Guild Wars 2

I think rather than arguing about the megaservers, which I really doubt ANet will remove at this stage (and I actually hope they don’t), we might be better off agreeing what feasible changes we would like to see.

For me, the biggest and most reasonable one would be making the home cities and LA server based again.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Not sure I would want to give up 18 or 20 slots for such a ‘bag’. I truly doubt if it were implemented that ArenaNet would add an expansion slot to all characters.

Possible, I suppose, but doubtful.

This is exactly why they should do it. The account bag, on five characters, would mean sacrificing up to 80 slots from your account. That’s extra bank slots to sell, plus extra bag slots. Some people would make your choice, others would sacrifice the space for the convenience, others would simply buy extra bag slots.

This way there is no issue of the bag rendering multiple copies of harvesting tools redundant because there is balance and payoff to every choice. ANet offer an incredibly useful QoL item that doesn’t hurt their other sales, and would make a LOT of money.

Of course, it would be amazing if it came with a free bag slot too (To be honest, after this many junk items per LS update I think a second birthday bag slot for characters might be a reasonable idea)

flipyap.5789:

i don’t disagree with adding new elites and utilities, but having them added as a gemstore item would kitten people off.

I absolutely 100% agree for every elite except this one. I think the cosmetic bonus of having your alts turn up justifies the cost. Alternatively, they could introduce the standard “random NPC” version as an in game elite, and then the Alt skinned version as a gem store upgrade for it.

Of course, if they put this in without a gem cost, that’d be amazing too

eekzie.5640:

The idea of buying elite skills with gems is something I would not like.

The only reason I can condone it is with special offers, such as the deluxe edition of the game.

Perhaps with an expansion(like) content update it would be appropriate.
But just randomly adding (elite)skills to the gemstore is a trend I would disapprove of strongly.

I can see that, which is why I suggested making it intentionally weaker than the warband. Heck, the offer idea isn’t bad either (I wouldn’t want to see more than this elite in the store).

Of course, I’d love ANet to just give us this skill, but it means coding things that only really apply to alt players. It seems more justifiable to do this if there’s a gem cost to do it.

Actually, an alt player pack similar to the deluxe edition would be awesome. e.g. 3000 gems = 1 character slot, 1 bag slot for every character on account (mailed retroactively and on creation), 1 mercenary hero elite skill unlock, choice of one infinite harvesting tool for every character on account (mailed retroactively and on creation).

exp.3178:

sorry but what is the sence of beeing level 80 without map explore. I think new players have fun doing explore and level their toon up, only the ppl like me (witn at least 5 toons level 80) get bored with explore and doing the wp’s, hearts, vista’s and poi’s again. But we have the gold and skillpoints to buy them.
greetz exp

Not everyone likes PvE. Even those who do can get bored doing it on every character to level. Heck, ANet clearly know this, as we can get experience scrolls and tomes of knowledge so easily. I just leveled an elementalist to 80 and she has THREE empty major trait slots because I had literally nothing to put in them. The other major traits I have, I don’t actually want. Hopefully she’s an extreme example, but still.

This has wrecked build diversity and experimentation during leveling, and it meant that I don’t even want to play my ele now I have her leveled. The increased level requirements just make the whole experience even worse.

Adding new traits to find by exploring could have given new and old players the fun of exploring and unlocking them. Heck, linking the current traits to less location specific or more relevant things (e.g. Staff Mastery → Kill 200 enemies with a staff) would have given the same feeling but by actually letting us play how we want.

I’m still crossing my fingers for ANet to undo this

Okay, this is a way to bring back a little bit of the GW1 mercenary hero concept, but GW2 style. I think it works as a gem store purchase.

Basically, the default purchase buys an elite skill that is roughly as powerful as the charr warband skill, but with a longer cooldown. This is designed to make it very specifically not pay2win. The standard skill summons two random allies to come to your aid, with a default skill set based on each class.

