Guild Wars 2

I joined GW2 a couple of months after launch, and was worried I’d be behind. Then I realised how trivial it was to get full exotics, and it sort of made exotics feel like they weren’t an achievement. I actually like having something long term to work towards, and if I joined a game where people who played for years didn’t have better gear than me I might feel like there was nothing to do (especially with the emphasis on aesthetics being undermined by the cash shop at the moment).

That said, while I like long term goals I do NOT like treadmills. Upping the level cap and undoing everything that long term players had worked for would be a big problem. I’m happy with ascended stuff being released, because I don’t feel pressured to get it. I like that I’ll still be getting new equipment most of the way through next year.

I don’t think letting people keep the skin is feasible, but there is one suggestion that I’m surprised I haven’t seen forwarded. Obviously some people will complain, but there is never going to be a way to keep everyone happy:

Give some gems to the people who bought the skin.

That simple. Give say 400 gems (or 600 or 800) but let them keep whatever the new skin is. If they still don’t like it, they can trade it in for the difference. Effectively giving them a discount (or if feeling really apologetic, for free) on whatever the skin turns out to be. If they don’t want it, even discounted, then at least you tried (this latter complication is why giving a full discount might just be easiest).

Some people might say “why do they deserve free gems just for buying a skin?” Well, they don’t. They aren’t being given them because they deserve them, they’re being given them as an apology for ANet selling them something and then taking it away again (often after many other purchases of dyes etc. had been made).

This just seems like a really simple way of keeping gem store customers happy after a mistake, whilst still rectifying that mistake for everyone upset about the T3 reskin.

Yeah I’m of a similar view. I like certain “awards” being temporary, as they indicate that you were present for a certain event (Mad Memoires, meta-minis, meta-wings, even Halloween/Wintersday skins), but the gem store stuff isn’t the same. It isn’t something you achieved, or even got lucky with, its just something you bought while it happened to be on sale.

I get that “limited time only” might play a psychological factor in some purchases, but I think a well-stocked and good value gem store would also encourage people to buy gems. It would also make for happier customers who will play longer and invite more people to the game.

Frog.8217:

who needs wvw supply doly? calf doly ftw

Yeah… I must say that releasing these three days before people expect to receive a mini dolyak as a reward for a seven week meta achievement is a little… odd.

neytiri.9105:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I had a similar idea, but it included dungeon tokens. Each dungeon giving a different effect:

AC: Blue ghostly.
CM: Golden.
TA: Leaves
SE: Red electric.
CoF: Fkitteneen.
HoW: Frost.
CoE: Electric.
Arah: Dark smoke.

All just light particle effects, as we saw. No major changes between types, but a cool way to “upgrade” and customise your armour through gameplay.

Great idea! But as it was said above, too many changes t oarmor set, thus gem store MUST be used in this case

Yeah, as I said in another thread. They could maybe have a gem store unlock for the system. So you pay for the unlock, and then that character/account can customise with tokens as many times as they want. Some kind of forge ingredient would also work, but I think the gem store has enough of that with transmutation stones etc.

Just posted in a similar thread in BLTC forum:

I’d like it to be done using dungeon tokens:

AC: Blue ghostly.
CM: Golden.
TA: Leaves
SE: Red electric.
CoF: Fkitteneen.
HoW: Frost.
CoE: Electric.
Arah: Dark smoke.
All just light particle effects, as we saw. No major changes between types, but a cool way to “upgrade” and customise your armour through gameplay.

If they absolutely NEED to have it be gemstore, then cool. But they could just sell it as a character unlock. As in, you pay gems, and then have the ability to use tokens to customise your armour as much as you want on that character/account.

I had a similar idea, but it included dungeon tokens. Each dungeon giving a different effect:

AC: Blue ghostly.
CM: Golden.
TA: Leaves
SE: Red electric.
CoF: Fkitteneen.
HoW: Frost.
CoE: Electric.
Arah: Dark smoke.

All just light particle effects, as we saw. No major changes between types, but a cool way to “upgrade” and customise your armour through gameplay.

Finally, thank you!!!

I’m also starting to think monthly would be better. I’d feel a lot more excited to receive massive updates (which a combination of two fortnightly updates would feel like) every month, and also feel less like I was just doing a “flavour of the week” type thing. It’d be really cool to have loads of stuff to do and not feel obliged to do any of it, rather than having some stuff to do and feeling obliged to do all of it.

