Guild Wars 2

Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish here. ANet has already stated that the players who post on these forums represent a minority, so if they live true to that premise they will ignore your praise just as they have our complaints.

For the record, there are many things I like about GW2. I like the game interface (mouse control for movement, keybinds for abilities), I love that there is no trinity, I like the way downscaling lower level zones works, and I like the way leveling works. There are many other things I don’t like, however, particularly the way that sPvP and WvW have been so badly mishandled, and I absolutely hate the way that ANet has interfaced with their player base. For all it’s warts, Rift devs were able to maintain an active and viable dialog with their players, and they responded very well to most suggestions and complaints. Why ANet is incapable of doing the same is beyond me.

Eurhetemec.9052:

arabeth.2361:

So, bottom line for the thread:

~10-16% (estimated) increase in DPS, as a rough rule of thumb, using full (currently available) ascended gear. (Pretty much matches up with other estimates I’ve seen.)

Is this enough to matter? The answer is yes and no. It depends on the situation. 1 vs. 1 with evenly matched skill? Yes. In a giant zerg? No. So each person needs to answer this for themselves: how do you prefer to play?

You appear to be intentionally excluding the middle, which is a very strange and illogical way to argue.

In 1v1, 10-16% is a definite yes, I agree.

In 5v5 it would also definitely matter. In dungeons and Fractals it will definitely matter.

In zerg-based WvW and big events and super-easy stuff, obviously 10-16% is irrelevant, but so would 50% be, or even perhaps 100%.

So I don’t agree that it will be something you ask for yourself, at all. It will eventually come to you, whether you like it or not, unless you ONLY zerg-surf or do events/easy PvE.

Actually, I find your post to be the strange one. It’s like you’re trying to argue with someone using the same numbers he did. He merely pointed out the extremes, while you claim there’s a middle ground. Duh …

Boom.6148:

I’m not going to read all 11 pages already posted but I’ll just throw in my vote.

Coming from a server that has a lot of fair-weather wvw players I think the orbs should give what the masses really want = better chance at finding loot & more gold!

The biggest complaint I hear when I ask why people they don’t play wvw is “It isn’t rewarding and you don’t get anything for winning.”

Increase magic find + Increase gold find = more rewards & reason to be in wvw.

The biggest complaint I hear about WvW is that it isn’t fun and isn’t fair (team vs team). I have little sympathy for the players who play WvW only for loot … they don’t belong here and should stay in PvE. WvW was supposedly for players who wanted to pit themselves against other players in a fun and challenging environment requiring strategic decisions on a large scale without having to grind for it … except that ANet has made sure that is not the case.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Everyone is massively overstating the effect of the buff.

Skill is a vastly more important factor in this game than stats, even with the tiny disparity.

It should be remembered that it is unlikely that one server will hold all the buffs, and very common to see one per world.

If your world is down a buff, how about getting out there and capping it back whilst having a great time instead of crying to ANet?

How can it possibly be lost on you that the server with the buff is going to have a significant advantage holding on to the cap, all else being equal … which it won’t be since the server with the buff most likely had more people in order to get it in the first place.

Besides, the more people that are involved in WVW, the less that skill is a determining factor. The best that you can hope for is that enough players lose interest, stop playing, and turn WvW into small roving bands of cappers.

Stooperdale.3560:

No not a troll thread. Someone should have asked whether we were getting too much karma 6 months ago.

You mean so we’d have to grind for the things that karma buys? Yeah, that makes sense.

It seems pretty clear that ANet nerfed the loot from these invasions in the 9/17 patch. I’d be OK with that since I thought all the loot they previously dropped was virtually game breaking, but it seems to me that they should have said something about that in the patch notes.

Worse, though, and why I think the kitten thing is bugged, is that we also weren’t getting credit for stacks on kills. This afternoon Scarlet showed up in Lorner’s Pass on Devona’s Rest, and for at least two of the molten invasions there were only one or two players present on site with me the entire time. As a thief with exotics I can mow down lots of molten invaders with Dagger Storm since they cluster up around me like crazy and I’m traited to heal on attack. I killed dozens of the buggers while the red circles were still active but I didn’t get a single bloodlust stack on my daggers during either invasion. And … I didn’t get one single loot bag for all that time and effort either even though I stuck around until each invasion was closed.

