Guild Wars 2

No mention of underwater combat. A true shame. 3D movement is no problem for them, as the Hang Gliders show, and 3 environmental layers of jungle. It must be combat that is the stumbling block. Perhaps they need to import some developers from successful flight simulator games.

Underwater combat could be a MAJOR expansion of our gaming world if we had separate armors, underwater-specific slot skills, traits, etc. that we automatically switch to when underwater.

Worst thing? I live in constant fear of another “Patch”. Those have hammered me every time.

Derigar.7810:

Megaservers are amazing if you’re on a low population server.

Megaservers are the bane of your playing experience if you prefer a low population server.

My Ranger had just defeated the Shatterer, when a radioactive spider jumped out of a bush and bit her Wolf Animal Companion. She quickly dispatched the spider and went to the medical tent to attend to her pet’s wound, but it was too late!

I dread finding out where his webs will shoot from.

They should never have raised it from GW1’s cap of 20. In that game they knew how to keep you active and occupied after you’d maxed your level. I don’t need to spend 80 long levels “learning”.

Every “Patch” seems to have stepped on me a little bit more, and if there were a comparable game out I’d probably have migrated away from here long ago. Raising the level cap would probably see me leaving even if I don’t have anywhere else to turn.

Azrael.4960:

Hamfast.8719:

I like the one on the left of picture #1 labeled “original”. (It seems to be the same as the one on the right in picture #2). Like dace.8019, I think the flaps and butt-capes have been done to death. I think the long sleeves would most likely be considered part of the top, and the gloves would be small hand-only things again. (It looks like this on the right side of picture #1). This is fine by me; I generally prefer bare hands. But if you were to introduce a sexy arm-length glove, I would definitely have no problem with that.

Listen to me ANet:

I will never, NEVER, NEVER buy an Outfit! This must be a set of armor! I don’t give a flying Dolyak’s rear-end how nice it looks. If I wind up looking exactly like everyone else in the game, I don’t want it! LONG LIVE MIX ‘N’ MATCH!

OUTFITS MUST DIE!

Ever since Anet made outfits into tonics, outfits did die

They made TOWN CLOTHES into Tonics. “Outfits” are the new Town Clothes. (Or so they say). But yeah, I want to kill the joker who thought tonics were a good idea. I still have my tonics in the hope against hope that someday they’ll come to their senses and at the very least turn them into Outfits (yeah, right!)

Elrey.5472:

Abuseable? yeah… only if you play bad and you die. As i said, you can actively avoid being warped just by not dying.

Wow… Elitist much? You never die? (Bows before the god of all players!)

I see the Outfits are unisex for Charr and Asura again. (Sigh). That’s okay, I guess… it’s an Outfit, not armor. So I won’t be buying it anyway.

I am 100% with you, OP. I have never (and will never) buy an Outfit. I don’t care how nice it looks; if I’m going to look exactly like everyone else in the game I don’t want it. On the other hand, if I could use individual pieces I would probably have purchased everything they’ve put out to date.

Apparently they’ve decided to go the McDonald’s/Wal-Mart route and court the huddled masses for their money. Those of us with more refined tastes are getting the short end of the stick these days.

I like the one on the left of picture #1 labeled “original”. (It seems to be the same as the one on the right in picture #2). Like dace.8019, I think the flaps and butt-capes have been done to death. I think the long sleeves would most likely be considered part of the top, and the gloves would be small hand-only things again. (It looks like this on the right side of picture #1). This is fine by me; I generally prefer bare hands. But if you were to introduce a sexy arm-length glove, I would definitely have no problem with that.

Listen to me ANet:

I will never, NEVER, NEVER buy an Outfit! This must be a set of armor! I don’t give a flying Dolyak’s rear-end how nice it looks. If I wind up looking exactly like everyone else in the game, I don’t want it! LONG LIVE MIX ‘N’ MATCH!

OUTFITS MUST DIE!

Yeah, I was experimenting with a “Mantras” Mesmer awhile back and had the same problem. It sometimes loses one along the way. I kinda gave up on it since Harmonious Mantras is glitchy; that was an important part of the build. I’ve seen other people mention this as well. The issue goes pretty far back but has yet to be addressed apparently.

