It was done to encourage more players to purchase additional gems.
That’s obviously one of the main reasons, but it was advertised as such:
ArenaNetFixed exchange amounts have been set to simplify the exchange process and remove confusing rounding points.
I probably wouldn’t have cared as much if the update simply said that they wanted to discourage small exchanges and push more people toward buying gems for money instead.
If you’re insulted by this, and taking it as “arenanet thinks I am dumb”, then the problem is you, not arenanet.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s their problem. A lot of people don’t like being treated like idiots, and in doing so, they’re bound to lose players. Whether these changes yield a net profit for them is out of my purview, but what I do know is that if I were to start playing the game as a new player now, I would have probably quit after maxing my first character, and if they continue on this path of dumbing everything down, they’re most likely gonna lose me anyway.
The goal should be simple but powerful, not simple for the sake of simplicity. And “streamlined” is just a trend word that says pretty much nothing.
because 90% of the playerpool are?
Clearly not everyone playing the game is a genius, but even our less capable brethren have the ability to learn things given enough time. Eventually the training wheels should come off, but ArenaNet seems to be intent on welding them onto the bike instead.
Look, I know that you want to make the game as comprehensive as possible, and I completely understand that desire, but you’re taking this thing to the point where it’s insulting even to a simpleton’s intelligence.
I’ve moved past the ridiculous new leveling system—mainly because I’ve already maxed out all of my characters and couldn’t really find a reason to complain—but what exactly was so damn complicated about the currency exchange that you had to reduce the whole thing to a single-click transaction? At least put a bloody slider on there for those of us who would like a little more freedom. Or an extra “Custom Amount” button at the bottom that displays a slider and/or an input field where you can manually enter the amount in a similar fashion as before.
Whoever is making these decisions in your team needs to take a step back and realize that oversimplifying everything can be just as bothersome to your players as making things overly complicated. I’m not a 10-year old kid or handicapped (which is not to say that there’s anything wrong with that). I don’t need you to hold my hand every step of the way and spoon-feed me the content. I’d much rather have some room to breathe, thank you.
I know that this is a minor gripe and in the end this particular change won’t affect much, but as it seems to be a trend that has started even before the release of the game and is now reaching new heights, I felt like I should say something.
Please stop treating us like incompetent idiots.
I mostly agree with the sentiments in this thread. While I do think that S2 started off strong, and it’s probably one of, if not the best story update since the release, there are still many pressing issues which should ultimately be examined by the developers.
I like all of the new NPCs, in spite of their cheesy lines and casual demeanor, but I just don’t see myself as part of their group. Sure, they call me “boss” and “leader”, but most of the time it feels more like I’m the mentally disabled kid that gets to call himself a fancy title so that he stops whining and lets the other kids play rather than an actual sign of respect and an acknowledgement of my role in the group and story.
And when it comes to actually doing anything, the NPCs are absolutely useless. They are literally worse than the henchmen were at the release of Prophecies, and those were painfully atrocious at their job. In two years time, all that’s changed is that the NPCs occasionally decide to rez you, and that’s usually at a point where it’s not really required, while they blatantly ignore you where you’d actually need their help (like in a boss fight).
I’m not saying we need the hero system from GW1 (as incredibly satisfied as that would make me), but for Grenth’s sake, at least make the characters competent at their job. Buff me, heal me, deal some actual damage. You can’t make me feel like a third wheel and at the same time expect me to do everyone’s job. That’s just poor form. We’re either equal, and everyone carries their weight, or I’m the hero and I should be treated as such.
I’ve also fruitlessly been awaiting a time where we actually see some meaningful role playing in what’s advertised as a role playing game (MMO though it may be). It started out full of potential, with diverse backgrounds, the ability to change your character’s attitude, and a decent conversation system (as limited as it is). Then I started playing the story and realized that the background and choices I’ve made are quickly all but forgotten, I’m supplanted in my “personal” story by insultingly uninteresting characters, all the characters I get attached to are killed off or forgotten, the character’s attitude is irrelevant in all cases but the occasional conversation option which has no bearing on the result, and the robust conversation system is reduced little more than a single option + close dialog.
