Guild Wars 2

Drop the stats back to exotic levels. That’d work.

Last year it took me 2 hours to get it done, but obviously this year I did it a lot more quickly. Did it again today as well, first time. So it’s not that it’s easy, but once you’ve memorised it, you’ve kinda done all the hard work.

To increase the difficulty, I think it’d be more beneficial to keep adding ‘levels’ to the clocktower that get more and more twisted the higher you go. That way you aren’t removing content, but you can climb onto the next bit, which would obviously be harder.

pho.9412:

why do people wish for ascended gear? its a nuisance for those of us who do not craft or do not play the game enough to craft to 500.

This isn’t a wishlist, so much as a prioritised lists of topics we want to talk about.

It actually said in the release notes that it counted toward Puzzle Jumper. I did it today, and my count didn’t go up, but I wasn’t 100% sure if it hadn’t already been counted from when I did it at the weekend. Maybe it’s not quite as fixed as people thought.

I can’t see pools of nuffin in dat zerg.

locoman.1974:

I’m going to add “don’t like achievements?.. don’t do them”..

Yes, there are achievements that are VERY grindy and time consuming. The famous dragon bash piñatas, for example, very grindy, very annoying… which is exactly why I skipped them, yet I still have the meta rewards.

I feel Anet have yet to hit a balance with their meta-achievement requirements. Used to be that there were enough static achievements (as in, those on the LW achievement panel) to pick and choose from, if you disliked certain activities or disliked grind. They hit their peak with this structure when they also added dailies, so if there were too many you didn’t want to do, you could probably knock off a couple of dailies instead. It was flexible.

Now, we’re never given enough static achievements to make the full meta-achievement, which means you have to log on multiple days during an event if you want the meta. It prevents the player from managing their own time in game and instead sticks them back on the game’s dictated schedule for the Living World. Players who can only log on one or two days a week are put at a significant disadvantage with this structure – even if they can play all day on the few days they can play, they are artificially barred from progressing the achievement.

The worst thing about this event’s achievements, however, is gating the story behind achievement grind. Even if you managed to get all 8 static achievements in one day’s play (not even possible at the minute with Mad King Says unavailable), and got your two dailies the same day, you still need to play an additional 2 days minimum to get the dailies. That’s just to get the silly mini, who should be cosmetic but for some reason has been made mandatory for story progression, so then you have the actual story you wanted to play to get on with that. Requiring a person to log in 3-5 times within the (often unclear) time limits of a living story, just to meet artifically time-gated requirements, negatively impacts people who do not have flexible play days/time.

The final thing is maybe purely personal opinion, but I think the meta-achievements should be made more trivial altogether. Give limited-time players the opportunity to get a cosmetic item (which is account bound anyway) and the feeling that even if they’ve only been able to invest a couple of days in an event, they still participated. Meanwhile, additional, tougher/more long-winded achievements for the players with more time on their hands could net them extra loot bags, AP, titles and so on.

TL;DR:
1) There should always be enough, preferably more than enough achievements to meet the meta-achievement in the static achievements.
2) Daily LW achievements should be supplemental, not required.
3) NEVER gate story progression behind grindy achievements.
4) Consider making the meta-achievement more trivial to acquire altogether. Include additional achievements (hopefully tougher, not grindier) for those who want the extra AP and the challenge.

In short, let people truly “play their way”.

1. Ascended Gear/max gear
2. Cosmetics and their usability (the half-finished town clothes system, the expansion of the achievement skin unlock system to other skins, etc.)
3. Guild Features esp. Guild Halls

It was pretty awesome to stand at the top of the central hill and see them bickering, haha.

Kaz.5430:

Last year we moaned about how boring a repetitive those achievements were and how much we hated them. Carve hundreds of pumpkins, open hundreds of trick or treat bags, kill hundreds of monsters.

I can’t say I’m sad to see the back of those achievements, either, to be honest. But . . . while I’m glad they’re taking this on board for new content (sorta . . .) it’s a bit crappy to bring back a lot of the same content (carving pumpkins for example) and not just reactivate some of the previously available achievements related to them. Grindy achievements are easier to stomach when you know you’ll get the chance to work on them again – kinda like how the X Killer achievements don’t bother me because I can work on them while playing other content, and over a long period of time if need be.

The time-sensitive nature of achievements like this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Completing the clock tower is an achievement, regardless of whether or not you do it in a specific timeframe. Surely they could have reproduced the achievement for it this year, just had a 2013 version of it or something.

On Far Shiverpeaks, I got the achievement first time for the Labyrinthine Horror, but it took 2 tries (separated by logging out/back in again after a while) to get the achievement for the Viscount (got the chest/event completion, so I did get credit). Haven’t tried the 3rd boss yet.

