Guild Wars 2

I fail to see how its bad business practice to give a deadline to the playerbase when they can expect the update.

Tad.4109:

Tyria after Dark is my favorite. the hosts are hilarious and the show is rather informative.

I see what you did there

Guildcast, Tyria after Dark, and the Seige. All really good.

Tales of Tyria was good, but they’re already considering becoming a more generic gaming podcast. It’s days are numbered.

Lincolncast is a good one too, when they finally get around to talking about GW2.

Hey Robert… are any of the encounters you’re rebalancing in Story Mode or just Explorables?

fellyn.5083:

Xenth.2408:

fellyn.5083:

Well I made a new character tonight, norn this time. And I’m only 75% or so done with the area and my character is already level 11, almost 12. I haven’t done anything different than what I did with the human character I talked about in an earlier post. Same process, hearts, then events whenever I could, with gathering. No story quests and no crafting were done on either character.

Now, I will say that the frequency events – especially levels 1 through 5 – seemed a lot higher in the norn area than in the human area. As far as I can tell I’ve done roughly the same amount of events, I wasn’t keeping track.

But it still begs the question of why, without doing anything different (other than being in a different area) is my norn character so far ahead of my human character while completing less content, all things considered?

Less people play norn so less creatures get killed – that’s my guess. Let’s say you kill something and it gives you 16xp. If that creature has been alive long enough to get it to the full bonus of 2.5x, you then get 16xp + 40xp bonus. I’m not 100% positive but I think that’s how bonus xp works for kills.

Also xp granted scales with the difficulty of the mob. Base xp for killing an easy target might be 10, while a tougher target might be 16 or 20 (whatever). Maybe the norn area just has tougher mobs? I’m not 100% positive on this one either ’cause I never really paid that much attention.

I don’t know about that. We had people calling out the Maw event every time it was up and 30+ people showed up for it.

The Maw alone will powerlevel your character. It’s a 4 DE chain that repeats every 20-30 minutes. With other DE’s spawning very close too it on almost the same timer. IMO its the only starter area that gets the game RIGHT.

It doesnt help that the other starter zones equivalent events are either too hard (Fire Elemental in Metrica Province) less rewarding (Jungle Wurm in Caledon Forest) or constantly bugged (Shadow Behemoth in Queensdale).

It’s playstyle.

I play 2-3 hours a night. I’m constantly getting bonus xp for dailies. I also kill every yellow mob that’s in my path, and have food buffs. I always out level the starter zones by the time I’m done with the 1-10 Personal story arc.

If I put in the same amount of hours in one weekend, the lack of daily bonus alone would stunt my leveling.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It’s one of those human things to do something with the path of least resistance and danger, especially when there is a reward at the end. I could make enemies never drop their aggro on players and force them to fight every single mob, but I don’t see that as a viable solution right now.
I think the better solution is to look at why people are skipping things, and approach from a different angle. Trash mobs have too much HP, and can’t be counted on for lucrative drops from a Risk/Time vs Reward, so people interested in making money (most groups) aren’t incentivized to do it, whereas the end chest/boss are more guaranteed and accountable returns on time and risk. I also think there is something to be said about interesting trash mob mechanics making them more enjoyable of a fight.
I can’t make the rewards from trash mobs so lucrative though that people just farm the first couple trash mobs/boss in a dungeon and then rinse/repeat. We encountered this when people just farmed the first boss in an instance and then restarted it (earlier around launch time), and we had to adjust the content as a result. It’s a fine line you have to walk to encourage players to get to the end, but make the process of getting there rewarding enough as well.

I don’t imagine this next update will resolve all the skipping behavior. The path of least resistance is engrained in people, and even if I do everything I could to incentivize people, there will still be those who skip stuff. I have been fixing exploits that will require players to complete more of the events in dungeons, but I am sure people will still skip what they can to get to their end goal.

For now I would encourage those not looking to skip to find some folks who don’t like skipping and make a guild with them… or maybe look for guilds that are dedicated to not skipping, and tag along with them. I’m in a couple of them (anonymously), and it really is an effective solution to playing the game the way you want to play it: Find other people with similar interests and band together with them.

