Guild Wars 2

I would like to preface the following post with a desire for a feedback phase of development. It should happen after the devs are comfortable with releasing something, but before implementation is a guarantee. A lot of communication issues in the past have arisen from that very thing. You all tell us, “When it’s ready” and then release something that totally wasn’t ready to be put in the game and then we as players have to deal with the fallout of that in game and on the forums.

My issues with the way communication stands currently are as follows:

There are certain features, QoL upgrades, and content among other things that have been asked for en masse by the player base that have not been implemented yet. Things the community didn’t ever ask for have been implemented. This has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Does it mean they can get rude or spiteful about it? Heck no, but being disgruntled about it is understandable.

In the interest of open communication and the precedent that has been set, it’s hard to remain optimistic that the very specific things the community has asked for en masse keep getting pushed back by the dev team in favor of things that we never asked for.

I don’t want to boil communication down to “community asks for stuff and the dev team complies”. That is asinine. It is also asinine to tell the community nothing about what is being developed until it is close to being in the game when it is too late to get impact-worthy feedback from the community about it.

A good example would be yesterday’s news of dungeon ownership changes. Community members immediately noticed issues that would arise stemming from player abuse. It’s also too late in the process for any of us to contribute shaping how it works because it’s already done and it has flaws that the player base is just going to have to deal with.

“*_Ryan Diederich had this to say, “I actually agree with you. I would have liked to increase the vote count a majority with this change, but unfortunately not all the pieces of code around party votes are set up in a way to make this a quick and easy change.
We were aware of the possible issues with the instance ownership change, but felt that holding back an improvement to the base experience on account of trolls was unfair to users that are playing nice.
Stealing instances using the LFG tool, or booting people for no reason (or to give your buddy the rewards for no work) at the end of a run are bannable offenses and should be reported._*” https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dungeon-Instance-Owner-change-FTW/first

That just feels like swapping issues with other issues and kinda goes with what I was saying at the outset of my post. I feel like there is a better way to talk and implement both from a developer side and player side. For what it’s worth, I feel like both sides are doing a poor job, but I am glad that both sides are willing to work harder to make this thing succeed.

I would like to see some clarification on this issue before passing judgment. For my guild this will be awesome, but people make some good points. Anyone at ArenaNet care to shed some light on the concerns in here? Thanks.

Flytrap.8075:

Tell that to the people who keep upvoting me.

Disrespectful people upvoting a disrespectful post isn’t something to be proud of. If you have a point to make, do it respectfully. We are trying to have a constructive discourse on the path of this game.

Darmikau.9413:

I think there’s a disconnect between what content we get, and what content players feel they should be getting. If you’re asking the question “has there been content?” then the answer is, of course, yes.

If you’re asking “does the scope of the content we’ve received match what we received in GW1?” then the answer is very far from yes.

I don’t think anyone is really arguing that we haven’t been given content, but given that Anet is four times the size they were when they made GW1 and working on a larger budget game, they’ve introduced an incredibly tiny fraction of what we received in GW1 in the same time frame. That means skills, weapons, explorable areas, classes, dungeons, hard mode, etc. Living Story has, so far, failed to introduce this entirely, or on a scale that matches GW1. The game is also still missing features which should have been present at launch, like Guild Halls and GvG.

Nobody is really disputing that Anet has released content. It just doesn’t nearly match the scope of GW1.

Salient points. And respectfully put. Also, the hype that was coming out about GW2 from a GW1 player’s perspective was hard to ignore. In a year and half we got 3 stand alone GW games. So when the hype started coming out about GW2 in such an excited fashion, it was impossible as a fan of GW1 not to be really excited because of the precedent of the quantity of quality content in GW1.

Flytrap: It’s ok to be letdown because of this stuff. It’s not OK to be disrespectful though. In fact, if you are respectful in your comments and criticism you are more likely to be listened to rather than heard and ignored because how you are saying what you want to say is hurtful and disrespectful.

Andred.1087:

Level 20 scroll and, wow, a five SP scroll, as if you can’t get 5 scrolls of knowledge at the drop of a hat. Pretty disappointed with the birthday gift, except the blaster, which is turbo radical, and I will use it all the time.

Except, it’s the game’s birthday and it’s giving you the present. What did you get the devs for their 2 year anniversary for releasing this game?