I saw others complaining about the same thing in map chat, and later in the invasion I got a small bit of loot from other invasions, but it looks to me like ANet again broke something in this patch.

LilMcGinley.3890:

Cactus.2710:

LilMcGinley.3890:

gwawer.9805:

was this just anet’s kneejerk reaction to squashing GvG?

It takes time to design a new map, introduce new mechanic and test these kinds of things. Work in development and you’ll see this to be true.

Ahh … you mean like they did with bloodlust. Got it.

Tool.

Love forum complainers that have no clue what goes into any update regardless of game/genre or depth..

PS: love the personal attack, is it that time of the month?

I know pretty much exactly what it takes to go into an update. The point is that neither you nor ANet get to use that as an excuse for inaction when instead they come out with a major, game-altering change (I won’t dignify it by calling it an update) like bloodlust without testing it and in spite of almost everyone begging them not to.

And if you don’t want to be called a tool, don’t act like one. From dictionary.com:

“5. a person used to perform dishonourable or unpleasant tasks for another "

Blix.8021:

Lol they are merging all the threads into this one. Oh well.

They’re easier to ignore that way. Has anyone ever seen ANet merge a bunch of flattering posts that involved the same subject?

Virtute.8251:

I applaud Devon for openly stating before that these opinions carry little weight in his decisions. That’s a man of class that can tell you kindly that your cries are falling on deaf ears!

Mere words cannot express how reassuring I find that to be.

LilMcGinley.3890:

Cactus.2710:

LilMcGinley.3890:

Dots yes, actually counted as ‘in-game’ no.

I’m curious. Where did you see that confirmed? There was a LOT of forum discussion about this a few months ago and to my knowledge ANet never responded to it at all.

Not confirmed but guildies have logged out in supply camps and if they counted as in-game they couldn’t be flipped, but they do. So yeah… feel free to test though.

That wouldn’t convince me that they don’t count as being in game (i.e., for population purposes) but I agree that if they don’t prevent a camp from being flipped they probably wouldn’t contribute to holding a capture point for bloodlust.

LilMcGinley.3890:

gwawer.9805:

was this just anet’s kneejerk reaction to squashing GvG?

It takes time to design a new map, introduce new mechanic and test these kinds of things. Work in development and you’ll see this to be true.

Ahh … you mean like they did with bloodlust. Got it.

Tool.

LilMcGinley.3890:

Dots yes, actually counted as ‘in-game’ no.

I’m curious. Where did you see that confirmed? There was a LOT of forum discussion about this a few months ago and to my knowledge ANet never responded to it at all.

Ikaros.7812:

One good thing is that it makes your personal bad calls look a lot better in comparison.

Yup. When I look back on the various bad decisions I made as a manager, they don’t seem so bad anymore by comparison.

LilMcGinley.3890:

People fear change.

People fear bad changes, and it didn’t take a genius to foresee that bloodlust would be a bad change. If I see a hurricane headed my way I don’t need to wait until it hits to know that I’m kittened.

CrassBippy.4619:

Hmmmmmm, it seems the obvious thing that was gonna happen happened. Lets collect some data and observe this.

Hmmmmm. Interesting….

The really humorous thing is that I remember lordkrall (official ANet forum apologist) saying several times that ANet couldn’t implement many of the things that players were asking for in WvW because the balance considerations were so complex that they wouldn’t be able to do so without lots of time-consuming testing.

Voila! We have bloodlust!

Ikaros.7812:

It’s an exciting new addition that lets the lower-populated server test their skills and mettle against- ah kitten, I can’t even say it.

That gave me an honest LOL. Thanks.

cyyrix.6105:

I think this update is the best update for any roamer (solo or small man) since the dawn of gw2. While I wish there were more hidden passages and whatnot, the terrain is more interesting than anything else in wvw (besides the JP).

LOL. As a roamer you’re going to be >SO< happy to come across an enemy roamer with +150 more points on all stats than you have.

Enjoy.

Ursidae.7269:

Don’t Panic Just Yet, remember there are consumable buffs and once a player is downed im sure they lose their stacks which is only +50 to a stat. Average player downs 10 people and has a slight buff. It’s only going to make it so if you are trying to take a point on the map that you can make a push with fewer people.

