Guild Wars 2

There’s the one outfit I’ve been looking for, for a long time – the winter explorer. Since it was data-mined, I knew I had to get it for my norn. I even spent some time and coin getting all the dyes I wanted. Alas, my norn will have to make due with his standard-issue Vigil armour, as I will not purchase gems with cash from Anet until they start to treat us like players, and not customers and above all throw the trait change down the drain.

That outfit is what, 700-800 gems? So that’s a $10 sale you just lost, Anet, because I was really going to buy it.

Anybody else not buying anything from gemstore?

So when I got the yellow flashing message about a new build, I knew it was wintersday but I also wanted to believe…. Alas, we are still below Anet hearing threshold.
Go to GW2 Twitter and ask them a simple question: “how can you ignore your community for over 8 months while ignoring a game-breaking mechanic that you have introduced?” Ask them on Twitter and facebook. Don’t let this thing be just like any other thread here. Make this one count!

Wanze.8410:

Zefrost.3425:

I will probably not be telling my friends to buy Guild Wars 2…

How much friends do you really have?

And, yeah, read this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/How-to-Give-Good-Feedback/first#post3383470

yeah, because if theres one thing Anet has shown, is that they take feedback from players very seriously… :| i mean, its not like we have 3000 good feedbacks on a certain issue that Anet has yet to acknowledge and fix. oh wait

Zefrost.3425:

Look at all the white knights defending Anet for obviously bad decisions.

+1
remember guys, being a WK on the forum doesn’t increase your chances at a precursor.

approx 1000hours on 4 characters, no precursors.
got 4 named exotic in said life span (2Xtruth, 1 guild defender, 1 Bonetti’s Rapier) though, if its any help.

Lazuli.2098:

Eric.6109:

…
indeed, but according to those who participated (or said they did) in that CDI, there is very little, or not at all, correlation between what was suggested and what was implemented.
…

But why were they looking to change the trait system at all?

ah, that is one of the universe’s mysteries. most likely, its because Anet has a warped view that matrices tell them what the game needs better than players. they prefer to look at long spreadsheets who cannot criticise or post negative opinions instead of talking to actual people and, ya know, maybe take something from those conversations.

but you know, much like the chicken&egg or afterlife, this issue beyond our comprehension and we must live with the fact that we simply do not know.

I’m with you. its really annoying, and damages the flow of the overall looks of my characters

Lazuli.2098:

Wolfheart.1879:

Carighan.6758:

@Kross

OTOH, you don’t deal with gaming communities. Ignoring them is actually often the smartest thing to do (yes I know that includes them ignoring me) because frankly players are terrible at telling you what they want. Or rather, they’ll tell you what they think they want, which isn’t what is going to make them spend money on your company.
…

There is a difference between ignoring customers, and not always following their wants.

It is true that sometimes players can want too much, or the developer just knows that something is better. …

As far as accommodating customers requests, Anet is kitten ed if they do and kitten ed if they don’t. According to the mod’s remarks in this thread the reason we got this totally screwed up trait system at all was because Anet listened to the GW1 whiners who wanted to make GW2 more like GW1. The original GW2 trait system was fine the way it was. The addition of free retraits retraits from anywhere was the only thing needed to make it great.

indeed, but according to those who participated (or said they did) in that CDI, there is very little, or not at all, correlation between what was suggested and what was implemented. like this post, for an example:

Guhracie.3419:

I was an active participant in that CDI, Mr. Peters, and this system doesn’t resemble anything that was suggested there. It obviously draws on some of the ideas, but if you really think this is more user-friendly than your old system was, I’d like to suggest you roll a new character and actually unlock a build this way.

The most offensive trait unlocks are map completions, dungeons that are more than 10 levels higher than the trait tier, and traits tied to bugged events.

given the state of things, I’m more inclined to believe the player than anet.

America.9437:

nethykins.7986:

“Let’s make this happen! Folks, go on Twitter, facebook or whatever and get attention to this thread. Anet themselves have “told” us that nothing changes unless enough noise is made. We want this to change, right? Let’s start making some noise.”

