Guild Wars 2

Honestly it would be nicer if they updated their policy regarding discussion of future updates… have they said anything about that yet? I don’t mind waiting half as much as I do mind complete silence. Complete silence (this dev comment still counts as silence) often indicates that things have gone stagnant. Regular communication – whether limited from certain reveals or not – is a better policy than stonewalling a playerbase.

I’d really really really like to say that Anet doesn’t stonewall us (I really enjoy the Guild Wars series and the community it has built), but I’ve seen so little interaction…

Celtic Lady.3729:

Gene Archer.8560:

They filled that void by locking away things that small guilds already had worked for and you KNOW it.

In my opinion, it’s really never okay to take away what someone or a group has already spent time earning. It would have been possible to simply give guilds what they had before and let them work toward the new things. There still would have been plenty to do and it wouldn’t exactly have been game-breaking.

Big +1. Seriously, rather than rework prices of current things, lock previously unlocked things, etc… Anet should just add random new content to use up our materials and gold. Buildable/craftable/researchable/etc stuff. They’ve already got templates; it couldn’t be ridiculously hard to simply add more, could it?

On top of that, people pay good money for aesthetics. Outfits. Minis. Etc. Why wouldn’t they spend more gems and gold and materials adding aesthetics to guild halls? Didn’t need to rework the whole thing as a gold/material sink in a way that cuts the little guys out xP

Aenaos.8160:

erKo.9586:

Im just wondering how many are like me:
-Played 100% wvw & LOVED IT! before the expansion and new maps.
-Can’t handle the new maps becuase they are to big & messy & pve.
-Just play some EB sometimes but… the fun is gone because the maps are empty & everything about WvW just feels….lost becuase of the changes.
-Have actually tested PvE since the expansion but.. well it aren’t so fun as the old-days-WvW.

If there were enough players to fill the new maps you’d be having fun.
You compare a map you played for 3 years to the new one.
It’s normal that you feel confused and not accustomed to the layout.
Play this map for 3 years and it will look as simple and normal as the
old one.

Eeeeeexcept that WvW wasn’t designed for meta-events like knocking down everyone’s gates with dinosaur-farmed cannons.

SirServed.5693:

Khisanth.2948:

A map can hold 200 players.

200
- 15 flax farmers
- 3 Patriarch
- 5 Huetzi and Cotoni

177 left after that

assuming half of those are doing other random stuff that leaves

88 people for Matriarch, Axemaster, Tetrad or 29 evenly split between those that is more than enough

You forgot the part where they have to actually be competent. A lot of people got so used to their cookie cutter setups from Vanilla and are now getting destroyed in HoT content. I do however agree, people blaming Flax farmers and raiders because they can’t get off their kittens and get things done is a poor excuse at best. Everyone just sits there waiting for someone with a tag to get things started for them.

^ This happens because there are (although Anet hasn’t really seemed to notice) a lot of casual players. If most casual players are like myself, they’d be willing to tag up to rally people, but they’d still be unsure how events pan out. As far as I can tell, only full-timers tag up regularly because they know exactly where to go and when. I’ve completed the full metas quite a few times, but I still have a very limited understanding of what to do in what order… so I only tag up if I’ve found a central event or a boss fight and there isn’t a commander there already.

Trolls, trolls, everywhere, and not a shred of decency to spare… sigh. People, huh? =/

Celtic Lady.3729:

CETheLucid.3964:

Jahroots.6791:

I’m guessing the OP was stockpiling Giant Eyes or something.

That’d be my guess.

Yeah, my money’s on this one, too.

Has to be, yeah… seeing as cash gain from mats would quickly nerf itself.

Kormeg.2469:

Fluffball.8307:

Nova Stiker.8396:

9,000? Compare it to League of Legends 32,000,000
You would think it would give ArenaNet the hint they should fix and improve PvP

Compare it to the Super Bowl and GW2 is pathetic. What’s your point? The money rewards and viewership keep climbing exponentially. It’s not hurting anyone for them to say the match is going on, and it’s helping a lot of people. What’s the problem here? Should they stop helping people?

Why are people wetting their pants because anet is telling us that something is happening that we want to watch? Because a handful of PvE players are offended by it for no reason, and it’s disturbing their loading screen? No.

No no, the text on loading screens is obviously hurting these people.

Wait, there’s text on the loading screens? I haven’t seen that. Huh. When did that start?

It wouldn’t hurt to keep some element of automatic upgrade system in WvW – like a 3-hour hold upgrades walls/gates, and that’s the full extend of auto-upgrade – but the way it’s currently set up doesn’t really encourage any kind of defense or offensive strategy. Half the fun in WvW was choosing what to upgrade and where, or whether to save resources, etc. Maybe something else Anet could consider is the assault consequences that the Elder Scrolls Online WvW mode uses – where you have to repair any damage you did to the fortress/tower when you cap it. That might almost make auto-upgrades plausible.

Kraggy.4169:

So many agenda-specific definitions of ‘MMO’ around here, so many people playing semantic games to try to support their own view about what an MMO is and isn’t.

The words mean one thing, and one thing only .. MASSIVELY simply means large-scale, MULTIPLAYER means more than one person is in the world at the same time ONLINE is frankly redundant since for two players to co-exist some form on ‘networking’ in the general sense has to exist.

One last thing .. the G in MMORPG, DOESN’T stand for GROUP, some people in this thread need to learn that. World events are entirely what an MMORPG is, entirely doable without being forced to ‘group up’.

Curiously, not quite. “Massively” is an adverb and is only a modifier for “multiplayer”, which means it is “very multiplayer” (in other words, it is easy and/or common to join up with someone else playing the game). Whether or not that is how it is meant or used, that’s what it means. “Online” itself isn’t redundant, as you could be hosting a game over LAN if you are playing multiplayer. You can even play some multiplayer games on the same device/console/computer.

I’m not really sure what you are saying in your last paragraph. You indicate that grouping isn’t necessary, and then mention world events (which generally indicates events that many people will need to participate in)… what exactly do you mean?

If you’re simply stating that people shouldn’t have to group up to play an MMO, I agree to a certain extent. It’s still good to have events and bosses that require the strength of a group to overcome. But it’s generally tricky to collect a group of people who will always want to travel in a pack with singular purpose, so a lot of the core gameplay needs to be soloable. This was dealt with using a different method for Guild Wars 2 than in Guild Wars 1; in GW1 you were able to put together a squad of NPCs to follow you around, but in GW2, mobs were scaled down to ones, and events scale depending on the number of people in the area.

But I believe I digress… it’s true that a lot of people construct their own ideas of what MMOs are, but at the same time, it’s entirely possible that developers are feeding them those ideas. The problem is that while the term exists, development may not necessarily adhere to terminology. Sometimes, terminology is simply marketing.

SirDrygan.1823:

Here’s the thing, people play Guild Wars 2 Year 1 edition because it allows them almost limitless restrictions to where you can go, what you can do and how you do it. (About 90%)
Then comes Guild Wars 2 Year 2 edition, and it turns into almost (78%) a WoW clone. But people still love it.
Then comes Guild Wars 2 Year 3 edition and it could change it’s name into Grind Wars 2 and no one will bat an eye about it.
Of course, there are still people who have that old MMO mentality and white knight mentality that ARENANET could do no wrong. It’s like ARENANET is their god and they worship it without questions.

Now, currently Guild Wars 2 : HoT Year 1 edition can also be called Grind Wars 2 : HoT Year 1 edition.
The Mastery are forced into you when you enter HoT.
There was no forced adventures in Core Tyria maps. You can enter Fields of Ruins as a Level 2 via the portal in Divinity ’s Reach and complete some of the Heart Quest in Ebonhawke like the tearing of the posters and such. But if you step out of Ebonhawke and try to run all the way to the Summit, you may die or you may not, depends on how skillful you can avoid the enemies there and their range.
Or, you could enter Frostgorge as a level 60 and still get all the way until Rojan the Penitent (Double Agent for Jormag), and wait for Claw of Jormag and go whack it.

