Guild Wars 2

eekzie.5640:

Relshdan.6854:

these changes/fixes don’t alter or answer the argument against the NPE….it just makes a bland/ overly simplistic experience go slightly quicker.

You simply don’t liking the NPE does not mean it’s a bad thing.
Apparently player retention in lower levels is an issue and if this solves that, then it’s a good thing.
The negative effects such as dumbing down low level hearts to be extremely simplistic sadly is the way to achieve that goal, aside with other things.

And yes, these changes do fix a lot of the arguments people had (such as not having to redo the NPE every time in regards to skill points / vista unlocks / etc).

I am skeptic at the idea of removing 50% of the content that actually makes the game playable, such as variety of availble skills and (mildly) challenging content from the beginning actually enforcing player retention. Surely Arenanet has more numbers, but the moment you are being essentially punished for joining the community later on, not being able to grasp your class properly at all until much later than everyone else and lacking any sort of challenge whatsoever, doesn’t this start to be the same as every other MMO availble, and thus blending with an unimpressing environment?
The lack of variety in armors, skills, traits; literally everything that makes your character unique is now gone, and that really was one of Guild Wars 2’s few outstanding selling points.

This seems to be new behavior as of the patch. If you’re standing on a stairway or a wall, “closest target” now targets the wall over the enemy zerg that’s right in front of me. IMO, Closest Target should never target buildings or pieces of buildings, period. The entire purpose of “closest target” is to find the closest threat. The wall in front of me is not a threat. Please fix this!

Gonna start by explaining my experience; I’ve been in since beta and have five level 80 characters, a couple mid-levels and a couple still-20 characters (birthday bonus). After the furor erupted, I created a new guardian and worked through Plains of Ashford for about an hour to experience the NPE for myself and see if it was really that bad.

Much of what I noticed has been posted in this thread, and I’m going to expand on those things a little:

Nokaru.7831:

Here is perhaps the biggest and most subtle problem with the NPE that’s technically “working as intended” – The “stat burst” and the “stat slump" effect.

I am actually having a hard time understanding why this was considered good in the first place. The only idea I could come up with was that on those burst levels, you suddenly feel super strong – but if the tradeoff is feeling super wimpy in the meantime, it’s not worth it. Why not gain a little bit of stats every level? It would also serve to fill up the level-up menu, so it’s better in that way, as well.

eyestrain.3056:

1. Unlocking skills all at once per weapon was … more boring. Previously fights didnt feel like grind because I was unlocking skills along the way

I had the advantage of creating a new character in a class I already play, so I couldn’t speak to whether chunks of new skills are confusing. However, running around with only one skill, or maybe two after the opening instance, was boring as all get-out, and since killing bad guys barely made a dent in my XP bar, it did make the fights feel more grindy. I knew I would be doing this for a long time.

eyestrain.3056:

4. Some world-building dialogue/heart quest options have been removed… *What drew me to gw2 was its world, characters, visuals. These charming details help it stand out…

My guildies and regular play-mates can tell you how determined I have always been to complete hearts by non-combat methods as much as possible. Having to kill stuff is just not what thrills me.

I mean, there’s a special feeling for hauling out a big AoE and thrashing 6 guys at once, or finally taking down a champ by yourself for the first time – I’m not opposed to combat per se, but in general, killing is what I do on my way between other bits of content, or to grind out particular things I need (achievements, drops, etc).

Having the majority of those non-combat options taken away was a huge disappointment to me. Probably my biggest annoyance about the entire NPE. Especially with fewer fighting skills available, I’d so much rather be able to do some of those clicky, immersion-providing tasks. Exactly as stated here:

Eh, some rage and hyperbole is justified, I think… When I found out that the Metrica Inquest/shark event chain has been removed, I was dumbfounded. ….

What is left instead? Instead of feeding cows, running around with water, turning into a repair golem? Some generic combat without most conditions and pressing F for 10-15 levels. I mean… How does that even compare?

Exactly.

eyestrain.3056:

3. The level up menu gives vague, incomplete information…

The fact that devs had to come and explain that many of those things were not being UNLOCKED but just EXPLAINED in the level up menu should illustrate how unclear the menu is. Even putting the words “Learn about…” in front of the tutorial options would help out with that. (e.g. instead of just “Waypoints” make it say “Learn about Waypoints”). Luckily, I read the disclaimers about misinformation prior to rolling that character, and armed with that info, I was able to discern the difference between items that were just named, and items that had the words “You have unlocked” in front – because I was looking for it. Otherwise, in the midst of running around the world, I probably would not have noticed the “Unlocked” was present on some things and not on others.

