Guild Wars 2

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Ah well. Just delete it. It’s not even of any use if you do have HoT unless you’re also a scribe. Which I’m not.

That isn’t quite true. As long as someone in a guild you’re a member of is a scribe, they can use it.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Sandpit.3467:

Not unless there are significantly more enticements and much better content. The HoT expansion was really bad value. Still feels like two zones and two unfinished zones to me.

That’s because you, and probably the vast majority of posts after yours that I didnt bother reading, forget that HoT includes two different types of content:

• The HoT content itself
• Every LS3-LSWhatever release between HoT and the next expansion

No expac? No LS3+. HoT only shipped with the initial content, as well as all the game changes it brought, everything else is coming.

Finally, every time someone forgets this, Jormag eats a kitten. If you willingly “forget” this when posting, Jormag eats 10 kittens.

This is a bit sketchy given that Living Story was supposed to be the GW2 model. So HoT doesn’t so much “include” LS3, it actually just sets up a pay wall to LS3.

Obviously from a customer perspective that does mean you have to buy HoT to get LS3, but I really don’t think that can be used to argue that HoT is good value. Especially when we had to go through a massive content drought in the run up to HoT, and will be in one for several more months now.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

I keep seeing people saying ArenaNet has lied about this expansion, and haven’t delivered.

I just got back to the game last week, can anyone enlighten me on what promises they have gone back on? Or is everyone just whining for the sake of whining?

I don’t think it’s fair to say they lied. It’s just that, through a combination of their marketing and hype, and customer over-optimism, expectation were much higher than delivered. Some of these expectations changed before HoT, some after. For me:

Price:
Expectation – Maybe half the cost of the base game.
Reality – The same as the base game.

New class:
Expectation – Would come with a couple of free character slots.
Reality – Came with one free character slot, after massive backlash.

WvW:
Expectation – New maps would be added.
Reality – New maps replaced current maps, and destroyed WvW. Also massive gold sinks turned up.

Legendary weapons:
Expectation – We’d get a full set of legendary weapons.
Reality – Five months later we have three legendary weapons, and no time frame on more.

Precursor crafting:
Expectation – We’d have a fun and accessible way to get precursors instead of the massive gold sink.
Reality – We have a fun and accessible way to get precursors, broken up in the middle by a massive gold sink.

Guild halls:
Expectation – We’d get a small hall we could decorate and level with our guild.
Reality – We got a massive and pretty amazing hall we could decorate and level with our guild… with an enormous gold sink. Oh and they broke guild missions for a few weeks.

Story:
Expectation – We’d get a medium length story that addressed Living World questions like where Rytlock has been, and handled a sudden anti-Sylvari climate.
Reality – Eh… It sort of did some stuff well, but was really short.

Maps:
Expectation – Intitial, loads of new maps.
Reality – Actually some pretty amazing maps, but only three you can really explore, and all of them bound to timed metas.

Rewards:
Expectation – Loads of new armours and weapons, including the Revenant weapons from beta.
Reality – Keys. So. Many. Keys.

Fractals:
Expectation – Reworked reward system, including a legendary backpiece.
Reality – Initially broken rewards system, no legendary backpiece so far.

Raids:
Expectation – Three new raids.
Reality – So far, two thirds of a raid.

Dungeons:
Expectation – Nothing really. Maybe a couple of new ones?
Reality – Actively made the ones we had worse.

Post-launch:
Expectation – The content drought would end. We’d get living story again, and maybe even things like SAB or Dragon Bash.
Reality – Unless you’re a raider or a PvPer, then it’s occasional festival repeats for about a year.

Now a lot of those expectations were absolutely my own fault, and not ANet lying. But the problem is that ANet are so tight-lipped about what they’re doing that all you can do is guess about what’s coming. Combine that with some areas where they actually did way over-hype the content that was coming, or at least the time frame it was coming in, and it just makes it very hard to justify pre-ordering the next one.

Yeah, I have a lot of issues with ANet, but the customer support team is amazing.

Unless there is significantly more openness regarding release schedules and content, probably not.

Obviously HoT is nowhere near the value of the original game, but I wouldn’t have minded that if I felt like I was supporting a game and company that had the players’ interests as a high priority. Making money obviously comes first, but it is possible to make money whilst also respecting your customers, and I don’t think ANet is succeeding in the latter.

(That said, I just had an excellent experience dealing with their customer support team. Credit where it’s due.)

Okay, the threads blaming raids seem a bit divisive, so I though I’d start this thread instead. Whether or not raids are responsible for the content drought really isn’t something we can know, nor is it actually the important issue. Hopefully we can leave it aside in this thread.

