The issue isn’t to bring back traditional tanking, with a static aggro-threat system, but to make better use of the gear, stats and skills Arena-Net implemented. gear like berserkers, sinisters, vipers and damage oriented gear sinergize so well that gear like knights, nomads, settlers and clerics are considered obsolete. If these gear sets actually worked better, then there would be different play styles. Its a bad mechanic to have a lot of options and only have a a small few actually work well. This is not a “no trinity system”. this is a “we have a trinity and a few other things, but only dps is viable system”
We do not have a only dps is viable system. For the most part we have an, “everything is viable system.”
Colin did say, in a PAX interview, that the precursor crafting aspect of legendaries would be added in 2013 as an absolute. No caveats, no disclaimers. Absolute, without exception.
But plans do change.
Understood.
I still consider it to be unethical to advertise something as part of an expansion in order to generate sales and then cancel that element after receiving payment.
Non Raiders blocked from XP bar spirit shards
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Ashen.2907
I will freely admit to being ignorant of all of the details of earning and using spirit shards as well as masteries and raids as I have not maxed my masteries, nor played the raid.
But, honest question here, is it possible to earn spirit shards through xp, without raiding, in core Tyria?
Yes, if you complete all of the Tyria Masteries.
So, just to clarify, Non Raiders are not blocked from earning spirit shards through XP? There is, apparently, more than one approaches provided, allowing people who do not want to raid an alternative approach to earning spirit shards through XP?
To clarify, it’s not about spirit shards. It’s about xp after mastery completion meaning something which some players, myself included, find satisfaction in. The issue is that core maps reward for post-mastery xp simply by finishing central masteries. However, HoT maps don’t reward for completing all HoT masteries – UNLESS the raid masteries are also completed. This disparity is the core of this discussion because it feels like an attempt by anet to herd non-raiders into raiding.
I think that it might be about spirit shards. This is what the OP, in his opening post, said in summation:
You have to raid to get free Spirit Shards.
He was, apparently, mistaken. You do not have to raid to get free spirit shards.
Non Raiders blocked from XP bar spirit shards
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Ashen.2907
I will freely admit to being ignorant of all of the details of earning and using spirit shards as well as masteries and raids as I have not maxed my masteries, nor played the raid.
But, honest question here, is it possible to earn spirit shards through xp, without raiding, in core Tyria?
Yes, if you complete all of the Tyria Masteries.
So, just to clarify, Non Raiders are not blocked from earning spirit shards through XP? There is, apparently, more than one approaches provided, allowing people who do not want to raid an alternative approach to earning spirit shards through XP?
legendaries are kittening expensive and should take a long time to obtain.
A reasonable opinion, and a completely separate issue than pay to win.
Non Raiders blocked from XP bar spirit shards
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Ashen.2907
I will freely admit to being ignorant of all of the details of earning and using spirit shards as well as masteries and raids as I have not maxed my masteries, nor played the raid.
But, honest question here, is it possible to earn spirit shards through xp, without raiding, in core Tyria?
I’ve always hating tanking. Always. Tanking, to me, is the worst thing that’s happened to the MMO genre.
I mean the typical tank and spank scenario is you have a tank, who draws all the aggro and stands there, while being healed by a healer, while everyone else takes it down. What part of this is not completely contrived.
I’m sure Lord of the Rings would have been a much better book if Boromir stood there tanking while Gandalf healed him, and no one was actually in any danger.
Tanking is ludicrous. It’s a mechanic that should not even exist. Yes, it’s lovely to not be able to die. But you know, that sort of defeats the whole purpose of playing a game in which you can die.
I completely agree. It was done in D&D because it made the most sense on paper, and because it also made the game easier to design and play for people to get into. It’s not because it’s good design. Actually, most game designers will blatantly say it’s horrible design when looked at objectively. But it was kept alive through tradition.
And that’s just coming from the perspective of assuming the groups are easy to get.
The reasoning behind why I think tank/support players are upset is because that role simply isn’t needed, and it’s actually slower to find parties willing to play by the trinity ruleset than rushing things down with DPS builds.
In fact, they’re experiencing the exact same problem DPS players have with traditional trinity games; wait 5-6 hours for rare a chance of a party to beat the content. Meanwhile, tanks and supports would be scooped up instantly, because an overwhelming majority of players have more fun playing DPS, a fact cited many times.
The trinity itself is a hard-enforced optimization. You don’t bring a party of all-DPS to kill a boss in traditional games, because it wouldn’t be effective. In GW2, the players define the criteria for optimization in how to beat content. The concept of all-DPS is just a less-enforced optimization model; the trinity encourages the same and more restrictions.
