Guild Wars 2

Sorry, I can’t agree. Her character was already ruined by her flimsy backstory and the cheesy explanations they’ve thrown at us to explain her actions haven’t done anything to improve her feasibility as a character.

I would explain my reasoning, but there’s nothing I can say about it that hasn’t already been said by a multitude of sources. Check out the article that Massively wrote about it, for instance.

If you need more reasons, just keep browsing this forum.

digiowl.9620:

Lord Kuru.3685:

You mean new Dynamic Event chains? Anet has given up on those.

They kinda gave up too soon. Hell, just today i ran into that NPC antagonist guild they introduced a year ago for the first time.

ANet problem is that they initially vastly overestimated how many there would be with a Woodenpotato level interest in scouring the world for changes and hidden messages.

As such, they didn’t announce the events much beyond a line entry in a much larger patch.

And surprise surprise, most people didn’t notice if the event they ran into the middle of had been there all the time or was recently introduced.

I remember this. And then the devs said “Well, we listen to what you’re saying… But we also listen to what you’re NOT saying… And you didn’t say ANYTHING about the new events we added… So obviously you didn’t enjoy them….”

Come ON. Why is that the automatic assumption? More events are always good, why does it even need discussion? When I picked through the release notes again I found which events they were talking about – And realized that I had played them, and of course I enjoyed them. But I had NO idea they were new.

No news can sometimes be good news, Arenanet. Not every cool feature you add is going to result in accolades on the forums. This is because when people are happy, they are too busy playing the game and enjoying the new content.

I hope Dulfy and other 3rd party sites are getting a stipend from Arenanet. After all, they’re doing the job of explaining the game for them…

It would probably help if there was some way (in-game) to figure out what the hell we’re supposed to do in each lane. New players would therefore be fully equipped with the information they need to succeed before trying it.

Ohoni.6057:

The wouldn’t even need to do a poll, they could just run their internal numbers.

A. How many people play the game fairly regularly.

B. How many people have tried the new Teq fight at least once.

C. How many of those people never tried it again?

D. How many people kept trying until they got their achievements?

E. How many of those players never played it again?

Just compare those numbers and that should give a solid result.

If the number of players who tried Teq is well less than the total number of consistent players, then that is a bad sign.

If the number of people who gave up before completing Teq is relatively high then that is a bad sign.

If the number of people who quit Teq as soon as they’d “cleared” him is relatively high, then that is a bad sign.

The only thing that could be seen to justify the “Tequatlization” of the game is if a sizable portion of the player base is STILL routinely doing the Teq fight, because they enjoy doing it, at levels comparable to other open world events like Claw of Jormag or even the Karka Queen.

This. I somehow doubt their internal metrics are this detailed, but having data like this would give them a more precise view of what the players are thinking instead of just assuming that we’re all satisfied with the content because we participated in it.

OP here. From the responses I’ve gotten so far, it seems that some people agree with me and others don’t… Which is fine. But it does seem to illustrate that the community is divided as to whether this type of content is good for the game or not.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Arenanet, if you’re listening, we could use some polls to find out if the majority of the playerbase actually appreciates this kind of content.

Morrigan.2809:

Why do you not try these new bosses and see for yourself? Marrionette is one of the best designed encounters if not the best in the game- it is tonnes of fun too.

I did attempt the marionette. We failed, despite having more than enough people present on each lane, many of whom were knowledgeable about how the event worked and were directing the action. We managed to snap a few chains, it looked like we could possibly finish… But no. Complete waste of time.

I wouldn’t have minded so much except that I didn’t even really get any loot. Aside from the loot bag (that yielded me a piece of green armor), all I got were these grindy code pieces that require me to get 25 or 50 of to get anything at all… Seriously, what is with the recent living story chapters focussing on grinding? Collecting the tri-key pieces for Tower of Nightmares was bad enough…

For a casual player, the time needed to grind the living story, fully experience it and receive all the rewards can be prohibitive. The point of my original post is that increasing the difficulty like this makes it even more prohibitive and unattractive to casual players.

Consider this: A casual player might only have time to attempt the marionette once or twice over a couple of days; if they work full-time and have a busy family life, perhaps they’ll only find time to play once or twice a week. So if they attempt the marionette and fail each time – which seems quite possible – they have absolutely no chance of getting the living story reward in the two-week time limit.

I honestly don’t care if super-difficult world bosses are added to the game if they are a permanent fixture. But now these super-hard Tequatl-style bosses are blocking progress in the temporary content, and it means players like me are left in the dust.