Unfortunately, they reward us with a little bit of everything; something for PvPers, something for WvWers, something for PvEers, boosts, “fun” items, etc. So unless you participate in every facet of the game, you will receive stuff that is useless to you.

ANet can not know what everyone likes, so it makes a lot of sense to give us some sort of “gift certificates” with which we can select stuff we will appreciate. We don’t get AP Chests every day, and a reward should feel rewarding.

It would be nice if they gave us a chance to get hard-to-find stuff, like rare armor or weapon skins. (The Radiant/Hellfire stuff is the right idea, but I am soooooooo tired of being locked into Radiant for every character on my account. Why not let us pick from both? What the Hellfire? Must I get every Radiant weapon type unlocked before I see a piece of Hellfire equipment?)

Been after them since they released the Wardrobe to straighten out the menus so we don’t have to keep going back in order to select a different screen.

The first and foremost number one thing I’d like to see is no more translucent windows! It may be “golly-gee, neat-o keen!”, but it is also confusing on a regular basis determining which X closes which window. At least make it optional to turn off.

Not sure you have quite the same issue that I have been experiencing on recent updates, HykCraft, but I think all of this definitely points to something wrong on ANet’s end.

Since it doesn’t affect every player, I suspect an issue with just one of their servers that pushes out updates. They need to find this particular server and either fix it or replace it. I was hoping they could give me some instruction as to how I can send them the info they need the next time it happens to me, so that it helps them pinpoint the bug.

I give up. What’s wrong with the lighting? What are you referring to?

If you’re perceiving shadows facing towards a light source, that happens here and there. Not everyone figures out exactly what’s wrong, but your senses detect that something isn’t right.

Ever since (roughly) Halloween, updates/new builds have been torturous.

I begin my download, and the KB/S gets slower and slower until it drops to zero. Sometimes it speeds up and slows down and speeds up and slows down, but once it reaches zero KB/S it rarely budges again. I have to use my Task Manager to close the loading screen, and then retry after a few moments. I do this again and again.

I have done a -repair which did resolve a funky-text display issue that I had been seeing for the last 2 years, but it hasn’t done diddly for my downloading problems. As much as possible, I try to make sure I have nothing else running on my computer while I download, and I try not to download immediately when available so as to avoid congested servers.

Luckily, I have not had this issue during the really big updates; Wintersday on/off, new Living Story chapters, etc. It’s mostly the smaller updates that are unstable, and take far longer than the big ones.

This last time, once my download speed had dropped to zero, I kept the loading screen up and performed a Windows Update. No problems! Everything went fine. I even watched some YouTube videos while it was doing it’s thing. It didn’t even hesitate.

Does ANet perhaps have small servers dedicated to handling updates? If so, is it possible that one of them is having a problem? What info do you need from me?

Smallish GW2 updates, and only smallish GW2 updates (it seems) are a huge problem. Nothing else downloading/installation-wise even provokes a hiccup from my computer. It sure seems like something on your end, but I’ll try anything you think is worth trying.

I don’t see anything about an adrenaline compromise so that it doesn’t disappear instantly the second I drop my foe. Was hoping for 5-6 seconds maybe – time to reach another opponent without having to start from scratch. But I guess my Warrior will remain sidelined. (Sigh. Memories of when they destroyed my Dervish.)

If you prefer lower populations, the game sucks now. They’ve been doing everything in their power to cram each zone full of people tripping all over each other. Megaserver. Specific zones and even specific bosses to kill for Dailies. Hope you don’t have claustrophobia.

So it was you!

You’re the person responsible for getting the human female idle animations completely removed from the entire game because they were “immersion breaking” during the cut scenes!

Apologize, varlet, and tell ANet you were only joking! We want our animations back!

The first season of the Living Story was not replayable. Only after player feedback was it instituted for LS2. They do try to recap a little bit during the Season 2 dialogues if you listen close to all the chit chat and talk to a lot of the NPCs. You can also check out the WIKI page summary here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_summary/Season_1 although it’s not really in story form for your enjoyment.

Living Story Season One recap in a nutshell: An uber-intelligent Sylvari named Scarlet Briar turns into a wacky Saturday morning cartoon villain when she manages to glimpse the Eternal Alchemy. She goes on a crazy crime spree, creating many world-disruptive devices and joining with several factions of bad guys leaving Kessex Hills and Lion's Arch in ruins. It all turns out to have been preparation for gaining the knowledge and power to awaken an Elder Dragon, which she did at her death during the climax of LS1.