Nothing is stopping players from being able to perform traditional tanking roles in GW2. The stats, gear, and builds are there. The players are the only ones who define it otherwise. Don’t like the player-driven convention? Look to find players who like trinity style and join up with them.
And it wasnt really even done in DnD because nothing forced mobs to attack a “tank.” The toughest characters, defensively, in DnD could be the mage type while some of the best DPS could be put out by the “healer.” The melee character in the heaviest armor with the largest health pool could very well be the group’s main DPS while being “squishy,” compared to the group’s casters.
Any GM that had his monsters ignore the real threat to focus on the group’s most invulnerable character wasnt worth playing with.
I’ve always hating tanking. Always. Tanking, to me, is the worst thing that’s happened to the MMO genre.
I mean the typical tank and spank scenario is you have a tank, who draws all the aggro and stands there, while being healed by a healer, while everyone else takes it down. What part of this is not completely contrived.
I’m sure Lord of the Rings would have been a much better book if Boromir stood there tanking while Gandalf healed him, and no one was actually in any danger.
Tanking is ludicrous. It’s a mechanic that should not even exist. Yes, it’s lovely to not be able to die. But you know, that sort of defeats the whole purpose of playing a game in which you can die.
This right here.
LS2 is a product that Anet sells. Buying one or even two (base game and expansion) of their other products does not entitle one to this product without paying its labeled price.
The labeled price is either gems or time. One can either spend gems (which can be gained through either real money or time) or spend the time logging into the game during an episode to unlock it for the account.
Complaining about this is not significantly different, in my opinion, than complaining that one bought GW Prophecies and didnt get GW2 for free.
Inaction speaks volumes that ANet views AB multi-map looting as emergent gameplay. When patch cycles aren’t long, it doesn’t take much time for inaction to speak volumes.
Perceived inaction only indicates a lack of urgency to address the exploit.
~EW
This.
There are bugs in the game now that were there at launch. That doesn’t mean that they are intended, part of some emergent gameplay, or anything other than just a bug that Anet hasn’t fixed yet because there is always more to do than there is man power to do it, and always more getting added to the list. Just because Anet places a lower priority on it than other matters needing development resources does not mean that something is is intended or not a bug.
Is it not, “conjecture and assumption,” very reasonable and likely in my opinion, that it is an exploit? At least until Anet makes a statement as to the matter of design intention?
I dislike it. Find it abhorrent in fact, but dont feel that I can speak for Anet in declaring their intent (even if I do have an opinion on the matter).
It is assumption that the exploit has been in existence long enough that it is considered emergent game play; that is a decision that ANet makes. It is conjecture that a thread discussing the possibility of an exploit has not been closed is acknowledgement that it is not an exploit; correlation is not causation. It is assumption that the last patch would have fixed the exploit if it is an exploit; we have no information on how difficult, time consuming, or urgent this ‘fix’ would be, despite many people’s claims to the contrary. It is conjecture that a QoL update made to salvage kits was for the purpose of AB multi-mapping; no statement to that effect has been made, it’s a QoL change that affects all areas of the game, and it has been stated that QoL updates are what devs work on in their free time.
@EphemeralWallaby: I’ve also never said it wasn’t an exploit. Just that there’s plenty of good evidence to support that it’s no longer an exploit.
What evidence do you have to say that it’s still an exploit?
I stated that in an earlier post, that the actions of AB multi-mapping looting fits the definition of an exploit that I also quoted with it above. There is no time limit on if it remains an exploit, instead the determination of emergent game play is up to ANet to decide, whether it be 2 weeks or 2 years or never. You haven’t yet provided a definition of an exploit that doesn’t fit this phenomenon, where as I have.
~EW
And isn’t it an assumption that multilooting is unintended? Every definition of exploit that I have seen depends on the behavior being unintended by the developers.
Again, I believe that multilooting is unintended and that it is an exploitx but that is opinion, not established fact.
Aside from that the expansion launch was botched. Not the expansion itself. The expansion itself isn’t as bad as you’d lead us to believe, in my opinion.
I actually think the expansion wasn’t that great. No one ( in my opinion) likes to grind just to do content.
But that’s just me being bitter about that…still….Without knowing if sales would have been higher or lower without the expansion you have no argument.
I disagree.
The thing about the business world is that you don’t get second chances.
You dont get a “what if”The sales before were higher before the expansion. We can all agree the numbers tell that fact. It is. indisputably. a fact.
The sales were at an all time low after the expansion.
Now that was 2015- All time low-
From 2012-2014 the numbers never got that low
But last year 2015
All time low.You cannot say that it wasn’t because of HoT, not when the game was released in 2012 and the numbers NEVER got that low(according to the report) BEFORE HoT.
