Guild Wars 2

Did they answer any of the really good, tough questions? Or was it all about fluff? Who was there?

rootnode.9546:

Over 1600 and still no word of them…THAT is what’s baffling me.

It’s not going to happen. They’re going to say:

“It appears that most of the people who had an opinion about the issue have already voiced their thoughts.”

And

“Thank you all for your feedback and participation. We appreciate you sharing your thoughts with us.”

Then they’ll close the thread unanswered. And that, my friends, will be that.

Because it’s happened before when people have created mega-threads of concern for this game.

Well, they might come up with a suitable non-answer like this that leaves them a lot of wiggle-room.

Karizee.8076:

Asglarek.8976:

Yeah lets make it more of a WOW clone with every patch gg ANET.

Since that feature was available in GW1 (and in many other games!) why do you call it a WoW clone?

No, it wasn’t available in GW1.

So it seems to me that what all this really boils down to is the Ascended Gear.

If the carrot wasn’t BiS gear, then most small guilds would be fine with having the missions at their own pace, for their own sake.

If you didn’t have to grind out Fractals (which isn’t for everyone) in order to get a BiS backpiece, most folks would be fine with Fractals. They’d play or not as desired. Now I realize you can get a backpiece out of the MF with a recipe, but that’s so stupid expensive it doesn’t really make you feel any better about having to do Fractals if that’s not your cup of tea.

Everyone is equal when it comes to the amulets (despite how annoying the timegating is) because nobody has any particular advantage over anyone else, and the dailies can be accomplished pretty much anywhere just by playing the game.

See the difference, ArenaNet? People just want to play the game. I, personally, feel like I’m starting to be buried into an Ascended pit that I can’t dig my way out of fast enough. I think alot of others do, too.

Please, for the love of Guild Wars, stop now with the Ascended gear. Fundamentally, this is what is kittening people off. We have backpieces and a complete set of accessories. Let’s leave it at that, and just get on with the business of making a really good game instead. That way, when you implement new stuff, people will actually be excited about it.

Cora.9745:

The people who insult and put others down are the ones who are immature and lacking in people skills.

Agree.

And they’re the ones that give the mods the excuses they look for in order to shut down threads. Don’t give them a reason.

Carry on

bluewanders.5297:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chuo.4238:

goldenwing.8473:

Back on topic:

Yes, the only chat channels in GW2 are guild and map.

There is no housing. No place to go and visit.

I’d be hesitant to join a large guild where I would lose the ability to have personal conversations with those I care about.

The problem with this is, someone at ANet will take it to mean that the solution is a private chat. So they’ll implement that and then wonder why everyone is still kittened off.

There already is private chat. I often use it to talk to people when I have to leave the spot where they’re hanging around. Or if I want to have a conversation in Troll’s Arch . . .

No… there is an ability to whisper… which allows you to have a private conversation with exactly 1 user.

That is very different than being able to create a channel for multiple people to converse in… similar to party chat, squad chat, guild chat, map chat….

That’s what I meant by private chat. Creating a channel that only people you invite can join. And it wouldn’t surprise me if ANet decided that this was the solution to this whole small guild vs large guild mission problem. Meaning they’ll completely miss the point, because that’s what they seem to do.

goldenwing.8473:

Back on topic:

Yes, the only chat channels in GW2 are guild and map.

There is no housing. No place to go and visit.

I’d be hesitant to join a large guild where I would lose the ability to have personal conversations with those I care about.

The problem with this is, someone at ANet will take it to mean that the solution is a private chat. So they’ll implement that and then wonder why everyone is still kittened off.

Cora.9745:

stobie.2134:

I wanted to do Guild Missions for the fun of it – I guess all you really get out of it is quicker access to earrings? But that’s ok. Except small guilds can’t do them, apparently. Even if we could unlock them today – and there’s no hurry in that regard – if we can’t actually DO them together, that kind of defeats the purpose. You can ally, but if the point is something together, again – missing the point.

Now would be a really good time for a dev or someone to come in and clear some things up.

