Guild Wars 2

Levetty.1279:

Why do I as a player who primary just likes exploring and doing WvWvW have to run dungeons for hundreds of hours to get a legendary?

At least dungeon runners don’t have to get the WvWvW tokens now thanks to achievement boxes, still waiting to open one of them and get hundreds of dungeon tokens thrown at me.

I want to give this a lot more tha +1.

I need a quadruple thumbs up button.

In Guild Wars 2, Banker is the most OP profession.

It’s just too bad that the people who desperately need stats to constantly chase didn’t stick with any one of the large number of games available that offer it to them.

Those of us content with endgame “progression” consisting of cosmetic rewards and horizontal development would just like one MMORPG to call home.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Not sure why a goal taking months or even years is such a bad thing. It is ok to be in it for the long haul. Took me several years to get some of the top items in GW1, and I have no problem with it taking me years to get items here.

We know we’re getting ascended armor only three months after ascended weapons. Most of us won’t have ascended weapons for our characters by the time that armor is available. If the pattern continues, we won’t have the armor by the time masterwork infusions are available. Then there are Rare infusions, followed by Exotic, then Escended.

Infusions aren’t much now, but you can bet by the time we’re at Ascended rarity, they’ll be statistically significant.

That’s the problem with BiS gear taking so long to acquire. Only the hardcore will be able to enjoy having BiS gear. The rest of us will be continually trying to catch up.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

But the point of this topic is not what has been implemented how and if it worked or not, it is about the long term planning, the concept of the game. Like I said earlier, ANet must have a business plan, an outline that will last at least for one year in what direction the development goes.
While it is wise to not share the whole thing, it is not a sign of trust or faith, to hide it all. The last two things left to be implemented from the former preview are ascended armor, that will come sooner than later, and the first real horizontal progression in regards of new skills and traits. But what is beyond that?

What is the actual Manifesto, the guideline which is forming Guild Wars 2 as we see it today and will see it in the future?

Yes. It’s important to not the difference between the Manifesto and the road map you are talking about.

The Manifesto was a set of ideals, goals, a vision for what the game should be. It had statements like “The game should feel like” and “This is what we think is fun” and “This is what we don’t like in games that we’re going to avoid”.

Contrast that with the roadmap, which includes statments like the rest of the year “We are going to implement this system” and “we are working on this content”.

If the Manifesto is dead and gone, the roadmap did not fill the void. It is important to communicate specifics about what you are working on, but it is equally, if not more important to communicate who you want to be.

Vayne.8563:

We see it all the time…too many people play for rewards. Only two of the events received any real attention, both because they had achievements associated with them (the skritt burgler and the event that triggered the portal to the Hidden Garden jumping puzzle).

Which creates, unfortunately, a terrible feedback cycle.

For at least the first six months of this game I had not interest in rewards at all, because they came to me pretty much no matter what I was doing. I leveled, I got enough gold to keep my gear up to date.

Then choices started being made to make the reward chasers have a longer chase. Unfortunately I, and others like me, started feeling more and more like we had to join the chase, or give up on ever getting rewards at all.

So the number of reward chasers in game increased. Which just makes it look like we need even more chases added to the game, and longer ones.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I don’t want to derail the thread by jumping into a specific area just yet as that would be unfair to everyone else who also have their priority areas that they want to discuss moving forward.

I hope that makes sense?

Chris

Absolutelty.

I figured it fit in alongside the poll discussion as another avenue for collaboration. I’m kind of ambivalent about it; I wasn’t looking for a discussion so much as a statement. But it definitely makes a lot of sense to give it it’s own thread, as I know there are plenty of people who are passionate about it and would like to discuss it.

Thanks, again, and enjoy your time in game.

Hello, again, Chris. Thanks for continuing to visit the thread. I’m excited to see where this goes.

I posted a request last night that may have got missed, but very much fits this topic of collaborative development involving the players. I’ve seen many requests for a public test server on the forums over the last year, but I’ve never run across you or another ArenaNet staff member explaining the choice not to have one.

I’m not advocating adding one, but I’d really like to hear the thought process behind choosing not to have one. I know you have an internal testing team. I assume every MMORPG has one, and yet many choose to also have a public test server to get broader player feedback and bug hunting. What are the reasons behind choosing not to have one for Guild Wars 2?

EDIT: As for closing this thread, I think there is more room to discuss player/developer communication. There’s no reason future posts here have to “look back” any more than the large number of forward looking posts that have already been written.

AntiGw.9367:

Lonesamurai.4852:

AntiGw.9367:

I don’t see how polls could give you more information than participation, activity and click statistics.

It would tell them what those doing them actually THINK of the content they just did

How is that more useful than actual statistics?