Chameleon Dude.1564:

praise where praise is due:

• The dodge tutorial.
• The new hearts
• The idea of making each level feel rewarding.

This was spot on.

As far as things that I haven’t seen mentioned:

1. Not being able to acquire skill points, even when you were standing right at a skill point person/location, was INFURIATING. I do not see why new players cannot collect skill points from the get-go. Sure, they can’t USE any of the skill points until they unlock skill number seven, but to be standing right there at the skill guy and have him say " I’m busy right now…" that really rubbed me the wrong way.

2. The arrow when your hit points are low is probably useful for lowbies, but man, you only need it for a couple levels. Ideally once it has been flashed 3-5 times, regardless of level, don’t flash it again. It comes across rather insulting!

Thanks for listening!

Thank you very much for the updates. <3

Personally, I feel like the personal story could be unlocked earlier. I like how I could gain experience by doing it as an alternative to heart quests.

I bought gw2 a while back but only started playing a week ago. My highest level character is 40-something and I just started leveling a new character. The first was made a bit before the changes and the second after the changes.

My feedback:

I’d prefer that the navigation compass (when set to only show map completion stuff) would point to the nearest completion POI, Vista, Waypoint instead of -heavily- favoring hearts.

I agree with some of the other people here that the interactive objects like feeding the cow food, pouring water on the fires, turning into a sylvari hound really gives gw2 a higher-quality feel from the start. If anything you could keep the simple click-to-win mechanic, yet give people the option to do it the fun way if they so choose.

As for the weapon skills changes I like the fact everything is unlocked right away, once you hit a certain level. However changing to a new weapon and having all the skills unlocked instantly could be a bit overwhelming for some players.

I don’t personally enjoy the new story mode unlock system. With the old system I could continue the story as I was adventuring in those areas, or follow the story into new areas. With the new system I have to backtrack into areas that feel outdated and irrelevant to my character.

As for the leveling rewards, I like the new system of getting something nice every-time you level.

Lothirieth.3408:

Re point 1, the old way of unlocking weapons was grindy and boring to me and I greatly prefer this new way. For slot 4 and 5, it felt like it could take a long time to get those unlocked and with certain weapons, it certainly was slow.

Was it eight levels of slow? I still think it’s insane having to wait until level 10 just to get my fifth weapon ability. Once you got past level three or four (I don’t know the exact point, maybe it was a little closer to ten), then every single kill would unlock the next weapon skill. It was weighted in such a way so that if you picked up a new weapon later in the game, it would unlock much quicker for you.

I understand grabbing all weapons for your profession at level 1 and unlocking them all would feel like it’s taking a long time, but really, there’s no reason to do that. If you have one or two preferred weapons, yeah, stick to those, but you really don’t need every single one for your class unlocked ASAP.

They just need to activate the chess boards for vets and maybe if when you reached some level. There’s at least one board still there. You just couldn’t do anything.

Okay, two questions.

One: skill challenges. Can they be accessed before level 13 again, even if they don’t show up on the map?

And two: I understand the intent behind simplifying some of the early level quests. But things like golem chess were utterly charming! As well as tossing cannon balls via bundles at enemies, things like that. Is there any way we could golem chess somewhere in rata sum?

3rd question, speaking of bundles. I feel it’d be helpful to have a dodge-style always-popup tooltip on an early bundle in a safe area rather than to risk a newbie coming on to something taking his weapon skills away unexpectedly. Some fun bundle should be re-added to the newbie starting zone, early on.

eyestrain.3056:

From my experience playing a new character:

4. Some world-building dialogue/heart quest options have been removed (the inquest no longer try to recruit you, no golem chess, you can’t feed bear cubs or play as a sylvan hound). What drew me to gw2 was its world, characters, visuals. These charming details help it stand out from the “kill 45 crawfish to proceed” competitors. Their absence is missed.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!

I hope the heart quest weren’t change that much! For the record, I dislike most heart quest but being able to play as a Sylvari hound was fun. Having the inquest try to recruit me was lore inspiring. Also, being able to feed the cows in queensdale was also appeasing as a new player. But in regards to the inquest and sylvari hound, if those two were removed please bring them back. Two years later, I still remember those experiences I had as a new player.