I will sign your petition. I still refuse to buy Outfits, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hate seeing females that look male.

The artists are getting lazy. Just ask anyone who has a new hairstyle that is stiff as a helmet in the mightiest breeze.

The “official” reason for removal of the female human idle animations was that some players complained they were “immersion breaking” during some cut scenes (especially certain NPC death scenes, when the mood was supposed to be sad).

Death scenes represent only a tiny fraction of cut scenes. Cut scenes represent only a tiny fraction of our online play. So why completely remove these animations from the entire game when it only affects a minuscule portion of it? This response was entirely out of proportion to the perceived problem.

And what about my feelings of immersion? I am usually bored to tears when the cut scene soap opera is playing. My female human was perfectly expressing my feelings whenever she stretched or shuffled the dirt at her feet.

And what about the other races? The Asura crack their knuckles and scratch their heads. Norn males stretch and smack their fist into their palm. Charr flex their claws. My female Sylvari waves her arms about and gives a great big grin. Do these animations have any place in those rarely-seen death scenes?

Please restore these animations to the game! I guarantee that more people miss them than cried about seeing them in cut scenes. Fix them whenever you have the time, if you think it’s such a big issue. But please restore them to us in the meantime.

The latest hairstyles don’t move! A ponytail that is stiff as a board no matter how much I whip my head around? How much hairspray does that require?

New hairstyles won’t incite me to buy a kit unless they flow realistically.

If you went by the letter of the law, it wouldn’t be allowed. But I think ANet looks at the reason behind the rule for things like this. The rule is in place to discourage players having an advantage over other players. So I suspect that emotes, like musical instruments, would probably be tolerated until such time as they became abused. Trolls could use this to spam emotes to chat, but there is still a filter in place that will mute them after 3 or so repetitions.

As with anything else, abuse could make them throw restrictions at everyone. One bad apple spoils the bunch. So even if they give you an “official” okey-dokey, you’ll still want to practice restraint to avoid losing the ability altogether for everyone.

“Hot” is the same thing as “Manager’s Special”. These items are near their expiration date, and will go bad soon.

No. It doesn’t mean a thing. Just a selling “tactic” to try to grab your attention. Not even a special sale. I remember when the headgear show/hide button was broken. Your character was stuck with their helmet either on or off, depending on what state it was set at when the bug appeared. After many bug reports on the forums, ANet decided it was a good time to label the Aviator’s Sunglasses as “Hot”. So many people bought them and couldn’t even display them. Good times.

In the GW1 HoM, we could bring other players inside to show them our accomplishments. We should be able to bring other GW2 players inside to show them all the Achievements we’ve completed that otherwise have no way of being seen by other players. (Giant Slayer! If you get that one, there’s got to be a way to show it off!)

It’s the best I can come up with until such time as computers can be programmed to punch people in the face with a boxing glove or hit them over the head with a brick. Sad to say, but some people just need “New Player Experience” mail.

Despite the notice at the bottom of e-mails saying that they are not sent by a member of the Guild Wars 2 team, people are still falling for the latest phishing scam every day.

How about a nice HUGE, JUMBO HEADER at the very top that says “Mail from another Player”. “Mail from the Guild Wars 2 Team”. “Mail from an NPC”. It could even be color coded.

The point is, ashamedly few people take the time to actually comprehend what they read these days, even when it is seemingly something serious. Most people breeze through the text and take in only a few words before they feel they have the gist. They rarely get to the end.

So make it ABSOLUTELY CLEAR AT THE VERY BEGINNING who is sending the mail. Not in fine print at the bottom.

P.S. It would also be smart to give us a button that actually says “Report” instead of that stooopid exclamation mark icon. Not many people these days stop to comprehend what they’re reading, but even fewer people can comprehend words when they aren’t even there.

There once was a Sylvari named Trahearne
Who claimed he just wanted to learn.
But then he stole my Personal Story
And accepted all of the glory.
Now I want to chop down that overgrown fern.

Well… I thought I was being funny. Maybe I needed a little “winky” guy ( )to let you know I’m (of course) having a little bit of fun.

