Guild Wars 2

Terrahero.9358:

Guildwars 1 did NOT have a precedent of always giving a free character slot with it’s non-stand alone expansions.

The Campaigns added free character slots because they were stand alone. The Eye of the North was an expansion, was not stand alone and did not add a free character slot.

Only the stand alone products added character slots because if they didn’t, how could someone who only bought Nightfall play the game?

The stand-alone campaigns could be installed alone, which gave 4 slots, or be tied in a pre-existing campaign, giving +2 slots to that account, so you can try the two new professions available.

This way, existing costumers were happy to add the campaigns, because it made sense for them (for us). You could use your existing characters in that new lands, or start new characters there with the 2 slots.

Eye of the North didn’t add professions, and was a truly expansion instead of stand-alone. it has a price tag lower than the full campaigns, and for that price added an amount of content that looked fair for players at that time.

Now we have a weird thing, that is an expansion but adds professions, that requires the core game but really doesn’t require the core game because is included, but is not included if you already have it, and requires buy extra slots if your slots are full, and have a price similar to a full campaign instead of an expansion. And for what is seen, it doesn’t adds a lot of content.

Marketing, hype generation, costumer satisfaction and price structure clearly failed here.

Interesting.

I was surprised when Anet announced that there would be no need to grind for new tiers of gear with the expansion. It seemed to go against the trend of making GW2 more like traditional MMOs of the past.

I was impressed. It really seemed awesome that they would declare definitively that they were shying away from continuing that form of vertical progression.

I should have known better.

Some really good lawyer/politician speak in that announcement. Nope, no grinding for a new tier of gear. Instead we are expected to regrind for the same tier in order to maintain current builds while the performance gap between the top tier and everything else is being increased in order to encourage grinding it out.

BrickFurious.7169:

Is there something wrong with making best-in-slot gear reasonably obtainable?

The one thing wrong with it is that there is a portion of players who want to treat a video game like a full time job or hobby. There’s no way to generate enough content for them, so you have to keep them playing with dangling carrots, unless you’re content to do without that portion of the MMORPG population.

I understand it isn’t a huge difference between exotic and ascended, but BiS is BiS. There’s a rather large psychological satisfaction in knowing your character is geared to the max, and conversely there’s a psychological dissatisfaction in knowing when it isn’t. This change is only going to increase that dissatisfaction among players to whom ascended gear feels unfairly difficult to obtain (especially WvW players).

Thank you for articulating this. It’s what the “you don’t need it to do anything but high level fractals” crowd just doesn’t get.

These games feature a character progression scheme. Putting a sudden spike in the progression curve one step from the end and telling them to just be satisfied with second best is jarring, at best. The thing that keeps people grumbling a little but continuing to play the game was the small stat increase that gear gave. A move toward increasing the gap just alienates more players and makes it harder for them to ignore.

Ascended Gear and the gear gap is rearing its ugly head again. A lot of people are unhappy, for various reasons.

But this thread isn’t about this. This thread is about an alternative.

Arenanet wants ascended gear to be truly useful, something people want to work for. The problem is, in its current form, ascended gear harms the very idea of horizontal progression. It punishes switching builds, being affected by meta changes, having alts, and simply preferring WvWvW.

The reason is that Arenanet made Stats the marker that made ascended gear special.

This does not need to be the case. The solution already is in the game!
With the change, give rare gear the stats exotic gear would have gotten, and exotic gear the stats of ascended gear. Ascended gear keeps the planned stats. On top of that, ascended gear gets the mechanic that we currently see with Legendaries:

The ability to swap stats via a drop-down menu

Bam. Now we have horizontal progression in its purest form. Ascended gear now is a massive convenience upgrade, giving you highly flexible gear that is not bound to a character.

It shouldn’t take much time to roll the mechanic out – it already exists. Adjusting the stats is also a simple matter.

And if you want users of Legendaries to feel special, fear not. There’s a solution here, too. Make legendaries get a function that places their upgrades into your inventory. Now legendaries are truly flexible. Simply announce this function, and implement it a few patches afterwards, so no schedule is affected.

Users of ascended gear that truly want an advantage would have it. Bag space, flexibility, the ability to adjust to any meta shift on the fly.
Those that don’t could make do with exotics, different sets, which could be obtained from various sources.

[Yes, my personal opinion is removing gear stats entirely, but I know this would be a pipe dream. So why not an alternative?]