I would add “Guild Message of the Day” to pop up in chat window when logging in. My custom Arena tells me every time I log in how much time I have left on it and the Custom Arena Message of the day pops up every time I load into my Arena> How much more important is my guild msg. than my custom arena msg? Great list though.

I would be down for them being available for tickets. 7-10 tickets would be good like the Molten weapons.

So great! Thanks. I love the Blaster!

I would like to echo the sentiments of the above long post. My Alliance from GW1 has been together since 2007. The remaining forces talk a lot about where we would like to see the game go. We are passionate fans of this game. Please do start this up so we can get the ball rolling. We want progress because Tyria is where we want to hang our MMO hats.

I know you guys and gals at ArenaNet want everyone to keep playing. I can’t help but get the feeling though that the game now isn’t for the long-termers. It’s for the guys and gals that have a few hours a week to play and this Living Story stuff fills their gaming desires to a tee. And that is fine. It just bums me out because I am not that gamer.

All of my hopes are pinned on future permanent, highly replayable content being released.

But I am all in on giving the most constructive feedback possible in the most honest and respectful way I know how. So whatever you all come up with is cool by me. You all at ArenaNet rock and I hope you have the wherewithall to see this thing through to the end because something really worthwhile could come out of it. Cheers.

I am looking forward to gifts tomorrow and hopefully a “Second Year” Loyal title to go along with the “Loyal” title for year 1. Thanks ArenaNet!

I would like to see a random mini be given out, except I would like to see it handled differently than GW1. In Gw1 there were different rarities so you felt jipped if you got a common one. Make random minis all gold rarity. The simple act of making the font the same color will reduce whining.

I will spend some time thinking on these stickies. It’s a good idea. I think something that should go in these is if for some reason these things are decided upon by the Dev team to stop developing them due to iteration, that the community be told that development is being stopped. Otherwise, what is the point of these types of things being stickied if they aren’t actively being developed? There have been quite a few things where that has happened and the community doesn’t find out for months that they aren’t being actively worked on any more.

I know this is about starting these types of things, but having a long term “development termination communication policy” in place would go a long way in quelling forum and player outbursts.

ViviTribal.6310:

I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it
I’m about to lose control and I think .. I’ll go to bed now.

I had many loud belly guffaws from that one.

Relshdan.6854:

balance patch (in)frequency.
class skill/trait bug-fixing (in)frequency….also known as “State of the Mesmer”

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Note: This isn’t a call for topics just asking how to pick them(-:

Chris

Number 1 sounds like a good option.

I would pick 2 though if everyone backed my decision for what should be implemented :P

I am wondering what the community’s opinion is on Skill Splits. For example, A class’s utility skill could do one thing in WvW and it would be a little different for PvP. That doesn’t mean that every skill in the game operates this way. It just means that weapon skills/utilities get reworked to work better in each format. A skill that can knock back very far in PvP(because of the Conquest style format) could be considered OP. In WvW or PvE, the weapon could be considered underpowered.

I am also wondering what the community’s feeling is about Meta Shifts. This isn’t skill balancing really. It’s really just a shifting of what is the flavor of the month. Or every two months there would be a meta shift. Maybe Hammer for Guardian is really strong in PvE for a few months. Then it’s Greatsword for a few months. Then it’s Mace/Shield. Think of Meta Shifts as a way to keep the game play from getting stale and always feeling like you need to be using the same weapon all the time or your DPS will suffer.

What are your opinions on this? Which one do you think would work better, or are you OK with the current state of things and balance patches coming every 6 months? There are no wrong answers! Just opinions and not being mean to posters or the devs. Thanks for your time!

Chris,

I just want to let you know I completely appreciate the effort and honesty. It’s really refreshing. Thanks man. I could be completely wrong but it feels like there has been a mgmt. change of heart over there and it’s leading to changes. I hope it’s for the good, but that notwithstanding, Thanks. You rock dude.

NewTrain.7549:

Creating a CDI about communication is like forming a committee to discuss how to form committees.

Yeah. I agree. It’s kinda like the blog posts for the outlines of the year. Most of the stuff that is covered in them gets pushed to the second half of the year or doesn’t come out at all.

