Guild Wars 2

I’m going to add an “I am not pleased with recycling event comment” here as well.

I for one am very disappointed that they’ve already automated the Halloween event much like they did with Guild Wars 1. On top of which, this holiday was usually their best one back in GW1 day and I’m sad to see it reduced to… this.

I always loved their Halloween event the most and I still hold the Mad King as one of my favorite characters introduced in the old game… much like Adelberne. That aside, I would love to see them continue the events in a grandiose fashion as they had and not cast them by the wayside of some “big new project.” I will admit I do not enjoy the Wintersday Event as much as I did with GW1, but I was disappointed with that event being mostly rehashed last year as well (if my memory serves correctly). The holiday events should be fun and fresh and serve as a deterrent from waiting for “the next big thing.” They don’t have to be completely new each time and heck, I think you should be able to access previous events, but it doesn’t make sense story-wise in the world when you have a story element that repeats as though the event in the world is a new thing. Updating dialogue to reflect a previous encounter would suffice to say the least.

Anyway, I hope they go back and do the events since they’ve already automated Wintersday, have currently automated Halloween (my favorite of holiday events), and have dropped the Moto Back-to-School event. My heart is a little sad as I look forward to this event every year since GW1. I guess I won’t get my hopes up again next and see if they bother with it at all. And yeah, I am acting like a child whose Christmas just got ruined by getting clothes instead of toys. Over-privileged? Maybe, but it’s Halloween kitten it!

Boo-stricken,
Narsilik

Re the labyrinth you could, I don’t know, use the looking for group tool and join an active map like anyone else who wants a solution instead of a reason to complain?

So far I’ve found good maps on both days with a minimum of effort. Not to mention that the farming is much better this year than in previous years.

On top of that, most games have copy and paste holiday events. Because you can’t put too much work on something that’s going to be gone in two weeks. Anet used to do that and got nothing but flack for it.

I’m sorry, but I don’t get it. People have been complaining about temporary content and how they want everything available again and again, but whenever a holiday event returns (and they were announced as periodically returning content from the start), people complain that they want something different because they’ve seen it before?

SpecterMAT.7306:

Having lots of golds in this game, will not improve your gameplay experience mate.

I just think that this copy paste Halloween should been not allowed to as big company as ANET.

It’s an offense towards player base.
Crushing the good mood and hope of players is not okay.

Gold does improve my game experience…

Follow the thousands before you and just do not log in anymore

Can i have your gold?

Zaxares.5419:

What are these mobs dropping that’s so valuable? Halloween mats?

100% Trick or Treat Bags

http://a.pomf.se/uahgsq.webm

A video of the farm.

So it’s an established fact that the devs can’t speak on what is in development. Whether or not you agree with it, that’s how it is and it’s unlikely to change. But I don’t want a discussion about that, instead I’d like to propose something for the opposite end of the development cycle, the post mortem.

For those who don’t know a post mortem is essentially a review of a project just finished to determine what went right, what went wrong, and how can it be used to make future projects better. More information can be found at the following links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmortem_documentation
http://blog.codinghorror.com/game-development-postmortems/

I suggest that the devs (Chris Whiteside in particular) do a post mortem with the community after each significant feature release (CE changes, TP changes, Trait changes, Megaserver changes, etc). While you can’t tell us about things while they’re in development, talk to us about it after. Walk us through things like:
*What problem was this meant to solve?
*You chose XYZ, what didn’t you chose to go with?
*If you felt ABC wasn’t a solution, why wasn’kitten
*What problems came up that forced a shift in how the feature was designed?
*What impacts did you predict this feature would have on the game?
*What actual impacts did this feature have on the game?
*etc

Why do this? Doing a post mortem like this would help the players see why and how certain features come out the way they do. If we understand how things happened it might help us accept some of the features we don’t like. If we know how things go through development then maybe we can predict some issues and answer them in future CDIs.

It may also help developers learn where/why players disagree with some of their decisions. Maybe there was a critical decision to be made on something and the devs thought going left was better, but in the post mortem the players see the decision that needs to be made and think going right was better. Knowing those kinds of specifics for past features can help everyone avoid similar problems in future features.

We may not be able to talk with developers about things in development, but I believe a good post mortem and a good CDI can really help bridge the gap and make for stronger features that both the devs and players like.