A suggestion that I’ve made before, that continues to be relevant with the NPE level gating. With things like utility skills (engineer) and downed skills being level gated to slowly introduce them to players, why not add these skills to the weapon skills and/or utility page on the Hero window so people can read the descriptions at their leisure? The underwater skills are already there, which is nice, but it has boggled my mind since launch that the downed skills aren’t there to read outside of frantic combat where you might not have time to hover over each skill and read them.

laokoko.7403:

Behellagh.1468:

Rogue.7856:

Yes I truly don’t see the problem in expressing how much we dislike something. I don’t want to sugar coat it… I absolutely hate all the gated content added, and it was already noted how much we hated the trait system and they clearly didn’t get the message. I want them to know that I feel its unacceptable to keep any of the gated changes and level locking story content. It’s unnecessary and limiting what we can do in the game.

But all of these changes aren’t about us. It’s about the new customer, one that may have never played an MMO before. I personally don’t have that much of a problem with the level gating IF play time it takes to get to 40 is the same as it was to get to 30 before. I’m all for removing info blocks for vets. Things like the map not having mat nodes or vistas.

But we as vets already know where to go to get find an actual TP NPC or buy gathering tools and salvage kits assuming we didn’t transfer the permanent ones over to the new character.

But stamping your feet every hour of every day isn’t going to get the bugs they’ve said they have found fixed and tweaks done any faster.

I thought all veterans should have lvl20 scrolls(or at least most of them should have enough). That is why I’m complaining and many others too, because we dont’ actually get benefit from lvl1-15 being faster.

That being said, if the developer intent to juts ignore us, and continue with it, posting more about it may be nonconstructive.

I obviously understand the developer have lots of pressure to retain new players, and keep china customer and publisher happy. I think some of this changed happen, because the chinese publisher may some how suggest some system may come to us too.

Honestly I would have as a software designer made the various restrictions and level locks to be read from a file added to the build back when I was doing the China version. This way the build between China and NA/EU could have been customized with greater ease.

I would have also added phasing tech, which they sort of use with nodes, to make NPC vendors like the TP NPC to be visible to some players but not to others (read newbies) or have the NPC simply say to a new player to come back once they’ve gotten a bit more experience rather than eliminating them. Filter out the gathering tools and salvage kits from vendors instead of simply removing them.

Maybe it was done to encourage players to go into their race’s main city. My first character was a Norn and I didn’t take them to Hoelbrak until they was in their teens. I didn’t know what was on the other side of that swirly thing. The map was a blur. Not like we could see a big city from there like in Queensdale.

Also, being unable to find a water bucket when the farmer is screaming “MY CROPS ARE BURNING!” or words to the effect, is heart breaking.

I remember the cows from the demos. Those little hearts when you feed them were one of the great joys of the early game.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

As has been detailed many times we will not be disclosing work in progress. I don’t know how to make this any clearer. As uncomfortable as this may be this is the reality.

Chris

Hi, Chris. I come bearing messages from the cows in Queensdale.

Bellizare.5816:

Ravion Hawk.4736:

On the “New Players” that was used for making this NPE, did ANet even once think about whether or not those “New Players” may have been fanboys for another MMO and saw GW2 as a threat so they purposely gave ANet bogus feedback hoping ANet would make the changes and then alienate their WHOLE player base?

That seems pretty far fetched.

Being a security professional, network security professional, and a customer service professional; I have to think outside the box and view ALL possibilities.

I also know that if I can think of it, someone else can also think of it.

And it is not far fetched, it is actually “old skool” in marketing.

Thank you for making this thread. I am loving the recent increase in communication.

Would just like to echo the sentiment that the Personal Story should go back to how it was before. I don’t really consider releasing it in chunks or gating it to be egregious problems. Those are just design decisions I might personally disagree with but I can see how they are reasonable. That’s not the issue.

Removing and re-ordering parts of the Personal Story is the problem. As many users have posted across numerous threads including this one, this creates serious plot holes. In particular, I have been involved in a discussion about how the Greatest Fear storyline was an important part of character development and added some depth to the story by making the character overcome and move past tragedy – an important element for a story like this.

