a mark of prestige, it should be available through content with higher difficulty (and compared to playing against real players, raids are easy).
Or are you afraid you’re not good enough?

Shpongle.6025:

Yargesh.4965:

Probably mostly because it costs money to hire people to regulate and maintain several languages.

what is there to maintain ? all they have to do is put the numerics in so that the game accepts them(doesn’t show up blank in-game), they’re basically blocking the alphabets because they can’t handle people saying things that they can’t understand

More to the point, they cannot moderate what they can’t understand. Suppose someone sent them a report on offensive language in chat, and they have seen something written in cyrilic. They’d need to have someone on staff able to read it.

Zaxares.5419:

More than likely ANet will include some other way to get the Zealot/Keeper stats after Origins of Madness is over. However, it will probably be on the same sort of system like a yearly recurring event (similar to the Bazaar and the Celestial recipes).

They could do it for Celestial recipes, because those were really common at the time of the event. Which means, anyone that wanted them could have gotten them easily, or bought cheaply off TP. Of course, since that time prices have risen, due to scarcity – if the event was to be reintroduced however, they’d drop in price very fast and hard.

And of course celestial ascended recipes are not limited to tp/seasonal events. And it’s the ascended ones that are the problem now, not exotic.

Introducing the keeper recipes that way, just after CDI that clearly told devs that ascended gear are too much of a grind, can hardly be called a good move.

Coulter.2315:

I think the point is remember when you were playing WoW or whatever 15 years ago, did you enjoy putting a lot of time into getting the best stuff or raiding?

Hell, no. That was never fun. And while it took me some time to realize it (and decide to get away from it), the toxicity this generated affected me in a really negative way.

Coulter.2315:

Do you really want to deprive younger people of the experiences you had?

Definitely. Though deprive wouldn’t be the word i’d use. Shelter would fit better.

Obtena.7952:

People aren’t happy because people didn’t pay attention to Anet telling them that HoT was going to be different than Core.

You think that if they knew how big the difference would be (which wasn’t in no way clear from the prelaunch info) they’d be more happy? Why, when the very difference that is the result of their unhappiness remains unchanged?

Obtena.7952:

It is what they paid for when they got HoT. Don’t try to pretent HoT attempts to repeat the things that Core was delivering.

Yes, the complete 180 degrees turn the game made with HoT is exactly what the argument is about.

Avarice.2791:

Manasa Devi.7958:

That was never true of the vast majority of GW2’s pre-HoT content.

Sure it was. You have one hour to play a day. Your buddy has ten. He will most certainly achieve all his goals before you. You will always be behind in this game if you are not able to commit a certain amount of time.

Yes, i would be behind. But i would still be able to achieve the same things, just at a slower rate. Not so with raids.

onevstheworld.2419:

Let me rephrase that then:
“One particular design decision in GW2 is that you can START your raiding career with your character already having MULTIPLE full sets of best-in-slot equipment. Most other MMOs require you to actually finish raids to get best-in-slot”

Sorry, no dice. Viper accesories are acquirable only through Raidings. You can’t get them any other way. And currently Vipers are best in slot for condi builds.

laokoko.7403:

The raids would be deserted once beaten unless there is incentive to go back to grind for legendary armor.

That’s not exactly true. Yes, there needs to be some incentive, and that means that Raids needs to have good rewards. Those rewards however do not need to be exclusive.

In fact, they’d better not be – if legendary armor is the main reason why raiders participate in that content, then raids will start getting deserted once first waves of raiders will finish obtaining it. Yes, there will be slow trickle of new people, but with the absence of a thriving raiding community the content will end up more dead than dungeons now.

Unless of course what you claim isn’t true, and legendary armor is not really needed to bring people in.

Andulias.9516:

There are people in GW2 who want more challenging group content. Should they receive NOTHING because you don’t want them to?

No, why? I just don’t agree that they are entitled (yes, that bad E word) to exclusive rewards.

Obtena.7952:

I don’t know what you’re talking now. They will what? Tell their shareholders? Not sure you have noticed but … HoT has been out for 6 months. The shareholders already know.

And Colin leaves now, and Mike promises to tone down the “hardcoreness” of HoT open world (and makes a lot of effort to persuade people that raids are just a sideshow, even when they clearly aren’t).
Accident? Perhaps…

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I saw a long ago video once where a commander leaped off a cliff in WvW and everyone in the zerg followed him. Then all the dead player icons at the bottom of the cliff…..

I’d say that the one with a necro that jumped down the cliff to escape an enemy zerg… then pulled back with spectral recall after zerg jumped after him to their deaths is even better.

Subdue.5479:

Therefore, in order to create equilibrium and keep prices fair for other game modes, PvE needs to be brought down to the level of PvP and WvW in terms of rewards.

