Guild Wars 2

Knowing avoids confusion and pointless speculation.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

While we are indeed a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea-based NCsoft Corporation (read NCsoft HQ), we are also our own entity. ArenaNet has not been affected by the NCwest realignment. And indeed, we are hiring: http://www.arena.net/jobs/

Now we know

It seems this should work well for NcSoft/Anet.

Gems cost more so people who have tons of gold lose more gold when they buy gems and the more casual players with less gold have to spend real cash on the gems.

So Anet gets more cash and the economy’s inflation is toned down a bit. Win-win for Anet I’d say.

Ursan.7846:

Gehenna.3625:

Silly Ursan. NcSoft are reducing staff in their Seattle office NcWest. And Arenanet are part of NcWest and Seattle is where Arenanet is from. Check this link instead:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/layoffs-at-guild-wars-ii-publisher-6401089

In case you don’t believe Arenanet is part of NcWest:
http://us.ncsoft.com/en/news/press-releases/ncsoft-announce-31.html

Yes, Anet falls under the umbrella of NCSoft West but they are still separate entities, with separate offices.

NCSoft West is located at Seattle.

http://global.ncsoft.com/global/support/contact.aspx

Arenanet is located in Bellevue.

http://www.arena.net/contact/

Separate offices yes….but Arenanet is definitely part of NcSoft and not a separate entity. For GW1 NcSoft was only the publisher of the game but now Anet are actually incorporated into NcSoft. They are not separate.

The article also asks the question whether or to which extent this will affect support for GW2 as this is unknown.

Anything on that level is pure speculation. But Anet is no longer separate from NcSoft for years now.

Silly Ursan. NcSoft are reducing staff in their Seattle office NcWest. And Arenanet are part of NcWest and Seattle is where Arenanet is from. Check this link instead:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/layoffs-at-guild-wars-ii-publisher-6401089

In case you don’t believe Arenanet is part of NcWest:
http://us.ncsoft.com/en/news/press-releases/ncsoft-announce-31.html

I agree with the OP. I am no longer playing GW2 but for that I would log in again. Just for that.

Anet seem to think that to create a MMO game, you need to create a big persistent world. Then you create a neverending dungeon to take people out of those areas.

Of course Guild Wars has guilds. But there are no guild battles and no reasons to stay loyal to any guild. So a lot of people don’t really care. They take guild membership so lightly it became meaningless.

But on the bright side, everybody is together in LA talking to each other now thanks to the new dungeon.

LF1M fractals, must be level10+
etc…
etc

We are just all one big guild looking for each other in the same town.

Cumbaya my lord, cumbaya ^^

He does make some good points.

One of the first things I noticed was that unlike GW1, when you open the guild screen, it doesn’t open to the roster. I like to quickly check if anyone’s online and have max info on them. The roster is the best one for that. So I didn’t even check anymore.

Also for some reason the chat function seemed more active in GW1. Not sure why that is. But this whole representing thing without limit seems a bit counterproductive to me as well.

It happened to me in GW1 as well. All my elite stuff (over 40 armour sets, including 2 obsidian sets) were all gone.

It was a most horrible experience and also there the response was simple: Anet doesn’t have the tools in place to deal with this sort of thing. It’s probably too expensive for them. At some point there were quite a few accounts that got hacked in a specific period of time. That is also suspicious when that happens.

But as I said, no support from Anet other than my naked characters. If they had deleted toons, they wouldn’t have been able to restore them either.

Seeing now that a few people here have been hacked I think I am glad I am no longer playing. Once is bad enough and even though they said they were looking into better support for GW2 when it happened to me in GW1, I can now see that nothing has changed in this respect.

Cause let’s be honest. Sure, someone can have an easy password to crack, but it’s not always on the player side where the problem is. Also on the company side things can happen. And just for that, they should have something in place. But I guess it’s all about the big numbers. If only a few percent of accounts get hacked, it’s not worth the investment to them.

And for mobile phone authenticators…how safe are they? There’s no security on mobile phones like on pc’s I guess so I always prefer the physical ones

Conncept.7638:

They said blatantly from the very first announcement that GW2 would largely be a continuation of the story, not the gameplay. And they made this change because GW1 was one of the most flawed gameplay systems ever, it was meant to be PvP driven yet was dependent on PvE sandbox customization. The system they made may have been great to play with but was heavily flawed and impossible to balance. It would have been incredibly stupid to replicate it’s flaws.

Total bull. You could jump straight into PvP and completely ignore PvE in GW1. You could even unlock elite armour looks in PvP.

GW1 was also known as one of the most balanced PvP systems that were out there. Sure there were issues but it certainly beats sPvP in GW2 hands down.

Next thing you’re gonna tell us that PvP in GW2 is balanced…..lmao.

Bluestone.7106:

Gehenna.3625:

The whole idea of the world changing because of player action was a big deal….well, there’s nobody left to watch it. I know an exaggeration but there’s not many people left there if I have to believe all the other posts complaining of empty zones…

It doesn’t really change though. It bounces back and forth between specific preset settings. It is a nice concept and hopefully develops further in future games but this small step is not enough to pull people away from the more rewarding and controlled instanced content.

Well, it was just an example of what they wanted to do with the game but became something that most people apparently have abandoned for a single dungeon.

You could ask yourself the question of how much people appreciate the end result of years of work when the idea of new stats on a couple of gear pieces is enough to pull people into a dungeon that was brought too quickly compared to years of work into a persistent world with a lot of new ideas that really need a redesign to actually work.

