Guild Wars 2

+Awesome looking event weapon skins.
-Permanent versions locked behind a real cash lottery or a ridiculous grind.

+Costume Brawl is big dumb chaotic fun.
-Until someone with a MK costume comes by and pays to win. Also the achievement tiers for this are too high.

+Haunted doors everywhere! Who doesnt love trick or treating?
-NEVER told until the event is well into Phase 2 WHERE the doors are. I had to resort to outside game… hell outside official Anet sources to find out where these were.

+Loved the Lunatic Inquisition. Reaper’s Rumble was fun too.
-Again, no information on what these were, where they were, and most frustratingly WHAT I’m supposed to do. I stumbled into LI completely by accident. The information provided before starting is bare bones, and is gone too quickly to be any help. Nothing on official sites as to what these were. Much frustration could have been avoided with a simple patch note explaining this.

+Clock Tower was crazy hard. I never made it to the top, but I’m not upset. Rarely had so much fun failing.
-Camera issues aside, this needs to be a solo affair. Or a party only instance. Cramming so many people into one instance where character models can be almost 4x as big as another is a terrible design decision.

TLDR: Almost everything I liked about this event was marred by something that either annoyed me the whole time or (in the case of the LI) created a barrier of frustration between myself and the content that ended up being my favorite part of the event.

Good event. Do better next time.

If this was supposed to be a story encounter, why cant the other story modes be as fun as this one? Because its not to your tastes?

I’ve found the environments in dungeons to be just as immersive as this one… until my group starts discussing how it has become tedious, unfun, and figuring out ways to cheese/bug/exploit/avoid everything just to get it over with.

The Mad King was the only dungeon my guild unanimously enjoyed (even the ones that REALLY REALLY suck at jumping puzzles) and wished it was longer.

Cabbage.4085:

It isn’t a PVP only game but once you hit 1k hours worth of game play, you run out of things to do.

If it takes 1000 hours of game play to run out of things to do, that’s a good thing.

Nabrok.9023:

If you want your permanent weapon that you use all the time to look like that, then you have to work a little more for it. But remember, all you need to get during this event is the 250 candy corn plus 100 of the rare components you need for your desired gift.

There is nothing reasonable about that requirement. Not in one week. Neither is grinding out the gold to get them from the Trading Post once the event is over.

They’ve locked Halloween content that was eagerly anticipated by the playerbase behind a grind that is equivalent to a legendary.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Just a friendly reminder, this event has only just begun.

With as many materials that are required to obtain in such a small window of time, this event is already over in my opinion.

Dracones.9105:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Why can’t something take a week to get for a normal player? why is that so wrong?

Because it takes away something for the really hardcore player to strive for. If everyone can achieve everything, then there’s really nothing in this game for the 1% or 0.1% of the playerbase that wants to play 40 hours a week and strive for something.

Having said that, there needs to be tiers for each type of player. I’ll never own a twilight or sunrise on my mesmer, but I can certainly spend a few weekends getting a nice looking dungeon exotic.

The logic of creating content for such a small fraction of the playerbase aside, I feel there is enough of that in the regular game proper… dungeon sets, legendaries, racial armor etc. There is no place for such content in a limited time event like this.

Even in you mild example of a dungeon piece, I dont have a few weekends to to get these materials. I have one week… whatever else I may want to do, that is all the opportunity I have for this. And just as grindy to buy them off the Trading Post once the event is over, if not moreso.

Tiers are all well and good… but I know anyone I see with the top stuff simply bought it with real money. I suppose they can take pride in that and show it off if they want to.

Dracones:
“I find it amazing people get so upset about not being able to obtain a simple skin. Personally to me a game shouldn’t have everything be obtainable by everyone.”

A fine philosophy to apply to the game as a whole. A terrible philosophy to apply to an event limited to only one week.

If I want those skins I’ll have to grind out the Halloween exclusive mats while I have a chance… to the exclusion of any other Halloween content. I’m being forced to do something not neccessarily fun as opposed to the content I enjoy. That is the textbook definition of grind.

