Dear Mr/Mrs PvP Dev:
I am pretty sure by now that you know how horrendous and an abomination the Courtyard map is.
But I want to be clear, so here it goes: the Courtyard map is awful. Or better yet: it’s not the map by itself that’s horrible, it’s the PvP mode associated with it.
Considering GW2 mechanics and classes, it’s awful. It’s kitten! (insert any random insult here). I believe you know how bad it is.
It’s not the first time that players tell you so and it will not be the last.
The issue I want to talk about today is leaving the said Courtyard map. A player cannot leave the map, other than char selection screen. And even so, when you log any character it will try to send you to Courtyard again.
I do not want to play it. I refuse to play it. If I get dishonor, so be it. I’ll wear it with pride. But I refuse to be forced to play it, even when I change characters.
I dislike being forced to play something I left. There’s a reason for it.
Whether you agree with it or not it’s totally irrelevant, I am a player and I do not want to play that mode.
So please, stop with the forced log-in into Courtyard.
And pretty please: stop being stubborn and remove it.
Greetings and salutations.
With Season 1 of the Living Story drawing to a close, it seems appropriate to offer review and reflection of everything that has come thus far. Sadly, there is much to consider, as the brand new path trod by Anet has many missteps and mishaps along the way.
Rather than talk about individual flaws, I thought it might be best to take a stab at the overall writing style of the Living Story and the narrative flaws it continues to exhibit. Plot holes come and go, individual complaints will always remain, but the best way to help Season 2 is to consider the pitfalls of Season 1 from a writing and gaming perspective. And so, I thought I would offer up a bit of constructive criticism in silly infographic format.
For your consideration, Fifteen Lessons From Fifteen Months of Scarlet Briar.
Extremely will written, with a Nice balance of wit and construtive criticism.
My only critic to you is that you were kinda…euphemistic on how bad the LS actually was.
I still Think that Collin and the higher ups really don’t understand how bad the LS was….
Yes, I agree that on “What Scarlet Saw”, the creator she’s speaking about is The Pale Tree, I just didn’t want to assume that there wasn’t any chance of being another “creator”. There is. It could be a Dragon, or something else.
I don’t believe it though. I think, like you do, that she was talking about the Pale Tree.
As for the forces she’s talking about, there is not a conclusive evidence that she’s talking about “us” (as in, the races of Tyria) and the Dragons. It could be, it might be but that is not the only explanation.
We simply do not know nor do we have enough evidence to say for sure.
As for stories being twisted and changed and only at the end do they make sense. Well…that’s usually either an AWESOME story or an HORRENDOUS story. And in this case, it’s clearly not an awesome story.
Yes, in the end the pieces might make sense later, sure….if only in a hammered-in kinda way.
You can either make the pieces of the puzzle fit in nicely or you can force them into fitting in.
That’s usually a sign of a bad story or of a story that was changed after the begining was already set in stone and it couldn’t be re-written anymore, so you end up with….retconing.
Stories have two major aspects – the story itself and the way that it is told (the “delivery”.
A great story is a great story. Period.
But as we all know, there are bad stories that are told amazingly by amazing people and they entertain us. I think we all have friends that have the great ability of turning even a mundane event to a great story just by the way they deliver it.
Well, Scarlet’s arch is sorely missing on both aspects. Think about it.
Waking up a Dragon. Is that a good story in Tyria? Really? We have at least 3 Dragons that are already awake and at large (Kralkatorik, Jormag, Primordius, and possibly Bubbles)…and they are doing…what? Watching TV? Taking a bath? Whatever they are doing, it’s nothing REALLY major, if you compare it to, say, Zhaitan’s actions.
So why is a story about waking a Dragon really worth being told at this point in time?
Should I really be worried and get sleepless nights just because another Dragon awoke? * yawns *. Yeah, another Dragon, get in line because we have plenty to deal with. He’s just one more and the other awakened Dragons are anything but dangerous.
And now, the way the Scarlet’s arch was told, or delivered.
Man, it was really, really really bad. It was so bad that even the Developers agreed it was bad. That’s like, terribad.
It made a mediocre story (concerning conception and plot-wise) into a horrendous story, since it was so badly delivered.
And worse still, at the end, we are still not sure what trully happened. Heck, even the NPCs aren’t sure of what happened.
This is why we are here discussing this thread afterall.
I know I am coming across as harsh towards the writers, but really, the story was so bad that if I trully wanted to be harsh, I could be a lot more than I currently am.