But in HoT, try going to Patriach Wyvern without Glider updraft……oh wait, you can’t….

Funniest thing about white knights… even employees and devs wouldn’t uphold their game as staunchly as the white knights do. They might put on a public stone face (and talk fondly of particular elements they enjoy or are excited about), but in the boardrooms there’s always going to be a lot of discussion/tearing out of hair when it comes to the game as a whole. Sure, they might love working there, but that doesn’t mean they love every design choice for the game.

Obtena.7952:

Small guilds do small guild things. From the perspective of the game, I don’t really see it making much sense to have a guild hall if you have a 3 person guild in the first place. based on the requirements, I don’t think Anet does either, though I don’t believe anything stops you from trying, which is really the point. You aren’t blocked from getting the mats needed for whatever upgrades you’re after.

I disagree; even a small guild likes to have some place to call theirs. It would be good if Anet added little guild halls for little guilds (and less/smaller services as upgrades). A little, say… guild of thieves could have a smuggler’s den. I’d be content with a nice little hobbit hole. Or a little old-Ascalonian keep, perhaps.

Guild Wars 1 had guild halls of various sizes. I don’t see why Guild Wars 2 shouldn’t!

In fact, here’s a quote I found from a Guild Wars 1 guild hall vendor: “I am pleased that you should ask. Truly, what guild can call itself a guild without an island of its own? Come with me. I can take you on a tour of each island, and you can choose which you like the best.”

numberbb.8724:

Unsustainable event and map list.

Triple Trouble
Dry Top (High Tier)
Orr Temple events
Unpopular Dungeon Path

—HoT
Verdant Brink meta
Auric Basin meta
Tangled Depth meta

Are there any contents?

You missed Dragon’s Stand, which is even more important since completing the meta successfully there is the only way to reach the vendor.

Aomine.5012:

Serophous.9085:

Ashern.5328:

It’s very saddening for me to come to this revelation. I don’t understand what’s going on. Everything that has been implemented since the expansion has completely stabbed everyone in the back. Ascended crafting has practically tripled in cost; we now have to salvage multiple pieces of those pricey gears for a ball of dark energy for a collection or three.

They talk of keeping Legendary stats the same as ascended because they don’t believe in the “new tier of gear,” yet they practically contradict themselves directly by successfully draining gold and items from the economy and then requiring additional gold and items to be spent on gear that has always been available.

Hate to turn this thread into a bash HoT one, so I’ll stop. Thanks four your input, and I’ll know not to look at another precursor collection. I halfway want to drop Colossus but since I’ve already spent this much on it -.-.

Ask yourself WHY the cost tripled. What do you think caused it? Did it just “happen” out of thin air? Did Anet somehow “remove” people able to craft the ascended mats? No? Then what caused the price to triple?

Players did by wanting to rush and be first. Anet added more areas to the game that needs ascended mats (guild halls, precursor crafting) and the supply remained the same. So in a sense, the price tripled mainly because demand for the mats increased, and the supply is drying up. So anet needs to increase the supply in order to start to balance things out.

Until then, I’m just gonna keep selling all my ascended mats and enjoying the liquid gold and buy what I want.

Do you know why the price is tripled?

There’re 2 simple reasons.

One is requiring MASSIVE time-gated materials. Some of them requires up to 100~110 of the same type of time-gated material. It’s a very very cheap way to lock people away from legendaries for 3~4 months, not because of the difficulty and the challenges, but because of the pure time-gate issue.

The second reason is NO-ONE likes to do the boring low level zones for HUNDRED of hours just to gather 30000 worth of woods/ores. That’s why people ended up paying triple of the amount BECAUSE Anet is forcing them to do the most boring/brainless stuffs in game for hundred of hours.

So basically it’s not because of the challenge that push people away from legendaries. Is not because of the effort that push people away from the legendaries. It’s because of this cheap time-gate strategy in addition to asking you NOT to “play the game” for hundred of hours that drive people away from this new precursor crafting (I don’t consider roaming in maps that cause me 0 threat, skipping all mobs and just running around for woods/ores = playing the game)

If they ask for 5000 of currencies from HoT contents or 20000 badge of honors, people would be more willing to do so because it’s more engaging and fun. It’d be a long journey sure, but at least it’s more meaningful than gathering 30000 woods/ores. But instead, it’s all about money and time-gate again.

The flip side of this is that people who do spend time with their little axes and picks and sickles can now make a decent amount of money. It’s the rich-feeds-poor (or simply hard-working) economy. Is it fun for mid-tier people who want to get legendaries/ascendeds? Not particularly. Not for a while, either… but until prices stabilize, we could always go gather resources and make our fortunes. At that stage we’ll be able to collect our own legendaries for cheap. =)

Celtic Lady.3729:

DoctorDing.5890:

I don’t believe it was “well known” that the expansion was going to be harder than the core game.

The statements they did make ahead of time about the “challenging content” were extremely vague and not ideal for making buying decisions.

There were many things no one could have predicted that changed from the core game and “mobs will be more challenging” simply doesn’t cover all of it.

As far as I recall, they also didn’t mention that we would need 50+ people synchronized per map to gain substantial rewards, too, haha. I got 200% participation once, but I’m sure you all know that just got me a couple more uncommons and a crowbar at the end of the T2 meta…

Or you can spend half the 50-minute meta whacking a legendary dragon and end up with 20-40% participation at the end of a T3/T4.

I’d not say R.I.P. to the WvW map change, but rather l think we should have three different borderland maps (and servers cycle through them, as usual). That way people can choose which map suits their preference or playstyle most and assault or defend it. This would give more character and drive to WvW gameplay. (What would inspire me to assault someone else’s desert/ice/grassland/lava/jungle borderland when mine looks exactly the same and gives me exactly the same benefits and dolyaks and everything?)

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Zelkovan.2630:

What is a viable way of obtaining a mastery through physical interaction with the specific task it is related to, while making sure it isn’t easily cleared and without being too repetitive or limiting?

Seems to me there’s a question that needs to be asked before we even get to your question:

“How is the existing mastery system prevented from being easily cleared and not being too repetitive or limiting?”

The answer is: it isn’t. CoF farming is legal and clearly repetitive. HOT masteries can only be trained in HOT maps, so it’s limiting. People are claiming it’s not hard to train the masteries by doing events, especially DS which apparently gives millions of xp(?), especially with boosters.

So if the existing system already suffers from these issues, clearly anything that builds on the existing system but adds more variety has to be better by definition, surely?

Here’s my simple suggestion (which has been raised by others too): allow any mastery to be trained anywhere. Easy to implement, introduces variety, doesn’t disadvantage anyone.

Although I hold to my suggestion that masteries be made more… innovative, I would also support this. If my entire mastery leveling is going to be purely through grinding XP, why can’t I do that anywhere? I have no interest in leveling any of the non-HoT masteries, and I’m not a fan of wandering the event-clogged HoT maps (it was fun the first two times…).

Coyote.7031:

Swift.1930:

This part of it sucks pretty badly. Firstly because I was just getting back into Guild Wars after playing The Witcher 3 and some other games, but secondly because it means other people are going to be leaving as well. Some are leaving for more reasons than just the crashes. I wanted to get back into one of my favorite games/game worlds, but it’s turning out unplayable for now… =(

It’s okay, it’s why I camp the forums too. GW2 is a unique game, it’s very special. It’s just not headed the way I like. But, I don’t think GW2 will be the game I want, which is fine, other people enjoy it. I’ll wait and see a little while longer, but now I just feel like that creepy ex that hangs around going “You’ll see how much need me! YOU’LL SEE!!!” Might be time to move on. =\

Haha, yeah, something like that.

pandemos.3497:

Swift.1930:

Draygo.9473:

Nury.3062:

I always see the “make the Guild Hall Upgrades scale with the number of members the guild has” FIX. What can stop me from kicking all my guild members,get the mats i need from them,get the upgrade and then invite them again…?!