And dont think for a second I’ll support that decision buying Gems either.

JohnnyV: “Event isnt over yet.”

In light of those ludicrous recipe requirements, it is for me.

The chest contain different BLC exclusive event skins.

They are only available in the BLCs.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Keep in mind you cant just merge 2 servers. WvW requires 3 servers to fight each other.

You’d have to merge SIX servers to 3 to make it consistent… affecting way more server populations than just your own.

It takes much more effort to write a guide.

Any putz can load up fraps and yammer on for an eternity because the sound of their own voice is just that good.

No offense to the actually talented youtubers out there.

Cut em both in half, and double/triple the number of mobs.

There’s no fun in a group of 5 guildmates and some NPCs taking so long to kill 2 no-name garbage mobs.

Waypoints are not just for travel. They are checkpoints you rez from when you are defeated.

Take the Fire Elemental event in Metrica Province that routinely wipes dozens of players at a time. It’s barely done now graveyard zerging from the camp outside the reactor… how many folks are going to bother if the closest rez point is in the next “major city” Soren Draa at the opposite end of the zone?

Now suddenly the creators of that segment of the world get cheated by no one playing that content… but whatever. I’m here to have fun playing a game, not fulfill some artists emotional needs.

The easiest thing to do would be to remove the Lion’s Arch portal from WvW. Keeps the traveling PVE’ers out and increases the world size when you cant warp to any major city on the continent for free.

flyinpoons.6481:

It’s not often I am the owner of an “mmo” and I use that term loosely, that is less fun to play than to read the forum for said game.

Someone needs to play more Blizzard games.

diabluz.2860:

Stevoli.8795:

diabluz.2860:

Every time a ostrich comes up I’m going to respond with this.

Wake up call!!!

Again, look at the top games… those are all eSport games. OF COURSE they are going to have higher number of viewers. Using that as your argument is like saying people aren’t interested in football because they aren’t watching live streams of a guy in his back yard throwing a football around.

Diablo 3 is NOT an esports game, neither is WoW. Even Diablo 3 has more interest and that is largely regarded to be a failure but has more interest than GW2 does and GW2 has only been out for a little over a month.

Diablo 3 is attached to a much much bigger and widely known company and in recent weeks is going through a lot of changes to fix the issues that made it such a failure in the first place right now… months after its release. Natural uptick in views.

WoW just released an expansion that was a lot better than many thought it’d be.

What does Twitch have to do with MMOs with even fewer players that are still open and running? AoC, EvE, EQ2, DDO, LOTRO… all still running and releasing updates/expansions/FPS spinoffs. Your “metrics” contradict reality.

If my head is in the sand, yours is up your kitten

Follow up… Does that work for Story mode too?

IE If my buddies want to do a Story mode dungeon again for whatever reason and we’ve all done it once, are we SoL and need someone who hasnt to start it for us?

Ha… that sounds like the kind of batkitten crazy tactic my Engineer buddy would think up. I hope he’s not reading this.

But then part of me hopes he does

The dungeons arent for them. Also warn them that their Personal Story will end with a dungeon so they wont get to see the end of that either.

Not too lazy. Too time intensive.

Many others were motion sick with the camera smoothing before the update. Anet rushed a fix out the door for it rather than take the months and months to code, implement, and test this “slider” everyone thinks can be whipped up over a long weekend.

You should be able to opt out of it… frankittenhis and the FOV issue should have been options from the get go, but dont expect to be able to for a long time… and its not changing back.

You have every right to ask for an optional return of camera smoothing. I’d like it back myself for no other reason than I just prefer it.

I just wouldnt expect a slider/toggle anytime soon. That will take a lot of time that Arena Net didnt have for this problem… when the playerbase is up in arms about it (and the Game Designer himself was suffering from it as well)

I sympathize, but if this thread is any indication, the removal of smoothing is going over very well… a much smaller minority of players dislike the new camera, and there’s no way this is going to be reverted.