It sucks that I probably won’t be able to get my sprocket node because I can’t dedicate the time to grind it. I really wanted one, too…

Scourge.4317:

Your previous post was about being a casual saying it was impossible for you to complete the tequatl like events. I’m not sure why you cant do it when all you have to do is guest to other servers. Ive completed it on my home server Ehmry Bay and on other servers as a guest. Its not impossible for anyone to do unless you are way below the level range of the area the event is in.

The one time I decided to try Teq was when I saw a guild openly organizing in Lion’s Arch, recruiting people during primetime. I thought, “Hey! There’s my ticket to finally complete this event!”

But, boy, was I wrong.

They tell me to show up early, so I do, but apparently 20 minutes early still isn’t enough, and I end up in overflow. Overflow gets it’s kitten beaten. After the event is done, I return to Lion’s Arch only to discover that the organized run, despite being full to the brim – with a competent guild at the helm on teamspeak – failed to beat him.

So yes, my only recourse is to do hard research about which servers and guilds do it regularly, find out which ones actually have a high chance of success, make contact with the guilds in question, coordinate my time zones with theirs, show up on time (and probably a minimum of 30-45 minutes early), download teamspeak, install teamspeak, get the passwords to their teamspeak server, and then – THEN – after all of that – possibly – I have a chance to complete it. Once.

But probably we’ll lose anyway.

I’ll reiterate: I am a casual player and I don’t have time for all that bullcrap, nor do I find any of that bullcrap fun to go through.

Lutinz.6915:

People complain there isn’t enough hard content in the game and the moment they add a hard fight people complain that the content is too hard.

Hmm, that’s funny, I don’t recall making this complaint at all…

Hi.

I’m a casual player.

Events like Tequatl are completely inaccessible to a person like me.

Since the living story content seems to be following the same design principles (i.e., events that not even an entire server can hope to beat despite trying multiple times), I was wondering if there’s going to be any content that would appeal to players like me in the future, or whether this is all we have to look forward to?

Thanks.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

Though players have noted that that ‘middle’ does exist in the form of open world dialogue after an event, that only applies if you were in the right place at the right time. Most players simply ran off to the next event, and thus missed this crucial information.

Just because people skipped it doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. I do agree with you that it could’ve been presented better though.

MrDmajor.7084:

What actually happened is that Wintersday EFFED UP Lions Arch and getting rid of it put it back to normal. There weren’t any optimizations.

According to the Jan. 17th entry on the wiki, there was in fact an optimization update. My FPS is way higher in Lion’s Arch now than it was before Wintersday began, now that everything is back to normal.

That’s why I stated that I didn’t notice that the optimizations had occured until now. The fake snow machines and all the Wintersday crap slowed down FPS on it’s own.

I didn’t notice this update until the Christmas stuff went away, but now I’m getting a 10-20 FPS second boost in Lion’s arch around the forge and trading post.

This has been a long time coming. Thank you Arenanet.

Dawdler.8521:

How can one even make such a comparison?

There’s not nearly enough gay wieners in the living story.

No weiners, but we do have Marjory and Kasmeer.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

This however, I cant agree with, as secret of Southsun, had no ‘middle’, no core story to speak of. In one update we were given the problem, and in the next the solution, without a note as to how we arrived at it. Or, at least, not one properly delivered.

Beginning: The Consotrium offers to relocate Charr and Norn refugees after their homes were destroyed during Flame & Frost. Unrest quickly follows when the settlers realize that their new home isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (illustrated by the open world events, instigators, etc).

Middle: To make matters worse, Karka are going nuts all over the island. You find a priory camp that is investigating why this might be. You help them out by collecting plant samples that may have something to do with it (achievement hunt).

End: You discover Canach is the culprit behind the karka attacks, and you bring him to justice. Ellen Kiel confronts the Consortium in the final cutscene.

I understand that the middle bit is a bit thin because it was optional and tied to achievements, but at least there was some meat in between. The priory camp had characters and dialogue that advanced the story.

Anyway, my original point was not that Secret of Southsun was a deep or interesting story, but that it worked overall if you completed all the content. It didn’t have any loose ends or nonsensical characters.

It’s not just you… Lag spikes have been on the rise for quite a while now. It wasn’t this way at launch and I have no idea why it’s like this now.

Can somebody post a link to this?

I don’t have a problem with long, epic stories with rising action. The problem with the Living Story’s plotline is not that it’s long, but that it’s poorly written.

Secret of Southsun was shallow, and yet it still remains one of the best Living Story chapters so far. Why? Because it actually made sense. It had characters with sensical motivations and had a workable beginning/middle/end.