It sounds like small guilds may have been able to do some of the bounties….however simply due it a glitch it looks like…

It is so hard to know what these things are intended to be. Are they something that is meant to be done by everyone (small guilds not needing to merge into larger ones)?
Or are they meant to be the GW2 equivalent of a typical mmo raid and it’s simply not functioning properly?

If there is misinformation going around, I would think they would want to clear it up right way!

There isn’t. They probably honestly have no clue what’s going on.

Astralporing.1957:

Amun Ra.6435:

What do you people want? You want the BEST gear in the game for a legion of alts in a matter of weeks? Please explain how that makes sense?

It certainly makes lot more sense than it taking years (during which better eq will show up, by the way, so i will have to start from the beginning).
Basically, i don’t see much sense in the preparing to have fun phase taking a long, long tiime.

I’m sure as hell not going to be spending the next few years preparing to have fun. This game is just disappointment after disappointment. What are they thinking? Do they even know? Who’s making decisions there?

Why the grindy, time-gated, elitist-oriented content? Why the gear tiers? Why all the crap that people hate about MMO’s? I don’t know why ArenaNet has changed – I feel like the studio I spent so many years as a fan of has ceased to exist.

I guess the silver lining here is that other studios have an opportunity to learn from ArenaNet’s mistakes.

Such a disappointment, after all these years of excited anticipation.

Reaver.9256:

If you won’t take my quote seriously then why would I ever take yours? I don’t know though because I’ve read 1000000 of these progression threads and have never seen them saying the game would be strictly a horizontal game.

They never did say that specifically. But based on the nature of GW1, and their manifesto, they implied the hell out of it. So it’s our fault for misunderstanding them, apparently.

Caveat emptor. They’re blameless, but it’s still a dodgy way of doing business.

stobie.2134:

But the dynamics have changed so much, so fast, that I think it’s worth protesting – though from the deafening silence, I’ve come to assume this policy is now written in stone.

We’re probably just doing it wrong.

Voxdeus.1034:

I’m not saying one group or the other is wrong; I think they’re both right to like what they like and want the developers to give them what they like, it’s just that a LOT of people would have given no notice at all to GW2 if they’d been told the truth about it.

Yes, I am one of them. I really, truly believed that this game was better than a gear grind…had I known all this then, I’d never have purchased it.

Reaver.9256:

They will be releasing more levels and more gear to go with those levels. Does that answer your question?

I don’t really want to spend the next year grinding out tier gear. It really looks like this is as bad as everyone thought it would be when they announced Ascended gear.

I just want to do what I want to do, and not have to worry about gear. If I want to grind gear, there are much better games out there for that.

I dunno what’s going on at ArenaNet, but this is just getting worse and worse.

Um. That’s not vertical progression, mate.

KOLZ.4501:

Chuo.4238:

I don’t think this is about whether or not people want things handed to them. I think it’s about them being forced into a playstyle that they don’t like (large guilds). The guild missions are a fantastic idea…but they need to remove the influence cost. It’s not necessary. All it does is create a long, pointless wait where you can’t do anything anyway.

Ah not exactly. They aren’t forced to do anything. If they still want those awards then they just got to work a bit more than (yeah I know it’s a bit more, exaggeration there so what :P) than the large guilds. I didn’t see any where in the patch notes saying that it was mandatory that you got to be ina 250+ person guild to get item X or whatever. Plus if they don’t wanna do the work then simply go on do something else. No one is forced to do anything really. If they want then work on getting it, if it’s too much trouble then don’t and move on.

But that’s exactly my point. Sure, you don’t have to do anything…but if that’s the case you may as well go do something else.

A really creative game designer would find multiple ways for people to accomplish the same goal. That, I think, would keep more people playing, because it would cater to varieties of playstyles.

I don’t think this is about whether or not people want things handed to them. I think it’s about them being forced into a playstyle that they don’t like (large guilds). The guild missions are a fantastic idea…but they need to remove the influence cost. It’s not necessary. All it does is create a long, pointless wait where you can’t do anything anyway.