Communication could be broken down fairly simply: Players need to be respectful or lose their right to post on the forums. Yearly outline blogs by devs should be adhered to so that expectations by the player base are respected by the devs. Deciding to go silent because expectations weren’t being met isn’t the way to handle it.

IDK that we need to communicate about communicating. It might be as simple as us asking, “Hey, what if you guys did this?” and you at ArenaNet saying yes or no.

The Magic Find mechanic in place in the game is a prime example of closed communication. You at ArenaNet gave us inherent Magic Find and then switched a lot of the drops to be given out by chests in the Living Story that are totally unaffected by Magic Find That way it appears that we have this really cool way to “up” our chances as players to get great drops, when in reality the Magic Find affects almost none of the new content because the rewards come at the end of completing an instance in the form of chests that are unaffected by Magic Find in any way, shape, or form. Also, the content is permanent, but there is no impetus to repeat said content because there are no rewards.

The communication disconnect comes in the form of actions. What you implemented offers no replayability. So it’s permanent, but you don’t really offer any incentive of playing through it again, so where should our desire to replay it come from?

You guys got rid of that event that people were wrongfully farming, but if you look at the Crusader Angaria Event that leads up to “Taking Back The Gates Of Arah”, you guys got rid of all the mobs that spawn there. Loot is being nerfed whether or not people are playing it as intended or not. Through your actions you are communicating that you want loot drops to be decreased.

That is a big part of the communication disconnect I feel when playing the game.

I like the idea of a communication based CDI. I like the idea of picking up where we left off more. If you guys can tell us which hot topic CDIs from months ago are not moving forward, that would be great. We can cut out a lot of repeat posts by doing it that way.

I think a prime example of bad communication was the Fractal CDI. It took pages upon pages of people posting that the Dredge Fractal needed changing until we were all on the same page about it. In the end you all did change it for the better and guess what? There aren’t any complaints about it. This makes me feel it can work, but we have to cut out the fat from the real meat of the communication that is to take place.

• What is available for class discussion? —i.e. Rangers don’t seem to be headed in a very different direction other than minor tweaks this up coming Feature Pack-- There seemed to be a real sense from the community that they need major changes in the last CDI

I feel like at least we had a foundation for change with the last CDI, why start over? We should improve upon communication like Chris is saying, but not at the expense of really drilling down the core issues of the last CDI.

As a side note, I really felt like Fractal Armor needed to be added into the game. I was told that it was too focused a thing and that it wasn’t going to be added, but Tournament armor was added. I am not saying that it shouldn’t be added. It’s a great reward, but if that isn’t the epitome of a focused set of armor then I don’t know what is.

It really seems to me like you all have lost a little bit of the idea of what it actually means to be an RPG player. Being rewarded with specific items endemic to specific content has been replaced entirely by the gem shop.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Iason Evan.3806:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Iason Evan.3806:

I thought of another specific thing that really shows a lack of two-way discourse: Skill splits/Skill Templates.

Skill splits seem to be off the table for WvW/sPvP/PvE. Reasons have been given.

We were told months ago that Skill Templates were coming. If Skill Splits don’t happen, then Templates make total sense as we players need different builds for different formats.

What’s up with Templates? How is progression going on those? With seemingly only 2 Feature Patches per year, does that mean we will have to wait another 6 months for Templates when we were told 6 months ago they were happening?

I think that type of thing is where the issues arise. Saying that things are happening isn’t the problem. Forgetting to tell us that they got cancelled is the issue. If you stop working on something because it isn’t meeting your standard is OK. Will some of us be ticked it isn’t happening? Sure. But being honest with us is way more important to open communication than just stopping development on something and not telling us.

I also feel we get talked to like we won’t understand. I for one want to hear the truth of the matter whether I understand it or not.

They don’t have to tell us ANYTHING. The fact that they are trying to communicate in such a toxic environment as this forum is great.

They don’t have to say to us, ‘Sorry this doesn’t fit into the design of the game’. Once the DCI restarts then maybe but more than likely not. The reason being players focus on one or two issues, A.Net has to focus on them all and make them fit.

The post is about better communication. That starts with honesty and dropping the PR speak.

Not speaking PR – I was a forum mod on another forum. This is objectivity talking not the ‘A.Net is always wrong’ attitude. Why don’t you drop the incensed attitude and try to listen just for once. You might actually learn something.