The numbers, the report, the sales AND the history pretty much point this on the release of this expansion.
There’s absolutely nothing to disagree with. This is factual.
You can’t know how well something would have done had you not done it. That’s my point..
And I agree, You will never know if something would succeed unless you do it. But if it fails, then it fails.
That is to say without an expansion those numbers could be lower than they are now. There really is no way to know.
That’s a “what if”
The fact is, they released the expansion.
The numbers are in fact lower.
The expansion did not do well for the company.
That’s a fact.You can say the expansion launched and numbers went down. What you can’t prove is how much they would have gone down if the expansion hadn’t launched. It’s simply not provable.
I agree, but that isn’t the reality.
That is also not pertinent to the discussion at hand.
The expansion launched, the numbers went down.
Years before that, No expansion, the numbers stayed up.
That’s a fact. That can be proven with quarterly reports.
This expansion was not successful.
This is proven in this report.Edit: A baseball manager brings in a pinch hitter. He drives in 1 run. They lose the game anyway. That doesn’t mean if they hadn’t brought in that pinch hitter, they wouldnt’ have 1 more run than they ended up with. There really is no way to know.
Better analogy.
A baseball team has had a seasoned pitcher for 2 years
They havent lost a game.
The baseball manager decides he wants a new pitcher.
The lose the next game considerably.Now. History has shown that the Veteran has had a higher success rate that the noobs.
Had the baseball manager kept the veteran in. There is a higher chance they would have won. History shows and validates that record.
But he didn’t. He chose the noob.
They lost because of his choice.
The noob pitcher pitched one of the best games of the team ‘s history allowing only a single run. But the team’s all-star hitters were down with the flu and the team didnt score a single run of their own. The noob pitcher outpitched the veteran’s record against the opposing team but still they lost because you cant win a baseball game without scoring and a pitcher doesnt do that. How was the loss caused by the manager’s decision to put in the noob?
Correlation does not mean causation.
Personally I dont doubt that the expansion influenced the revenue drop, but that is speculation, not fact.
Is it not, “conjecture and assumption,” very reasonable and likely in my opinion, that it is an exploit? At least until Anet makes a statement as to the matter of design intention?
I dislike it. Find it abhorrent in fact, but dont feel that I can speak for Anet in declaring their intent (even if I do have an opinion on the matter).
Especially considering there was huge variation between versions. The dervish one is kind of cool but the ranger one looks like starter armour.
I suspect if they released the elementalist version as light armour and the assassin one as medium armour they’d be very popular, simply because it would give light armoured characters trousers without any type of skirt/tunic hem and medium armoured characters a top that doesn’t go below the waist.
Funny, I consider the ranger obby to be the best of the lot. To each their own ; )
Anet did, “enact those changes entirely one sided.” Unless you can provide an example of a non-dev enacting the changes. “What the community asked for,” means, “what a relatively few people asked for.” Anet made decisions, acted on them, and the results are a mixed bag.
Well, if you want to be literal ad absurdum, then certainly, you are correct, however if you take it in the context in which I wrote, you would recognize the fallacy of your statement. CDI is short for Collaborative Development Initiative, meaning that the developers were interacting with the community to understand what the community wanted from the game, so they could implement those changes. You might note that the CDI discussions happened mid development of HoT.
Take a look at Chris Whiteside’s initial post for Collaborative Development and their purpose as expressed there:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/Collaborative-DevelopmentPerhaps we share different definitions of what constitutes community and “relatively few”. Is there a way to quantify “relatively few”? 5%? 15%? I don’t know. 20k+ posts is in my opinion a relatively significant number of posts. Is that a small number when compared to the total number of GW2 accounts? Yes. But speaking in absolute numbers, most folks, including many of my own friends, never even look at the forums which are used by a much smaller subsection. I would guess, but certainly have no way of measuring for accuracy, that the number of contributors & viewers on the CDI is probably a relatively median percentage of total ACTIVE forum users AT THAT TIME.
If you chose not to participate that was certainly your option, but that also means that you implicitly chose to accept whatever came out of the CDI. If you did participate then you yourself are part of that “relatively few”.
Yes ANET made decisions and acted upon them, but those decisions were highly informed and influenced by requests from the community, whether a large percentage or small. That means that the community actively participated in some extent to the development of HoT. Which again returns to my point that it is unfair to wholly blame ANET for any perceived failures of HoT content.
20k posts. How many posters? How small a fraction is that of the 20k? How many of those supported suggestions that might have inspired the devs decisions in this direction. How many spoke against?
