Colin should take notes on how to make a proper post addressing player concerns. This post was well written and respectful. But also, why is this post on Reddit? Why did a player have to make this information available on the official forums? If Reddit is going to be the new official forum, then our Anet account logins should start working on Reddit. I’m not going to go make a Reddit account because Anet would rather post on Reddit than fix the issues with their own forum software.
re: developer lack of professionalism – You obviously have no experience working in a development setting. As far back as the 80’s, people now known as “developers” were given more leeway in how they dress and conduct their work. And they have been given more and more leeway as time goes on.
They don’t need to dress like bank tellers, as they’re not customer-facing.(Though when they do have to interact with customers, they’re generally held to a higher standard.) And the work that they do is intensely mentally demanding, and requires that they take breaks to do something mindless and “recharge”. (This is when you may see them “acting like a bunch of kids”.) Do some developers take shameless advantage of the leeway that they’re given? Absolutely. But some of the hardest working people I’ve ever seen go to work “dressed like they are still college students rolling out of bed and late for class”.
Good management is the key to keeping your developers productive.(Actually, that’s true for any employees.) I didn’t need to read any of the Glass Door reviews to know that Anet’s upper management has been remiss in many of their duties.(Though I did read some of them, and they just reinforce what I already knew from what has been handled well or poorly in GW2.)
<edit: Why does the forum software ignore all my indents and leave me with a WallOtext?>
I think that the person in charge of this “reduction in visual noise” project targeted the easy objectives first, just to try and get some changes out the door fast. They should have known(and probably did know) that this would blow up in their faces. But they were probably under pressure to make some “immediate change”.
This makes it important that we keep reminding them that the changes that have been made so far generally are not doing the job, and are also not desirable. They need to realize that we need a better solution in place.
Besides, all the large World Bosses have huge, obvious tells.(Inquest Golem raising his fist, w/ orange AoE circles, Shatterer raising his paw/claw, etc…) Which are not obscured by “visual noise”. I find that the smaller World Bosses(like Svanir Shaman for instance) are more obscured by pet names and minion labels, which can’t be turned off like player names.(Geez, if I had player names on, the smaller World Bosses would be completely obscured by text.)
Some of “That Guy” are trolls, some are rude, and some are simply oblivious. I try not to be any of those “That Guy”s.
If I’m running through an area (gathering, exploring or whatever) I keep track of whether I have developed a “train” of mobs or not. You can bind a key to look behind you, which makes it a lot easier. If I’m pulling a train past someone, I make sure that they don’t aggro any of the mobs in the train. And if I’m pulling towards someone who happens to be in my path, I about-face(there’s a key bind for this as well) and kill all the mobs before they get to that person ahead of us. It doesn’t matter whether they’re AFK or not, it’s a matter of courtesy.(And sometimes it’s hard to tell if someone is AFK, anyway.) I’ve also had players attack and kill mobs in my train.(Perhaps to help me, perhaps thinking I’m oblivious and trying to help the hapless players I might drag my train onto.) In this case I turn and help them kill the mobs. Because I really don’t want to be any type or form of “That Guy”.
re: All i see is some people shouting in say chat. And some naming and shaming on the forums. – All I see is someone proving that they couldn’t be bothered to read the thread, but felt compelled to respond anyway.
The problem is “the right thing” is to work to make sure that events succeed. But Anet has in several situations made an alternate “the right thing”, where you need an event to fail – to progress, get a better reward, get an achievement, etc… This is wrong in more than one way. It pits players against each other, and it rewards failure. It’s bad design, and has generated a lot of toxicity. And yet they keep doing it. Why?!?
re: Combat visibility in general isn’t driven by any sort of “esports” stuff though I realize that’s the easy out that’s cool thing to blame things on this week. – The timing of these visual nerfs right before the esports event was an unfortunate coincidence, then? The reason that esports is “the easy out that’s cool thing to blame things on this week” is perhaps because esports is what’s being hyped “this week”, and those changes hit just before “this week”. So yeah, we’re just so reaching blaming esports as the culprit.
Colin replied to this issue on Reddit. On Reddit?!? Why would he reply on Reddit, rather than the official forum?
Here’s a quote:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “I will say last time I saw the backlog of combat visibility cleanup work, the vast majority of stuff was along the lines of what you’re all suggesting below. More programming solutions at the systemic level and going after a lot of the side-FX like noise generated by other players rather than directly impacting your own FX 100% of the time.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So why did they start with the stuff that would be more impactful to individual players VFX (with no player choice/options) and plan to do the less directly impacting stuff(and give player options) later. To me that seems backwards. Wouldn’t you want to start with the more fundamental “programming solutions at the systemic level” and “a lot of the side-FX like noise generated by other players”. Then if that didn’t produce the desired results, resort to stuff that is “directly impacting your own FX 100% of the time”.