For reference, this link gives release dates:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release

As seen, we haven’t had any major new PvE additions, excluding HoT, since January 2015. It also seems that we won’t be getting any more Living Story until potentially Q3 of this year. If you didn’t buy HoT, that means that the last thing you had to do was play the mid-point cliffhanger of a story you didn’t get to finish. If you did buy HoT, you paid the price of the base game for it, didn’t get all of it, and have actually had fewer updates in the same time since the original launch.

There have been updates of course, but these have been repeated content (Halloween, Wintersday, Lunar New Year) or small and niche (Shatterer, Raids). Gliding, for those who own HoT being a notable and awesome exception.

I realise my spin on this is on the negative side (obviously lots of people are happy with the game), so I’ll end the post here, but I just thought it would be helpful to separate the “We need content” and “We blame raids” discussions into separate threads.

Okay, I disagree with you on literally every point you made, but this doesn’t seem like a conversation worth engaging in so I’m going to leave it there.

Ayrilana.1396:

Players got use out of them when World 2 was active. It would be appalling for people to get refunds for things that they have already used.

SAB will be back. No release schedule was given at the time that the infinite coins were available for sale. Two data points are hardly a trend so it being released in April of that year and then later in September isn’t relevant.

I personally have no problems with players getting refunds under one single condition. They are forever excluded from buying (or receiving as a gift) that item again.

That’s ridiculous. If you buy a gaming console, and a week later it breaks down, you aren’t forbidden from complaining because you “got use from it”.

While yes two data points are not enough to say that “We were guaranteed use every six months”, it has been two and a half years. That’s way beyond reasonable expectation.

Your last comment is frankly just spiteful. Why the heck should people be banned from repurchasing the product again? If they’re willing to rebuy it, then clearly they weren’t just paying for use in September 2013. Your system exclusively punishes the people who weren’t buying it for the function that was actually provided.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’d imagine that raids are good for people that like that sort of thing, bad for those who don’t like them but want whatever rewards they offer, and a matter of indifference to anyone not in those two categories.

I’m in neither category, but I wouldn’t say I’m indifferent. I think raids have had a minor negative impact on the community, and also have slightly made the ascended/exotic difference a legitimate problem, which three years later does still bug me.

As someone who hates it when non-SAB players object to SAB coming back, I absolutely wouldn’t want to stop raids being put in the game for those who like them. But I am a little concerned by the way they seem to fit into the schedule. We’re being told timing the release of LS3 in terms of how it relates to raid launches. That is hopefully not an implication that LS3 is being delayed due to raids, but I’d be really unhappy if that were the case.

It isn’t even “Soon” any more. Just “Someday”.

People paid real world cash two and a half years ago to play SAB. It’s really appalling that they still refuse to give refunds.

echo.2053:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I’d rather they’d gone the other way and given us something like the Queen’s gauntlet.

o.0’ how was that difficult content? that was just pre-silverwaste.

I said “like”. Plus plenty of people found Liadri difficult in the first year.

The point was that I’d prefer that we had five player content and solo/duo content than five player content and ten player content.

Our guild also suffered due to raids. We seem to have recovered from it (after losing some players) by basically forgetting about them.

I don’t mind raids existing, but I would be curious as to how many people do raids compared to how many played SAB. Given that raids are getting a lot of attention, and SAB has been closed for two and a half years (after being paid for with real money by some players).

Generally though, I like hard content, but not having to organise nine other people to do it with. Honestly I’d rather they’d gone the other way and given us something like the Queen’s gauntlet.

I know this thread is a bit of a joke, but the fact that the guild miniature symbol is a quaggan and none of the minis are actually quaggans really annoyed me. We got all excited to unlock it and then… meh.

Just one quaggan mini with a guild logo and I’d have been so happy

Gaile Gray.6029:

Thanks for your kind instincts, Xillllix. No worries about your comments or anyone else’s, really.

But let me explain a bit: I wanted to post because by doing so, players who may not have seen a “red post” for a while will be assured that we are actively reading and responding to this question, and that there are no changes in our plans to bring back this well-loved element of the game.

It might be an easy assumption to say “It’s not here today (or it’s not been here in XXX days) therefore it’s never coming.” But that’s truly inaccurate. So an update seems worthwhile, just to remind forum members of our plans for the future.

Gaile, I appreciate you posting, but I really think you could be a little more understanding of your customers here. While it is great to be reassured that you’re reading this, something like this might be better:

“Hi everyone, I’m really sorry but we don’t have a time frame on the release still, but I assure you it is coming back. I realise this has been said before but I wanted to let everyone know that we haven’t forgotten you.