The lack of the Greatest Fear plotline also means that many new things that never get explained just suddenly appear in Fort Trinity, like the Krait Orb that protects it. This would be very confusing for a player who was not able to see the story that explained that but who gets thrown right into Fort Trinity.

In the interests of preventing confusion, it seems like the players are on the same page: present the story in the same order in which it has always been told prior to this Feature Patch, with all of the steps, including Greatest Fear. It is the only way the plot will make sense.

laokoko.7403:

CalamityO.2890:

Nokaru.7831:

If we’re actually going to have a thread discussing the NPE, can it actually be full of constructive criticism and suggestions instead of just rage and hyperbole? This thread looks like it’s already going south, so I hope this won’t be the place to talk about it.

….to late for that. It already is!.

I think it is very constructive to tell the developer that we really hate it, and hope they just stop with have all this gated level unlock.

The thing is some people just think it is a hate thread and nonconstructive.

Yes I truly don’t see the problem in expressing how much we dislike something. I don’t want to sugar coat it… I absolutely hate all the gated content added, and it was already noted how much we hated the trait system and they clearly didn’t get the message. I want them to know that I feel its unacceptable to keep any of the gated changes and level locking story content. It’s unnecessary and limiting what we can do in the game.

CalamityO.2890:

Nokaru.7831:

If we’re actually going to have a thread discussing the NPE, can it actually be full of constructive criticism and suggestions instead of just rage and hyperbole? This thread looks like it’s already going south, so I hope this won’t be the place to talk about it.

….to late for that. It already is!.

I think it is very constructive to tell the developer that we really hate it, and hope they just stop with have all this gated level unlock.

The thing is some people just think it is a hate thread and nonconstructive.

Asmodeus.5782:

Eh, some rage and hyperbole is justified

I find it unhelpful since there are solvable issues that can be discussed rationally. There’s plenty of other threads that are out there where people can vent their frustration. I’ve seen many identifiable and fixable problems become buried by those kind of posts. I know it’s not our job as consumer’s to have to frame our feelings constructively. It just would help a lot.

The Reason for the Anger:
Even though the NPE is controversial for a variety of reasons, at the heart of this matter is the fact that it should have been the priority of the NA/EU NPE team to minimize the jarring difference between the old leveling experience and the new leveling experience as much as possible. It’s safe to assume that due to the large scope of the changes, players would be unhappy with something, so as little as possible should have been changed. Whether or not we will see any sort of dialogue on this remains to be seen. In my opinion, this is the source of the rage:

Fixable Problems:
What we can do is focus on fixable problems by seeing what the NPE changed and then propose something else. Here is an incomplete list of things that you can look at individually and propose improvements for:

• (1) Changes to the 1-15 zones
• (2) Changes to the Personal Story (Keyfarming, My Greatest Fear deletion, etc.)
• (3) Weapon Skill Unlocks
• (4) Utility, Elite & Profession Unlocks
• (5) Various Account-Based Unlocks (UI for WvW, sPvP, etc.)
• (6) Miscellaneous Unlocks (Downed State)
• (7) Stat Unlocks (Resulting in “Stat Burst” & “Stat Slump” Effect)

For example: With regards to (7), it is a big problem but it is easy to fix. The stats which are gained every 6 levels should instead be distributed every single level.

This is something that should not be compromised on. Distributing stats at every level is the way to fix this problem; anything less, such as every 2 levels or every 3 levels is simply a worse fix with the only justification being the intangible benefit of providing a “more rewarding leveling experience” with a “burst” of power. To that, I reply that the loss of power experience right before such bursts outweighs the benefits of the feeling of empowerment.

Mr Snotty Pants.3980:

Trouble is, many of us existing players actually like complexity. That’s what keeps us making alts, keeps us trying new builds…

The NPE works directly against this. The trait change works directly against this.

There’s a fundamental mismatch here, and I’d love to hear ArenaNet talk about it. Or even acknowledge it…

Exactly… They are completely ignoring this to the core. I simply don’t get the logic here.

Trouble is, many of us existing players actually like complexity. That’s what keeps us making alts, keeps us trying new builds…

The NPE works directly against this. The trait change works directly against this.