Although this doesn’t make up for unbalanced teams. From Reading they also did not mention a cap on the buff itself .. which should be no more than +200 ? i really hope there is such a cap .. otherwise a group holding and taking out players all day would be pretty unstoppable and make game play very boring once someone had a strong foot hold in the area – needing double the players per usual attempt at things …

this does offer more reward for team play – encouraging player to stick together —- but i do agree this would be very bad if there was no other mechanic than just a straight build up…

if they are stacking this with the Sigils that increase stats as well per kill or other similar effects……

there should definitely be a cap on the stacks or a Timer for how long the effect lasts in combat before a recharge on the duration of it

infinite power leads to infinite corruption

You need to reread the patch notes. You have several things wrong.

Varonth.5830:

It doesn’t matter if Guild vs. Guild or duels are ruined.

WvW itself does not work anymore.
As if it wasn’t snowballing enough already…
The snowball just became a massive avalanche.

A server with a massive number advantage now also gains a massive stat advantage and even more points?
I mean SFR was ticking at +1500 ~ +2000 points per 15 minutes.

I couldn’t care less about GvG after watching one of such a match up.
It is just another term for organized Zerg vs. Zerg.
It was a massive cluster of players, and even when you saw someone screw up, it didn’t really matter, because he is just such a small fraction of the whole team.

There had to be a massive number of screw ups in a short duration by the whole team.
Not really skill based, and not really interesting.

But the buff was meant to enchance the WvW portion of the game, but instead WvW just became worse.

I have never been a part of any GvG event, but the one I saw on the stream was pretty amazing. The planning and preparation they did (team composition, tactics, etc) was incredible, their coordination and teamwork was impressive, and their leader made very fast decisions on the fly to react to what the other team was doing. It far surpassed the performance of any any zerg I ever saw in WvW and I can quite easily understand the appeal of such battles in comparison to the brain dead action that ANet has turned the rest of WvW into.

Personally, I would prefer that WvW had been the large-scale, terrain dependent, strategy-based team activity it was claimed to be, but I can fully understand why GvG emerged in its wake. As you say, of course, it doesn’t much matter since bloodlust pretty much trashes both.

To be honest, I haven’t checked lately to see if this is still a problem (and I’m unable to do so as I write this), but do party members who log out while still in WvW still show as being in the game? It used to be that you could still see their dots on the mini-map even if they were no longer logged in as long as they didn’t leave a WvW map or drop party before quitting the game. Supposedly that lasted for as much as 30 minutes and the suspicion always was that it contributed to errors in how ANet tracked map populations for queues.

So if it still hasn’t been fixed, that might mean that players on the server with the bloodlust buff could just go to one of the captured points before logging out to help sustain the buff. Maybe I just missed it, but I don’t remember any mention of this being fixed, either in the forums or in patch notes.

fett.9573:

amazing the amount of crying that goes on on the forums. Are we going to have another 10+ threads from the gvg crowd crying about the new buff now? (vocal minority and all, of course they will listen to you! /sarcasm off

Are you seriously saying that you think GvG’ers are the only ones who think the bloodlust buff is bad?? Could you possibly be so dense that you don’t realize what giving the stronger server 150 buff to all stats will look like? You do realize that the buff can only be removed by one of the weaker servers taking control of THREE of the five capture points, right? That rules out any sort of alliance to balance things.

The amount of crying on the forums may be amazing (actually not so much considering the state of WvW), but the amount of ignorance can be even greater as you’ve just shown.

toymachine.1673:

Guess you better stop playing then…. the patch has been up for what…. no more then 30min and already crying. Just go play something else.

LOL. If you think that it’s going to take any time at all playing the game to understand the effect bloodlust will have on WvW you shouldn’t be playing it either … for different reasons, of course.

Amadan.9451:

oh, they increased health and put them on a timer… that’s a challenge… /sarcasm

It’s ANet’s idea of what fresh new content looks like.

TheJokester.4672:

@ Stain…. Ehem it’s called internet not english class. I would figure you would have enough of a brain to actually pause and not read it all in one go. You know that common sense thing that this generation seems to be lacking… my apologies if I have insulted you.