Go back through my post history. I have a lot of posts on these forums and most of them are very constructive even in my criticism. Do I get ticked from time to time? Sure. Am I rude about it? I mostly keep it on topic and constructive. Nothing that I have said in this thread has been rude in any way. All I have offered is my constructive opinion on how I think things should be handled. Heck, in my last post, I just apologized for being wrong.

Ranael.6423:

Iason Evan.3806:

We were told months ago that Skill Templates were coming. If Skill Splits don’t happen, then Templates make total sense as we players need different builds for different formats.

What’s up with Templates? How is progression going on those? With seemingly only 2 Feature Patches per year, does that mean we will have to wait another 6 months for Templates when we were told 6 months ago they were happening?

Funny how people can’t read ….

Original post form a dev :

Evan Lesh.3295:

We absolutely want to make build templates. They could work similar to GW1, but there are more components to a build now. Using the old string-code method may prove to be unwieldy.

Things that must be in a template:

• Weapons
• Sigils
• Rune
• Amulet
• Skills
• Traits

What could be in a template:

• Skins
• Dyes
• Outfit
• Finisher

Things to consider:

• Sharing (chat links? codes? urls?)
• Viewing (seeing some else’s vs. seeing your own)
• Saving (notepad vs. local vs. account vs. web)
• Building (one spot in UI vs. multiple spots)
• Websites (third-party sites should work with in-game)
• APIs (Could expose an API to third-parties)
• PvP vs PvE vs WvW (each mode requires different configuration options)

How would you like to see any/all of these work?

So 2 months ago (40 work days during summer !!! ) someone write " we want to add templates but help us to decide what should be in" and you read “we have done build templates, they are coming”….

You are totally right. My bad. I feel like it had been said somewhere that they were indeed implementing templates. My apologies.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Iason Evan.3806:

I thought of another specific thing that really shows a lack of two-way discourse: Skill splits/Skill Templates.

Skill splits seem to be off the table for WvW/sPvP/PvE. Reasons have been given.

We were told months ago that Skill Templates were coming. If Skill Splits don’t happen, then Templates make total sense as we players need different builds for different formats.

What’s up with Templates? How is progression going on those? With seemingly only 2 Feature Patches per year, does that mean we will have to wait another 6 months for Templates when we were told 6 months ago they were happening?

I think that type of thing is where the issues arise. Saying that things are happening isn’t the problem. Forgetting to tell us that they got cancelled is the issue. If you stop working on something because it isn’t meeting your standard is OK. Will some of us be ticked it isn’t happening? Sure. But being honest with us is way more important to open communication than just stopping development on something and not telling us.

I also feel we get talked to like we won’t understand. I for one want to hear the truth of the matter whether I understand it or not.

They don’t have to tell us ANYTHING. The fact that they are trying to communicate in such a toxic environment as this forum is great.

They don’t have to say to us, ‘Sorry this doesn’t fit into the design of the game’. Once the DCI restarts then maybe but more than likely not. The reason being players focus on one or two issues, A.Net has to focus on them all and make them fit.

The post is about better communication. That starts with honesty and dropping the PR speak.

I thought of another specific thing that really shows a lack of two-way discourse: Skill splits/Skill Templates.

Skill splits seem to be off the table for WvW/sPvP/PvE. Reasons have been given.

We were told months ago that Skill Templates were coming. If Skill Splits don’t happen, then Templates make total sense as we players need different builds for different formats.

What’s up with Templates? How is progression going on those? With seemingly only 2 Feature Patches per year, does that mean we will have to wait another 6 months for Templates when we were told 6 months ago they were happening?

I think that type of thing is where the issues arise. Saying that things are happening isn’t the problem. Forgetting to tell us that they got cancelled is the issue. If you stop working on something because it isn’t meeting your standard is OK. Will some of us be ticked it isn’t happening? Sure. But being honest with us is way more important to open communication than just stopping development on something and not telling us.

I also feel we get talked to like we won’t understand. I for one want to hear the truth of the matter whether I understand it or not.