Also I should state, Post Mortems should be done for both the well received and the poorly received features. While there are fewer complaints about the well received features we can learn just as much from those.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Rangers use the skill not only to knock back an enemy, but also to interrupt an enemy attack. An enemy that might just have caused harm to the players in melee range, and the players complaining about the ranger attack. The interrupt is only seen by the ranger when the word ‘interrupt’ comes up.

Perhaps so, but many melee players can also interrupt without doing a knockback, that is something those Rangers don’t see, anytime you hit a creature in the middle of performing it’s attack you can interrupt it, so it works both ways.

Ouroboros.5076:

Video Games in the 90s : children under 14y can’t get past the first level of most games.
Video Games in 201x : video game companies have to teach players to use the appropriate button at the appropriate time.

I wonder if in 203x, video game companies will have to teach players how to use a mouse.

Playing videogames since the early 1980s and no one of my family was ever able to beat me – except for minesweeper never had the patience for it. So alter your first point, please Yes, I have been way younger than 14 back then.

Rangers use the skill not only to knock back an enemy, but also to interrupt an enemy attack. An enemy that might just have caused harm to the players in melee range, and the players complaining about the ranger attack. The interrupt is only seen by the ranger when the word ‘interrupt’ comes up.

Video Games in the 90s : children under 14y can’t get past the first level of most games.
Video Games in 201x : video game companies have to teach players to use the appropriate button at the appropriate time.

I wonder if in 203x, video game companies will have to teach players how to use a mouse.

It is especially poor form to use those skills during zerg content or when everyone is about to unleash all their aoe on the target and some knockbacker throws it completely out of the damage zone and puts everyone on cooldown for their tiny damage skill.

knockback is something you use when SOLO, not in groups (dungeons/pvp excluded), it is a strategic skill to keep you from DYING and give you some escape distance.

This is one of the problems with a game that doesn’t have a tutorial and players have to learn from other players.
I really hate those players whose entire motivation is to hit the boss or champ with their knockback as soon as it comes out of invulnerable status or loses all it’s stacks of defiance. You know those people, they’re the same ones that makes posts like “FIRST!!! hahahah lolercopter!!!” and that’s all they type cause that’s all their brain can process.

Thanks for negating hundreds of thousands of damage for your crappy little knockback. I hope you feel special.

I would give ANYTHING for Anet to remove knockback, blowback, and long duration fear from the player portion of the game and give us more meta interrupts that don’t change the position of the enemies.

Harbinger.5129:

I wonder when ANet will do anything to teach players WHEN to knockback.

Thanks, I’ve had this so many times the past weeks, I kind of expect it when I’m in an open world megaserver pug but when I’m already soloing a camp and the veteran is the last one standing at 5% health and I try to backstab him, a ranger runs in and knooockbacks – and that camp after camp until I waypoint as they have the habit to follow me. Same happens with necros and mesmers. I don’t complain if I come into a camp while somebody else is already soloing it but I sure won’t “follow” them.
Sorry but had to get that off my chest. And yeah it’s annoying in these big zergs as well but I would’ve thought that a wvw regular would know better. So maybe there should be a knockback tutorial for everybody.

There’s too much zerg content where bad players simply shrug off responsibility to everyone else, those bad players are not going to learn. You just have to accept that zerg content and open world PvE will just mean that you have to put up with these brainless players. As unintuitive as it is, keep Defiant on champs (as champs without defiant stacks confuses new players), and if possible try to keep your own pulls/gap closers available while in melee.

A lot of these people cannot be reasoned with, as they seem to pride themselves on their lack of skill and basic understanding, and many will grow hostile if you “try to tell them how to play”.

I do hope that players someday learn mindlessly mashing every ability as soon as it’s off cooldown isn’t the best way to play your class.

I hope. But I am not hopeful.

Thank you Anet for not turning this event into a time travel experiment to a Lion’s Arch of the past. I’m glad you decided to do the event in the destroyed LA.
I’m a happy camper,

With the late release of the patch yesterday I jumped unto reddit to see how it fared for everyone only to find the only things people cared about was: Gem prices have changed

That couldn`t be right, so I took a look at the patchnotes only to have my fears confirmed: Helloween is the same as last year (mostly)

They have announced it in the recent blog post, but with the high activity of Chris Whitside (actually love his interactions) and his excitement for the patch I hoped for something more. Anything at least.