However what makes this skill cool (and thus, gem-worthy) is that if you have any other characters on your account, then the skill will summon them instead. So, if you have one extra character, you will always summon that character, and one default. Two extra characters, you always get those two. Three or more, you get a random pairing. These characters use the default skills that correspond to their class.

Possible options, depending on coding difficulty:

1) Allow characters to be “flagged” so that you always summon them.
2) Use a default pattern based upon the actual main weapon of the character chosen. e.g. auto attack skill 1, with more complex tactics added as is available. If this is two complicated, just give them a default skin and weapon set.
3) If two takes too much time/resources to load, just have one ally show up.
4) The random allies could, feasibly, be characters that you have met in either personal story or living story missions, but I personally don’t think that’s hugely in demand.

I think this would sell to a lot of alt players who would like to see their characters work together. The randomness would also add to the fun of seeing who turned up to help you out. So long as this was kept as a weaker (or on par) skill than racial elites, this wouldn’t be pay2win, but would be a nice (largely) cosmetic addition to the game (like the Mistfire Wolf).

Crossaber.8934:

Achrisos.1360:

I think many posters on this forum are being very single minded in that players who started playing GW2 before this system began got accustomed to all the traits being handed to us with no real sense of accomplishment in getting them and now with many of us rolling alts it feels like a “grind” to go through this system. Think about this though… If you were a brand new player it would be fantastic to go through this and have that sense of accomplishment rather than roll through all the content and in a game like this one that doest really have a treadmill gear grind that sense of accomplishment could go a long way…

Totally agree.

I have rerolled a new alt (got all classes to lv80 before patch) to try the trait system which i hate the class originally. Amazingly, lots of new experience and this make me like this class A LOT. Because of the new trait system, many contents was generally ignored by players has been revived. When i was leveling, i found new events that i never met with my 8 lv80 during their leveling. So i decided to take a look, a mini underwater dungeon, met some other players, we take down the underwater boss, and bang new trait unlocked. Thats a very very nice experience that never happens before.

So i maybe the minority that actually love this update.

While I agree with the principle of this (I was really excited when I first heard of the new system), the execution brings too many problems with it. If new traits had been added to the current number, then fantastic, I’d have loved that. We’d have had build diversity PLUS a sense of progression.

What this system does however is strip out build diversity and REPLACES it with a sense of progression. As there are already plenty of ways to feel like you’re progressing (some of which were actually also damaged with the update, notably by increasing the level requirements to 30, 60 and 80) this is not a reasonable compromise. We’ve gone from some sense of progression and build diversity, to some sense of progression and no build diversity.

DelusionsOfGrandeur.9287:

Then just buy the trait. A few gold/skill points really isn’t that much, you know. Yeah, if you buy every single trait then it’ll cost a lot, but just decide on a build beforehand and stick to it. Assuming you’ve been completing the skill challenges in each map, you should have plenty of points to spare by the time you reach 30.
It’s fairly obvious that the main purpose of the new system is to get rid of excess skill points, after all.

While I’m still at a loss as to what the actual reasoning was behind the changes (and even more confused as to why it still hasn’t been explained), I would like to think that ANet wouldn’t ruin the leveling experience and build diversity to reduce the number of skill points people have. New mystic forge recipes would do that, as would allowing people to buy certain items with skill points.

Yeah, I’m happy that the recent patch was a start, and glad we’re being listened to. But there is still a long way to go to make levelling fun again and to actually allow people to experiment with builds. My ele is currently level sixty, running one trait point in each minor adept trait, and one in a fairly useless major adept trait that I happened to pick up. This is not the way the trait system is intended to work, and it is a direct result of the changes.

Please, put the trait unlocks back to level 11, then one every 5 levels, and have the adept and master traits unlocked by default. (New adept and master traits can be added, and they can require exploration.)

As one of the people that loves the megaservers, I 100% agree. LA and home cities would be better as server specific areas.

Ah, I see the issue Lostyus. We’re talking at cross purposes. I wouldn’t trivialise the issues with megaservers in a megaserver thread. My concern here is that I don’t want the complaints about traits (which are problematic on every level) to be taken as a general “players are never happy” by mixing them up with megaservers (which are problematic, but not in the same fundamental way).