As for those who paid for the ICC, we are again really sorry but [insert whatever the heck justification there is for not giving refunds after this long regardless of whether it is coming back or not]."

At this point, I think it should be easy to realise that “It is coming” will come across as sort of hollow on it’s own, and “Your complaints about having to wait for three years having spent real world money on a product will be moot” is pretty disrespectful to paying customers.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Posts that express upset about the coin — while I understand them — will be moot when SAB returns. Which will happen.

Ummm… The coins were bought in September 2013. I really don’t think “moot” is an appropriate description of customer complaints regarding this kind of wait on a service they paid real world money for.

Can you imagine if another consumer industry handled complaints like this? Heck, waiting longer than 28 days for a product you’ve paid for is often grounds for an apology and some kind of compensation. Even if SAB came out today, we’ve been waiting for two and a half years.

Marthkus.4615:

Anet can’t help how bored people like to be.

Have you considered not running the same 3 fractals? Oh wait no that’s ridiculous. Have to grind content as fast as possible. Fast > Fun

ANET probably has to address this issue before adding new fractals no one will bother playing. Soon you’ll be attuned to the first fractal you roll and HAVE to do it, or every reroll increases the difficulty level without increasing rewards.

Well they could have helped the boredom a bit with variety. SAB was awesome and hugely loved, and ANet turned it into a way to anger players. Activities were underdeveloped but a little fun, rather than add a way to play with guildies ANet put them on a weird rotation that meant you couldn’t play when you wanted. Rather than add things that made the game more interesting, they spent three years making the game blander (NPE).

A little bit of a nod to this was done with adventures, which is cool, but sadly a bit too little too late.

Yeah, I find it really weird. I made the shield because it has the symbol, and ignored the rest. Didn’t buy any of the commendation set (except the shield as an ingredient) for the same reason.

TD is probably my favourite map in the game. I understand why people wouldn’t like it, and it isn’t very casual friendly, but I hope every expansion includes one map like it. All the others should be something for everyone, but something for those of us who like exploring and getting lost would be nice

I don’t think you need to go so far as “shady marketing tactics” to be angry at the handling of the Infinite Continue Coin.

I believe that ANet fully intended for SAB to open again, and their marketing reflected that. But an item bought with real world money has been useless since 2013, and they’ve been refusing to refund it or even apologise for the fact that they clearly haven’t delivered in anything like a reasonable time frame.

In other consumer industries there’d have been apologies, a refund, and probably a discount on future service (think about pizza arriving late). What we’ve had is just not a good way to treat paying customers.

In terms of PvE missions, three people can manage at least an easy bounty, an easy race, and an easy and medium trek. If there are other guilds doing the races when you arrive you can do any of them. Puzzles and challenges, sadly no you won’t be able to do.

It’s really weird how much ANet seems to hamper itself. So much effort was put into make the halls massive and beautiful. The decoration system, even if flawed, is really cool. They had this brilliant set up to have a home for guilds with crafting stations, the TP, whatever…

…but then they decide that they actually don’t want they to be too good or else people won’t use other content.

I mean, really? How much do you want to shoot yourself in the foot? Making guild halls lazily would have been one thing, but actually putting effort into them and then intentionally making them worse is just utterly bizarre.

There are several reasons, though to me there are three main issues that I think are important:

1) People care about the game. They want it to succeed, and are concerned when changes are made that they think will damage it. This is an MMO, and therefore an active player base is important for everyone. For a simplistic example of really bad decision making, consider the amount of hours that have been put into creating content that no longer exists in game. Imagine if we’d been given a new city, instead of a third version of LA. Or if Living World Season 1 was accessible. Or if SAB had been left open. Or if the new WvW maps had been additions rather than (actually never mind on that one)…

2) ANet are bad at communication. This has led to players moving from “I care about the game so will give my input” to “I care about the game, but will have to shout my input in order to be heard”. There have been literal in game riots about this, and nothing came of them.

3) Players are paying customers, and ANet has done some pretty questionable things in terms of their cash. For me, the Infinite Continue Coin is the worst (a gem store item that has been literally useless since 2013 that they refuse to refund). But the list is getting pretty long on this front (focus on gem store, promises of content with preorders that simply hasn’t been delivered, heavy focus on RNG based rewards…). This has led players from “I care about the game but will need to shout to be heard” to “Okay, if ANet doesn’t respect me as a customer, then I will treat them with the same lack of respect”.

Now this isn’t to say that everything is ANet’s fault. Obviously there’s no excuse for abusive posting, and it isn’t like they haven’t given us lots and lots of content. But these seem to be the key issues to me.

The sad thing for me is that I like the boots. Just not with that dress, which I also like. And I don’t like either of them with that shoulder piece, which I also like.