Last years Halloween and Wintersday got a lot of flag and feedback regarding the whole festival events, which boiled down to these two things:
- Players thought the story is good enough to be continued
- Players do not like it if content in any way is cut back (modified and streamlined to make it more accessable is okay, but not missing)

These were the hopes of players. ANet build a great foundation to build upon and extend , however for this year it is clear: They do not want/are not able to do anything with it

Story: Blood and Madness
The obvious question: Why did you decide to just reuse an event that got praise and flag at the same time last year, without any changes/improvements?

Blood and Madness was well received in its idea, but critisized for its execution and payoff. The bloody princes only involvement being in the very short instance and the gating (for new players, who are forced to grind, instead of being allowed enjoying the story) was just patting.
It could have been soo much more . There were several suggestions on how things could have been better implemented, down to a voting system , in which we players choose a side between the Mad King and the Bloody Prince to change the next years Halloween.
Sadly it seems the only feedback they decided to implement was: It was “fun”

The Event
While we finaly got the Pumpkin Carver title back, it begs the question: Are you really satisfied with your work on these festivities?

LA looks great as usual, but the rest is just the same old stuff we had the last few years. While it is good for new players, I, as someone who experienced the last two years, see no real reason to be excited.
If anything I am just disapointed.
While fun, a little twist here and there. Something to keep it up to date would have done the trick. (Even the Archievments are the same)
I am not saying these are not fun, but it shines a bad light on the developement of the game if we just get a copy and paste (which is even more disheartending, after the Anniversity was also just there and did not feel like an celebration at all)

Improvements
Currency Exchange… I guess there is a big Thread about it already. While the Idea is good, the execution is only half backed… something I start to feel about a lot of the recent changes sadly (For real. This game should be fun, but the last few months it just makes me sad)

Black Lion Weapons
Why are these removed?
I get the Lovestruck weapons, as they are Valentines Day weapons, however the others make no sense.
You went out of your way to make them available through a vendor after a lot of complaining and now you take them away? Please explain.
Aetherblades are still in game, however as long as you don`t plan to integrate them to their loot-pool, removing them is cutting content.
Dragon`s Jade : While the event is apearently resigned, these cool weapons have no other place in the game at the moment. As long as the festival is not guaranteed to come back, they should remain.
Fused and Dreamthisle : Enemy forces are still there. As long as you do not plan to make them a reward in any other way (Season 1 re-integration rewards), cutting them (even temporary) is cutting good content out of the game.

If you have plans, then please communicate them. Please explain changes, so the playerbase is not left confused.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. The GW2 world is not persistant. Never has been. It creates the illusion of persistance.

Based upon what you state above, it almost sounds like you want a single player game and not an online persistent world MMO. GW1 PvE was basically a single player game with the exception of the various PvP areas. There wasn’t an area of the PvE world that couldn’t be played by an individual(and I do mean not one single area, especially with the advent of heroes and being able to turn your own character into a hero). Not saying that instances don’t have their place in a persistent world, but not at the expense of the masses…or those that don’t particularly care for doing group content. As for more instanced content other than additional guild missions, I don’t see it happening, but out of the some odd 6 million copies sold, I’m sure a significant enough amount of people replay that persistent open world content as it is(and I see this myself in my daily play). As for the Guild missions being scaled for 20 people, numbers ranging from 5 to 50 were thrown around…I don’t remember the exact reason for 20, but I’m pretty sure it was a compromise.

Hello everyone,
I have now bought one skin just because of the hat you get from it. I was really hoping that I also got the skin unlock so I don’t need to use the full outfit. I really hope that anet can make a change to the outfits where you have the outfit option where you don’t need to use transmutation gems. BUT if you want it on one item you can use a gem to change the appearance of the item. In the long run more people will be buying multiple outfits to mix and match them along with having to buy the gems.

I personally would love this change. What do you guys think?

ppl have been complaining about Grinding… and A-net have done something about it

It’s account bound — it has no value. You cannot gain or obtain any currency value for it.

That’s why everyone is giving the OP a hard time — because the argument is flawed.

Malediktus.9250:

This game is about cosmetic progression. How am I supposed to “progress” if everything is easy to get at any time? Dont tell me legendaries, most of them look like they could as well be exotics to me. And the most expensive armor is 119g for a whole set lol. Thats like 1 day of farming for me, less if I combine with trading.