If you were to look at pure metrics, you’d probably think I’m someone who likes ascended weapons. I’m working on leveling all three weapon crafts, and have been farming for mats and gold.

If you ask me, however, I’ll tell you that I dislike that ascended gear got added, and really dislike the way it was implemented with a long grind to achieve it. I’ll tell you that my normal play style means I have no hope of achieving it without specifically farming for it, and that my current farming is the first time in any game that I’ve ever actually farmed. I’ll also point out that, for the first time since I got excited about GW2 two years before launch, there’s a distinct possibility I’ll move to another game, especially if ascended armor follows the pattern of ascended weapons. Though the “you don’t need ascended, so just ignore it” crowd won’t understand, I just want to have BiS gear and enjoy the game without needing to work toward another loot carrot.

Would any of the information in the second paragraph come from just looking at what I’m doing in game?

If I leave in a month or two because ascended armor puts me over the edge, would pure statistics tell you why seeing that I did grind out ascended weaponry?

Would any statistical analysis of my current play style tell you why I used to buy small, but regular amounts of gems with cash, but stopped with the introduction of ascended weaponry?

RedStar.4218:

And just like in the beta, of course you don’t have access to a poll until you finished the necessary content.

For example, when you only get a poll Weaponsmith crafting when you reach the max level. And a poll regarding crafting in general when you have maxed out every crafting professions.

I’m not sure about your emphasis on completion.

Shouldn’t someone who refines mats to 425, spends gold to craft to 450, does ascended mat refinement to 475, but quits because they decide the last 25 levels take an extreme amount of resources to level get a chance to give feedback on Weaponsmithing?

Shouldn’t someone who plays through the Gauntlet but can’t down Liadri be a part of the discussion on the Gauntlet?

Galen Grey.4709:

What if the hard stance they take is not the one you like, would you be happy with that?

Not to speak for the poster you’re responding to, but I think a lot of people would be happier. We have arguments among the player base about statements that ArenaNet Made that go something like:

Player1: “ANet said X and gave us Y and I’m Mad”
Player2: "Games evolve, you can’t hold them to everything they said three years ago.
Player1: “But X was a core part of the vision for the game!”
Player2: “But they learned most people wanted Y, and so they gave it to them!”
Arenanet: (if there is a red post in the discussion at all) “We didn’t really implement Y. We’re looking into things. Improvements are coming.”

It would be so much better for everyone if they could just take a hard line and say, “Sorry, Player2 is right, we’ve changed our mind based on this and that and Y is our new direction for the game and we’ll be sticking to it.”

Yes, player1 will probably complain, but then they can decide whether they can live with Y or not, and either shut up and play the game or decide to move on.

how can you be sure we who dont like vertical progression are their core base rather then the minority you think should be denied?

That’s just the problem, we can’t be sure. So we’re going through endless cycles of trying to convince each other that the core base does or does not like VP, when we should probably move on (since it seems to be here to stay) and try to find ways to make it lekittenous to those who didn’t want it in the first place. This is where clearer communication from ANet would help take the discussion forward into a more meaningful place.

ANet didnt choose to ignore anyone, the problem here is people think that if they dont do stuff exactly the way they wish then it means they’re being ignored.

No, not at all.

I remember back before launch, when there were mana/energy potions in the game. There was a big response from the community that the idea of having to stock up on potions before going out and playing was running counter to one of the core principles that ANet had stated. They wanted us to be able to do the things that are fun in game, not spend time preparing for them.

There was communication back from ANet in response to why they thought potions were useful. People could still be upset, but they couldn’t claim no one was hearing them.

It’s a basic part of communication. “I hear what your saying, you are concerned about X because of Y. Here’s why we decided to go with X anyway, please continue to let us know if Y is a problem and if you have ideas on how to adjust X to solve it.”

Sure, there may be people who will continue to throw tantrums if they don’t get their way. The ill-will on the forums (and in-game, lets no pretend everyone in-game is happy because they don’t post on the forums) has a lot to do with a lack of clarity in communication, not just dissatisfaction with design choices.

Looks like Evon caught his mistake much quicker this time!

Larkir.6502:

No thanks. I think when they release new food for the level 500 chefs, we will find a use for these spare materials. Maybe we’ll actually need that bloodstone dust in the future as flour for bloodstone pies? ;P

You must have a lot of extra bank slots.

Of course, if they don’t nerf bloodstone dust handouts, it’ll be easy enough to get more at that point. And even with transmogrification, you’d be free to stockpile bloodstone dust if you want for future crafting.

Excess materials was only one part of the suggestion. The other was allowing more flexibility in how players play to attain ascended gear.