It might be hard for small guilds to do stuff…but as many people said if you create a guild and you are 2-3 members…let’s be honest,how can you expect to do any content with that guild?
I am a guild leader since 14 november 2013 we had many members now we don’t …let’s say 10-15 daily online members,that is a small guild,yet we don’t complain about the upgrades and we work hard to get our amazing guild hall in a nice shape.
We got all the buildings (tents for now) available and many of the upgrades.
And we are working constantly on it.

They could base it on the max guild roster size. You know the guy you gotta pay to increase your guild member cap? That. If your are a first level guild with the lowest member cap your upgrades are cheaper. The higher your member cap the more you pay. Anet can reset all guilds member caps to the lowest possible for their guild and refund the cost to the guild leader as a one time courtesy.

Hm… three things that I foresee this would affect:

1) if the guild’s cap was cut, the guild members would also have to be cut (temporarily). Building up a lost build roster could cause havoc. All those previously happy people would come to the forum and flame us.
2) big guilds who have already farmed everything and worked very hard would suddenly find that their resources were spent on nothing. More flamers.
3) guilds that want to be big wouldn’t want to have to pay tons simply to upgrade things that small guilds can upgrade for cheap. They would keep the roster empty or at the lowest cap until all the upgrades have been bought, and then bring people back. All the stranded members would understand the advantage and would donate to their guild to progress it. The same issue would still stand, because those guilds would have access to so many resources/income streams that smaller guilds don’t.

But something that would make sense: adding small guild halls for small guilds. Services could be smaller (except WvW buffs) and more affordable for small guilds. Every guild wants a place to call home! And I personally feel that the guild halls are too insanely massive – unless, of course, they are brimming with members who hang out there regularly. Again, small guilds need smaller places. I want a hobbit hole. Or maybe a little old-Ascalon keep.

(Guild Wars 1 guild hall vendor quote: “Truly, what guild can call itself a guild without an island of its own? Come with me. I can take you on a tour of each island, and you can choose which you like the best.”)

I still just vote that contributions to guilds be based on the individual… if you want guild services you contribute X amount, regardless of guild size. Complete eliminates the complexity and makes everyone accountable. The freeloaders won’t like it… but that shouldn’t be a surprise.

Wait… do you mean handicap the guild until everyone has logged in and contributed? Or that each individual has to pay to access something that already exists in a guild?

If it’s the former, I can’t say that sounds great to me.

If it’s the latter, it feels like a pure resource sink. If the guild already owns something, the only money/resource transfers that should happen (if at all) should be channeled directly to the guild leader or the people who originally unlocked it. Having everyone unlock some random vendor who is standing there anyways is just strange. It’d be like everyone had their own separate guild rather than being part of a single guild. Plus, it encourages people not to work together and to hoard their things – for future updates if nothing else. =/

@Skyline – pretty sure you missed my post (the one directly above yours). HoT changed core elements for people who never even planned to buy the expansion.

Aomine.5012:

Thornum.8607:

Coyote.7031:

The average “fun”, with some posts omitted because I’m lazy, is 5.12008 with 251 entries. Unless people gave a very clear short answer, I skipped the post. I didn’t want to average out the multi-score posts unless they listed a clear answer. If it was just two numbers, I averaged it out. So don’t beat me if it’s off, I did it just for kicks.

Things to consider when reading this:
- People who don’t like HoT are more likely to complain on the forums
- People who don’t like HoT are more likely to rate 0 instead of an actual considered value (due to being sour about not getting their money’s worth)
- All the people that put in incredibly low numbers, yet still play several hours a day grinding the new content are kittening liars

Happy players would be playing in the game right now. They don’t have time reading through these threads because they’re too busy enjoying themselves.

Unhappy players quit the game and have lots of free time rage on forum because they don’t want to log on. That’s why the general score is quite low here.

Hey, not fair – some of us enjoy it but simply have our games keep crashing on us! (Or we log into the forum during breaks at work.) I’ve enjoyed critical analysis of the game elements with some people here who actually give detailed and interesting posts, too.

Oh, and I’ve seen plenty of people here who seem to love the game but simply come on the forums to flame those who have questions/problems. Not really sure why they’re here… they’re spending valuable life time and energy and effort reading through and constructing responses to posts they seem to despise. And their posts are usually uninformative.

Substance E.4852:

The point of the system is to give you an alternative to farming gold to get the precursor. You aren’t supposed to just buy all the items off the TP.

Way to miss the purpose entirely.

And as far as the cost goes, HoT just launched. Everyone is trying out the new system causing the price of things to go up with demand which is why precursor prices are falling because less people are just buying a completed one.

The point of the changes was to give an option of bypassing the trading post and RNG entirely. Anyone who thought this would be easy or a short method was kidding themselves.

This has probably been said a few times, but the thread wasn’t about making the acquisition easy. It’s about the sheer time/cost it takes to put everything together.

It’s completely easy to gather materials. It’s very, very easy. Almost stupidly so. But it also takes absolutely forever. Instead of an epic journey, we get a repetitive slog around the same maps 2000+ times each, pressing (F?) to hit rocks and trees and plants. So instead of adding something fun and interesting, the precursor collection method is just a time/money sink. And it didn’t need to take three years for Anet to come up with it, either – it would take one programmer about ten minutes to come up with a material collection tree.

And apart from a skin, a precursor – or even a legendary, really – adds extraordinarily little to the game.

Lacuda.8543:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Not going to disagree with your observations, but the solution is not to put so much focus on the Gall Halls. Think about it. Guild Halls and the new Legendaries are where this gold sink is. As you pointed out the end result of all the hard work for these upgrades isn’t really of great value. Obtaining the Hall is still not that difficult, the upgrades are clearly a gold sink.

All F2P games funnel players to the cash shop. Do you really believe the only fun/value in the game comes from Guild Hall amenities and new Legendary Crafting? Be rational. I evaulted long ago that Legendarily weapons in general are not worth the effort given their nominal stat increase. Legendary armor is going to be for the top 10% of PvE players who focus on Raids during their time in game. If you must have these things to find any fun in the game and you don’t want to grind then I would agree it’s time to move on from GW2.

I think they provide plenty of content for the asking price of the expansion but for the end-game (Guild Hall upgrades [time gated so I do classify this as end-game], Raids and of course Legendarily) if you want to delve into the end-game content it absolutely has been designed to send you to the gem store with mastercard in hand often or to spend a lotof time in game grinding. This is a sustainable business model.

Absolutely incorrect. The dramatic damage the Guild Hall changes have done to WvW guild abilities is devastating. Guilds that focus on WvW and don’t touch PvE are now completely screwed.

Agreed. People who say guild halls/guild upgrades are not a focus and not something small guilds (deserve?) aren’t playing WvW. If you’re PvE, all’s good. Guilds can get along without upgrades for the most part. WvW guilds had already previously unlocked a huge bunch of boosts/buffs for their servers and regularly used them. Now those upgrades are far out of reach, and those guilds are going to have to put years into upgrading to reach the stage they had reached pre-HoT. It’s simply another thing that is killing WvW (check the WvW discussion board for all the other things).