Get it? Feature Patch? All of Tyria threatened? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

I logged in to the game today to find “Point of No Return – All of Tyria is threatened” in the Welcome Screen announcements.

I take it we’re getting another Feature Patch on January 13th?

That’s no castle… that’s a space station!

Zhaitan is really and truly dead. Where do you think all that Zhaitaffy comes from? Someday even that will be no more, and we will say “Zhaionara”.

Try not to use “_______ The Great”. Every possibility for that has been gobbled up by the adolescent crowd. But you could do other prefix/suffix stuff such as “_______ Of Shaemoor” or “Captain ________”.

Keep in mind that you can buy a Name Change Contract once you’re in the game, so even if you level up a character with an unacceptable name, you can alter it when you find an available one you like. Keep a character slot open specifically for seeing if a name is available. If you find something good, create the character and then delete it. The name is reserved for your account for 24 hours after deletion of the character. (Can someone confirm that time limit?) So play your poorly-named character, and when you find a name you like, you can delete the temp-character and use a Name Change Contract to rename your existing character 24 hours later.

EDIT: It might be possible to use the Name Change Contract right away and not risk losing your desired name to someone who might snatch it up before you after 24 hours have elapsed. Go ahead and try it… if the desired name shows up as in use, you can always back out of the Name Change Contract without making a change.

The OP only cited Daily Achievements as one of several examples that ANet has been trending towards less choice. To debate the Dailies specifically, there is huge thread right here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/The-New-Dailies-Feedback-welcome/first

In the spirit of talking about choice, let me mention another recent ANet change that left us without any options: Targeting.

For 10+ years, the Guild Wars franchise targeting had been fairly consistent with regard to “Nearest Enemy” and “Next Enemy”. Both of these for the most part would choose a target that was on your screen, and able to be attacked. Ever since the recent change, “Nearest Enemy” is now literal, with no regard to whether or not you can see your target, or whether or not it is even attackable (under the floor, etc). “Next Enemy” used to move your target one step outward to the next furthest enemy, then the next, etc. After the change, distance doesn’t seem to be a factor – “next” doesn’t seem to follow any sort of pattern. Often “next target” is way out of attack range.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to start a debate about the new targeting. There are plenty of threads on that as well. To be fair, some people (primarily WvWers and PvPers it seems) are in favor of the new targeting. But after a decade of playing one way, old habits die hard for many of us.

I am not asking for ANet to take away the new targeting. I am asking them why they can’t give us a choice. Can’t you keep the new targeting and give us back the old targeting as an option? Choice is always preferable to change.
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Here are just a couple more things that affected me greatly where we could have been given a choice, but were forced to accept a change instead. (These could still be made into a choice!)

Town Clothes. – Why can’t we still have them exactly as they were? Practically none of the old Town Clothes made the transition into Outfits anyway. They’re still with us, locked into an accursed Tonic format. So why can’t Town Clothes be restored, and keep Outfits for people who want a non-armor look in combat? They didn’t need to be completely removed!

Megaserver – Not everyone likes crowds and zergs. We started the game being given a choice of population density, and that choice was taken away from us. They could set up a 3-tier Megaserver system giving us Low Population, Medium Population, and High Population Megaservers. That way they could let let people play in crowd sizes that they chose at the start, but still arrange to make sure zones aren’t completely empty either.

Just supplying some more food for thought, Guhracie. Some forced major changes that have significantly diminished my enjoyment of the game, which could have and should have been choices instead.

The bridge just south of Fort Salma appears to be intact, but as you can see from the screen caps, you fall right through it. Even the NPCs are through up to their knees.

Subdue.5479:

@hamfast:

… Seriously?

How in the world did the old dailies “give you an idea of what to do?”

They were much more general. If I see “Veteran Slayer” and “Orrian Slayer”, I can arrange a trip to Orr where I know there are lots of vets. And lo! It’s a more profitable area for Daily Gatherer too! Three for the price of one! If I was feeling lazy, I could restrict “Shiverpeaks Killer” to some quick stuff in Wayfarer Foothills, or if I wanted more excitement I could go to Frostgorge Sound.

The point is that I had far more leeway on where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. Restrictive Dailies don’t give me much room for that. It feels more like an assignment than a game. And as a by-product it forces huge crowds into events that cause horrible lag for me.