All of the chapters involving Scarlet ultimately hinge on her, and she has been a poorly written character from the start. When they released “What Scarlet Saw” it only did damage to her, raising even more alarming questions about her feasibility. Her backstory is bad enough that Massively wrote a three-page article about it.

So far, the overarching story with Scarlet is a bunch of nonsensical crap tied loosely together by her. I imagine the ending to this story is going to be akin to Lost. I’m not going to say they cannot absolutely salvage the storyline, but I will be extremely surprised if they do so. It still won’t make Scarlet a better character though unfortunately; her backstory and actions up to this point are set in stone and require too much suspension of disbelief to take seriously. The ending won’t change any of that.

On another note, in response to waning interest in the Living Story, Colin Johanson said in the Eurogamer article that they’re going to go back to simple, shallow one-off stories:

The Next Step… Is to keep a big story but colour it with smaller stories that begin and end every month, the hope being to keep less invested players interested.

I don’t know why they think making the stories smaller and shallower will increase people’s interest. All they have to do is improve the writing.

Yeah, overall lag has increased since launch. I’m not sure why.

It’s not to a critical level yet and it’s not there all the time (thank god), so hopefully we don’t have anything to worry about (yet).

I do hope that the frequency of patches doesn’t have something to do with it. That was why I left Dungeons & Dragons Online; content patches were released too quickly and each patch brought more lag, to the point where the game eventually became completely unplayable…

It could simply be because of the influx of new players, though… Increased server loads, perhaps?

BobbyStein.2315:

Actually, we have metrics on every LW release. While SAB was indeed successful in terms of participation, so were the other releases (Scarlet ones included). I understand that forum feedback can color perception on which releases were the most popular/best received/most enjoyed but opinions on this are largely anecdotal. Please keep that in mind.

I feel I need to +1 what some of the other posters have said, such as Lord Kuru:

Lord Kuru.3685:

What do you mean by “successful?” Number of players who participated? If so, have you considered that some (many?) who participate don’t actually enjoy the content?

Metrics are good, but only if you interpret them correctly.

I imagine that a lot of people are participating in the living story because they feel they have to, due to the breakneck 2-week schedule (i.e., “If I don’t participate, I will never get that reward!”).

What should be measured is how satisfying it is for the player. You could get that information from polls like we had in the beta – where we gave feedback on each personal story chapter – or an email poll like we had after Lost Shores. (after back-reading a bit, I’m glad to see that you’re considering this as an option).

If you’re not getting 4/5 or 5/5 from the majority of the players, it’s time to rethink the concept.

As for SAB, please allow people to get the backpacks from the previous chapters! I was reeeeally close to getting my blue backpack from the first chapter but I ran out of time. :\

GoldenTruth.2853:

As you have already said you can join a guild dedicated to killing Tequatl or just guest on to a server that has him on farm during the daily reset (I know TC kills him/has a good attempt at killing him during the daily reset encounter).

Unfortunately this isn’t even enough to defeat Teq some of the time. I’ve seen Sparkfly Fen full to capacity with an organized guild directing the action, and they failed. That simply shouldn’t be.

I do play sPVP a lot. It is a solid, polished game mode with great maps and objectives. In my opinion it is even more solid (conceptually) than WvW is.

However, I can understand why people wouldn’t want to play it if they feel they’re not getting adequate rewards; glory is pretty limited in it’s use. The good news though, is that glory is being retired soon, and soon we’ll all earn gold through sPVP.

One simple change that would make Crab Toss fun:

Less of everything.

Less karka, less crablings, less players per match, less crates everywhere.

I find that I actually enjoy Crab Toss when I play a long match that has about four people or less. In those matches I notice players are actually able to use strategy, effectively use items, dodge, etc.

As it stands right now, there’s so much going on all the time that you spend half the match knocked out, controlled, or crippled. There isn’t enough energy to dodge all the stuff you have to deal with. Nothing about a full match is fun, even if you’re winning.

Crab Toss is horribly designed in more ways than just this.

If you’re trying to get the achievements, I understand your irritation. But if you’re actually trying to be the “best” at Crab Toss, you’re just trying to be the king of crap mountain. The game is broken, and restricting CC weapons won’t fix it. Trust me.

Scarlet consistently fails to defeat us with her minions, her spells, her asuran megalasers and her toxic hybrids, so she has to resort to letter-bombs. Go figure.

Thump ‘Em Ups has been sitting tantalizingly in Divinity’s Reach for a long time without development. Mina’s Target Shooting has also been locked down for over a year due to a “private party”. When will we get to see these?