There’s a fundamental mismatch here, and I’d love to hear ArenaNet talk about it. Or even acknowledge it…

There really needs to be some clear, concrete statement made on whether the new weapon/skill/attunement/etc locking is meant solely for new accounts, for the first character made on an account after the 9/9 patch, etc. I’ve seen devs mention that things aren’t/weren’t unlocking like they should be and that some changes were supposed to be account-bound (meaning we would only have to deal with them once) and not per character. Knowing that some of this new hand-holding which the majority of veteran players don’t need (and quite frankly, if you’ve played X amount of hours or have X amount of level 80s already, it’s your choice if you want to ignore tutorials and the like) would go a long way toward settling people. I’d like to believe that the devs know we aren’t all so clueless and new to a game like GW2 that we actually need this kind of stuff on one character, let alone every.single.new.alt.

All I’ve seen is a lot of “we’re going to make some changes/we’re looking into it” followed by “we’re not discussing it until it’s as designed”. The uptick of dev activity is refreshing, don’t get me wrong, and certainly is working toward regaining consumer trust, but there is a long ways to go and people who are unhappy are not going to suffer un-fun game mechanics for weeks while you fix it to be “as designed”. Which for all we know might be even less fun for those of us who genuinely like to make alts.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Other aspects of the NPE are being examined, and your constructive feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Please Review-
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-On3Ya0_4Y#t
Notable Points:

• Stat Burst: With the original lvling system, players would receive a small amount of stats each time they lvled, which made their character slowly get stronger each level. With the NPE changes, after lvl 4 the player will received a large chunk (or “burst”) of stats every 6 lvls.

• Stat Slump: The problem is that the “stat burst” power did not come out of no where. The power is redistributed from prior levels. The result is that players feel weaker than they did before during certain windows of leveling. This is being remarked as the “stat slump”, which is typically 2 or 3 lvls prior to each threshold.

• The problem: If a player tries to fight a creature 1/2 lvls higher than themselves, the “stat slump” complicates things. A lvl 9 creature is more powerful than a lvl 8; but a lvl 9 player is not necessarily more powerful than a lvl 8 one. This is because the stats come in bursts for players, but gradually for monsters. As a result, players are reporting that certain Personal Story missions are feeling much harder than they used to. This is a result of the “stat slump”, which is effectively making players feel lower level than they actually are.
  
  Furthermore, when a player lvls up in an area they are downscaled in, there is a high chance they will actually become weaker. This is because downscaling will reduce their stats, and lvling up doesn’t necessarily increase them to offset it. While this has always been a possibility due to gear, it is now magnified due to base stats not increasing with each level.

This change to lvling is so fundamentally dysfunctional with how the rest of the game works that it really starts to raise questions in the confidence of ANet’s actual understandings of their systems. It’s likely it isn’t the entire company’s fault though, only a few powerful (and ignorant) people.

Poll: http://strawpoll.me/2555336/r
Out of 1500 Players 82% don’t agree with the new lvl system with a whopping 41% hating the new system, while only 8% actually like it… Over 5x as many people outright hate the system than actually like it. Your losing players everyday, voicing this system as “the nail in the coffin”. I’d link every topic but it would literally take me hours of digging through the forum and copying each one.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Anet they had over 10,000 testers who said the game was to hard and needed dumbed down to a level never seen before,

A good portion are probably mobile gamers. Instead of focusing on loyal players, the ones that advertise the game to others, they have instead chose to turn a blind eye to us. This makes it really hard for me to recommend the game to anyone in its current state as they clearly don’t care about players that actually care about the game.

• Colin Johnson – Game Designer GW2
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU1JUwPqzQY&feature=youtu.be @ 1:18
  ‘When you play the combat in our game you say, "Wow that’s increadible! I’ve never seen anything like that!" Most games you go out and you have really fun tasks occasionally that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. {Sarcasm:“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again! Hey! I swung it again! That’s great!”} We just don’t want players to grind in GW2. Noone enjoys that, noone finds it fun, we want to change the way people view combat.’

So they pretty much go back on their vision and everything they stood for over the last 2 years… At the very least allow toggling leveling changes. There is nothing “New” or “Rewarding” from the new system. Please take it back and give me back my ability to play the game freely. It’s insulting and bad taste to even call it that.

How can you call crippling the early game abilities and putting them behind a level requirement a reward? Did you not learn from your China release!? How is locking story until your 10 levels up a reward? Or locking each and every aspect of the game behind level requirements going to help anyone? If anything you have made it harder for EVERYONE!