Enjoying so far. A lot less grind in the achievements (though gating story progression behind them regardless = bad), with the meat of the content from last year standing out a lot more as a result.

Also noticed this. As it’s a time-sensitive message (doesn’t add anything useful in terms of combat log/event data), I think it’s redundant to have it appear both on screen and in chat. All it’s doing is scrolling relevant text/chat up out of the way for me.

Chrisco.5732:

I was just walking through here without knowing anything had changed. Started to notice that things were … off. I must say that the 5 minutes i spent exploring and looking for things that have changed has been my best experience with the living story!

Plllllssss more of this! It actually feels like a dynamic world where things change. Cant wait for the next living story!

Yessss. This is totally what I want to see more of!

Locking the story progress behind achievements is a bit . . . mmmrrrrrrr. I know they’re not nearly as grindy as last year’s, but still. Unlocking the last bits of the story after time had passed would have been better. The whole point of these meta-achievements has been cosmetic rewards you could feasibly miss out on, and now the silly mini is required for the narrative. Not a great move IMO.

I would at least have liked to see the scoring mechanism tied to your progress on the tower rather than being completely meaningless. Other than that, I’m guessing this was done to facilitate the ‘mist forms’ of all ‘enemy’ players, which has definitely improved visibility, so I can’t complain there,

Negative criticism <> “hate”. You can use the report button to deal with any actual violations of forum etiquette.

Ty for the clarification, both!

Since I used my Instant Makeover kit a while back and I’m not yet going to buy another just to preview the new hairstyles, can anyone confirm if the new face Kristen previewed in the twitch stream is live as well as the hair?

This is the kind of stuff the gemstore should be used for – cosmetics. So I can’t see why we should be entitled to one change for free.

Delryn.7235:

Telling a game’s story or showing off a character’s personality through a short story which is removed from the game or character is worthless.

Oh, I totally agree. The short stories should only ever be supplemental, and not required for critical understanding of the plot in game.

kitten IT, I used my makeover kit only a few months ago. * sob * But I can’t complain about new hairstyles. It’ll keep me entertained for hours I’m sure.

Not able to at the moment, and wouldn’t rush to do it overnight if I could. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m gutted by this. Just disappointed by what appears to be more bad communication and poor decision-making on content courtesy of the Living World.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/short-story-twilight-preparations/

There’s another short story up. That’s about it so far.

I lose out on a path that was there before, and now isn’t. No warning of it, and no real reason that the content had to be removed, aside from I’m guessing it’s cheaper to reuse an existing dungeon path than to build a new one.

I’m not opposed to changes in content that actually develop the world, but this a) doesn’t really develop anything, and b) is Scarlet, therefore I hate it already.

EDIT: To clarify further, it’s not the achievement I care about. I’m more story-driven, so it grieves me more to not be able to see that aspect of it. Guess I’ll catch a youtube vid at some point instead.

What a shame I’m still miles behind completing all dungeon paths. Looks like I lose out on this one.

The personal story doesn’t really operate on the same timescale as the persistent world. That’s why the Living World technically takes place after Zhaitan has been defeated. So when you start a new character to take through the personal story, it actually is still ‘25 years ago’. The date of Zhaitan’s defeat is somewhat static as far as lore goes in this sense.

Charming Rogue.8071:

I agree that town clothes are stupid.

I don’t think they’re stupid. I do, however, think they’re an unfinished, poorly-thought-out component of the game and I hope they’re somewhere on the overhaul to-do list, because they could be awesome.

The Bazaar was probably my favourite; it was different and gave us a new area to explore. Overall, though, I just feel that time and effort and resources spent on LW could be better spent on other quality-of-life content, as well as more substantial gameplay content.

EDIT: There’s a good reason why people keep calling the ‘Living World’ the ‘Living Story’ instead. It has nothing to do with the world being alive in any meaningful way. It’s more about progressing a chronological story – and via pretty poor storytelling so far, to boot.

This kind of stuff should be core, quality-of-life game content. The amount of content this would give guilds to complete together would be incredible and add another layer to the game. Imagine being able to pick the look/structure of your GH, and upgrade it, decorate it, add minigames to it etc.

Let guilds build their guild halls from the ground up if they must, but it’s ridiculous that stuff like this is low priority when we see some of the terrible stuff coming out of the LW, and Ascended * shudder *.

Hopelessalchemist.4816:

(Why didn’t he do that at Claw Island if he’s got enough power for it? I will forever hate the devs for that having the story play out like that.)