It’s fun the first time around completing and doing puzzles. After that….it seems the effort doesn’t match the output when it comes to the persistent world.

Dinny.5310:

Bluestone.7106:

GW2 is less instanced than GW1.

Pretty much exactly what I was going to say. Guild Wars 1 was like…. 90% instanced (because really, none of the game/story actually took place in the towns).

Be that as it may, people are now spending all their time in instances and completely ignoring the persistent world.

GW1 was more instanced but people are spending their time in instances in GW2 just the same.

That’s part of what the OP is saying I think. Even though GW2 isn’t as instanced, people aren’t in the persistent areas cause, well, there’s lesser rewards than FotM and the difference is huge. The whole idea of the world changing because of player action was a big deal….well, there’s nobody left to watch it. I know an exaggeration but there’s not many people left there if I have to believe all the other posts complaining of empty zones…

VBMeireles.4951:

Thank you for the nice replies, guys.
I’ve been reading about the subject and I’ve been enlightened by some of the answers.
I’ll probably take it a lot easier from now on and play the game because I enjoy it and not to be at the top as fast as possible.

Back in WoW I wondered why some people still played the game even if they decided not to buy some expansions and stay level 60/70 whatever.

Now I know the reason. :P They enjoyed the content, but didn’t like the gear grinding.

Yep, that’s the best thing to do. I hope your experience is different than mine though cause when I decided to do just that, I realised this game wasn’t as fun after all. So better luck to you.

It won’t be for a while though…first you get to collect a complete set of ascended items with all the grind associated with it.

When you have everything complete, suddenly it will become 10 times easier/cheaper to get and then the new tier comes out. Very much like other MMOs.

I think what Anet did wrong mostly is that they took some fun ideas and stretched so they take too long to do to actually enjoy it. Also vertical progression which a lot of people like is stretched and it will take too long for them and it’s too much for casual at the same time because of the needed grind.

Why please one camp if you can displease both? Well, I am sure that’s not what Anet is intending but it does make you wonder sometimes.

1. Since headstart. Also did beta’s
2. over 500
3. 35g
4. 2 level 80s
5. dungeons and selling mats
6. never used MF. I think it’s a lame stat.
7. Never had an exotic drop
8. No exotics from chest either
9. Never checked
10. At least one rare. Exotics can take longer
11. Just a couple…cba
12. Nope, this is the first MMO where I don’t like crafting
13. I sell all mats I gather
14. Nope
15. There needs to be a thriving community in the leveling zones. So stop chasing people to dungeons.

Yep, all the issues will be fixed NcSoon.

Zeppelin.6832:

AuldWolf.7598:

I give this game another three months before NCsoft realises there’s something wrong and cuts funding to it. After a year, it’ll be on life support. By its second year it’ll go the way of CoH.

It’s kind of funny that you made the comparison. CoH struggled with subscriptions specifically because they had no vertical progression.

While it’s true that maybe 15 years from now, there won’t be a GW2, if you think any company is going to immediately trash a mostly good product that they spent millions developing because a few kids don’t like 1 thing about it, you’re living in a fantasy land.

They won’t trash it immediately but then they sold a lot more copies of the game than they expected so they might’ve gotten their investment back already. At that stage it becomes a matter of cash shop returns. As long as people spend cash there it’s all good, as soon as that spending goes down, well, who knows what that means.

Now, I don’t expect this game to disappear in the next year or so, but 15 years would be quite an achievement for any game. I suspect this game will be small time within a year though. I don’t think it really offers enough compared to other games.

One big mistake is that the replay value of the story line is virtually 0. It’s just a bad simplistic story with too many levels between quests. I don’t even want to talk about the terribad voice acting.

You see it’s all good and well to go from level 20 max to level 80 max, but then you should really make the leveling experience interesting enough. All races should’ve been able to level to 80 in their own zones. I’ve been in the human and norn zones as much as possible because I like em better but it got boring after 2 level 80s. The overlap killed the replay value.

What gets me then is that they spent an enormous amount on building a huge persistent world, but each zone has too few activities by itself and now they make sure everybody is stuck in a dungeon, making the whole persistent world empty. Add to that the drop rates, events that require more people that cannot be done, contested waypoints and you end up wondering why spend so much time on building a persistent world if you’re gonna push people out of them 3 months after the game is live….

And now they said themselves that they pushed out Lost Shores too quickly and that it was a bad executive decision. Those decisions are only made when there’s a problem. So what was the problem? People leaving? Cash shop sales dropping? Or more worried about the fall out if the patch was delayed?

I don’t know but it seems like a panic decision to me and that generally means not all is well behind the scenes.

GW1 had the following things I loved:

-Story driven PvE content
-Low leveling time, making alting more fun
-Collecting cool armor sets
-Collecting skills via quests and capping
-Skill bars that required thought and planning

GW2 offers:

-Lots of PvE content without cohesion and a piss poor main story line.
-A lot longer leveling time. With all the talk about a lowe leveling curve, it takes me just as long to level a toon here as in another MMO. Why? Cause there’s 80 bloody levels.
-Mostly lame armor sets from a cosmetic point of view. So no point in collecting em.
-Unlock skills at set levels. Elites are meaningless fillers.
-Skill bars that have more skills and less flexibility. You must choose weapons to get specific skills, even if you don’t like the weapon type or you cannot play those skills.

There is more but this is enough as a list.

