Guild Wars 2

mauried.5608:

Which “begs” an interesting question.
Is it time for MMOs to introduce credit into the game economy.
ie allow players to borrow gold.
The entire real world economy now runs on credit , so I cant see any reason to not have it in online games.
Solves the begging problem overnight.
Also adds an additional level to control the inflation rate,as if credit is added, then interest on the credit must also be added.

There are all kinds of reasons not to add credit to MMOs, not the least of which is that people don’t need to spend beyond their income. There are no important necessities that cost so much gold that someone can’t earn it if they are willing to put in the time. Further, credit + interest won’t decrease begging, it will just change the nature and reasons for it.

Companies don’t just pay people to think of ideas. They pay them to have the training and experience to think about it in the wider sense of what’s good for the game and the majority of players rather than what they personally would like, to know which suggestions are possible and worthwhile following up and to know how to do that.

It’s the same in any field. I’ve never worked as a games designer but I do work in conservation and people with good ideas are very easy to find. People with good ideas which are practical, cost-effective and worked out in detail are very rare.

Which isn’t to say it’s not worth posting your suggestions. Just that it’s not at all comparable to what Anet staff do on a daily basis. And that just because you think an idea is good doesn’t mean it should happen as there are likely to be considerations you haven’t thought of.

And the exact same is true of my ideas, and anyone elses. I’ve had ideas I think are great which never even got as far as the forum because I told my guild and got shouted down. Some of them I still think are great but I have to accept that other people disagree and they play this game too.

It’s a sad day when people assume that because nothing is said, it’s being “ignored.” Gotta be kittening kidding me with that amount of cranial density. I’d love to go link Gaile’s post about this sort of thing, yet highly….. ignorant (really no other word describes it tbh) threads such as this one appear with some frequency.

Some players might not need validation to continue to suggest features or improvement.

It may be enough to see suggested features/improvements appear in the game.

Tumult.2578:

Personally, I totally believe it’s wasted effort. The selective communications cannot be defended. Posts in the “so called” official forum can reach thousands of views and many hundreds of responses and most don’t get a single response. That’s not just poor communication it’s insulting.

You don’t have to post a suggestion. No one is forcing you to do so. It has been explained ad nauseam why a response from Anet is unlikely, but you don’t have to believe their answers.

Tumult.2578:

This drives players away from posting good possible changes and I’m convinced the game could be more fun for everyone if they simply set a limit on the number of posts or views and when the limit was reached, they respond to the issue.

Do you think people post because they want to see the game improved? Or do you think they post because they want a pat on the back with a “Good job!” or a thumbs up? Granted, those aren’t exclusive from each other, but attention seeking isn’t the best motivator for a forum where the devs have said they won’t be responding a lot (see above section). Edit: I do agree that tacit acknowledgement isn’t the best type for many people, but it’s what the devs have time for.

Tumult.2578:

When so many players have limited time to play, how can there be an “expectation” of having to check the forums for threads, patch notes, survey results, Reddit, Sub reddit, Wiki, and other good intentioned personal websites for what seems to many players to be basic information? This tells me that the effort to hide and surprize outweighs the effort to communicate and what kind of business model is that?

This portion is so out of left field, I’m going to need you to clarify what you mean. Does this relate at all to Anet responding to suggestions? If you want Anet to give players information about updates, how would you prefer they do so? In game? Anet prefers to use the forums, but you seem to be looking for another manner.

I think every single change to the daily achievements has been preceded by discussions on the forum. Most recently there were lots of topics from people asking for a cap on the total number of points and how many achievements you have to do per day – which lead to the current system of doing 3 achievements for 10 points (instead of up to 10 per day for 1 point each as it was before) – and then people said doing dailies after you reach the cap feels pointless and some people miss it, so they added 2g to the rewards.

There are numerous other examples too.

I suspect the main reason they don’t reply to say that they like an idea is they don’t want to set up unrealistic expectations.

Firstly because making anything for a game takes longer than many people realise. If they say they like an idea and will use it some people will be expecting it by next Tuesday, or the next big update at the absolute latest and in the majority of cases that’s just not realistic. But when it doesn’t happen it becomes another case of Anet “lying” and deliberately breaking their promises to disappoint players.