The devs have picked their battles, and discouraging skipping isnt one of them. Find like minded players or deal with it. That’s all there is to it.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Well, if you want to be safe, focus on the two zones actually mentioned in the post.. ie: Diessa Plateau and Wayfarer Foothills

Wayfarer Foothills?

They’re obviously getting rid of the Frozen Maw chain everyone’s farming.

Its already confirmed that the laurels are not rewarded for the January monthly.

Tachenon.5270 Mounts could be restricted to specific mount-related content. Such as, for an obvious example, a racing mini-game type thing! Players could enter (with their mounts) in cultural racing events and work their way up to World Championships. And win, I dunno, stuff. Mount enhancements! Access to more mounts! Ascended mounts! And just because your character is (by way of example) a human doesn’t mean you can’t have a (by way of example) charr-cycle.
That worked out so well for town clothes. If I cant ride my horse over the Gendarran Fields there’s no point in Anet spending time and resources on it.

TheDaiBish.9735:

EverythingXen.1835:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify, you’ll no longer be able to use waypoints when a party member is in combat inside a dungeon. This is prevent people from using waypoints to rush and kill bosses or clear areas, which is not intended game play.

All other forms of res remain unchanged.

I only ask that when you rebalance the dungeon encounters you err on the side of too easy and building them up later.

From the Livestream:

We are nerfing some of the encounters that are a bit more challenging

Phase 2 – go back and look at some of the encounters – retune and increase difficulty if necessary.

From the Blogpost:

Expanded and re-designed encounters for bosses in dungeons and the open world.

If they’d said “a majority”, “most” or “all Silver class” encounters instead of “some” I’d feel better about it. Wait and see it is then.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Just to clarify, you’ll no longer be able to use waypoints when a party member is in combat inside a dungeon. This is prevent people from using waypoints to rush and kill bosses or clear areas, which is not intended game play.

All other forms of res remain unchanged.

I only ask that when you rebalance the dungeon encounters you err on the side of too easy and building them up later.

TheDaiBish.9735:

EverythingXen.1835:

It also means if one person dies they get to waste their time on the floor while their group/guild/friends either take that much longer to win or take that much longer to wipe. Just replacing waypoint zerging with this isnt a solution.

You can go Down 4 times before instantly being Defeated. Each time you go Down you incur 1min of DP, which reduced Downed health by 25%. After a minute, the DP disappears. So it’s not like you are instantly dead.

I’d argue getting rid of that will encourage MORE teamwork to try and keep each other alive / in the game.

You overestimate my friends gaming abilities.

OP:

Its not normal. You were incredibly lucky.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Celestea.4105:

TheDaiBish.9735:

I think they mean that people won’t be able to res at way-points.

Kind of like Fractals are now, where you can’t res at the checkpoint while people are still in combat.

If this is true, then I am ok with it. I just hope it isn’t the other method I assumed it was.

The only reason I assume this though is because he specifically mentioned waypoint zerging to be an issue, and the new changes would bring existing dungeons more in line with Fractals.

Stupid change imo. This is one of the things i like from this game, makes it more dynamic.

I disagree. It just means as long as one person is up all of the time, you can just keep throwing yourself to the slaughter and win anyway.

It also means if one person dies they get to waste their time on the floor while their group/guild/friends either take that much longer to win or take that much longer to wipe. Just replacing waypoint zerging with this isnt a solution.

That would be crazy.

Crazy like a Toxx!

Parisalchuk.9230:

EverythingXen.1835:

Parisalchuk.9230:

Unspecified.9142:

Rainfall.4017:

Once again a total lack of respect for the playerbase. People want to prepare to log on. Guilds want to prepare. EU people do no want to wait all night. Disgusting treatment. We need a time. If it’s the same 12:00 pst fine, but tell us that.

The only people who are even remotely affected by missing the exact moment the patch goes live today are people who want to be the first on the scene to play the trading post and try and make a killing on whatever items spike or crash in price.

Everyone else could just ignore it until tomorrow when the first Tixx event actually happens which will happen on time. The patch is today to make sure tomorrow (when it matters) is on time.