No. Equality doesn’t need to mean making everyone equally miserable. If you find a game mode lacking in something, by all means argue for that situation to be improved. Do not claim however, that if you can’t have something, then the only solution is to have that thing taken away from the person next to you.
It’s not a real world where we do need to share a finite number of resources, after all. Here, in the game, giving stuff to people does not require taking it from others.

Subdue.5479:

Take today’s for example:

PvE:
Activity Participation > Quick & Easy
Krytan Lumberer > Quick & Easy
Metrica Event Completer > Potentially time consuming
Frozen Maw > Potentially time consuming

Take yesterday’s then – double Fractals, Brisban Events and Maguuma Jungle Miner. Or any day where world boss daily requires waiting for 3 hours if you logged at the wrong time.
Then tell me it’s all nice and equal.

(Also, notice how no WvW daily set requires you to change zones even once.)

Ayrilana.1396:

Astralporing.1957:

Lévis.5489:

It takes about 10-15 minutes to get the three achievements needed for the daily, and it gives a free 10 AP, instead of grinding 10 achievements to get the 10 daily AP. Are we seriously kittening about simplified dailies that take less time?

They don’t take less time. That’s the point. Every minute of doing them is a minute playing content i wouldn’t have been doing otherwise, while the previous dailies (excluding WvW/PvP specific) all could have been done doing things that I wanted. And i still got more AP on monthly basis than i will get now.

So you’re saying it takes more time to do 3 achievements compared to 5? You’re also saying it takes more time to do achievement that now require you to do less than they used to such as gathered?

The time that it takes out of your personal time is a matter of personal preference and does not dispute that doing the daily now takes less time and even less time to get 10 AP than before.

It’s 20-30 minutes dedicated to doing stuff i don’t care about, as compared to doing 0 minutes doing stuff i don’t care about. See the difference?

Also, if we compare straight times, yes, doing those 3 events will often take more than doing 5 on previous system. What you are forgetting is that those new dailies are completely separated, while on old system you quire often could work on 4-7 dailies at the same time. It was a “bad dailies” day when i didn’t get meta on Tequatl alone.

Delvoire.8930:

Also, I can’t think of one thing that has magic involved and makes sense. Magic defies logic. That’s the purpose of it.

No. magic defies laws of physics (as we know them), not logic. The moment logic breaks, the setting breaks.

Berethor.6142:

Having rules exist and knowing what those rules are and what they do are not the same thing.

True, but some rules and limitations can be reasoned by observance.

Berethor.6142:

LOL go read the dark tower series, if that doesn’t “stretch(es) the limits of believability” every third or fourth paragraph, I don’t know what does, and it is an amazing series considered by many to be the some of if not the best work in its genre.

It doesn’t. Nowhere in that series ever i have thought “huh, that thing doesn’t fit in there”. Yes, lot of extraordinary things are happening in that series, but the scale on which they operate is defined very fast. The series remain internally consistent.

I will give you an example of what i mean about internal consistency and how using “it’s magic” card cannot replace that.

There are two (three?) problems with alliances Scarlet uses to further her ends. First, the reasons why they even work for her are really flimsy and require us to forget most of what we know about the races in question and their nature. Second (tied to the one before), it’s hard to explain why they keep following her when their own goals were either reached, or made unviable, even when the continuation of their servitude to Scarlet is only detrimental for them. Third, there’s the matter of the resources, that do not diminish even after being significantly depleted (or even the matter of where those resources even come from).

Yes, we can solve all of those problems with Magic! We can say, that Scarlet is mind-controlling massive groups of people into obedience, and conjuring resources (and people) out of nowhere. It’s magic, after all, so nothing is impossible.
But, there are two problems tied to such approach. First, it would mean her magic is extremely powerful. Way more powerful than any other magic we’ve seen or heard so far, short of power of the human gods. In fact, it would be way more powerful that what we see so far elder Dragons are capable of – while they seem to be able to both mind control and create servants, there are some stringent limitations on those cases that Scarletwould then seem to completely ignore.
Second, if she was capable of magic of that level, she would not have needed to gather those armies in the first place. She could have just blown up LA with a flick of her mind. Or ordered the city inhabitants to serve her if they want to live.
Unless, of course, she’s not capable of doing that – but in that case we cannot use magic as an explanation for the earlier inconsistences.
Logic always needs to be adhered to. Magic or no magic. Otherwise the story has no sense.

ODB.6891:

DoctorDing.5890:

Core game is still casual-friendly but HoT is definitely not.
The mistake they made is to launch an expansion that is so dramatically different to the core game.

They told us exactly what the expansion was going to be about before it was even launched.

Bullkitten.

ODB.6891:

There were many us making a huge stink on the forums, before launch, specifically because they were being excessively vague about what the expansion would contain. They eventually gave up the goods and made posts detailing what it would be like. They told us it would be more challenging.