It seems to me that they’re working on this issue in reverse.
re: Why should you be able to progress a character without even playing it? – Why are there writs of experience and scrolls/tomes of knowledge, then? I’m a PvE only player, and I still get what the WvW players are saying. In PvE, you go to an area appropriate for your character level, and experience. In PvP everyone is a maxed out lvl 80. In WvW, the missing skills and traits are a handicap. They want to be able to max out a character before stepping into WvW, so they’re on equal footing, and not a hindrance to their team. So it’s really not the same as PvE, or PvP.
re: Has anyone ever sat down to play GW2 and complained the game was too visually appealing and that it needs to be made bland? Did I miss that post? – Made me laugh out loud. Actually, the theory is that this is for ESports spectators. But Anet hasn’t commented,(that I’ve seen) so we don’t know for sure why they’re nerfing graphics.
re: Anet does whats best for Anet, F the majority of the player base. – What’s bad for the player base is bad for Anet. They’re going to need to figure that out and act on it.
re: Maybe they’re soulbound for the same reason I can’t go on my guardian and earn hero points for my Mesmer in HoT maps. – That is a good point, and seems fair in certain ways. But I don’t know enough about PvP or WvW to tell you for sure.
The thing that really bugs me is, Anet is making yet another “currency” that will at some point not be needed. And though it is a “currency”, it is not in the wallet, so it will start to stack up in the characters inventory and need to be destroyed(wasted) eventually. Writs of experience and essence of luck are also in this category. I think it’s bad design to make currencies like this that will eventually need to be wasted. Especially since you can’t reasonably avoid earning them.
My point is, Anet should make these currencies useful for something else once they’re not needed, make them transferable, or award something else when they are no longer a useful/appropriate reward.
re: TS elitism (only letting in those who have teamspeak, what about the people who don’t have it) – The Teamspeak client is free. And it really is a better way to coordinate than typed chat.
The forum search is broken.(since launch) There’s a sticky at the top of this forum titled “Searching the Forums”, that has a workaround for searching the forums with google.(I’m totally serious.)
So you can search on “linux”, but you’re not going to find a lot, and none of it good. There is technically a native Mac client, and I think that’s the closest that you’re going to get. I don’t think they’re willing to put the resources towards developing and sustaining a client for yet another OS. But we’ll see. I hope you get some kind of response, but they haven’t been communicating much lately.
Yep. I had totally forgotten about that one. Looking at the notes at the bottom of the entry however, it does seem that the Enchanted Treasure Chest is unlocked per account, not per character. So the OP would still have some sort of issue.(If I’m interpreting this correctly.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unlike other Nodes in the Home Instance, this can only be opened by players who have unlocked it. Guests visiting another player’s Home Instance can only open the chest if they have also unlocked the chest on their own account.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One more thing – do you keep all your keys on that one character? You do need keys to open the chest in your home instance, so you’ll need to have at least one key on any character who tries to open the chest.
To me this seems like a bug. I can loot the chest with any of my characters, and even guests in my home instance can loot the chest. And I can loot the chest in friends’ home instances. So your situation is definitely not how it should work. I would put in a ticket.
The star on the left is for World Completion,(visiting every single hero point, vista, point of interest, and way point on the original map) the one on the right is for Masteries.
Nope, for some stupid reason the item doesn’t do any basic checking before firing off. It will waste itself under the wrong conditions. (full map) This may not be what was “intended”, but it is how it works.(or kinda works)
I’ve been going there to farm hero points to fill out the elite specs on all my alts. Do you want those nerfed, too?
Why not correct game mechanics instead?
You need charged quartz for a lot more than just celestial gear. The (arbitrary, unexplained) time gate is, IMO, a problem.
re: Enchanted Map Scraps – These are not governed by RNG. You get the same one from the same type of chest. Loot chests from different regions.(even open world chests drop them) The wiki is your friend: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Enchanted_Treasure_Map
Why would you want to mute a commander? If you’re in his squad, the whole point is to follow his directions. If you’re not in his squad, you wouldn’t even hear him.(I think this is what the OP means, anyway.)
Game mechanics-wise, a tagged-up commander should be able to do anything that a p;layer can do, except join another squad. Why does Anet have to make everything so complicated and dysfunctional?
And LFG needs a re-work. I don’t even know where to begin with that. More, narrower, categories would be a start.
I wonder if it would be possible to have the item try a “join” first, and abort without consuming the item if the map change fails.