(edited by Bio Flame.4276)
From the story “What Scarlet Saw”:
““I’ve learned so much,” Scarlet continued. “Now I have to put that knowledge to use. An insurmountable challenge is rising, and my people have been called to meet it. We are compelled by our creator to do so.
“But I reject that call. I reject the notion that that I must choose the Dream or be lost to Nightmare. The forces that push us this way or that can be redirected. They can be set against one another to the detriment of both, and now I know how"
There’s something in these words that is yet to be explained.
Scarlet is saying that their creator [the Sylvari Creator – the Pale Tree? A Dragon?] is compelling them to do something. Ok.
But more interesting is her idea that the the forces that push them can be redirected and set against one another.
If waking up a Dragon were Scarlet’s only and final purpose….where does that idea about redirecting forces against one another fit into?
Someting is missing here.
In my own opinion, I believe that the original Scarlet story would be different from what we ultimately got but, due to the overwhelming negative criticism about Scarlet, ANET’s writers chose to “cut the story” and hence, we got a final, patched version that wasn’t their original idea. That’s why there are lots of pieces that don’t make sense and some clues to something greater and/or different about to happen.
But ANET decided to quickly wrap the story up (what an horrid story btw!) and it was patched and twisted to this end, since it was the fastest way to get rid of Scarlet’s arch and end the story.
All in all, a very badly written story and badly executed. The Living Story updates were good, some bad, but the actual story itself was horrendously planned and executed.
(edited by Bio Flame.4276)
“Allie Murdock.8152:
FYI, we don’t think it’s balanced. That’s why we’re still balancing it.
The OP actually makes a good point, though. For this particular feature build, we have not shared much about what’s going on, we get that. Don’t mistake that with we’re not doing much, though.
Thanks for the feedback "
It’s not about not sharing what you’re going to do, it’s more about taking you SO LONG to actually get anything done.
That’s the point.
Story? What story? You mean a group of events that had mostly no connection between them and no explanations?
I’d never give it more than a 2 out of 10.
I had to login and speak my mind:
Living Story, as far as story is concerned, was really, really bad. Horrendous.
I have to agree with one poster that said that a 3 year old could have written a better story.
I am amazed that the higher-ups at ANET gave the green light to such a horrible story.
The NCPs weren’t so bad, some were even good (Rox, Taimi).
But the actual pacing of the story? It’s like a text-book example of how NOT to do a story.
Scarlet was extremely bad as a main-antagonist, a Plant-ex-Machina, a Mary-Sue, with super-powers, super-inteligence, do-all, know-it-all, without any reasons, any explanations.
And the motivations, the “how” and “why”? Nobody understands them.
Why did she do it? How? What were her motivations?
TL,DR: horrendous story. Me, my friends, my guild mates were all saying “I wouldn’t recomend the LS to anyone”.
My greastest fear is that ANET has no clue about how badly the LS was delivered and paced, and that the same mistakes will keep coming on Season 2.
(edited by Bio Flame.4276)
A few thoughts:
1- Population imbalance cannot be fixed/is almost impossible to fix
ANET will not be able to trully fix population imbalance. Think about it…. They can’t simply transfer people from one server to another. It can’t be done against a player’s will. And most people will not change, not anymore. Even if transfers costed nothing, nobody will want to change to a “losing” server. Even if a few players would transfer it will Never be a large amount of players to make a real diference.
It’s too late now.
So any solutions to WvW will not come from that side.
2- WvW has two types of players: PvErs and WvWers
This will always have to be taken indo consideration when considering possible solutions.
PvErs will play mostly for the achievements and for the “material” rewards -chests, badges for legendary items, gold, karma. But especially, they’ll play for the achievements, which brings problems of its own.
Now, WvWers, true WvWers will play for the fun, for the adrenaline of the fights. And for the bragging rights, the prestige.
Currently, there is no real “fame”/prestige in winning trully difficult and awesome fights in WvW. And most fights are just a matter of who has more players.
This has to change
3- Too much design emphasis on attack and few on defence
This one spkeaks for itself. This has to change. Promote and reward defending, but not with PvE rewards only but also with WvW rewards and/or match points. Defence must count for something.
4- WPing around the map should be disabled
Currently, there is no tactical commitement on a zerg going to the far end of a map, capping a tower and still wping back to defend or capping another objective.
It should not be allowed.
I believe every solution that will have a positive outcome must have these four points into consideration.
(edited by Bio Flame.4276)
As for the Warrior Changes:
I believe you went overboard with the simultaneous changes to both Unsuspecting foe AND Hammer base damage.
It should be one or the other, not both.
Also, you’re assuming all hammer warriors will be keeping unsuspecting foe as the reasoning for the Hammer base damage nerf.