Now that’s just dumb. You expect people reading your post to put more effort into mentally punctuating it than you were willing to put into it writing it?? How remarkably lazy and smug of you. And then to portray it as being a generation issue??? I’m in my mid-60’s and I think that kind of deflection is totally lame.

The Stain.4169:

To the OP:

Why would you even make this thread? Do you have any idea how obnoxious it is? Only on the internet do you see this sort of logic…

Here’s how I see it. For whatever reason you decided that you do not want to bother making a legendary. Which is fine, I’m sure making them is an expensive/time consuming PITA.

But this being the internet, instead of being confident and at peace with your decision, you have to drag those who do have legendary weapons through the mud. Does a legendary weapon mean a given player is more likely to be skilled or unskilled player? How the kitten should I know? You don’t know either, and your reasoning is some of the weakest, most convoluted logic I have ever read.

Most likely, the weapon carried by a given player has no relation whatsoever to how skilled they are at playing the game. And who cares? Lousy players have every right to play the game. I welcome them. In general a lousy player is more likely to have their life (in REAL life) priorities in order than someone who is fantastic at a computer game. Think about it for a minute and you might see what I mean.

One thing I know for sure, this thread is about YOU, not about those with legendaries.

Well said.

Ventrue.5731:

Wolfheart.1938:

I read the first two paragraphs and noticed that this doesn’t even take into account anything that’s not lolpve dps

I also covered controls and responsiveness, content, how they present difficulty and most importantly at the end – you, the player.
However the part you read tries to illustrate that arena net allows players to do some rly stupid things. I will use world of warcraft as an example here and people hate it, but this is a good example. In wow you won’t get in to a good raiding guild if your stats are incorrect, and that means things like haste softcap, prioritizing correct stat on gear selection, maybe you class needs 700 crit and above 800 would be a waste. If it would do things like gw2, it would be ok for dps to stack a hole bunch of stamina so they would survive longer. I’ve mentioned that in gw2 some dps do almost 10 times less, and thats not over exaduration when my warriors auto attacks with axe can be like 4k were some one hits 600 with a slow weapon.

SeNoZinD.9874:

Just a warning: most people don’t have long attention spans, (including me), so I highly suggest you have a tl:dr at the bottom or somewhere so people can leave opinions

I was going to read through it my self, to correct spelling, but then I saw how much I wrote so I figured I’ll pass… I’m pretty sure majority of players will just read a few lines and start defending gw2. I’m really looking forwards to some constructive responsive telling me why I’m wrong or some opinions that would say what else is wrong with the game.

LOL. You wrote so much that you passed on proofreading it, yet you expect anyone else to read it?

I’m watching the stream as I type this … all I can say is that it looks awesome. It’s very intense, intricate, highly competent, and very well coordinated. It’s no wonder to me that players prefer sophisticated GvG like this over the mindless and stilted game play that ANet has turned WvW into. What an amazing contrast.

style.6173:

Points (PPT) need to be awarded based on the number of players on each map.

Right now, keeps, towers, and camps all gives a consistent number of points. The challenge with this is that whoever has the most people on the map will win. It should instead work like this:

Server 1 has 70 people on one map
Server 2 has 40 people on one map
Server 3 has 10 people on one map

In this extreme case, server 3 has ~86% fewer participants than server 1. Server 3 should be rewarded with an 86% point bonus as well. (a camp would be worth 9 points per tick instead of 5)

So why implement this? Without a change in the scoring, the leagues are not going to be fun for anyone. It will just be blow out after blowout.

The scoring also negates the whole server transfer issue. Sure, someone could transfer to a T1 server, but that doesn’t necessarily increase their chances of winning. Overall, this will make the league much more exciting and without a determined outcome.

How long have you been playing this game?? Your proposal has been raised in this forum many, many times over the last several months by people as ill-informed as you and refuted even more times by players who actually understand what would happen under such a scheme. The downsides are several and significant. Do yourself a favor and educate yourself on them.

When the devs steer a game away from entertaining play and toward grinding for loot, this is exactly what you get.