Which do we think would be a better solution:
1) Don’t move or consume the item if the map if the map is full.(item not wasted)
or
2) Move to the same spot on a map that isn’t full.(friend can join you instead)
re: The post on this is stickied . how did you miss it ? – And the mail itself says that it’s from another player not from an ArenaNet employee. What more would you want them to do?
re: requirement that anything chatted while using /mentor active costs 1 silver per line of chat – People shouldn’t have to pay to mentor. They’re doing Anet and other players a favor.(If they’re actually mentoring.) If they’re trolling or otherwise abusing the Mentor tag, then that should be reported. But I haven’t seen this at all. (yet) In fact, from my experience the problem is the opposite – Lots of players tagged up, saying nothing, doing nothing, not contributing or helping in any way. Not “Mentoring” at all. Just sitting there. Doing nothing but cluttering up the map with their tag.
re: From a programming viewpoint it’s probably easiest to just prevent anything being placed in the “action zone” of anything else, regardless of what they are. – Agreed. No interactive item should be able to be placed on top of, or too close to(so that their “interact” zones overlap) another interactive item. And that includes NPC’s who always step up to the bank 2 seconds before I get there. Why didn’t this functionality ship with the game? Why would you allow this to happen in the first place? What is the point of allowing interactive items to interfere with each other? They should have seen that this would cause problems on the first beta weekend, and corrected it then.
Anet ought to add a way to see/hide each type of tag. But Mentor tags should be visible by default, so that new players can see them.
If Mentor tags are only visible to people “looking for mentors” , then new players would have to know how to use that tool in order to get Mentor help. (unless they turned on the “looking for mentors” flag by default)
re: Mentors that have their tag activated will be in an invulnerable mist form that can’t attack and only loot bodies and chests. – This is pretty much the same thing proposed in the OP, with all the same drawbacks. And is not in any way a solution to any of the issues.(way to not read the thread)
re: Instead of doing the damage threshold they will only get rewards when their party members actually participate in the event. – This is interesting, rewarding Mentors for the party effort(only), not for their individual effort. But I fail to see why a person can’t be a player and a Mentor at the same time. I don’t get all this bitter, angry “Mentors must be Mentors only” stuff. What kind of scam, troll, etc… are people doing with Mentor tags that people are so desperate that they not be able to act as a player at the same time as they mentor? And if people are abusing Mentor tags, are the people seeing this reporting it?
It is far more effective to demonstrate what you are teaching as you explain it. Anyone who has actually tried to teach others would know this.
How would disabling the ability to attack/use skills help a mentor teach? And how would it keep people tagged up with mentor tags, but sitting, doing nothing , and not contributing at all from cluttering up the map? How would it keep a troll from giving someone bad/misleading advice?
It seems to me that this “solution” fails to address any of the actual issues.
You should only be able to consume a recipe with a character that has that crafting profession. This is a bug that has existed for quite a while, and should be corrected.
(Yeah, a little caution would prevent wasting a recipe. But some recipes are quite expensive, and why not just fix the bug?)
A couple of days ago, I completed the Tempest Elite Specialization, unlocked the shoulder gear, and didn’t get the unlock for it. Then I completed the Druid Elite Specialization, unlocked the shoulder gear, and did get the unlock for it. I just verified that this is still not fixed.
For those experiencing frequent crash issues, please try shutting your PC down completely (so that it powers off) and restarting right before you attempt those activities that are likely to cause a crash. I’ve seen this method help people who are having frequent crashes. It’s not an ideal solution. But it’s something you can do while waiting for Anet to come up with a better fix.
Also, you might please try lowering your graphics settings all the way down, and gradually turning them up until you begin to experience crashes again.
re: Really .. is it so hard to set character model limit and quality to medium ? – Really.. Do you know that all the people experiencing crash issues have their graphics options set too high? I didn’t see anywhere that this thread was for spitting on people and looking down your nose at them. The frequent crash issues are not all simply an issue of graphics being set too high. Why not offer a helpful suggestion, not filled with venom and bile?
Sorry, I used the word “title” instead of “achievement” in one place. But the point still stands. Why remove achievements for content that still exists?
re: What did you expect that you would be entitled to the achievement because it was available 2 years ago? – Yes, actually. If the JP is available, why should the title not be available? How is someone completing it now, less valid than completing it when it was first out? I’m asking this, and I don’t even do jumping puzzles. Why should achievements no longer exist for content that still does? Why should you have to go and check your achievement screen to make sure an achievement still exists, each time before you attempt it?
So what is the actual solution here? Would people who just wanted vanity tags be happy(or less unhappy) with a refund of their 100 or 300 gold?
What if the Mentor Tag and overhead icon were simpler? I’d prefer if the Mentor icon was a simple white/transparent circle with a lowercase “i” in it. Or just the lowercase “i”, if the circle/“i” combo is too complex for map icon display. And Mentor Tags should definitely not be in a color that Commander Tags can use. Would that make the Mentor Tag/Icon “uncool” enough for you to justify the 100 or 300 gold spent on what amounts to an over-priced vanity tag? I’m seriously asking.
I’d prefer if they made a free vanity tag, which you got after completion of the level 10 block of Personal Story, or for some other early goal in PvP or WvW. But all tags would have check boxes in the options menu, so each player would be able to see or hide any of the tag types at their option.
Actually, the theory is that this is for ESports spectators. But Anet hasn’t commented,(that I’ve seen) so we don’t know for sure why they’re nerfing graphics.