Guild Wars 2

The fun is standing around waiting. Didn’t you get the memo?

I like trying out new builds. WvW is the only place that matters. PvP has it’s thing but it’s different and I prefer it that way.

Would rather have a couple extra gear slots with a swap button, so that I wouldn’t have to go in to the bags all the time. I’d pay gems for that. Keep it so you have to be out of combat but simplify the gear switch.

I don’t have a problem with raids being in GW2. Probably will never do the raids in this game myself, my raiding days are long over and it doesn’t thrill me anymore. I have the ascended gear to do them, just not the will.

But choice is good. So having another game mode in GW2 is ok. And it sounds like many people like the challenge, that’s cool.

The problem is that HoT didn’t just introduce raids, it killed many of the other game modes at the same time. And forced people to do content they don’t like doing.

What made GW2 great was that it didn’t require you to do most of the content. You had choices and if you didn’t like a particular game mode that was ok. You weren’t kitten because of it. You could play what you liked and still progress. “Play your way”.

HoT reduced choices and forced epic grinds in the choices left. It’s just a really, really borked expansion for the people who were shafted.

The whole taxi thing is just stupid. What a sad statement on the lack of proper design. It’s basically a hack by the players to fix what the devs couldn’t get right. Being forced to taxi was always cheesy, but now it’s just another grind in GrindWars 2

Some great ideas here.

One thing though. Breaking up blobs is a good idea but I don’t want to see them totally eliminated. Some of the best fun I’ve had is being in an organized group that turns a corner into a massive red blob and somehow we manage to win. Amazing stuff. Thrilling. The laughter on the server TS is great then.

There are some very good commanders out there now who are pretty good at the blob stuff. 3 years of practice has sharpened them up. So there is a place for it.

The problem isn’t that there are blobs but that the game just doesn’t promote any other style very well. Most of my guild left GW2 early because they couldn’t do their single group stuff (they came from DAoC). And they hated PvD.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Tommyknocker.6089:

ZachAttack.3957:

Over time, as people learn the fight and begin to actually change their builds if they want to succeed, the fight will get easier and easier. Definitely not to the point of Tequatl, but it will still become easier. It’s nice to actually have a challenge, but unfortunately a lot of collections are based around it, so people are getting frustrated. Just keep cracking away, and eventually you’ll pull out a win. Like me, aha, with the timer literally at 0:00 as the final boss died =)

Or players won’t bother such as the 3 headed wurm unless they are (or join) in a large event guild like TTS. If players can all work together and eventually get it done then good, but the other option leads to some very dull, empty maps.

IMHO Teq is pretty much the highest scale they should shoot for when designing open world content. Going much higher don’t make average players buckle down and learn the mechanisms while wasting their time on failures, it only makes them not bother.

Yep, other meta provides much better gold and rewards.

Expansions usually have better loot than old content, not worse. What happened to risk / reward?

Turning WvW into what many of us were hoping for 3+ years ago is the dream. What WvW ended up being after GW2’s release was very disappointing for most of my guild, they were mainly from DAoC / WarHammer etc. They left this game long before HoT and didn’t come back for the expansion. I didn’t try to make them.

But WvW had it’s charms, and was quite enjoyable at times. The players that stayed adapted and created a pretty good server vs server feel. Especially in the upper tiers. It also attracted casuals, etc. WvW could have been much better but it wasn’t utterly broken. Then HoT came out.

Most of the posters here have a much better grasp of WvW’s mechanics and their problems than I do. Hopefully, the devs take a look at their ideas and give them serious consideration. Not all of them are viable by any means, but it is obvious the devs up until now have not had any better ideas.
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The fixes I would like to see are not deep into the mechanics. They will not fix WvW’s basic design issues that need to be addressed. But they are still important and have the benefit of being relatively simple (compared to redesigning whole maps etc).

1. Increase rewards. Loot is a big incentive to playing most games. In mmo’s it’s almost a requirement. Having loot drop is good way to populate a map even if the design isn’t very good. Casuals care about loot and they make good filler in maps. Besides, many casuals become dedicated WvW players once they get their feet wet.