I’m actually okay with outfits, as I like the ability to swap looks quickly (though of course a second armour panel could have done this), but this is one instance where armour would have been much, much better.

Khyan.7039:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

What is stunning is that SAB hasn’t been open since 2013.

Even after so many players left, it’s still highly wanted. That’s how good it was.

What it also means is that ANet’s refusal to refund or apologise to buyers of the Infinite Continue Coin with real money is pretty shocking. I really don’t get why that isn’t more of a talking point. They literally took people’s cash and then turned off the function for two and a half years…

They didn’t refund maybe because SAB will coming back, soon.

People have been asking for refunds for at least a year and a half. At what point is “soon” no longer an excuse?

Heck, even if SAB was coming out tomorrow, is two and a half years really an okay amount of time to hold on to people’s money while offering no service whatsoever?

What is stunning is that SAB hasn’t been open since 2013.

Even after so many players left, it’s still highly wanted. That’s how good it was.

What it also means is that ANet’s refusal to refund or apologise to buyers of the Infinite Continue Coin with real money is pretty shocking. I really don’t get why that isn’t more of a talking point. They literally took people’s cash and then turned off the function for two and a half years…

People paid real world money for a product that has been useless since September 2013. Have we reached a point where “It’s coming back” is no longer an excuse yet?

I know that it’s a small amount of money, and I know that “technically” we got to use it for that single month (if you bought it at the very beginning of the release). But just from a basic customer relations and respect perspective, surely an apology and a refund is appropriate by now?

Okay, a few things that I’ll just be quick about:

1) The post from Matt was amazing. His follow up posts on the reddit thread were even better (they were short and direct responses to questions made openly and in good humour). This is exactly what people have been asking (and occasionally rioting) for for years.

2) It’s sad that it was on reddit, but if that’s just how it’s going to be then excellent communication in a non-ideal place is better than no communication.

3) There is a serious issue with player communication that goes back a long way. Just look at how well Matt’s reddit post was received, even though it notes multiple problems with a single game system and ALSO states that it’ll be a long and unknown amount of time until they are fixed. So much of the hate on these forums could be solved if the community was actually talked to.

4) Gaile, the “We don’t talk speculatively about future development” guideline, if that is all that is going on, is clearly not working. People are really, really angry. We were told communication would improve after the SAB riots, and it hasn’t. I don’t think anyone believes this is your fault, but there is a fault in the system somewhere and it needs fixing.

5) I really don’t think the community blaming by some people is helpful. People were angry before this reddit post, just look at the countless bug threads (angry about lack of clarification on the issues, not the existence of them) to see that. People aren’t getting angry here because of the reddit post, they just haven’t stopped being angry yet, and are pointing Matt’s writing as an example of how to appease this.

(Note, to avoid the usual kittenstorm, when I say “people” I mean it in the normal sense of the word, “more than one person”. It is not meant to be read as “everyone”, nor “the entire guild wars 2 playerbase”. If you don’t think I have spoken for you, fine, I wasn’t pretending to.)

I like them, but agree they should be mouseover.

A world completion star, a mastery rank, a PvP rank, and a WvW rank icon would be a nice way of showing people have achieved things in a variety of modes. They just look terrible floating above everyone’s head all the time.

Hey don’t forget the SAB riots last year which led to them saying they’d start to communicate with us more.

I still don’t understand why the Infinite Continue Coin doesn’t get more press. They took real money and then disabled the content for two years and counting…

Yup, broken for us too, two weeks in a row. Really don’t understand why they haven’t been taken out of the rotation, or at least a mail sent out to warn people not to do them.

I’m sure ANet did their research, but I’m frankly staggered that making the starter maps more boring actually improves retention. I started as a sylvari, and the dog heart, followed by golem chess in Rata Sum made the world feel so full of possibilities.

Between this and moving all the activities to LA on rotation (no longer actually going to the keg brawl field to play), Tyria just doesn’t feel as alive as it used to.

Adding a banker would be a nice touch. Given the scribing table offers it already it would be purely for the feeling of “completeness”, which wouldn’t do anything to dissuade visits to cities.

I also think adding a black lion trader is reasonable. The current system is unnecessarily convoluted, and it really highlights the “we’re going to make guild halls worse rather than cities better” approach.

LA has vendors, the forge, crafting stations (which I also think should be in the halls, but whatever) and people from other guilds. There’s plenty of reasons to go there without hampering something that players are putting thousands of gold and hours into. Cities… well cities should really have more things in them, and that’s been a long term problem unrelated to guild halls.