Fiddle Irk.9710:

Sry Chiolas, not a troll here, just a player that is stating that we don’t need all the negativity directed at the dev’s as of late.
Want them to heed our suggestion’s folks? What makes you think calling them incompetent will inspire them to do so? This post was not intended to be an argument over whether or not they should be thanked, I honestly didn’t expect any further posts on it, just a simple spurt of gratitude for what they do do to balance out all the whining out there. As I said before, yeah there is allot that can be done to make it better, there are issues, both personel and general, that need to be fixed, but what we do have is pretty sweet and will only get better as they work to improve it. Basically, just have some patience and cut them some slack is all I’m saying. And maybe even show them some love, might make them a little more attentive to us than dissing them will. =)

I don’t know how long you’ve been playing this game, but I’ve been playing since launch. If you have the time, go back and browse the zillions of forum posts respectfully asking/suggesting/begging for key changes and fixes to WvW that never even got acknowledged and certainly have never been fixed. Then come back here and tell us how effective it is to sit back and wait, not that ranting has done any better. The point is that it isn’t going to matter much what we say or how we say it … WvW is what it is and the WvW devs are what they are.

Korval.3751:

Was this lag happening before Anet removed culling?

It doesn’t matter. The lag wasn’t this bad even right after the removed culling, and that was when tons of players came back to WvW because culling was gone. For some reason it has been getting worse week by week even with fewer players in WvW than there was before. Whatever Anet is messing with, they aren’t headed in the right direction.

As an active player who has regularly criticized ANet for poor communication and springing crap on us we didn’t want, I have to strongly commend the OP for this huge step in the right direction. Well done.

SynfulChaot.3169:

style.6173:

Bitter much?

Very. His posts are often poetic, but misguided. Amusing to read, but rarely anything to contribute to meaningful discussion, unfortunately.

Agree. I’ve read dozens of Burnfall’s posts and none of them were worth the time it took.

timmyf.1490:

Cactus.2710:

timmyf.1490:

As a side note, if you really want to know what changes are coming as early as possible, move to Seattle and get a job with ArenaNet. ;-)

The only reason I’d like to know more in advance of what they plan to do is to be able to try to stop them from implementing the dumb ones. Way too many times we are getting stuff we don’t ask for, don’t want, and which is counter to the premise of the game we originally purchased. It has been like buying an upgradable computer only to find out that the periodic upgrades are turning it into a DVR.

I couldn’t care less about knowing anything in advance if I trusted these folks to surprise me with something appropriate to the game they promoted.

Fair. But I think you’re forgetting about how the decision-making process works. This game is not a collaboration between gamers and developers. It is a product of a company. It is a deliverable, not an open-source collaboration.

If you don’t like it, you can and should vote with your feet. But you don’t get to demand that you be included in the review process for changes. These forums offer you an incredible opportunity to provide feedback, but I think you’ve gone too far in expecting ArenaNet to include the community in their decision-making process to such a high degree.

Well, what do you know … at least one part of ANet seems to have finally understood what I meant, even if you are unable to do so.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/October-15th-balance-skills-updates-preview

timmyf.1490:

Cactus.2710:

timmyf.1490:

As a side note, if you really want to know what changes are coming as early as possible, move to Seattle and get a job with ArenaNet. ;-)

The only reason I’d like to know more in advance of what they plan to do is to be able to try to stop them from implementing the dumb ones. Way too many times we are getting stuff we don’t ask for, don’t want, and which is counter to the premise of the game we originally purchased. It has been like buying an upgradable computer only to find out that the periodic upgrades are turning it into a DVR.

I couldn’t care less about knowing anything in advance if I trusted these folks to surprise me with something appropriate to the game they promoted.

Fair. But I think you’re forgetting about how the decision-making process works. This game is not a collaboration between gamers and developers. It is a product of a company. It is a deliverable, not an open-source collaboration.

If you don’t like it, you can and should vote with your feet. But you don’t get to demand that you be included in the review process for changes. These forums offer you an incredible opportunity to provide feedback, but I think you’ve gone too far in expecting ArenaNet to include the community in their decision-making process to such a high degree.

Go back and read my original post. I never demanded anything. I SUGGESTED that the game would be better off if ANet passed some of their ideas and decisions by the player base first before implementing them. If they actually paid attention to the responses they’d head off a lot of the negative feedback they’ve been getting for just tossing stuff out there that nobody asked for and nobody wanted.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Raine.1394:

A companies problems never have to do with their customers. That is, customers can’t logically be the source of a companies problems, not if you understand the nature of the relationship within the context of doing business.