Kal Spiro.9745:

Yes, it would have been cool semi-annually. But since we had no actual indication that it would be, its current lack isn’t an indication that it’s gone.

I can wait until September for it to come back. I don’t feel the need for it to be always available, but I can say that if it were I would definitely jump into it when I was bored.

It would not be difficult for them, I think, to make the skins and achievements only available during specific times, while the instance is always available, but I think that would upset just as many things. Personally, I like “you had to be there” skins, but at the same time I wouldn’t have a lot of problem with them being permanently available to everyone all the time.

I’m also content to wait until the entire game is compete before it becomes permanent.

I think that something like:

Blue skins – Every September
Backpack skins – In the year of release
Tribulation skins – Permanently available

Could work. Limiting trib mode skins to one month just disadvantages busy people and makes people farm really aggressively even if they have time. It sucks the fairness and fun out of the challenge.

MauricioCezar.2673:

In-development project should give you a tip .

Moto is developing it, and in last time we’ve seen that it have been not working properly and even moto noticed it. Don’t make sense maintain a thing not completed. Take this as the “Beta wekeends” that gw2 used to have until it has been totally completed. Follow the history and you’ll notice the same things.

I see your point, but that still feels tenuous. I would agree with you that “Beta weekends” is probably a better comparison, but I don’t think quite good enough to justify turning it off.

Lostyus. Guild wars 2 is a MMO. Most complaints you listed are a result of playing with a large amount of people. What exactly were you expecting?

Of the points that weren’t:

Multiple languages – A flaw in the sorting algorithm for selecting your map. This isn’t an inherent problem with megaservers, its just something that needs fixing.

World Bosses – The problem you raised is easily fixed, if need be, by simply having the bosses spawn at different times each day. But even then, is this a real issue? The megabosses can be spawned manually by a guild. The other bosses are loot pinatas that are basically interchangeable. If you’re missing out on fighting a specific boss that you really enjoy for some reason, then I sympathise, but that’s a tiny price to pay for encountering actual players in an MMO. Maybe try and kill it at the weekends if you can.

RPers – I sympathise with the most, but take up a tiny fraction of the community. I think cities should be server based, for this reason. But beyond that, unless the server system could handle a way to opt in and out of the system, this is a genuine sacrifice that hurts few to help many.

WvW recruitment – Do it in WvW. This isn’t even a consideration regarding improving the PvE side of the game. If you absolutely need to spam recruitment in PvE, specify your sever in the message. Again though, I think cities should be server specific, including LA when it comes back.

Gold spammers – I have no idea if this relates to the megaservers or not. But as far as I can tell, it seems related to hub areas, specifically the Vigil Keep. When LA returns, and if cities are server specific, this issue would hopefully go away.

So again, the comparison seems to me both unfair and unhelpful. The megaservers, while implemented in a way that needed the dev team not to fly off to China immediately afterwards, were implemented for a reason, and at the request of a large part of the playerbase. The trait system was implemented in a way that goes counter to the stated reasons for putting it in, and after no one asking for it. It would also be much, much easier to fix.

MauricioCezar.2673:

Aaaaand here we go again.

SAB is a “In-development” project. It’ll have 4 worlds in total, released in 4 patchs. Once it is completed and have all 4 worlds, then it’ll probably will become permanent

Makes total sense lorewise, and it’ll probably be back in the next months. It’s not likely it is permanent off.

In what way does it make total sense lorewise? New content development doesn’t require turning off old content, whether done by ANet or Moto. That’d be like if ANet turned off GW2 between living stories :S

HHR LostProphet.4801:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Moreover, the SAB skins have both a good and bad reason for their rarity. The green and yellow skins are rarer, because they’re harder to get and account bound. That’s good. However, they’re also rare because some people don’t have that much free time and can’t get them in one calendar month (especially if they happened to be on holiday or lose internet access that month). That’s bad.