Conclusion: Anet took everything I loved about GW1, put it in the garbage and made something else. Sadly, I don’t like what they made instead, so I quit playing altogether.

I think the OP needs to be a bit more patient.

There is an update coming for WvW and they already said that ascended gear is coming to WvW as well.

I’ve played various MMOs, some of which didn’t even get an update in the first 6 months beyond some fixes and tweaks.

You want WvW to be a sort of standalone game, which is funny because as soon as WvW does what you want, people don’t need to level in PvE anymore at all.

I mentioned it before but what you want would be the next step to making the persistent world completely unnecessary. I still think they could’ve kept the instanced world as in GW1 because obviously they are making sure people don’t want to be there anymore.

So yes I am convinced WvW will get a lot of love in that update early next year.

I don’t think the game will die out just cause people like myself stopped playing. I don’t have the metrics to see how many people are still playing, for example everybody who logged in no later than 1 week ago and were online for at least an hour. However you want to measure it.

But yeh I do wonder why Anet felt they wanted to create a big persistent world and then chase everybody into instances. They might as well have skipped the troubles of the persistent world and instance everything. Seems that between FotM and WvW there’s not much else the game is about right now. You don’t need a big persistent world for that.

So I don’t think the game will die but it probably will be a small game just like all the other MMOs that made exactly the same mistake: Start with a lot of noise and big talk and then not fulfill the promises. Kinda like politics I guess

I really don’t get Anet here.

Do they really want to push people into FotM and ignore the rest of the game? If the loot is already so much better in there, why on earth would you add another incentive to spend your time in FotM.

How about encouraging people to do more than FotM and WvW. It really makes no sense to create a huge persistent world and then direct the game to ignoring it. You could’ve created the game without that persistent world at the rate this is going.

digiowl.9620:

This brings to my mind that the game is tuned around sPVP, not WvW/PVE. And to compensate for that in PVE Anet chose the simple way and upped the body count or bulk of the encounters, rather than attempt to do an AI that could mimic a PVP encounter.

And when i say tuned around sPVP i mean that everything is set up so that encounters are quick, and the tide of the fight can flip in an instant. This to produce exiting, always on the edge experiences for onlookers in a esport setting.

I totally agree with you. In PvP, and even to some degree in WvW, the skill bar is much more interesting. A number of the skills I would never use in PvE are actually quite useful in PvP. Where in PvP some of these skills are very powerful, in PvE they barely make a difference.

So yes, I do believe it’s really balanced around sPvP.

In essence, what I’ve seen is that Anet have “learned” from GW1 because it was probably quite a hell for them to balance everything. Unfortunately they just made it easier on themselves by sacrificing PvE gameplay for the sake of sPvP balance.

As in GW1 they should’ve made a difference between PvE and PvP skills more than they did.

I also think that one thing that could help GW2 that might make me reconsider leaving GW2, is that weapons give different skills in PvE and sPvP. They seem fine for PvP but pointless in PvE half the time. Also more elites that make an actual difference in PvE would be part of that. All in all, PvE needs an overhaul and by keeping PvE separate from PvP it wouldn’t need to affect sPvP.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Well, No offense but if you where doing dungoens with me and all you did was auto attk, I wouldnt be partying with you. =( Cause I actually use all my skills when I need them to contribute. I dont use them just because “im bored”.

You are contributing less if all you do is spam skills and auto attk.
You are right that movement and dodging is key but if you are not contributing in coordination of Control & Support then replacement might be in consideration. =(

No offence taken, since I know you are just assuming things here. The GS auto attack for mesmer does more damage reliably then any other skill in a GS/Staff build. I just drop a couple of clones and go auto attack. It’s the best I can do for damage.

I also specifically talk about boss encounters and not the whole dungeon. That’s another mistake in your reasoning. Some thrash mobs are tougher fights than bosses. Also an interesting point. But still I believe that dodging damage and ressing quickly is far more efficient than any control/support skills you might add.

This is because most boss fights have very simply mechanics and are imbalanced due to one shot skills and a gazillion hp/toughness rating making boss fights boring.

It’s just the way it works. And trust me, I did fine in dungeons. Runs were generally very smooth. But it’s the set up that makes most of the skills unneeded. I could cast a skill that makes everybody in the area attack faster for 10 seconds but then the cooldown is over 3 minutes. It barely makes a dent in the bosses hp. So why bother?

I can cast it. I can use it, but it doesn’t really make a noticeable difference. That’s the point. At least half of the skills hardly make a difference because they are not needed. Just move, dodge and ress.

It fell through a chasm right into the FotM dungeon….weirdest thing, I know.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Gehenna.3625:

In the end all you need is dodge, ress and auto attack and keep moving. So in large lines I agree with the OP.

But my problem with the combat system is that a lot of bosses just need you to move, dodge and ress and use skill 1 and 6. As much as the OP has a point, it also underlines for me why a number of people find the skill bar uninteresting. Not that all the other skills are pointless or useless….you just really don’t need em. And this means that creating a build isn’t as interesting as it could be.

Have you done Dungoens? Or Solo Champions or Solo group events yourself?
I have, and I can tell you, all the utility skills and weapon skills I have used where all needed because if I didnt use Control/Support skills and do damage while moving and dodging, I would of been dead.

Control skills have saved me a lot, and so have support skills while I was fighting in tight situations. =) It’s exciting when you know what all your skills do and when and how to use them. Specially with weapon swaping in mind since when ur soloing tough fights where you have a huge possibility of dying if not played right, You want to have access to what ever skills you need at the right time and place.

