Guild Wars 2

Zaxares.5419:

I’ve never understood why people care about being unique from other players. You shouldn’t need validation from others to be happy. Besides, with so many different skins in the game, coupled with dyes, titles and minipets, it’s not that hard to make yourself a unique appearance, if that’s what you really care about.

Anyway, back on the original topic, I wouldn’t rule out the original Halloween items returning. ANet has shown on numerous occasions now that we should never, EVER assume that a previously exclusive item is never coming back. (Btw, did you guys know that all the stuff like the Fervid Censer and the Dragon Helm that was exclusive to LS1 rewards can be bought from the Laurel Vendors?)

The point of exclusivity isn’t that “others don’t have it”, it’s that “I earned this”. Currently there are so few skins in the game that have any meaning whatsoever other than “I grinded/bought gold”. Dungeon tokens are incredibly easy to get. Fractal skins are RNG. SAB has been turned off indefinitely…

While I prefer skill as a means of giving this (e.g. if Liadri was a permanent feature), basic loyalty is about all we can currently hope for. The Fervid Censer wasn’t difficult to get, but it at least had a slight semblance of meaning (and, as I said, the Desert Rose meant that it did so without others missing out).

Another vote for, before anything else, fix traits.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

TrOtskY.5927:

How the new trait system should have worked

> Go to map X and complete Y number of Heart quests

> Go to map Z and complete W number of Vistas

> Complete a total number heart quests across all maps

> Unlock all your tier 2 utility skills on your character

> Kill 1,000 enemies in PvE total

ETC

How it works

> Go to this obscure place and do this obscure quest

> Complete an entire specific map that is at the opposite end of the world to where your character starts

> Go to WvW and kill the absolutely huge boss that takes an entire zerg like 15 minutes to kill

Basically what I am saying is that the direction was ok, but the application was god awful.

I think your system would have been terrible too, for the record. I mean, sure, it doesn’t include the Grub from what I see but . . . still looks bad.

I don’t like it, but what’s really bad is that it’s still a significant improvement on what we have. The current set up is terrible both in theory AND in application.

If they absolutely insisted on the character bound setup we have now, then the most tolerable idea to me would be something like:

Staff Mastery = 500 kills with a staff
Falling Damage reduction = Lose > 70% of your health from falling and survive

But even then, it just hugely discourages experimentation and makes levelling boring. The system is fundamentally broken as it stands and I’m truly amazed that they haven’t at the very least made the unlocks account bound.

Aaaaaand 2,500 posts basically ignored. I can’t believe all we’ve had so far is “Sorry, wasn’t paying attention there, could you maybe summarise the most superficial changes we could make?”

I think ANet had, and then threw away, the perfect opportunity to please (almost) everyone with the Fervid Censer/Desert Rose skins. The Fervid Censer was exclusive, and the Desert Rose wasn’t. Both were equally cool, so people who were at the event had a special reward, but everyone still got the chance for the same type of skin.

The same with The Fiery Dragon Sword, and Jormag’s Breath. Both equally cool, one is exclusive, one isn’t. Everyone is rewarded.

I’m hoping that if and when they rerelease the Mad Memoires (and to a lesser extent the Ghastly shield) they change the flame/grin colour. I do think everyone should be able to get something of equal quality in the same style, but that the game sorely needs rewards for loyalty/skill/persistence etc. This is why the SAB skins were so good. Anyone can get the blue version, which means no one loses out, but the green and yellow versions have a sense of “been there done that”.

Malkavian.4516:

Personally, they aren’t saying anything about not bringing back SAB anymore because I know for a fact that they will given enough time. I’d say this would be used as filler content around the end of Season 2 I would expect.

Well, I’m curious as to why you think you know this as fact. Nor why you think you can predict the release period given that we’re currently on an LS break, the original SAB was an April release, the second was a “back to school” September release, and many predicted both of these as times for a return previously.