2. Reduce the PvE requirements to zero, or at least to pre HoT levels. It boggles the mind that someone thought HoT’s fktastic PvE grind requirements for WvW players were a good idea. PvE should be a choice. It’s not fun when it’s forced.

3. Return the guild abilities to small guilds. Don’t force them to redo content they already worked for. Guild Halls are another issue, but gating buffs, etc behind that craptastic grind is truly a game breaker for WvW.

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WvW needs a lot of work. Work that should have been done 3 years ago.

The lack of incentives, taking away the common xp bar, the high cost to WvW guilds to get their buffs back, the required PvE, etc etc. It’s all too much.

Those things did more to kill WvW than the new maps. If there were incentives to play that didn’t include cheesy PvE events then the new maps might have more action.

They are still probably too big, but if they want any players at all to go there then there has to be a tangible reward.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Moreover, we want that pool back, because we have already worked ourselves to the bone to get it, and it was taken away from us for no reason at all.

And this is something that they should rework and do right. Give guilds back what they lost.

That pool example isn’t exactly accurate for a guild hall though… I’d rather people talk with actual in-game examples instead of making irrelevant references.

And I’m still waiting with a doable idea on how everything requested over the last pages could work without causing far more problems than it is supposed to solve.

This is the crux of the issue. ANET’s theft of all of our efforts and their attempt to force us to buy gold to do it all again.

It’s disgustingly cheesy design. I have lost all respect for the ANET devs since HoT. It is one of the most blatant cash grabs I have ever seen. Taking content away and forcing us to do it again is NOT NEW CONTENT. Forcing me me to pay for it is theft.

The old maps definitely weren’t perfect, but they had plenty of action during primetime. And havoc guilds etc could find small fights there. Roaming was viable.

The new maps have none of that and are huge jump backwards because NOBODY plays them.

I’m not sure if the maps are totally at fault. They did a lot of things to WvW that hurt the game mode. The lack of incentives and the PvE requirements are probably bigger factors in their failure.

You haven’t addressed those facts. You just misrepresent them. But numbers don’t lie. Take your blinders off.

warbignime.4610:

Kaiser.9873:

Grim West.3194:

Preorder only gave a small window into HoT.

It didn’t warn us that WvW would be decimated, dungeons abandoned, small guilds kicked to the curb, loot nerfed, etc, etc, etc

It also didn’t warn us that EVERYTHING would be gated. Time-gated, PvE-gated, Number-gated, everything is behind a gate of some kind or another. Want to gather ley-line sparks? Better have enough Chak acid. Chak acid that you better complete meta for or spend all your super special currency getting. Want auric dust, again, another gate.

All directly PvE gates as well. There are NO WvW gates, therefore WvW is gutted. All the players who would rather go WvW are forced to PvE for everything. Honestly I feel it’s spite on the part of ANet for all the posts reviling their boss about his “WvW players really like PvE” statement.

If you think these are gate, then you might as well say that to everything. Almost all rpg are level gated, gear gated, story progression gated. And if we go further then Dota is also level gated, item gated, farm gated. If that’s how you look at things everything in video games are gated.

But GW2 (and GW1) were marketed to be “play your way”. And by and large, that use to be true. They also marketed HoT the same way. It turns out that was a blatant lie.

Matisse.9356:

To wrap it up: Taxi Wars 2 became the hostile cesspool other mmo games have so nicely proven to be successful. Good job Anet.

The only thing I really am wondering about is, if the decision about the change of the game’s direction was made be the development team or by the management.

I sincerely hope it was the latter, because I don’t want to know that the developers and the creative team killed the game for me.

Management wanted more cash, they told the devs “Pay for my Porshe and be quick about it. We don’t care about fun or our manifesto”.

warbignime.4610:

JoeytheHutt.1742:

you have an opinion. So have others.

People can not hide behind it’s just my opinion in every argument, of course we know it’s opinion, can you imagine if everyone just use it’s just my/your opinion in every conversation? Then human conversation would not exist .