Clearing up the air would be a good stepping stone in the direction of repairing communication. It can’t be easy having to wade through a lot of our(the community’s) verbal garbage and abuse. I for one know I get ticked on here a lot. Things that have been said in the past by the devs need to be clarified. For instance:
*"An expansion’s worth of content". What does that mean?

*I would clear up as to what is happening with past CDIs. What got scrapped? What is moving forward from the CDIs?

*Why do we keep getting told that the precursor thing is still coming when it sounds as if it has taken 3 steps forward and 2 steps back every time you guys talk about it?

*What happened to the PvP Reward Tracks that were supposed to come frequently?

*What happened to the new modes and maps for PvP that were talked about months ago?

*It’s obvious the community wants sweeping changes to the Ranger profession. Why are we only taking baby steps in that direction 5 months after the last feature patch?

*What happened to the Fractal Weapon Boxes that the community was told were being implemented along with Fractal Leaderboards?

I will leave it at that, but most of the stuff I have listed here was stuff we were told was coming and some of these things are going on a year and a half of zero implementation or communication that maybe they have been completely discarded.

I for one would rather know something wasn’t coming than being left in limbo for over a year about something that was said to be coming by the developers.

Thanks for your time.

I think the first order of business then is getting rid of the PR speak. Saying, “We can’t talk about that, because we aren’t working on that” is better than, “It’s not off the table”.

Iterating is great. To a point. And then it wears out its welcome and it leads to frustration for the players. Sometimes you have to just pull the trigger.

The communication for the POV and First Person Camera stuff was handled poorly. I understand those dudes aren’t PR, but a first person camera view would be the best thing ever for appreciating the art work in this game and the reason given for why we aren’t getting it is because of combat? Wow. That is poor communication, because it is either:

A.) A patently false answer

B.) Something made up because he didn’t know the actual answer

C.) A really bad reason

D.) The truth from that devs perspective which means the players aren’t communicating with you all properly. I can’t believe though that anyone at ArenaNet honestly thinks we want a first person camera for combat though.

My point is, that we aren’t getting honesty. We are getting PR speak. If I wanted that, I could talk to a service rep at a major cable/internet provider. That dev should have just said, “That’s not something we are going to add to the game.” Then if you do add it later everyone can be pleasantly surprised. If it’s never implemented, well you communicated honestly and that is all that matters at the end of the day.

There are also 2 weeks left of reveals. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/feature-packs/

Eurantien.4632:

Thought this was a ranger post… so glad it wasn’t.

haha! i totally did too! glad i read the post and didn’t just blind post an objection. idk about Mesmer Moa being too stronk. I usually just #5 skill away and then come back.
i actually wouldn’t mind if the moa had a shorter recharge IF the person being moa’d could use a stun break to get rid of being a moa. i think it would promote more skillful use of moa’ing someone by the mesmer.

^What Randulf said. It would be super nice of the community to thank them profusely for listening and making this change. They listened! That’s what everyone wants and that’s what we got and they should have all of our thanks for this specific decision especially from people that have been overly critical in perhaps even a rude and childish manner.

You have my thanks ArenaNet and I don’t even play WvW. Very nice gesture not turning the Commander Tag into a gold sink, but a QoL change for the better.

khani.4786:

Astralporing.1957:

Arcadio.6875:

We should get some answers today as the blog post that will be out later is “Command the Rainbow.”

Somehow i don’t think we’re going to like them, though.

You know what we get? Less information than was already given. The blog post is there and it answers none of the questions we have. It would be really nice if someone could you know…answer the questions on how it is going to work…how much are the colors going to cost, etc….

They just answered that on the new blog. It’s 300g after the update and you can switch between any color. It also appears that you can put arrows next to the tag on the map to indicate to your people which direction you are heading. Existing Commanders are grandfathered into the new system at no additional charge.

Better late than never. I really think these skill issues should be taken care of sooner than later. ‘Runs off to look at the literal laundry list for the Mesmer’.

Magnito.6187:

Hello hello dear developers,

another kitten here making your lives terrible coming up with a suggestion!
Now that said, I like Fractal weapon skins. I like fractal weapon skins a lot.
I am a dedicated PvP player, running my own guild and I find it extremeley
annoying to do a part of the game that I don’t like at all, in order to get nice skins.
I’ve been putting a lot of work into creating a legendary and I really can’t be kitten d doing boring dungeons (well, for me fractals is kind off a dungeon) in order to get those skins.