Even if you were correct though, what’s keeping quiet going to achieve that is positive? You keep things a surprise for a little while if you think it will excite people. Keeping quiet for (at minimum) 15 months isn’t exciting, it’s frustrating and so far has led to actual (in game) rioting. Angering your customers for over a year isn’t good marketing.

Wanze.8410:

What i gathered from the Things to Come Blog post is that SAB is not being released again anytime soon and they dont have a schedule for it now. Evne though it might not be what you have hoped for, but it was adressed.
As you mentioned, the Traits Topic went out of line a long time ago. Either someone is willing to put in an effort and summarize that monster in a new thread or not.
I honestly dont know what a dev could post in there to make the situation a bit better, unless they have definite trait changes on the horizon.
They mentioned many times they read threads but not always comment, so i would assume that the good feedback and suggestions went trough and will be considered next time they overhaul traits.

Both issues can be (semi) solved by explaining the reasoning behind them.

With SAB, the best explanation for why they haven’t turned it back on is “because it doesn’t fit with the Living Story”. Do I even need to defend why that hasn’t been accepted as a good explanation? If they have a reason not to turn at least W1 and W2 back on, then the customers who paid real money for infinite continue coins deserve an explanation as to why. It’s been a year now.

With traits, the reasoning we got was to do with encouraging build experimentation and giving a sense of progression. I haven’t seen anyone who didn’t consider the update to do the exact opposite of encouraging build experimentation, and many are frustrated by the way in which the “progression” was implemented. The explanation simply doesn’t make sense, and no one has taken the time to clarify what the reasoning was.

In both instances, the coding for a solution is done. SAB already exists, and the trait system was (much) better in March than it is now. If they don’t have the ability to turn SAB on for some reason, or revert (or at least account bound) the trait unlocks, then a simple explanation as to why would be huge progress.

As it stands, the game was made much worse for many people (and to my knowledge, no better for anyone other than those who don’t want others to play SAB for some reason) and six to twelve months later we have no indication as to why.

Torsailr.8456:

I believe it was actually the leak of the commander tag changes that precipitated everything with the communication issue. SAB came up in the wake of that.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps, I honestly can’t remember. They came out nearly simultaneously, if not in the same interview.

[QUOTE]

I would argue that communication has gone up, not just the appearance of it.
*Guild Halls, one of the more prominent things people talk about have a CDI starting tomorrow.
*The WvW Siege troll and population balance issues, both long time problems, have a dev actively participating in the discussion.
*The commander tag issue saw discussion and was changed before release.
*The Traits discussion got a dev post saying things were being reconsidered.
*The economy forum still has a dev actively talking to players.

This is just what I recall of the top of my head. There is plenty of communication to be had. Whether or not it interests you is a different issue.

I disagree, for the most part:

1) Guild Halls – yes, discussion of guilds has finally happened. This was actually despite most people saying that it was the wrong time for it, because it was released in the middle of the disaster that was the first week of the NPE. But despite this it was at least an improvement on previous months.
2) There have always been occasional posts in some threads. I don’t follow the WvW forum enough to know if those topics are the ones that needed attention. Maybe someone else can give insight there.
3) Yes, this happened, but we have no idea what would have happened without the “increase”. The original tag system was utterly ridiculous, we can’t say whether it would have made it to release before that.
4) The traits thread got a red post saying “Hi, we haven’t been listening and we aren’t going to make any of the big changes required, but if you compile a list of superficial changes from the last 47 pages (because we can’t be bothered to read everything we’ve ignored thus far) we’ll have a think about it.”
5) The economy forum has always been well engaged with.

So yeah, I do acknowledge that red posting has increased, and I don’t want to be labelled as “one of those players who is never happy no matter what you do”. I love the game, I was really happy when the “communicating” thread opened, and I’m posting because I care about GW2 succeeding. However the topics that were important and ignored before the change are still important and ignored.

The problem with doing a full set at a time is that it removes any prestige from the duration of the entire unlocking of the second set. As soon as you unlocked one armour set, and your first (or second if you take two one handers) pinnacle skin, there is nothing you can do to your character’s look for like 18,000 AP before you would stand out.