Loot is always a thing in any MMO like Guild Wars. I agree with people who argue the psychological worth for the lifespan of events – so many players flock to one or two places in the game where they can earn worthwhile loot, rather than playing everything in the game and making the whole world a more populated, interesting, and supportive place. It can’t cost Anet too much to add significantly more weapon/armor skins and make them drops/droppable by mobs or events (no balancing required), and the result would be twofold: 1) people would enjoy fighting random mobs and participating in events more, and 2) people would feel urged to buy bank/inventory slots from Anet. Win-win! Loot it general could also be made more valuable, but that would require some kind of budget from Anet; they’d need to find other aspects to add to the game that balance the shift of economy and make it change (a daily/weekly economy change mechanic due to NPC purchases/sales and supply/demand due to war effects could be quite interesting).

I’ve long thought that ascended crafting should have the option of items being guild-bound by their maker (this is Guild Wars, isn’t it?), where each guild prizes and pays its armorer/weaponsmith/etc in cash or materials, but since things like that don’t exist, players need to rely more on drops and personal crafting to get useful items. And that requires loot.

Zelkovan.2630:

Swift.1930:

Zelkovan.2630:

Swift.1930:

EsarioOne.9840:

I’m seeing alot of discussion about how mastery relates to burn out, that’s not the case.
Mastery = Millions of experience
Millions of experience = time buffer so people don’t realize the mastery system is non-beneficial and shallow character progression.
At its core, mastery is just something to keep consumers occupied. You aren’t doing anything original or unique. It’d be a different story if the player actually learned the itzel language (etc.) by doing related activities.

Ah, I just made a comment to this effect on another post – you’re exactly right; if mastery was related to trying to do the things you are mastering, it would make sense and wouldn’t be a 9999999999999999XP grind (which is a lot of veteran spiders, by the way). Like trying out jumping mushrooms ~40 times before it actually takes you in the right direction and doesn’t get you nearly killed, or something like that.

The issue with that is it’s easily bypassed. I could literally just stand next to one mushroom in one corner of a map and jump on it over and over again until I unlock that mastery. Same thing with Itzel lore, just talk to the same npcs over and over again. So how do you slow people down so they don’t unlock all the masteries instantly and devalue the point of masteries meaning to be the long-term horizontal progression?

I mean, that’s a viable way of leveling a skill… it’s not a bypass. As the game currently stands, you can stand in one corner and bash a single dinosaur over the head until you unlock every single mastery.

If you want to slow down masteries presented in that fashion, you just need to make sure the people can only gain, for instance, a certain number points in a mastery level from a single NPC or mushroom per day. They can always come back and do it again tomorrow, but if they want it quicker they will need to seek out other NPCs/mushrooms. Gliding would be slightly trickier, but I see nothing wrong with a “total flight time” being the requirement. Makes a lot of sense for glider players, and also encourages using gliders more.

So here’s the real question: why don’t the Guild Wars 2 devs seem to care that the leveling system is completely detached from the actual masteries? I could be leveling mushroom jumping without ever even SEEING a mushroom. By hitting a dinosaur with a pointy stick. In that abandoned little corner you mentioned.

But it is a bypass. The whole point of Masteries was to provide a long-term horizontal progression once you hit 80. If all it took was 40 mushrooms to master mushroom jumping mastery, someone would literally just keep using the same mushroom over and over until they unlocked it. That wouldn’t take very long. Okay, so you say you limit a mushroom to once per day. Okay, fine. But then you get people complaining on the forums that Anet is “gating” content again by forcing you to wait a whole day per mushroom. You end up in the same scenario where people don’t like the situation, much like yourself. Another issue is, it would be very easy to reach the 40 mushroom requirement, even if it was once per day per mushroom. So once again, you hit the issue of masteries being cleared in a few hours/days after launch.

Okay, so let’s say hypothetically you raise the cap to 200 mushrooms. Now that’s a grind, because every day I have to make sure I jump on every mushroom I see, whereas before I could just do whatever I wanted in the new maps and reach the same goal. Same principle with NPCs. You would once again end up with people complaining about the system on the forum. Sure, getting xp to jump on mushrooms has nothing to do with physically jumping on mushrooms, but it’s a smart way of making sure masteries take a while, while at the same time not restricting you to what you can do to level it.

Sure, I could just sit in one corner of the map and bash a pocket raptor over the head over and over again for masteries. However the difference between the current system and yours is that you would literally have to be insane to do that in the current system because you would receive so little xp. Thus, you don’t have incentive to sit in one corner bashing a dino’s head because it would literally take months/years. However, with your system (assuming no daily cap) you have incentive to sit in one corner, constantly jumping on one mushroom.

So once again, I’ll ask the question. What is a viable way of attaining mushroom jumping through physically interacting with the mushrooms, while making sure it isn’t easily cleared, and without being too repetitive or limiting? Or any other mastery similar to it? Unless of course, you forsake the whole idea of masteries being long-term progression, in which case you just go with what you proposed. However, that’s not Anet’s goal with masteries, so the point is moot.

If someone can come up with a reasonable way to accomplish all those goals and implement it well, then Anet messed up on their part. I have yet to see such a reasonable way.

Funny, because first you say that unless the thing I said was implemented, what I said would not be viable. If you’re arguing that a single-mushroom daily limit is a gate, then clearly you’ve not seen the current mission gates based on masteries… single-mushroom limitation is not a gate when you can still wander around and find more mushrooms. Think map completion – we can’t sit around and complete a single heart eighteen times over to complete all the hearts on a map. Do we consider that gated?

The real gating is when you lock masteries behind each other. For instance, if you could pick and choose any of the masteries to level at any given time, and then the next one costs more xp, etc, etc, it would be less gated. But currently each one is tiered, even though (apart from the gliding mastery) nothing is related to its preceding mastery point.

A bit like the new skill circle setup (which replaced the old pick-and-choose skill tree), where we have to level our skill trees with 80% of skills our characters wouldn’t even pretend to practice or care about before unlocking the skills we care about.

And thus the burnout. We’re forced to level and go through entire trees of things we will never ever use just to unlock something minor. This is a huge change compared to the vanilla release of Guild Wars 2, which (minus bugs, but certainly not closed to additions) is what we paid for.

Also, keep in mind that at least 60% of the GW2 playerbase came directly from GW1, and there were very, very few gates in that game. Nearly pure customization.

Skyline Crash.6254:

Swift.1930:

@Skyline – pretty sure you missed my post (the one directly above yours). HoT changed core elements for people who never even planned to buy the expansion.

Okay, list exactly what changed.

Haven’t got the full list on hand, but two of the biggest changes:
World vs World (upended); people who were happy with things how they stood (and that was their reason for not paying for the expansion) weren’t looking for their primary game mode to change completely.
Guild upgrades (specifically, banners and siege weapons); completely reset and re-gated. Small WvW guilds will be handicapped for many many months – assuming they even try to rebuild.

Can’t immediately think of all the changes that affected those who only have vanilla, because I have the expansion myself.

foxcat.4096:

webtoehobbit.4201:

Boysenberry.1869:

Azure.8670:

this games population is so high that theres dozens of maps open at once, just open lfg and merge because instead of maps filling on their own, it locates you to wheres best for you by guild and such and not by capacity

This is the main problem I’ve had with the Mega-server system, especially since HoT came out. There are way too many maps being opened. Say there are 500 players. The game creates 20 maps for these players and tosses 25 players into each map. People don’t want to play this way so they have to taxi around. Why can’t Anet change it so that instead of 20 empty maps, have 5-6 full maps? People would always log into full maps and won’t have to play the taxi game.

Interesting, so this might all be a Megaserver issue that needs to be adressed and not an issue of no one is playing the maps… Well maybe someday there will be a fix.

There is a fix use LFG like everyone else.

People keep posting the solution but you ignore it , finding a populated organized map in HoT is easy the only meta that is remotely hard to get done is TD.

