Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.
• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.
• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.
• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated.

Hello Gaile,

I know I was very interested in getting the 700 Courtier outfit that just came out, but no way was I going to buy 800 gems and have 100 left over.
This change has made me go from debating whether to drop more actual cash instead of gold conversion to never wanting to support game. As the change seemed to be in real bad faith.

As most items are priced on the 100 gem mark there really should be an option for 100 gem purchase for those that want to get the exact amount needed to buy what they want. If there are ones ending x50 or x75 gems should be options that allow a clean purchase.

Otherwise claims the left over being there is to encourage more purchase and the “real” cost of the outfit is 800 gems else you will be suckered into buying more start to sound creditable.

Sorry Gaile, I know that you’re the one that gets stuck with the lovely jobs like this, but we’re not idiots – whoever came up with this bright idea needs to see that this isn’t acceptable.

• Picking up food and feeding a cow was not difficult.
• Knowing that an axe can be used to cut down a tree was not difficult.
• Counting one number at a time was not difficult.

We were all new once, we survived. It’s one thing when you dumb down gameplay elements, that just affects the game. This is different, this involves our money. I’m sure the genius who came up with this wouldn’t be happy if their wage was rounded down by a few thousand or so, because it’s an easier number for them to cope with.

I’m sure I’m in the minority here, but I used to buy gems and convert the leftovers to gold after buying my gem store items… that’s gone now. This change would actually reduce the amount of money I’d spend, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s pretty much convinced me never to spend again. Instead of cheap, underhanded tactics like this; how about just producing things that we’re happy to pay for?

• Dumbing down the game to attract non-gamers
• Fiddling with the gold:gem conversion
• Outfits instead of skins
• No toys with outfits
• Recycling content that shouldn’t be recycled (The Bloody Prince broke free last year, he doesn't need to go through with that again this year!)
• Slapping achievements onto Living Story releases that require multiple playthroughs of the same missions

I know the management will be looking at efficiency, but what ever happened to making a product you were actually proud of and selling it in a fair way?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hey there,

Here are a few tidbits from the team:

• A lot of newer players had trouble with the interface. That doesn’t apply to you, you’re veterans who have been around the conversion block a time or two. But newer players will benefit from the updated system.
• The goal was to make the Gem Store more like other shopping experiences, and if you think about it, there is more of that feel to it now.
• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.
• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated.

This is a blatant lie. There is zero truth to this, I don’t care if you cooked up documentation from your financial department and posted it here. This post made me even angrier than the change itself. And this is constructive feedback, just because I strongly disagree with the change and your explanation of the change doesn’t make the feedback nonconstructive. The change is hilariously bad and everyone knows it including you. Make a ridiculous change like this to the game and then post something like that… how stupid would anyone have to be to swallow that. You might as well have wiped all characters and told us it was for the good of the economy and that 75% of players supported the idea when polled. We are not as stupid as you think, stop treating us with such disrespect.

Let’s go over the lies one by one.

New players had trouble: NOPE. not even one. It was the most clearly laid out and self explanatory menu in the game. If someone couldn’t figure out the old menu they wont figure out the new one either.

Better shopping experience: NOPE. Less options to the point of nearly no options, thanks but no thanks. I wont be shopping here anymore. If my grocery store decided all things in the store cost 1 of 5 prices and the new minimum price was 400 times the old one I’d find another store, which is what I’m considering with GW2.

No one bothered buying gems sub 400: AHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Most disrespectful and ridiculous lie I’ve ever heard in my life.

The team is going to listen: Second most disrespectful and ridiculous lie I’ve ever heard in my life. You guys shoved this change down our throats with no warning and no one ever in the history of the game mentioned the old system being bad. The actual problem was it was too good, too easy to use. You just don’t have the courage or respect for your players to admit it and that’s almost the worst part.