I think they should go the other way. Double the price, and make it apply to every character on the account. 400 gems is way too much. 800 for everyone is cheap, but would sell by the boatload (I don’t think the return on a higher price would be worth it, as there’s a slight psychological and cost factor in the way gems are bought over 800).

I’d at least like to hear the reasoning. It seems that they actually put in extra work to make the Lost Precipice less good, which is weird.

Ideally, they should work on the same system as the Mordrem decorations (as in, they stay in the state they were last put in), but the next best option is pretty clearly to have them permanently on.

Yeah, new missions are AWFUL. First mission was a trek, so not everyone could get credit. Second mission was a bounty, which was fine. Third mission was another trek, so not everyone could get credit. Fourth mission was a Puzzle, which at least seven people who completed didn’t get credit for (and the fun Cheese chest was gone, which is just kinda lame). Fifth mission was Rush, which bugged for loads of people, meaning that some spent two or three minutes running back and forth over the finish line trying to get it to register…

Really disappointed. The old system was fine. We needed new content, not having the old content broken :S

Yeah, lack of a black lion trader is a big omission. I think the crafting stations should be there as well, even if at a really late tier, but the trader not being there is just a massive pain.

I’d also like a bank added with the scribing station just for a feeling of completeness. Functionally it’s unnecessary, but it’d be cool to have one.

What bothers me is that it shouldn’t even come close to hypothetical discussion of contacting credit card companies.

It’s just common courtesy and standard (not even good) customer service to offer an apology and refund (or some form of lesser compensation) when you don’t deliver the expected product in the expected time. If you go into a restaurant and the food is delayed, then even with no prior mention of fast delivery they will always apologise and offer at least a discount on the bill.

It just makes ANet look like they will disregard their paying customers if and when they can. Which is fine, unless they want to foster any kind of customer loyalty or positivity.

Not to mention that the skin rewards were possibly the best designed system we’ve had in the game so far. Blues were easy to get, RNG based but also grindable and available on the TP. Then coloured skins, which were aesthetically different but on exactly the same level, required completing challenging content. Better yet, they weren’t RNG based.

I know ANet has been busy, but the continued lack of apology, at least for the Infinite Continue Coin, still leaves a bad taste in the mouth for me. It’s like no matter what they do, I still know that given the opportunity they will completely disregard their paying customers after taking their money. That’s really sad given how much effort they are actually putting in, and how much I’d love to simply support them 100%.

Infinite continue coin refunds.

Yeah, it’s sad how lifeless they’ve made Tyria in a lot of ways. I basically stopped playing activities because of the rotation (whenever I’ve had the urge to play I’ve almost always had the wrong day). But more than that, it took flavour out of the world. Hoelbrak being home to keg brawl made it interesting. Same with crab toss being in Southsun.

A daily rotation in the same place just takes away any possible sense of immersion or feeling like you’re in a living world.

Between activities, the loss of SAB, and the stripping of interesting starter content with the NPE the world just isn’t as alive as it used to be.

This would be cool, but for both systems it would be really good if you could “mark” the minis/finishers you want in the rotation. With it totally randomised it just disincentivises getting the less desirable ones.

Awesome, love these

Cage Fall
Number: 456

The obvious solution to the Charr issue is just to sell a cultural backpiece similar to the wedding outfit:

Human: Cape with guild emblem
Asura: Hologram guild emblem
Sylvari: Leaf cape with guild emblem
Norn: Fur with guild emblem
Charr: Armour shell with guild emblem

I have no idea why this hasn’t happened. Given how much demand there’s been it would make a LOT of money.

While I’m surprised by the suggestion that these names might be considered offensive, I think it is inappropriate to approach the issue flippantly. Mental health is an area that is notoriously poorly handled by the public, and it is entirely possible that people in a vulnerable position could be affected by seeing yet another instance of casual negative language.

Of course people are welcome to think “This seems overly sensitive and I’m not convinced we need to tread quite so lightly”, but an outright dismissal of the issue doesn’t seem like a good response.

If you think that’s bad, look at Kudzu. It has the same problem, but the string isn’t even connected to anything.

Sounds like warrior to me.

I found it really odd that they didn’t bother to put any achievements in the recent mordrem invasion. It was a perfect opportunity.

Would love a grid. Also, while it’s a tiny change, I’d love the display to stop defaulting to the dailies instead of account medals.

Yeah, this was a result of the system change, and not the worst continuity break by a LONG way. It’s weird how little regard whoever was in charge for that had for the story. I know it’s not exactly the biggest reason people play this kind of game, but I’d have expected at least a little respect for the work.

Can someone please confirm, if a guild completed their missions last Sunday (27th September), will they receive rewards this Sunday (4th October)?