Just because some people got it in their head that today was the day Wintersday starts and it starts at 10am PST doesn’t mean Anet is ‘late’. If you don’t want to wait all night, go to sleep and enjoy it tomorrow when the real events start.

If your bolded is true why didnt they place the switch to start everything in a few days earlier so they could start on an exact time?

If its not ready today, by what moon logic would it have been ready a few days earlier?

By the moon logic known as better scheduling management. Coming from a software engineer you should not be modifying a build this close to release. It should be done and tested, thus ready to be deployed. Best practice is to deploy behind the scenes and then switch users to the new build (which they do) but they foolishly tell us wide estimates of when that switch may come.

Done and tested? Have you been in game for Anet’s other events so far? I just want it patched so they can begin fixing it.

At Anet right now, the 14th is only half over.

The only definitive time given was for Tixx to arrive at 1pm EST on the 15th.

Parisalchuk.9230:

Unspecified.9142:

Rainfall.4017:

Once again a total lack of respect for the playerbase. People want to prepare to log on. Guilds want to prepare. EU people do no want to wait all night. Disgusting treatment. We need a time. If it’s the same 12:00 pst fine, but tell us that.

The only people who are even remotely affected by missing the exact moment the patch goes live today are people who want to be the first on the scene to play the trading post and try and make a killing on whatever items spike or crash in price.

Everyone else could just ignore it until tomorrow when the first Tixx event actually happens which will happen on time. The patch is today to make sure tomorrow (when it matters) is on time.

Just because some people got it in their head that today was the day Wintersday starts and it starts at 10am PST doesn’t mean Anet is ‘late’. If you don’t want to wait all night, go to sleep and enjoy it tomorrow when the real events start.

If your bolded is true why didnt they place the switch to start everything in a few days earlier so they could start on an exact time?

If its not ready today, by what moon logic would it have been ready a few days earlier?

In other words, just go to bed.

Hadson.5024:

Stonehenge.7830:

Hadson.5024:

WeLoveKanjimari.6725:

No, they don’t give an exact time because they learned from the last few events.

They didn’t learn how to release on time like they should have, but they learned to be as vague as possible so people can’t get “legitimately” angry at them for being late, because you can’t be late when you don’t tell anybody when you’re showing up!

23 minutes till december 15 for me right where I am now.
Time to release my legitimate anger i guess

Not really, since the server is (PST) time zone it is still 11:50am there on the 14th. All the patches/events are advertised as respect to the server time zone. With this said, they are still within a decent time frame to release the content. Those they think well its the 15th here and you said the 14th need to realize the advertised time is based on a different time zone. I am sure you are just venting frustration but you are not the only one that uses that as a basis of argument.

Im not frustrated, thats just a game after all.
I just keep wondering why theres EU zone with even DE and FR servers, also im very interested wheres connection between terms “schedule” and “sometime today”

If the patch arrives “sometime today,” its on “schedule.”

I die a little more… inside everytime I refresh the News and Announcements page.

Daendur.2357:

the patch should have been live before the first event step… the first event step has to start 1 hour ago so the patch is late…
but it is not a great problem.
They aren’t selling oranges… setback can happen

Read man. Tixx isnt appearing ANYWHERE until the 15th. Thats tomorrow.

Just the patch today.

But its sometime today right now!

/runs in circles

Atrer.2749:

ranciddy.8243:

I think patch notes would go a long way. Honestly, I don’t care when exactly the patch drops, I just want to read the changes.

^this

And the resulting forum drama! My popcorn is getting cold…

I dont think youre cynical. I think you’re exactly right.

There will be some form of gambling boxes for this event. There is no reason not to. They are a proven money maker in every cash shop that has them. Besides… placing any item that sells a lot on the market is going to affect gem/gold ratios… that’s not a side effect unique to gambling boxes.

I have a wait and see attitude for the jumping puzzle. Anet makes many big, amateurish mistakes with their game, but they seem to learn/fix them quick enough. We’ll see if they improved since Halloween.

There are many, many places for gamers like you OP.

They’re in every other MMO out there.

I’m thankful that there’s an MMO that I dont have my gametime wasted trying to recruit a healer to do what I want to do.