Please answer, how does leaving those of us who purchase Gems to convert to Gold with stuck some random amount of change that we can’t convert makes things “easier” or more “convenient”? If there’s nothing in the Gem Store I want or can afford with that change, and I was spending real dollars specifically to convert to gold, then as far as I’m concerned you would be stealing my money at that point. You’d certainly be taking it from me and putting it into a form which is not usable until I’ve spent yet more money, which given the numbers I’m seeing will just start that cycle all over again. How is this even remotely good for the player? How is taxing every purchase I make, by preventing me from converting every last Gem I buy into Gold if that is my wish and thus sticking me with unusable Gems, helpful at all?

I’m trying to keep as calm as I can about this, but seriously, if you want constructive suggestions then you guys need to keep to making constructive changes to the game. This is a blatant money grab.

Well, the most of my feedback I could be giving here already was mentioned by others, no much to add actually. However I wanted to make some points…

By chance did the one behind these changes think that new players couldn’t be that new for MMOs too? Did they think that this game’s meant to be played by low QI ppl? No offense intended but with some changes it sounds like they think the players are 5 years old who just must to follow what’s said. Was this new system meant for ppl with a brain of a potato? (No offense intended). C’mon, this game was already by far simpler than several MMOs out there.

What’s the difficult about dealing with bundles? It was what gave me immersion in the game, like “shinny, I can pick up stuff and use them”. What about being transformed in other creatures? One of the things that good me hooked in the game was becoming a sylvari hoard at my very first hearts. I didn’t even wanted that heart to finish… The tooltips in game was very enough to tell what to do with bundles.. did you pick up a bundle and your skills gone? No panic, hover your skills and learn what they do, you’ll find one saying “Drop bundle”. It’s hard? “Drop bundle”? Simple that?

As others have said, it’s not about fun anymore, it’s like a job: do what we say and you’ll get a reward. The fun and immersion in this game is about making choices and taking decisions, it’s been taken away from new players. Also, it’s not a leveling experience anymore, now it’s a huge boring tutorial. Why keep teaching ppl until they reach 80? I learned about WB when I was around lvl 20 (new system teaches about it at lvl 76)! At level 5 I already knew about map completion! (and this kept me in this game too, it was nice to know I could do hearts at a specific place instead spread around map and at anytime I wanted or any level (if I did it later) as they don’t vanish when I’m highter lvl).

Taking away features isn’t the proper way to teach things. To teach things one must show and tell about things. Do parents take away any furniture like chairs, drawers, etc from a baby’s room just bc the baby isn’t ready to use them? NO. Well, one could say “the baby isn’t supposed to use them anyhow” but the adults will. Also the baby’ll get used to that stuff and it’ll be already known to them when the proper moment arrives. What does this have to do? That’s how I feel about removing things from starter areas and low level players. How a new player’ll know what a renown heart’s meant for if they can’t even “feel” what world completion’s about?

Why removing merchants, TP and gather nodes from starter areas? Ohh it’s so difficult for a new player to approach a gather node and hit F? Ok, they couldn’t have the proper tools but then… hey, the game is telling me I need a tool equipped, where’s the logical place to find such items? Merchants! Then go to the nearest merchant and there it is. No tools with that merchant? Let’s seek another, like in RL, if you don’t find a thing at a place you seek at another.

I work with development of interactive computer courses and I’m aware what level new ppl could be, but hiding and locking stuff isn’t the proper way to teach. Hint! Tooltips! Instanced tutorials! Why denying things from a whole player base just to teach some newcomers? By using hints or an instanced tutorial one could have a plenty of tools to teach newcomers without taking away any fun from everyone else. The game had a Help panel before with useful hints, it’d help me a lot to refresh my mind about some mechanics. Why taking it away? Just because that bug with an achievement couldn’t be fixed? Remove the achievement instead.

The point is, give the player the right of choice! With the new changes the game’s deciding for us, either newcomers or veterans. What hooked me in this game was the ability of make choices in the PS mainly. But being forced to go through things that I could already know or was too obvious that I wouldn’t need a tutorial takes away the whole fun.