Ask for it and express your opinion all you can… but realistically unless Anet’s been working behind the scenes for an option like this for a while already, you are likely going to have to deal with it for quite a long time. I am.

People more than just “didnt like it.” It was causing players to become physically ill.

That kind of trumps mere playstyle preference. And trumps the months of time it would take to create, implement and test a slider for the smoothing effect. It had to be fixed fast and dirty. Honestly it should have happened sooner.

And I liked the old camera smoothing better myself.

The thread degenerated pretty fast… not surprising given Anet’s…. stance.

One poster in there suggested something I tried and it worked out ok for me. I use an Nvidia card and created a custom resolution through the Nvidia Control Panel at 2194×1080... then logged in game and selected the new resolution from the options in game.

Much more comfortable… I was able to play much longer. Only downside is I got black bars on the top and bottom of my screen. Small price to pay for a non hack solution to a problem Anet wont fix IMO.

I find teamwork everytime I group up with my friends. Typically a Ranger, Engineer, Elementalist, Warrior and myself a Guardian.

Range heavy mobs get a Wall of Reflection to the face and my buddies get 10 seconds of free shots at them.
They rarely are ever suffering a condition shooting through my light fields I spawn all over the place.
Our Elementalist and Enginneer drop all kinds of fields for me to combo with… Fire fields for Might buffs all around or Water/Dark buffs for AoE healing and debuffs for harder mobs.
My Warrior buddy and I stay protected in the Symbols I lay down allowing us to take aggro/damage longer.
It it gets to hot for me, I duck out and the others knockback, cripple, or otherwise occupy the mob while I recover.
If aggro gets on someone else, I have Shouts, teleporting abilities, area denial and CC to buy them some time as well.

That’s teamwork in my book. Other trinity based MMOs my guardian would be doing one thing and one thing only…. holding aggro. That’d be all I do for any team I’d be a part of. Without the trinity I’m forced to change rolls and tactics based on what’s needed at the time, and thats also required of my teammates.

Personally I find it much more engaging and fun. YMMV of course.

1. Yes
2. Not at all… Yes… and No
3. Absolutely
4. Most likely
5. More Yes than No

You can transmute anywhere as far as I know.

The interface is pretty simple too. You drag your two items into the windows side by side. Inside the window the items are separated into 3 transmutable parts… looks, stats, and upgrade equipment if theres anything slotted there.

Simply double click on the look of the object you want, then the stats and upgrade. They become highlighted and move to the center so you can see what you’ll end up with.

There’s absolutely no incentive to fight overtuned trash mobs for the same loot that drops from mobs I can kill in 1/5 the time elsewhere.

With the tokens only awarded for completion, what reason do I have to not avoid every encounter possible?

Next time Anet will arrange a bunch of noobs for you to carry through for your next PuG dungeon run.

Detailed, concrete crystal clear information is exactly what I want.

How does Diminishing Returns work? When does it take affect, and for how long? What dungeons does it affect? ( or at least should)

Does it affect partial/failed runs?

Does it affect the first run if we do it too fast?

How can I report a bug if I’m legitimately hitting the DR system and not know it? Anet will just be inundated with false positives if everyone who feels cheated starts throwing up info.

No.

The fact is they dont even know what rewards we’re supposed to be getting.

Two threads about borked rewards and the devs in each one give different answers.

“Oh thats out Diminishing Returns system at work.”

“This may be bugged. Please tell us your dungeon, how long it took, and how long ago your last dungeon run was… also what dungeon was that and how long it took.”

How are we supposed to know what we should be getting if no one is telling us? I can cut them slack on bugs and things going wonky on a new game this size, but the lack of clarity on this is incredibly grating.

WTB “RULES OF DUNGEON RUNNING REWARDS” sticky thread posted by a dev.

