Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet, I my plea:

If you have enough time to pump out weekly Black Lion trading items so that I throw my money at you, can you at least find time enough to give a status update regarding something that has a mass amount of views on your forums?

Thank you.

I realize I am being overly emotional and hyperbolic with my original post, but I have every right to be. I put a lot of emotional stock into the game and invested in it heavily, only to have it blow up in my face. Call me a fool all you like, but I know full well that Anet really do care about this kind of feedback and for their community in general.

Now I have no illusion that they will change course over what an emotional scrub on the internet says, but it is a point of data, and customer feedback is important.
Esp when they have been long time customer, and in my case one which has been a customer since the very beginning. (ie, the launch of Guild Wars) Losing a customer is never a good thing, and the have the right to know why.

This game will be taken in the direction that is best for China, every update from now until the game is done with will be done with China in mind, if it does not work there, it will never be put into the game, you can be the most hardcore fan of GW2 or hate it to the core, but its fact now, the Chinese have to pay to play this game, we get it for free, any update that will come to the game will have to be in the best interest of the Chinese market, NA/EU are not the primary audience anymore, not when they can make x10 as much money from the Chinese market.

There are still some game breaking bugs and bugged events/hearts that have been there since the game launched, that are still not fixed, they go ignored, there are events that spawn no enemies, no loot, no xp, that are ignored/not fixed, so either they are fixed on the Chinese game, or because they have never seen an event before hand they don’t know any different.

What I wonder is, ( im guessing ) there is a Chinese forum for this game too, do the devs ignore the playerbase over there as much as we get ignored, we seem to have a CC that doesn’t interact with the community at all, or if they do I aint seeing it.

This game has amazing art work, and still is right at the top for GFX/visuals for any game out there, but the content and other things that ruin it, they seem to determined to milk as much from that gem store as possible, yet if the players where happy they would probably be willing to spend money on gems for stuff, but all we get at the moment is, gem store, gem store, buy gems and trade for gold, gem store, sad but true.

Adry.7512:

WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO WITH THIS GAME????

Are you sure you want to know it? you would be disappointed…
Would you play a game where you don’t enjoy anything anymore, knowing that it will be the same for at least 3 years?

So 40 pages of Feedback. Not easy to read through.
But they say a picture is worth a thousand words. So here is some non-forum feedback from Tyria that I screencapped since the game broke Megaserver happened.

“What are megaservers?”
http://oi60.tinypic.com/vhywk3.jpg

On the roll-out:
http://oi57.tinypic.com/20fdvzl.jpg

Boss spawn trouble – no server runs – only WvW is left now for people who liked server doing events together as a community:
http://oi58.tinypic.com/2qwgbxx.jpg

No more Orr:
http://oi61.tinypic.com/2ep1rer.jpg

Spotted while waiting for Jormag – gathering messed up, trains messed up:
http://oi57.tinypic.com/33bjn91.jpg

Everyone for themselves in the new regime:
http://oi57.tinypic.com/mu7tqr.jpg

There are some kind people that share occasionally… but randomness of megaserver is merciless on people with alts:
http://oi57.tinypic.com/w86tck.jpg

More gathering rage:
http://oi60.tinypic.com/k2g608.jpg

Mindlessness & organisation:
http://oi58.tinypic.com/m8d174.jpg

True trouble in the Triple Trouble event @ Bloodtide – guildies cannot play together and we can’t even choose an empty server to go to.
http://oi60.tinypic.com/15xa6fn.jpg

The hardcap bug and bottlenecking issue that occurs when trying to find a relatvely empty server to run the organised Wurm.
http://oi57.tinypic.com/2vv9qc5.jpg
A map is already and instance, just not the one we can choose from, therefore we are not able to play with our friends like Anet promised.