God forbid that there is more reward for those who play more than for those who aren’t…

Being rewarded for playing more is fine. But being rewarded for playing more within a limited time frame is not. A person who only has four hours a week to play, but plays for twenty weeks, shouldn’t receive fewer rewards than someone who has twenty hours a week to play, and plays for four weeks. Not even allowing the person with four hours a week to play the game at all after the four weeks is just ludicrous.

Centurion.7296:

Bilacus.6104:

This update is now a month old and I’m dumbstruck.
I was certain the trait system and the megaserver were sort of mistakes. Something that would get fixed in a few days. They are, after all, as Gonefishin and others have said, some of the worst changes ever seen in a game.

But they’re still here. Nothing to indicate they will be fixed.

I just can’t believe this is real.

Yeah the megaserver isnt that nice and it destroyed the server communitys…….(lol) . Me and my guild havent really felt that bad about it, as far as I know of.

The thing is, the Megaservers at least have a goal, and they (sort of) achieve it. Maps were dead, now they aren’t. Sure the system for putting players with friends doesn’t work very well and guild missions (especially challenge) can be a nightmare now, but there was an actual problem solved there. Moreover, people actually asked for them. The system works, it just needs tweaking.

The trait changes don’t just make some aspects worse, they actually make the thing they were brought in to improve worse. No one asked for this change, and as far as I can tell, almost no one who has made a character since the patch wants the change (many actively hating it).

I don’t think comparing Megaservers and Traits is helpful, because they are not really comparable in the damage they did to the game. The megaservers were good for many people, but damaging (severely) in specific areas that need to be worked out. The trait system has made a massive part of the game horrible, and in a way that is entirely counter to the reason we were told they were brought in.

I like the idea of unlocking stuff. I really do. But the implementation is just baffling.

anzenketh.3759:

I think people will regret asking for it to be permanent if they make it permanent. Part of it’s novelty is that it is available for a short time. I think that SAB goes well during the back to school time slot as a seasonal release.

This makes sense for Wintersday and Halloween, but SAB doesn’t rely on novelty. Its a genuinely fun and different aspect of the game that adds much needed variety (especially since activities were put on rotation) to the available things to do when you log in.

Having the new worlds released every September, fine. There’s your novelty right there (heck, have a meta-achievement that is only available in that month if need be). No need to stop the people who actually enjoy SAB and want to play it from being allowed to.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

How long will you play SAB? For more than 2 weeks? I rather want to have an update every half year than the box as permanent but irrelevant content.

Also, I’ve spent much time doing all the achievements and getting all the weapons. They’re rare. I want them to stay rare.

I would definitely play SAB more than two weeks. More importantly, I wouldn’t have to ONLY play SAB for two weeks, and nothing else. Having SAB open would allow me to play it when I actually wanted to play it, not when it is decided that I should.

Moreover, the SAB skins have both a good and bad reason for their rarity. The green and yellow skins are rarer, because they’re harder to get and account bound. That’s good. However, they’re also rare because some people don’t have that much free time and can’t get them in one calendar month (especially if they happened to be on holiday or lose internet access that month). That’s bad.

Removing the weird time restriction would keep the rarity of the weapons, but it would do so for the right reason, rather than the wrong one.

Agreed. Not only would it let us play it when we wanted, but it’d make the experience more fun. Having time to explore and find secrets yourself, rather than having to rush to get as much as possible done in the time its open, would be much more in the spirit of the game.

At this point I’ve almost given up caring about worlds 3 and 4, just please give us 1 and 2 back.

I liked the concept, but was among the players whose setup simply couldn’t cope with the zerg below and maintain framerate. I’m really hoping for an instancing option this time around. Or at least making upstairs and downstairs separate maps somehow.

If “mounts” were introduced, then I think there are a few things that could be done to make them work:

1) Max 25% increased movement speed.
2) Can’t be activated outside of combat.
3) 10 second cooldown after entering combat.
4) Not usable in WvW or PvP. (or cities, as that’d get annoying fast)

These are to prevent mounts rendering swiftness and movement skills/traits irrelevant.