Valinerya.6713:

Asurans are technologically minded, while Norns care more about beer, battle, and broads. Makes sense to me that the Asura would provide us with fancy new toys!

When you put it that way…. I’d rather have a Norn too.

Beer, battle and broads for everyone!

Game is great.
In game community is great.

The forums are a cesspit. Best ignored by players and developers alike most of the time.

Rakuren Kenshou.7689:

I personally don’t like it, as I’d rather be surprised. Knowing that his toys are going to go berserk is kind of a “spoiler”. Oh well, as long as it makes more people happy, I’m cool with it. Very excited about this event.

Wait… something(things) built(mass produced) by an Asura is(are) going to go on a berserk killing spree?

Is that really a spoiler?

Providing adequate detail slightly ruins the event for you.

Providing no where near enough detail ruined past events for many, many others.

Suck it up.

-Story Mode dungeons are just as hard if not harder than explorables. Either give them the same rewards as explorables or make them orders of magnitude easier to match their rewards.

-Dungeon/Group finder. Let me scan a list of people flagged as interested for particular dungeons and whisper/invite them. Do NOT autogroup me and/or port me to the dungeon when 5 people happen to be ready.

-Remove the events contesting the entrances to dungeons. Do not fix them. They serve no purpose other than needlessly keeping me from fun content.

-Nerf every Silver grade mobs damage and HP. Three Ascalonian Rangers are more dangerous than anything else in AC. More than a single Knight in TA are as well. I dont care what the rewards are. They’re cheap, overpowered, and are avoided/skipped/exploited past for good reason. The ones that aren’t dangerous just take forever to kill.

I am satisfied with the amount of communication.

The content of their communication makes me question if the company is one I wish to continue to support.

Tenicord.9803:

With patches, comes issues. This is common (at least with this game.) I’m not complaining but rather saying you should expect it and not cry bloody murder. Just bring it to their attention and they will fix it.

Its jumping. They broke the functionality of pushing one kittening button.

The fact that something that basic needs to be brought to their attention is nothing short of gross incompetence.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Neve.7134:

Why you don’t fix the fact that on Fractals if someone dcs cannot re enter in Fractal?

We’ve got people working specifically on this issue, it has turned out to be much more complicated due to the way fractals are implemented than we hoped. We’ll have a fix for this soon as it’s tested enough we think it’s clearly solved and doesn’t cause any other issues.

We are at least a week and a half away on a fix for this, possibly longer depending on how long it takes to test it properly, we wouldn’t want to deploy anything that makes the issue worse!

Thanks for your patience, we wish this one was super easy! =)

No.
You wont.
When your QA team cant even be bothered to push the space bar in the testing process, I have no faith in your company’s ability to publish patches that arent riddled with more bugs than fixes.

RoxBuryNine.4210:

Thank you for at least trying to get out new content. It’s threads like this that prove that no matter how poorly something is done, there are people who will appreciate it.

Very much agreed.

I like the idea behind the whole “one time event” schtick, but after Halloween and Lost Shores I’m actually dreading what they have planned for December.

How are diminishing returns going to affect rewards in the new dungeon?

Nymia.3256:

EverythingXen.1835:

krookie.6378:

EverythingXen.1835:

Pochibella.8394:

EverythingXen.1835:

8% is not significant.

How about if your boss offered you an 8% raise? I, for one, would love it! You know why? 8% is not insignificant.

Nice job you have there. 8% more money wouldnt change a single facet of my everyday life.

An 8% increase in stats isnt going to make a significant difference in GW2 either.

If 8% is so insignificant, then why add it in the first place?

I’d guess for the min/max crowd. Ask Anet. They could be the same as exotics for all I care.

Oh thank god, I had almost lost hope.

That is EXACTLY the problem.

I just dont think its a problem. And certainly not an issue worth quitting over.

krookie.6378:

EverythingXen.1835:

Pochibella.8394:

EverythingXen.1835:

8% is not significant.

How about if your boss offered you an 8% raise? I, for one, would love it! You know why? 8% is not insignificant.

Nice job you have there. 8% more money wouldnt change a single facet of my everyday life.