Does naming pets create gem sales? No
Is the lack of pet naming causing a noticeable number of people to leave the game? No.

ETA? Never.

If I follow the ascended defender argument, it use to be that you don’t need it so the grind is ok. Now that it’s buffered enough to be more necessary, the argument is that you already have it.

News flash, I don’t have it because you said I didn’t need it.

Back when people were celebrating the fact that ArenaNet was saying they would never add a gear beyond Ascended, there were people warning that the promise meant very little. There are too many other ways they can keep pulling players toward vertical progression beyond adding another tier of gear.

Don’t believe this is the last. It never is.

SkiTz.4590:

Gibson.4036:

I know, in three years we should have moved on. Unfortunately, nobody has yet made the game we were told GW2 was going to be.

You must have missed the part in pretty much every MMO that says “Things are always subject to change”

Huh, that’s funny, because I was addressing that in the last line of my post, right above your response. Yes, things change. But even ArenaNet agreed at one point, which flies in the face of your insulting attitude that everyone who disagrees with you is “pathetic”.

You need to stop believing every little freaking word Anet says or really any game studio that develops games.

At this point, I believe nothing of what ArenaNet says. There was a point where they seemed passionate about doing things differently and were a very open and communicative company, however. Of course, it’s easy to be that when the game hasn’t launched, and the money people are giving the artsy people lots of freedom to pursue and share their passions.

THINGS CHANGE. All the time. If you don’t like it, bye. It’s honestly pathethic seeing how much crying is going on because they boosted ascended armor… jesus.
This boost is perfectly welcomed by most players outside of the small minority harping on about anets casualplay philosophy

Look. You may not like it, but any company with any sort of longevity would rather have its upset customers sharing why they are no longer spending money on the service than see them quietly cease to be customers.

Based on a many design choices over the last three years I went from a paying, playing customer to paying less and less, and now playing less and less. At this point I don’t even log in daily to grab the daily reward. With the HoT announcement, I thought that might change, but the character rollback and now this ascended change is making me second guess that.

This forum is the place to let ArenaNet know why. If you don’t like it, bye.

I can tell you have a lot of anger. You might want to get some counseling for that. And by all means, man-up enough to show respect for other people’s faiths not to use their deities as swear words.

risa.1382:

This is a good example, by focusing on the treadmill semantics you miss, marginalize, and/or obfuscate the core of many players frustrations with the relevant portion of GW2’s direction.

It takes almost no context or logic to realize that people complaining about treadmills are simply expressing their dissatisfaction with increasing the pressure on them to stat grind, which is not an expectation they, rightfully IMO, had for GW2.

Brilliant post. So many discussions get sidetracked by arguments over language like “casual” or “hardcore”, “treadmill” and references to “The Manifesto”.

SkiTz.4590:

The amount of casual carebears is so sad

You use that word a lot. I don’t think it means what you think it means.

This change at least gives some incentive to get ascended armor….who really wanted to work just for an insignificant 5% boost? thats worthless in the grand scheme of things to the average player (min maxers obviously already have ascended but thats not the target audience for this change).. Now 10% changes up things because that is a boost worth farming for…

2013 “Don’t worry about Ascended. It’s such a small difference, you can take it or leave it!”

2015 “We needed the stats on Ascended to be raised so that it’s worth actually going for it!”

Sigh.

if you don’t too freaking bad, don’t go about complaining just because you can’t have the best stuff giftwrapped to your mailbox.

You must have missed the part where ArenaNet said they didn’t want players to chase gear stats, and that they wanted everyone in the game to quickly achieve BiS gear shortly after hitting max level. That was one of the big things that attracted some of us to this game. Originally, it didn’t have that usual MMORPG philosophy you express so eloquently.

I know, in three years we should have moved on. Unfortunately, nobody has yet made the game we were told GW2 was going to be.

-10,000,000. OMG, this AGAIN? NO to mounts. This is a WP system.

-1 please. Where do I click for that?

I have the perfect compromise idea. A gem store costume that makes you look like you are riding a mount. It will still be your legs running and your own profession’s speed boost. But the costume will look like you are riding a mount.

It wouldn’t be that bad to be it acb but rng fossils broke everything.

Blazing Light, because it’s done with your own skill not the skill of 50+ other people.