Wurm map is an instance, but sadly we cannot choose who joins it, leading to:
http://oi61.tinypic.com/fns6eb.jpg

Tower of Babel and bashing:
http://oi61.tinypic.com/t8vhnr.jpg

Megaserver significantly increased the spam from gold sellers:
http://oi59.tinypic.com/6696vc.jpg

I think Anet is trying to compete with the goldsellers, since technically…they are one too (gems to gold)……..

no one else has noticed this weird trend?

+ the game opens in China
+ A horde of goldseller reappears
+ Black lion trader spam
+ Advertise on news exchange gold / gem
+ Collaborators anet appear much less on the forum

could be nothing but it’s really weird.

I do want to elaborate on a point I don’t think I made myself entirely clear. I don’t have that much of a problems with faults in the game, well I do, but I am willing to look past them if I think the game overall is going in a positive direction.
And I don’t think it is. I sat here and watched it go off in a direction I have little to no interest in, giving it the benefit of the doubt and hoped something would come of it.
Alas not much did, and it didn’t even begin to alleviate the major issues I have with it, so what’s the point in wasting good time and money.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Types of prestige
There are several types of prestige,

-“I was there prestige”: These are attendance rewards usually with some also having to be earned, they show you played back then or that you participated in a limited time event. Most living story skins used to fall into this category. Is destroyed by re-releasing the item by any means as the statement is no longer valid.

-“Skill prestige”: These would be items such as the tribulation mode weapons and Liadri they not only require you to play a certain activity but to do it to a high level of skill. Care has to be taken with these as power creep or an exploit can wipe out all their value in an instant.

- “Investment prestige”: These are items that take a large amount of resources be it time or money to complete and make a general statement about your playtime and choice of activity. Is wrecked by deflation/inflation or awarding of a previously high investment item for a low investment activity.

Requoted because relevant. All three types of these should exist to allow players with different goals and styles of play to acquire items with prestige.

Morrigan.2809:

CuRtoKy.8576:

Easy solution is to make prestige items skill based and then have them only for permanent content instead of temporary content. That way if someone gets it then it has value since you needed skill to do something to get it. On top of that it isn’t impossible for others to get it eventually over time or it isn’t gated through RNG (look at new back piece as an example). So people can attempt to get this through practice rather than just simply being on GW2 at the right time and getting something (living story) or just being plain lucky (recipe: chaos of lyssa).

Problem with that is, barring Liadri mini- all skill based rewards are RNG

Which is why they need to move in that direction instead of time gate (temp living story) + RNG based rewards which nobody likes.

I feel the need to post this given the re-release of nearly all LS rewards, I find that the prestige of items is not being respected within the game both by players and by the developers (mainly in response to small groups of players pressuring) and I would like to hear peoples thoughts.

What is item prestige
It is an unwritten statement that having a certain item gives, this can be something simple like “I was there” for most LS items to more specific statements such as “I have gotten to high level fractals” (backpiece and weapons) and “I’m rich” for legendaries and high value items.

Types of prestige
There are several types of prestige,

-“I was there prestige”: These are attendance rewards usually with some also having to be earned, they show you played back then or that you participated in a limited time event. Most living story skins used to fall into this category. Is destroyed by re-releasing the item by any means as the statement is no longer valid.

-“Skill prestige”: These would be items such as the tribulation mode weapons and Liadri they not only require you to play a certain activity but to do it to a high level of skill. Care has to be taken with these as power creep or an exploit can wipe out all their value in an instant.

- “Investment prestige”: These are items that take a large amount of resources be it time or money to complete and make a general statement about your playtime and choice of activity. Is wrecked by deflation/inflation or awarding of a previously high investment item for a low investment activity.

Why is prestige important?
Personally I believe prestige items to be important because they are the main thing I work towards in any MMO. They are the main source of enjoyment for me, attempting to collect as many of them as possible under the conditions imposed by the game. They act as badges of honor cataloging your deeds and accomplishments in a visual manner.