On another note, I agree with OP completely, forum always tries to make things look worse than it actually is. If you just read forum and not play the game you would think GW2 is one of the worst game of all time.

For many people HoT is the worst game of all time. They feel ripped off and lied to.

Of course many people also like HoT. But the amount of people who hate it is much larger than you usually see in an expansion.

Lol, your opinion and misrepresentation of the facts obviously isn’t. I wasn’t stating an opinion.

Again, WvW has been decimated, dungeons have been abandoned, small guilds were kicked to the curb. Those are the facts, along with all the massive amount of other complaints about HoT.

Those are the facts.

Everything I said is not an exaggeration. But you are misrepresenting the facts.

WvW has been decimated, dungeons have been abandoned, small guilds were kicked to the curb. Those are the facts, along with all the massive amount of other complaints about HoT.

You are white knighting garbage.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Or just not tie everything to the kittened clock so people can organize and do stuff in their own time. I’n not participating in anything until it gets cut loose from the clock.

They can and tell me how to play, within limits. I’ll adapt. They can however not tell me when to play. Ever.

this

dronzer.8392:

Grim West.3194:

HoT is a blatant and cynical cash grab. One of the worst expansions in the history of mmos. It destoyed a great game in GW2.

It’s so bad that the devs are hiding from us. Refusing to tell us what they are going to do to fix this garbage.

Gliding is great though! I sometimes just go into a HoT map just to glide… it soothes the mind and you get to look at pretty stuff

Yeah, I love gliding too. I also like the harder mobs and love the art. But that isn’t enough to get me to go back there because the rest is bleh.

Lol, I have two accounts, one in T1. In T1 there use to be queues for all the maps before the expansion, obviously not all the time but it happened. After HoT the only queue is at prime time for one map and for a very short time. The other maps are empty.

People still play but it is a shadow of what it use to be.

Stop white knighting this garbage.

Holdyir.2918:

briggah.7910:

Or you can do something productive like learn the maps.

^ This. The new maps are a lot better than what people are giving them credit for.

Yep, that’s why everyone loves them so much and there is always a queue.

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Grim West.3194:

Lol, that is your opinion. Your white knighting of a game that has been turned into a blatant cash grab is pathetic. And since HoT there has been a never ending stream of criticism about this garbage. That is also fact.

Why do you think the devs are hiding? If HoT was a good expansion they would be here celebrating with us.

HoT is garbage.

It’s been a cash grab game ever since you could convert gems to gold… (since forever). It’s sad you are just realizing this right now. inb4 all rewards are cosmetic bullkitten from the real whiteknights.

And dude, you’ve been posting this garbage on every thread that is negative. Not that I don’t agree (double negative wooopdedoo) with you but you seriously need to just leave, it’s not doing any good.

I’ve played every GW1 expansion and GW2. The game has changed, and their manifesto thrown out the window. HoT takes cash grab to a whole new level of greed.

Preorder only gave a small window into HoT.

It didn’t warn us that WvW would be decimated, dungeons abandoned, small guilds kicked to the curb, loot nerfed, etc, etc, etc

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Obtena.7952:

I know how it works. I also have enough reading comprehension to know that the OP was complaining about the WAIT (which is easily addressed by DOING STUFF), not being locked out of map cap.

Buuuuut if he leaves the map to do other stuff then he can’t get back in…

The white knights in this thread love that “feature”.

HoT has a ton of issues, it truly is a very, very bad expansion. One of the worst in recent times.

They may fix it, but given that the devs are hiding and refuse to talk to us, I can believe they may have thrown in the towel.

So you aren’t alone.

You are complaining about people complaining.

We gave Anet a bunch of money for this product. We have every right to complain about it’s failings.

That’s your opinion.

Lol +1

Been there, done that.

You attacked my post, I’m just answering your nonsense.

So WvW hasn’t been decimated?

Dungeons haven’t been abandoned?

Small guilds haven’t been kicked to the curb?