Eliyahu.1467:

Chuo.4238:

Ojimaru.8970:

But you don’t have concrete proof that these new content, which you include Shadow of the Mad King and Wintersday, alienated “significant groups” of players. All we have are sporadic outcry from vocal forum goers, with positive counterpoints. Are one side’s opinions more valid than the other?

You can kind of tell when the forums are just a low buzz of people QQ-ing over this or that, and when a large number of people are actually upset about something. There’s a difference.

I’m pretty sure that ArenaNet has their head in the sand over it, though. I bet they are still wondering why a large chunk of their playerbase left back in November…

The forums for every game released in recent years is full of pointless whining. The people that enjoy the game spend their time playing the game. The people who enjoy whining post on the forums.

The real tragedy is that the legitimate criticism gets totally drowned out by asinine complaining. I honestly wish the mods would do more thread mergers here. Far too many topics on the front page of these forums are all about the same topics because everyone who has a problem with something like dailies or guild missions feel like they need their own personal soapbox.

I’d like to think that this is probably the reason why ArenaNet doesn’t seem to really listen to their customers. Good feedback is just drowned out in the general QQ.

But I think what’s really going on is they have some formula for how they think they’re going to maximize profits, and they’re trying to fit that square peg into the round hole of what would otherwise be a pretty good game.

So we wind up with poorly implemented gear grinds, content that divides up the playerbase (fractals/open world, big guild/small guild, and so forth), and funnels that push people towards certain areas of the game, away from others, and discourage people from “playing how they want”. It’s like they’re trying to please everyone, and that’s mostly just kitten everyone off.

Moreover, they just can’t seem to fix something without breaking 3 other things. Every major update has been bugged badly when it released; and they had to go into damage control mode to try and fix it.

And they just don’t seem to be in touch with the remaining fragmented community at all. Any given communication might be on 1 or 2 social media sites, but it’s never consistent and everywhere. When mega-threads start forming on their own forums, they either let them go ignored, or the moderators look for the one jerk who violated the ToS and use it as an excuse to shut the thread down.

All this tells me that they aren’t listening to anyone, really, and don’t want to. That certainly doesn’t endear them to me at all.

Who are you people, and what have you done with the wonderful ArenaNet of Guild Wars? This fan’s muti-year loyalty is about stretched as far as it can get, all in the course of a few months.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chuo.4238:

I’m pretty sure that ArenaNet has their head in the sand over it, though. I bet they are still wondering why a large chunk of their playerbase left back in November…

I don’t think they’re wondering about that, I think they’re more going “this seemed like a good idea, why didn’t this work? And now what do we do with the rest of this stuff, should we just leave it half done . . . ?”

Well, fundamentally what they keep doing is forcing people to play in certain ways, and then taking the fun out of playing in those ways. They really need to step back and look at the big picture.

Ojimaru.8970:

But you don’t have concrete proof that these new content, which you include Shadow of the Mad King and Wintersday, alienated “significant groups” of players. All we have are sporadic outcry from vocal forum goers, with positive counterpoints. Are one side’s opinions more valid than the other?

You can kind of tell when the forums are just a low buzz of people QQ-ing over this or that, and when a large number of people are actually upset about something. There’s a difference.

I’m pretty sure that ArenaNet has their head in the sand over it, though. I bet they are still wondering why a large chunk of their playerbase left back in November…

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chuo.4238:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You know, now this thread is winding down and away from actually offering any kind of suggestions or study of the Guild Missions and breaking down into yet more complaints about how people conduct themselves. I don’t think this will last much longer.

Once again, I feel less like trying to chime in because what I have to say doesn’t matter or won’t be actually heard over the rest of it. Even trying to just keep conversation on topic is too much, because by the time I finished sleeping I see this thread has picked up more destructive sentiments than constructive ones.

I’m going back to building sandcastles in Minecraft, someone wake me when it’s over.

I find it interesting that this thread wound down after a bit over 1000 posts, and never even got close to the 11000 mark. Did we lose so many after November 15th? How many will be left to protest the next update?