So how is it not being respected?
Lets start with the simplest one, the living story skins, these were a simple prestige that is easy to get right but have now been re-released not only re-released but made available for a direct gold conversion ( z boxes -> tokens) this devalues a year and a halves worth of attendance and achievement completion to under 100 gold, which is an infuriating thing.

For skill based skins, the issue arises with people (who haven’t completed the content) demanding access or asking for them to be trade-able. This takes away the items prestige and would again just convert it to monetary value. A small example of this would be run selling which allowed people access to skins without putting in the work in the correct content (Irrelevant now after the PvP merge).

Why is this happening?
I believe that this is occurring due to player entitlement and an excessively gold based economy. Player entitlement being that players who couldn’t/wouldn’t attend or complete the content (this includes limited time frame events) demanding access regardless while this entitlement is encountered in many games it appears to be amplified here due to people interpreting the design philosophy as “I can have anything I want”.
For example, if you were not at the molten alliance event, due to not owning the game, not playing , being out of the country etc or did not complete the meta, you miss out on the fused gauntlets that item becomes the reward given during that event and you move on your “ideal look” does not entitle you to access to that item.

On the gold based economy: In many MMO’s gold is a “beginner currency” of sorts or is only a partial requirement to gain prestige class items. (For examples: FFXIV all high level items/gear is bound on acquire so you must do the work yourself)
In GW2 most items can be bought with gold or real world cash which eliminates any prestige an item might otherwise carry (example being if legendaries were account bound on acquire they would hold more prestige even if only due to the map completion requirement). A single currency is also far more at risk to exploitation as it will permeate every area of the game.

They could just limit the amount of champ bags you get per day instead of ruining it for everyone.

kratan.4619:

A R W E N.6895:

Azrael.4960:

Real money -> Gems -> Gold conversion has been part of the game from day 1, didn’t you know?

But did you know that the focus on gemstore is actually increasing so much?

But did you know that their jobs depend on people spending in the gem store and not just providing free content?

But did you know that you can give great content and people will buy from the gem store out of loyalty to the product instead of putting content exclusively in the gem store and saying “Buy it or no new content?”

City of Heroes did it. It was quite profitable, too. Everything in the store could be accessed in the game, but players were so loyal to Paragon that they would buy from the store because it supported their beloved game. I know because I spent hundreds of dollars in the store on stuff I didn’t really need.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Pretty sure they might actually be trying to force stabilization on the exchange. They don’t want to stop people from converting, that would be stupid. But by making it harder to get gold they encourage people to put Gems back into the pool to get gold, lowering prices.

I don’t play for loot. Playing for loot in this game is absurd. Just like playing for loot in almost any sandbox is pretty absurd. Acceptable loot is easily accessible and even plentiful. I also don’t play this game to “win” all the money, because that seems to be the actual definition of loot here. We’re not talking about gear drops, or quality of gear, but the amount of gold whatever drops can be converted into. It’s sort of kind of neat to be “rich” in a video game, but ultimately to what end? What are you doing with all the gold?

I haven’t been restricted from killing anything, just how tough a portion of those things are, and to my knowledge the story hasn’t changed.

So the run down is, I don’t see the problem. It’s a lot of QQ for nothing important.

People see bling and they want it is all. Also, they still think that getting ascended/legendary is going to make them OP (and they want that – it is the WoW, RIFT, TERA problem). And yes, I agree, it is all QQ’ing for nothing.

I think they want the prices to drop in the TP as right now they are ridiculous.

If they want prices to drop then they should increase drop rates and fix certain recipes to not be absurd, silk and silver dubs being the 2 biggest culprits. But instead they have done the exact opposite. The truth is they like the prices high and they like low drop rates and they like having few ways to make gold, so that buying gems looks like a better alternative. Would you like to grind 100hrs for the item or just buy some gems. They know what they are doing and many of the players know what they are doing also.

Same here True. I think I’m ready to move on. Shame though. I invested a lot of time into this game and have a lot of good memories from it.