I think that’s a general problem with Anet’s writing though. I call it “there’s a spell/device for that”. Their core systems of magic and technology are so ambiguously interwoven into the plot that for many problems in the story, especially in the later chapters, some NPC will come along with a gimmicky spell or device they conveniently know about/found/invented that will solve it. It makes consistency a bit hard to achieve because there wasn’t one that didn’t feel like it hadn’t been made up on the spot instead of tied into some solid, underlying system of magic or tech.

The Living World suffers the same problem. That whole thing during the Dragon Bash investigation where Marjory pulled some magic-detector thing out of a hat. It all feels incredibly random to serve the moment-to-moment needs of the plot, and it’s nothing to do with Trahearne.

Daywolf.2630:

A game that tries to be a game for everybody becomes a game for nobody.

Wiser words never spoken.

RNG on things like dye is okay in my book. I don’t spend gems or money on them, but you are getting exactly what you’re buying – dyes. The colours are a surprise, but you get exactly what you purchased the item for, and if you don’t get the specific colour you want, you still have perfectly useful dyes that you can apply to a character or sell on the TP.

I find RNG much more unethical when it’s built around spending gems/real money on junk, with a chance at getting the thing you actually buy the item for – or worse, a chance at getting a scrap of junk which can, if you are crazy enough to buy more of the junk, be traded for that thing you want. And the consolation prizes are account-bound rubbish you probably already have twenty of.

That’s my definition of hateful RNG. But dyes, minipets, fine in my book.

I’m getting pretty bored with them now, but I think that’s because so many of them are kinda novelty, I guess. I’d be more interested in more practical backpieces that don’t look so out of place (or out of character . . . ) in an outfit.

Anet’s 2-week updates keep players moving from one update to the next, which means new permanent content often gets rapidly depopulated once it’s no longer the new thing.

Other than that glaring overarching problem, I think your analysis and ideas are good. I like Southsun Cove, but I have no real reason to go there on my own as it’s pretty hostile for solo players, even if I love the actual map.

Coldtart.4785:

Faowri.4159:

Recurring anime/cartoon villain is exactly how she feels to me.

“Looks like Team Scarlet’s blasting off again!”

That was already pretty much the feeling after the last time we saw her. The only good thing about Scarlet at the moment is her VA hamming it up.

You forgot the ding!

Yes, Tara Strong is awesome. It’s the character, or more so her writing and the way she jars with Tyria, that I loathe.

Saw the release page. Smiled when I saw Nightmare Court coverage.

Frowned and sighed when I saw Scarlet was involved. I hope her plot isn’t dragged out much longer, and that the next big LW thing is a bit more cleverly written (into the game, too). Recurring anime/cartoon villain is exactly how she feels to me.

Even heard someone I don’t know on Teamspeak last night say that whether or not they turned up for the next part of LW depended on whether it was more Scarlet rubbish. It’s not just the forums, and it’s not even hate. A lot of people just find her boring and irrelevant to the game.

Too many definitions of ‘casual’ ITT :P

At its most basic it tends to mean someone who won’t or can’t dedicate as much time to playing the game as a hardcore player. To this end, a lot of casual complaints are around features of the game that require a significant time sink or for players to be logging in on a rigorous schedule, because they can’t keep up.

If a player is ‘casual’, that doesn’t have to have any bearing on whether they want challenging content or not – or at least it wouldn’t, if an equal playing field were as easy to achieve as promised pre-launch. The other problem is when the time allowed to complete challenging content is limited, as with temporary content in the LW.

I wouldn’t confuse that with people clamouring against hard content. Most people complaining about Tequatl are complaining about the poor foundation mechanics that make it difficult through inconvenience rather than challenge, like the overflow problem. This is vastly different to not wanting hard content at all. These forums have a tendency to try and oversimplify people’s opinions into ‘love’ and ‘hate’ – most features Anet release have bad and good aspects, but balanced discussion often gets drowned out by people trying to shout the loudest.

EDIT: I should add, as a casual player, I’m still busy exploring and playing the core game as at release and levelling alts, and that’s where I still get the most enjoyment out of the game. The LW has been hit and miss, mostly miss so far for me, because I find it a pain to fit into my time-limited schedule. Anet’s gear policy bothers me not because I’m casual, but because I find it to be a 180 on promises made and marketing delivered pre-launch. I’m perfectly a-ok with hard content like Tequatl, which is on the verge of being a skill > time endeavour instead of being an artificial challenge determined by gear stats, like Fractals.

Also experiencing this at the moment, and yep, completed the meta-event.

The LW dailies were better when they were an optional way of getting to your meta-event achievement. Now, we’re getting increasing instances of not being given enough LW-specific achievements to hit the target, so we HAVE to do the dailies to get to the meta-event target.