It’s “wound down” as I put it because we’re no longer making any new points or suggestions. We’re just shouting at each other.

Korrigan.4837:

Mungrul raised a good point.

As a leader, if someone joins my guild just to get to participate in the guild events but doesn’t represent the guild to earn the influence required to start those events, he will get in trouble and will most likely get the boot if he doesn’t change is behavior.

I have a word for that kind of behavior – it’s called a “leech”. And I don’t like leeches. Want to benefit from the size of my guild? You better also participate in building it.

Like the stuff which followed from this.

Like the continuous “ArenaNet owes us answers, aren’t they even reading this?” even as four pages go up in eight hours.

That’s why it’s “winding down”. Not because people have stopped input but because the input isn’t being helpful to the discussion.

So we’ve said our piece, and ArenaNet can take or leave it? Sounds about right.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You know, now this thread is winding down and away from actually offering any kind of suggestions or study of the Guild Missions and breaking down into yet more complaints about how people conduct themselves. I don’t think this will last much longer.

Once again, I feel less like trying to chime in because what I have to say doesn’t matter or won’t be actually heard over the rest of it. Even trying to just keep conversation on topic is too much, because by the time I finished sleeping I see this thread has picked up more destructive sentiments than constructive ones.

I’m going back to building sandcastles in Minecraft, someone wake me when it’s over.

I find it interesting that this thread wound down after a bit over 1000 posts, and never even got close to the 11000 mark. Did we lose so many after November 15th? How many will be left to protest the next update?

I agree. My longtime gaming friends are about to leave and play something else. ArenaNet has a very, very short time in which to respond and take a stance, for a chance to keep us, and people like us around. Ever since November, it’s been one thing after another.

So…ArenaNet…what do you have to say about this?

A lot of opinions here. I’m sure people will choose the one they like best. I’m sure we can all agree, however, that ANet has, once again, upset and alienated another section of the community. Either because this update screws some people or because they can’t communicate and explain why it doesn’t. Fail on ANet’s part, regardless. Again. Recommend some study in project management and communication.

Pirlipat.2479:

You seem not to want to understand, but just to keep you advantage.

The costs to kickoff and event for 10 people is lets say 5k and for 50 people its 50k. research cost are 10k. Why does the big guild have a disadvantage, considering they are gaining influence 10 times faster than a small guild.
Just using numbers as an example

Why have a cost at all? Why not just let guilds do the content if/as they desire? What’s the reason for the cost?

Pirlipat, I’m not asking you-your post made me wonder what ANet would say…

nalenb.1425:

Funny thread. ArenaNet is asking for input but over the 5 days and 20 pages of input, there’s 1 response (there’s another one too but it’s just a quote of another post with no info).

I read that as I was discussing with my guildies how we’re pretty much never going to be able to do the guild content that we’ve been so looking forward to. And I remembered what happened in mid-November.

They’re not in the habit of listening to their players. I’d be absolutely astonished if we got some sort of well-thought, intelligent response from them. I’d probably go buy a lottery ticket (or dump all my rares into the MF) if they actually admitted to making a mistake, apologized to the players, and busted their kittens to try and make it right. I just don’t believe that they care whether or not we have fun, nor do I believe that they’re interested in our inputs outside of whatever money-making formula they’ve got concocted. Why?

Here’s a thread where the community expressed overwhelming dislike for something:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads/first

You can see how far a mega-thread of disappointment got us. You can see how much feedback and communication from ArenaNet came from that.

Wake up, ArenaNet. Get it together, and start interacting with your community. That ivory tower you guys are sitting is is going to look awfully silly when most of your players leave to go play something else.

Nope. But they’re not for everyone, either. Why should we all be forced into the same playstyle?

Why was the OP infracted? ArenaNet does this exact thing every April Fool’s Day. It’s humor!

I find a positive thread that I’m enjoying and…

Iehova.9518:

- Fixed a bug where the game was fun.