Two Asura walked into a mini-bar…

Overheard…
Player 1: I was surprised the personal story wasn’t very good after level 30.
Player 2: What, how many times did Trahearne have to warn you? “This won’t end well.”

What do you call an undercover Sylvari?

A plant.

What did the Sylvari and Norn name their son?

Leif.

They’ll tell you how much it will cost to swich to that profession. The cost will reflect how high that character leveled it.

I did exactly this last night. I had crafts across several characters, and had failed to keep track, so I took each one to the Armorsmith to figure out which one already had Armorsmithing leveled.

goldenwing.8473:

While scanning the forums is a good indicator for the community at large, it’s not comprehensive and may not include my concerns.

True, but if that concern isn’t prevalent on the forum, it probably won’t be prevalent in the thread, either, and they can’t address everything.

Yes, please.

15Charr

Couldn’t they make WXP account wide but still allow each character on the account to spend that pool differently?

That way we aren’t facing the daunting task of leveling up each character with the crazy WXP curve we have (and the incentive to just stick to one character), but it keeps some of their idea of having each character with a unique WvW identity.

goldenwing.8473:

Just go back to your first idea of making a thread for ‘What top 3 do you think need to be worked on/looked into by the development team’.

This. Start simple. And build from there.

It’s a simple question.. but weighty.

Still seems kinda redundant. You can just scan over the last few pages of each subforum to see what would make it onto the lists.

If the “top 3 list” thread does get made, it’ll need some very draconian handling to keep it in line. Something like “only your first post will be tallied” and “if you post more than three items your post will be ignored” or it will just degenerate into a spamfest of complaints and arguments.

Quite the opposite, I never used them when I was new to the game.

Now that I have several 80s, whenever I create a new character I can go out and get the look I want and transmute it onto them so I can have it for the entire leveling process, instead of waiting until endgame.

cesmode.4257:

It is better than assuming what we like and dislike.
The poll can have if/then/else statements.

Did you enjoy XYZ content? Y/N
If Yes, then “What would you like to see in the future?”
else “Was the content difficult enough?” Yes/No
else “Was the content engaging enough?” Yes/No
etc etc.
<Comment field>

To an extent, but that comment field is going to take up a lot of the weight.

The BWE surveys were similar to what you’re giving here, and I had some issues with it. For example, I’ve just done the “stop the bandits from blowing up the water tower” DE for the fourth time on my third human character.

Was the content difficult enough? Well, it wasn’t hard, but this is the starter area, so things should be a little simpler. It was more difficult the first time through, because I wasn’t used to this whole dodging thing in an MMO, but I’ve done it so many times now I know exactly what to expect. How do I rate this from 1-5? Three, I guess?

Was it engaging? Sure, it was interesting the first time. I like how it chains with repairing the pipes if it fails. I’ve seen it through several times now, though, so it wasn’t terribly engaging this time.

It’s just that “on a scale of 1-5” has no nuance whatsoever, and all of meaningful feedback ends up going into “other comments”. So it might as well be a comment box that pops up.

Of course, I know most people are happy to click a number, and loathe to type a sentence explaining how they feel. But then, what kind of meaningful feedback are you really getting?

I’m with you, Noobix. Polls always leave me feeling like the one bit of information I’d really like the poller to know hasn’t been asked. It makes the feedback dependent on the people who want the feedback, rather than those giving it.

Which is one of the good things about forum feedback. Whether it’s representative of the player base or not, it’s the place where players can initiate the dialogue. ANet may have no idea that there is a particular aspect of the game that even needs polling until someone brings it up on the forums.

Polls feel like a decent follow up step in the process to gauge the player base at large. If passionate players come to the forum with a topic, a poll would be a great way to take the conversation that started there and demonstrate whether or not the same feedback is true of the general player base, or whether it is, in fact, just a vocal minority with a pet issue.

If polls are introduced in-game with an opt-out option, please implement an alternative way to do them.

I’m happy to give detailed, written feedback, but found pop-up polls to be almost as disruptive as the constant reminders that subscribing would make my game a lot smoother in another game I won’t mention. It was the main reason I never got past level 10 or so in said game. I’d hate to opt-out, however, and lose the ability to participate in feedback.

Perhaps there’d be a way to log on to the website and get my questionnaires I would have gotten in game?

Chris, can you talk about the reasoning behind not having a public test server? I’ve never seen that directly addressed, and it seems very pertinent to this discussion about involving the players in the development of the game.

On the topic of 2:Game Feedback Collaboration, one of the things I’m seeing throughout this thread is the request from players for a sense that they are being heard. It might be worth taking a cue from some of the “bug compilation” and similar threads that players take it upon themselves to start and maintain. The original poster watches the thread, and updates the OP to reflect and summarize the discussion that follows.