That’s it, with this system things are being forced on us. Let’s choice when to do PS or map completion. “oh but it’s higher level than your.” Well, let us take the risk, no challenge no risk. Talking about PS… wth was wrong with the previous sequence? Why messing up with the logic? No comments about that, others has already given my point. Leveling was easier between story steps, now it’s a boring task.

Ok, I wrote a lot. I may have repeated what others have said but that’s some of my thoughts about NPE. Therefore, I’d suggest to revert these changes and go back to planing table. The idea and intention behind it is great, but the system needs to be reworked from scratch, sadly enough. (I really hope there are changes coming and not mends instead…)

The new TP sell interface seems far from intuitive, and actually makes selling items harder.

Did anyone QA test this? Where are the old options that we were used to, such as sell max (which went past just the highest bidder) or add to previous listing that we have of an item? Also the net profit estimator made it easier than having to calculate that in my head… Seems far less user friendly to me.

shaquinna.2869:

But the moment they start talking about the listing fees and stuff (of wich a lot of people complain about being huge gold sinks) they suddenly change to a fictional character:

Now that you mention it, that is interesting. Especially since it’s the part we are complaining about. Not because we object to the fees, but because we object to the information ANET isn’t showing.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I wonder why the playerbase wasn’t up in arms about the ‘projected profit’ in the current TP? Probably should have asked for this change long ago, maybe it would have been added to the new UI. /shrug

They were. But they got tired of repeating themselves and getting the same arguments from people defending ANET.

With nothing new happening, the argument faded away, only spurting back into action occasionally when someone new noticed the problem and complained. Then we got the same arguments from both sides.

Sweetblue Huntress.9856:

DDCarvalho.2071:

<snip>

Now the next point of improvement in the game: include downvote buttons on the forums so we can sink whiny people who never say anything constructive (and upvotes to give focus to good ideas and constructive criticism).

Yes, please!

That sounds good in theory. In practice, it’s more common to see it used to upvote posts that people agree with and to downvote and hide posts they disagree with. Regardless of the merit of the posts.

Stifling discussion because few people get to see dissenting voices.

Gulesave.5073:

Would it be acceptable to just have Net Profit show as a tooltip when we hover over the other numbers?

It would be better to stick the TP fees in the tooltip. Display the listing price and net profit all the time.

This is better because the net profit and listing price are going to be important to everybody. But the exact value of the fees isn’t going to be important to everyone.

WGuardian.1028:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Then just remove the total price (which is only important to buyers) and replace it with total profit, which is what is most important to every seller (and seller is that very person who’s using the sell panel, not the buyer).

So u wnat to enter not the “price per unit” in sell tab but “profit per unit”.

No no no we should go to the armoury, I mean that I want to input the price per unit (which makes total sense as I can see other prices in the bottom part of the screen), but the largest price which says “total price” can be replaced by “total profit”, because there’s no point for me, seller, to know how much it will cost someone else per several items; I as a seller want to know how much I would get totally with the current price and the current amount.

I think a good way to show the information would be how gw2spidy does it.

Sell price
-list fee
-sell fee
=total money back

4 lines, very simple, gives you everything you need to know.

Behellagh.1468:

And there isn’t aesthetically room for a third piece of information in that layout.

Here you go.

For me, the extra space there looks exactly like something to put “projected profit” into.

(Also, while making these images, I once again saw that having leading zeros would’ve been really good for improving clarity).

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Collective.9206:

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Snip

Thanks for the clarifications Curtis, would it be possible to clarify the missing “Projected profit” UI element, it seems to be missing for no real reason other than to now arbitrarily calculate yourself how much money you make per sale instead of being able to see it directly on the screen.

We felt it was important when selling something to know exactly what price your buyer was going to see. The change also is the least cluttered way to address feedback we received previously about profit including / not including fees and wanting to be as clear as possible on the order of operations.