+1

lol. cops in America are killing people left and right, indiscriminately, without consequence, and you think posting to facekitten and twizzler is gonna change things?

given the fact that I’m not trying to fix america’s problems but a game i like, yeah, i do think it’ll change things.

btw – anet deleted my post on their FB page, so I’m guessing this is starting to have some impact. otherwise, why censor it?
keep going folks, we finally have some hope.
do it for GW2. do it for the Tamini. DO IT FOR QUAGGAN!

other games have a “player suggestions” forum where players can post whatever it is they want to see in game. be it items or content or improvements to accounts. other games also have direct communication with their player base. LotRO has an active ‘player council’ just for that, and – this would blow anet’s socks off – this communication thingy actually works to benefit both the publishers and the community.

Illysharia.7286:

8 months of the run-around. 8 months, 3.3 thousand posts, and just under 160,000 views on a topic that has become thesis-worthy on the scale of What Not To Do for corporate/customer The other one agrees wholeheartedly with the general sentiment here and has stopped making alts as well until it gets fixed, but finds the sheer mass of this feedback thread to be too much to go through to write about. I say keep sending emails to writers. Maybe someone will pick the story up.

Tell him it’s so bad, that he can actually just pick one page at random to find reasons why the new system is bad and ways to fix it, even in a way that wishes to help anet(!) to implement it how they actuly meant it to be. I don’t know an reporters. I’ll try posting some stuff on gamespot FB page and see where it goes.

Let’s make this happen! Folks, go on Twitter, facebook or whatever and get attention to this thread. Anet themselves have “told” us that nothing changes unless enough noise is made. We want this to change, right? Let’s start making some noise.

I started with the following comment on their FB page:
https://m.facebook.com/GuildWars2/photos/a.135044094208.103264.114036714208/10152657569199209/?type=1&ref=bookmark

“Before you guys get excited, take a look at this thread. It regards the terrible traits system. Over 3000 useful comments with ideas and alternatives and over 150000 views. It is running for 8months now, but Anet will do nothing to address the problem or the community. If you care about this game, help raising awareness to this Anet-made fiasco. They have shown in the past that they will only act upon public interest (remember the gem exchange?) so let’s get that public interested!!!
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/68 "

its probably because there are more grandfathered players than post-change players. I’m guessing that the ratio is highly in favour of the grandfathered ones, while most new-players quit the game at a certain point and those who last (like me) are just too few to get them to do anything.

a list of hand picked comments in this thread by a.net. we can look at it as a time-line of sorts. i have *quoted * various lines i thought to be of interest.

8 months ago: thread starts with request for feedback by CC Danicia

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/first#post3900875

Please do not create duplicate posts, as it makes it more difficult for us to gather your feedback in a timely and organized manner. Thank you for your understanding.

3 months or so later, le wild dev appears, giving us a text-wall and basically saying nothing:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/41#post4358626

If you all list out the most offensive ones here we would be happy to look into changes given that we have already done so in the past when we switch many of the poorly placed map complete adept tier traits among a few other changes

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

he later came back to tell us how super-cool and useful we are:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/43#post4359121

[quote][quote][quote][quote]

PookieDaWombat.6209:

I think I just realized the thing that has actually upset me most about this trait problem, but more importantly the response to it.

Sure, I could probably spend an inordinate amount of time…my time…listing out each trait in each class and suggest a new method of hunting it down/obtaining it that would be more level appropriate, fun, and still allow people to gain traits throughout the world. I could come up with a better pricing scheme, or even both of those.

this was actually done several times in this thread. players even tried to come up with solutions that would require the very least of effort from a.net.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

The problem here and and what upsets me so much is that at the end of the day Anet unleashed this on us and now is basically crowd sourcing the fix for their broken system. Free labor/think tank to fix something that wasn’t that broken to begin with. Would it honestly have killed you all to just make the books cost a little more, admit you wanted it to be a bit more of a gold sink, and give us the re-spec ability? Would it have been so bad to make us hunt JUST for the new traits? Instead you roll out something that obviously saw VERY little QA and wonder why your player base is so upset/shrinking/not dropping more money on gems.