Imagine a developer in charge of a specific area creating a feedback request thread. The developer posts a targeted question. Perhaps they set a particular time frame, such as three days later. People who would like to reply know they have three days to do so, and don’t expect the developer to get back on the thread until the end of that period, so no “why aren’t you responding?” posts are necessary.

Then, when the times up, the dev takes some time to read through the responses, then updates the OP with a list of bullet points summarizing what they’ve gleaned from the responses. They could also ask further, very targeted questions for clarifications or to float ideas at that point for additional feedback if needed (with another deadline for compiling and response).

With something like this, there’s defined expectations about everyone’s part in the conversation. The developer isn’t expected to be sitting on the forums having a conversation all day, but the players can expect a specific “I hear you saying A, B, and C” and maybe a “what about D?” before “thanks for the feedback, I’ll get with my team”.

Hi, Chris!

This thread (specifically your recent replies) gives me renewed hope! It felt like before launch there was a good dialogue going between all of you and the players, but that it became more and more sparse the farther we got from launch.

The number one thing that first got me hooked on GW2, two years before the game went live, was the passion with which you all spoke about the game. It truly felt like a team of people working to make the game you want to play yourselves.

I’d like to echo a few things that have been said previously in this thread, but stand out as the most important to re-establishing that communication and excitement.

1. We need more statements of the vision for the game. You’ve seen the “manifesto” posts on these forums. Part of the player base feels that your original vision for the game that you expressed so passionately early on (not just in the manifesto video, but in other statements frequently quoted) no longer apply. Some people are unhappy about that. Some people defend it as evolution of the game. But no one seems to be able to point to anything significant post launch that either upholds those original vision statements or replaces them.

It seems like recent “here’s where the game is going” statements focus on lists of things you are working on or would like to implement in the future. Specific features, bug fixes, and the the like.

Possibly the movement to the “living world” concept works as one of those vision statements post-launch, but I think we need something more. This is the touch-stone by which we can come back to you with feedback. We can all argue over whether any given change in the game is good or bad, but that just comes down to personal preference. If there is a clear mission, vision and value statement, so to speak, we have something to hold changes up against so we can let you know whether the change is serving that vision or not.

2. More “why” along with the “what”. When you make changes, it helps a lot to know what though process went into it. Again, this will help us then give feedback that makes sense. If I don’t know why a certain change was made, all I can do is tell you if I liked the change or not. If I do have an idea why the change was made, I can give very specific feedback as to whether or not it’s have the intended effect, regardless of whether I personally like it.

Finally, before answering one of your specific questions below, I’m not sure a “what is your number one concern” thread would be terribly useful. Especially if there’s no way to restrict everyone to answering only once. You’re going to be inundated with everyone’s personal pet peeves, like many of the posts sprinkled throughout this thread.

Could I, instead, suggest you or others on your team simply comb back through the last few pages of each subforum? If you look for the posts with a large number of views, responses, or even (if possible) those that stayed on the first page for a significant amount of time, you’ll find the really issues people are most passionate about, and are probably in need of a developer response. It’d be fairly easy to create a punch-list of top forum community concerns to address.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Yes, very much so. I tried to dutifully fill them out during the BWEs when they popped up, but I found them very disruptive.

Unless, maybe, they could pop up during loading screens, when play has been interrupted anway? Or perhaps just one that shows up upon opening the client?

The other problem with polls is that it’s really hard to create them without steering the replies. I often find myself thinking, “That’s not really the question they should be asking” in order to get meaningful feedback on how I felt about whatever aspect of the game.

Thanks again for this thread, and taking your time this evening to dig into it! Like many, I have been a passionate fan of this game for several years now (long before even setting foot in Tyria 2.0). Lately, I have been a bit snarky at times on the forums, and for that I apologize to you and the rest of your co-workers.

I appreciate your team’s passion and talent.

Geniekid.2645:

I suggested this before, but I still think a good idea is to separate the legendary skin from the legendary item (guaranteed best-in-slot). Make the latter easier to get.

I’ve never supported the idea of having to farm for months in order to stay on top of the gear curve. I don’t have any problem requiring people to farm for years for a cool skin. And yes, I understand ascended weapons are already best-in-slot. That doesn’t mean they’ll be that way a year from now, despite what ANet has promised.

I can’t agree with this more. Legendaries were supposed to be cosmetic, but they’re becoming more useful.

Having a weapon skin that’s awesome looking and makes others drool with envy can be locked behind an insane grind, just like GWAMM, but that’s all it should be.

Immunity from power creep (always BiS) and ability to change stats are quality-of-life issues that should be more reasonable to attain.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/The-trading-post-is-cumbersome-to-use-My-suggestions

The fourth oldest post in the BLTC forum has this suggestion.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/PLease-allow-trading-post-to-Filter-gear-and-weapons-by-Profession

It’s also on the third oldest page of the suggestions forum.