Take off your blinders.

Lol, that is your opinion. Your white knighting of a game that has been turned into a blatant cash grab is pathetic. And since HoT there has been a never ending stream of criticism about this garbage. That is also fact.

Why do you think the devs are hiding? If HoT was a good expansion they would be here celebrating with us.

HoT is garbage.

Since WvW has been decimated, small guilds kicked to the curb, dungeons abandonded and all of my guilds now have less active players than before HoT…. it is fact.

HoT is pathetic, frustrating and pointless. An exercise in how not to design a game.

HoT is a blatant and cynical cash grab. One of the worst expansions in the history of mmos. It destoyed a great game in GW2.

It’s so bad that the devs are hiding from us. Refusing to tell us what they are going to do to fix this garbage.

I don’t have a problem with the maps or the difficulty of the mobs. It is the meta of HoT that sucks. The art is great, it is the event design and blatant cash grab that is crap. And the fact that WvW has been decimated, small guilds kicked to the curb, dungeons abandoned, etc, etc.

HoT is garbage.

These games are created by small teams who wear a bunch of hats. Everyone has their hands in many aspects of the game. They all get some credit for destroying WvW.

But it’s the person in charge of the whole operation (company, division, etc) that is ultimately at fault. They set the tone, priorities and direction of the team(s) involved. If things fall apart it’s because leadership is failing.

What a sad statement about HoT.

WvW is officially dead, ANET killed it.

MashMash.1645:

sonicsix.5713:

I was able to complete all the new zones because I happened to be able to play during “the rush”. Now, the zones are dead. And by complete, I mean I got 100% map completion… no way have I done the achievements nor will I. Now I am left to grind experience to spend what mastery points I have. The ones I don’t have are behind content I do not enjoy participating in like fractals, dungeons, etc. So now I log in each day, farm my home instance, get my daily chest and log right back out.

Putting mastery points in fractals will not make me do fractals. I will simply quit playing.

Hmmm, I see tons of people in all the new maps, all the time.

Lol, yeah right /rolls eyes.

Behellagh.1468:

Grim West.3194:

Draknar.5748:

GW2 is well known for having a low reward vs time ratio.

If you are looking for a game that makes you feel adequately rewarded for the time you spend, GW2 isn’kitten

That said, I am a die hard GW2 fan. Then again, I’m not the kind of person who cares about rewards so much as gameplay and atmosphere.

But yea, GW2 does not reward proportionately in my opinion.

GW2 before HoT was pretty good at loot. Loot is very important to these games, even the old text adventures were about finding hidden treasure.

HoT changed all that. Now you have a lot of people telling us we shouldn’t enjoy loot and should just play the game for nothing and like it. To hell with those idiots.

There are plenty of games and devs out there that understand MMO design 101. The current crop of ANET devs are not part of that group.

HoT is garbage.

It was only about loot because we had 9 plus months of content drought because of the dev push on the expansion. That pushed more players into acquisition mode and that needs gold so key farms and dungeon speed runs got played by more and more players and it started to mess up the economy from ANet’s POV.

Key farms got nerfed to one a week and they finally but the dungeons out to pasture by reducing the big bag of gold in each path by 2/3rds. Yes, they messed up fractal rewards, it relied on RNGesus WAY to much to get a decent reward and they are fixing that sometime next month.

These games are designed for treasure hunting. If there isn’t any treasure, then people will go to other games that have it.

Scribing is just another reason to not play GW2. It is amazing that anyone was clueless enough to design this pathetic mess.

The new manifesto is “Play our way or GTFO”.

GW2 was built around the term “play your way”, and the old ANET devs did an excellent job of creating that exact experience. GW2 had it’s flaws, but it was much more engaging than any other mmo out there imo (I have spent more money and time in GW2 than any other mmo in the last 3 years).

Then those devs left and they hired a bunch of devs from the massive failure that is Wildstar. Aparently, those new devs brought their “play our way or GTFO” design skills. The same “skills” that killed Wildstar. Now they are intent on killing GW2, and so far, they are doing a bang up job of it.