There are so few prestigious skins in the game due to the distribution systems in place, having at least one avenue for players to get some seems reasonable.

It could be a solution to give both the Radiant and Hellfire sets up to 18,000 (as in, you unlock both at each tier), then introduce a new pair after 18,000. That way players with more than 18k have something to work towards while players under 18k do too. But having goals for sub-18k and then repeating the same goals for another 18k doesn’t seem like a good idea.

Wanze.8410:

Posts from various devs across mosts forums have increased significantly within the last couple of weeks, not only in that closed topic.
So just open a new topic on whatever concerns you or post in an existing one.
And dont expect a dev response for every issue.

Last week i read a post of Chris, in which he basically apologized for maybe not being able to post for a day because his daughter was sick and other family issues.
I really appreciate all his hard work and time he spent on the forums during the last weeks but I kinda find it disturbing that he feels he has to apologize in advance and explain himself if he doesnt post for a day, while alot of his posts came in after work or on the weekend anyways.
Kinda shows how demanding the forum users are.

The thing is, while the number of red posts went up, the two biggest issues that were being asked about at the time of the protest were SAB and traits (there have been bigger issues before and since). Neither of those have been addressed despite Occupy SAB being what raised the communication issue above being ignorable in the first place (or if not, was highly coincidental to that), and the traits system thread now being 50 pages of pretty much unanimous hatred. The appearance of communication has gone up, but actual communication on things that matter has pretty much stayed the same.

Guhracie.3419:

The lock on the “Communicating With You” thread is pretty much the icing on this cake, and it’s not the kind of cake you want to eat.

What really confuses me is that, at this point, this seems like it MUST be a command from above. This big an issue, that is basically universally hated (even the people I tend to think are a bit white-knight-y have spoken against it), and no word at all despite the “increase” in communication. But, assuming this is an order from above, why was it made? The new system puts people off buying alt slots and recommending the game to others. Even if we assume that there’s some bizarre logic that it will attract new players, account-bound unlocks would have the same effect, without turning everyone else away.

How is not making the unlocks account bound financially sensible???

Liraela.3601:

Bad. Really Bad Anet. Still no response…

Bring back SAB! LS will be few weeks later…. This is good time for it!

I am amazed that a protest about SAB led to increased developer presence on the forums, and a thread on communication, and there still hasn’t been any word on it…

Okay, this was great, and fast. Account bound unlocks.

Now please do the same for traits!!! It’s a much bigger problem, and it’s been six months now!

This makes sense. Anyone who owns a continue coin gets access for free, and the coin goes back in the store for anyone else to buy.

Heck, if it costs resources I wouldn’t even object to paying extra for worlds three and four if and when they’re ready.

Not only would this mean people who want SAB would buy coins, but also people who want SAB skins. It also rewards (and pacifies) the people who paid money for the coin a year ago and then felt ignored/ripped off.

I don’t know what to vote. I’m kind of indifferent to the newest changes, there’s a mix of good and bad in there. But I hate the trait changes that are still in effect since April.

Valento.9852:

jucca.8219:

Infinite Coin 600 Gems it’s so awesome.

Can you please stop? That purchase will be usable when they turn SAB back on again. I feel bad for Josh when I read this kind of complaint, hope to see World 3 soon.

Why would you feel bad for Josh? Its showing that we want to play the content.

Also, that purchase was bought for something that has been gone for a year, and given the latest update on the future, won’t be around for at least a few months. Buying an item with real money in September 2013 that, at the earliest, won’t be usable until 2015, isn’t okay.

I might have agreed that the complaints were too many too soon, except for the fact that despite nearly 50 pages of complaints about trait changes over six months, almost nothing was done and finally a dev arrived to say ask people to summarise because the thread was too long.

Fifty pages wasn’t enough to turn around the disaster that is the trait patch, and rather than improve levelling, this patch has made it worse (from most people’s perspective, I actually don’t really mind the changes myself).

If people care about the game, and feel that important changes need to be made, then it seems like making as much noise as possible is the only way to be heard. Anything less is simply ignored.

pdavis.8031:

Pretty much.