So a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the player base, the majority of which was not actively engaged with on the subject at all.
Anet chose who to listen to, how to interpret what that group said, chose to ignore those who spoke counter to the first group, and had the sole power to decide how to act upon their interpretation of their handpicked feedback from a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the player base.
The responsibility lies with the producers of the product, not the consumers.
It was my favorite weapon in GW1. The GW2 version looks very different but is very appealing, catching much of the essence of the original without being just a copy. I have asked for a stormbow since the game launched. Thank you.
Regardless, there’s still no reason to defend someone that says the game is terrible full
Luckily I did not.
I liked my GW1 Storm Bows. Loved them. My favorite weapon in the game. I got a couple to drop in game, bought a dozen or so more (including my q8 perfect, oldschool) with platinum.
Bought them.
Sure someone had to get the drop but I could buy them with gold earned farming easy content.
I think the GW2 Stormbow is a very nice skin. Currently my favorite bow skin in the game.
Putting an item like this in the gem store supports development of the game. Works for me.
What I think would be an interesting idea, one that I have seen done effectively elsewhere, is color variations of cash shop weapons that can only be earned, are account bound on pick up even, in game content. So the basic version of the storm bow is bought in the gem store but a black version, requiring less development time than creating a completely new skin, is used as a rare drop for certain content. Perhaps a purple version drops elsewhere entirely…
I like the idea.
But….
Isnt this something that the community can already do, sort of, for itself by recording raid runs and posting to youtube?
I will concede from the beginning that I am a tad obsessive, so bear with me, I am going to try and address these comments line by line.
Then you haven’t been paying attention. Like, at all. Or worse, you have but you’ve deluded yourself into thinking what’s been very clear, very obvious to everyone for years isn’t actually so. If you had been paying attention, or if you’d been capable of being honest with yourself, these are some of the changes in direction you would have noticed:
– “everyone should have the best statistical gear by the time they hit level 80” -> ascended gearColin straight up acknowledged that they were changing from idea of having the best gear by lvl 80. He explained their logic in an interview post. I would be hard pressed to find it now but I certainly remember it. That goal is no longer the case with ascended gear
- “cosmetic skins are the end game” -> more and more weapon and outfit skins added to the cash shop
This game is still very much about cosmetics, and the fact that ANET has in the past and continues to add outfits and various skins in the gemstone does not detract from that. It is part of their business model and if the game is going to continue, they have to be able to make a profit off the gem store. However they continue to release A LOT of various skins available by playing and completing various content.
As for skins being end game, I will address that in the following comment.
- “we don’t make grindy games” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “have fun now, not later” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “we’re fine if you take breaks from our game” -> limited availability of LS season 1The community was very vocal about needing additional endgame content & progression. The frequency that I see these kinds of comments makes me wonder if most people either don’t know about the CDI or have already forgotten about it. I would suggest you go reread them but there are collectively over 20k posts so a comprehensive read through is prohibitive at this point. But you might try skimming them to get a feel for what we as a community asked for. So much of the design in HoT progression (i.e. masteries and elite specs) is exactly what was discussed in those CDI regarding endgame progression. Some (like me) like it, others hate it but either way I think it is unfair to lay this entirely on ANET when they were very intentionally trying to provide what the community asked for, much in the way that it was requested.
- “the only criteria for our content is ‘is it fun?’” -> run around a zone in a giant zerg auto-attacking for stacks of bags of loot
If you don’t find it fun, don’t do it! Fun is an exceptionally difficult target because of such a diverse population of players. They do what they can with mechanics to keep game encounters diverse but collective gamer ingenuity supersedes that of developers simply because of the absolute numbers. I will make a generalization here and apologize if it offends. Overall Gamers are lazy, we prefer the easiest/most effective way to do things which is how metas evolve and game mechanics devolve, some gamer finds the easiest way to do something and it catches on. Hence Zerging.
However some of this is also learned from the community. In part this goes back to the LS1 and the map wide events that were popular. Part of developing HoT was providing more map wide events in hopes that they would be similarly enjoyed.
- “we want our players to work together in DEs” -> those of you who want Legendaries must compete with players who just want to complete DEs as intended
They have aid repeatedly that they DON’T want dynamic events to be the cause of discord and competition among players. The event complete vs. event fail conflict is an unintentional flaw in the design that they work to fix where it is brought up.
There are more examples, of course (many of them), but I suspect this has illustrated the point adequately enough.
Yes the game has changed over the past 4 years. Yes there are plenty of changes from the original implementation that you have not mentioned here. However I do think you have entirely neglected the role of the community on that process. That almost certainly will not appease those who hate the changes, but I think that ANET should not be on the receiving end of inflammatory rhetoric about changes as if they had enacted those changes entirely one sided.