You have been very vocal on the “I like the new Dailies” side, but I think you’re going to have to get ready for a change. 32 pages, 22 thousand views, and 1554 responses in only ten days does not indicate “all is well” with this update. The Mods have noticed it and are taking our thoughts into account. So whether you understand or agree with my point or not, I don’t care. I am still going do my best to put in my two cents with the Devs in the hopes that they’ll come up with a good compromise.

For my part, the Daily Achievements kept me coming back to play every night whether you understand my reasoning or not. Now with limited achievements and free rewards I don’t find myself playing nearly as often. I’m pretty sure that is not what they were trying to encourage.

The old Daily Achievements were mostly same ol’ – same ol’. They weren’t much of a challenge in themselves. But what they did do for me was give me ideas what to do and where to go when I logged in for the evening. The options were broad enough to let me select my own zones and activities for the most part. And eventually an extra reward would pop up on my screen while I was doing what I wanted to do. Yay!

Now I get most of those old Daily Achievement rewards from logging in. I have no “suggestions” to help me map out my evening. Instead, I have directions. The new Daily Achievements are far more specific. I can no longer plan my evening quite so much as much as be told what to do. And nobody likes being bossed around. And since I get most of my old Daily Achievement rewards from just logging in now, I already find myself logging right back out again. (The reward for the new Dailies are not encouragement to me. Achievement Chests have been worse than Boss chests for a long time now. I can live just fine without AP’s).

ANet needs to act fast. I’m sure there are already lots of players who feel “entitled” to free rewards for just logging in. They need to be incorporated back into the Daily Reward, and the Daily Achievements need to be less specific again with more choice of action. In other words, put ‘em back the way they were. They weren’t broken. They kept me playing the game in a time when we see very little interesting new stuff to do.

If they want to “encourage” players to try other aspects of the game, they need to offer unique rewards to lure them there. Taking away people’s choices is never a good thing. You attract more flies with honey than with another aspect of the NPE…

Many people already know where their comfort zone lies (PvE, PvP, WvW). We don’t need ANet “encouraging” us to go outside of it. This is a game. We don’t play to feel uncomfortable. Give us challenges us in areas of the game we enjoy.

The biggest problem I have is with them giving us such specific tasks. That is just a recipe for massive zergfests. I utterly and completely despise zergs myself. I tried the Jormag event when it appeared on the Dailies, and was frozen for literally half the event. (Move for a couple seconds, freeze for 20. Repeat). Amazingly I never disconnected, but I have never been to an event with such incredible lag (with the possible exception of the first day the Karka arrived in the lands around LA). Never again. Nothing ANet can do will “encourage” me to play zerg content. (I blame Scarlet for bringing that WvW tactic down upon PvE).

Subdue.5479:

If there were 12 choices for pve dailies but they were all difficult and or time consuming, but entirely available without venturing into pvp or wvw, would that satisfy your desire for choices?

A choice of 6 PvE (and PvP as well as WvW) would probably be sufficient. As pointed out, 50% of today’s PvE choices included Fractals achievements. Not a lot of variety to choose from there.) I’m not sure where you’re getting that they have to be extra difficult or time consuming, but I would prefer choices on par with the old ones and not any super-simple new junk they’re giving us like viewing a vista or chopping 10 trees in a specific zone.

Subdue.5479:

Hamfast.8719:

Psientist.6437:

Obviously, you will counter that there are fewer PvE-centric options and you would be correct.

In his original post, Guhracie stated in no uncertain terms that he was speaking primarily with regards to PvE, his play mode of choice. So yes, there are absolutely, positively, without any question far fewer choices of PvE achievements to do. But after 4+ pages it perhaps doesn’t get specified in every post anymore. The OPs original issue is that we have less choice in PvE achievements now, which is unquestionably true.

Psientist.6437:

However, the stated purpose of the new daily system is to get players to explore new game modes.

After two years, most players have already explored other game modes. (Gotta do something to keep things fresh). We’ve explored many niches and we already know the things we like to do. This whole thing reeks of “New Player Experience” again, if you ask me; trying to tell newbies where to go and what to do at the expense of the veteran players.
______________________________

But back to PvE choices. I have always thought it unfair that PvPers and WvWers had fewer selections aimed specifically at their area of interest. It’s great that they’ve evened out the score in that respect, but as many people have pointed out the choices are still very limiting (play a specific Profession, etc.)