Two years later and we actually have fewer role playing aspects than we did at the start. Attitudes have been abandoned, story choices no longer exist, we’re just along for the ride, NPCs are taking the spotlight right from the get go, and the story hook is nothing but a mail from an enigmatic persona which, if we put ourselves in the character’s shoes, we have no real reason to follow.
And I can’t believe someone actually brought up the “you can roleplay your own stories” argument. This is a video game, not a virtual tabletop—It’s the developers’ job to provide the story, not just a rigid environment to play in. I get that you want to make the world “alive”, and to some degree that’s cool, even though I’m forced to hear about the woman who loved someone she didn’t deserve every 10 seconds. Just don’t act surprised that players are disappointed about the amount of their characters’ involvement while the story writers are beating off to their DMPCs and ambient dialogue. As someone who spends a great deal of time actually roleplaying, I’m somewhat insulted by this attitude.
At the end of the day, I don’t expect anything to change. I had realized that Anet won’t be able to deliver the kind of story experience I want by the end of the Order arc. I’ll still play the game for its other aspects, although I do wish we’d get more feature and bugfix updates, but I’m just disappointed that effort is being wasted in places where it can’t really be appreciated, like writing a cringeworthy lesbian romance instead of giving players a chance to bond with their supposed “friends”.
PVE templates are untenable and unnecessary.
Huh? I change builds in PvE (and by extension WvW) far more often than I do in sPvP.
Start small, man. Basic template it still better than no template.
Agreed. Start with skills and traits which are common across all game modes. Build up from there. We don’t really need need super intricate templates (which are bound to be buggy) right off the bat.
Things that must be in a template:
- Weapons
- Sigils
- Rune
- Amulet
- Skills
- Traits
Technically, the only really important things are skills and traits, just like in GW1. Everything else is mostly a bonus for PvP which uses standardized equipment.
Overall, that doesn’t really use up much more data than the old template code. It should also be ping-able for chat, again in a similar fashion as in GW1. The rest can wait.
No need to reinvent the wheel…
Same for me. Doesn’t work at all.
It’s good that you have played 3,276 hours exclusively on a warrior, but if you had instead played 400 hours on each of the classes, it would be painfully obvious that while warriors have problems, the rest of the classes have just as many and probably then some.
Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree that there are things that should have been fixed or improved a long time ago, but like it or not, most people do not play at a professional level, and since warriors are incredibly easy to master, as you’ve noted yourself, Anet needed to ensure the viability of other classes and/or builds on the average level.
Making sure that they stay competitive at every level is obviously important, and I’m certain that Anet will work toward that goal in the future. Now get in line behind all the classes who’ve been getting the short end of the stick pretty much since release.
I have a player on my roster who was last online 2 months and 5 days ago, which is obviously weeks before March 1st.
I like this feature, but it’s pretty useless if it’s just gonna list “Unknown” for most of the inactive people. They could have at least picked a date and listed them as “Longer than X months Y days” or something.
Mad Memories does not unlock if you have Mad Memories: Complete Edition.
A minor issue, but I’d like the skin anyway.
Agreed, names should come from the skin, not the base item.
As long as I could unlock preexisting traits for free, I wouldn’t mind having them locked. That way I could play around for a bit, and if I get tired of it, I can just push a few buttons. Nothing lost.
Rangers are not bad at all. This is but another option. And of course besides personal preference, it may be helpful for other formats other then Dungeons, which is all what you are thinking about above.
In short, avoid thinking that what doesn’t benefit you or the way you see things won’t benefit someone else (ANet has plenty of Ranger players among them.) The main logical flaw in this forum: “ANet is wrong because they don’t cater to my playstyle-to hell with everyone else that plays differently than I do (or plays a different format than I do).” That applies to both bow lovers, who refuse to melee at all (though it is an option) and to people who belittle others for using bears and longbows.
I’m not saying the ranger class is bad. It’s not (though it could sure use a lot of love).
It’s ranger players that are bad. Notoriously so.
And in large part it’s Anet’s fault. Not for providing us with options, but for providing us with pitfalls. Bows are horribly underpowered, although shortbow is slightly better off for roaming, and Anet ritually updates the class with bad ideas. I guess they gotta counterbalance warriors somehow, right?