To be honest what I really want is for SAB and the daily activities to be made permanent and non-rotating. There is so much awesome content that has been coded but because of the way it is distributed it feels like there is very little choice in what to do.

Basically, I’d like a buffet table, not a set menu. I particularly don’t want a set menu of snack courses with the waiters looking at their watches every time I get a plate.

That said, I do love the game, and I appreciate the content. I think we’ve been given plenty for our money but I’d just actually like to be able to, you know, play it

The game goes easy on beginners on any class, so choose the one you think you’ll enjoy. If you’re concerned about late game then the only class that might be actually problematic (as opposed to just weaker than others) is ranger due to the pet mechanics being an issue in some situations. That said, ranger is a lot of fun in open world, especially for beginners.

Silas.8630:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

because the cultural armours were much more unique looking than the universal ones until Anet decided to remove “cultural” armor and make all armor sets universal.

Fixed it for ya.

Hardly. Humans in full T3 armour is incredibly common, especially female medium/light and male heavy. No mix and match, no other cultural armour, just the predesigned set of “top level” armour. Obviously people who want that look is fine, but opening up the cultural armour would allow for some actual variety and creativity (read, uniqueness) in what people consider the endgame look.

Yeah while I think the people who spent gold and gems to get human T3 are right to be angry, I would LOVE to see cultural armour available to everyone. It would allow for a lot of customisation because the cultural armours are much more unique looking than the universal ones.

Fallout.1798:

The thing everyone is forgetting is that the fractals are designed to be random selection. You are not suppose to just spam enter and exit until you get the fractal you badly want (Swamp). Fractals are designed to be end-game hard content, so expect it to be that way. If you can’t handle it then you need to either admit you are not good at them or gear up your character(s) better/change your builds.

It isn’t a question of them being hard, it’s a question of them being boring and long. If the easy bits of dredge were taken out and just the difficult bits were left then that’d be fine.

I agree with this. Putting dredge and grawl first actually is a better solution than removing them. That way the people who want to play them can, and noone else has to. Why include content that most people hate in something that’s supposed to be fun?

Until you’re ready to do it with runes, not that I know of. Try blinking (extend the range through traits), that helps a bit.

While I’d also obviously love a Zenith skin style system, I’d just like to avoid any “they’re never happy” comments and thank ANet for making the tools account bound

This. Really makes the boss fights a lot less fun.

I agree with others on the price being a bit steep, but will get one of the tools soon (not sure about this design). I think 600 gems would have been closer to the mark. 1000 isn’t unreasonable, but also doesn’t feel like a bargain. The gem store seems to have this problem across the board. The things on sale lately are awesome, but still feel overpriced. Every purchase is a pained decision rather than a “oh go on then”.

I’d be much happier throwing gems at the store if it operated more like Steam (where basically everyone has a pile of games they’ve never even installed), where everything just feels like too good a deal to miss. Valve have taken so much money from customers for games they don’t even want, and yet the customers are GRATEFUL to them for it.

Again, I don’t think the price is unreasonable, and I would pay it if I liked the skin. I just think the gem store could feel more like it was a valued service, rather than a way to leech money from the player base. I also think it might make more money that way in the long run, but I obviously don’t have the information to back that up.

Unarmed gets my vote. I’d say gloves (which come in clawed and brass knuckle skin varieties), but I want to be able to kick as well. Then:

Guardian: A heavy hitting slow type, with blocks and counters on 4 and 5 skills.

Thief: Lots of acrobatic martial arts type moves. The 1 skill doing a punch-kick-backflip type combo. The four skill being a nerve strike that stuns.

Mesmer: Lots of teleporting and illusions covering the actual hits. I’m picturing a purple version of Green Lantern crossed with Tifa’s Dolphin Blow.

I’d also buy more skins if there was a wardrobe system. Currently I’m looking at the Phoenix armour, Kasmeer’s staff and Marjory’s axe and thinking “I do want them, but they don’t fit any of my current looks”. If I could buy them and just swap my look around whenever I wanted it would be a no brainer, but as it is I’m hesitant to waste gems and bank space on skins I might never use.

While I am grateful for the move to account bound harvesting tools, and will now buy them (I don’t want this to sound like a complaint), I would also say that I would use far more minis/tools if they were as convenient to access as the finishers. Minis in particular would be much better with this feature, and it would make completing the collection feel a lot more worthwhile.