Any attempt to move the locus of responsibility for problems from company to customer is an attempt at deflection and defense of the company—obviously. In removing the responsibility for issues from the company you also remove the possibility for correcting problems. You are illogically giving customers the power to destroy a company willy-nilly. That, of course, is absurd.

If you want to see the situation improve you need to first understand who has the power to make relevant changes—it is not the customers of a company.

Not true. Companies have both internal and external issues. External issues could very much be caused by the customers. So saying that a company’s problems never have to do with their customers is false.

Now, as I was simply discussing why they have simply stopped responding to us…. if someone never stopped kittening at you, would you respond to them? Wasting your time, energy, breath? You might at first, but eventually you’re simply going to roll your eyes and walk away.

LOL … ’cause rolling your eyes and walking away from your customers makes SO much sense.

Galtrix.7369:

I personally want to thank Anet for continuously improving this game and making it more enjoyable for all of us. Well, most of us. I appreciate all the effort that Anet has put into improving the rewards, the champions, and I’m looking forward to appreciating the new raid soon to come. Awhile ago, I complained that the rewards weren’t enough and that there needed to be something for the hardcore players… a few days later they improved the champion rewards, dungeon rewards, and gave us a ton of bonus rewards as well!

Overall, this game is amazing, and I’m happy to be playing it because I know that I can put it down and then come back to it later without being left behind. Although there are still bugs in the game, I have noticed that Anet has reduced the amount of bugs with each patch significantly so they will not hinder my Living World experience. Again, thank you Anet, and keep doing what you’re doing!

Clearly you don’t play WvW …

Out of the two, I’d go for #1 since that is the game I thought I paid my money for, but the question is moot since we aren’t getting either and apparently never will.

timmyf.1490:

As a side note, if you really want to know what changes are coming as early as possible, move to Seattle and get a job with ArenaNet. ;-)

The only reason I’d like to know more in advance of what they plan to do is to be able to try to stop them from implementing the dumb ones. Way too many times we are getting stuff we don’t ask for, don’t want, and which is counter to the premise of the game we originally purchased. It has been like buying an upgradable computer only to find out that the periodic upgrades are turning it into a DVR.

I couldn’t care less about knowing anything in advance if I trusted these folks to surprise me with something appropriate to the game they promoted.

timmyf.1490:

Cactus.2710:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

There are some changes in the upcoming release to mitigate the severity of this problem. We’re also looking at making some long-term improvements to the Twisted Clockwork invasions.

It would be helpful if you indicated what those changes might be so that the player base could give you kind of a reality check beforehand. Please forgive me for assuming you folks don’t always understand the cause-and-effects of your own game, but history is on my side.

1) It’s too late for them to incorporate player feedback

Nonsense. I’m not just talking about this particular change … I’m talking about changes in general, particularly future ones.

2) Players don’t necessarily have a realistic view… or a consistent view… of how things should be “fixed”

In aggregate we most certainly do. It is not difficult at all to follow the forums and discover some pretty consistent themes and common directions from players.

3) It’s not Anthony’s job to communicate changes and, were he to hint at them and further refinements happen, you would be all over him for communicating wrong information

Nonsense again. All that would be required is for him, or any other dev, to stay in contact enough to explain potential changes to earlier projections and explain why.

The only logical response is to say nothing until the official patch notes.

There’s nothing logical about that at all. It’s exactly what we’ve been getting all along and exactly why so many players are unhappy with the direction of the game and the ongoing lack of communication from ANet.

That said, I too would love hints. I just don’t think we’ll get them.

At least we can agree on that.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

There are some changes in the upcoming release to mitigate the severity of this problem. We’re also looking at making some long-term improvements to the Twisted Clockwork invasions.

It would be helpful if you indicated what those changes might be so that the player base could give you kind of a reality check beforehand. Please forgive me for assuming you folks don’t always understand the cause-and-effects of your own game, but history is on my side.

Draehl.2681:

If it meant more combat related content/updates (traits, weapons, etc.) I wouldn’t mind paying a sub fee… just because a game doesn’t have a sub fee shouldn’t mean you expect less of the product.