If they ever add any further vertical progression I’ll leave instantly. More personal story would be cool with better rewards (new skills and weapon unlocks that you learn while doing them.) I honestly don’t care about a new class but wouldn’t be against it, and new race and zones would be cool ofc.

I don’t think we are going to get any of it tbh, maybe some zones with LS slowly over time and maybe a new skill every year or so (maybe.) I truly hope this isn’t the case because the game is about 2 very smalls steps away from being uninstalled for me. =/

Just make everything account bound. Problem solved!

15 characters here. :/

A simple “Soulbound to xxxxxxxxxx” would be a good QoL improvement.

Could you please add the name of the character that owns a soulbound item to the item description? Like it was in the original game where soulbound stuff was identified with “Customized for John Doe”.

Currently if I leave a soulbound item into the bank and try to retrieve it later with another character it only says “Soulbound to another character” but it doesn’t say which one so in order to retrieve the item I have to relog my alts and try it. Imagine how fun that must be when you have eight characters.

Taygus.4571:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Taku.6352:

You should also put an option for: “I like both styles and would love to have more choices for both.”

I think “Everything is fine and we have enough options for both.” is pretty much this. As new armour is added anyway, it just tells that the proportion is fine.

Not really, I like both,but … we definitely have more skimpy than non skimpy

No, we don’t:

Sartharina.3542:

Darkobra.6439:

I like skimpy but I think we should have more non-skimpy now. We got enough of one, let’s bring the other up to par.

We have 15 Skimpy vs 27 Non-skimpy female light armors. We have ~5 skimpy vs 37 Non-skimpy female Medium armors(But a lot more low-cut tops). We have 9 skimpy vs 33 non-skimpy female heavy armors (Unfortunately, all faction armors are skimpy).

We have 5 skimpy vs. 37 non-skimpy male light armors. We have 0(!) skimpy vs 42 non-skimpy male medium armors. We have 5 skimpy vs. 37 non-skimpy male heavy armors.

I considered any armor that exposes any part of the torso (Other than neckline) or legs to be ‘skimpy’ for the purpose of this examination, which means a lot of armors that are ‘skimpy’ still cover a significant amount of the body.

Yes, there’s an imbalance and one side needs to be brought up to par with the other. It’s not the non-skimpy side, though.

The problems can be:

a) most non-skimpy armour looks the same,
b) many players prefer skimpy armour, and because options are limited, they wear the same things and it looks like there’s too much skimpy armour.

Both are perception problems which do not correspond to the actual data.

Astralporing.1957:

In the end people never really ask for a challenge they cannot pass (though are often perfectly okay with the challenge being hard enough that anyone else will be excluded). Which means that the contend needs to be easy enough to let them pass. It just need to present it as an accomplishment. Something that separates you from the “unworthy”. An illusory challenge.

That right there — especially the bit in the parantheses — is my general impression of people who are very vocal about how content needs to be more difficult, yes. And once they feel “too many” people “encroach” on their success-territory, it becomes a chorus of this isn’t hard at all, a lobotomized monkey could do it, faceroll LOL, just AFK and press 111111111. Anything to keep other people from feeling accomplished and happy, too.

And at the end of the day, that is usually my problem with people calling for exclusive things or for “respect” for “prestige”. Not in every case, of course, but at least a hint of it will always be there.

timmyf.1490:

…..
Do you all seriously believe there should not be ANY “you had to be there” items?

“You had to be there”, items are fine, but nobody EVER said they would be “exclusive” and never obtainable again. THAT idea (that they are supose to be NEVER be made available again) is just not a reasonable assumption to make.

I don’t give a kitten about item prestige and item re-release as long as the effort is more or less the same as the original.

This. If it is much easier to obtain the item when re-released, there is a valid complaint to be made….not about the re-release, but about the method of acquisition.

I don’t give a kitten about item prestige and item re-release as long as the effort is more or less the same as the original.

I would love permanent finishers….if we continue to have mobs to kill in PvE that require finishing.

Anything that is random, such as minis were in GW1. The thrill of opening the present to see what you get is the best part.

My only gripe about last year’s gift was that the only mini was Jenna. One of her was cool, 10 of her…. not so much.

I absolutely love the birthday boosters. (I’ll take these again anet, pretty please). They helped me level both the character and my wvw rank. Handy indeed.

I had no issue with the experience scrolls either. I’ve used every one that I’ve gotten. Admittedly, I don’t think I need any more of them now though…

So, my thoughts on this year’s gifts:

-Create a set of 12 or 15 minis, like was done in GW1. Let us get one of that set randomly from the gift. Do make these tradeable.