Are you seriously telling me that you think having “your arrows fly faster” as a major grandmaster trait is a good idea? This is a minor trait, or an adept level trait at best. Even then it’s pretty damn atrocious, so much that it should probably be free since it enables one of the basic mechanics to even work consistently in the first place. Unfortunately, any new player that equips a longbow is gonna look at that trait, look at the long range shot and point blank shot skills, and go “I guess the best tactic is to stand far away from combat”. If he pairs himself with a bear, he can be looking forward to being kicked out of just about every party, including mine and I actually like rangers.
I’ve been playing a ranger as my main since pre-release. I too use a longbow quite often, and before I grudgingly switched to zerker, I used a shortbow on my condi build. I am not saying Anet is wrong because they don’t cater to my playstyle, I can just as easily ignore the new trait. I am saying they’re wrong because the new trait is yet another pitfall that will cast a shadow on my favorite class.
I was pretty hyped on the trait changes, although the system is still nowhere near where it needs to be for it to feel meaningful. Unfortunately, that all changed once I scrolled down to the new grandmaster trait examples and saw Read the Wind.
Seriously? Does any of the developers even play a ranger or do they just make up this stuff at random and hope for the best? I don’t think I’ve ever missed a single shot with an arrow. Most of that is on account of the fact that you don’t want to be standing far away from your enemy. When are you gonna get this into your head? The only time you wanna be standing far away is when you’re pulling enemies (which is virtually never), in every single other instance, you want to be as close to the rest of your team as possible (which is generally in melee or close by).
Even if you’re going solo, there’s really no effective way to keep your distance anyway, so the whole “be effective at range” thing you’re trying to sell people on is completely moot.
Rangers are bad enough as it is. Please don’t teach players how not to play a ranger by making these ridiculously counterproductive traits and skills.
Great, so they hid that bit in another forum announcement that is incredibly easy to overlook.
None of the merchants said anything about leaving.
There was no in-game indication or any logical reason that people would no longer need their belongings in the aftermath.
They could have at least put it in the launcher announcements.
Was it seriously so hard to do in one of the dozen updates they made?
I literally have thousands of belongings now with nothing do with them. They better give us the option to trade them to the new merchant or something.
I suppose you complained about the Liandri achievements (defeating her and the orb one) too?
Liadri was extremely biased towards certain classes, so there was reason to complain. You could defeat her with any class, but many had to work a lot harder than others. Still, it was an actual achievement, a testament to your skill.
Knightfall is not an achievement. Being reliant on 140+ other people in a DPS test that’s only around for a couple of weeks is not an achievement, it is a lucky circumstance, because my skill in the event is next to irrelevant when the whole event is predisposed to failure. It’s only worse off that the whole thing has been bugged for the better part of a week.
Battle for Lion's Arch Open Issues and Tips
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Keneth.6490
Can we please just remove the stupid condition reflect mechanic from the knights so that all players can contribute, and the achievement actually becomes feasible on normal servers?
I get that someone’s really proud of that mechanic, but basically saying “no” to all non-zerker builds is the worst idea I’ve seen in the game since combat speed.
Can I do the Battle on my server please?
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Keneth.6490
So you would rather not be able to play at all but rather wait hours upon hours in queues?
Because that is basically the only other option.
Funny how those aren’t the only two options in literally every other MMO in existence.
Killed before she could answer anything because “We don’t care what you have to say!” brigade.
Frankly, I was happily part of that brigade. I’m just glad she’s dead and we don’t have to put up with her Mary Sue shenanigans anymore.
I don’t need answers, I need villains I’ll be looking forward to facing.
The real problem is getting on your server to even try to do this. Because it sure as hell isn’t gonna happen on overflow. At least in the previous release you could zone fast enough to get to your own server. I’ve been hanging around LA all evening today and didn’t even get a chance to leave overflow.
Anet needs to stop making achievements which depend solely on the server you happen to be on and the competency of other people. That’s not an achievement, it’s just a lucky circumstance. Especially in the case of these temporary content updates.