It’s been asked for repeatedly over the last year, and I believe the devs have stated it’s on their list. How high on their list, is anyone’s guess.

Good to remind them, though, that this is a significant quality of life improvement we’d still like to see.

Regina Buenaobra

The large number of suggestions in different sub-forums is impacting discussion in those different sub-forums. As such, we’ve decided to open up the Suggestions sub-forum.
Please note that you should not expect a personalized, individual response to your suggestions, due to the massive volume of posts that the Suggestions sub-forum will generate.
Please also note that the Suggestions sub-forum will not be open permanently. This is a temporary solution until we roll out a better, more organized way to provide suggestions to the development team than using the forums.
Thank you for your understanding.

My apologies if this is in the wrong place, as it’s not a bug. This seems like the only forum dedicated to the forum itself (a metaforum?), so it made sense to post it here.

I wanted to ask if, indeed, the post above is still accurate. Is there still a plan to implement a better, more organized way to provide suggestions to the development team, or has the suggestion forum become the permanent solution?

Suggestion: Please consider a way to convert obsidian shard refinements into other obsidian shard refinements.

Mechanism: Either through a crafting station or via the Mystic Forge, a player could convert Bloodstone Bricks, Dragonite Ingots, and Empyreal Stars into one of their counterparts. It would take considerably more of the item used to create the item produced, require a reagent bought from a vendor, and possibly additional obsidian shards.

Benefits:

1. Play how you want. It’s great that there is a little flexibility in the current system. We have a few options to choose from to get Bloodstone Dust, Dragonite Ore, and Empyreal Fragments. Since one of the original goals of GW2, however, was to reward players for playing what they want to play in game, the current system seems too restrictive. Frequent posts have mentioned that one player ends up with a lot of Dragonite but very little Empyreal, some the opposite, and everyone ends up with too much Bloodstone. This is because people have different areas of the game they enjoy more. The current system requires farming (doing content specifically for extrinsic reward, rather than intrinsic enjoyment) for many players of the game.

2. Drain Excess Bloodstone I had 30 Bloodstone Bricks crafted by the time I had enough Dragonite and Empyreal to craft 3 Ingots and Stars. Giving the ability to convert would sop up the great excess of Bloodstone that is currently just being deleted by players.

3. Currency Sinks Additional Reagent and Obsidian Shards needed to convert one type to another would pull additional gold from the economy and laurels, karma, and fractal relics from players wallets.

Objections

This would make Vision Crystals too easy to craft.

The material requirements should be set at a level where it is considerably more efficient to get the materials from the activities where they drop, rather than transmogrifying. It could take, say, ten Bloodstone Bricks to make one Dragonite Ingot or Empyreal star, and maybe Dragonite Ingots and Empyreal Fragments could be transmogrified at a three to one ratio. Perhaps those ratios are too low, but ArenaNet could review their metrics for how much of each of raw materials is being pumped into the game, and adjust accordingly. In addition to the ratios, there would be the additional gold cost of the reagent, and the laurel or karma cost for additional Obsidian Shards.

The goal is not to make it so that everyone will just go farm champs for all of the mats needed for Obsidian Refinement. It should take significantly more effort to get enough Bloodstone Dust to make a Brick and convert to an Empyreal Star than to simply do jumping puzzles or dungeons.

The goal is to give an avenue to someone who dislikes jumping puzzles and dungeons a way to burn off their huge store of Bloodstone Dust and excess Dragonite Ore to get the third element they need for vision crystals.

Thanks for reading!

I’d like the legendary title to go away as well. I don’t need an item that says “super elite” on it, but I’d really like weapons that can reset their stats at will.

That way, I can come to the forums and ask that stat reset weapons be a little more reasonable to get, without having to read the replies of “but… but… but… they’re LEGENDARY, so acquisition should be uber grindy, I mean, difficult!”

I’d be happy with the plainest looking weapon in the game, labeled “Noobgear” rarity, if I could get it doing the stuff I like in game and didn’t have to pack three of them around for different situations.

I’d like to suggest titling your thread with something that indicates the topic you’re addressing. Since this is the suggestion forum, every post in here should cover a change the OP thinks would make the game better.

New—Hallows Fortune Fireworks
Set off your very own fireworks show with this bundle of ghoulish firecrackers! Dazzle your friends with a variety of sparkling spooks, then light the finale firework to share a Magic Find Boost with nearby folks nearby!

Looks like Evon has been at the bottle again. Or he just wants to make very sure we know that the magic find will only benefit people close by who are close by.

Old festival content returning should be a good thing.