Yes, many of the Dailies are ridiculously (even stupidly) easy, and PvEers could go do non-PvE things to finish them. But this is a game, not a job. We play to have fun, not be told what to do by someone else. We need more freedom of choice in PvE, WvW, and PvP. Many players only want to play one of those three modes, and 4 options is not very many in that light.

Give us more options, and give us “meatier” options. No more “view a Vista in Queensdale”. That’s not an achievement. That’s “kill 10 rats”.

The problem with this point of view is the assumption that PVE players are somehow forced to do WvW or PvP content. They’re not. In fact, quite the opposite. With the bulk of rewards pulled from dailies and placed in the logins, more and more dailies are an optional endeavor. It’s no different from not being able to wear Arah armor because you don’t want to do the Arah dungeon, or not getting the 10 achievement points for a jumping puzzle because you don’t want to do the jumping puzzle.

As the person you quoted stated, and you conveniently ignored, the point of the daily revamp is to encourage people to explore other game features. Encourage, not force.

I’m sorry… where did I say “force”? I believe I said “options” and “choice”, but I don’t see the word “force” anywhere. As you stated in your first sentence, you are apparently making an assumption. And everyone knows what happens when you assume.

(Sorry for the delayed response. Been out of town for the holidays).

Psientist.6437:

Obviously, you will counter that there are fewer PvE-centric options and you would be correct.

In his original post, Guhracie stated in no uncertain terms that he was speaking primarily with regards to PvE, his play mode of choice. So yes, there are absolutely, positively, without any question far fewer choices of PvE achievements to do. But after 4+ pages it perhaps doesn’t get specified in every post anymore. The OPs original issue is that we have less choice in PvE achievements now, which is unquestionably true.

Psientist.6437:

However, the stated purpose of the new daily system is to get players to explore new game modes.

After two years, most players have already explored other game modes. (Gotta do something to keep things fresh). We’ve explored many niches and we already know the things we like to do. This whole thing reeks of “New Player Experience” again, if you ask me; trying to tell newbies where to go and what to do at the expense of the veteran players.
______________________________

But back to PvE choices. I have always thought it unfair that PvPers and WvWers had fewer selections aimed specifically at their area of interest. It’s great that they’ve evened out the score in that respect, but as many people have pointed out the choices are still very limiting (play a specific Profession, etc.)

Yes, many of the Dailies are ridiculously (even stupidly) easy, and PvEers could go do non-PvE things to finish them. But this is a game, not a job. We play to have fun, not be told what to do by someone else. We need more freedom of choice in PvE, WvW, and PvP. Many players only want to play one of those three modes, and 4 options is not very many in that light.

Give us more options, and give us “meatier” options. No more “view a Vista in Queensdale”. That’s not an achievement. That’s “kill 10 rats”.

They killed the “jet” sound F/X from the Witches Broom. (Nowadays it gradually fades away to nothingness.) Maybe they could do that with your rebreather and restore my broom to it’s always on state. Let me tell you, it’s eerie to move around and make no sound whatsoever.

(Immersion breaking! My immersion is being damaged over here!)

Nooooooooooooo! Bring back her scream! I’ve had her since Wintersday #1! I love the scream!

And bring back the footsteps and beeps and boops that were taken away from my mini golems so long ago!

And my idle time emotes! (Oops… sorry. Wrong thread. But way overdue to be restored.)

Stop taking away all the fun little extra touches that make the game seem like a living world.

Sturmruger.3920:

So they took a chess game out….big deal. Many quests were improved. Overall I feel the NPE is a huge improvement. Not everyone agrees with that but the gate does in fact swing both ways. I have leveled 2 characters to level 80 since that patch and have another to level 45. Its really just not as big a deal as some say

Sure it’s not a big deal. The point though is why? It was just one of those little side-activities that gave the world a feeling of life. Of fun. Of flavor. It was conflicting with nothing. It got in nobody’s way, and gave a little grin to people. Why take it away? Surely the New Player Experience is only lessened by removing something that livens up the world. The NPE is not for you. The NPE is for new players. Wouldn’t a new player be more blown away with GW2 if he stumbled across a little side-game of chess he could participate in, than if it were merely static background? ANet takes away from the game when they take stuff away from the game. Even something as trivial as this. And eventually the little things add up.