Additionally, I wouldn’t make them “mounts”, as in horses or big difficult to animate things. The broomstick is a good example of something easy to implement, as is the digging tool (though that would make jumping an issue).

In order to make money off this, the simplest thing to do would be to make a “base” mount, that grants the buff. Maybe one for each cultural race. Then sell skins for it in the gem store (Asura tech hoverboard, Tixx’ clockwork something-or-other, the Mad King’s…..) . That way there is no question of P2W, and a new avenue for making money.

That all said, I’m not sure if I support the idea of mounts or not. This is just how I’d do it IF mounts were introduced.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Yes, we’re in a dead period; however, they’ve explained why we have this dead period. They are focused on China. It’s not like they aren’t giving us new content because they have none. We’ve been told we’ll see content once China launches. So it’s not like we’re in the dark and wonder what’s going on. This was sort to be expected. How in the world did people manage when they had to wait 18 to 24 months for expansions? We can’t even manage like 4 months….

Yes, we want content. Even I am excited for new content to play. However, for the most part people have simply been asking for ‘something to do.’ SAB, BotFW, QG. Busy work. They are giving us precisely what we asked for… something to keep us busy.

I can understand that people want content. I really can. However, people need to be a little less…needy? kitteny? entitled? I really don’t know what to call it/them, they just need to learn some patience.

I agree with you, sort of. I think the problem is that there has been so little communication about the problems and future of the game (the trait system, the megaservers, all of the problems that existed before the feature patch) that this feels like a distraction rather than an acknowledgement of requests.

Again, I’m not complaining here, I think it’s great. I hope they roll straight into SAB after it (though ideally I want SAB and the gauntlet back permanently and think the game would benefit from it). But if a load of people are asking for answers to really serious questions, and you come on stage after weeks of silence and instead of answers offer them something they’ve already had that you took away from them in the first place well… reactions aren’t going to be that positive.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Yeah, I don’t understand people either. Many have been asking for this to come back (not asking for upgrades to it, just asking for it to come back) and now some of those people are grumping about ‘recycled’ content. Hmph. Never happy, lemme tell ya…

As someone who has wanted these areas back for ages (actually I want them back permanently), I’m not complaining, but I can see the issue. Bringing these back is fantastic, but they’re being brought back instead of new content, rather than in addition to it. We’re in a bit of a dead period update wise, and there are a LOT of problems that need addressing since the last patch. Giving us content to play with while they work on stuff is a great move, but its still reasonable to be annoyed at the lack of new stuff.

It’d be like if they turned off Bloodtide Coast for a few months and then, in the middle of a period where there are lots of problems with the game and after weeks of no updates or even news of updates, they turn it back on. Obviously it’d be great to have Bloodtide Coast back, but treating it like a replacement for an update just doesn’t make sense. This is made even worse by the notion that Bloodtide would probably get turned off again after a few weeks.

Again, I’m very happy to see them come back, so this isn’t a complaint. But I can see why people would be underwhelmed.

Kalavier.1097:

How often do people run the raids/dungeons in outland (burning crusade) in WoW?

I’d assume not much because why bother when you can do the newest one.

I never played WoW, so I have no idea. However:

1) I’m mainly talking about keeping varied content available (SAB, Gauntlet, Activities), not simply older versions of the same content type.

2) I don’t really see how the game is made worse by leaving that content open? If people aren’t there, then no one is impacted. If people are there, then clearly someone wants to use it.

I’m hoping for the REALLY old character select screen. The Prophecies one around the campfire Or, at least, a more customisable one that lets you set the number of thumbnails visible.

lordkrall.7241:

I think the main issue would be bloating up the world.
If they keep releasing new stuff every two weeks and never remove it, sooner or later the world will just be a massive mess due to massively amount of content that people don’t even bother doing after the first month.

If [insert thing here]was open people would play it for a month, then they would come here and demand something new because “[insert thing here] is so boring!”.