I definitely agree with this. The current system is alt-unfriendly, and PvP/PvE player unfriendly, and bank space unfriendly.

Fortunately, since the implementation of the wallet and the change of gathering tools to account bound, I think this is the sort of thing that will actually be implemented in the future. The devs do seem to be paying attention, no matter how much complaining that goes on.

Yes, thank you for this. While I won’t be buying either of the currently available tools because they don’t suit my characters, if the previous ones return (or cool future ones appear) I will buy them because they are account bound now. I have avoided several purchases because of the soulbinding.

Hi. I’ve really enjoyed this update so far, so please consider this constructive feedback. My party defeated the hybrid on the first attempt with no one downing, and were disappointed to not receive the mini. This took us from a feeling of success and achievement to a feeling of disappointment which undermined the experience. I will of course be going through again an some point in the next fortnight (or whatever it is), but I think that it would have been better had this achievement been available on the first try.

Absolutely 100% would love this feature.

The first time the Living Story did this we got a mail that gave us clues as to where to look for things. It was really fun, if a little easy, and I enjoyed hunting them all out myself.

Then the dragon pieces thing came out and it basically required a guide (or else hours and hours of wandering).

Then this came out and I just decided not to bother.

I’d really appreciate it if we could go back to proper clue-based scavenger hunts, rather than random wandering or Alt-Tabbing Dulfy.

Guhracie.3419:

To me, personally, it adds weight to making the decision of who gets which dye, and this allows the drops to be rather plentiful and the cost of most basic dyes to be under 1g. I also feel like a lot of people who spent a lot of money getting expensive dyes on more than one character would be rightfully angry at this change.

Oh yes, I understand the problem of implementing it now (I’d hope that if it was implemented then any unlocked duplicates would be returned as the item to the player). I’m not sure I agree with you that account bound dyes would necessitate fewer drops or that basic dyes were more expensive though. If a dye is account bound then that means each player only needs one of them (rather than five as standard), so any spares they get go straight on the TP.

BUBBLES TICKLEPANTS.6315:

Just posting my opinion about a discouraging micro-transaction mechanic. I would be much more inclined to purchase items of convenience if I didn’t fear buyer’s remorse in the future.

Yeah, I’m the same. Not complaining at all. ANet should do what they think will make the game most successful. Just adding my voice to the “I would buy account bound tools, but do not buy soulbound ones” pile.

Guhracie.3419:

I’d love to see the gemstore exclusive dyes be account bound. I’d be opposed to the rest of the dyes being account bound, though.

Out of curiosity, why is this? I’m genuinely stuck as to the reasoning behind character bound dyes.

I do find it strange just how hard the game makes it to want to collect things. Dyes being soulbound just discourages anyone with an alt from collecting. Minis being so hard to actually use/display/keep in your bag makes them really forgettable. Armour and weapon skins… well.

I love the game, but this is just a really strange system to me. Collectors spend money and play obsessively, why design the game to exclude them?

Shiren.9532:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Who on Earth said that gender balance was bad? This is about as positive a behaviour as you could get in terms of gender treatment, and they’re doing it in an industry that is renowned for poorly representing females.

This is why people hate femminism. You make it about female entitlement and not about gender equality.

You praised ArenaNet for doing the opposite. In a thread pointing out that there is an incredible imbalance of female characters in the Living Story you praised the company for writing it that way simply because it appeases what you want to see. It’s simply not true to claim the females are not significantly outnumbering the males at this point (certainly not in the positive portrayal department). The running tally has been way out of balance for a long time and it keeps getting worse with the new Lionguard from Twilight Assault and the captain from Tower of Nightmares.

No-one is saying there shouldn’t be strong female characters in the story. Many of us enjoy and expect them to be in a modern work of fiction. Many of us are growing increasingly frustrated with the asinine way the Living Story has marginalised male characters in a clear agenda to promote female characters at the male’s expense.

That is not gender balance.

Firstly it is common courtesy, if editing a quote, to draw attention to the fact that it has been edited via use of ellipsis. It is also common courtesy not to edit the quote in such a way as to change its meaning. Here, for reference, is what I actually said:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Who on Earth said that gender balance was bad? The media portrayal of women isn’t even remotely balanced, and to call it “dominated” by females is ludicrous including in GW2. ANet have a handful of females in leading roles at this current stage of the Living Story, which is incredibly unusual for videogames. They also haven’t painted a big feminist arrow over the fact that they’re doing it, they’re actually just treating genders equally (body options and skimpy armour discussions aside) as a matter of course. This is about as positive a behaviour as you could get in terms of gender treatment, and they’re doing it in an industry that is renowned for poorly representing females.