-Include the birthday booster again. Even if people don’t have characters that need the experience anymore, the 100% bonus to karma, magic find, gold, and wvw rank is still very enjoyable. Not to mention, it stacks with other boosters.

-Not sure what to ask for as the third component. Lot of things I would like, but probably not advisable. Maybe a scroll that grants 5 levels to any non 80 character? A small bag of dungeon tokens? A random weapon ticket? An ascended weapon box maybe? Not asking for a precursor or anything here, but something useful would be appreciated.

My vote is also for – ’I like both styles. Love to mix and match. Just give me more armors in game. Period."

Previous thread was locked for not being constructive, let’s try again.

The issue is nearly all of the female armor sets being waaay too skimpy or showing too much.

To be clear from the people who responded in the first thread, here is what I’m talking about:

I don’t mean charr or asura armor, their sets are fine. I’m only talking about female humans and norn.

I’m not just talking about the new gemstore armor, I’m talking about all of the armor. Though I was disappointed in this new set as well, definitely not buying it. Light armor sets are the worst, followed by medium (human tier 3, being one of the worst offenders. I might have bought it if not for the chest piece.) and then heavy armor. Even some of the heavy armor has lack of chest coverage.

Also, I am a wardrobe nut. I am trying to collect nearly every armor in the game. I have a lot, though far from finished primarily because I still need to get a fair amount of dungeon armor. I think it’s fair to say I have researched my options. There are a couple of good sets, but for someone like me who loves to mix and match, and play around with my armor looks a lot, there’s not much variety. I spend a lot of my time looking for really cool combos to make, and you just can’t make too many tasteful ones. For example, there are a lot of chest pieces that show all of the stomach, which I don’t like and makes it nearly impossible to pair with different leggings.

And for the record, I don’t care about the other players who run around with nothing on. That’s not my problem. My problem is I don’t want to wear that stuff.

Making my character look cool is a huge part of what’s fun to me about playing this game, and it’s really infuriating every time they make a new armor set. “Oh, a new armor! What does it look like?…Aw man I wanted armor, not armor with a big hole in the chest and stomach.”

There are certainly many armors that they could make that aren’t promiscuous, nor full blown “nun” either. They just don’t seem to choose to. Lots of players including me would probably like armor that is practical, or even beautiful and elegant. You don’t have to show any extra skin to do so.

Please make some more tasteful armor sets for the ladies. My opinion of the game would rise substantially if this is done.

Sorry guys, but any customer-centered business must care about what causes customers to quit buying (or playing) their product. Anet does care when a player posts that he/she is quitting because each player that posts represents roughly TEN THOUSAND players that do not take the time and effort required to post.

You may poke fun at him/her, ask for his/her stuff (thinking its funny), but in the end every player that quits hurts the game and the company’s bottom-line. I know because business retention is my line of work (and I’m good at it).

Finding NEW customers is a thousand times harder than retaining present customers. Any business that “beats” people for leaving will see an ever increasing exodus.

Social media (like forums) are becoming increasingly important. Comments that ridicule players for leaving only exacerbate the problem and hurt the company. If I worked at Anet, you can be sure I would be watching the forum for negative comments made by employees (I do it every day for a much larger corporation). Believe me, they never do it again.

Comments like “Can I have your stuff?” should be deleted, and candid discussion should be had both on and off line.

Where I work, we keep track of every type of posting. We record positive and negative feedback. We tabulate the results and are therefore able to estimate monthly customer satisfaction levels, population movements, and future trends. We never punish customers that complain, but listen to them. While we can’t retain every customer, our retention rate is constantly improving, and that’s why we’re making money, hiring more people, and giving salary increases.

Of course, this post opens me up for an onslaught of criticism and “Quit if you don’t like the game” kinds of postings. It’s juvenile, but probably inevitable. So, as a fellow GW2 player, I’d like to say,

“Thank you Yoh, for caring about the game and having the integrity and desire to help point Anet in the direction you think will improve the game. We do want you to stay and hope to run into you somewhere in Tyria some day soon.”

Sincerely,
Stevizard

I’m going to call it. This guy is obviously a TP baron who is scared that other methods in the game might compete with the money he is making playing the TP. If they TP cartel can get every other gold making method nerfed then they will literally own everything the game.