Do we need to hit page 70 before we get any hint of an update? Are we going to see anything for this on the 13th of January? Yes or No? Are we going to see any movement on this by the one year anniversary of this update? Yes or No?

Can we get something other than a platitude?

as you can see from a.net’s replies (or lack there of) in this thread, this subject holds no interest to them. at first they wanted summary of a thread that could’ve been read in a week or so, fish out the good ideas (or even easier: pick one of the ready-made solutions to the problem) and be done with it. but like I’ve said – this hasn’t caused enough noise for them to admit mistake like in the gem-conversion incident.

even after players took a leap of faith and posted again their ideas in a clear & ordered fashion, all we got was another a.net representative telling us that the issue is being “looked into”. the more i think about it the more boggled my mind becomes. how incompetent do you have to be to not notice a thread of this size, that you only look into it way after it passed the 2000 posts mark? and even then – you reply in the most vague and unhelpful way. not even a “yes, we are working on a fix”.

and to answer your final question: i want to believe it’ll be fixed by the end of the year, but I’m not holding my breath. just accept the fact that the only customisation your character has is which utility skills you use.

i should have phrased better: why do you need a 1000gems item that you can get for free with one wp to lion’s arch? i mean, it doesn’t even fall into the “convenience item” bracket.

GuzziHero.5104:

Eric.6109:

Yeah, but it sucks. It actually means that we no longer consider ourselves as the “player base” but as the “customer base”. It shouldn’t be like that :<

No, we don’t. Customers are respected.

BOOM! HEADSHOT!!!

I’m now dead inside :<

Guhracie.3419:

Eric.6109:

I guess they won’t do anything until their profits take a hit. Just stop buying gems with cash until they fix what they have broken. Just like the gem-exchange fiasco. You think they made the “custom” option because they realized they made a mistake? No, they made it because people went berserk with anger and it reached various gaming websites. They got panicked about their profit and had a fix in about – what was it, two weeks?

This, on the other hand, doesn’t make enough noise to be really considered as a problem. This thread has been running for 8 months with players actually making great suggestions as to how to fix it. The only response we got was a Rep/Dev telling us “tl;dr plux summary k lolz” and doing nothing about it.

Oh, and apperantly they have been “looking into it” for 3 months now:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/38#post4318990

There are many of us who haven’t bought gems because of the changes to traits. The problem is that a lot of players are veterans who only did a single novelty run-through of the system and had enough gold and skill scrolls on hand that it didn’t seem terribly cumbersome. The forum would’ve exploded if they hadn’t grandfathered anyone in. It would’ve made the gem conversion thing seem like a friendly walk in the park. But because a lot of people weren’t inconvenienced by the changes immediately, it sort of dampened the outcry. I mean, I didn’t really get around to the changes until about a month after the feature patch even hit.

Yeah, but it sucks. It actually means that we no longer consider ourselves as the “player base” but as the “customer base”. It shouldn’t be like that :<

What’s the big deal with these passes? I got couple of the two-weeks permits, but I have yet to use them.

I guess they won’t do anything until their profits take a hit. Just stop buying gems with cash until they fix what they have broken. Just like the gem-exchange fiasco. You think they made the “custom” option because they realized they made a mistake? No, they made it because people went berserk with anger and it reached various gaming websites. They got panicked about their profit and had a fix in about – what was it, two weeks?

This, on the other hand, doesn’t make enough noise to be really considered as a problem. This thread has been running for 8 months with players actually making great suggestions as to how to fix it. The only response we got was a Rep/Dev telling us “tl;dr plux summary k lolz” and doing nothing about it.

Oh, and apperantly they have been “looking into it” for 3 months now:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/38#post4318990

I’m starting to think the whole idea behind merging forums was to get this thread to sink to the very last page.

lol, traits.
I have 5 characters, all 80 or on their way there. Wanna guess how many of them have all traits, and not just the “easy ones” you get from completing a zone?

For me, traits are like precursors. but hey, at least I can play as I want and be equal to other players in every aspect of the game, amirite? a.net really messed things up here, and it’s not likely they’d ever fix it.

nobody cares about your patch schedule. make a fix, and release it NOW.