We’re balancing a lot of UX design against desire for more information with the new UI.. We’ll be watching to see what sort of confusion comes out of this and may or may not re-introduce a net profit display later.

Instead of showing

Listing Fee
Exchange Fee

Just display it as

Trading Post Fees
Total Profit

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter about the individual fee’s as we have to pay them regardless, so combine them and just show what the total amount we lose it, and the total amount we gain is, seems a lot simpler than trying to work out overall profit, espically if you are selling x10 or x100 of an item, why make it overly complicated for us.

Just want to re-echo what has been said plenty of times already. Projected profit should have been or should be far more important than it seems to be. Maybe you felt it was too cluttered or there were or are technically limitations. But for most players who aren’t TP flippers, experts on the market or simply new to the game, this is what they care about. How much are they really going to get for selling X item.

Some might find it really silly but it’s much nicer to see at a glance rather than figure the math out.

Far too late now, but I am not looking forward to selling on the trading post if I am being honest. It’s going to simply take me longer, which is the opposite of what you wanted to do with these features.

Again, overall I think this is a great QoL change just a few gripes I suppose and hopefully some helpful feedback for the team that is or does work on this.

Now I need a calculator to actually see how much money I will get in my hand when selling items?
This specific feature doesn’t sound like an update, more like a downdate. Other things with the Trading Post update are actually updates

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Collective.9206:

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Snip

Thanks for the clarifications Curtis, would it be possible to clarify the missing “Projected profit” UI element, it seems to be missing for no real reason other than to now arbitrarily calculate yourself how much money you make per sale instead of being able to see it directly on the screen.

We felt it was important when selling something to know exactly what price your buyer was going to see. The change also is the least cluttered way to address feedback we received previously about profit including / not including fees and wanting to be as clear as possible on the order of operations.

We’re balancing a lot of UX design against desire for more information with the new UI.. We’ll be watching to see what sort of confusion comes out of this and may or may not re-introduce a net profit display later.

So you chose to show the seller how much the buyer is going to see instead of showing the seller how much they will make? I’m sorry but that seems like an awfully… dumb… decision. Sounds like a case of taking something awesome (the TP changes overall) and really over thinking it to the point of screwing up a basic necessity (being able to see how much you will get from selling an item).

I don’t care what the buyer sees! He could be tripping on acid and looking at talking pink elephants, as long as he clicks the buy button I could not care less. What I do care about is how much I’m going to make when I post an item.

You have three (!) places on that screenshot that show what the list price of the item is. Why can’t one of them (the middle one) be replaced with net profit? Or make that “TOTAL PRICE” monstrosity a bit smaller and put net profit right above/below it?

All the changes look great, nice job ArenaNet! (and here’s the but)… but Projected Profit needs to be somewhere on the UI, and here’s why.

The pictured example is not a good example to use since the TP price is so much higher than the vender list price, so even without the Projected Profit shown no calculator is needed to know that you’ll get more from the TP.

On the other hand what if you wanted to sell a Beryl Orb and wanted to quickly determine if it would be wiser to vender or TP. This is what you would see:

Vender Price: 1s 98c
TP Sell Price: 2s 12c
Listing Fee: 10c
Exchange Fee: 11c

So without using a calculator which is the better deal? And how long did it take you to arrive at that conclusion? I think especially for new players this will cause a lot more confusion & wasted time than just having the Projected Profit listed somewhere in the UI.

Edit: And make sure Kate Welch is given a special thanks since I assume she worked on the UI design but for reasons won’t get a chance to talk about it in the next POI. Awesome job Kate & UI team!

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Snip

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately to say though this seems like a rather odd change considering this entire pack is more about QoL improvements. The projected profit on the seller’s end is vital to see as it’s pre calculated and you can instantly see it.