To me, that alone makes the combat exciting.

However, zerging is never fun in my honest opinion. =(
For people like me, I try to avoid them cause they ruin the combat in any games really.

Yep, I’ve done all dungeons. And most of the time it’s just about movement. The only reason I use other spells is because auto attack is boring and there’s cd’s. There are a couple of places where I use condition removal, but it doesn’t get more complicated than that.

In a lot of cases though the boss fights are about auto attack, dodge and ress team mates. Nothing more was required to win the fight. I do like to use clones on my mesmer so I do use those. So hey, then I’ll use 3 skills and the self heal. Almost half of em.

Still not really impressed. There are a couple of exceptions but most boss fights are running around auto attacking. dodging one shotting or 10000 red circles on the ground. From a skill bar point of view it’s not difficult. It’s just avoiding damage and dealing it in between. Standard kiting stuff. Only difference is that everybody has to do kiting since there is no tank/heal combo to keep the boss busy.

Apathy.6430:

Gehenna.3625:

In the end all you need is dodge, ress and auto attack and keep moving. So in large lines I agree with the OP.

But my problem with the combat system is that a lot of bosses just need you to move, dodge and ress and use skill 1 and 6. As much as the OP has a point, it also underlines for me why a number of people find the skill bar uninteresting. Not that all the other skills are pointless or useless….you just really don’t need em. And this means that creating a build isn’t as interesting as it could be.

Try running with PuGs.

Many are HORRIBLE at the game, and suddenly you need to squeeze everything you can out of those utility skills that have a way longer cooldown than they should.

agreed, but that’s because they haven’t learned the basics. As soon as you have a decent team that isn’t a problem. The skills are obviously not balanced around idiot level.

And in the end your efforts in a PUG like that don’t really keep you from wiping usually so it’s a wasted effort at that point.

So either it’s pointless or boring

The OP may miss the point as there is no trinity in GW2. On the other hand I do think that by doing away the trinity, the game lacks a lot of complexity and teamplay elements.

So there are no tanks and healers. Everybody is basically dps with some support options or support with some dps options and then some are pure dps. That’s about what you see.

It is more important to learn to dodge and target the same target and ress people that are down (not defeated). Once defeated you ress at the waypoint. Anything else is fluff. It’s more about learning the dungeons than your class because in the end you need to do roughly the same no matter which class you play.

In the end all you need is dodge, ress and auto attack and keep moving. So in large lines I agree with the OP.

But my problem with the combat system is that a lot of bosses just need you to move, dodge and ress and use skill 1 and 6. As much as the OP has a point, it also underlines for me why a number of people find the skill bar uninteresting. Not that all the other skills are pointless or useless….you just really don’t need em. And this means that creating a build isn’t as interesting as it could be.

Alice.8694:

I know a couple of groups who hit level 20 in fractals with 0 agony resistance. So within the current content… That means agony resistance is a “Make things easier” stat. Basically it’s a luxury stat… As design goes, that’s a really good concept. I hope they can consistently encourage it within future content.

I heard the same. I also heard that after that you get one shotted without it and that by then because of the RNG approach a lot of people don’t have the items yet so they get stuck at that point.

Still, my point remains that Anet already said they want to expand on this and that more future content will require this.

Aside from whether you like it or not, it does introduce content gating. You must have this gear or you cannot play. That creates issues if the gear that can be infused takes a long time to get together and to infuse, because more casual players will always be behind on gear, not being able to play certain new content when it comes out.

I think that the fact that the game doesn’t have a sub made people a lot more forgiving towards the launch of this game, but it has been as broken or worse as any other MMO launch I’ve seen myself.

Now MMOs are tough from a development point of view so I do feel that some space needs to be given to developers because not all problems can be foreseen nor are they always easy to fix.

Still, I do think GW2 does have a number of things that really need to be working. I’ve heard of buggy mobs and bosses in all MMOs, but complete dungeons that are bugged like Arah so that people can’t actually complete their story is one example of something that should not be.

GW2 did not have a smooth launch but there were enough alternatives to level. Sadly by going to different areas of different races I kinda killed the replay value for me at the same time.

When I just add it all together it doesn’t work for me. Therefore I won’t tell anyone to try it and if they ask I will tell them it’s at their own risk.

Galen Grey.4709:

LOCO.1785:

Yeah that’s true.

What I’d really like to see are the actual revenue figures, but that’s never gonna happen. So all i have to go on is anecdotal evidence.

In any case, I’d say the latest patch certainly didn’t have the impact they were hoping for.

Actually you can see that, check ncsoft quarterly financial filling.
http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx

This includes data up to September I believe.

Anyhow did listen to it my and essentially ncsoft told its investors in that call that GW2 exceed its expectations. They sold 2m copies in the first 2 weeks and where expecting to reach 3m before the end of the year. And they did $14m up to September from the cash shop.

The game is doing great! they didnt do this because the game didnt perform, they did this to try to offer some content to everyone like they themselves said after all!

Yeh, I wouldn’t use the financial report. You are right. It was up to and including september. So basically the game was out one month and sales were above expectation. What happened since that first month is more telling.

The next financial report in a few months will shed more light on that. But to be honest, I don’t really care how many people do or don’t play anymore. I just know I don’t and why and that’s what matters to me.

I know the theory and yes intrinsic motivation is better than extrinsic, however extrinsic motivation is easier to do and you do need some of both.

So I lost interest in the game. That means my intrinsic motivation was leaving the building and the newly added extrinsic motivation wasn’t enough to keep me here.