But that’s just the thing. If [SAB] was open, then yes people would complain that [SAB] is so boring. But I’m not suggesting that [SAB] be open. I’m suggesting that [SAB, Gauntlet, WvW, PvP, Activities, PvE, Fractals, EotM, Dungeons…] be open. We already have rolling content in the form of the LS, the WvW seasons, Halloween, Dragon Bash, Wintersday etc. to give people something to do if they need a “flavour of the month”. But there is content already designed that would add a lot to variety of where to go and what to do if you didn’t feel like grinding out this week’s meta achievement, all they need to do is leave it accessible.

lordkrall.7241:

And how awesome would those things be after we have had them for 6 months and they are more or less abandoned because people have moved on to the next cool thing?

That is something people are overlooking. They always shout about stuff being permanent, and yet stuff that actually is permanent (in more or less every game) is usually abandoned quite fast after the novelty wears off.

But if the content isn’t designed as a zerg, who cares if it’s “abandoned”? We have the open world megaservers, world bosses, WvW, PvP, the hubs, and EotM for content where lots of people are. Taking stuff away in case no one plays them is just backwards :S

More importantly, content that is only fun when “novel” isn’t the sort of thing that should be relied upon (nor is it solely the content they’ve made). If SAB was open, people would play it. If the gauntlet was open, people would play it. If activities were playable by guilds or friends and open all the time rather than rotation, people would play them. Even those who didn’t play them would at least be able to say that they have options when they log in, and can introduce new players to the huge variety of things to do in game.

Sure there might not be people in the tower, but would it really hurt anyone to leave it there? Especially new players or players who missed that part of the story.

I don’t think the issue is that there has been no permanent content (clearly there has been), but more that the ratio of content made to content that was permanent is so far off. If the work that went into creating the Tower of Nightmares, the Queen’s Gauntlet, the battle of LA, SAB etc. had resulted in a tower we could actually still explore, LA having something to do, the Gauntlet still being around, and SAB not being arbitrarily turned off and on, then that would have been awesome. Heck, even the living story stuff that’s still playable is largely locked behind getting lucky in fractals.

I think we’re getting fantastic value for our money with GW2, I really do. Its just that the dev team could be giving us more content for the same amount of effort simply by designing things which don’t disappear for most of the year or even permanently.

As others have said, there is a good selection of dog pets in the game. The bigger question is why we don’t have an Endless Mystery Dog Tonic to rival the cat version.

Danikat.8537:

They don’t need to put any more effort into it though. Just bring back World 1 & 2 exactly as they were.

Now would be a perfect time to release it (or even better a few weeks ago) when there’s no Living Story going on so players who enjoy it will have time to devote to it without missing out on something else.

Exactly. Don’t need a new world, don’t need any lore or cutscenes. Just turn it on and give us something to do in the quiet period between seasons (and, ideally, don’t turn it off again).

I love the idea of unlocking new traits by doing content. I think that’s a fantastic move that should be extended to more traits, and to slot skills as well. I was even on board with unlocking the original set as a fun way to add to the character progression feeling

However, I’ve just started a new character and the implementation is simply not fun or rewarding. I am still completely baffled as to why the traits didn’t start out at level 15 and then one point every five levels. The period before you hit 80 and buy all your gear is when you are most free to experiment, and I can’t do that because I have nothing to experiment with.

Moreover, as has been said, having traits awarded for such time consuming and specific things that don’t relate to the traits themselves doesn’t make sense. Especially the ones way above the average level for that point (Fireheart completion).

Why not make traits unlock for doing things that actually relate to them? To unlock a fall damage reduction trait, survive a fall with less that 30% health five times. To unlock an extra burn time trait, burn 100 enemies. To unlock a trait that improves the cooldown on greatsword skills, kill ten champs with a greatsword. That way traits will unlock naturally according to what a player actually does in the game, and don’t force the player to go to a specific location to do them.

(I do like the idea of going to specific locations, as in GW1, but use that for the newer skills and traits, as these are designed as end game content, not for the original set.)