Which could be worth debating, except that you’re talking about items you already have and how you feel cheated because they’re easier to get for other people.

Malediktus.9250:

This game is about cosmetic progression. How am I supposed to “progress” if everything is easy to get at any time? Dont tell me legendaries, most of them look like they could as well be exotics to me. And the most expensive armor is 119g for a whole set lol. Thats like 1 day of farming for me, less if I combine with trading.

No, it’s about cosmetics, there is no “progression” about it. Some people like legendaries, some people don’t. Some people like t3 armor sets, some people like mix n match.

To be progression, it has to be a series of steps with improvement from one to the next, and that doesn’t exist here, because being about aesthetics everyone has a different idea of what looks good to them and what they want their “end look” to be.

Labjax.2465:

I would sympathize, but it appears to be a theme with you, lobbying for exclusive items to stay exclusive in whatever capacity you happen to own them or are going for them.

I find it hard to believe that this has anything to do with boredom, unless you somehow find it more entertaining to walk around feeling special than not?

^

This seems to be Malediktus’ theme song. “I’ve got mine and I think it’s exclusive so I don’t want others to get it now.” I’ve seen him posting this in multiple threads.

In the world there are people who are naturally inclusive and those who are naturally exclusive. ANet has decided to side here with the inclusive crowd. They aren’t going to change their way of doing things unless you can bring up a compelling reason why they should favor you over all the new people (and their money) who want these items.

Way to make up excuses. Anet said they will take everything we loved about GW1 and put it into an open world. (I know this promise was just a marketing ploy but still.) A MMO game without rare and exclusive items will quickly get boring for people who play it for thousands of hours.
Also the prices of some of the minis in GW1 were that high, because some of them only existed in double digit amounts. Kanaxai for example existed 28 times. Rarity like that is exactly what we need in GW2.

Malediktus.9250:

MithranArkanere.8957:

Malediktus.9250:

GreenAlien.5623:

They were exclusive for a year. Thats more than enough time, so no reason to feel “cheated”..

No. There is never enough time. I enjoy items becoming rarer and rarer over time as people quit and new players come.
[…]

And Scrooge McDuck enjoyed swimming in coins. That doesn’t mean it’ right of fair for others… neither physically possible.

You can’t keep countless players from enjoying something because they had an unreasonable cost for it that kept it away from too many players before.

If it was something that required at least a modicum of skill like liadri. Or time and dedication. Then it’ll be wrong to make it much easier to get.

And it’ll also be wrong to make it a once-in-a lifetime thing.

But if its just something that is only behind a grind wall, and the wall gets lower, nothing was lost. They adjusted the costs to match the reality of the game. The game was simply improved.

120g was not unreasonable for an exotic miniature. In GW1 rare minis were prestige objects, I dont think why everyone should be entitled to get exotic minis (5g, thats like doing CoF 2-3 times) for a pocket change in GW2.
I find it quite sad the most valuable mini is the Mini Karka with only 1200g value after 2 years of being discontinued. 1200g is only a small fraction of the most expensive GW1 minis in comparison.

Well this isn’t guild wars 1. Also it was expensive in guild wars 1 because most players only had only about 1-8 attempts per year with really really really low rates.

Also guild was 1 did not really have a global trading system for players to try and outbid one another, so the prices stayed artificially high. Also it didn’t help that the economy in guild wars 1 was completely kittened up after a while.

Malediktus.9250:

GreenAlien.5623:

They were exclusive for a year. Thats more than enough time, so no reason to feel “cheated”..

No. There is never enough time. I enjoy items becoming rarer and rarer over time as people quit and new players come.
[…]

And Scrooge McDuck enjoyed swimming in coins. That doesn’t mean it’ right of fair for others… neither physically possible.

You can’t keep countless players from enjoying something because they had an unreasonable cost for it that kept it away from too many players before.

If it was something that required at least a modicum of skill like liadri. Or time and dedication. Then it’ll be wrong to make it much easier to get.

And it’ll also be wrong to make it a once-in-a lifetime thing.

But if its just something that is only behind a grind wall, and the wall gets lower, nothing was lost. They adjusted the costs to match the reality of the game. The game was simply improved.

They were exclusive for a year. Thats more than enough time, so no reason to feel “cheated”..