On top of that, the way it was done, gave me a lot of intrinsic motivation to stop playing altogether

ThiBash.5634:

cesmode.4257:

Take one stat: 63 power / 68 Power, 0.92 . This means that the exotic is 92% as powerful as the ascended, leaving 8%..The ascended is 8% more powerful.

Compound that, eventually, against every item, if the same statistical difference holds true for everything. You are saying this is not big?

One thing you should keep in mind though, is that a 1% stat increase doesn’t mean you become 1% more powerful.

Take vitality for example. Each point adds 10 health. Say you have 1000 vitality. That means you get 10000 extra health. Adding 1% vitality would mean you get 10100 extra health. That would be 1% more, except your base health isn’t affected. If that’s 10000 as well, it would effectively mean you only get 0.5% extra health. This is similar for other stats (though more complex, and the return is even less).

Yep this is true.

On the other hand you could argue that for people who like stat progression this simply may not be enough and there’s the issue of infusion.

Since ascended gear is required to add infusion, this armour will be required for specific content, not just high level fractals but more content in the future as well. As it is unclear and a lot of work to get together it, I think this infusion business will be more significant than the actual stat boost.

The stat boost is in that sense very small and one could wonder why they even bothered because the real difference will be in the infusion. Sadly also there we see stat bonuses. I would like to see the difference in about a year between exotic gear and infused acended gear then.

In the mean time since we don’t know how much of the new content will require infusion, people will logically feel required to get ascended gear cause they don’t want to miss out in the future.

That’s why I expect that by that time it will be easy to get and infuse the armour. And that begs the question, why do it now?

So it seems a waste of time and either way it’s not content for me, which leaves me with the rest of the game which is half deserted because of FotM and was getting stale for me as it was.

Different people, different likes.

I think that if leveling characters by itself had a greater replay value for me I could get over this gear issue and just play for fun. It just happened to coincide with me getting bored with the game as a whole though, so my anger aside about Anet’s approach here, I think that Lost Shores just didn’t offer anything for me to look forward to at the same time I got bored with what was there before.

Alice.8694:

Gehenna.3625:

snip
Yes I am free to interpret as I choose. As are you. This is why some people leave the game and are upset and some stay and are fine.

But consider this. In the AMA they said they knew they would get this big negative reaction. That means they knew a lot of people were under this impression and they did nothing really to clarify this before they introduced the Lost Shores. Although they didn’t actually state there wouldn’t be any powercreep they also happily let people believe there wouldn’t be, even though they knew this perception was out there. Aside from what was or wasn’t said by Anet, I find that by itself less than honest and that is why I am upset about all this.

That implication doesn’t really work… It would have if it wasn’t for the fact that since before and after launch there was a vocal group giving negative reactions to everything Arenanet said, did and didn’t do.
It’s literally gotten to the point where I am making bets with my friends on what will be the next big non-controversy. We’ve had bugs, bots, precursor weaponry, new content, cash shops and dyes to name the ones off the top of my head.

You are holding the devs in the least charitable interpretation possible of what they do. And from the outside it seems like the only reason for this is that if you don’t… You have nothing to be upset about. Until the next thing comes along to be upset about.
(I am using the you term as a fairly blanket stereotype here, I not directly addressing you Gehenna but the situation as a whole.)

No worries. It is simply my opinion but it is what I believe.

There is much more that I have an issue with in GW2 however. As I stated earlier in this thread, the manifesto does talk about grind and story line. Those are two elements that are not living up to the manifesto in my view.

Also the voice acting and some key bugs are annoying to me. I mean the list goes on. This whole debacle was just the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. Trust me, I can have a discussion with you about GW2 completely ignoring the manifesto and the bottom line is that even then I can make a list of items I am not happy with in this game, manifesto or not.

Seras.5702:

I hate these threads. People are so driven by what items they get out of something that they forget that it’s a game & supposed to be fun to play. If you don’t like PvP, or WvW, or exploration, or dungeons…then I’m thinking an MMORPG isn’t for you. They just added fractals and already you’re sick of them? Everyone whines about “not enough endgame” but how many dungeons do you need before it’s “enough?” There are plenty of things to do: go for 100% map completion, join a guild, make some in-game friends, try PvP, shoot for an achievement, level crafting, play the TP market, roll an alt or 2, etc.

Map completion – done (once was fun, not again)
join a guild – done (most of em never online)
make in game friends – done (all of em left or went to other servers)
try pvp – done (spvp not ready yet, wvw fun from time to time but that’s it)
shoot for an achievement – done (completeled all jump puzzles and over 2500 points when I quit)
level crafting – NOT done (didn’t like the crafting system)
play the TP market – most items are very low priced except a specific group of high end stuff. I did pretty well on mats but it’s not a big interest for me.
Roll an alt – done (5 toons, 2 are level 80 – got bored leveling them).

Oh well.

Galen Grey.4709:

Dont you think you’re taking this too far! If you were free to interpret any advertisement your way you can be sure everyone could point out at any advertisement and say its deceptive!

Advertisement in general is deceptive. They are trying to sell you something. I haven’t seen much or any advertisement that was actually objective and free of ambiguity or exaggerations.
It is my expectation that it is deceptive, but some go further than others.

Galen Grey.4709:

You can even say that gw1 breaks the manifesto if you want just because the manifesto says I can play the game any way I want and I decide to interpret that as say being able to bot and if I do that (LUCKLY ) they ban me!

there you go

Maybe GW1 doesn’t fit the manifesto, but then the manifesto was posted a year ago, a long time after GW1 came out so that comparison doesn’t hold for me.