Not playing very often, or for long periods, world completion will take a long while, but not a year. However, that’s based upon actively trying to complete maps. Due to them being very clearly divided with a checklist of objectives to complete for 100% you can slip into doing that quite easily. But if you just wander around, exploring and taking in the environment, events and dialogue you could take much, much longer. Its also worth noting that Guild Wars 2’s PvE content isn’t just open world, with dungeons, WvW and the Living Story all being at least in part PvE.

Yeah, if new SAB content isn’t being worked on to prioritise other things, then could we at least have worlds one and two back? It offered a lot in the way of variety to the gameplay, and it would be nice to farm the skins while not on a time limit… Actually can we just have those worlds back regardless of whether new SAB is being worked on please

It seems to me that the current state of EotM is doing a fantastic job for everyone. It takes champ trainers out of PvE maps, it takes karma farmers out of WvW, it takes season achievement hunters out of WvW, and it makes the whole thing more fun for the people in the train itself. Wins all around.

Okay, people wanted them for minis. People wanted them for tonics. People wanted them for food. People wanted them for weapon switching. Now people will want them for town clothes and costume brawl toys. What used to be a single button press now takes opening up at least one panel and then activating at least two separate icons.

Can we please have some inventory slots added to the HUD for quick use now? Just a couple of slots somewhere on the screen where we can put things we want quick access to? Weapons/minis/toys/tonics/food etc. It would be a massive quality of life upgrade and even moreso since the update.

This baffled me when they announced it, and it baffles me now. For no obvious reason the levelling system is now more confusing (the doubles), less interesting at lower levels (the higher level for first trait), and worse for learning a class (the lock on grandmaster traits preventing experimentation before you get to 80 and shop for gear).

I love this update, but I am completely lost as to why this was done. One point every five levels starting at fifteen was the obvious thing to do, and basically already implemented, so it required actually going out of someone’s way to make the system worse :S

I’m sure there must have been a reason, but I have no clue what it was. Plenty of people argued against this before the update went live.

As someone who does not have two legendaries, I completely sympathise with those who do. I don’t understand why so many people are throwing out the “you now have two stat switching items” and the lack of sympathy. It really sucks that people spent thousands of gold and countless hours to get legendaries that had most of their value taken away by a change in the rules of the game.

I love the account locker and I love that legendary skins can be duplicated. But I really think the players with two of the same type deserve a token to get another legendary (or, at least, to have one of them become tradeable).

Farzo.8410:

Jajuju.6970:

I still scratch my head over the fact that the SAB isn’t “permanent” content..
What a strange dev team. -sighs-

It makes it special, and wanted.

It makes me like it less. I love SAB, but I don’t want to have to play it to death all in one month feeling like I’m on a timer. If it was here all year round I’d hop in quite frequently to grab a skin token or hunt an achievement or a skin, and actually be able to relax and enjoy it rather than feel like I need to get it all done as fast as possible.

I really really wish they’d make it permanent.

I’ve been pretty critical of the gem store in the past, and I still think some skins are overpriced, but the feature patch changes seem to have been a massive improvement. Account bound dyes, charge system on skins being an excellent compromise… I would have been inclined to agree with the OP, in less harsh terms, two weeks ago. Now, not so much.

Keys are still kind of a joke though :P

This baffles me, and I’m REALLY hoping they change their minds before the update. I absolutely love everything else about the trait changes, but this sounds awful. Under the new system the obvious idea was to keep everything the same and give one point every five levels starting at 15. I can not understand the reasoning for leaving such an important part of the learning process (and fun) so late.

I absolutely love the sounds of the changes, except the level unlocks. I don’t understand why the system isn’t just 1 point every five levels starting at 15. Much simpler, and maintaining the smooth progression curve.

I would LOVE dyes to become account bound, and I think it would be excellent for the gem store because it would make the dye packs appealing to collectors looking to complete the set.

I think the best solution for everyone is to implement a system to return a non-bound dye for every duplicate unlocked dye on an account. So if you have two abyss dyes unlocked, you get an abyss dye back which you can sell. This would mean more people selling spare dyes, but also more people buying dyes, so it would balance out a bit. Moreover, while the dyes people have unlocked a lot may go down a bit (say abyss), the dyes people tend not to want will go up as people want the set, again balancing the system out a bit.