They still were really vague on that point. That might have meant a multitude of things. It definitely didn’t have to mean maps where everything is part of a meta on a timer, and most things are made for groups. It didn’t have to mean guildhalls, legendary crafting and many other things hidden beyond massive material and gold sinks. It didn’t have to mean nerfing dungeons into the ground (which, btw, happened for the players that didn’t buy expac too). They also didn’t say that all of the expac would be for hardcores.

ODB.6891:

Why would you buy something that you know in advance, that you don’t want to play? That isn’t ANET’s mistake…

Of course it isn’t Anet’s mistake. They intentionally marketed the expac to players it was not meant for. They had to, because the number of players it was meant for was too small to support that expac on their own. Which is why they haven’t given me enough info to realize the expac wasn’t for me. On the contrary, the whole time what they were saying was that i’d better buy HoT because core will be left forgotten. Guildhalls? Need HoT. New specializations? Need HoT. Masteries? need HoT. Precursor crafting? Need HoT. Participation in all future Living Story chapters? Definitely need HoT. Any changes and improvements for the game? Need HoT.
They kept repeating that day after day – this was their message. Not “buy HoT only if you want challenging group content” as you claim.

Meglobob.8620:

It helps balance no life 24/7 gamers vs people who work for a living and enjoy gaming as a pleasurable hobby…

I work for a living, and enjoy gaming as a hobby. I’m still seriously irritated by the timegating. Especially since (due to work), while i am able to devote lot of time to the game during weekends, Monday-Friday is completely different matter. Especially if i pull an afternoon shift.

This time gating is not casual friendly. Casuals do not play every day, every week, every month all year.

ArchonWing.9480:

IMO, buying an ascended piece should permanently remove it from the list for that character until you destroy or infuse it

I have a much simpler solution. Remove the Unique tag from those items – they do absolutely nothing besides causing a lot of misunderstandings.

If the consequence would be another Tequatl, or something close, then i’d rather have Shatterer remain unchanged.

Because Anet likes to use cannons to kill flies.

qazqazqaz.2098:

People thinking megaservers were implemented to save money need to take off their tinfoil hats and stop being ridiculous.

Well, if they were implemented to help with lag, as per anet claims, then they achieved exactly opposite results.

Dindin.2378:

I totally understand you coming from MMORPG’s where being the most powerful was the most important goal.

You can. This kind of “progression” does exist here. It’s just skill based, not gear based. In order to become more powerful, you need to become more skilled at the game. There’s no shortcut of just getting a better gear and pretending that it somehow made you a better player.

John Smith.4610:

Essence Snow.3194:

…PS increasing something like .0000001 to .00000012….

That’s a 20% change. I don’t understand your simile.

20% increase on a miniscule chance may be significant to Anet (who looks at the market as a whole), but is completely inconsequential to the individual trying to forge a precursor.

It may be a novel thing to an economist, but sometimes money is not everything that matters. And people are not statistics.

Vayne.8563:

Yes, that’s a big difference. As big as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant.

And claiming that it was never meant to be a vegetarian restaurant in the first place, while completely ignoring the original ads clearly stating “vegetarian: no meat inside” in big letters. You always seem to skip over that point, talking about “necessary changes” and “evolution”. It’s not only that the direction of the game has changed. It’s that Anet tries to tell us that there was no change – that the original and current design are the same (even when they contradict each other word for word).

blakkrskyrr.7413:

the dredge in the car room is great for farming.

Trust me, if you go in fractals for farming, you are doing something very wrong.

Obtena.7952:

You don’t seem to understand what you are actually paying for when you purchased HoT

And you seem to think that apparently i should just accept that what i actually paid for were empty promises, and i shouldn’t have expected any of them to be fulfilled at all. And like that, for some reason.
No, sorry. A major part of expansion is a major part of expansion. if i have paid for it, i expect all the major parts to actually be delivered. Or i won’t be prepurchasing anything from Anet again.

Because if i accept the premise that Anet can (and will) change the deal after getting the money, and is not actually expected to deliver any major features, then i’d be stupid to give them any money before actually confirming that everything they advertised have already made it into the game.

Not a bug, they listed the events that count in the meta so there’s no mistake here.
It’s more surprising the dailies are even there, since those are the “old style” dailies (1ap per daily, no other rewards). I guess the group that did the wintersday event didn’t talk to people that nerfed daily system.

Alukah.2063:

“A new player joining GW2 in late 2014 would still be a good 6 months away from acquiring the base set of ascended gear”

Does it really take 6 months to craft all 6 pieces?

6 armor pieces, 2-6 weapons, 5 trinkets and a backpack? Yeah. Maybe 1% of players can do it faster. Majority would take way longer.

And that’s only for a single char so far – there are alts to consider.