But it’s also highly unlikely that anyone at Anet has the authority to say that on their own. If they like an idea they’ll need to pitch it to the relevant people, who will discuss it and work out how to implement it. And even if it does happen it may be changed in some key ways from the original version, which might then disappoint people who saw the thread.

The warrior forum is a very good example of how suggestions are not a wasted effort. For almost a year warriors became so distraught with the state of the warrior that players—Incluging myself— started creating entire threads based on the concept of rebalanced suggestions and while the devs to my knowledge never once comented on them, they did in fact hear the cries from the warrior community and made a much needed change to the warrior. it was a small change, and it may have been overboard as many players will say AH is overpowered, but it was an elegant solution to a problem that can be easily balanced (and i suspect it will be eventually) at a later date. It may take months for the devs to actually get around to fixing an aspect of the game, but they do in fact take into account suggestions. they may not run with the exact suggestion, but they will attempt to make changes in the spirit of what those suggestions involve.

Another example is the Ancient Seeds bug. players made suggestions on how to nerf the trait which prompted Anet to really look att he trait. what they discovered is that the trait was working incorrectly and they changed it to proc one time per player.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

They may not comment often (sometimes, they do), but some suggestions do make it into the game.

Considering the same suggestions can often be found on the forums (and elsewhere) even when the suggestion has been commented on, it would probably be counter-productive for the Devs to comment on each post/thread.

It would be nice if they (ANet) made some bit of effort to acknowledge players post occasionally.

“Hey that’s a good idea.” “It’s a good idea but has been suggested before.” “Interesting but I don’t think it’s possible to implement that because …”

There is an old phrase “silence breeds contempt”. Most companies these days have people who interface with the public beyond official announcements because people see companies that don’t as being detached from their customer base . The forum is the best way for them to engage the customer base.

Read the response from Gaile again. ANet folks respond all the time. There simply is not time in the day to get stuff done (that we can play) and to respond to every good idea (let alone every idea that isn’t feasible for whatever reason).

There are dozens of ideas I’ve seen proposed in the forums that end up in the game, in some way, shape, or form. (The current implementation of recovering the hammer in Cliffside looks very much like what I’ve seen here.)

The fact is that no matter how often ANet responds or in what depth, we are going to want to hear more. Given the choice between hearing from them more often and them delivering more stuff (bug fixes, QoL improvements, content, whatever), I’d far prefer to see more stuff.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Is making suggestions on the forums a wasted effort? I’ve seen other people make suggestions and I’ve made a few but I rarely if ever see any response from someone at ANet to them.

Given that this is the official GW2 forum I’m surprised ANet folks don’t post here more. Oh wait, I forgot… they are posting on Reddit instead. Does that make Reddit the true GW2 forum?

Generally speaking, you wont get a reply from anet. There are exceptions, such as Lawton if you have questions or suggestions for the API system, or John Smith (or is it Jon? Havent seen him post in a while) if you happen to post a thread that’s incredibly economically…. dumb. Lookin’ at you tinfoil-wrapped ecto threads.

Frankly, that’s a god kitten smart idea on their end. You have any idea how often them posting “we’ll look into it” has players turning it into “we’ll have it by the next update”? That being said, however, the devs DO read the forums, and the great ideas will be noted and discussed internally. Any action they take on it we’ll be clueless about until it comes to fruition, or fails so completely they feel it’s worth mentioning that right now it’s something that’s not possible.

So… I had more to this post, but that was about 3 hours ago when I started typing it, then got distracted by something until now…. oh well…

Galtrix.7369:

On my GW2 box, I still remember it saying something about “Pay once, and that’s it”. Well that idea obviously got moved aside.

No, it did not. The game content that came with that box, and more besides, is still available. That promise does not mean they have to provide new content ad infinitum.

OP, since you didnt include a tldr, I’m going to assume you forgot to consider the fact that a lot of the changes in the release pacing was demanded by players.

@ed, strong odds it’s coming this month given the fact it’s a QUARTERLY update. Same odds it’s happening once the league finishes, as that’s what it did before. Also, that “leaked article” is almost guaranteed to be a giant pile of dolyak kitten in regards to any sort of truth.

eduardo.1436:

penelopehannibal.8947:

There’s a Summer Quarterly update just round the corner.

not being rude but how do you know?