(Continued)

It’s not just choice though, that ANet loves to take away. They have a penchant for taking away period. And very often they don’t give us anything in its place. Remember season 1 of the Living Story? All gone. All temporary content. Many parts were loved, but after two weeks you couldn’t do it ever again. Taken away.

Super Adventure Box. Taken away. Why? It’s a popular mini-game that doesn’t affect the outside world at all. We don’t need to have an expansion every time it comes back. Just keep it open as-is.

Activities. The activities (Keg Brawl, Southsun Survival, etc.) used to be available at any time. Now only on a weekly schedule. With the Megaserver, you would think each one could be open 24/7. Taken away.

They changed the way “Target Nearest Enemy” has worked since the game started. Targeting is arguably the most basic, most important part of the game. They could have kept the original functionality and added the new functionality as a choice, but instead it was simply replaced. Taken away.

Lion’s Arch was destroyed. I enjoyed that part of the Living Story more than any up to that point. But the acknowledged social hub of the world has been gone for nearly half the life of Guild Wars 2 now. Festivals aren’t as festive. Friends are scattered. Restoration is long overdue. Between this and the Megaserver mixing strangers together, our sense of community is gone. Taken away.

Player outrage has reversed several take-aways. The Flamekissed Light armor took away the uniqueness of Cultural armor, but they reversed themselves due to feedback. The Gem Exchange got reversed after they took away our freedom to enter custom amounts. See the difference here? Both reversals were Gem Store based. They go where the money is. (Except in the case of my Town Clothes, where I spent hideous amounts of money, but have spent zero on Outfits).

I just wish they’d stop taking stuff away. ADDING stuff is great, but stop taking everything away.

And give us CHOICES.

From a PvE standpoint, we definitely have fewer choices in the Dailies. The very first one I had was two super-simple ones (harvest 10 things in this zone, view a Vista in this zone). But I couldn’t do either of the other two. One was Fractals level 11, but I have only scratched the surface of Fractals. Didn’t like it and never went back. The other was do events in the Silverwastes, but I haven’t made it that far in the Living Story. We definitely need more choices, not less.

(Yes, I could have done something from PvP or WvW, but I already dislike those game modes. I highly resent ANet trying to steer me towards it. This is a game, and I want to have fun.)

Achievement Chests are the only thing I get out of Achievement Points. But ever since the April 15th Patch, the rewards have been miserable. Some agree they’re hardly as good as rewards for killing a Boss. If (like Guhracie and myself) you have one preferred mode of play (PvE in this case), then you probably will have no need for 2/3 of your Achievement Chest reward. So until Achievement Chest rewards are revamped, this latest act of choice removal has given me the encouragement I needed to quit doing the Daily Achievements altogether.
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For me the biggest loss of choice came with the introduction of the MegaServers. One of the first things they ask you to do when you install the game is to pick which server you wish to reside on, and they sort those by population. So obviously they know that population density is very important to people.

So along comes the mighty Megaserver and wipes out that most basic of choices entirely. I prefer a rural area, but am now forced to live in New York City. PvE is pretty casual to begin with… I don’t need zergs rushing in to “tag” my opponent in every little wandering encounter. And while bigger crowds are helpful in some Boss fights, it is way out of control now. I often find myself lagging, and just as often lose out on many pre-events because they go so fast. But these details are an argument for another thread. Suffice it to say, the Megaserver is another huge blow to our freedom of choice.
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Town Clothes. My pet peeve. I bought a LOT of them, quite often for a single piece of the set. Then they got replaced by Outfits, which give me zero ability to mix and match. I have purchased no Outfits, and likely never will. Yes, some are really nice. But no matter how pretty they are, it is always embarrassing to show up at a party in the same dress as someone else. I need to express my creativity.

And exactly why did Town Clothes get replaced? Presumably because some people were expressing a desire to wear their Town Clothes into combat. They wanted more choice. But when the conversion to Outfits came, pretty much nothing survived the change except headgear. All the other nice stuff we bought was turned into tonics that can’t be used in combat, or it was locked into a single-piece Outfit that left no customization. Do you think the people asking to wear their Town Clothes into combat – the people ANet was trying to please – were happy with having just hats? I don’t think that would have been their first choice.