Ascended gear is way too hard to acquire now, so obviously i hope that the difficulty will be eventually lowered (preferably as soon as possible), and it will be made available through many other avenues. What i fear however, is that once on a gear escalator, it will never stop. Anet may not be planning on adding a new tier of gear now, but it doesn’t mean such plans won’t appear in 2014. They said several times that they definitely think about raising level cap, which sound equally bad. Both of those will likely be a gamebreaker – at least for me.

BondageBill.4021:

In my experience, this is even one of the bigger selling points of expansions in MMOs. I have seen several friends quit MMOs because they cannot keep up with the gear curve, only to rejoin when an expansion is released because they are on par with the rest of the population. Again, this option can be good for the longevity of MMOs as a gear reset may rejuvenate the MMO community.

May be like that for MMO’s that were created with hamster wheels in mind, but in GW2, a game that was supposed not to have any, there are still a lot of players that came here to avoid such cyclical gear reset. All those people that quit other games because they couldn’t keep up with gear curve and came to GW2 following promises that there would be no gear curves here. They would not like the reset at all.
In short, I do not believe that such an action would bring more players than it would push away.

BobbyStein.2315:

Scarlet
If memory serves me, we foreshadowed Scarlet’s existence through a comment Mai Trin made during one of the summer releases. This got some folks speculating on who she was, her part in all the attacks, etc. Scarlet debuted in August during the Queen’s Jubilee and has continued to make appearances here and there that slowly reveal her role in the overall plot.

The operative word here is “slowly” and judging from all the responses, many feel that the plot is moving ahead at a glacial pace. That Scarlet is nothing more than a cardboard cutout villain.

I will readily acknowledge that her presentation has elicited some strong reactions in the community. Some people love her. Others hate her. While that kind of polarizing view can sometimes be an asset, it brings some polarizing baggage to the conversation every time her name is brought up. Here’s where I think we could have done a better job with her.

• Tone: Scarlet is crazy, but she sometimes comes off as over-the-top and madcap. While that works in a lot of scenarios, it’s not something that’s been extensively explored inside of Guild Wars 2 before. There is a reason to her madness but we haven’t revealed it yet. Perhaps it would have suited her character better to have shown that somewhere alongside her introduction. Scope had something to do with it in her debut, but honestly we knew she would be featured in multiple future releases so…

• Pacing: …we made the conscious decision to pace out her character development over multiple game builds. In other words, we haven’t gotten to that part of her story yet, but since nobody outside the building has an idea of what’s to come I can understand the reactions that she’s “one-dimensional” or conveniently powerful. We’re aware of the perception and feel that future releases will have content that develops her character.

Those are unfortunately not the main problems with Scarlet. Yes, the problems you have mentioned are important, but they are not what make her a “cardboard cutout villain”.

It’s the effect of putting the cart before the horse. Instead of making a villain, designing her personality and goals, her abilities and resources (with a reasonable explanation where she gets those resources), and then deciding what she can achieve with those resources in order to get to her goal, it seems you are doing it the other way around. Thinking what she can do, then making up (or not) resources for that. Without even caring whether her posessing those resources is reasonable or not.

Let’s look at the current Toxic Alliance as an example.

We have an alliance between Krait and Nightmare Court, that serves some mysterious (and completely unknown to us) goals of Scarlet. To explain how this alliance came into being, obelisk shards were introduced. There is no explanation how they ended in Scarlet hands. There is no real explanation why Krait didn’t pursue other, more traditional for them means of obtaining those. No, the shards exist only to serve as a handwave explanation for the current story arc.

It certainly look like the alliance was designed first, and the means to forge it were made second. We can also only hope, that what they are doing does mesh somehow with Scarlet plans in some way.

Of course, at least this time there was an attempt to explain it at all, so it’s already an improvement to what was going on before. It still looks like someone just threw the dice to decide what next 2 groups would be merged in alliance this time.

Not to mention that her plan so far looks like going the “we’ll think something up later. And since she’s mad she doesn’t have to act logical, does she?” way.

This is not the problem of information pacing. This is a problem of setting consistency, story consistency, internal logic and general believability.

And it’s currently so bad, that i don’t believe anymore that it can be fixed somehow in further parts of the story arc.

TL/DR:
there’s a nice quote i heard somewhere: “A difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense”. Your fiction doesn’t, and this is something you need to work on first.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Manasa Devi.7958:

There’s a very easy solution. Make more than 4 merry-go-rounds. A respectable amount of content.

So, you’re fine with everything about the reward system except that there should have been more zones, each being its own meta event? How many more would it have taken to satisfy you?

Err, no, i’m not sure how you could get that from this discussion. What i meant (and Manasa likely meant as well) is that there should be a lot of other content, besides 4 metas.

TL/dr: not only the quantity of content is small, but it is also lacking in variety, which compounds the problem.

Based on what HoT taught me? Highly unlikely