The main problem I think is in the returning. Obviously mailing everyone the dyes would be a problem, but they MIGHT be able to code something like:

Go to a vendor, which opens up a special menu with all of your dyes for that character. Click on a dye, and it disappears from your character and appears in your inventory. This would mean that players manually had to take it upon themselves to deal with their duplicate dyes, rather than clogging the mail system. More streamlined versions of this could flag up only duplicate dyes, or ideally simply list every duplicate dye on the account the number of times it exists. Thus it takes only one trip to the vendor (and a lot of clicking) to convert spare dyes to sellable ones.

Actual Plush Griffon.

I spent most of my stuff a while back, so it doesn’t really bother me. However, I don’t think it was clearly communicated that they were going away. Even after reading the patch notes I still had to go and check if they’d disappeared because I couldn’t see why they would have in the current context of the story. It certainly isn’t obvious lore wise they were going away as this portion of the living story is very much still happening. Why have the heirloom vendors wandered off?

Moreover, given how random the timings on patch night are, and this one being fairly early, it was entirely possible to miss the opportunity even if you knew they were going away today. You could have traded yesterday, of course, but you would have been justified in think there would still be time today.

I think the important message from this thread is that the character selection really needs to be extended. I mean, really. Eight classes in the game and only seven characters can be viewed simultaneously, only in thumbnail, and even the highlighted one doesn’t have their weapons ? Where’s the bonfire from the original Prophecies screen? Or at the very least, the option to see a grid of all alt thumbnails.

Devildoc.6721:

Aleena Kargrimm.3108:

Belladonna of Dreams cost 650gold, which is about £115 if bought with gems. That skin costs substantially more than $7.50. Comparatively BL weapons are cheaper than this skin, so following that logic, good value.

Drawing erroneous comparisons helps no-one. Bottom line, keys are expensive, it’s a gamble, don’t like it, don’t buy it. Want the skins, but don’t want to spend money? Buy them on the TP, they aren’t that expensive.

Using Gold prices to Gem prices is not an accurate measure as Gold to Gem Prices are volatile.

Gem to Dollar prices are stable.

More importantly, Belladonna of Dreams isn’t bought with Black Lion Tickets…

Yeah, I don’t understand why the gem store model is “low sales at high prices” rather than “high sales at low prices”. It would cost nothing (nearly) to make things account bound or unlocks, and they would sell hugely more because they’d then appeal to the collector market. Plus it seems sensible to make lots of people happy, rather than have so many people dissatisfied with the gem store.

I love GW2, and I really want it to do well (and will happily spend money to support it), but its become progressively more and more difficult to feel like a valued customer.

Vol.7601:

I think this is at least the 3rd time they have come out with individual armor pieces for 400 gems. The fact that they keep doing that leads me to believe their sales metrics show satisfactory sales.

If it didn’t work, they wouldn’t be pricing them this low.

How would that be calculated? Three lots of armour pieces, none of which can be compared with how they’d have sold cheaper, and with no related cheaper armour pieces to compare sales to (which, even if existent, would be of a different aesthetic so not a valid comparison).

That’s just viewing the problem as a simplistic (sell A amount at B, compared to C amount at D). Compare that to lost sales through loyalty loss, players leaving, players not being invited to play by happy players, people buying 800 gems for some 400 gem stuff then blowing the other 400 just because its there…

Its a huge set of factors that “Oh we’ve sold well (compared to what?) at this price, so let’s continue” simply can’t account for. Obviously there are some very smart people who work the store, and have the stats. But they need to factor in player dissatisfaction to that equation (because player satisfaction has a serious monetary impact), which is why coming to this forum and voicing that concern is helpful. We’re giving feedback, and expressing our concerns, not just whining pointlessly.

Tengu. Kodan if there was scope for personalisation.

I’d like to play a quaggan, especially if they went into rage form when they withdrew their weapons. But that seems optimistic