But now we have to open our calculators for every single sale and deduct all taxes every single time. This is against the very point of QoL improvements and just adds needless arbitrary actions that waste time for no real reason just because one element is now removed from the UI.

As shown on the provided screenshot https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/166054/c47a6trading-post-selling_1.jpg

There is plenty of room to still include the projected UI element while still showing the overall selling price and tax deductions.

It seems more counter-productive than actually being productive, but apart from that, I love the other changes, so well done on those ones though ^^

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Collective.9206:

Curtis Johnson.8456:

Snip

Thanks for the clarifications Curtis, would it be possible to clarify the missing “Projected profit” UI element, it seems to be missing for no real reason other than to now arbitrarily calculate yourself how much money you make per sale instead of being able to see it directly on the screen.

We felt it was important when selling something to know exactly what price your buyer was going to see. The change also is the least cluttered way to address feedback we received previously about profit including / not including fees and wanting to be as clear as possible on the order of operations.

We’re balancing a lot of UX design against desire for more information with the new UI.. We’ll be watching to see what sort of confusion comes out of this and may or may not re-introduce a net profit display later.

It’s already confusing :/
Having to take out a calculator to calculate final price is unproductive.

And taking a look at the screenshoot. The price before tax appears 3 times. It’s redundant. Having the final price in the center makes more sense

killcannon.2576:

The only reason to keep veteran players around is to populate the world and make it seem like a bustling, active game.

With the Megaservers, that is not quite as important any longer.

And, let’s be honest here, you’ll be back. Maybe not next month, or even two, but vets will always come back and check out the new content….because it’s free.

I don’t think that criticism is fair. The megaservers are actually one of the things that I liked most about the April feature pack. Even if it did ruin server-organized events like the world event train and threw everyone in with everybody, it has made lesser tread ground more populated and has offered players outside of Sanctum of Rall to participate in our Teq kills.

And I am not in any way insinuating that I will not return. I would be more than happy to come back provided these types of overhauls get implemented. But that’s kind of the point: I’m not coming back unless they are.

I think something else needs to be established here: I love horizontal progression and I enjoy having a finish line. I don’t want new tiers beyond ascended added into the game, nor do I necessarily need a new carrot to chase. I would certainly like new dungeons, fractals, and world raids to be added into the game … but who wouldn’t?

The reason why I’ve quit is not because I have nothing to work on. The reason why I’ve quit is because the path to get what I want is abusive with rewards randomly delegated. I cannot stress this point enough: the RNG has to go.

To apply a little more context, going after legendaries would be a lot more enjoyable if the process to obtaining your precursor involved an actual quest line. It can be long. It can be incremental and require crafting. And it can be challenging. But standing at the forge dumping in hundreds of gold is equated to rolling a pair of dice. There’s no personal achievement in that.

TheDraco.3965:

Anet is the very essence of disappointment at this point. Deus Ex Invisible War, FF13, and Duke Nukem Forever combined dont match the level of disappointment I have with GW2.

Whoa, whoa, let’s not get carried away here. Duke Nukem Forever has a special place in disappointment hell, we can’t just use its name lightly without invoking some seriously bad mojo.

For GW2 to be as disappointing as Duke Nukem Forever, it would have to announce an awesome update is coming next week, wait four years, then release a patch that collates all the most boring, overused MMO designs in those four years and calls them “innovating”.

I agree with everyone who said the Downed State needs a tutorial. I also agree that the Downed Skills should be listed in the Weapons Skills section on the Skills & Weapons tab.

There are three types of gamers.

1. Casual gamers – they play games to pass the time in a fun way. A lot of this demographic has moved on to mobile gaming because it’s able to take away time in transport and whatnot while computer gaming is somewhat more restrictive in terms of required equipment.

2. Hardcore gamers – there are two variants: those who play a game because they are immersed in the world/community of the game itself, and they live the game as a second life; those who play a game because they want to feel a sense of accomplishment, and since games run on fairly consistent rules, it affords the ability to achieve in a fair environment, while in reality you could throw all your resources into something and never be rewarded when your luck is bad.