The trains were mindless fun. You were not going to get rich or level incredibly fast. They were just fun. Bunch of people going from point to point killing stuff and getting some modest loot. Lots of laughs along the way. Too bad hard cores couldn’t deal with average folk just having a good time.

Malthurius.6870:

What the actual heck…

They’re nerfing farm trains because they’re mindless and not fun. Their existence was never intentional and they do nothing but tunnel vision farm minded players into doing nothing but.

You can still farm for gold, you just have to ‘think’ and ‘communicate’ a little bit more. I want them to do what they did to the queen’s champions to every champion in the game.

Down with the mindless Zerg. Down with zerker stacking. Down with farm trains.

The gem shop would like to thank you for your endorsement.

Azrael.4960:

The last thing new players needed to be exposed to was the toxicity that was the train.

That’s a big mistake you are making there. the toxicity was not the train. The toxicity was simply present alongside the train (and in equal measure by people that didn’t run it, but simply didn’t like others playing differently than them). That toxicity is not going to disappear from the game because train got removed – the players that caused it are still there. In fact, lot of them just got their toxicity validated by Anet.

Now that the traits have been changed and this act has assuaged (but not removed) my irritation on that level, two issues still remain.

1- I can log into Divinity’s Reach as many times as I want at US prime time and 8/10 times I will not be on the same overflow as most of my server’s players. Being Tarnished Coast, this ruins any chance of roleplaying in the small window of opportunity that I already have.

2- The complete lack of comment and therefore regard by the developers on all these issues is a major concern. If I found a defect or issue with any company’s product and contacted them with my concerns, I would expect a reply within, at most, a week.

We are now on, what, 37 or 38 days after the feature patch, and we have received no realistic support or comment on these issues.

Though I’m happy with a couple things in the latest patch/update – I’m not going to just forget the issues I have with your 4/15 Feature Pack, ArenaNet. Mainly Megaservers and the boss timer schedule system. Some of us may just let it go, may even forget about the issues that had them riled up a month ago, but I am not among that crowd.

If I don’t hear back from you all soon… I’ll prolly have to retire from the game. I’m sure there will be people that will go, “Boo hoo. Now give me your stuff.” I don’t care about them. I care about this game but I can’t take it the way it is any longer. Its not fun at present. The people I play with are the only reason I log in each day and many of them are beyond frustrated too. We have nearly 2000 posts in this thread alone and all you people have cared to respond with is a , “We’re busy.”

Not good enough.

Yes, because it is precisely why people play video games instead of communicating with real people: they need either ultimate fun, or usable reward, or documented achievements.

And as you can clearly see but refuse to accept is that things which fail to provide substantial amounts of fun and/or rewards in the game are upsetting players.

chronometria.3708:

Anet made decent loot appear so rarely that players became akin to starving people, desperately gorging on champion boxes in the faint hope that something appeared in them. The champ train was a symptom of player “reward starvation” and a large amount of learned helplessness. Why do complex events like tequatl and 3 headed wurm when those give next to nothing in return. Far better to simply run round in a boring circle while watching tv and to collect a hundred champ boxes in the hope of something by raw force of numbers.

GW2 is built around giving nothing and taking all our time and the culmination of this is events like the new queens gauntlet, which are the perfection of this punishing philosophy.

We learned that the mystic forge hates us. We learned that RNG hates us, but now we don’t event get drops in our events for the rng to happen in.

The game hates us – that’s how I feel at the moment and I don’t understand how it can have come to this. I want to play, but its as if I am being told to go play something else – why is this?

I agree with you and gave you a +1 as well.

People started farming HARD when ANet came out with the queen’s jubilee, an event that the game developers … developed, which for many inflated the prices of anything event remotely asthetically pleasing into the stratosphere. How do you then go from there back to running 15-20 min event chains for 2.5 silver?

The overall rewards in the game are worse than pathetic. There are a lot of high level players (meaning they have all toons at 80 and are not just playing for specific reasons other than leveling) getting low, low level rewards. That can only go on for so long.