DeWolfe.2174:

Wow, how insanely bored is someone to do this?

very very bored. last time it was done, while it managed to be a profitable flip past a certain point, it required a lot of effort from one individual – you need several accounts just for storage.

maybe its a gang of Quaggas looking to finance their revolt against Krait :O

chest have hit 1S for buy instantly, 75C for buy orders :O

This sounds awesome!

it gives everything up to silk

IndigoSundown.5419:

So, all of you complaining “no tank” and “no healer” and no diversity." What stops you? Why don’t you use Wooden Spuds 21k heal in 15 seconds Ele build? Why not use his tanky warrior build or any number of bunker builds? They’re viable. You could even combine them and get three DPS for a trinity party.

The diversity is there in GW2. It may not be the one clear best approach, but it’s there — just like diversity exists in trinity games — except in the meta, where there’s one build per class per role that’s accepted. Even within the GW2 meta, there’s room for more than one build per profession, which is more than I can say of traditional MMO meta strategies.

^ this.

even in other “traditional” mmo games you have a “meta” build for each class. you think WoW tanks don’t have a particular talent tree with specific skills they must choose in order to get into a group? even there you have to be an X/Y/Z tank or healer or whatever it is. in every outcome, no matter what game it is, there will be a meta. you can go with it or not. in some games that may mean you don’t get to play group content ever.

you can play as you please, just like the zerk guys can play as they please. you wanna be non-meta? great, just join a group that posts no requirements. i also don’t support linking zerk gear, thats just annoying, and you deserve to be kicked for that.

what i like about this mechanic in GW2, is that it forces (in a positive way) the player to be more involved. you can’t stay away from the group and spam heals 3ft away from everybody else. the effort to win an encounter is much more involving than that.

just be good at whatever role you wanna play, and find more general groups. you’ll be fine.

be good at what you play, and people would actually appreciate that. when i play group content i am involved in every encounter like everybody else is. my DPS is perhaps lower, but i make up for that, so we all win.

this, specifically is a mechanic – i think – that was done very well by a.net.

They can adjust the loot system with disregard to how RNG was up to that point.
There are great ideas here which could be worked into the system. Just need to see it as a new white sheet of paper. There’s RNG until that moment that will never come, and RNG after that moment.

I run a support Gaurdian with +healing stuff. Never had a problem in any kind of group content. I just avoid “zerk only” or tell them up-front in not zerk if I happen to need that instance run or whatever. People laugh, but making sure everybody is alive and hitting that heal just in time can really do the trick in some encounters.
And it’s not like I’m not holding my own dealing damage.

Anyway, as long as we don’t have dedicated / semi-dedicated healer/tank/dps/cc/range/buff roles it’s not gonna change. Huge amounts of dps will get things done faster, and people who wants to clear an instance very very very fast take only zerk on their team. Just don’t join these and everybody will be happy.

14 pages later – what’s the point of this discussion, or more likely monologue? Players have participated and made very good suggestions on how to improve loot system in the game. Will you implement any of this? Will you make any change? Will you check the claims of code-ghosts in the RNG algorithm? Or is this just some kind of a way to let players release some steam whils doing nothing to address the issue at hand? Is it like the Trait thread, when only it will have reached an X number of replies you will swoop in and tell us “tl;dr please give summary”, tell us we have good ideas and then go back to doing nothing with it?

Pray tell, what will you spend your 60 gems on?

Please fix it asap. It’s causing headache

It’s pretty cool. But for 500 gems? I’d buy it if I could send mail to alts, but there so such possibility. For that very rare occasion when I send/receive Mail it’s just not worth it.

only way for them to be introduced is if they gave them as part of the monthly achievement. the popular (read: most expensive on TP) skins are 5 full tickets iirc, which would mean 4 years and 2 months to get them. at that rate it’s better to just buy the keys right off the gem store.

and also: i think scraps should be removed from the game. they are one of the most frustrating drops you can get in game. just give full tickets, and bump their prices 2X.

they also gave a BLTC key, which was nice <insert_meme_here>

maybe if they introduce an event similar in size to the wind festival something like that would return, but you can’t really tell.