Last year the forum was filled with complaints about too many festival updates at the expense of more meaty content additions. Colin posted that they were spending the first year laying down a foundation of cycling festivals so that in the year to come they could drop them back into the game without having to build them from scratch. The idea is that it will leave more time to give us more significant updates between festivals.

Whether it plays out that way, remains to be seen. But a Mad King festival that looks a lot like last year’s means dev resources are available for something besides Mad King, Wintersday, and Dragon Bash.

Rage.9723:

A long term solution sure but one that is not fun. Most of you are giving very confident analyses for people that are not very experienced with higher luck levels.

How is salvaging 1000s of items fun to hardly make any progress? Normal play will give mostly blues and that will hard do anything.
.

I understand your point. WXP has the same problem.

Still, the system suits me a lot better than the old. I won’t be all that bent out of shape if I decide to just stop at 150 or 200.

I’m aware of how ridiculously steep the curve gets as the percentage gets higher. I don’t really need to get there to see it. So being at only 70 MF doesn’t invalidate my feedback.

Lately I’ve been wondering. Why is it that MMORPGS get away with this?

In a lot of other industries, you tell your customers/audience that something will be available on a given day, and you either produce it or end up giving costly concessions to your customers.

What is it about MMORPGs that makes the standard different. Don’t promise anything so your customers don’t expect anything. This post probalby sounds a lot more emotional than it is. I’m truly wondering what it is that makes a few industries different in this aspect.

I don’t turn on the television to see, “Oops, the episode took longer to edit than we thought, check back next week.” And at any decent restaurant if the food takes way too long to get to the table, the management comes around, apologizes, and reduces the bill. I’ve never gone to my boss and asked that we move opening night back because the scenery wasn’t ready yet.

I guess, one argument would be that, in the case of GW2, we’re not paying additional money to get any of these changes, which is a pretty good point.

And, to be fair, one of the things I liked from the start about ANet was that they seemed ambitious about the things they wanted to achieve. And when you’re ambitious, you sometimes fall short in time, resources, or ability. Guess I’d rather have them shooting high and missing, then flat out saying things can’t be done and aiming for easy to hit targets all the time.

If there isn’t some heavy recycling of previous festivals, we’ve been duped.

Remember a while back when people were complaining that too many updates were yet another festival? The official response was that the festivals were going to be returning content, and once the rotation was set up, they could invest more time on the non-festival updates (living story!) to make them more spectacular.

We should be counting on the return of the Mad King, Toymaker Tixx, dragon pinatas and the Zephyr Sanctum.

ArchonWing.9480:

Ascended gear is half baked and merely just carrot dangling.

Half-baked carrot on a string. Yum.

Draknar.5748:

I honestly thought they increased the ecto rate. I get ectos like crazy when I salvage Rares lol. Think I’ve gotten 45 or so in the last couple of days of champ farming. Guess I have the favor of the RNG gods.

Yeah, I’ve had a great run of ectos lately, and a terrible run of dark matter. After the first few exotics I salvaged, I can’t seem to get even one dark matter. Hopefully a windfall is around the corner.

And that’s pretty much my question. Does the chance to have a good run of salvages outweigh the frustration of those dry spells?

I think I’d prefer a little more consistency so that I can expect decent rewards.

It goes to the rest of the game, really. There are other areas where the loot tables seem to have a very wide spread. Extremely rare chance to get a precursor on one end, and white gear on the other. Would it be more fun to have narrower spreads, so you know for a certain activity when you don’t hit the jackpot, you’re at least not going to be handed two copper?

Mad Rasputin.7809:

Wow… only months ago everyone was onboard the MF sucks and doesn’t work train and was convinced that MF had to go.

Now that the vocal minority has screwed over the farmers out there, everyone is so happy to find out that MF actually does work.

You’ve got a funny contradiction in there. “Everyone” hated MF, but they were really the “vocal minority”.

If it wasn’t clear from my original post, I was pretty indifferent to MF, so I don’t fit into your categories of people who hated it and wanted it gone, nor farmer who got screwed over.

And as a regular forum reader, I remember a lot of people saying that MF shouldn’t be a gear stat that replaces others, not that they hated the very idea of MF.

Hardcore farming will always be in a state of tension with non-farmers, because, by its very nature, developers have to work to make sure that farming doesn’t take over the game and crowd out other ways of playing.

I do sympathize with those who invested time and money in putting together MF sets. It sucks that you lost that gear and had it replaced with stuff that may or may not be useful.

I do think the current system is an improvement, however, over the old.

You’re right, though it’s not a math failure. It was me missing the detail that there is not an equal chance at each return, so the average is lower.

So just a flat guaranteed 1/salvage would end up with roughly a 10% increase in these mats in game.

Thanks for the correction!