1. Anet has said NOTHING about a release date or any relevant information for the summer update

2. While it is logical to expect anything on tuesday (the end of pvp league) there is a chance nothing will happen

3. there is that leaked italin article saying that LW will come at the end of summer

Because it wouldn’t be quarterly if it wasn’t. I have faith they will stick to the quarterly deadline, which is 3 months after the last one. LW in the Italian thing (which as far as I’m concerned, something could have been lost in translation by the interviewer) might not necessarily be part of the Quarterly Update.

I think only part of the issue was with development requirements. It’s not exactly a secret that mmo’s cannot create content at the same rate at which its player base consumes it. If they are done revamping core systems (which supposedly, they are), that should help the consistency issue.

The other part of issue came due to the backlash from (seemingly) significant portions of the player base. It was that backlash that resulted in LS2 being permanent. Their changes to the system, in addition to actually creating the content, which caused delays.

The expansion (and subsequent drought) can be placed quite firmly on the community’s shoulders, imo. Even with the changes to LS2, there was still a huge outcry for an “actual” expansion. The fact that we ended up with a content drought during that time period should not have been as much of a surprise as it was.

Roflmao…. what’s next? /TeachMeHowToDougie ? /DoTheDirtyBird ? /WhenIDipYouDipWeDip ?

Sorry, buddy, but I don’t think that fad emotes are important. I’m gonna have to vote a big ol’ “Nope” to any new emotes that aren’t recognized by the majority of players.

Besides… there are more important things the devs need to be working on besides new animations for each race and emotes: the next living story, the next expansion, quality of life updates, etc. I’d rather these things be top priority than any new emotes, honestly.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Aside from the image with a person with their face in their elbow pit I’m not really sure what dab means. Is there some meaning to placing your face in the elbow pit? Label me old I guess.

I’m 24 and i have no idea what this dab is. I think this is another thing cool kids do when out clubbing? Or playing soccer? Or…? I have no idea i only dab when i spill something on the carpet.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

From my perspective, it makes no sense that this game still limits itself to a small set of stat prefixes, which are arbitrarily divided into some that can be crafted and sold, some that can be crafted but not sold, and some that can’t be crafted.

I’d like to see a modular system where each of us can choose, in the crafting process, the stats we want. 3 stat prefixes would use three kinds of activators, e.g. to make zerk, it might take 3 parts blood, one part claw, and one part totems. To make Marauder’s might be 2 parts blood, 2 parts claw, one part totems, and one part azurite.

The current system seems difficult to balance and expand, especially without annoying disruptions to the economy, gating, and binding.

While I agree that it’d be nice to be able to more easily pick and choose my stats (oh gods yes it’d be nice), it honestly doesn’t make much sense to do from a business perspective.

Since GW2 is ‘trying’ to limit power creep and have a more horizontal character growth at lvl 80 (by focusing more on skins, etc)…. well, it makes sense we’ll see new stat combos solely with expansions. We all want new options to explore, so by adding them trickle by trickle with new content it becomes encouragement to purchase new buyable content. And, any new content needs some type of treadmill to keep us logging in, because MMO… hence the discrepancy in ways to acquire certain pieces.

I think it’s likely we’ll see a condi-focused stat set with boon duration in the future… It’s only a matter of time…. and treadmills.

~EW

Haleydawn.3764:

Why has XP got to keep rewarding people? I really dont get this obsession with ‘wasted XP’. It’s not wasted XP, its just not relevant to you right now. As soon as new mastery tracks are added, it’ll be relevant again. Deal with it. I’ve had maxed masteries for months now and I honestly can’t see what people are obsessing about.

Giving more loot for doing PvE is just distasteful and causes even more imbalance between modes. The game mode which gets you the most gold/hr ratio out of all 3 game modes and you want more?

I don’t get why every thread on this subject has to have a post like this. This is a game about personal progression and xp is one significant measure of that. When I see that XP text flash up after I kill something I feel that progression. When I know that xp is going nowhere, I feel like something I’ve earned is going to waste. But that’s just me. I’m not sure why you think that’s obsessive or distasteful but whatever.

Why should portals be blocked? Hell personally I use my portal mainly not for other people but in case I think I’m about to make a series of jumps where I will screw up and fall. Is it cheating to use one of my utility skills to get around that? No. That’s what its there for, utility.

