Guild Wars 2

Go to PvP if you want that. I personally enjoy just seeing every look like (and usually act like) a trash mob – I feel no regret in defeating them.

If we ever got something like GW1’s bonus mission pack, playing as a small group of skritt would be great. Or perhaps a fractal?

Gold drop boosting could cause issues, but those others couldn’t? O_o

Magic find boosts only help a minuscule chance become slightly less minuscule, karma would be like gold – a very sizeable increase to a stable currency reward. As for XP and WXP… do those really need to be easier?

It’s a nice thought, but I’d rather see them be used to make magic find potions or such, which could be used on top of current consumables (so combat stat buffs aren’t sacrificed). That’s just me though.

I’ll accept that warriors’ ranged single-target conditions have been nerfed with this. Now, do all the other classes have strong single target/AoE melee/ranged power/crit/condition combinations; combined with the warrior’s innate tankiness and simplicity?

I thought not. The class needed toning down.

Your location
England, middle of nowhere.

Time and date of incident (plus time zone)
Completely random times, but hundreds, if not thousands of incidents over the last several months.

Game World
Desolation (does this really matter with megaservers, anyway?)

Brief description of what you’re seeing
The game lags; things continue to move and skill animations continue indefinitely (my character; other characters and NPCs); then either eventually comes back (usually to me being dead) or being kicked back to the character select screen.

I can’t really provide any useful statistics, but I think a look at the actual server would help. When the random lag doesn’t happen, I can handle anything this game can throw (even Vizunah Square’s blob on max settings, back in the days when they were undisputed champions of EU).

Stormcrow.7513:

Make them an ingame reward for the love of Balthazaar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Earn your gold in game, convert to gems and purchase it. There.

It’s a nice idea, but just seems like another “kill 100 boars” level grind, the sort we’re trying to get away from. At the end of the day: we have sigils. They’re not limited to particular weapons, so it’s an even playing field, and there’s no luck in getting the right weapon with the right effect. Even if it were non-combat bonuses, it would just make some weapons superior to others (such as legendary vs. ascended).

The idea is that you’re supposed to kill the enemies, not walk past them. I know this doesn’t happen, but yeah, that’s what the devs were thinking.

To be honest, Megaservers need a tweak on EU servers full stop. I usually know just enough French and German to understand what people are saying and maybe even give them advice, but that’s it. I know everyone else will scale from only speaking their native language to multilingual. But when we have several instances of a zone, all of mixed languages, it does just feel like a mess. At the very least, keep up one instance of each of the supported languages (unless it’s the dead of night in an abandoned zone); and don’t just dump the leftovers in the English speaking one – let’s face it, that’s where the toxicity stems from.

I don’t want to discriminate, I don’t mind people speaking their own language and I actually usually prefer to play with random mainland European players than my fellow Englishmen (sorry, but the vocal amongst us can be quite pathetic sometimes…) – but it’s difficult to communicate and co-ordinate with people who you share no common language with. When we’ve got multiple instances of a zone up, please put more emphasis on language.

Still, at least it’s not as bad as Dota 2… Russians should stick to searching for Russian.

It’s doing exactly as it says – moving you to another copy of the map, once which probably won’t be doing as well as your own. Especially in the case of Dry Top, it’d be best if the current reward tier was taken into account; and not just closing an instance just because it’s old – only if it’s nearly empty.

I agree that things are a bit stale, but segregating rewards and change purely for the sake of change are not going to help. Take a look around the forums, some big and hopefully impacting things are in the works.

I’m okay with this.

Play through as a warrior, faceroll everything with 1, then wander into a level 80 zone on an underlevelled mesmer. What could possibly go wrong?

In all seriousness – no, just no. We might as well just have an option to skip the game.

Congratulations!

I’ve been tempted to do the same through tomes of knowledge, but the tutorial’s so empty and lifeless compared to the Pre-Searing.