3. Professional gamers – they play games to earn money, either through tournaments or through converting ingame resources to real finances.

Professional gamers always go where the money is, and as they have a somewhat higher profile (and occasionally industry sponsorships), games sometimes like to have some of them in play every now and then for marketing exposure. But since their aim is to actually earn money, restrictive costs tends to turn them off from a game. Aside from attempts at ‘e-sports’ (which frankly will likely fail because the complexity of Guild Wars 2 mechanics is way above that of your average esports audience’s ability to grasp without doing prior research), there’s been limited effort in this department.

This thread is started and populated mostly by the achievement-type hardcore gamers. However, traditionally, game companies have relied more on keeping systems generally consistent and fair as the only effort towards this entire community, since the amount of time already invested in the game presents a very high cost to leaving a game. From Marketing’s eyes, it’s not a dollar-efficient effort to retain hardcore gamers.

Casuals seem to be the main target of a lot of these recent updates at the moment. Without time to invest in a game, pay-for-convenience features like gem-gold conversions, buying skins, or gambling RNG are ways to monetize this crowd, but it seems like to avoid turning them off from the rest of the game until they spend more, disproportionate effort has been spent in the initial phases of the game (pre-lvl 80). Once they play enough to become invested as a hardcore player, retention is no longer as much of a concern.

If you want to see things change, the hardcore gamer as a community has to undertake relatively drastic actions, involving cutting the monetization source. It does not necessarily mean you stop playing Guild Wars 2, but it means you stop spending any real world money, if you already do, and limit gold=>gem conversions. Then we engage them in dialogue over certain non-negotiable updates – say, precursor crafting.

Once a promised update has been conceded, spend money or convert gold to gems the moment the patch hits, then if the update frequency stalls, stall the monetization process as well. Once the message is clear that the community will financially support the developers only if they acquiesce to the desires of the community that supports it, it’ll be easier to see updates that you want.

If not prepared to coordinate spending behaviour in response to updates, there will be little or no chance that even developers who are interested in improving things for us will be able to convince the other departments within the company to give them the go-ahead.

I’m serious about the spending phase bit. If you’re expecting them to work for free to create patches for us when only the casuals support them financially, it’s just not going to happen.

Thing about the loot.. anet at first made it seem like a great thing that you wouldn’t be competing with other party members over loot that drops from a boss.. no cases of 40 people and only 3 pieces of loot to share. Everyone gets their own loot.

Unfortunately. Most of it is junk. There might be a valuable or desirable piece of loot on that boss. But it has a 1 in 250 chance or so of dropping.

So instead of 40 people trying to figure out who gets one of 3 pieces of loot, 100+ people doing Tequatl might find that 1, maybe 2 people got something that wasn’t junk from Tequatl.

That’s a worse chance at decent loot.

Phineas Poe.3018:

killcannon.2576:

The only reason to keep veteran players around is to populate the world and make it seem like a bustling, active game.

With the Megaservers, that is not quite as important any longer.

And, let’s be honest here, you’ll be back. Maybe not next month, or even two, but vets will always come back and check out the new content….because it’s free.

I don’t think that criticism is fair. The megaservers are actually one of the things that I liked most about the April feature pack. Even if it did ruin server-organized events like the world event train and threw everyone in with everybody, it has made lesser tread ground more populated and has offered players outside of Sanctum of Rall to participate in our Teq kills.

And I am not in any way insinuating that I will not return. I would be more than happy to come back provided these types of overhauls get implemented. But that’s kind of the point: I’m not coming back unless they are.

I think something else needs to be established here: I love horizontal progression and I enjoy having a finish line. I don’t want new tiers beyond ascended added into the game, nor do I necessarily need a new carrot to chase. I would certainly like new dungeons, fractals, and world raids to be added into the game … but who wouldn’t?