An 8% increase in stats isnt going to make a significant difference in GW2 either.

If 8% is so insignificant, then why add it in the first place?

I’d guess for the min/max crowd. Ask Anet. They could be the same as exotics for all I care.

Synitare.3176:

EverythingXen.1835:

8% is not significant.

What a phenomenally useless comment. 8% is definitely significant, especially when multiplied 14 times. 8% is an extra 1200 HP on someone with 15000 base. 8% is an extra 280 damage on a 3500 hit. These are not negligible increases. 1% is not significant, and you know what? People would be just as pissed. The bottom line is that everyone that bought into their “manifesto” was unapologetically and blatantly lied to.

What instance in game will that make a difference? The situations where you’d live with that small amount of health/kill an enemy noticeably faster with that bit of extra damage are not common enough to claim they throw the whole meta game out of balance.

Im not going to argue about Anet’s “manifesto” which was never going to hold up in today’s MMO market. I enjoy the game on its own merits… no philosophies.

Talloc.6835:

EverythingXen.1835:

Caran.3217:

EverythingXen.1835:

Greep.6394:

EverythingXen.1835:

8% is not significant.

Power precision and crit dam stats compound on each other, so it will severely imbalance glass cannon builds since the game was balanced around those stats being at a set level.

If that proves to be true, then it will be adjusted after implementation. Big deal.

Why not balance on the gear that is out there? Why add new levels/tiers of gear and balance afterwards, to add more and rebalance again… and again. Even less of a deal?

Because adding a tier of gear does not imbalance anything.

Except now those level 30s in WvW get farted on and explode.

If an 8% increase in a few stats is enough to cause that, there are much larger issues with WvW. Issues that are wholly seperate from this topic.

Caran.3217:

EverythingXen.1835:

Greep.6394:

EverythingXen.1835:

8% is not significant.

Power precision and crit dam stats compound on each other, so it will severely imbalance glass cannon builds since the game was balanced around those stats being at a set level.

If that proves to be true, then it will be adjusted after implementation. Big deal.

Why not balance on the gear that is out there? Why add new levels/tiers of gear and balance afterwards, to add more and rebalance again… and again. Even less of a deal?

Because adding a tier of gear does not imbalance anything.

Greep.6394:

EverythingXen.1835:

8% is not significant.

Power precision and crit dam stats compound on each other, so it will severely imbalance glass cannon builds since the game was balanced around those stats being at a set level.

If that proves to be true, then it will be adjusted after implementation. Big deal.

8% is not significant.

krookie.6378:

EverythingXen.1835:

krookie.6378:

EverythingXen.1835:

I didnt say it wasnt a lot of people. I said it wasnt enough.

I agree the lack of anything worthwhile on the cash shop isnt helping.

The gear progression is a temporary fix though. They may get an influx of new players from WoW but those players tend to go back when they finished devouring the content. I mean there is a reason why no other game is able to compete with WoW. If they offer the same type of game play as the original, people would try it and then go back. The original is always better.

A more fleshed out cash shop could solve any financial issues. This solution only really serves to alienate people who love GW2 specifically because it’s not a gear treadmill.

They may tend to go back, but some may stay. You need BOTH communities. The “no treadmills” arent financially viable, and as you said, the “treadmills” have other options when they feel like their time is wasted in GW2. The “treadmills” need to feel like their time isnt wasted. They arent mutally exclusive unless you want them to be.

Also, gear treadmill != gameplay. Just adding another teir of gear does not, in any way, make GW2 play like WoW.

The treadmills exist in other MMO to keep people playing and paying the subscription fees. There is no financial viability for a gear treadmill when there are no subscription fees. GW2 needs people to spend money on the cash shop and a gear grind does nothing to help with that.

You cannot possibly cater to every single gamer. Especially when the communities in question are polar opposites. You cannot cater to gear grinders and those who don’t want a gear grind. It’s just impossible. Both communities want completely different things. In other words, you either create the game for one or the other, not for both.

Yes you can. GW2 is doing a decent job of it now.