So I guess a new question would be, does RNG make salvaging for ectos and dark matter more fun? Or would it be better to just get a guaranteed 1 mat each time?

Rares for Ectos, Exotics for Dark Matter.

With a master salvage kit you can currently get 0-3 per salvage. I’m wondering what people think of that range?

We get continual “ecto salvage rate nerfed?” posts here on the forums. I’m wondering if that would be averted by making these items consistently give at least one of the associated mat, and adjusting the high end of the tables to make sure the average stays the same. That way, no change to the economy as overall there won’t be more mats introduced to the economy.

Personally, I don’t find the excitement of getting the occasional 3 ectos worth the frustration of those RNG runs of 0 ectos. Even though I know I’d be getting the same amount in the end, I’d rather be guaranteed 1 and get smaller or less frequent multiples.

I’m curious what others think.

Rage.9723:

You realize you like it now because you hardly scratched the surface? Wait until later on until you must salvage thousands and thousands of greens to move forward….

Please before you talk about how you like the system just realize how ridiculously bad the system gets with hours and hours of salvaging to progress later. Also you lose gold in the process. Wearing full magic find gear in the past was much easier than this system. Dungeons are mostly chests anyway so you didn’t really need to bring magic find gear to dungeons.

The current luck system is an extremely boring click filled grind. Maybe your lifetime luck magic find goal is 100 though? If so you might like the system. Other than that… no.

Not sure where I’ll stop yet.

I can see how the current system could be annoying for farmers who are bent on maximizing their MF (or getting it to 200 or beyond), especially since they were accustomed to higher MF on their gear sets.

For players like me who never bothered because of the hassle of collecting and switching out an extra armor set, almost any amount of MF is bonus. So if I get to 150 and decide that’s enough and I’d rather have the gold from selling blues and greens, I’ll still be ahead of where I was.

An added benefit I forgot to mention is having to deal with a vendor much less frequently. As long as I stock up in salvage kits (thanks, ANet, for not making kit quality matter in this area) I can stay out in the field, so to speak, a lot longer and still benefit from blue and green drops.

I’ve ended up playing mostly Guardian because they feel so solid in every aspect of the game. From zerg WvW to roaming, zerg events to solo exploration, dungeons and spvp, they seem to have a good role to play in each.

Elementalist comes close to feeling that way, but got some whack-a-mole balancing a while back that left them feeling flat to me (after it had been my main the first six months or so of the game).

On all of the other professions I’ve played, I feel like they are clunky and not much fun in some area of the game. Guardian, however, I can take anywhere and feel like I’m contributing.

They may not be the best at everything, or even anything, but that sort of versatility has made Guardian my main for a while now.

I’d love for this aspect of the Guardian to be the touchstone for how they balance the rest of the professions. Guardians have felt like a very stable class for a long time. They don’t seem to suffer the buff/nerf swings of ANet’s balancing, and are able to function well wherever you take them.

Caveat: I haven’t played warrior or ranger much yet, so that sort of “solid in any portion of the game” may apply to them as well. From reading the forums, I’d guess it’s true of warrior, but not ranger.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

They only work on creature kills, chests however have a better table then normal kills. We wanted to avoid the game play of killing a boss and then having to equip your whole Magic Find set before opening the chest.

Also magic find is calculated from when the creature is killed so it’s also not viable to use your normal gear set kill a boss then switch to magic find.

Is this still true, or has it been changed with the new system?

Namely, I don’t think I ever received a rare from a jumping puzzle chest before the new MF system. I never used MF gear. Now, with the account MF, I seem to get rares from JP chests on a regular basis.

Or is it possible JP chests were reworked?

A little too much to call casual, definitely not hardcore. I’ve definitely been critical of things I don’t like about GW2, as well as praised the things I do.

Before the new Magic Find system, I never payed much attention to MF. Up until the introduction of ascended weapons, I generally avoided farming in any form. I’m definitely not driven enough to put together a set of MF gear to switch out for better rewards.

So I had no idea what MF really does. Since the new system was implemented, I’ve been steadily salvaging blues and greens and clicking those little luck hairballs. My account MF is now in the 60s, with a few more points from achievement milestones and a new utility infusion, and I’m running in the 90s without food.

I can definitely tell a difference in my income in game. It’s nice to feel like there’s a progression of better rewards for having played a significant amount of time.

So, TL;DR, a pat on the back for ANet for reworking magic find in a way that makes it useful for average, non-farmer players like me, and no longer an item of contention between members of the community over whether or not MF gear means leeching off of the Zerkers. Good work!

chemiclord.3978:

Fixed that to reflect a more accurate analogy. You’re welcome.