The reason why I’ve quit is not because I have nothing to work on. The reason why I’ve quit is because the path to get what I want is abusive with rewards randomly delegated. I cannot stress this point enough: the RNG has to go.

To apply a little more context, going after legendaries would be a lot more enjoyable if the process to obtaining your precursor involved an actual quest line. It can be long. It can be incremental and require crafting. And it can be challenging. But standing at the forge dumping in hundreds of gold is equated to rolling a pair of dice. There’s no personal achievement in that.

I agree with you. There needs to be progression and there needs to be meaningful, long term, small group based content based around skill and relying on your fellow party members that is fun and not zergy.

But…. lowering the common denominator of the player base makes more money and it’s a lot easier.

The only thing that Anet has ever truly listened to is money. Once this current direction runs it course and shows them that it will not improve profits or player retention in it’s western market, the players may see some actual game changing systems put into place that will improve the game in a meaningful way. Of course they will probably come tied to some sort of purchase model, but if you like the game then it’s worth it.

Vote with your wallet and your time.

Phineas Poe.3018:

killcannon.2576:

Vets don’t make the company money.

I am pretty sure that ArenaNet made a lot of money off me. And they will continue to do so if they implement these changes. But not anymore until they do.

And for every new player they will make more.

New players aren’t disillusioned or jaded and are more inclined to get the shinies. Older players are more inclined to move on regardless of the amount, or type, of content available.

Newcomers just generate more income per player. It’s part of the b2p, f2p paradigm.

Keeping veteran players is not and never will be a priority in b2p or f2p games. New players are much more likely to invest money in Gems for new character slots, bag space, and convenience items. Vets don’t make the company money.

It’s always about the cash. The rest is smoke, mirrors, and empty words.

In essence, as a community we have been running completely blind over the past year as to what exactly the direction of the game is and what is being done to address these end-game concerns.

This silence would more than acceptable, but this has coincided with some of the strongest gem store pushes including, but not limited to infinite harvesting tools, copper/silver-fed-salvage-o-matics, costumes, toys, and mini pets. You’re clearly dedicating resources to supporting the game and adding new content—especially with regard to the Living Story.

Are things like the FOTM loot table and Teq/Wurm rewards just not a concern for you? Because any time questions are raised about the direction of GW2’s end-game we’re met with nebulous non-speak that would even impress Peter Molyneux.

Now for the “it’s only been two years” argument, it’s true. It’s generally common that MMOs don’t really hit their stride until a few years into their life. It’s at that point the dedicated community is established and the developers have a good idea in mind of where they want to take the game. FFXI was a good game at launch (provided it was 1 year old when it reached the States), but it didn’t really enter into its prime until Chains of Promathia came out.

But the thing to keep in mind about all of this is that CoP built upon preexisting systems in FFXI. The Living Story S2 is entirely disconnected from fractals, dungeons, and even open world raiding. It all takes place in single-player instances and what open world content we’ve received is both (1) completely unrewarding for those working on legendaries and (2) does nothing to challenge or excite two-year veterans of the game.

What happened to stuff like Marionette and the Scarlet invasion? What happened to stuff like Flame & Frost? Super Adventure Box? S1 had a lot of negative stuff in it and the story was (imo) awful, but it also had some very good content that was engaging, fun, and challenging. You had to work with other players to succeed during LS1. In LS2 it’s all solitary. I don’t feel like I’m playing an MMO anymore.

And during the times that I do, like FOTM and Teq, I feel like I’m just being punished for it.

S2 is no where near as engaging kitten for this reason, even if the plot is better this time around. My guild has literally nothing to do in this game together anymore except Tequatl and Wurm, and that content is getting very old very fast due to aforementioned loot issues.

And while I’m more than happy with just walking away and taking a break until they add new stuff, I am beyond frustrated that some of my most dedicated guild members that step up every day still haven’t been rewarded for it.