MadMossy.8715:

I also think having such a strict time limit for diminishing returns for all dungeons is a bit daft, some dungeons can be cleared by a competent group in less than 30 minutes, you can’t honestly expect them to just stand around waiting for the clock to tick over.

They just won’t bother doing that content any more.

Oh yes they will.

The fact that the developers cant seem to come flat out and say what we’re supposed to be getting within X days accounting for Y dungeon run time for path Z of dungeon Q if we ran path R of dungeon F within W undisclosed units of time beforehand makes it necessary.

I dont feel leveling is easy so much as its inconsequential. Experience levels have been a content/grouping limiting feature for games that thankfully isnt present in GW2.

The fact you dont care if your 40 or 80 is a good thing.

I dislike any skill that removes access to my regular skills. I’ve built my Guardian around the weapon skills and such. Why would I use a skill that removes all that?

You dont have to grind to be the statistical equal to Johnny No-Life who treats this like a job.

He’ll just look prettier than you.

I fail to see how this change is supposed to lessen this “grinding” feeling you say occurs in dungeons rignt now.

Before the change, I was forced to speed run a single path due to efficiency, group dynamics, and ease/less bugged content whether I wanted to or not in order to get the rewards I want.

Now, I am forced to not quite speed run multiple paths that had before been avoided because of bugged, unbalanced content, inefficient rewards for the time, and other reasons whether I want to or not in order to get the rewards I want.

Both ways I’m forced to repeated run specific content over and over to get the reward I want, enjoyment of that content doesnt apply. THAT is what feels like a grind.

If the other paths were as efficient, weren’t buggy, or obscenely difficult… basically more enjoyable than the short farm paths… and were attractive enough that I CHOSE to run them instead, then that wouldnt feel as much of a grind as only having one option, and certainly less grindy than being herded by diminishing returns towards content I actively avoid now.

Louien Coldrany.7280:

Just to poke in regarding the trash mobs, specifically in AC (I saw the OP mention them);

I have noticed through running AC Story a couple times that apparently sometime between EQ1 (the last game I played heavily) and GW2, people forgot how to be patient and pull. Every trash mob/group can be split apart (except for two spots where they are all rangers. I haven’t figured out how to split them yet) and single pulled and then spanked. But somewhere along the lines it seems that pick up groups stopped communicating and lost the patience to sit back in a holding point and let someone pull.

That doesnt require patience… that requires staving off boredom. Why are mobs I slaughter by the dozens in the overworld suddenly so overbearingly difficult that more than 2 at a time is going to cause problems for a group of 5?

Because its the endgame? Then why is Anet pushing it on me at level 30? It’s just driving players away from the whole dungeon system.

Thats really it.

I’d find underwater content a heck of a lot more fun if I could sink without having to manuver my camera above my head, swim forward, and reorient the camera hoping I’ve reached the right depth.

Anet, please buff the Hammer just a little bit more rather than nerfing Greatsword.

(just hedging my bets)

When driving around, in the office, and around the house, you constantly hear the laughing guy or the “Hey heyheyhey hey!” kid from Divinity’s Reach in your head.

I swear I’m gonna string up that kid…

I admit, “carried” was a too strong.

Basically if I’m required to dedicate a spot on my group for someone who has done it before and tell us all exactly what to do and what skills to take (one less spot for a friend or guildmate), or alternately read a guide out of game just to have a reasonable expectation of success for content designed for level 30 characters… /shrug.

Its the kind of thing I avoid MMOs for.

People cant spread out if they cant get across the bridge.

Reduce the range of the Elementals attacks and aggro radius of the adds. Once you get in the room it becomes manageable, but getting past the doomed players on the bridge as they get AoE’d to death is frustrating.

I’d like to know how the average player supposed to know their class inside and out by the level AC gets pushed to me by the game…. especially since a vast majority of the content up to that point only requires kiting/circle strafing and pushing 1.

And if I have to be carried by some veteran player to run level 30 content, content which barely rewards either the vet or myself, why should I bother?