It’s like going to the store and buying skis to go skiing. You use them and have a wonderful time. But then you move to the desert for an indefinite period of time. Would it be reasonable to demand, or recieve, a refund for the skiis? Not at all. Should you expect a refund for the skis, just because you can’t go skiing in the middle of the desert? Most certainly not, and expecting such a refund doesn’t reflect kindly on what type of person you (not you specificially, but the general you) really are.

But it isn’t like that, because it isn’t you making the choice.

What it is like, is buying an infinite ski-lift pass, knowing that the ski season is only occasional. Then the ski lift owner closes the lift after a month and leaves, giving no indication of ever coming back.

Bloodstealer.5978:

OH NO!!.. whatever will we do, no SAB still .. .. I know lets all hang out in Rata Sum and do a storm dance, or maybe a RIOTto force them to bring it back.. that’ll work!

Gees… so it all begins again.. get over it!
SAB probably doesn’t fit their plans for a little while, but “IF” they decide to pop it back in game then I am sure they will let us all know in due course… or maybe we might just log in one day and be pleasantly surprised, but until then take comfort in the fact there is a plethora of other similar threads to “OCCUPY” your time whilst your parked outside the entrance waiting for the doors to re-open.. .. either that or find something else to whine about sheez.

Where exactly was the whining? I asked if we could have confirmation on it coming back or not.

If you’re disinterested in SAB, that’s fine.

So, there are no PvE content updates throughout September:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-events-in-guildwars2/

Given this was the perfect, and expected traditional period. And the fact that October is Halloween, and then we’re into Season 2, which SAB is apparently incompatible with, it looks like SAB actually isn’t coming back.

Can we please get confirmation so we can start getting refunds on our infinite continue coins yet?

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.

Don’t suppose maybe you might look at the account/character fields for trait unlocks at the same time would you ?

If the changes actually benefit new players, then the obvious answer is to only make the changes apply for any character created on an account that does not already have at least one level 80 (or better, 40) character. Or, even more obvious, give an option on character creation as to whether you want NPE on or off.

Throw in account bound trait unlocks (or, again, have an option on character creation) and all problems vets have with the new systems go away.

Errant Venture.9371:

I think it depends on the topic. A CDI on guilds seems a bit superficial right now, when the major concern of the community appears to be the massive changes to the leveling system.

Things like level-gating resource gathering, salvaging and skill points; the issues with the new compass directing brand new players to high end zones; and preventing players from having full access to their class’s abilities until they’re halfway done leveling all seem like far more pressing issues at the moment

Let’s not forget that the trait system is still horrendous, the feature patch just added to how much people hate levelling.

I agree that a CDI on the feature patch changes to levelling and previous changes to traits (though I think the community has spoken on both) would be a good idea now. Guild stuff, while incredibly important and overlooked for waaaaaay to long, isn’t what people are thinking about currently.

Also, given how important it was in kicking off the communication, can we please have word on SAB?

PookieDaWombat.6209:

With the handful of trait changes in this last patch I can’t imagine this being more than a time game for the devs. Give a few things here and there and hope enough time goes by that no one cares to push or additional changes.

I hope that isn’t the case… this isn’t something that will go away. People will be reminded about how awful this is every single time they make a new character. Given how many strikingly easy fixes are available (account unlocks/ full revert/ unlock adept and master etc.) it also won’t ever seem like something too difficult, or too late, to fix.

This isn’t something people will learn to live with. Every new alt will be duller than the last, as we’ve already unlocked all of the traits before. It’s just an invitation for people to move on to other games.

I hope that with all of the complaints that have flooded in about levelling since the feature patch, that the biggest and worst change to new characters won’t be forgotten…

I think one thing that genuinely seems harsh is that the OccupySAB thing was a big part of the boiling point that finally got devs talking to us again, and they haven’t talked to us about SAB.

At the moment, for all I know it would take next to zero effort on ANet’s part to turn worlds one and two back on. Either taking five minutes to do that, or five minutes to explain why they can’t do that, would be much appreciated.