The charr cannon range, too, for that matter? And Polymock? I bet ALL of these activites are going to be way more fun than stupid Crab Toss.

Karizee.8076:

Here is a searchable patch notes:
http://gw2patchnotesearch.david-reess.de/

Wow, this page is awesome. Bookmarked.

Thanks!

Finnway.2183:

Gold sink. Taking crafting mats out of the economy.

You hit the nail on the head.

I always try to help new players whenever I encounter them… I do seem to be in the minority, though.

Exotics still work just fine… >.>

Is there a site somewhere that shows all of the historical changes that have been made to the skills since launch?

CPU: i7 3770k processor, quad core 3.5ghz
GPU: Geforce GTX 650 ti
RAM: 8 gb RAM
OS: Win 7 64 bit on a dedicated SSD
CASE: NZXT Phantom 410

At 1680×1050, I get 60+ FPS pretty much everywhere except Lion’s Arch; dips as low as 24 FPS around the trading post.

Guild Wars 2 killed the hard drive in my old laptop. It started overheating and producing a burny smell, I blame GW2’s massive amount of texture data and other assets. It was on it’s way out anyway though, and since I had to build a new system, I did so with GW2 in mind.

I’m planning to install some dedicated cooling when I decide to overclock. Until then, the 3-speed adjustable fan on my case seems to be doing the trick to keep things cool.

zwierz.9012:

The only accurate way to measure what does the playerbase like and what we don’t, is by putting a poll in place, that would show up on the screen after finishing (for example) LS meta achievement asking you questions what did you enjoy and what not. That would be a pretty accurate method I think.

I already put a thread about this into the suggestions forum. Pretty sure they ignored it.

nexxe.7081:

I don’t mind waiting, but now there’s a problem of what to do in between waits. The Nightmare Is Over & Fractured are basically finished, and there’s no way of completing some aspects of the nightmare part.

Oh noes, you might have to run dungeons, explore, craft, organize guild missions, build up alts, farm meta events, play personal stories, work on your legendary, WvW, sPVP, or work on your achievements. You know… The stuff that the game offers that is always around and doesn’t suck.

Seriously, I don’t get why people think they have to have a continuous stream of new content to enjoy the game. Guild Wars 2 is a rich and full environment without the addition of crappy temporary content. Go play.

GW1 hardly had any new content after Eye of the North, and we had long waits between campaigns, but people still logged 2000+ hours into it. No reason why GW2 should be any different.

And if that fails, there’s always other games. I hear Steam and other fine online services are full of them.

This isn’t the first thread about this, and it won’t be the last.

HiddenNick.7206:

- Does the world feel more believable to you thanks to LW content?

No. Now it’s just a mess.

HiddenNick.7206:

- Does the world feel more natural?

No. The new content doesn’t mesh well with the already established content. It could, if they put enough work into it, but their four-month development time doesn’t seem to be enough to make it appear natural.

For example: Why did the centaurs ignore the toxic alliance? The krait and nightmare court were intruding on their turf. But the AI’s for the centaurs remained the same. The centaur events around Kessex hills were exactly the same, and the centaurs even seemed to help the toxic alliance in certain places or at least treat the player as a primary enemy. Why? Don’t they notice that huge tower looming on the horizon? How about the toxic spores they’re breathing in? Wouldn’t it have been made more sense if some temporary alliance or ceasefire was made between the humans and centaurs? Or at least add some recognition that there was SOMETHING going on… But no.

HiddenNick.7206:

- Do you feel as part of the world?

I feel more excluded than ever, due to the ridiculous time constraints.

HiddenNick.7206:

- Do you feel the world is evolving around you?

Sort of, but only in a very limited fashion. The Living Story content – which is full of shallow characters and nonsensical plots – rolls on and evolves. The rest of the game world feels like it’s in stasis. The Living Story content feels completely separate from the rest of the core content.

HiddenNick.7206:

- Do you feel that making content temporary is important to achieve the principals of Living World?

Whether they are achieving the principles of the Living World is irrelevant, due to the fact that it was a flawed concept to begin with.

HiddenNick.7206:

- Does temporary content has some advantages over permanent content?

None that I can see.

Yup. Not surprised by this thread at all.

It’s like walking into a movie halfway. You either don’t care, or want to properly watch the whole thing later (and the second option is, of course, unavailable to us).

Theundersigned.4761:

There are acceptable ways of voicing one’s opinions.

Yup. People can be jerks. Welcome to the internet.

Theundersigned.4761:

Because everyone else hates the Living Story.

Because if I enjoyed the Living Story, I’d suffer the consequences.