Galen Grey.4709:

I am sorry but you’re not free to interpret stuff any way you decide ! For you Ascended armor breaks the manifesto fair enough ! for me Ascended armor is entirely optional and has 0 effect on my game so how can it break the manifesto for me? Is my opinion any less valid ?

Yes I am free to interpret as I choose. As are you. This is why some people leave the game and are upset and some stay and are fine.

But consider this. In the AMA they said they knew they would get this big negative reaction. That means they knew a lot of people were under this impression and they did nothing really to clarify this before they introduced the Lost Shores. Although they didn’t actually state there wouldn’t be any powercreep they also happily let people believe there wouldn’t be, even though they knew this perception was out there. Aside from what was or wasn’t said by Anet, I find that by itself less than honest and that is why I am upset about all this.

I have another question: If we accept powercreep as a fact in GW2, what is worse?

Grinding for gear that has bigger stat differences as in other MMO games or grinding for gear that has a very small stat increase? It seems unrewarding especially since it’s clear pretty much everybody who’s still playing will get this gear.

I was against the whole concept for GW2 but now that it is here to stay, I just wonder if doing a lot of work for such small increase is actually worth it….

The funny thing is that I like the Heavy Armor sets the least and the rest is rarely great as it is.

But then I have noticed that some Heavy Armor sets look great on male characters and I play female ones. If I remember GW1 there were a lot of elite armor sets that looked great on female toons as well.

Overall I think they had better designs for armor then.

I do think the OP has a point that the teams that are working on various parts of the game are probably smaller than they should be to gain more momentum on fixes as well as new content. The AMA should they were sorry that Los Shores was released as it was and this is probably a decision made because they had to bring something out but it wasn’t ready enough.

It’s all part though of people’s unwillingness to pay for a service like with subs. You could wonder why a game like WoW manages to keep 10 million subs for so long. It could be that they have enough people working on the game and are more in tune with what’s needed in a MMO to please customers. I don’t know but it’s what I can imagine.

This game is sub free and that puts limitations on the cash flow for Anet. A direct result is that some things take longer because they probably have small teams working their tails off. Sadly, skeletal crews have a higher risk of mistakes and we see that in many games that downsize teams. Bugs take longer to fix and new content takes longer to come out or comes in smaller doses.

Class balancing will take more of an effort but isn’t really needed that much until they start focusing on sPvP. I would say they do what they can with the means they have.

Whether that’s good enough for you as a customer, is another thing. It is funny to see how many classes can use a greatsword though….

I think it’s a content issue.

Sure, a handful of people already have a legendary but this step in between shouldn’t be achieved in 1 week in Anet’s view I suspect. This is a big part of why there is DR and RNG.

Prices go up for ecto’s and such to make sure it takes you longer to get it. RNG is added also to make sure enough people need to spend a lot of time in FotM to get their rings.

It’s an easy way to give content a longer expiration date. Of course if you go to far in that it’s called grind and I think that’s where some borders have been crossed now for a number of people.

I wonder how happy people will be when they got one of those expensive infusions done and a few months later a new level of infusion is added that makes this one obsolete. So it will have to be made easy again, invalidating all the effort done by people at this moment. It’s a form of treadmill and each person will have their own opinion about that.

Since casual players take longer to do these things, one could say though that such treadmills are not casual friendly at least.

I think this is the greatest mystery for me. GW1 had limitations but also did a lot of things right.

What surprised me most about GW2 is that there is no link to what was great about GW1 and what ended up being GW2.

You would think that if people like certain elements that you would want to keep those or something similar in the new game and then add new ideas to these solid original ideas that you worked out already.

I think for myself I really liked the old mission style of story telling much more than the story telling in GW2. I remember Anet commenting on the wall of text element and how they wanted to improve on it. That could’ve been a great improvement but I think they would’ve been better off not doing it considering the horrendous voice acting that they introduced in GW2.

A big thing from GW1 was builds. You had cookie cutter builds but it was also fun to create your own builds that were still viable and you could easily save and swap builds in just 2 seconds. The current skill bar has more slots (10 instead of but is less flexible. It’s odd because with weapon swapping you get to 15 skills or more for elementalists but you are stuck with fixed choices that are linked to weapons. My problem there is that I always have 2 skills in each weapon set that I don’t like. Interestingly enough I might use em in PvP but in PvE they are useless. The other thing is that even though you have more actual skills available there are much longer cd’s and that makes it that you don’t actually have more skills available. In essence, anything over 30 seconds is too long for a small skill bar like this to be considered part of your build strategy. Combine with that the fact that elite skills are often underpowered and I would prefer normal skills over elite skills and then we come to the final issue: dedicated slots. One must be a heal skill and one must be an elite.

All this together makes the skill bar far more rigid than in GW1. Also the trait system is not very transparent and if I take 5 points out of one tree and stick em in another I don’t necessarily notice any differences. In fact I’ve rarely seen people discuss builds or trait configurations cause they don’t really matter. The only thing you do hear is people asking me (Mesmer) if I have teleport with me but even that was rare.

So yeh all in all GW1 was more interesting to me and GW2 seems more of a hype game. Every month a new event with shineys is what I mean. You see this also in the monthly achievement.

I will never understand why they thought the materials needed for these ascended items make sense from a “non grind game” point of view, but perhaps they didn’t realise that in GW1 people grinded away to get elite armour sets because they were cool looking or got titles because they had rewards that people wanted.