Septemptus.7164:

Also the seasonal things are interesting because they are seasonal. Look how many people play activities this days and how much they were when they started.

For what it’s worth, the reason I stopped playing activities was because they went on rotation. I play games like that for fun, which means I play them when I’m in the mood for them. Making them only occasionally available just puts me off getting into them again because I won’t be able to play them on my own time.

The temporary nature of SAB (even without the ridiculous wait and silence currently going on) is even worse than that, because even when SAB is turned on, it isn’t open long enough to be able to play relaxedly and still get everything. You have to log in and grind things out if you want the achievements or skins before someone decides you can’t play it for another year.

JonPeters.5630:

Hey all,

Guild Wars 2 is a game that is going to continue to evolve and it will be because of your feedback and our efforts so do not get discouraged from posting feedback and be patient with change and I hope we will reward that patience.

TLDR;
We added this system as a direct result from the horizontal progression CDI. We are always reading your feedback, however, we don’t always have time to respond right away or action it quickly. We updated some trait unlocks in the past but we can do more. How can you help?
1) Give us a list of the most offensive trait unlock locations.
2) Keep giving feedback and be patient as this is a big ship and it takes time to steer it.

While I appreciate that (finally) this thread is getting attention, this approach seems incredibly disheartening. The trait system was fine, and then horrible, and now the temporary solution being suggested is to fix the “most” offensive parts?

The system doesn’t work. It is boring, doesn’t allow for build experimentation, makes a core part of levelling and character building extremely hard to access if not impossible until well past level 80, and harms experienced players for the sake of (maybe) not scaring off a couple of people who were more confused by the old system (have a trait point every level, buy something you want every five) than the new (have one or two trait points at random levels that might unlock something you might want if you’re really lucky).

Moving some of the unlocks isn’t a fix, even a temporary one. Possible temporary fixes:

1) Revert the system completely, until an actually engaging and rewarding system is thought up (many have been suggested, usually involving skills or grandmaster traits).

2) Make the unlocks account-bound. This single change would take away a lot of the hatred for this system, and maybe even make people enjoy it, knowing they only have to do it once.

3) Unlock all adept and master traits.

4) Make it free to buy the trait unlocks at a vendor. If people want to go hunt for them, then they can.

It has been five months. This system is hated, and isn’t just putting off players, but is preventing people from recommending the game to others.

I think with the previous feature patch it made sense because the concept was new, and there were lots of big changes. This time it has just overhyped a load of minor changes and made people speculate about really exciting things that could have been in there. Having a whole week dedicated to “a fresh start” and not doing anything about the trait system with 40 pages of negative feedback just on this forum seems to me a particular misstep. As does focussing on changes that don’t actually affect most people who read such blogs.

If this had been announced like the patches used to be about a year ago (informative, a week in advance, and in one go) I think it would have come across a lot better.

I made a new character yesterday that I’ve been wanting to create for ages. I spent ages on the design, picked a name, and hovered over the accept button. Then I went back to the character select screen and logged off.

Yeah, I though this was an odd change. If anything I’d have increased the time it takes to unlock the other skills…

Over 2,000 posts… The latest blog post was really disappointing. I was hoping that the red post we got recently here was a bluff. It seemed implausible that they actually hadn’t thought about or discussed how much hate this system was getting.

Anatolious.8539:

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

Excursion.9752:

I keep reading this part does this mean traits will be unlocked when you level now or do we still have to do the chores.

Regarding unlocking traits, the New Player Experience will effectively be exactly the same, except in the way it’s presented to players.

Awesome, so arenannet has completely ignored the 41 page feedback post where every single player has told you guys that the trait system you put in in april is completely broken and makes leveling miserable for everyone! Thanks guys!

Yeah… So much effort into making the levelling system better, and completely ignoring the biggest hurdle to enjoying levelling. So, so weird that the traits haven’t been put back to their original set up yet.

Oh well, at least we’ll have loads of people trying new characters soon so they can add their voices to the hundreds of posts asking for it to be reverted.