Best one ever! I can’t top that, so…

Mungrul.9358:

… I think it’s a perception problem on ArenaNet’s behalf.

They’ve always been a bit weird with economies of scale anyway…

…I think they genuinely got riled by how quick a minority of players got a hold of Legendary weapons, the thing that was supposed to be end game content…

This is further compounded by various obnoxious elements reinforcing these decisions by agreeing that things should be this difficult to get.

I’ve been suspicious that this is the case, as well. Although I’m convinced that some of the people who got Legendaries so quickly did it by purchasing gold from ArenaNet. And I think they’re quite fine with that.

So the only conclusion I can reasonably come to is they’ve equated grind with making money (I applied Occam’s Razor). So what I see here is a graduation from individuals grinding to guilds grinding. A way to subtly coerce more money out of folks.

The only plus side I see to this is that misery now has company.

NB: If you want an explanation why I think that ArenaNet sees grind as money, I can do that, but not here. Don’t want to make yet another TL:DR post that didn’t get read.

rstripn.8697:

The sheer amount of upset over the new guild mission system should be enough to tell the people in charge at ANet that they have made a mistake.

Sadly, I doubt it. Remember this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads/first

I won’t have my gear in a year, because in a year I won’t be playing, if the game keeps going this direction.

So: they destroyed my small guild by adding this guild content for tier gear, but conveniently left me a way to grind my kitten off to get it without them.

Brilliant.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

As this has probably been buried deep by know, I would like to quote Izzy again. I put aspects of his post that touch on the actual discussion in bold:

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

I know there have been some concerns about Guild Bounties being in the Art of War line. Our goal with this system is to give guilds activities and long-term progression that they can accomplish by working together as a guild. These missions are meant to be difficult and challenging to not only unlock, but to accomplish.

We would also like to make every guild upgrade line valuable to every guild. Currently, Art of War is very focused on PvP and WvW, but our plan is to continue to add more guild upgrades in the Art of War line to accomplish this. These Guild Missions are the first step. Along with this system, we also added a number of new guild upgrades that guilds can earn.

In the end, our goal for all of this content is to give guilds new goals and challenges to accomplished once they have researched deeply into each line, as well as require guilds to have researched multiple lines to unlock some upgrades. We expect guild members to have to work together as a guild to earn the influence needed to unlock these new missions, as well as overcome the challenge of the missions themselves.

In the future, we plan to continue to add more guild upgrades, as well as continue to add challenging guild missions, as we don’t want guilds to run out of goals and accomplishments they can achieve.

~Izzy @-’—-

Are we playing the same game? Seems like you missed the point by about…well..as far as it can be missed.

Maybe have some third party read these forums and give you some highlights on what people are saying here. Because you clearly don’t know.

Edit: do what the poster above me suggested and read all of the post by Martipzieu-KyA. With an open mind to constructive criticism. Maybe hire this guy.

Nice post, Aranel. I agree with it, for the record, incase anyone who makes decisions at ArenaNet is actually reading this, and is actually interested, which by now, I really doubt.

Maybe ArenaNet uses their own RNG to make decisions…

Make a “loot table”, roll some dice…

Odds of something really cool happening? 0.0000000001216

VidGhost.3215:

The requests of many outweigh those of the of the few. (some people want gear grind) I don’t but i DO really like the ascended stuff!
The stupid thing about that is the few are the people who play this game day in and day out and the many are the ones that will move onto the next big thing after 3-6 months.

We can look forward to server consolidation as the player base shrinks. But i do hope that the game becomes more popular and grows massive!.. i really do hope they move in the right direction for us to continue to enjoy this awesome game.

I HATE WOW more then anything i would never play a WOW clone

I’d agree, except all I see are people hating gear grind…I don’t see people asking for it.

laokoko.7403:

and what’s wrong with joining a large guild.

When you’ve been gaming with the same dozen or so friends for years, and have always enjoyed your own guild, there is a HUGE problem with being forced into a giant no-name guild of people you don’t know, and often won’t like.

As best as I can tell, this is going to destroy small guilds, because people are going to need to join bigger ones to have a chance at tier gear.