And add badge options to regular laurel vendors too…

What’s missing is that you, like far too many players, are seeing everything as a grind that must be ground out. Do you know why ascended gear was added? Because people were demanding grind in a game that wasn’t supposed to be grindy. Why have farming spots been nerfed continuously? Because they weren’t originally intended to be farmed like that.

Set the shiny object as a long term goal and let it come naturally, it happens. Doing content at nearly any level can yield plenty of valuable resources. As for specific ones – it’s usually best not to go out farming them and simply buy them with money earned elsewhere. I know it can be quite expensive, but that’s due to people playing trading post simulator and far too many people falling into the boat of treating the game as one huge grind.

Play for fun, the legendaries will come.

As for Dry Top – yes, that was a great zone and we could use a few more like it, preferably with varying settings.

GOSU.9574:

It should not be a gem required item.

The item should be in the game.

You do know that you could just obtain the gold in the game, then convert it to gems instead; right? There’s no difference between earning gold to buy an item from an NPC and earning gold to convert to gems to buy an item from the gem store.

I just use my royal terrace pass and waypoint to the human zone for free. It takes a couple of extra seconds, but it’s much better than being teleported to the sylvari home instance with its repair NPC; its poor, lonely repair NPC…

As a proud (read: lucky) owner of Foostivoo, I’d like to say this – screw my RNG during a small time frame, let everyone have a shot at this amazing creature! As long as it has to be earned in some way, I’m fine with these minis making a reappearance.

As someone who followed the game since it was first announce, I’ve never heard Anet say anything about it. Consider the setting for a second – of course there will be arenas. It doesn’t mean that they were intended for us.

I’d rather be able to combine the rare and exotic fractal bags to create a rare+ bag: any gear above rare quality automatically goes into that bag – be it rare, exotic or ascended (legendary gear does not drop, sorry). The current bag for just exotics just stays empty for me. :s

Perhaps if we could use them to create potions of luck?

Free sigil (and even skin) swapping on legendaries really is a must before I’ll really bother with them. What’s the point in being able to change stats on the fly if I can’t change the sigil too? I can’t change my build like that! Swapping skins freely would be a nice bonus too though, I’m fed up of carrying multiple exotics just to change things up.

How about an NPC who trades a box for 50 spoons?

I like it just as it is, I’ve paid for it to be as it is. There’s nothing girly about birds (or butterflies, for that matter). Let’s hope you never roll a mesmer.

This still doesn’t address the issue of watchwork pick > molten pick/bone pick. Why would I want to buy an item from the gem store, if I know Anet are completely fine with making a superior version of it later on, leaving me out of pocket for something inferior? Also, cosmetics and functionality are always kept separate in this game, so why should I have to use a pickaxe I aesthetically hate to get the best bonus?

This was a nice suggestion, but still leaves some of us very unhappy.

I’d love to have these titles, and Lightbringer’s Gaze for that matter…

Well, I’ll throw out my opinions on the matter, never know if it’ll push something far enough to happen:

• The “fix” to the personal story needs to be a proper one, not just quickly adjusting a few lines of dialogue to pretend the greatest fear part never happened. Hopefully that arc wasn’t fully deleted and is available to reintroduce. I’d suggest starting the story at level 1 and keeping the level 10, 20, 30, etc thereafter this will make room for the greatest fear arc.
• Gathering, bundles, skill points, etc are not advanced mechanics and do not need to be gated or moved away from the beginning. Tell new players about these things later on, sure – otherwise you are just hurting anyone who has played a video game before.
• Remove the heal skill prompt arrow thingy! Keep it until level 10, only on the first character; or make it a toggle or something, please! I’ve actually died because of this kittening thing – it covers up your buff bar and makes things like poison hard to see, thus minimising the effectiveness of your heal. Besides that, I can imagine it being quite distracting in such a situation.
• Make traits more accessible. I know the trait change wasn’t a part of this update, but they do tie together very well. I’m completely fine with unlocking things, I really am, but can we be sensible here? I’d propose giving every character the first tier of traits for free, then making the later tiers account-wide. Unlocked the fourth trait tree’s VII on your guardian? Your thief and elementalist will have it too! It was earned, but not excessively gated.
• Make use of hints. Sure, I didn’t use them when I started, but that’s because I like to dive in and play around with a game’s mechanics. When a player unlocks, for example, traits – have a nice useful hint appear explaining them in some detail. If they want to read it another time, point out the hints menu or something.
• Make new players aware of other reference sources, including the wiki, the forums, the hints menu and other players. I can’t stress this enough. We have two years of veteran experience available here, we wouldn’t need any of these new player experience changes if people used them (and their own brains, I’m sorry, but the update did dumb things down to vegetable level).
• Make stain gain per-level again. This really messes up downscaling and such, enough said there.
• Maybe put a bit more useful information into the actual tutorial, instead of making everything before level 80 one huge tutorial. I’ve seen other games go in that direction and it’s just downhill from there (if you want an example, RuneScape).

Well, I’ve got the negatives out of the way. I’ll be fair and give praise where praise is due:

• The dodge tutorial. Quick, simple, to the point and not obstructive to existing players and people who know what they’re doing.
• The new hearts (the new ones, not the revamped ones). While I didn’t like to see my escaped cows event (blasted cows!) turned into cleaning out cobwebs, we can live without that. It was easier to reach a heart sooner into the game.
• The idea of making each level feel rewarding. While I don’t think you succeeded here, the idea was great and it’s definitely something to work with. Perhaps instead of gating information, stats and large blobs of skill points; you could give players an actual reward? There are some nice ones every so often, but maybe some fun items along the way? Or crafting materials and an explanation of how to craft your new reward from them?

Sorry for the lists not being balanced, but that just shows how I felt about the new player experience. For what it’s worth, I absolutely loved the reworked crafting UI, trading post UI (most of the hate seems to be from people who play trading post simulator, something else that needs to be addressed in my opinion), the miniatures/finishers UI and (again) the idea of collections. Please don’t let people get a stranglehold of the economy before the update’s even live. More non-tradeable, non-RNG-based ones would be great!

Anyway, I hope this wall of text helps.

I would never do a jumping puzzle again if this happened.

joshc.3129:

I’m sure Anet would love it if you supplied them with the money needed to cover wages and all the time and effort that would be put into making new content like new skills, races, maps, instances and so on.

If they made an expansion and let us buy it, then we would. As for the initial cost, NCSoft has money, you know.

The funny thing is, Extra Credit’s free to play playlist down the side does have an appropriate video – metrics.

If we could just get the .abc system (and actual music notes, not solfege), this wouldn’t even be an issue. =/

If we just had the story blocks start at level one, we’d have room for this removed block. Simple.

Basically what lordkabal said. Some of it’s fine, but things such as gating skills even further does hurt the experience. I’ve made a level one, they’re now level twenty one… no more, just no more. These changes, combined with the trait system introduced previously, make it take forever to actually customise your character beyond an auto-attacker who can occasionally use one or two slightly different attacks.

A simple pop-up style hint upon receiving a new skill slot or feature, as we had before, but perhaps with a bit more of an in-depth explanation (including a link to the wiki, if need be) would have sufficed.

Also, barring bundle items and hiding certain exploration thingies wasn’t exactly necessary either.

ColinJohanson.2394:

I just want to quickly add, there are some errors on this chart of how stuff is unlocking, as well as 1st character vs. account unlocks when some of these systems were carried between regions. We’re trying to identify what happened and repair those things assigned the wrong account/character fields, as well as levels.