As someone else mentioned previously, the game has to change over time. Whether one considers that a change in direction and vision of the game is subjective.
Anet did, “enact those changes entirely one sided.” Unless you can provide an example of a non-dev enacting the changes. “What the community asked for,” means, “what a relatively few people asked for.” Anet made decisions, acted on them, and the results are a mixed bag.
Yes, like when everyone was crying for the old capture system for skills to come back. Constant forum posts on it, supporting it.
We got it and it was horrible.
Don’t think the community is perfect. If any makes a decision based on feedback, is any 100% at fault? Really?
Everyone was not crying for the old capture system for skills to come back. Even if they had been that is not what we got.
I never claimed that the community is perfect, but, as I pointed out, the community did not enact those changes to the game.
(edited by Ashen.2907)
But you also speak as if this is widely accepted by all people
This is patently false. When almost every sentence he posted specifically refers to, “me,” or, “I,” he is clearly not speaking for others.
I think you should probably stop defending people. This is a direct quote from him:
“Dude, help us fix the terrible game, the numbers are starting to roll in, and as expected it is looking bad, real bad.”
He’s saying this is a terrible game, and it needs to be fixed. Not that he doesn’t like it. He’s had many posts and his language leaves little to the imagination. He’s not saying they made changes that other people like that he doesn’t. He’s saying that the game is bad.. Big difference.
That is nowhere in the post you quoted inspiring my response to you.
Regardless, there’s still no reason to defend someone that says the game is terrible full stop, not as an opinion but as a fact. That it needs to be fixed. You’ve now seen it with your own eyes, so I assume this conversation has run its course.
The sales being at an all time low might be indicative of the game being worse, or it might be indicative of a content drought, or even more people playing new games that came out that aren’t MMOs.
It’s likely a combination of many factors. But Lizardly thinks it’s all just because the game isn’t good, and I highly doubt that’s the case.
I pointed out that your statement was clearly, demonstrably, false. I did not defend him or his points. I disagree with much of what he had to say, but he made it perfectly clear that he was stating a purely personal opinion…something to which he is entitled. My normal response to someone stating an opinion, clearly labeled as such, is not to falsely ascribe a completely different statememt to them.
If you were to state that GW2 was a game that you enjoyed, I would not quote that statement and claim that you had stated that you did not enjoy GW2.
But you also speak as if this is widely accepted by all people
This is patently false. When almost every sentence he posted specifically refers to, “me,” or, “I,” he is clearly not speaking for others.
I think you should probably stop defending people. This is a direct quote from him:
“Dude, help us fix the terrible game, the numbers are starting to roll in, and as expected it is looking bad, real bad.”
He’s saying this is a terrible game, and it needs to be fixed. Not that he doesn’t like it. He’s had many posts and his language leaves little to the imagination. He’s not saying they made changes that other people like that he doesn’t. He’s saying that the game is bad.. Big difference.
That is nowhere in the post you quoted inspiring my response to you.
A significant drop in revenue, even for a single quarter, is never meaningless. If it led to a sale then it was not seen as meaningless to NCsoft or Anet. Something that drives a need (or perceived need) for response has meaning.
But, again, not cause for undue alarm IMO.
But you also speak as if this is widely accepted by all people
This is patently false. When almost every sentence he posted specifically refers to, “me,” or, “I,” he is clearly not speaking for others.
A drop in revenue being expected doesnt necessarily mean that it isnt bad for the business. A drop in revenue can be completely foreseeable, expected, predicted, known to be coming far in advance, and still be catastrophic for a business.
That said, a one quarter drop in sales is insufficient grounds for alarm IMO. An indicator, one of many in any business, to pay attention to…yes, of course, but not an indication of doom or death.
It’s my hope that ANet never provides a mount that removes the opportunity costs associated with build choices for speed. Cosmetic only, thanks.
They could perhaps come to a solution that’s agreeable for both sides. In WoW, they have mounts but you can only summon them out of combat.
So here’s an idea for starters:
Mounts grant +50% movement speed out of combat and may only be summoned out of combat. Upon entering combat, the speed boost drops to +25%.
So if you have a movement speed trait or access to swiftness, you aren’t gaining anything by staying on the mount in combat. But if you’re just passing through and you didn’t trait for foot speed, staying on the mount is the better option.
My thinking is to minimize/eliminate any potential combat advantages from mounts, instead using them to increase convenience and travel speed out of combat. This would also free up players who don’t necessarily need the foot speed in combat to trait as they like instead of feeling compelled to take speed traits due to the overall time reduction to the leveling process.