How could you not take into consideration the 50 page topic complaining about the trait system for 4 months?! (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/47#post4372835). And now this!?!

Extremely upset and disappointed… Disappointed you couldn’t stay true to your word. I’m done with alts or any characters before level 40… you absolutely ruined the new character experience that you claim to have focused on. For 2 years it was just fine, not sure what good came from these unnecessary changes.

I’m glad to hear this system is not set in stone and can be fixed based on our feedback.

I’m also hoping the ‘fix’ for the rangers profession mechanics means we’ll be able to at least name our pet from level 1 (it’s a small thing, but it bothers me every time I see it) and preferably use F1 and F3 from the start as well so we can actually fight instead of having the AI dictate targets.

On the “New Players” that was used for making this NPE, did ANet even once think about whether or not those “New Players” may have been fanboys for another MMO and saw GW2 as a threat so they purposely gave ANet bogus feedback hoping ANet would make the changes and then alienate their WHOLE player base?

CrAzZyKiLLa.7483:

Easy fix

1) Remove all Level gating.

2) Restore PS the way it was

3) Restore Traits to original design

This would please nearly everyone, I’m very unhappy with the latest patch and the general direction of the game at present. Some major work is needed fast if I am to stay invested and recommend this game.

A well done to the devs who put alot of time and effort into this game and the content they have been putting out, I personaly feel that the senior designers and managers need to understand what their playerbase wants and the design decisions as of late have been extreamly poor and a major change of course is required.

No, it wouldn’t please everyone. Using your opinion as canon is never a good idea.
A lot of the underlaying ideology for the changes are very well thought of. The implementation is under discussion and there will always be people who don’t like them. But right now some of the things simply feel out of place.

If you’re unhappy with something at least try to give some constructive criticism instead of ‘’no, i don’t like it put it back’’.

Our first dungeon is a level 30 dungeon.

If we try to play that dungeon at level 30, we are missing 2 skills since skill 9 unlocks at 35 and 0 unlocks at 40.

We vets also have to wait until level 40 before we bring a new character into WvW so we have all our skill slots open where previously we hit WvW at level 30.

Take away the misconceptions due to poor wording about some of the “locked” content that isn’t locked and you may find that gating the skills is likely the biggest complaint from many vets.

I’d get my weapon skills unlocked on my chosen weapons before level 3 and that counts getting the my secondary set unlocked before I was able to weapon swap. I’ve got level 80 alts that don’t have all their weapons skills open because I don’t use all their different weapons.

My suggestion would be to put the old level requirements for the utility and elite slots back and “maybe” do the weapon skills as level 2 for 2, level 3 for 3, level 4 for 4, and level 5 for 5. That means you get weapon skill 5 and your first utility skill at level 5.

As has been detailed many times we will not be disclosing work in progress. I don’t know how to make this any clearer. As uncomfortable as this may be this is the reality.

Yeah, but as I’ve said, that policy needs to change. It’s like saying “I’m sorry, but we’re just going to be deleting all of your characters when they hit level 53, and there’s nothing to be done about that, I don’t know how to make this any clearer.”

It’s just a toxic policy, and you can never have a fully healthy relationship with the community until it is disposed of. I give you a great deal of credit for trying anyway, but it’s like boxing with both hands behind your back.

P.S: If you want to discuss potential future features and systems then you are welcome to partake in the CDI.

Where is the CDI page for the NGE?

And for the record, the earlier we get news, the better, but even days or weeks in advance is better than nothing.

Easy fix

1) Remove all Level gating.

2) Restore PS the way it was

3) Restore Traits to original design

This would please nearly everyone, I’m very unhappy with the latest patch and the general direction of the game at present. Some major work is needed fast if I am to stay invested and recommend this game.

A well done to the devs who put alot of time and effort into this game and the content they have been putting out, I personaly feel that the senior designers and managers need to understand what their playerbase wants and the design decisions as of late have been extreamly poor and a major change of course is required.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Plot holes and story inconsistencies that may have been introduced with story realignment

A question if you will.

Does this mean they’re reworking the dialogue, which WILL NOT fix all the plot holes and inconsistencies, or does this mean that they’re reverting the changes?

I don’t think anything beyond reverting the removal of the fear arc and the switching around of chapter 8 should be done in this situation, as I can point out probably a half a dozen things that will not work even if they fact-check all dialogue, NPC spawning, NPC models, and objectives.