The sad thing, Colin, is that nothing here looks like a bug; everything fits together perfectly. We don’t want or need a bug fix here, we want to be able to access our now gated skills and traits (we still haven’t forgotten) on our alts; and new players need to be able to access them to not immediately quit the game and demand a refund. There were some good changes with this update (crafting, wardrobe) and some that had good potential but need some tweaking (collections, trading post), but level gating anything was just plain stupid. The way levelling worked at release was near enough perfect. I don’t really care what data you guys have been given to say that it drives new players away – all of your players at any time in Guild Wars 2’s life were new players and we got through it just fine. Leaving has been due to lack of content, too much focus on the gem store, Living Story and Anet not fixing issues soon enough (for example, Desolation vs Vizunah Square… we lost so many people…).

Best of luck with fixing this latest update, but it needs to be swift and it needs to change the new system completely, not just rearrange a few things. No gamers will pick up this game if it stays for new players, and no gamers will stay if you dumb the game down.

It would calm down the uproar, but it wouldn’t retain new players… which was ultimately Anet’s gold.

There was also the issue of a businessman being put in charge and then investors taking over the company with a majority share – trying to force online subscription, micro-transactions and store bought game time cards at once, but yes… all of this is still relevant.

Attract new players by actually improving the game or large amounts of new content.

They could just make the story start at level one, shift a bunch of chapters down in level and fit the missing chapter back in perfectly… move the key reward around if needed.

Actually, the oakheart survived the champion train nerf, along with one champion in each of the starter zones. The patch notes did state that they’d be rebalancing stronger enemies in starter zones with this update, so that’s why.

So long and thanks for all the fish. =/

Put a sticker over it.

I have no doubt that Anet are reading the threads like this that are popping up all over; but it’s just whether they’ll acknowledge them, admit to their mistakes and rectify them in a timely manner.

Well, this combined with the trait changes means that I won’t be making an alt any time soon. Sure, the game will be more appealing to hyper-casuals now (maybe?), but no gamer is going to take it seriously now.

Well, I’m glad at least one person approves of these changes.

Just as I said to the other thread: please, no. I like to equip certain titles on certain characters – and sometimes no title at all. I don’t want my thief to have some silly rainbow glow effect, nor do I want to feel that I need to equip a title I dislike for an effect I like. There’s no reason for anything to be tied to titles.

• Titles are titles
• Buffs are buffs
• Cosmetics are cosmetics

If you want to add new versions of any of the above, please do so (as long as players don’t explode from their glowing and footsteps…) – but keep them separate.

No, no they shouldn’t. I don’t want to have to run around with a silly title equipped for a competitive bonus, nor do I want to see anyone penalised for missing now unobtainable titles.

Yes, it has been bad recently. Did you know that the game’s been DDOSed and they’re working on server performance (which has been announced)? I’ve been disconnected plenty from WvW as well, but there’s no need to come across so angry about it.

P.S. Reminding people about their connection, local exchanges and how good the servers are for that particular person isn’t white knighting.

Riddle me this:

• What is the point of an infinite gathering tool, if you have to visit an NPC to get it out of the bank instead of having to visit a different NPC to buy a regular gathering tool?
• What is the point of an infinite bank from anywhere item, if you have to visit a bank to get it in the first place?
• What is the point of being able to teleport to and access an area with bank, trading post, crafting stations, etc if it kicks you out for not having the pass on your character and you can’t withdraw the pass from said area; but instead have to go to a bank to get the pass to use the area?

I have these “convenience” items on my guardian, my “main”. Why is my guardian a main? Because she can use these convenience items hassle-free, while none of my other characters can. Anet really should just bite the bullet with this one and make them account-wide unlocks; refunding gems to those who’ve stocked up on duplicates. The upcoming UI changes look perfect for this sort of thing as well…

I agree, but it’s doubtful that it’ll ever happen. We’d also want other account bound things like the copper-fed salvage-o-matic to be available so easily.

You are downscaled in lower level areas, this game’s end game doesn’t start at level 80. There’s nothing stopping you playing these lower level events and being rewarded for them…