Well, LFG is great when taxiing is happening… and when the taxi happens to be on a populated map and is not trying to single-handedly fill an empty one. But there need to be better methods than clicking the “move me to a more populated map” button (which tends to send you to an emptier one).

EsarioOne.9840:

I’m seeing alot of discussion about how mastery relates to burn out, that’s not the case.
Mastery = Millions of experience
Millions of experience = time buffer so people don’t realize the mastery system is non-beneficial and shallow character progression.
At its core, mastery is just something to keep consumers occupied. You aren’t doing anything original or unique. It’d be a different story if the player actually learned the itzel language (etc.) by doing related activities.

Ah, I just made a comment to this effect on another post – you’re exactly right; if mastery was related to trying to do the things you are mastering, it would make sense and wouldn’t be a 9999999999999999XP grind (which is a lot of veteran spiders, by the way). Like trying out jumping mushrooms ~40 times before it actually takes you in the right direction and doesn’t get you nearly killed, or something like that.

Grim West.3194:

Preorder only gave a small window into HoT.

It didn’t warn us that WvW would be decimated, dungeons abandoned, small guilds kicked to the curb, loot nerfed, etc, etc, etc

Just take a look at the quote on the purchase page! =)

Quote: “Experience combat on an epic scale in our new World vs. World’s Borderlands map.”

It’s curious that the wording is so specific. Has anyone seen anyone on the new maps? I think I saw three on at once… but it could be less epic, I guess.

Gathslan.1870:

Arenanet reads the forums, and from all the complaints i think it is clear that the community wants open world to be easy and relaxed. I guess we shall see in a few major patches if they listen, i am sure they will release new zones entirely too with patches for hot.

Hardcore content should stay in raids/pvp

Hmmm… it’s far from clear that the majority wants everything easy/relaxed. Certainly there’s frowns about content as challenging/coordinated as the TD meta (or as tricky to find as a non-raid VB map), but it’s not the challenge people dislike so much as it’s the reliance on other players to be in the area and to care.

That said, the biggest concern I have about that kind of content is the sustainability. How many people will be there for metas/champion hero points in a few months? People will spread back throughout the world/gamemodes after they’ve finished hardcoring the new maps.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Gene Archer.8560:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Gene Archer.8560:

They filled that void by locking away things that small guilds already had worked for and you KNOW it.

In my opinion, it’s really never okay to take away what someone or a group has already spent time earning. It would have been possible to simply give guilds what they had before and let them work toward the new things. There still would have been plenty to do and it wouldn’t exactly have been game-breaking.

At this point, I’m convinced it’s a symptom of a larger problem. For all that ANet has added in 3 years, look at all the things they’ve also taken away, or re-done for the millionth iteration, and in so re-doing, still take something away or re-start the unlock process that people have already worked on.

I’ve never seen this at such a scale from any other MMO. This is the kind of stuff that I expect from an EA backed game.

Yeah, this is the first MMO I’ve played where they’ve employed the strategy of taking AWAY content in order to incentivize expansion purchases. Every other game I play, the promise of new content alone is enough to encourage people to buy their x-pacs.

They may not add to the previous content, but they leave it alone and allow new players and alts to enjoy it as is or they make it easier and faster to progress through. They certainly don’t take away rewards, etc. in order to entice purchases. It’s just not necessary.

Exactly. And some. It’s quite absurd, not to mention it staggers my loyalty somewhat.

I descended from the remnants of old Ascalon; such scorn at the bending of my knee is astounding.

I mean, I wouldn’t mind changes and things taking a long time if only there was someone responding to queries occasionally. They wouldn’t even have to say a lot, just so long as we can see that Anet is actually watching and interested in legitimate feedback. Prolonged silence followed by comments on Reddit or the occasional vague mention in a Guild Wars news post doesn’t taste so great – this is neither a fan-made nor fan-moderated forum. Some minor sense of conversation would be encouraging. Haters/flamers? They’re always going to flame/hate. I’d like a space for people who want legitimate, thoughtful to-and-fro conversation with other players and devs.

I’d like to write a longer response (I’ll come back later for that), but one thing I need to mention about the current WvW borderlands is that I was looking forward to expansion content, not replacement content. I’ve mentioned this on other threads, too – it would work as an additional map, or even as a part of a borderland map rotation (the borderlands would be much more interesting if each borderland was a different map, and the server based on each map cycled per round), but completely replacing the classic WvW gameplay and layout was a hard pill for us WvW players to swallow (some of us were going to live in our borderlands for the rest of our lives, with the hope of invading other maps in the future). Automatic upgrades remove the sense of achievement from upgrading towers/castles (some of us were proud dolyak defenders), and we play PvE or Heart of the Mists for NPC events.

All in all, the new borderland map_could_ work as a borderland rotation map, but it is designed more like an alternative map, like Heart of the Mists. And it would possibly even shine as that.

Fluffball.8307:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m primarily an explorer, and the vertical nature of HoT makes it actively uninteresting to me.

HoT has a TON of exploration value. There are even quite a few visible and hidden achievement tracks for exploring. I have played almost nothing but the new maps since they came out, and I still have not found half the things I know are out there. Today on two different occasions I just wandered off in a direction I had unfogged and walked a bunch of times, but I hadn’t really looked before and found a bunch of cool new stuff, even APs dinging. (I found a chicken on the face of a massive cliff yesterday for 5 AP?)

If you enjoy wandering around finding things, I think you’d love HoT. Maybe wait till it goes on sale.

HoT is okay for exploration, but is generally uninspiring for that purpose. Most of the citizens you encounter are random frogs who swipe at flies with their tongues and mutter random indecipherable things (probably insults). The environment is kind of pretty but generally lacks scenery due to expansive leaf canopies (never can tell where the next updraft is, hah) and a lot of things being underground.

Personally, though, I was over the jungle scene before HoT even launched (whenever I created Asuran/Sylvari characters I immediately left the forest in favor of Ascalon/Kryta/The Shiverpeaks), so maybe it’s just me.

tluv.5821:

Exotrax.4207:

So , I’m trying hard to grind xps doing events but since the raids came out , maps (even VB) are quite empty.
Yesterday I ran around VB trying to find a small group to do events and we were 3 people (from 8pm till 11pm).
Normally when I find no people in maps I go do some crafting ….come back after 1/2hour and than map is full again……but really lately no one doing events , so how I’m supposed to level up my mastery ?
Another thing I disagree with HoT is that now became almost impossible play solo and the only way to do meta-events and gain some good amount of xps , is to play with big group of player …..I really miss the old quest system , at least you can play solo and progress anyway.

Don’t get me wrong , I still love the game and the map design is great , is just that Anet seems more focus only to make a game for players that only play in groups and not for casual players.

Maybe I’m wrong….what’s your opinion ?

You are wrong.

1) Raids are new and exciting and brand new content. EVERY single time new content comes out, everything else empties. It always happens with every single content update for ANY game out there. So, give it time, people will come back. Rewards will eventually get fixed.

2) I’m sorry, whenever I hear people complain about the lack of “solo” content in an MMORPG makes me want to smack them. I solo’d all of the content (meaning map completion, specializations, and Story) in HoT. Not impossible, it’s a l2p issue for most. To further my points, the story does not make sense for you to solo the “Meta” event of the map. In fact, in any of the maps in the game, you can not solo the Meta Boss, but you are just now complaining because it is probably too hard. News flash, you can’t faceroll in HoT.

You can solo content in HoT. The small missions of getting the supplies, rescuing some scouts, all solo’able.

But in reality, you are wanting to play a Massively *MULTIPLAYER" Online Roleplaying Game solo. The content is going to be geared towards working with others. Always will be. If you want to play a solo game, go play Skyrim. It’s really that simple.

Also, you don’t need a “big” group. 10 people are suggested for an “group event”.