No need, I’d covered all that with “But the hot dog lovers aren’t allowed to complain. After all, clearly there weren’t enough of them to support Hot Dog Hut, and, as a business, it needed to change. Besides, no one needs to order a burger, because there’s still a hot dog or two left on the menu.
And the name of the restaurant is irrelevant, obviously. It was chosen way back before they even broke ground on the building.” I’ve read the forums enough to see how people who see things your way feel about it.

Funny, the defenders of the about face keep asserting that the player base was tanking because of the original vision, so it had to be scrapped or the game was going to crash and burn.

Perhaps if Hot Dog Hut just came out and said “hot dogs weren’t selling, so we’ve decided to become another burger joint”, these manifesto threads wouldn’t keep popping up. Nobody’d point at the things they said they wanted to do with the game because it’d be over and done.

Instead, they keep implying that nothing has really changed, and that they are still on course with the original vision, while letting people who don’t care much about the original vision defend their departure from it by asserting that they had no choice due to the mobs with pitchforks and torches clamoring for burgers.

So these discussions just keep spinning perpetually.

You think the hot dogs are all on the menu, but unlike the analogy, it’s just not possible.

Hot Dog – Easily attained BiS gear, cosmetics for endgame longterm goal.
Burger – BiS gear is endgame, long term goal.

Hot Dog – Crafting produces useful stuff along the way.
Burger – Craft a lot of stuff where the mats are worth more than the finished product so that you can level your tune and eventually get BiS gear.

Hot Dog – Play the parts of the game you like, and get rewarded just as much as other areas.
Burger – In order to get BiS gear you’re going to have to spread your play over several areas of the game.

In a town of hamburger joints, a lot of people were excited to see "Coming soon: Hot Dog Hut! Home of the World’s Best Hotdogs!’

Hot Dog Hut opened. They made some pretty good hot dogs. After a very short while, burgers started appearing on the menu. Fewer and fewer hot dogs were offered.

Wiener aficionados complained. They pointed to the name of the restaurant and said, “What the…?”

The management said the “burgers” weren’t really burgers, they were patty-shaped, burger flavored hot dogs. They said the intention all along had been to provide burgers. They said they were going to work on improving the burgers.

But the hot dog lovers aren’t allowed to complain. After all, clearly there weren’t enough of them to support Hot Dog Hut, and, as a business, it needed to change. Besides, no one needs to order a burger, because there’s still a hot dog or two left on the menu.

And the name of the restaurant is irrelevant, obviously. It was chosen way back before they even broke ground on the building.

People can try to argue back and forth objectively about the answer to the OP question.

Personally, though, I can report that as a 10 to 15 hour a week player I felt like I could maintain multiple characters up until recently. I have one character of each profession. Four in full exotic/ascended jewelry, two in their sixties, one twenty-something, and one below ten (hello, Ranger). I had every intent to level and gear up all 8.

Recently, I’ve gotten my weaponsmithing to 450, and have confirmed for myself that I now need to decide on one character to play, possibly two. That is all I feel the game affords me with the amount of time I play.

Wish I hadn’t spent gems on that last character slot (sorry, ranger).

Edit: Just to acknowledge something done right for those of us who like to play more than one character, the account wallet was a great addition. Too bad it became fairly meaningless now that I feel the need to stick to one (possibly two) toons.

I went back to make sure, just in case I had some sort of bias that was coloring my memory. I got bored and stopped about 40 pages of forum posts from launch, but it was kinda cool to see people rallying to defend the game’s lack of endgame gear grind from the posters who were asking for it.

At least through those 40 pages, there wasn’t anything like a hue and cry for a new loot level. You’ll find threads sprinkled throughout a great number of other topics like requests for guild/player housing, more difficult content, new cosmetics, and many other things. Most of the threads asking for traditional MMORPG endgame didn’t get past a few dozen posts. None, that I found, past fifty.

Nowhere near the forum presence I’m seeing displeased with how ascended weapons and (likely) armor have been implemented.

The first 40 pages only got me to September 20, so it’s possible there was significant uptick in “we need moar lootz!” after that. I’ll have to go back and do some more looking when I get the urge.

Red Falcon.8257:

TooBz.3065:

Well, some players. I know I was happier with the game before.

Correction: the large majority of players.

If you were here back then you’d know 90% of this forum was asking for treadmills and whatnot.

No.

I’ve been here from the beginning. There were some threads complaining about “no endgame” from the content locusts. It wasn’t nearly as huge as you’re making out. And only a fraction of those were specifically asking for new tiers of loot. Most of them were just asking for something new to do.

Crazy how people expressing dislike of ascended weapons and armor are a vocal minority, because people who enjoy the game play it instead of posting on forums, but forum complaints about the need for new gear levels to chase somehow represented a vast portion of the players.