Well…what if people don’t keep unsuspecting foe? Then the nerf will prove to be too much.
Or are you trying to pigeon-hole all hammer warriors into picking unsuspecting foe, just to compensate for the Hammer nerf?
All in all, I think that the Hammer damage without any buffs is quite low if you compare its attack speed, animations, recharge time and damage.
Not everyone plays with unsuspecting foe but you seem to think they do.
If you believe that trait to be the real culprit, then nerf the trait, not the hammer damage.
One of the current problems with WvWvW right now is also the lack of alliances between servers. The 2nd and 3rd servers of a match should team up against the stronger one, so that they stand a chance. That’s why WvW is a 3-server fight and not just a 2 server killfest.
So, here’s my take and possible solutions.
Problem – The 2nd and 3rd server do not “tag up” against the 1st, which was not expected by the design team.
Analysis – How could servers ally even if they wanted? It is currently not possible to discuss, speak or talk to another server’s player. How could there be an alliance between servers if there is no means to communicate?
Also, all enemies’ players are colored RED by the game, aka – an enemy. When 3 zergs colide, all oponents are red and are “attackable”. Even if a commander tells his players not to attack a specific server, it’s a big big mess trying to tell players apart.
Logisticaly, it’s a nigh impossible to make server alliances – the colors, the absence of comunication channels, the all enemies are equally “red” and “attackable”.
Possible solutions:
1- Allow for servers to speak to each other. If not the whole population, maybe only the commanders, in a commander-specific chat?
For example, the Korean game RF online did this, there was a “server council” made up of 8 players, which elected a “server commander” and only that server commander could speak to the other server’s commanders, allowing for alliances.
If not exactly like this, allow for a solution for the players/commanders to talk to some players on the other server, to form alliances, to come up with strategies.
2-Change the server’s colors. Say, we have currently Red, Blue, Green colors on the maps, which matches a server.
Make the player’s tag from that server to match the Red, blue or green.
Or change colors if you will, but make it so that it’s easier to tell apart players from different servers just by looking at the color on their tag.
3-Design a new system that would make the 2nd and 3rd server from a match to automatically join forces.
Say, even the gap between the 1st server’s points and the 2nd and 3rd servers reaches a threshold, then those two servers would stop being enemies altogether and would team up against the more powerful server.
This “team up” could be done automatically or might need the agreement of both server’s leaders/commanders.
Other hypothesis would be allowing everyone on a commander’s team to see the “allied” server’s players as allies and not as foes.
The specifcs might vary and would have to be worked out but it’s important to be able to tell opponents apart easily.
I belive that implementing easier and cleaner solutions and giving players the tools they need to make the adjustments for themselvers will be more profitable in the long run. And also, it would be a solution that’s has a good cost-benefit ratio.
There is no need for strange, counter-intuitive solutions. Just give to the players the tools they need and we’ll find our own balance and solutions.
Simplicity and elegance are usually better than complex, complicated solutions.
Hello. I am a player from Desolation, a very very annoyed player as I type this.
This night yet again I tried to do Tequatl. I arrived 40 minutes BEFORE the window opening but despite that I still was on the overflow server.
I was waiting in line for the whole 40 mins plus the whole duration of the fight (+15mins).
Some of my team mated managed to taxi to the main server but not me despite being the first to arrive at Sparkfly Fen.
I tried for 40 mins to get into the server, waiting in the queue line and also trying to “join team mate on server” as often as I could. I managed to turn the “click on team mate, select join teammate on server, click and rinse and repeat” into an exact science, doing almost one attempt/second.
Despite all my efforts, people that logged AFTER me somehow managed to switch to the main server before I did.
And I never had the chance to go to the main server. Highly frustrating.
What’s even worse is that some people from other server (FOW, etc…) managed to switch before I did, even though I was from the Desolation Server and i was trying to get in my home server.
That’s completely kittened. How come this is allowed to happen? How come people from other servers get to join the main map even though it’s full? Is it supposed to be just random luck? If it is, it’s bad design. The players from that server should have priority to switching to the main map.
I am really annoyed since it’s not the first nor second time that a player from his own home server isn’t able to log in to the main but guest people are able.
This is really lame design by ANET. You design an encounter for everyone to participate in an open world experience but then your servers keep people from doing that same content.
If that were to be the case, why not making said content as an instanced content?
It’s really frustrating and by design.
Change this! Or at least don’t make the same mistake with the Shatterer or big-bosses.
I am sorry for my rant but it’s really frustrating. I am sure many other players felt this frustration too.