There’s no PvE content in GW2 that a treadmiller decked out in Exotics and a non treadmiller in nothing but random dropped blues/greens cant team up and participate in together. The sole exception being the upcoming Fractals dungeon, which is its own topic. (gating content behind gear is utter garbage in my opinion)

Adding Ascendant gear does not affect this game other than giving treadmillers something to go for. It has no affect on treadmillers and non treadmillers being able to experience the same content.

Eveningstar.6940:

The real casualty is credibility. GW2 was designed on the passions of a development team with a very specific design philosophy: Buck the Trinity, make the game accessible for everyone, and toss out gear progression. Just like in GW1, gear was supposed to “stop” at Exotic and not inflate beyond that. You’d get your Exotics, and you were done gearing. Now you could do what you wanted. Now you were free. You were ready for all the content the game could throw at you. Gear should not be a gateway for more content. Gear should not be something you should keep up with.
That was the principle on which ArenaNet built its good will. That was the basis of the trust it cultivated between itself and its community.

Passion does not generate success, let alone profit. They have not lost any credibility with me because one of their design goals proved unachieveable, and are correcting their mistacke.

krookie.6378:

EverythingXen.1835:

I didnt say it wasnt a lot of people. I said it wasnt enough.

I agree the lack of anything worthwhile on the cash shop isnt helping.

The gear progression is a temporary fix though. They may get an influx of new players from WoW but those players tend to go back when they finished devouring the content. I mean there is a reason why no other game is able to compete with WoW. If they offer the same type of game play as the original, people would try it and then go back. The original is always better.

A more fleshed out cash shop could solve any financial issues. This solution only really serves to alienate people who love GW2 specifically because it’s not a gear treadmill.

They may tend to go back, but some may stay. You need BOTH communities. The “no treadmills” arent financially viable, and as you said, the “treadmills” have other options when they feel like their time is wasted in GW2. The “treadmills” need to feel like their time isnt wasted. They arent mutally exclusive unless you want them to be.

Also, gear treadmill != gameplay. Just adding another teir of gear does not, in any way, make GW2 play like WoW.

Loosifah.4739:

The thing that I find the funniest here is that all of this feedback from the community is based on speculation. Nobody has even seen anything other than a RING kitten

The fact there’s so much feedback when there’s nothing to go on but speculation shows how important this issue is.

krookie.6378:

EverythingXen.1835:

Not enough to keep a game this size running, or this wouldnt be happening.

That’s nonsense. Most of the servers are either Full or High. I see people everywhere, even in the newbie zones. If the issue was money, they could’ve just added some skins to the cash shop and call it a day. I can tell you for a fact that I personally would buy skins.

I do refuse to participate in gambling for skins with BLTC chests though.

I didnt say it wasnt a lot of people. I said it wasnt enough.

I agree the lack of anything worthwhile on the cash shop isnt helping.

krookie.6378:

jboynton.7894:

Uh…yes….this change in design philosophy means EXACTLY that. They’re unhappy with the revenue being brought in by their current player base and are attempting to change the game into a more commonly recognized model that was “perfected” and take to epic proportions by Blizzard.

This is a serious risk on Anet’s part as people who enjoy vertical gear progression and are already established in a game are not going to be drawn away to play this one. In doing so, Anet also risks alienating it’s existing player base in the hopes of attracting the above. It is a risky gamble that has yet to work for any MMO to-date.

Agreed. And when this new model fails to bring in sufficient amount of players? Or rather it’ll bring in the WoW fanbois, who will devour the content and go back to raiding pandas in 3 weeks. What happens then? Are they going to be switching the focus of the game every 3-4 months in order to bring new players from other games?

Maybe they should try to attract Call of Duty players next? Turn GW2 into an FPS? Or covert the whole game into DotA in an attempt to grab some of that LoL money?

The game already had a very well established fanbase, some being attracted to this game because of the lack of gear progression. This new change just serves to alienate the fans in a cheap attempt to grab some WoW players.

Not enough to keep a game this size running, or this wouldnt be happening.

If their “manifesto” was profitable enough on its own merits, they would not be implementing this.

Bottom line.

That “manifesto” was never, ever going to work for a game with as much invested in it as GW2. There’s no money in it.