Mounts should probably be restricted in PvP, as foot speed out of combat is a factor in capping/decapping objectives, etc. But I wouldn’t rule out future maps that are designed to include mounts.
Im not sure how having mounts give a speed boost that is unavailable to non mount users, without a build opportunity cost, is supposed to be palatable to those who share Indigo’s view.
My thought was that separating the boost so that it exists only outside of combat would be an acceptable compromise. Currently, boons like swiftness and passive speed boosts via traits work both in and out of combat (and would continue to do so). I figured this would make those combat-oriented features while the mounts would become the out-of-combat travel option.
So mount users would get a 50% speed boost, out of combat, without a build pportunity cost, and a 25% in combat boost without a build opportunity cost while non mounted characters would have to spend traits, utilities, and/or sigil/rune slots?
I will concede from the beginning that I am a tad obsessive, so bear with me, I am going to try and address these comments line by line.
Then you haven’t been paying attention. Like, at all. Or worse, you have but you’ve deluded yourself into thinking what’s been very clear, very obvious to everyone for years isn’t actually so. If you had been paying attention, or if you’d been capable of being honest with yourself, these are some of the changes in direction you would have noticed:
– “everyone should have the best statistical gear by the time they hit level 80” -> ascended gearColin straight up acknowledged that they were changing from idea of having the best gear by lvl 80. He explained their logic in an interview post. I would be hard pressed to find it now but I certainly remember it. That goal is no longer the case with ascended gear
- “cosmetic skins are the end game” -> more and more weapon and outfit skins added to the cash shop
This game is still very much about cosmetics, and the fact that ANET has in the past and continues to add outfits and various skins in the gemstone does not detract from that. It is part of their business model and if the game is going to continue, they have to be able to make a profit off the gem store. However they continue to release A LOT of various skins available by playing and completing various content.
As for skins being end game, I will address that in the following comment.
- “we don’t make grindy games” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “have fun now, not later” -> masteries and gates in HOT
– “we’re fine if you take breaks from our game” -> limited availability of LS season 1The community was very vocal about needing additional endgame content & progression. The frequency that I see these kinds of comments makes me wonder if most people either don’t know about the CDI or have already forgotten about it. I would suggest you go reread them but there are collectively over 20k posts so a comprehensive read through is prohibitive at this point. But you might try skimming them to get a feel for what we as a community asked for. So much of the design in HoT progression (i.e. masteries and elite specs) is exactly what was discussed in those CDI regarding endgame progression. Some (like me) like it, others hate it but either way I think it is unfair to lay this entirely on ANET when they were very intentionally trying to provide what the community asked for, much in the way that it was requested.
- “the only criteria for our content is ‘is it fun?’” -> run around a zone in a giant zerg auto-attacking for stacks of bags of loot
If you don’t find it fun, don’t do it! Fun is an exceptionally difficult target because of such a diverse population of players. They do what they can with mechanics to keep game encounters diverse but collective gamer ingenuity supersedes that of developers simply because of the absolute numbers. I will make a generalization here and apologize if it offends. Overall Gamers are lazy, we prefer the easiest/most effective way to do things which is how metas evolve and game mechanics devolve, some gamer finds the easiest way to do something and it catches on. Hence Zerging.
However some of this is also learned from the community. In part this goes back to the LS1 and the map wide events that were popular. Part of developing HoT was providing more map wide events in hopes that they would be similarly enjoyed.
- “we want our players to work together in DEs” -> those of you who want Legendaries must compete with players who just want to complete DEs as intended
They have aid repeatedly that they DON’T want dynamic events to be the cause of discord and competition among players. The event complete vs. event fail conflict is an unintentional flaw in the design that they work to fix where it is brought up.
There are more examples, of course (many of them), but I suspect this has illustrated the point adequately enough.
Yes the game has changed over the past 4 years. Yes there are plenty of changes from the original implementation that you have not mentioned here. However I do think you have entirely neglected the role of the community on that process. That almost certainly will not appease those who hate the changes, but I think that ANET should not be on the receiving end of inflammatory rhetoric about changes as if they had enacted those changes entirely one sided.
As someone else mentioned previously, the game has to change over time. Whether one considers that a change in direction and vision of the game is subjective.
Anet did, “enact those changes entirely one sided.” Unless you can provide an example of a non-dev enacting the changes. “What the community asked for,” means, “what a relatively few people asked for.” Anet made decisions, acted on them, and the results are a mixed bag.
It’s my hope that ANet never provides a mount that removes the opportunity costs associated with build choices for speed. Cosmetic only, thanks.