So just throwing in an idea: Would it be an idea inventing Fractal tracks into the PvP system? I feel like the current PvP reward system improved a bit, but compared to the hard work you put into it to improve yourself, it feels like miauws (‘cause kitten is too mainstream). So just a Fractal track which allows you to get the weapon skins out of boxes but just with a low succes rate, so it’s as hard to obtain them as if you’re doing the real fractals.

Much love,

Vindex

I would support this if the Fractal weapon skin out of the box at the end of the track was RNG based just like the Fractals. It’s a different situation than the dungeon skins because in the dungeons you have tokens for a guaranteed weapon or piece of armor. The Fractals currently have zero implementation for players to earn the skins. You have to get them through RNG. Before any of this is added to PvP though, they really should offer a way to turn in Fractal relics as tokens to get Fractal weapon skins and have vendor for it. Then and only then could they add in a PvP track to get the skins at the end of said track.

what happened to all that gold we donated in the plaza to rebuild LA? Oh that’s right. It was just a gold sink.

1.) Jumping Puzzles on big races. The camera clips terribly in tight-spaced JPs.

2.) Screenshots

3.) Looking at the world

4.) Looking at other players

5.) Running around the world exploring

Esplen.3940:

Actually, I want the first person camera for some fights where we’re in tight cramped spaces and I can’t see diddly squat. Also for screenshots… and for running around.

It’d be great for Charr and Norn in tight JP’s too. The camera is super wonky in jumping puzzles.

Faux.1937:

Esplen.3940:

Is there an interview I’m missing?

http://www.guildmag.com/guild-wars-2-interview-part-1-general-game-living-world/

Again, Im not upset because they said no to giving us these things, but Just in the manor of how it was answered and the reasoning’s as to why.

I feel like he just didn’t know how to answer a lot of it and just kinda rattled off the first things that came into his mind. Totally understandable, yet totally disappointing at the same time. For instance the discussion of First person and lengthening the FoV of the camera out in third person. The answers totally contradict each other and then he adds something about the first person camera that is not valid at all. We don’t want a first person camera for combat. We want it for screenshots, vistas etc and viewing others armor, and just looking at the beauty of the game in general. We want the third person camera to pan out more so we can see more of the map during fights of all kinds He says that detracts from us being able to see the beauty of the art work. That in and of itself in’t an issue. The fact that a first person camera would let us do exactly that and then telling us they won’t do it based on combat is quite frankly asinine. Again though, he was giving spur of the moment answers so whatever. No harm no foul.

The way they could fix it though is to give honest answers as to why these things aren’t being implemented.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

I wonder if we can get a refund on the infinite coin?

This is all that needs to be said ArenaNet. You charged money for a thing that was supposed to be recurring content. You can’t ditch content when it comes to micro-transactions. Also, if the dev was being coy and there is a new SAB coming soon, why do the interview?

tigirius.9014:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

What about the 1000 or so players under NDA that test the changes they have now? How do you know they aren’t some of the forum-posters here?

I thought they already had what you are proposing.

It’s true that the Devs that play the game ask us what we are thinking. I spoke to one last Friday for awhile, and she asked me without any prompting. She also said she would pass my thoughts along to the powers-that-be.

Considering how much the Devs aren’t allowed to say, we never know if something is right around the corner….or not. /shrug

To me that’s no longer a problem you see people were like “this game is only 3 months old” and such in the beginning and they used that as an excuse to ignore the plethora of warning signs we began to see in the game post Nov 2012. Now they are using the age old “we don’t know everything that’s going on” nonsense. We’ve not known everything that’s been going on since day one. That’s not excuse for the sheer ignorant levels of ignored problems that have not been a priority since day one. Things that even the major publishers who write about this game and who have been major fans have noticed of late. It’s like they are a government, isolated from the people, doing whatever paperwork comes along without any regard for how it will affect gameplay, putting out propaganda commercials occasionally to keep the patriotism flowing.

I just don’t get how people can continue to support this kind of thing, sure they’ve made mistakes and sure we don’t know everything behind the scenes but really how long are people just going to sit around with blinders on before they too finally realize that “hey there’s something wrong here?”