I think that applies to many of us (it certainly does to me). And if we’re willing to pay extra to see our complaints addressed, I think that should be enough validation to remove us from the category of players who complain just to complain.

chemiclord.3978:

TwoBit.5903:

And the Devs still respond in spite of that and, in general, the responses show a level of appreciation of those efforts.

The point I’m trying to make is that dev involvement in official forums really doesn’t do much to reduce the “toxicity” of said forums. It makes a twisted sense; if you’re so incensed that you’re venting on the forums, it’s not like a few words from a developer is going to make you say, “Oh. Well, that’s all right then.”

Would it be NICE to have Arena.net engage in more open dialogue? Of course… but let’s not pretend it would change much.

Simple dialog? Probably not, although if you had ever played Rift you’d see how active and responsive devs manage to defuse most of the ire simply by taking the trouble to explain things in enough detail for players to feel they care. What is really needed, of course, is for devs to be communicative AND actually do something about what they hear. We don’t get either from ANet, and for you to admit that better dialog wouldn’t actually change anything is kind of an indictment all it’s own.

Calae.1738:

Chasing bigger numbers on gear just means the actual game isn’t any fun.

You need something to force you to press the log in button.

^this^

Dual.8953:

Cactus.2710:

Phrixscreoth.6895:

JayMack.8295:

Where it starts getting stupid, though, is when it’s not at all constructive. When I see posts like, “these devs are incompetent and should hang themselves.” or, “I demand you do (x) or I’m gonna quit.” is when it crosses a line. If someone spoke to me like that physically face to face, their complaint would be lost on me immediately and I’d ban them from having anything to do with my business. Their money means little to me if they have the social skills of a gnat.

I feel like… there are a lot of people out there who forget, on some level, that they are talking to another human being who goes through all the same sorts of ups and downs as they do, and as such can’t empathize enough to be able to restrain themselves when they go to say things like that.

Then again there are people like that who will say that even to other people’s faces, but that is a different issue.

Pretend you go to your local electric utility to complain about the frequent outages, or you go to a local store to complain that the lawnmower you just bought doesn’t work as promised, or you go to your local ISP to complain about erratic internet service. You meet face to face with someone on the other side of the counter and they simply ignore you each time you show up. You try to get their attention and you try to convince them that they need to be more communicative but they say almost nothing, do almost nothing, and seem to be working on something else instead of what brought you to them.

Tell me now how empathic and reserved you would be toward that “other human being.”

You’re analogy doesn’t work because this isn’t 1 on 1. This is an enourmous community interfacing with a handful of devs. They aren’t just serving you. Their choices affect way more then just you.

I never tried to portray anything as coming only from me. I wouldn’t mind at all if it turned out that my complaints were mine alone and were ignored accordingly … IF … the most commonly expressed complaints from the rest of the player community were acknowledged and heeded. But they aren’t, and my analogy is indeed valid since I was referring to that community of players, not any one individual. Most of the complaints you see on these forums are similar, and the only reason any of them are directed toward any one dev is because ANet handles it that way from their end.

anzenketh.3759:

Cactus.2710:

Vol.5241:

Tom Gore.4035:

Never.8571:

tl;dr — We’re not even paying subscription fees! Why are people complaining about content in a (after you pay a flat price) free game?

Some people’s kids..

I’ve spent about 150€ on the game box and gem store so far.

So can I complain now?

You can complain all you want as long as it’s constructive. Non-constructive criticism doesn’t get you anywhere. It doesn’t help the devs diagnose the problem since you’re not specific and you don’t want to help them provide solutions.

Actually, constructive criticism doesn’t get us anywhere either … and that is exactly one of the reasons that there is so much animosity on these forums. I and many, many other players spent many months offering suggestions for improvements and fixes for this game, almost none of which were implemented. Instead, we’ve gotten some things we didn’t ask for, most of which we didn’t even want … bloodlust in WvW being the most glaring recent example.