I am sure there are many people here that like more powerful stats, but by itself they may not be enough to make the grind ok or even fun.

But anyways, all in all I think the main reason a lot of GW1 players are surprised at how GW2 turned out is that even the good ideas from GW1 are nowhere to be found in GW2.

I wouldn’t recommend it to friends but that’s not because of the Lost Shores patch as people might think.

I already had reservations about the game in beta. In fact I stopped playing beta’s and came back for the release just to see. I liked certain aspects of the game but am done with those as they are now completed, but already then I wouldn’t recommend it to friends.

I do think that saying GW2 is WoW all over again is not really true. If I set aside the anger over this new direction, I simply must say that GW2 was always a game that could barely hold my interest because I’ve felt that the storyline in no way lives up to anything that was promised and the lack of freedom in creating builds in your skill bar is another one that really disappoints.

Also as an MMO this game has many bugs, nothing unusual there as such, but dungeons that are bugged for months to the point that they are unplayable is unusual to me. Also the fact that when you get disconnected from FotM and cannot rejoin your team is also a bad design. I imagine they will fix that but it seems to me that this game is too iffy to really advertise to people.

The chances that people will be disappointed with this game seem to high to me to risk.

It’s funny cause I did advertise GW1 a lot….at work some people called me Mr. Guild Wars. I guess that title is no longer appropriate.

Well it’s a fair question of the OP.

And for me the answer is that it isn’t just one part of the game. The whole of the game is a disappointment to me. Lost Shores just was the proverbial straw and also broke my confidence in Anet as a game maker.

The world is beautifully made. No doubt about but it doesn’t pull me in.
The story line isn’t actually personal, is too far and few inbetween and the end is a total letdown.
Events, world completion and jump puzzles were great fun, but have little replay value for me. I know on my 2nd level 80 I couldn’t get myself to repeat over half of it.

So I got my gear together on my first 80 (mesmer) and was ableto find 1 armour set I liked.
My second level 80 (guardian) still has the HoM skins because there is nothing I like from any dungeon and this was a big problem for dungeons already. Why grind dungeons if the gear doesn’t look that great.

All in all, everything I loved in GW1, was not to be found in GW2 and I could’ve taken more time to get used to the game and maybe give it another chance but Lost Shores just slammed the door shut, cause the lack of massive endgame grind for gear gave me a much more forgiving approach.

So the TP didn’t work for weeks at the start, so we can’t trade directly. So there are still many bugged events and dungeons (go Arah) and DR pissed off a lot of people etc. There are various armour sets but they aren’t worth collecting (I had over 50 sets of elite armour in GW1 across my account, they were cool and fun to collect) and so the skill bar is simplistic and doesn’t give much freedom to really build skill bars your way. Cause you know, none of the weapon sets actually gave me 5 skills I all wanted and invulnerable mobs and dreary Orr that just has contested waypoints

etc
etc
etc…

Yeah it wasn’t really just Lost Shores that made me quit, but it was what tipped the balance and I just don’t trust em anymore, I don’t believe it when they say this game will go the right way in the future.

GW1 because the only reason I stopped playing that was lack of real new content.

I would like to add that the actual stat difference is not the issue. When it’s a matter of principle and sticking to them, the difference between 0 and 0.1 is bigger than the distance between .1 and 100. Why do I say that, because as soon as you get off the 0 it shows that you are willing to move and once you moved, it’s easier to move again.

This is why a lot of people reacted strongly, not because of a small stat increase but the fact that Anet is willing to do stat progression at all and anything they say that it won’t be that bad or it won’t happen again cannot be trusted.

I know it isn’t literally in the manifesto but it was implied in all their communication. If you want to check the manifesto, listen to what they say about grind and especially about the story line. I haven’t heard many players say that they loved the story line and that it was really about their toon and how powerful and heroic they felt. I did hear about horrible voice acting, very few quests that make up the story line and that trahearne was actually the lead character in the second half of the story and not the player.

So to be fair, the level cap is a big issue for me, but there’s more that wasn’t delivered and actually I put up with that because it was more casual and didn’t have gear progression….guess what? Now that element is gone from the game, so am I….

Ok, I will have to give the OP this one. The manifesto doesn’t actually specifically mention gear progression. So he is right there…however….

Yes, there is a however…

1) Even though they didn’t break their manifesto over gear progression as I now accept, they have implied as much throughout and the video seemed to support this train of thought. I still think that indirectly they pulled fast one on GW1 players in this respect. Also because they just admitted in the AMA that they knew that they would get a lot of flack for this decision. And they could only expect this if they knew a lot of people were not expecting this for a GW title.

2)The manifesto doesn’t state gear progression, but it does talk about the supposed lack of grind and a personal story that makes you feel powerful, like a hero. So may I submit that on both those points they have in fact broken the manifesto.

The game does have grind. We had Orr grinding, now it’s FotM grinding and leveling after 2 toons also becomes a grind and this in part because of the very thin and very crappy story line. Horrible voice acting adds to that. But anyone who finished Arah must admit that especially the endboss is a total letdown and that after about level 40-50 it’s all about Trahearne and not your character.

So….

Anet, you didn’t actually say there wouldn’t be gear progression but you dodged it like a pro so you would sell copies only to hit people with the bomb after. You knew it and did it anyway.

Grind is in the game and it’s not fun. After one or two months of being level 80 at most it gets grindy and it isn’t fun.