Ryan Diederich.8179:

I actually agree with you. I would have liked to increase the vote count a majority with this change, but unfortunately not all the pieces of code around party votes are set up in a way to make this a quick and easy change.

We were aware of the possible issues with the instance ownership change, but felt that holding back an improvement to the base experience on account of trolls was unfair to users that are playing nice.

Stealing instances using the LFG tool, or booting people for no reason (or to give your buddy the rewards for no work) at the end of a run are bannable offenses and should be reported.

I just wanted to say that this is exactly the sort of post that a lot of us have been asking for.

1) Quick response.
2) Acknowledged an issue players care about.
3) Expressed an opinion on what the ideal solution should be.
4) Explained why the ideal solution hasn’t been implemented.
5) Gave some extra information to be helpful.

I too think that the kicking system needs serious attention, but this is absolutely fantastic to see. I’m really glad to see that positive steps are being taken in regards to last week, thank you!

DeathPanel.8362:

Having to be near the com to see his rank defeats the purposes of trying to decide which com on the map to follow since that necessitates being in following range of that com dot in the first place.

Also it would not discourage new commanders because sometimes there’s no other option so people won’t care even if they follow a low lvl com.

The problem only arises when there are multiple com dots all up and trying to draw people to them which ends up only splitting up the zerg. In situations like that it’s best to be able know which com is more qualified.

But that’s why I suggest the compromise. If a commander is low rank then, as has been pointed out, this doesn’t necessarily indicate lack of skill. A commander should be judged on how they play, not the number on their tag. If a commander is playing badly, then can advise people to go elsewhere. If they are close enough to see the rank as well, then they can factor that in as an extra piece of information, rather than the only piece of information.

I think this would scare off new commanders (who are needed) a little too much if it was on the map. However, there was a recent suggestion for having a small symbol corresponding to rank show up next to your name, like the world completion star. Someone even designed the whole set and posted it a while back.

This would allow people near a commander to see their rank (along with everyone else’s), and it would also add a lot of incentive to the rank system generally for everyone else.

Simpler suggestion:

1) Turn it on.
2) Trust players to be able to zoom out if they can’t see properly.

The new character slot sale should bring a lot more attention to this issue. I know I hovered over the buy button for a while because of the trait system. Now I don’t want to actually start a character, in case there are new changes, and any I make at the moment will wind up ones in a horrible period of creation between two better systems.

Well we got a red thread about communication, and a very short red post in the traits thread. Are we going to get any official word on this? Do we request infinite coin refunds or not?

Thanks for this, it’s much appreciated. I’d suggest revisiting the clear policy and speculative discussion though, as I think that it may have been implemented too strongly. With some topics, like the traits thread, not responding has done more damage than speculation would.

Moreover, while I concede that not every player has behaved rationally or calmly, it does seem reasonable to treat the community as intelligent adults. Therefore qualifying a statement with “we haven’t decided exactly what to do, but here’s what we’re thinking” should be taken as something that players are capable of understanding.

If the recent SAB event shows anything, its that not saying anything will result in a very big backlash if people eventually get bad news. There was no warning, just a year of sitting and waiting and getting silence, then bang. Even if there is eventually good news, the amount of resentment built up won’t simply go away.

Thanks again for this, and for the change to commander tags. This helps a lot.

Ayrilana.1396:

If you’re constantly having unstable connections then you’re not going to really enjoy much else in the game either. The older games did not have auto-save and have your progressed logged every second. Internet connection issues are no different than power issues. They both impact your ability to access the game. Whether one is more common than the other doesn’t matter as their differences have no bearing in the argument.

Very little else in the game has this issue:

Open world PvE, barely a problem at all, unless you DC just as an event is about to finish (even then, not always a problem).

PvP, annoying, but matches are short.

Dungeons, you just log back in. Again, only a problem if you DC at exactly the wrong time.

Fractals, as above.

Story instances, not nearly as long or difficult as SAB.

WvW, more annoying than in PvE as you need to walk, but nothing in terms of time loss compared to world 2 trib mode.