I don’t know where the game is headed from here, but it would be nice if you took a few of these complaints under consideration and prevented more players from quitting the game and satisfying them, even if it is kinda too late for me.

Note: This is a cross-post from Reddit that I had written a few days ago. By request of some redditors, I’m making the statement here.

Three days ago Colin Johanson had this to say about the feature patch on Reddit:

I think that’s a totally fair question, as a veteran user I’d wonder that too – why does making the game better for new users benefit me when I want features that benefit me?

The simple answer is: by ensuring the game foundation is solid for new users, we’ll be in a place after the feature pack where we can do the kind of things that excite both veteran and new users simultaneously, and we’ll be able to retain a much larger percentage of the new or long returning users when they show up. Can’t say anything more than that yet – but that’s the thinking, you don’t need to agree with it, but it’s important to know why the decision was made!

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2etzxq/a_fresh_start_the_new_player_experience_in_guild/ck35jpy

The bolding was mine, because I think this statement needs to be examined and carefully considered.

People aren’t leaving the game because of the leveling process. And if they are, it’s more likely because of the trait overhaul system you implemented in April. I don’t insinuate that I know everything or why everyone necessarily leaves before 80, but if someone quits the game because they think the leveling process is too vague about what the downed mechanics mean, then there’s no way they’re going to unlock enough traits to participate in any meaningful way in end-game group-oriented content.

I can, however, more than happily illuminate as to why people leave the game upon reaching 80. People are leaving the game, and have been leaving the game since 2012, because the end-game content of GW2 is very, very basic. Tequatl is on full-blown farm status at this point, so a new player can walk up and participate in this content without actually having to show any work for it. They might even walk away with Tequatl’s Horde and not even understand what it is. (And as someone that has killed Teq hundreds of times, this happens a lot.)

The only content that regularly challenges players still and frequently fails are Wurm and high-level fractals. The problem with both of these content areas, however, are their rewards. The loot table is for the most part random and does not reward you in any way due to personal involvement. A leecher AFKing at the waypoint after tagging Tequatl once has just as equal chances to looting a Tequatl’s Horde as I do manning a turret or helping on defense. Is that appropriate?

One time there was this guild of guys that were trolling a defense group at Tequatl. They would overscale the event, they would not help out in ways that were appropriate, they would leave my guildies to die, and would pull mobs into the batteries on defense phases. They did not in any way impact our ability to complete it, but it wasn’t very nice dealing with really petty players like that. And at the end of the fight one of them looted a Tequatl’s Horde and linked it in chat. I was so furious.

We have asked so many times that you guys allow us a little more control on how Teq and Wurm is organized. We don’t necessarily need to have it fully enclosed, but some kind of mass invite system to a fresh map would go a long way at improving the quality of life for people like me that for a long time helped manage and lead these kinds of events. But you were so concerned about leaving new players out of the content that our requests were denied, ignored, or outright criticized for being elitist. I understand your desire for “facilitating friendly play,” as you put it back in April, as our leading these events were a means to an end to keep casuals playing the game and feeling included.

But the current system for Tequatl and Wurm does not suffice. The loot table is too random and poorly rewards players that show up every day. And it’s very heartbreaking for me to watch. As the year progressed it became harder and harder to push people to do turrets and defense because there was no incentive. My guild has for the past year provided a daily Tequatl kill to anyone that manages to get on our map. But what’s important to clarify is that we were often hanging by a thread getting people to step up and lead these events, or even just hopping on turrets or helping on defense.

Before I decided to quit the game, we even started doing leaderless kills because no one wanted to step up and do it. We just all wanted a chance at the loot. The system does not in any way facilitate or incentivize leading, and some of our best commanders just got tired of leading a few days a week and never getting a Horde for it.

And I wish this was the only area of the game where this is a problem, but it’s not.

Rewards vendor should have all LS1 items back to be fair if u ask me.