This is a PITA for people who are genuinely casual and can’t commit to scheduling in multiple days in a limited timespan.

As for the normal dailies, they don’t really make enough of a difference to anything to be ‘required’ for casuals to do. It’s the genuinely time-gated stuff that annoys me and is more anti-casual.

Daywolf.2630:

Faowri.4159:

(like revamping the Commander tag as frequently suggested, and giving it more utility once it’s something the player has legitimately earned). Once the foundations are sturdier, events like this will work much better.

Earned it? I got my first tag last year, I paid 100g for it, earned Especially when you consider others were putting that 100g to their legendary weapons back then, for themselves, does nothing to help other players. When I go to the “new and improved” teq event, I don’t turn it on :P but heck yeah would luv to see it more useful for wvw, temples, guild missions etc. Especially member tracking.

No disrespect meant. I’ve seen some great ideas floating around about how the Commander tag acquisition could be made more relevant to in-game leadership skills, or at least displaying significant skill/understanding of certain areas of the game. That’s what I meant As a casual player I more than appreciate that 100g is a hefty sum to raise, but it still doesn’t actually prove you’re any good at the game or any good at leading other players in playing the game.

Right now, failing the event still gets you your Boss Week daily. After Boss Week . . . I foresee great difficulty getting the required amount of players.

I really enjoy the idea of this type of content, but I think ANet need to work on their server infrastructure (the ‘overflow problem’) and potentially consider some more intelligent in-game coordination tools (like revamping the Commander tag as frequently suggested, and giving it more utility once it’s something the player has legitimately earned). Once the foundations are sturdier, events like this will work much better.

Notso.8431:

Faowri.4159:

On the females at least, the diversity in the sylvari’s smaller number of available physiques versus the mostly extremely similar ‘different’ human physiques is massive, IMO. I’d take the sylvari physiques over the female humans’ any day.

But there is really only one “warrior” physique [broad shoulders, muscly arms], and the rest are all basically progressively more spindly [apart from the females where breast size varies too].

I think we got quite a good range, considering that the sylvari are supposed to be slender (and were originally meant to be a head shorter than humans, though that got effectively retconned). The fae-like, spindly aesthetic is kind of their thing – they’re the elf-replacement in GW2, and I don’t mean that as an insult to their design. It’s just that there are certain aesthetic archetypes an MMO often fulfills, and the ‘elf’ is one of them.

That said, I’ve got no objections to more diversity. I just think the human females and possibly norn need it a whole lot more.

It is annoying, and something of a 180 from Anet’s original plan to make dyes account-bound, but I doubt they’re going to change their minds on it this far in. Not to be a cynic, but I’m sure it gets more mileage out of the dye packs on the gem store.

One positive is that it does at least keep the player market for dyes afloat, I suppose.

On the females at least, the diversity in the sylvari’s smaller number of available physiques versus the mostly extremely similar ‘different’ human physiques is massive, IMO. I’d take the sylvari physiques over the female humans’ any day.

This was awesome. I’m a 2D artist but always fascinated by the black magic of 3D x3 Hopefully the new face/hair are just two of many, ’cause aaaaaaaah! <3 So gorgeous.

I love how even though the sylvari are their own race, Kristen takes the time to give us to give us faces representing a diversity of human races. It makes the humans look so bland in comparison though.

It was at the weekend, completing a map I hadn’t finished before, and stumbling across a gorgeous hidden cave. Sighed, paused for screenies, soaked up the scenery. Core PvE game > Living World forever.

That’s RNG, I guess. I got a scrap each from the 2 chests I’ve opened since the update. I refuse to spend money or my in-game gold on keys, so I only open them when I get freebie keys.

Something in celebration of the Dream, I think. The other races could be involved by the holiday revolving around exposing the sylvari to as many new ideas and experiences as possible and broaden the Dream. They could be invited to the Grove to bring all manner of cultural specialities to the sylvari – food, music, dance, stories, games, combat styles, etc. A lot of the sylvari don’t ever leave the Grove, so it’d be a good way of broadening their horizons.

But of course the Nightmare Court would gatecrash and we have a lot of ruined festivals as plots already

I liked him a lot more before he was forced into the starring role. He felt a lot more authentic, humble and thoughtful in the early sylvari arcs, and would have made a much better supporting character for the final arc, being an expert consultant on Orr for the Pact. Throwing him into a leadership role almost seemed to make him out of character compared to his earlier role in the story, as well as stealing the spotlight from the player character, so while he’s not a terrible character, his implementation is kind of poor and I can understand why so many players dislike him.