I quite explicitly stated that having gender dominance was not a good thing, and that I was praising GW2 for having a mix of genders as well as for not drawing attention to that fact. I never suggested that I wanted more females than males.

On the subject of this “imbalance”. Even the OP lists four females and four males in the Living Story (Rytlock was indeed involved during the Flame and Frost part), so to suggest that ANet are “marginalizing” male characters is just silly. The main character of the game, two of the three Order partners, three out of six destinies edge members, both current Halloween antagonists, and several previous Living Story antagonists are all male.

Moreover, what exactly do you actually want? For there to be a checklist so that every time a female character is introduce, a male character has to be introduced too??? I’m praising ANet for having an actually near even gender balance in an industry where gender balance is basically an alien concept. I’m also praising them for doing it entirely casually with no overt agenda. That you consider this “why people hate feminism” seems to me something of an overreaction, particularly as I never implied that I was a feminist.

I’d certainly buy more skins if they moved to the Zenith model. Every time I see a skin set (or more usually a part of a skin set) that I want, I always wind up hesitating because I don’t want to commit it to one character and then later regret it. Moreover, I can’t use them on low level armours because that means wasting 6 fine transmutation stones down the line.

I’m sure that the calculations have been done, but I really can’t believe that I’m far enough from the majority view as for this not to be at least as lucrative as the current system, and it would be one that generated far more good will towards the gem shop.

Who on Earth said that gender balance was bad? The media portrayal of women isn’t even remotely balanced, and to call it “dominated” by females is ludicrous including in GW2. ANet have a handful of females in leading roles at this current stage of the Living Story, which is incredibly unusual for videogames. They also haven’t painted a big feminist arrow over the fact that they’re doing it, they’re actually just treating genders equally (body options and skimpy armour discussions aside) as a matter of course. This is about as positive a behaviour as you could get in terms of gender treatment, and they’re doing it in an industry that is renowned for poorly representing females.

I hadn’t even noticed this. Good on ANet. Completely bucking the male oriented norm in the media and not overtly drawing any attention to it whatsoever.

I think that driving gem store sales is important to the continued success of the game. However, I would agree with the OP to the extent that a better balance could be struck. This could be done by either alternating skin releases between gem and in game attainment, or by having some skins in the gem store and some not for each release.

I don’t think the situation is quite so bad as the OP suggests. Off the top of my head we have recently had:

Back pieces,
AP sets,
SAB skins,
Sovereign skins,
Twilight Arbour recolours (half a point).

I don’t think that is too bad, given the game is B2P. However, I think the lack of armour skins on that list, combined with the VERY quick succession of Halloween skins to the new skins in BLCs makes the situation look worse than it is. Maybe a little more balance in order to maintain customer satisfaction would be beneficial?

I would like to hear what the reasoning for character bound WXP is. I initially stopped using any character but my main because I cared about my rank. Then I decided I really wanted to play other characters, so simply had to stop caring about my rank. It’s just an element of the game that I’ve simply had to abandon. I can’t understand why such an Alt-unfriendly system was implemented.

Just to throw in feedback. It was nice to see living story rewards in PvP, but I did not like having the PvP rewards removed. I also did not like getting rewards that were not usable in PvP.

That said, I am primarily a PvE player so I found the bags less useful than others might.

I’d hope for the same skin with different coloured flames, like the SAB skins. It’d be nice if the original could be a memento of the first halloween, without stopping people being able to get the look.

Or another, equally cool skin each year. That’s good too

I would enjoy WXP if it was account bound.

As it stands, I find it discourages me from playing with the characters I want to play with or which would be most suited to the task I want to do.

Infamous Darkness.3284:

Yes I believe the only ones that can be sold on the BLTP are ones you received by using black lion tickets sadly as this was the case for me with the wintersday weapons.

Actually this is only partially true. It is possible to trade weapons got from fused tickets etc. but only if you traded them after the patch. If you traded early (as many did because they thought the vendor would go away) then you can’t trade, but if you still have your ticket then, unless they’ve patched it again, you should be able to sell what you get for it.