So quick crying, get better at the game, and make some friends to play with.

Fun thoughts, but overall abusive. If you wanted a co-op MMO (also known as a CORPG) you’d be playing Guild Wars 1. Pretty much everything was overhauled in the Guild Wars 2 release; synchronization is rare (except very specific combos), skills are no longer directly supportive unless you stack tons of boons on people, heal skills are very personal (not to mention limited to one each for non-guardians), etc, etc, etc. Nearly everything was soloable until HoT released, but even though difficulty has been raised, strong support skills haven’t been implemented. You’re still essentially on your own (when fighting a champion, for instance, you can be focused and there’s nothing anyone around you can do to save you unless they’re in your party and have thirty aegis skills equipped to use after each other). Fields/combos are okay, so long as you’re one of the five people affected.

I personally don’t feel that HoT is too hard, but there are several problems some of us have noticed. The biggest one is that, as the OP said, maps are getting empty. Map meta events (along with their achievements) will be hard or impossible to complete when population thins out; the expansion added four further meta-event maps, and it was hard enough sustaining one or two – now that the expansion hype is fading, meta success will occur less and less often. For people like me who have been loaded up with problems with regular client crashes after the HoT update, when the problems are finally ironed out, the maps will likely be ghost towns.

Also known as this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Adventures-annoying-mini-games-more-like/page/2#post5823023

And this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/ANET-Forced-adventures/page/3#post5801958

Fear not, for a whole lot of other people feel the same way about these mini-games! =)

ZachAttack.3957:

And neither does an MMO imply that everything should be able to be completed solo/co-op. Fractals/dungeons/raids force you to play with other people, and you hardly see anyone complaining about them.

Uh… I’ve seen quite a lot of people who are annoyed at dungeons/fractals because they get kicked out by groups that only want players experienced at the specific run. It’s possible that they don’t complain much these days because they’ve simply given up on that content.

And it’s funny that you mentioned raids, because there have been nonstop complaints about how raids were only for “elite” players and how most people wouldn’t be able to play them because “only guilds and specific builds will be accepted”. I’ve yet to hear how that’s turned out, but there were definitely enough complaints about it.

Vieux P.1238:

Kaiser.9873:

Vieux P.1238:

Kaiser.9873. It dont matter how high level you are. You scale down on lower maps. So it’s better then WoW cuz when you get trolled by a player, you get trolled at same level.
Xenesis.6389, whoes talking about creating 32 empty maps. you dont see it do you or get it. ???

Scaling is and has been broken. A true 80 is always going to have more tools than an uplevel, or downlevel for that matter.

That is true.. but thats ok.. thats the bit of motivation to level up. A bit of god hood is always nice to entice you. Plus evan that 80 with a bit more has limits vs a good low level group.

The issue here is that if a level 80 actually wanted to troll low level places, he/she could bring a group. A group of 80s will always outmatch a similar size or slightly bigger group of 12s. If entering PvP mode on maps was locked according to level range, that… could possibly work. A bit like switching on Hard Mode in GW1 (have to be max lvl).

On a side note, it would be hilarious if the mode worked in a different way – in a way that, as soon as you turn 80, you can toggle PvP mode to make yourself hittable. It’d be hilarious to see a group of 12s running around, completely invulnerable themselves, smacking a fleeing 80 troll-wannabe over the head with pointy sticks.

Goldrock.9076:

reasonable pace? its fine as is good god quit expecting everything to be handed to you progress to it. Its hard and take awhile for a reason we dont need another starwars where people fly through the content get bored and quit like 2 days later because they power gamed through it. Just relax have fun and play take some breaks no pressure your not paying a sub.

Except that this thread isn’t about pushing people around and making them do anything, it’s about how people would rate the fun factor. If their favorite game style is like that Star Wars game you mentioned (although honestly, I’ve no idea which one you mean), then they’re probably going to have a lower fun factor rating here.

Miku.6297:

Swift.1930:

Exactly like that, yep. Anything flagged as guild-bound is automatically (as part of the “leave guild” button’s programming sequence) sent to the guild’s ascended equipment vault (a material-storage-style panel which should also be added). The confiscation of guild-bound items is an extremely simple line of code.

Guilder leader -> recruits players who help progress the guild crafters, or donate/buy/whatever it takes to make this “guild bound ascended”… He then KICKS players and keeps the profit/items for himself or other guild members…

An extremely simple line of code that could become EXTREMELY abusive.

But you do realize that this can already happen, right? Players can already put effort/time/etc into building up a guild hall and then get kicked out. Or building up a guild’s reputation. Etc. Etc. When you think about it, though, most players aren’t about to hand over everything right after joining a guild, and most guild leaders aren’t as evil as you’re giving them credit for. What people do with the system is up to them, certainly. Maybe some leaders take a regular tax (resources, money, influence). Maybe some guild leaders kick people out if they don’t represent them for a week.

Development is the key here; I’m using this thread as a brainstorm for collecting ideas about making something that could be a reality. You tell me it can be abused? Great! Now we brainstorm how to counter the abuse. A voting system for kicking abusive guild leaders? A minimum number of members to be maintained to be able to access its own ascended equipment? A small Anet support team to take complaints about events like that? Or even a player council (Greek oligarchy for the win) of proven reliable players who voluntarily view and vote on replacing abusive guild leaders at weekly gatherings? (Either in Lion’s Arch or somewhere less laggy, but my thoughts were on adding an actual voting module/location in this case, and LA is both central and neutral.)

But to restate the contents of my first paragraph, abuse is already possible and already there. Think of the human balances, though – if guild leaders are going to care SOLELY about ascended items, how many people will join them? And are people really gullible enough to say yes to “you can join us if you give us 99999 platinum ore”? Last I checked, people weren’t joining guilds to give their stuff away. And if human nature prevails, people concerned about losing resources will look for the “cheapest” guild anyways. Or create their own.

The game doesn’t have to be stale. Thinking within the box is an issue. I’m suggesting legitimate development; doing so means more than just adding a single module.

Lady Elyssa.2469:

That is a wonderful interpretation of how Eir might have communicated with the Spirits after her death, sadly it still doesn’t address the manner in which she died which is a key element to how I feel Eir has been treated.

Her death, however harsh and sad I can accept, for the story, for Braham, for Druids / Dragonhunters, even for the future of Tyria.

The manner in which her death occurred though, is ultimately tragic and I feel degrades Eir as a character and as a Norn.

The debate over how well Eir might have survived a crash, lack of food and water and being stabbed could undoubtedly be debated and if it was scientifically possible to do so accurately on specific details within a game, let alone a fantasy based one, then I would be all for it, but in doing so it only detracts from my original reason for posting and in my view detracts from the rich Lore that the game has.

Eir still had the strength to walk and she could have rolled away from the Vinetooth’s tail attack, even transformed in to the Spirit of Wolf. Her fate need not have changed, just the manner of her passing.

Eir was a Legend in and of her own right and she deserved a Norn’s end and a chance to go out with a fight, to die with honor and to face the spirits proud with songs sung by the Skalds of the legend she had created for herself, a legend that would not only inspire her son Braham but one that would inspire future generations from all the races.

Well, I’d say that it’s not just the manner of her death that was an issue: it was also the fact that we (and our whole team) just sits around watching this skirmish. We’ve got gliders, mushroom-hopping skills, longbows, an infinite supply of long-range hammers (revenants), and half an army of rescued soldiers with us – but for some reason a five-minute (that’s a very long time in battle) cutscene plays out and results in the death of a character some of us would have died to protect. Therein lies one of the greatest insults we, as gamers, face.

Ashen.2907:

Swift.1930:

So I’m not sure why you’ve decided that because one channel (not even an official channel) agrees with an opinion, it is an accurate representation.