We need at the very least a player council at this point because even the CDI’s have failed.

All I can go off of for player councils is how they worked in games I have played. LOTRO’s is awful. Zero communication with the regular populace. The last expansion, “Helm’s Deep” suffered because of it. STO’s was a joke. I think it is close to impossible for players to actually put the interests of the gamers at large in front of things they personally desire.

I know the things I desire are completely different than what 95% of the population would see implemented. The truth of the matter is that there are a lot people who have limited game time. They like this game because they can log in, play a few hours a week, get new story content and items to chase and it’s satisfying. I play enough that the story content every two weeks doesn’t even take up a single play session for me. Does that mean I don’t think the content is well executed? Far from it! I think this season has been really good.

I feel like they are going with what appeals to the most broad audience, it’s just that the broad audience is so casual in their playstyle that I don’t trust those people to know what makes for good design or skill implementation etc.

I feel like if you put a Council in the hands of the hard core PvP crowd, then you see all skill design rotating around Conquest. What happens when you put the Council in the hands of WvW? The same thing.

timmyf.1490:

lordkrall.7241:

The fact is that we KNOW that they at least at one point after release DID have a player-based feedback group. Which may or may not have been scrapped after some people in said group started spreading secret and NDA:ed information from said group.

I hadn’t heard this, but shame on anybody who was involved in leaking that information. It’s maddening when jerks ruin good things for so many people.

I really agreed with your post about implementation from really talented folks. Spot on observations. I also agree with your sentiment of a player council, but in practice they end up a lot like communism: Great on paper, but poor in reality. Player councils often serve their own interests or the interests of a very small subset of players.

Skill design is already headed down that path. sPvP has such a small population in terms of the three formats(WvW, PvE, sPvP) yet most skill design is based around Conquest. So many weapon sets are absolutely useless, yet skill splits would allow the devs to design specific weapons to be used in one format and forsaking the others. Options are awesome. We have so few. I would never use Mace/Mace for Warrior in PvE or WvW and barely consider it now for sPvP. So they are kinda viable for one format and nothing viable can come out of them for a single format? That’s garbage.

I think they miss the entirety of what we are communicating. I brought up a point that if we can’t have skill splits then why can’t we have a shifting meta every month or two? Actual skill changes that happen twice a year when you only have one PvP format makes for really stale PvP. Change up the meta often and only having one format is less tiring because you are constantly shifting what is viable in terms of game play and weapons and utilities etc.

timmyf.1490:

Iason Evan.3806:

I just need to either enjoy what they make or stop playing.

This would be easier if they didn’t keep saying, “Oh, we hear what you’re saying, here’s a horribly-implemented version of that thing you requested.”

Or, like that youtube interview they just posted saying yet again that precursor changes are happening. The waiting gets tedious, but again, this is I am sure is one of the reasons they have been tight lipped and I can’t say as I disagree with them for that. I would be as well.

They do take far too long to implement stuff though in this game. Coming from GW1 and the absolute deluge of content we had in two years time(3 full games!) to this has been a hard pill to swallow. Sometimes I think they need to halt all new content that they have ideas for and work solely on things they have been talking up for the better part of two years. Fans have a right to be impatient with things that the devs said were going to be in the game. It’s not entitlement if you are told, “Hey this awesome thing is coming! Get HYPE!” and then you wait for over a year and a half for it(precursors). Heck, Colin hinted at it in December when talking about new stuff, that it was gonna be delayed a bit, but that totally sounded like it was almost ready and here we are headed to September…and nada y pues y pues nada.

@timmyf: Yeah. I agree with the Commander Tag stuff. They completely missed the point of the functionality being a Quality of life thing. They turned it into a gold sink and soured a lot of folks opinions of it entirely for sure.

I think a huge portion of the issues(and also awesomeness) of ArenaNet is that they are so insular in their company. So many of them are friends, get along and the game is their passion and that makes it a great place to work at. The issue though is they are too close to the game in some regards and they lose sight of the things that hurt the game or they hold on to design philosophies longer than is healthy for the game. IDK that any of them get the time they need to really step back from the game and look at the big picture. Skill splits are a prime example of this. There are more than a few skills for certain classes that are being designed around the capture points in sPvP and instead of said skills getting different versions for WvW and PvE their functionality is going to suffer so that they can be balanced for a single format.