Story line isn’t personal. They call you a hero from level 1 but it’s fake. It doesn’t feel powerful and as you level the story line is thin and the focus changes away from the hero.

Still, when I add everything together the game was getting stale for me before it and I was mostly disappointed then by the lacking story telling that you promised and the lame skill bar with your AAA (AFK Auto Attack) dungeon bosses.

So take the initial emotion out of it when we got the surprise of gear progression and let’s even accept you never actually said there wouldn’t be gear progression, I still feel you cheated there by avoiding the subject and letting people believe there wouldn’t be any gear progression.

Twist it anyway you want. You knew people would be upset about it and you knew why and you stayed silent till you dropped that bomb.

I think you miss the point.

A lot of people came here because they thought it was going to be a different experience and that’s not going to be the case now. Sure, there are differences between GW2 and other MMOs but they are not that big in the end.

I know all MMO’s have bugs and I do undestand why. This is however the first game that disallows people to finish their stories (Arah) and this is a problem that exists for months now.

Other MMOs have some elitism at least but now GW2 will cater to this too.

So the question is not if there are other MMOs that have less grind etc but considering the state of the game today and where it’s heading, are there any MMOs that I prefer playing over GW2?

And there the answer is yes. For some it’s non MMOs like D3 and many more, for others it’s WoW and for me it happens to be SWTOR.

Now, all these games have their problems but in the end I know what to expect there and with GW2 I really can’t make out where they are heading with this game.

Read the AMA and it’s full of “we can’t tell you this yet”, “watch this space for more info” and “will be implemented soon”.

I already left GW2 the day Lost Shores came out and haven’t come back. I feel no pull to play GW2 at all. Nothing gnawing at me wanting to try and see. I went back to SWTOR because I know what to expect. The game is buggy like any MMO and raiding I ignore cause it’s not my thing, but the game has great leveling and story (voice acting is of very high level) and I just love Star Wars in general. It’s far from perfect but it works for me.

Before that GW1 worked for me, it’s just the lack of expansions that made me stop playing it. GW2 has failed to take that place. It was fun to level 1 toon to 80 get geared up, do world completion and all the jump puzzles and a bit of WvW. Second time wasn’t so fun anymore.

Bottom line for me is that the game grew stale and the new direction doesn’t add the type of content I like. The voice acting is horrible, “my story” isn’t my story at all and the world, though beautifully crafted, has not managed to make me feel “at home” like GW1 did pretty much from the start. It doesn’t have the magic.

Ditton.3149:

Gehenna.3625:

Razarei.2809:

OH my god LEAVE the ascended horse alone. It’s dead, stop beating it. This was a great AMA and you doomsayers can either leave or stay. Either way most of us who have a brain won’t care about your selfish ways.

I feel sorry for Chris having to apologize on behalf of himself and the company for issues and exploits and segregation brought on by the players themselves. Even before the patch there was constant segregation.

The lack of intelligence in this whole thread is just outstanding.

Please don’t mistake your opinion for intelligence.

Anet have now in the AMA admitted that they knew this reaction would come. That means they already knew that their communication before doesn’t match the current reality of the game.

Also they said that in retrospect elements have not been released in the way it should have been. You cannot claim that something went wrong in retrospect when you expect a kittenstorm. That means you intentionally or at least knowingly released things before they were ready.

I do wonder why they didn’t release ascended gear in the beginning but did bring out legendary gear. Logically that’s the wrong way around and would have avoided a part of this discussion.

Lastly they say that they thought they were clear that this game would have stat progression and this is the biggest lie of them all. Again if you know you will get so much negativity over something before you do it, then you know you haven’t clearly communicated it.

I read a lot of interviews before release and this was in fact news to me. It’s dishonest to say this now.

They are not even really apologising if you read properly. They are dodging bullets.

Aside from boredom and not being happy that GW2 does in fact NOT bring “everything I love from GW1” because part of that was the lack of stat increases or power creep…..and trust me there’s more but I’ll leave that to another discussion.

So, the AMA clarifies to me that Anet is not able to be clear and honest still and that there is no reason for me to trust them. It’s just as well I think.

For those who love GW2 as it is and where it’s going….I am happy for you.

Me, I’ll be happy in another game where the company’s dishonesty limits itself to embellished marketing and delayed release dates. The stuff you expect basically.

Excellent, wish you well. Happy for you too, can I has your stuff?

As much as I don’t like it, my wife isn’t bothere and still plays. So she gets all my stuff. Mind you, she hasn’t gotten to max level yet but isn’t too far now. But then she’s playing D3 again at the moment so who knows. But yeh as much as I don’t like what Anet did, I really do wish well to those who are still happy with the game. To each their own. I just want to make clear where I stand. No one has to agree with me.

Jairlyn.1429:

Really nice to read fun stories like this thank you.
A great break from the “OMG fractals are the devil ANet is epic fail!” post #5267

Since you brought it up yourself….I do wonder if the experience, which as a really nice one I agree, would be the same if they were going into FotM.

Best not to tell the kid about those yet I’d say.

kKagari.6804:

cesmode.4257:

Sounds like my own fault? Because I dont want to be in a guild? So when did it become a requirement to be in a guild to experience all the content this game has to offer? Oh I forgot, with this patch.

Mate, its Guild wars.

Yeah and that’s why we have Guild vs Guild pvp like in GW1…..oh no we don’t.

Word to the wise: don’t let the name get in the way of your expectations. Anet doesn’t either :P