They could perhaps come to a solution that’s agreeable for both sides. In WoW, they have mounts but you can only summon them out of combat.
So here’s an idea for starters:
Mounts grant +50% movement speed out of combat and may only be summoned out of combat. Upon entering combat, the speed boost drops to +25%.
So if you have a movement speed trait or access to swiftness, you aren’t gaining anything by staying on the mount in combat. But if you’re just passing through and you didn’t trait for foot speed, staying on the mount is the better option.
My thinking is to minimize/eliminate any potential combat advantages from mounts, instead using them to increase convenience and travel speed out of combat. This would also free up players who don’t necessarily need the foot speed in combat to trait as they like instead of feeling compelled to take speed traits due to the overall time reduction to the leveling process.
Mounts should probably be restricted in PvP, as foot speed out of combat is a factor in capping/decapping objectives, etc. But I wouldn’t rule out future maps that are designed to include mounts.
Im not sure how having mounts give a speed boost that is unavailable to non mount users, without a build opportunity cost, is supposed to be palatable to those who share Indigo’s view.
16,676 hours and zero.
Seriously? Over 11 hours per day, every single day since launch?
Wow!
The bow shown is very nice. I would want it in addition to something more like the original stormbow, not instead.
It gets done.
It gets done regularly.
Players are actively organizing for it.
By definition it is not dead. Any claim to the contrary is mistaken.
And, just so you know, Eir kittend up too.
Eir was not in command. Not even an officer as near as I can tell. There is a difference between the responsibilities of a soldier and those of the overall commander of an expeditionary force.
Sorry, I should have made myself clear on this one – I meant in the past, not HoT story, that just turned to mulch for everynone.
The Kralky thing where she was in command didn’t go exactly well, although the consequences were far less tragic (except for the DE). And (only my personal feeling on this though) playing mostly non-Norn characters, I meet her pretty rarlely: in AC where she didn’t do very good and in Honor of the Waves she just goes all emo and you have to save her kitten once again. Can’t really remember Sorrow’s Embrace, tbh. And then there’s the thing with her and Braham…
So basically there lies my problem with her being shoved in my face as my PC’s friend and a totally awesome hero everyone must like.And yes, I realize you didn’t mean to say Trahearne did it on purpose, it was me getting carried away. Sorry for that.
I tend to prefer the idea of the game setting NPC’s up, as necessary, as potentially important allies….but letting the player decide who his/her friends are. This would dovetail nicely with your point about multiple text options instead of voice overs. With text you or I could establish that we consider someone like Eir to be a friend, or just an associate working toward similar goals, and have future interactions be plotted accordingly.
One of the biggest immersion breakers, for me, is being required to name as friends characters I consider to be detestable. I live in the real world and fully understand that sometimes you have to work effectively with individuals you do not like. For whom you have an active antipathy even. The cause, the job, the mission is important. But I don’t claim that they are my friends.
They look like Fisher Price children’s toys with plastic “gems” set into plastic toys as decoration.
Not truly terrible, but not worth buying to me.
Did anybody really expect for vines to be able to hit THAT HIGH in the air?
I understand. How in Tyria could anyone have expected a dragon to bee a threat to an air fleet? If only there had been some sort of precedent, some experience, to give even a hint that airships might be at risk facing a dragon. If only…
And I don’t like how you make it sound as if Trahearne did it on purpose.
I didn’t. As Hanlon and Heinlein said…“Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice,” and/or “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness.”
You are, of course, welcome to invent your own interpretation of what I wrote.
And, just so you know, Eir kittend up too.
Eir was not in command. Not even an officer as near as I can tell. There is a difference between the responsibilities of a soldier and those of the overall commander of an expeditionary force.
I start thinking that voiceovers, while nice, are not really a good thing, because they limit dialog too much. I’d much rather have just dialog text in which we’d have far more variability of lines.
I agree completely.
(edited by Ashen.2907)
Didn’t Trahearne plan and lead the most disastrous military fiasco in Tyrian history?
He came close to ensuring the extinction of the allied races, all non-dragon spawned sentience for that matter, with his error(s).
The sort of monument he actually earned is probably not what the OP desires.
the issue is actually about having manners and respect, especially in a training run which certainly does not have to be optimal and by its nature has new players who don’t understand things in the mix. There’s a way of doing things, such as apologizing and explaining why they cannot attend, rather than the ‘1 comment then boot’ which you often see. Its not discrimination though, every raid composition can take only so much variance before becoming nonviable.
Except that in this case the OP states that the players running the event did attempt to explain the matter to him and then thanked him (followed by a kick) when he opted to not cooperate.
Apparently a dragon owns the new guild. It possesses us. We belong to it. We are its servants. Its tools.