I was attempting to point out, tongue in cheek, how confirmation bias works.

My apologies for not doing a better job of labeling the post as not meant to be taken seriously.

Hah, whoops, so you’ve been one of the good guys the whole time. Maybe I’ve read too many sour posts over the past two weeks… xP

So my constructed response was all in vain! Hope you got laughs out of it instead then. =P

Obtena.7952:

Swift.1930:

Obtena.7952:

Small guilds do small guild things. From the perspective of the game, I don’t really see it making much sense to have a guild hall if you have a 3 person guild in the first place. based on the requirements, I don’t think Anet does either, though I don’t believe anything stops you from trying, which is really the point. You aren’t blocked from getting the mats needed for whatever upgrades you’re after.

I disagree; even a small guild likes to have some place to call theirs. It would be good if Anet added little guild halls for little guilds (and less/smaller services as upgrades). A little, say… guild of thieves could have a smuggler’s den. I’d be content with a nice little hobbit hole. Or a little old-Ascalonian keep, perhaps.

Guild Wars 1 had guild halls of various sizes. I don’t see why Guild Wars 2 shouldn’t!

I’m not sure that the OP is complaining he can’t get a hall. I think he’s complaining about the price to upgrade once he does get it. Furthermore GW1 != GW2.

But my reply was in regards to your comment, not the OP’s post :P

Well, true. But the gameplay mechanics of GW2 means that I can’t go back to GW1 without a little bit of wincing… unfortunately.

Kichwas.7152:

Swift.1930:

flman.6057:

More skins, armor sets, hair and faces, rework lazy reused animation, be less european, be less zergish, revive dungeons, make condi builds viable. And I will tell everyone that GW2 is the best for me and probably for them.
Until now it is korean p2p BnS, which really isn’t so bad for Arena, since NCSoft owns them.

I’m actually glad Guild Wars 2 is European; that’s what’s held me to it so long, as quite a few MMOs are Asian in style and content.

GW2 Is American developed. Not European.
And the world of Guild Wars has a full diversity to it already established as Canon since 2005. The theme here should be more global – as that is what is in the Canon.

We’re actually, predominately, in Kryta, which is NOT a Caucasian region… but somehow “became that” in GW2 despite the Ascalonians still being a separate ethnic group from the Krytans. The best ‘earth like’ description for a Krytan would probably be a Polynesian or South Asian – they seemed a hybrid of this originally.

Global, yes, that would be fine. Regarding Kryta, however, you may have missed the whole migration lore where Ascalon pretty much up and moved to Kryta. The culture is predominantly European now (although I’m not quite sure about the monsters). When creating a character it certainly is possible to appear South Asian, though, so those ethnicities (whether predominant or not) are still true to lore.

When a kingdom as large as Ascalon commits to a mass exodus, the culture and ethnicity of a region it moves to is completely prone to change. Australian people, for instance, are no longer dark-skinned as a majority. The U.S. is not predominantly American Indian now, either. Certainly don’t have a tent as the white house…

At least that’s my take on what happened. And since we can’t spawn in human Ascalon, I’m personally glad the European culture/style migrated. I’d hate to have to spawn as a Charr to have my home area look vaguely European…

Furthermore, Lion’s Arch used to have the South Asian (Canthan) vibe you mentioned until it was destroyed. Now I’m not exactly sure what it is.

zinkz.7045:

Phantom.8130:

To be fair, EB has the best setup of the three. Not necessarily the spacing, which does tend to make the pace a lot faster, but how the layout made the areas in each third strategically relevant. If you want to take a keep, your best bet is to take out a few of the towers first, because the towers assisted in the keep’s defense. Both versions of the borderlands lacked a strategic layout. Being able to treb the garrison from the northern towers was a minor bit of strategy, but that’s the equivalent to a fingernail compared to an entire person. Now, with the new maps, there’s not even that fingernail.

I disagree, borderlands were much superior to EB, for a start EB is very imbalanced, there is a fair difference between how strong each keep is, there is a difference in towers such as green does not really have a weak tower, when you compare it to Durios (blue) or Anza (red), etc.

Then you have waypoints, on borderlands upgrading to / preventing / taking down / defending a WP was far more important than those on EB, it was probably the biggest strategic map based objective in WvW and biggest strategic driving force, things like preventing the opposition getting a WP in bay/hills have been removed from the game. (that this is gone with perma WP & autoupgrades is one of the reasons the new map is such a failure, the basic lack of understanding of WvW by whoever came up with the map and new upgrade system is well…).

The fact there were three keeps, and that it was reasonably common for the home side to get garri + 1 other upgraded at times meant that defense was generally much more interesting than EB, where all that really counted was your keep, then the 1 or two defensive towers like Veloka, jerri, etc, but they are right next to the keep, which is kind of dull, part of what made defending say garri + hills both getting attacked at once interesting is the distance between the two, not too far that it was impossible to get reinforcements in or react, but not so close that you can virtually defend two things at once, like you can in EB, and beyond that it was the importance and strategic value that made it interesting and worth defending, losing Veloka might not be good, but really pales into insignificance compared to losing hills or bay with a WP.

Furthermore you have the actual keep design, the keeps on the old borderland gave far more tactical options and produced far more interesting fights than the simplistic, rather one dimensional ones on EB (garri especially).

As for the “northern towers was a minor bit of strategy”, I look it like this, every tower except the SE one on the old BL had some strategic value for attacking a keep, on EB most of the towers are redundant (mendons for example) or very minor (those that can treb SM) and SM is the biggest red herring in the game.

Which is why, or at least what I found on multiple servers (on EU) that most veteran players whether they wanted fights as a guild, decent fights as an open raid or liked scouting / upgrading or whatever, preferred the borders, often leaving EB to newer players / casual players.

But in comparison to the new map? EBG has the best setup. At least that’s what I feel after wandering around the borderlands for several hours that were – somewhat ironically – a mixture of boredom and confusion. Don’t get me wrong, the new map isn’t trash, but it would suit gameplay better as an alternative map, not as the borderland map.

Junkpile.7439:

Old borderlands were empty too.

I know, but they were prettier to run around in while empty than the new maps. =P

Edit: MUCH prettier.

Edit: And a lot more homey – which was the whole idea of borderlands.

Lacuda.8543:

Swift.1930:

Lacuda.8543:

Spurnshadow.3678:

This is all pointless. They aren’t going to change anything. It’s too late now. If they made the system fair at this point, it would totally screw over the guilds that have already sunk thousands into upgrades.

I’m a WVWer. Larger guilds, like, well, no names, already have some of their auras unlocked, whereas smaller guilds like mine don’t have anything unlocked. Other WvW guilds that are really PvX have lots of stuff unlocked. But both are effective WvW guilds. One regularly fields 20-30 on raid nights, mine fields 15-20 on raid nights. The difference is that the larger one has more people who do pvx. A guild I was recently in was sitting on 7,000 gold, whereas my current guild is sitting on 10.

Again, this isn’t going to change. Just accept it, be depressed, or stop playing.

It’s perfectly fine to let them fix it and accept that whatever gold has been sunk into it is gone. We are ready to accept that, and we’ve dropped $2000 gold between less than 8 people. Maybe you should be ready for that as well.

The problem is, a lot of people won’t accept that, and the forums will light up like a bonfire with people who have suddenly lost 500g+ each. I’m pretty sure that’s not the kind of publicity Anet wants, and wouldn’t be a fun community to have around us here…

There’s got to be better ways of balancing things. Like providing smaller halls with less/smaller options, like WvW-only-upgrade halls or something.

Under your way of thinking, that still won’t work. Smaller guilds that have been paying big guild money would still be screwed. If you can’t handle the idea of accepting the loss of gold, then the only other option available to anet is to give away all the guild hall upgrades on next patch.