As to the rewards issue. Well if you guys really do want better rewards then I guess you could have a few JQ be like the one in SW where you have to get to the checkpoints, the more checkpoints you go to the better rewards (probably more chests available), so that if you park there you don’t get as many rewards. But I really don’t see PvE parking as an issue in the first place so….

i think the current chests are fine. Making them too good will lead to farming them and people doing the JPs for the chest rewards and not because they like to do JPs.

And the “issues” you’ve described aren’t issues if they’ve been a feature of the game for almost 4 years now and the Devs haven’t said a word against them. You not liking something isn’t the same as it being an issue.

coso.9173:

I’d personally love a “Bio” section in the character screen, for RP purposes, when you inspect another player you could look at it too. I always like to give my characters some story behind, it helps me flesh them out. Specially because playing MMOs is one of the way I have to create future characters for my comics.
I don’t care if it is an add on or the main game allows it though.

I don’t RP, but I think this would be a great addition to the game. Combined with a “custom title” option, I imagine ANet could sell this as an upgrade in the gem shop.

@Coso: imo, this idea is worth a separate thread, since the OP here was about add-ons, and your suggestion doesn’t have to be an “add-on”.

The best of the available choices, to me, is adding crafting to the sPvP lobby.

Guild halls: not everyone has a guild hall with a crafting table. It needs to be available to new people as well as new guilds and solitary players.

Add to the home instance: Good for those with a portal stone. Not so good without. It’s sure to set up a pay to win argument unless there’s a free way to get there from PvE maps.

Hall of Monuments: requires a portal stone. Easy to get but then people have to carry one around and use up an inventory slot.

So, SPvP lobby of all the available choices.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

<snip> Something implemented like the Morrowind Mark/Recall spells would be more universally useful; not just for the limited purpose of crafting.

A way to mystically ‘mark’ a single spot in Tyria (like where you’re currently adventuring), then you can ‘recall’ (i.e. teleport) to that specific spot any time (such as after you finished crafting in Rata Sum). The mark could stay until a new mark is created to replace it.

This is a great idea to me, implemented properly it would be a definitive favorite item of many.

Server chat is a pretty sweet idea. Could get overrun tho.

Want to advertise WvW?
Command on off hours for WvW until you know what you’re doing. People will follow you, and you will gain a positive reputation for doing well in important hours.
Start a guild. People kittenpect you may be willing to run with you if you command.
Start training pugs. This improves the quality of people on your server.
Now that you have a good following, tell people in your guild to invite their PvE/PvP friends to run with you. If they like it, they will come back.
This is how Dragonbrand’s Battleground Heroes [Hero] started way back when. That guild ran strong until its leader left the game.
Good leaders make WvW a better place. The only thing that I request from the devs is to cut the price of superior siege (regular ac is trash, and superior flame rams are a must vs non-paper gates). Being a regular commander is very expensive, and relying on donations is not reliable or appropriate.

What does any of that have to do with tempest or reaper? Your describing what you see as a problem with fights, not anything to do with the classes themselves. Every class has access to some form of aoe, some of them are more effective then others. Organized groups use them more strategically and rotate for, cc’s, bombs, range hazing, and combo fields. If you see a lot of aoe circles, move, dodge, block, etc etc they all have aoe limits of 3 or 5 targets.

This is not something to fix, aoe is a part of the game, should we all just run up to people and hit them with sticks? Learn to counter properly, if you just expect to walk through everything, of course your going to have a bad time.

As a supplementary post to OP’s, the fractal team has virtually unlimited lore to build on new levels if they wanted to; I see no reason as to why we stay gated at 100 scales, with only 25 being really original (the agony resistance could stop getting higher at 100 and it would be no loss of challenge).

Furthermore, for some reason we even get to revisit content from Living World instead of exploring things like Turai Ossa or the golden years of the Margonites ruling the Crystal Sea. C’mon Anet, you got a gold mine right there! Nothing wrong with things like Thaumanova, but it just doesn’t live up to the Fractals potential, IMHO; they were announced as “anything is possible” yet we are getting literally “the most obviously possible”.

Quarktastic.1027:

Take all of the gems you would spend on unlimited tools, exchange them for gold. Use gold to buy a permanent merchant contract off the TP. Put in shared inventory.

You now have unlimited gathering tools for as many characters as you want to make.

Except that there is a still a cost at the merchant, and the picks do not drop sprockets.