Villain play option incoming?
I wouldn’t say that the hacker is “bad” or that the CS person is “bad” either. According to the social engineer hacker on Redditt, it only took ONE time of trying, all the information was fake that he gave, and it was a GM’s account to boot. Not “He kept trying till one of our CS agents wasn’t so strict.” He tried ONE time, and got in. On a GM’s account. Not the multiple times that Anet is claiming it took. He had the ticket up and everything before the mods told him to take it down. If -I- were ANET I would want people to think it took multiple times too, to save face, but, according to the person who did this, who has absolutely nothing to lose by telling the truth, it only took one time.
The CS agent doesn’t need to be fired over this. He/she needs to be trained a bit more, along with all the rest of the CS agents, and ANET needs to pay attention when people tell them “yeah…you might wanna pay attention to this security break you have.”
The giving away of the frogs is not a big deal, she’s a GM and if someone had the code to make those frogs in the first place, they can make them again. She lost very little of value apart from the frogs, which, as I said, someone can just make for her again. There have been people offering to reimburse her the things she lost, which is very kind of them, and if I had anything of value in GW1 I would do the same. Gaile was basically just a high-profile name that would attract attention and that’s why her account was the one that got “hacked.”
Taking the word of a thief, one who has already actively demonstrated that they do not consider their own given word to have any value, seems like a bad idea. Someone who says, essentially, “I am a liar, a cheater, a thief, and go back on my given word when I feel like it,” is not someone we should trust.
Also when you leave, send me your stuff. Idk why you think the game is dying when more and more people are playing it.
lol….
do you have any whatever evidence for that?
Any ?Anet announced 7 million accounts as of HoT launching with 460,000 concurrent players at the height, and the last available info as of earlier this year was an average of 40,000 concurrent players per day and something to the tune of an average of over 250,000 unique players logging on per day.
As for data that is less than a week old, I have none, but after new content is released there’s ALWAYS more players logging in than if you were to compare it before. Far from dying.
EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_games
62,000 concurrent players is the correct number currently according to the actual data.
For GW2, that article lists number of players and common peak number of players as ?. The article is also listed as being insufficiently supported by citations.
Seeing as how GW2 accounts can be protected thanks to 2-factor authentication, now the concern is how secure is my personal information with Anet? For the longest time, I assumed Anet provided an in-house team of Customer Service agents. It made sense, because they’d respond with “GM” nicknames, making them sound official. Now that people are saying everything’s been outsourced, I’m wondering how much access this 3rd party company has. Is my creditcard number encrypted, so even CS or Anet employees can’t see it? Should I worry that my personal info is accessible to people outside of Anet? Or the million dollar question: Can we trust this 3rd party company with our info?
I must admit to being a bit curious about this as well.
Are you really not aware that that is the entire point of a game?
You are mistaken.
The point of a game is to play and, ideally, have fun doing so.
Casual does not mean opposed to group play. Group content is not inherently anti-casual. The vast majority of the game is playable casually. The vast majority of the game is soloable.
Legion is the new WoW expansion right?
Can’t kill asurans or Charr there as far as I know. No thanks.
Even bare bones wikis with simplistic entries, such as mentioned in a post above, earn my respect. Players going out of their way, spending time they could be playing the game, to provide structured information about the game for the community as a whole are wonderful assets to any gaming community.
A well fleshed out, remarkably organized, frequently updated, and easily used wiki such as we have here in GW2 is something of another order entirely. My thanks and appreciation to all involved in providing this resource. Your efforts, as much as a developer IMO, make this a better game.
Thank You,
Ashen
Build saving.
More robust pet controls.
Option for a Ranger to forgo a pet in return for a personal buff.
Weapon dying.
(edited by Moderator)
I’m not sure that Heart of Thorns will become part of Play4Free. What the developers stated was that each previous expansion will be included in the price of the current expansion, as well as the core game.
Very different things.
This matches my recall of what the development said as well.
I don’t consider HOT to be hard, perhaps that it requires paying attention more than original content. I do consider it to be harder than areas such as Orr.
I hate to say it, but I find myself not caring either way. Outfits or armor, the aesthetic in use by ANet designers is overly complicated, producing looks that are too complex, busy and ornate, not to mention a lot of the frills are downright ludicrous. Ommv.
Agreed.
A very nice touch. Kudos to Anet.
I think it would be a nice continuation of the admirable sentiment to reduce the costs so that members of smaller guilds can commemorate the lives of those they have lost as readily as can larger guilds. Grief over the loss of a guild-mate, and the desire to commemorate his or her passing, can be inversely proportional to the size of a guild.