Why would you do this? Why?

Was anyone actually surprised that the new, highly anticipated guild missions are bugged and grindy?

If not, is that what you mean by awesome?

Well, I got to see this before it got deleted, and for the record that’s about to be deleted, I agree with the OP.

“We don’t make grindy games”
What a laugh.

Suggestion: The people who actually play MMO’s know what they like, and what they don’t like. Consider listening to them.

I just realized that I’ve been looking forward to today’s update all week, until I read this thread. Now I’m dreading it.

I guess every major update after this will be more of the same…

Afro Dude.8423:

Mungrul.9358:

I’ve never had 50 ectos at one time. Running a full stable of alts puts paid to that, and my rare/exotic drop rate isn’t what I’d call generous. I’m more likely to get to 40 laurels before I get 50 ectos.
This new gearing policy of theirs that relies on grind is positively hateful.
I want max gear for peanuts, just the way it was in GW1.
All these eejits insisting that max stats should require grind because that’s how every other MMO does it have spoiled this game.

Ah well, yet another reason to continue not to buy gems.
As long as they continue with this despicable behaviour, I’ll continue to play without giving them a cent of money.
They can pay for me to play.

Well said buddy, the requirements for the new items are downright stupid for anyone that doesn’t like to grind to no tomorrow. Infact, here’s a key quote from the staff found here :“I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun!”

Yes, because it sure is “fun” needing to grind dailies for ridiculous amounts of time (30-70 dailies & counting if you can sign in every day.) just to outfit one of my characters with gear that doesn’t put her at a fixed statistical disadvantage.

I was soooooooo excited for GW2 after reading that and other blog posts like it.

This game is near opposite of what I thought it would be. The old spirit of Guild Wars is pretty well dead and buried.

I hate to say it, mate, but you are right. This game is moving direclty away from “fun” and directly toward “Pavlovian”.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Just wanted you guys to know that these are also available as guild mission rewards as well. You can get them as random rewards from completing missions or from the commendation vendor.

Ah. So I can grind them for 50 ectos and 40 laurels, or hope for RNG. Thanks for clarifying, but this doesn’t really make me feel any better. I don’t grind enough for RNG to have any significant effect on me. This has got to be the most frustrating way to get tier gear.

I hate required grind. I hate required RNG. Funnily enough, GW had neither. This game is marinated in both. I really need to find a new game.

Mungrul.9358:

The traditional Guild Wars way of “Differentiating yourself” was through titles and aesthetics. This was more than good enough for the first game.
It wasn’t until the WoW-rejects came to GW2 that this new, disgusting, elitist, abusive thinking became prevalent.
If you’re dedicated, better looking stuff and shiny titles should be enough.
Having better gear than the masses because you’ve got more time to play than them doesn’t make you a better player. In fact, it could be argued it makes you a worse one. You have to rely on unfair statistical advantages gained through grind in order to beat everyone else.

That sums it up well, and I agree.

Sadly, I don’t think we’re in Guild Wars anymore, Toto. This blows. I need a new game.

Aberrant.6749:

EASY way to get ecto’s…

Run CoF

Turn in 30 tokens for level 70 RARE armors (you’ll have enough from each first run on each toon to do this twide)

Salvage

Profi… err… Ectos.

You may now continue on about how getting 50 ecto’s is just too hard…

There might be a valid argument that this would put another step in between you and legendary jewelry… if/when legendary jewelry comes out though… but for now I see no conflict

Right…so run the same dungeon 25-30 times….how fun.

This kind of price for gear with the best stats is ridiculous. What happened to grinding for cosmetic items, but no grind for stats? I thought ArenaNet didn’t make grindy games?

80 levels is 60 too many. No more, please.

tolunart.2095:

The alternative: make it easier to obtain a legendary weapon. Everyone who wants one grinds until they get it, or two or three… and in a month the complaints start…

I didn’t say make it easier. I said take the RNG out of it.

But will it be ready?

(tongue-in-cheek humour, smile)