I could go on and on but won’t. I have the same issue of really caring about this game too much and I need to take a step back from it as well. The things I think would be healthy additions are not lined up with what the devs want. I just need to either enjoy what they make or stop playing.

I hear you. The problem with even having a player council, it will not affect how they release info. They decided internally to stay tight-lipped from now on. Heck, even during the CDIs they said they were not going to tell us any info.

I think the way they were asking for concise info in the CDIs was great. Whether or not people adhered to that or could explain in a detailed manner their ideas doesn’t matter.

Councils ultimately limit the scope of feedback. I think that is detrimental to development, especially with a company like ArenaNet who are a little more forward thinking in their design approach. The iterative process has pluses and minuses. One of those minuses is information. The precursor crafting debacle springs to mind. The design team thought it sounded great, but it’s obvious there were others in the company hierarchy that decided it wasn’t going to happen. That is why they aren’t communicating with us anymore. They change their mind too often when it comes to the direction of the game and we in the community hold them to every dotted "I"and “T” and every period in every sentence they say.

As to the camera stuff, yeah. I don’t know why people bother interviewing them anymore. It’s all canned responses, rhetoric, and “soon”. The precursor bit in that interview was so disheartening. They keep saying they are working on stuff with results appearing very infrequently over things that the community is really interested in.

The CDI’s are a better way to do this. That way everyone has a voice. When you limit the scope of who you are listening to you limit your feedback to the opinions of a few people and those people that they listen to. It’s worked terribly in LOTRO, and I don’t trust it would do any better here.

The thing I found hilarious was “we won’t let you zoom out to far because you don’t get to see all the awesome art our people made.” the art then is nowhere listed in why we can’t have a first person mode. most people don’t want a first person mode for combat. They want a first person mode for screenshots and vistas and looking at said artwork of the world. Why don’t you guys get this, ArenaNet?

Just one set of each. say you have a Charr Ranger: Just buy a single set of t1, 2, t3 medium and the Charr portion will be done.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Fractal-Armor-Tourney-Armor/first#post4237720

Ristillath.6745:

SkiTz.4590:

Agreed, but I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see downed state removed from PvP…. there is absolutely no reason such a system should be in a competitive game….

I beat you, fair and square in a 1v1 and downed you, thats it, I won the duel.
Now in this game, some kid gap closing on me while I was stomping and stuns me because I used my stability during the actual duel with the guy I just downed… Now I’m freaking dead… That’s utter nonsense and totally a reason as to why a lot of MMORPG PvPers stay away from GW2 PvP…. get rid of downed state and I have a feeling there would be a huge surge of Pvp players…

Imo downed state is one of the things that makes GW2 pvp interesting.
It opens the fights for a lot of nice plays and turn arounds in the actual teamfight.

I have to agree with the response. It adds another layer to the game that most other games don’t have. It’s the most fun to play when you can get back up and turn things around when it looked as if you were dead. It promotes great team work too.

I like a lot of this. It all makes sense. I agree most of all with regularly shifting meta/skill split for balance suggestions. If both can’t happen, I feel strongly that it would behoove ArenaNet to pick one and aggressively pursue it. Keep the game from getting stale!

After having the Menagerie in GW1 it’s hard not to be a little disappointed at the lack of Ranger support in all areas of GW2. Putting a version of “Rampage As One” in GW2 would help a lot too. Or a pet than can shadow step.

Backpack.8517:

Wait…. your complaining about PvP gear being skill based? Go to pve if you just wanna farm…

Agreed. It’s great that they are giving out some skill based rewards. Nice to see the PvP Reward Tracks finally as well. Bummed they dropped the old system of earning armor and weapon sets though for PvP.

I am with a lot of people here in this thread. What happened to playing content and an armor set or weapon representing specific activities? Besides the many backpieces of course. I am so tired of backpieces.

I think you should drop the Lich theory. I would also go with Aniise being a part of Livia’s bloodline over being actually Livia, although I used to think the same thing. It would make sense for them to be related though and have held the same office.

Don’t ever try and hold ArenaNet to lore though. They will change it on you in an instant and the next thing you know, something really cool or really ham-fisted will come out of it. There is no middle ground.