I like jumping puzzles, but they shouldn’t be forced upon anyone. ANET made some very poor design decisions in HoT.

Wait for a sale. It’s not worth full price.

Most of the content is just grinding BS. The zones get very old, very quickly. The events are boring. The grind is horrible.

If they put out a major patch soon that actually address all the incompetent design decisions they made then it might be worth it. But given the state of ANET atm, I wouldn’t count on it.

You are just way off base.

The problem is that small guilds had everything they ALREADY HAD EARNED taken away and put behind massive grind / pay walls that only a large guild can afford.

Guild halls are another issue to be sure. But the theft by ANET of all the work done already is total BS.

C Gunner.9406:

Id like solo dungeons too with a choice of heroes!

Heheh +1

Combine mastery xp for Tyria and HoT. Let all modes of gameplay (PvE, WvW and PvP) earn xp for masteries (if not leveling). Just make people pay for HoT to unlock the tracks.

PvP and WvW can have their separate tracks like they do now. Just don’t force them to PvE .

If WvW had decent rewards, there would be more people playing. Not enough to fill out the new maps but it would probably return to pre-HoT levels.

One of the biggest reasons WvW has lost so many players since HoT is the loot nerf. Casuals don’t see a reason to play WvW anymore, sure they were fodder but they helped fill out the maps.

They still need to make changes to the new maps (too big etc) but a simple change to loot drops would help out quite a bit.

Ashen.2907:

Black Box.9312:

Ashen.2907:

In general the expectation is that products be designed and adapted to meet the needs and desires of consumers, not the other way around.

That’s exactly what Anet did. People asked for more challenging content.

I did not claim otherwise. The OP is suggesting that the consumer should adapt to the product. I merely pointed out that he had it backwards.

HoT is an example that demonstrates my point. Nearly every aspect of the expansion is an example of ANet attempting to adapt GW2 to consumer desires.

Unfortunately, they failed in their attempt. ANET seems to think that challenging means grinding ad nauseum. I do like that they also made the mobs themselves harder with more interesting attacks. But it is the rest of HoT and it’s endless grinds / paywalls that sucks.

Challenging mobs = good.
Endless grinding = look for another game.

HoT’s Guild “enhancements” are very, very poorly designed. Among many other things, HoT killed small guilds and the scribing requirements are moronic.

What happens when the scribe stops playing or leaves the guild? What idiot thinks that’s good design? How does that one decision get past the first stage? I am amazed that the Devs even considered it, let alone implemented it. Pathetic.

The list of idiot design decisions in HoT is endless and perfectly encapsulated in the new Guild system.

nGumball.1283:

Grim West.3194:

Well if you enjoy empty maps and endless grinds for little reward, then more power to you.

However, you may be right about the six months thing. ANET has been good about fixing things before. And they did make some of the best games ever (imo) with GW1 and GW2 (before HoT). So I hold out hope they they can fix this ugly mess. But it’s going to take a lot of soul searching on their part to recognize how horribly off track they are with HoT.

GW2 may have been fun for you but not for many others before the expansion. The forums were full of complaints for months about being tired of the original game. Tons of threads asking for an expansion with the purpose to create a new foundation.

I understand that many people are fraustrated. However, stating that GW2 was all nice and dandy before the expansion is nothing but a subjective opinion. A huge part of the playerbase was upset with the state of GW2 and wanted ANet to add new systems different than what we are used to.

The people who are enjoying the expansion aren’t bothering to comment on the forum just like how the people who enjoyed the original GW2, didn’t bother to comment before the expansion was released.

Since release these forums have been full of complaints. The only times it is peaceful, is when there is an update hiatus and there is nothing to complain about.

GW2 wasn’t perfect before HoT. I never said it was. But HoT was a step backwards for the most part. I did like the harder mobs and gliding, that’s about it. The rest is pretty bland or outright horrible.

And HoT destroyed WvW, dungeons and small guilds. All of which were better off before HoT.