I’m not saying replace small guilds’ halls with small halls. I’m saying provide small halls as an option when first buying one. A guild can then choose which hall they want based on goals and capability. If they’re able to build up a full big hall, awesome. More power to them, and more/bigger services too.

Anet giving away the upgrades would pretty much (as you put it) screw anyone who paid money at all. A bit like commanders who had bought tags for all their characters (although I believe they were slightly compensated, if I remember correctly).

Dejavu.2349:

Kulvar.1239:

20 member guild with 10 active members
We just unlocked the last building upgrade
One man guilds are not guilds.

This means nothing to me without more information.
Exactly what upgrades do you have open? I’m genuinely curious – not trying to be snarky. The last upgrade (Weaponsmith 2, for the Market, for instance) for what buildings?

Or do you mean you’ve just opened up all your buildings (which is easy-peasy by my standards)?

And did anyone put in any real cash?

And more: did you recruit/tax/kick people to build up? Did you spend 3 full years farming up the mats (if so, new players won’t be building halls for a while)? Was your guild much bigger before you finished the hall? Did you blackmail many people? Did you hire your guild out as a mercenary band in WvW for mats and gold? Did you find a secret way to use thieves to loot other guild hall banks?

To list a few questions, anyhow. =P

Labjax.2465:

Swift.1930:

Most likely it’s a holiday thing; she is listed as the Forum Communications Team Lead, which pretty much means her main responsibility is responding to/consolidating feedback from (or having a team do that for her) hooligans like us who type stuff all the time. Gotta say that she probably earned the break the minute she stepped into the forums, haha. Okay, maybe not all of us are that bad. =P

Probably. She was support team, I believe, prior to getting the forum communications title though, so it’s hard to say for sure what all responsibilities they put on her. Forum communications may be a sometimes role and her role may be shifting over time as well.

Office politics, changing priorities, and all that.

Yeah, there is a lot of negativity to take in. Can’t say I’d jump at the job. Would certainly be a unique kind of challenge though. Part of me would want to try that sort of job, just to see what kind of mood and presentation I could sow among forummers from that kind of position.

Haha, I would immediately (and without restraint) jump on the job if they even pretended to offer it to me. xD

Forum management/communication is a dream job compared to (non-studio) office work. Being part of a creative project… don’t even get me started on how awesome that is!

pandemos.3497:

Swift.1930:

Linken.6345:

Swift.1930:

pandemos.3497:

Swift.1930:

Draygo.9473:

Nury.3062:

I always see the “make the Guild Hall Upgrades scale with the number of members the guild has” FIX. What can stop me from kicking all my guild members,get the mats i need from them,get the upgrade and then invite them again…?!

It might be hard for small guilds to do stuff…but as many people said if you create a guild and you are 2-3 members…let’s be honest,how can you expect to do any content with that guild?
I am a guild leader since 14 november 2013 we had many members now we don’t …let’s say 10-15 daily online members,that is a small guild,yet we don’t complain about the upgrades and we work hard to get our amazing guild hall in a nice shape.
We got all the buildings (tents for now) available and many of the upgrades.
And we are working constantly on it.

They could base it on the max guild roster size. You know the guy you gotta pay to increase your guild member cap? That. If your are a first level guild with the lowest member cap your upgrades are cheaper. The higher your member cap the more you pay. Anet can reset all guilds member caps to the lowest possible for their guild and refund the cost to the guild leader as a one time courtesy.

Hm… three things that I foresee this would affect:

1) if the guild’s cap was cut, the guild members would also have to be cut (temporarily). Building up a lost build roster could cause havoc. All those previously happy people would come to the forum and flame us.
2) big guilds who have already farmed everything and worked very hard would suddenly find that their resources were spent on nothing. More flamers.
3) guilds that want to be big wouldn’t want to have to pay tons simply to upgrade things that small guilds can upgrade for cheap. They would keep the roster empty or at the lowest cap until all the upgrades have been bought, and then bring people back. All the stranded members would understand the advantage and would donate to their guild to progress it. The same issue would still stand, because those guilds would have access to so many resources/income streams that smaller guilds don’t.

But something that would make sense: adding small guild halls for small guilds. Services could be smaller (except WvW buffs) and more affordable for small guilds. Every guild wants a place to call home! And I personally feel that the guild halls are too insanely massive – unless, of course, they are brimming with members who hang out there regularly. Again, small guilds need smaller places. I want a hobbit hole. Or maybe a little old-Ascalon keep.

(Guild Wars 1 guild hall vendor quote: “Truly, what guild can call itself a guild without an island of its own? Come with me. I can take you on a tour of each island, and you can choose which you like the best.”)

I still just vote that contributions to guilds be based on the individual… if you want guild services you contribute X amount, regardless of guild size. Complete eliminates the complexity and makes everyone accountable. The freeloaders won’t like it… but that shouldn’t be a surprise.

Wait… do you mean handicap the guild until everyone has logged in and contributed? Or that each individual has to pay to access something that already exists in a guild?

If it’s the former, I can’t say that sounds great to me.

If it’s the latter, it feels like a pure resource sink. If the guild already owns something, the only money/resource transfers that should happen (if at all) should be channeled directly to the guild leader or the people who originally unlocked it. Having everyone unlock some random vendor who is standing there anyways is just strange. It’d be like everyone had their own separate guild rather than being part of a single guild. Plus, it encourages people not to work together and to hoard their things – for future updates if nothing else. =/

more like oh you made this tavern that only holds 25 people and your 26 now here is the materials you need to upgrade it to hold up to 50 people before you can use it again.

Most guild would just kick nr26 then i guess

Edit
Oh who am I kidding we would have people start threads like wer 27 people why do we have to pay as much kitten people this is unfair.
Untill anet made it scale in single digits.
And then people would complain what 1 more player is this much materials outrageous Nerf please.

Yeah, some things are very tricky to balance…

I know I keep saying it like… everywhere, but I still feel like having different sizes of guild halls, with accordingly-scaled maximum services, would be a viable option. I can tell you that I wouldn’t mind having a tiny guild hobbit hole that simply isn’t big enough to fit a market/tavern/strategy room/arena (well, maybe a little dueling ring).

My personal proposal wasn’t considering scaling… and I was actually thinking of the latter, where each individual gains access to features based on their own contribution. The guild halls are nothing but mat/gold sinks anyway. That is a major intent of their existence, but I understand not wanting it to be blatant.

If you want it to require a certain number of people to contribute to open specific guild features, then it really just reinforces minimal guild size requirements which I feel ruins a major appeal for GW2.

^ Exactly, which is why I wouldn’t hate a smaller hall with (logically) smaller/less features as an option for smaller guilds like mine. Of course, it should still be able to unlock the upgrades that people were able to unlock before the HoT update. We didn’t even need halls for that stuff.

Astralporing.1957:

Devata.6589:

So a big guild has to pay more for exactly the same just because they are bigger. That’s seems extremely unfair.

Why? It would supply the same options as a smaller guild, that’s true, but it would supply them to a larger number of players. To me it seems normal that it would cost more.
If you cook a dinner for 50 people, it requires greater quantities of ingredients than one made for 5 people – even if the dinner in question is exactly the same. The current HoT guild hall system seems to think however, that a dinner for anything less than 500 people just won’t do for any of those groups. Which, when you think about it, is ridiculous.

Keeping in mind, of course, that 26 of the 50 might not show up for dinner at all, and 10 of them don’t like what you’ve cooked and make something for themselves.

It doesn’t make sense to build, for instance, a tavern that takes up… uh… let’s say 15 yards x 15 yards, that for one group of people costs 50 planks and for another costs 500,000 planks.

A different size of guild hall for a different size of guild? With smaller services? That would make sense.