They could have easily retained the Town Clothes unchanged and added Outfits as a third garment class. But they decided to give us no choice by giving us Outfits that also leave us no choice for customization.

Until such time as this gets fixed, I will hang my Shiverpeak Shield over the backside of the door to conceal the fact that there is no portal. This should prevent any further shocks to… what? OMG! My shield! The feathers disappear when I look at it from the inside!

My immersion! Oh, the humanity!

Dailies used to be a reward for logging in and doing what you were already doing anyhow… at least that’s what they told us. And indeed, most people could get them without even thinking about it by simply playing as normal for an hour or so.

No more.

Now they say they want Dailies to push us into trying new stuff. Well you know what? I’ve been playing the game for over 2 years. I have tried a little of most everything, and I know what I like and what I don’t like. And I don’t want to be herded into stuff I don’t like.

With the new change, they have helped me realize that I no longer feel an obligation to do Dailies. And perhaps some of you may read this and decide you no longer feel it as necessary to do Dailies anymore either. Here’s why:

I personally used to do Dailies for 2 reasons: the Laurels and the Achievements Points.

• Laurels (so far as I can see) are all acquired just for logging in now. No Dailies required. I still haven’t determined if I’ll be getting the same amount of Laurels that I used to, but as a confirmed non-crafter they’re about the only way I can get anything resembling Ascended gear.
  I’m not too thrilled about getting something just for logging in. It doesn’t exactly make me feel like I’ve accomplished anything. But now that they’re giving away stuff for free, they’ve opened Pandora’s Box. They won’t be able to go go back without drawing the ire of people who they are teaching to feel entitled to free things.

• Achievement Points are the other thing I did my Dailies for. And 10 points for doing only three things now seems pretty good. But I only enjoy PvE, and I was taken aback by the incredibly limited number of things they had for me to do.
  Today for example, if I want to do 3 things in PvE, I could do two super-simple things. The other two things were probably super-simple too, but I wouldn’t be able to do them. One was Fractals. I don’t like ‘em. So that was out. The other was events in the Silverwastes. I’m not that far in the LS yet, so that was out too. Meaning I would have to do something from WvW or PvP.
  Sure, I could still do 3 things without much fuss. But I wouldn’t particularly enjoy doing it. And this is a game. I’m here to have fun. The limited new format is pushing me away from that.

Laurels are free now, and Dailies only get me little miscellaneous rewards and Achievement Points. So I asked myself “why?” Why do I want Achievement Points? The answer surprised me; I don’t want Achievement Points anymore.

The only thing I ever got from Achievement Points was Achievement Chests, and those were pretty much destroyed for me in the April 15th Patch. I’ve been vocal in numerous threads where people agree they miss getting the occasional shot at a hard-to-get armor piece, or a Dungeon weapon or something. The consensus is that AP Chests are often not even as good as World Boss rewards. If (like me) you play only one facet of the game (PvP, PvE, or WvW) then 2/3 of an AP Chest reward will be things you won’t have any use for.

So there you have it. Unless they make Achievement Point Chests worth getting again, I won’t feel any compulsion to have to do the Dailies anymore. I’ll do ‘em if I find 3 I like, or if one has a reward I like. But I won’t feel obligated anymore. I’ll log in for my Laurels, and then go do what I want to do. Free at last!

I didn’t read all 5 pages, so this may have been said before. I’ll give the new system a fair shake before I praise or hate on it.

I’m a little worried about the lack of info on Laurel acquisition – they are the only real way I can get Ascended stuff since I am a confirmed non-crafter. I hope we can get as many Laurels as the Daily/Monthly used to provide without having to expressly select the “additional sum of Laurels” as our Log-in reward.

The screen capture they posted concerns me as well… I hope we see more than 4 things to choose from per day. (I am also a confirmed PvEer only). If we have to do 3 things for the Daily, I’d like to see at least 5 or 6 things to select from in each category.

At one time, the idea was that you should be able to complete your Dailies in the normal course of play without really thinking about it. Now they are saying flat out that they are dangling rewards in front of us in order to drive us towards specific content. Carrot. Stick. I just don’t want to wind up feeling obligated to do content I’d rather not do, like when they cut the number of Daily choices awhile back.

Time will tell. Those are my pre-release concerns, ANet.