Please, tell is something about Tengu

couple of weeks ago the TP offered something for free, once a day per account. its also gone. not complaining or anything, just saying that they don’t really seems to have a policy on such things.

no, its a bad idea.

the real issue is the WP. i think that after you reach map completion on 1 character, all WP should be available on your alts, even if the rest of the map is fogged-out.

zaw.6741:

lordkrall.7241:

Actually overall I think they have added MORE skins in-game than via the gem-store.

how much did they pay u do spread this bu***?
ingame?
1) fractal weapons (pure rng, impossible to get for unlucky players even after doing 100s of fotm).
2) ascended weapons (not really appealing, not only my opinion. also cloned with particle effect and called teq weapons)
3) few champ box skins of arguable quality
4) sab weapons (recolored twice…)
5) the ugly, totally forgotten by everyone around ambrite weapons (really, i run open world/ dungeons/ some pvp…dont think ive seen anyone with any of them)
6) RECOLORED ta skins…
7) zenith (and pinnacle that are recolored and slightly changed zenith)
8) few seasonal skins (halloween, wintersday)
did i miss anything?
RECOLORS DO NOT COUNT AS NEW SKINS

now
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Lion_Weapons_Specialist
like twice as many…also dont forget that ALL living story character weapons (belinda gs, marjory axe/dagger and others) were gemstore as well.

and for armor its even worse ratio im afraid

Ha i have the ambrite GS. They are nice if you’re into the whole bug-trapped-in-amber thing like in Jurassic Park, because they are kinda meh, and looks like the wind-themed ones.

Back to topic: aside from LS characters’ weapons, what other skins are available through the gemstore?

I’m not saying it doesn’t look nice, but expected something more like this

http://cdn.vectorstock.com/i/composite/36,88/explorer-and-hunter-vector-443688.jpg

The current one looks like some kind of army uniform, and is rather plain looking.
Also, it must come with desert goggles in addition to the hat.

but who will be the noble soul to rez us?

shouldn’t be auto-port to a WP, but a timer (lets say, 30 seconds) after which you get ported to nearest WP

When you start thinking about the logistics of having a cow and a cat produce a RL Charr

a tent.
i know player housing is (probably) not something we’re gonna see any time soon, and perhaps not even necessary story-wise, but it bugs me that i can log out in the middle of a map and then log in right into the same place. it shouldn’t have any boosts or anything, but when you click on it, your character disappears (like some sort of tonic) and a tent appears instead, maybe with a small fire next to it. it’s not supposed to occupy any space in the world/map, just make it disappear as the player logs out, and reappear as they log in.

i think it was available when the new LS was introduced, so you’re gonna have to wait for the next cycle (next episode or holiday)

The robot is very nice, but the other stuff are meh.
The pact airship should be more than just a balloon. Maybe some sort of RC toy?

nothing here, though i only handed about 30 tickets, so wasn’t expecting much.
oh well, better RNG next time

oh man, the amount of pessimism in this thread is too…

nah, its completely proportionate :P

snowshoes!
more classic medieval-esque armour (think less of the phalanx, more of the ceremonial thing with the necessary changes).

never seen those items too (with the exception of TP). maybe people still have some in their banks, but if they’re not selling its basically like not having that quantity available.

i got it… because i wanted to, and it looks nicer than the other nodes (with exception to the sprockets node, which is quite nice).

anyway, on 1st day: 1 jute, 5 wool.
2nd day: 1 jute, 3 wool, 2 cotton.

QQ much? you are mistaken on several accounts –
1) its not much of a farm, as you need shovels to reveal chests, and those have 20% chance of breaking. also, the radar skill has 12(?) seconds CD.
2) people are fighting in Amber because thats where they are fighting. i was in a map the other night and we couldn’t field a large-enough defence force, so we stuck on blue and sometimes switched to red. is that farming? no. thats playing the game.

sheesh, stop complaining about every single little thing, especially when that thing is a none-issue.

hey A.net, i really like SW with its mechanics, the mobs everywhere creating a sense of real war and what not – but i don’t want it to make DT a waste land. i saw that you can get some geodes and keys in SW but those are really scarce – could you increase the drop rate for zephyrite keys so that veteran players do not abandon DT entirely?