Because if I said the Living Story was fun, no one would listen.

Because if the Living Story engaged me, I’d look like a fool.

Because if the Living Story seemed interesting, I’d be an uncultured, uneducated buffoon with objectively bad taste.

Because if I hate the Living Story, I’d be taken seriously.

/endveiledcriticism

Maybe you shouldn’t cave so easily to peer pressure.

If you have an opinion about something, stand up for it.

I dislike the Living Story a lot, for a lot of reasons – But you’re entitled to your perspective as well. I’m sure you have your reasons why you like it and they’re perfectly valid. That’s why this is a forum – To discuss things.

Fernling.1729:

Why didn’t you people submit a video to get a free account for a friend, family member or even for yourself as a storage?

Because I refuse to be a puppet of marketing.

hyman.7526:

I soloed it easily with a 0/0/30/30/10 AH hammer guardian, including the wurm champ.

Well congratulations. You had the exact right class, build and weapon type to solo it.

Too bad for the rest of us, though.

1) Scrap the Living Story
2) Scrap the Living Story
3) Scrap the Living Story
4) Scrap the Living Story
5) Scrap the Living Story
6) Scrap the Living Story
7) Devote the time normally spent on the Living Story to developing better permanent content such as a proper expansion, more zones, more skills, more traits, more classes, more races, and more permanent dungeons. You know. The stuff that matters.

Genei.7502:

…I’m a working adult with a family and one thing I always loved about GW1 was how much it was able to cater to the casual gamer that I am.

At the moment however I find myself logging in after a hiatus to discover that I missed out on some cool looking backpiece or other armor item. It isn’t too dissimilar from the holiday hats and minis of GW1 except for the frequency. I don’t want to cheapen the experience and achievement of having participated when the content was live but it might be worth considering giving some sort of second chance at the armor and weapon rewards. “Missed out on earning this for free? Just pay some gems and get it now!”

I recently discovered I missed out on a gas mask helm that would fit my character perfectly.

This has been a common concern, voiced in many other threads. I missed the first SAB backpack due to time restraints and my asura is always going to feel incomplete.

They’ve made an attempt to bring some rewards back, or make them available some other way. Black Lion scraps for example will allow you to get previous festival weapon skins, but you’re at the mercy of random number generators (Black Lion chests) to get them.

However there’s still plenty of items that are gone, seemingly for good, and it really sucks.

Yitsul.8342:

PeterThomas.7243:

The developers have said that new permanent zones are coming, but they haven’t said exactly when.

source please?

It’s buried in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy7CcwnfUdU This is the PAX interview where Colin Johanson talks about everything that’s upcoming in the game, what they’re planning to include and what they’re not doing. It’s a bit long, 26 minutes, but very informative.

The developers have said that new permanent zones are coming, but they haven’t said exactly when.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Obviously the OP doesn’t play a necro…

This is the second time I’ve responded to someone who assumes this. My main is a necro.

Saturn.6591:

Wait; so that means that all the well-known Necros on the forum actually are wrong when they say that even Blood Fiend is way more useful than the new signet? Hmmhmm; nice if it works for you, but looking at the numbers and everything, I heavily tend to share the (apparently at least in the forum) general opinion about the signet.

That’s because most necros use the same cookie-cutter conditionmancing crap.

Try thinking outside the box a little.

Saturn.6591:

I can tell none of the posters above play a Necro; especially not the OP.

I am the OP, and my main is a necro.

Signet of Vampirism works with my build absolutely perfectly, almost to the point where I feel overpowered.

I wish they’d bring back a lot of the temporarily featured items, gem-store or not.

They seem to think “pressure-buys” are the best way to make money, but GW2 isn’t Wal-Mart. If you fail to convince a shopper to spend their money in a retail environment, they’re out the door and you’ve lost the sale. But people return to GW2 regularly from the comfort of their own home. They don’t want to be pressured to buy stuff every time they log on. Maybe they don’t have the money for an item one day, or just don’t feel like getting it, but if it’s always available they may buy it some day, instead of buying it NEVER because it was only available for a short time.

For example… I’m gonna buy a flute one of these days, but I currently can’t justify spending the money on gems. I’m glad that it’s a permanent store item, because if it wasn’t, I’d never get my flute, and Arenanet wouldn’t get my ten bucks.

Just seems to make sense.

These new healing skills are great. Obviously there has been a lot of thought put into them.

They do seem a little powerful (almost like elites), but I suppose that’s why they’re worth 25 skills points.

Thanks, Arenanet. Please keep it up. Looking forward to more skill additions in the future.