Why are you defending lack of save functionality?

Ayrilana.1396:

If playing a classic video game and the power goes out, is your progress saved?

No, but that isn’t the fun of playing a classic video game. Moreover, power cuts aren’t nearly as common as internet drop-outs. Punishing people for having unstable connections (often not their fault) isn’t enhancing the experience.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Well, if you look AT THIS FORUM, which is what A.Net could judge by, There are more NEGATIVE and nasty threads than there are constructive or complimentary. What do you expect then?

There is a difference between negative and nasty. There are lots of negative threads, because a lot of serious issues arise, and this is the best place to draw attention to them.

The nasty threads have become more prevalent because people are becoming angrier at the way the community as a whole is being treated, as well as many of the directions the game has taken.

Regardless, ignoring the whole customer base because a proportion of it behaved badly is not appropriate. There are many perfectly polite paying customers whose concerns should be addressed.

My main problem with the zone length was the fact that you could disconnect and progress wasn’t saved. This was particularly problematic in trib mode. If they were actually going to develop SAB properly, I’d like that changed. As it is, I’m happy enough just to play it as it is.

I think people wrongly interpret the anger about the scavenger hunt. The problem wasn’t that they said they would do one thing, and didn’t do it. It’s a combination of two things:

1) The scavenger hunt is an extremely important issue for many people, as the RNG in the game was a big, big turn off. This seeming neglected for many, many other things that weren’t asked for caused frustration.

2) ANet didn’t follow up the communication. They said they’d do something, then didn’t? Why didn’t they? What are their current plans? Is there a technical difficulty, or are they unsure on the implementation? When they realised they couldn’t get the scavenger hunt done any time soon, all it would have taken is five minutes typing on a (sorely needed) centralised update blog what had happened and its predicted consequences.

Saying you will do something and then encountering a problem is fine. Saying you will do something very important, then doing lots of other unimportant things while remaining basically silent about the important thing for a year and a half is not.

I don’t think it should be stand alone. Firstly, it basically is stand alone anyway. It’s locked away in one tiny fraction of Rata Sum. Secondly, because bringing characters into it from Tyria is fun. Thirdly, because the rewards system is probably the best the game has actually had (not RNG, whole(ish) weapon sets, differentiation of rewards by achievement, actual prestige items as well as identically impressive non-prestige ones, non-prestige versions can be bought on the TP but prestige ones can’t…).

Yargesh.4965:

Trying to justify a hissy fit is just another indication of a lack of maturity in my opinion.

Calling the expression of anger a hissy fit is unfair. Sure, some people are being immature, but simply being angry isn’t. The lack of communication has been a problem that has become worse and worse. People have become increasingly upset, and the latest interview pushed a lot over the edge.

ANet have demonstrated that they are willing to simply ignore their customers. Polite discourse has failed (and many, many people have been polite. The people who behaved badly do not justify ignored the majority of a consumer base), so being louder is the only practical alternative.

Of course, it is possible to express anger in an immature way, and I do not defend that. But the expressions of anger I have seen recently seem largely sensible enough.

Since the last patch, I and several guildmates have also experienced lag and disconnects. This wasn’t an issue a couple of weeks ago.

I voted “yes”, but I’m not sure how this is really a sensible vote. If more people vote “no”, why is that important. A lot of us want SAB back, and turning it on (in its current state) doesn’t cost development resources. Why should ANet be accommodating people who want to stop others having fun just because they don’t personally enjoy it?

Most players don’t play PvP. We don’t take that as a reason to switch it off.

Aly Cat.9415:

I’m just saying that it’s a little late now for people to say they will be happy with it as is when there was so much vocal disappointment last time. Those people may be content with that, but there will be plenty of players who won’t settle with anything less than more/better, and that particular project may not be worth the effort it would take, especially at the expense of the core game.

The disappointment last time was due to some changes that were not well-received (mainly in length and difficulty). Many concerns were actually fixed in the first week.

More importantly, it isn’t a little late. People have been asking for SAB to come back for months.