Yeah, not a complaint because Anet needs to earn money. But in terms of customer feedback, I’d have bought at least two of the unlimited gathering tools, and would probably buy more as new designs came out if they were account bound. As it stands I have bought none because I don’t want to commit them to a single character.

Of all the helmets NOT to hide the ears on, why this one :P ???

Just spent an hour in an overflow with an organised Zerg. Got through most of the fight, then DCed and couldn’t get back into the server. My internet was up all the way through, so it wasn’t a problem at my end. The zerg didn’t make it (by like 1%), but I still missed out on any rewards at all ankitten ow worried to try again. Is there any way to hold a spot for 30 seconds after a disconnect?

Okay, this is a rough framework for a way to allow account wide skin unlocks without losing the current system and also making money in the gemstore.

1) Add a designer to cities and LA who is interested in seeing unique armour and weapons.
2) Add new items “blank sketchbook pages” rarely in the world, commonly in BLCs and for a moderate price on the gem store. These come in each tier of quality, up to Legendary, with each tier being rarer than the one before it.
3) Add “sketchbook” tab into hero panel.
4) For the price of one blank sketchbook page, the designer will record any skin that you possess of that tier into your “sketchbook”. You will then be able to retrieve that skin, as many times as you want, on any of your characters by speaking to a designer.

Note: The sketchbook is not intended to be easily filled, nor is supposed to be easy to get pages for it. It is instead intended to allow players to “save” their favourite skins at a cost. Though hardcore collectors could attempt the feat, with suitable low AP achievements tied to it.

As others have said, I think that GW1 RNG would have been a bad idea. Not because it was a bad idea in GW1 (it sounds awesome), but because there is so much bad feeling towards RNG in GW2 built up that it would have been received terribly.

That said, it is a good point that many players never met Tybalt So perhaps a present of your order leader would have been cool (randomised if you never did story).

My point wasn’t so much to make a serious suggestion, but more to draw attention to the fact that the present wasn’t so much cheap, but that the fanbase don’t seem to care about Jennah in the way that we are meant/thought to.

Yeah, I actually thought the multiple versions even made sense with Tybalt. I’d happily have a Tybalt mini on more than one character. Obviously the issue is more complicated that JUST who the mini was, I just thought that maybe people would feel differently if it hadn’t been Jennah in the box.

There have, obviously, been a lot of complaints on the forum about the birthday present. I’m a little torn on the issue as I find the choice of present baffling, but at the same time appreciate the “don’t complain about a free present” line of thought.

Anyway, I was thinking about the fact that the forum would ALSO have been filled with complaints if the present had been RNG, and wondered if there was anything that Anet could have done that wouldn’t have led to this (nothing, RNG, non-RNG). Then I realised, what if the mini had been Tybalt?

So, simple question. Would you have felt different about the birthday present if the mini had been Tybalt rather than Jennah? Has this whole affair stemmed not from lack of appreciation, but simply from Anet overestimating the popularity (or perhaps even underestimating the unpopularity) of one of its characters?

Healix.5819:

They made it so that karma consumables are not affected by boosters but made it as if you had a booster on when using them, increasing their value by 50%.

Anyone that used them after the patch, but before the hotfix will be compensated with free karma — they get it sent back to them in the mail.

Anyone that used them after the hotfix without boosters not only lost out on the 50% increase but will also not be compensated. Until September 3rd, people that don’t use boosters normally will be missing out compared to if the hotfix never happened.

Regular players that just use the jugs will miss out on like 40k karma due to the hotfix.

Yeah, this does seem harsh. Responding to people who wanted a warning is great and really good to see. But doing so without actually telling people seems a bit of a misstep.

As I say, it isn’t a huge deal, but an in game mail in future would be much appreciated

I was getting like 5,000 i think

They said that those who used them when the new system was up would get their karma boosted. But I wasn’t under the new system, I was under the reintroduced old system because the patch had already come in.

So I read the patch notes yesterday, and today I figured I might as well use up my karma jugs etc. without any boosts as it doesn’t matter any more. I logged into the forum tonight and it turns out that there was a rollback.

Does that mean that I just used non-boosted jugs at the original karma level?

This isn’t the biggest deal, and I realise that the change back was made with good intentions, but it seems a little harsh if correct. Could we please get an in game mail next time a change like that is made outside of the patch please?