As far as not paying a subscription fee, that’s a totally bogus and ignorant comment. Many of us have spent quite a lot of money on this game in the gem store, but more importantly almost all of us have invested hundreds and thousands of hours developing our characters and learning how to play them. That’s a HUGE commitment to the game that goes way beyond whatever we initially paid for it, and it is a factor that ANet is critically dependent upon for their continued existence. Any fool who tells those of us who are complaining to simply quit and go elsewhere is a bigger threat to ANet than we are. ANet should be kitten glad that we are still here complaining because at least it says we still care in one form or other, and in most cases it says we’re still playing their game and not someone else’s. Only the totally clueless don’t understand that.

They don’t have to give us what they want. They are in the entertainment industry not the service industry.

All they have to do is make something entertaining.

LOL. The entertainment industry is more critically dependent upon providing people what they want than just about any other. I find it amazing that you don’t understand that.

But in any case, not being entertaining is exactly what all these forum complaints are about. Grind is not entertaining, unbalanced play is not entertaining, bugs and hacks are not entertaining, horrific lag is not entertaining, stale content is not entertaining.

Phrixscreoth.6895:

JayMack.8295:

Where it starts getting stupid, though, is when it’s not at all constructive. When I see posts like, “these devs are incompetent and should hang themselves.” or, “I demand you do (x) or I’m gonna quit.” is when it crosses a line. If someone spoke to me like that physically face to face, their complaint would be lost on me immediately and I’d ban them from having anything to do with my business. Their money means little to me if they have the social skills of a gnat.

I feel like… there are a lot of people out there who forget, on some level, that they are talking to another human being who goes through all the same sorts of ups and downs as they do, and as such can’t empathize enough to be able to restrain themselves when they go to say things like that.

Then again there are people like that who will say that even to other people’s faces, but that is a different issue.

Pretend you go to your local electric utility to complain about the frequent outages, or you go to a local store to complain that the lawnmower you just bought doesn’t work as promised, or you go to your local ISP to complain about erratic internet service. You meet face to face with someone on the other side of the counter and they simply ignore you each time you show up. You try to get their attention and you try to convince them that they need to be more communicative but they say almost nothing, do almost nothing, and seem to be working on something else instead of what brought you to them.

Tell me now how empathic and reserved you would be toward that “other human being.”

Vol.5241:

Tom Gore.4035:

Never.8571:

tl;dr — We’re not even paying subscription fees! Why are people complaining about content in a (after you pay a flat price) free game?

Some people’s kids..

I’ve spent about 150€ on the game box and gem store so far.

So can I complain now?

You can complain all you want as long as it’s constructive. Non-constructive criticism doesn’t get you anywhere. It doesn’t help the devs diagnose the problem since you’re not specific and you don’t want to help them provide solutions.

Actually, constructive criticism doesn’t get us anywhere either … and that is exactly one of the reasons that there is so much animosity on these forums. I and many, many other players spent many months offering suggestions for improvements and fixes for this game, almost none of which were implemented. Instead, we’ve gotten some things we didn’t ask for, most of which we didn’t even want … bloodlust in WvW being the most glaring recent example.

As far as not paying a subscription fee, that’s a totally bogus and ignorant comment. Many of us have spent quite a lot of money on this game in the gem store, but more importantly almost all of us have invested hundreds and thousands of hours developing our characters and learning how to play them. That’s a HUGE commitment to the game that goes way beyond whatever we initially paid for it, and it is a factor that ANet is critically dependent upon for their continued existence. Any fool who tells those of us who are complaining to simply quit and go elsewhere is a bigger threat to ANet than we are. ANet should be kitten glad that we are still here complaining because at least it says we still care in one form or other, and in most cases it says we’re still playing their game and not someone else’s. Only the totally clueless don’t understand that.

unseenone.1463:

I have to wonder, what is the intended age group for this game? Many of the quests in personal stories especially the orders seem to involve the simplest of plots and dialogue, and they all seem to have banter, even when there is death all around them, like it is just nothing. Much of the acting reminds me of “team rocket” from pokemon. Was this intended?

Shortly after launch last year there were a lot of complaints in the forums about the inane and childish dialogue in the personal stories. The least offensive to player intelligence seemed to be the Asura dialog, with the Norn being the worst (bad enough to get a high schooler a grade of F in a creative writing class). One of the game designers joined the forum to admit that the dialog for the various races was created by different teams, and then was scary clueless enough to say that he didn’t see any problem with any of it. Hope that gives you some level of calibration.