Guard, Aegis + Divine intervention = ez
Thank you, Judge’s Intervention lets you get there fast enough to make up for that split second before her attack. I completely forgot guards had that.
6th try now.
6th? I’ve tried it like 15 times now. Literally nothing works. That attack bypasses stability, dodge, invulnerability, everything. It just blasts you back and you gotta watch the whole kitten cutscene all over again. -____________________-
WHY would they make that stupid cutscene unskippable. I’m sick of wasting my time having to wait for this to play out and then getting owned by her bull abilities that bypass stability and dodging in 5 seconds like it was nothing.
I hate Anet so much sometimes. Like the character wasn’t annoying enough already.
The basic problem is that ANet thinks people will run these events to play the event that they made. Unfortunately the majority of the population thinks like you and only cares about virtual wealth and prosperity. If they’re not getting the most virtual money out of their real life time they can’t have fun, because fun=wealth. Doubly unfortunate is that for ANet fun=making interesting content and stories, not handing out as much wealth as players can hold.
It is an unfortunate problem that may not have a legitimate solution.
No, you see, you got that wrong. People don’t care (solely) about wealth, people care about rewards. If you put in the time, you expect to be rewarded accordingly. Yeah, sure, the fun is part of that reward, but you’re expected to be repeating the same content over and over. What little fun there is (it’s a swing and a miss with Anet, especially since Scarlet was introduced) quickly loses its charm, leaving only the material rewards, and the simple fact is, people don’t want to waste their time for a chance to play the lottery. We want to feel like the time we’re investing actually amounts to something.
The really sad part is that Anet’s promise of keeping RNG to a minimum in GW2 is running ever more thin. A lot of the cool rewards these days are either almost impossible to get (absurdly large amounts of required tokens/materials or a random chance so low most people will never hit it), or shoved into the gem store with the ever-rising prices of gems. If you’re filthy rich, you can pretty much pay for most of it, but it never feels like an actual reward when you have to buy it, even if you got the gold as part of the content.
and the widespread misunderstanding that reaching the 1200 treshold would not be worth it
How is that a misunderstanding? I’ve opened dozens of these “ultimate” bags, and the best I got were a few worthless exotics. On the other hand, I can farm over a stack of normal bags in each event, along with a bunch of other drops and champ bags. Not to mention all the XP and karma from events. If I’m gonna waste 45 min of my time, I’m gonna waste it on something that’s actually profitable.
Oh, the 1200 bag gives you a infinitesimal chance of getting a jetpack? Hold the presses! Why don’t I just run around like an idiot for the better part of an hour so I can play the lottery. I’m better off running dungeons, bosses, or even fractals and hoping for a precursor drop.
The focus of the event it still to rescue as many of the citizens as possible. This is not an interpretation, it’s the entire point of this addition to the living story.
Oh, so that’s why the merchants offer you the Thoughtless Potion. Clearly Anet didn’t design this content knowing full well that a bunch of people won’t give a rat’s arse about the citizens. I mean, what are those people thinking!
I wish it was harder, actually.
I have had no trouble with any part of the jumping puzzle. That includes the gift boxes which follow a pretty easy pattern, although it does seem more random than last year.
I can consistently do over 10 runs before the timer runs out by jumping only with my mouse hand. If I use both hands, it’s fairly easy to get 15+ runs.
As the OP said, he played fractals 20 times and still didn’t get all the fractals. That’s not a very far-fetched scenario.
There are three boss fractals. Assuming an equal chance of getting each one, the probability of not getting one of them in 20 runs is about 0.03%, so I’d say it is a pretty far-fetched scenario.
Which is not to say that it’s impossible, but it’s hardly something that a lot of people are gonna have a problem with.
I don’t really see a reason to bring the achievements back. The meta reward was pitiful at best, and the achievements themselves weren’t worth so much that one should feel bad about skipping one or two, other than from a purely completionist standpoint.
This thread only really shows that for every 1 that hates Scarlet, there is 1 that also likes her.
Actually it’s more like for every 2 people that don’t like her, there’s 1 that does like her (or at least tolerates her). Even if the ratio was 1:1, the fact that a whole 50% of consumers don’t like the character is not a good thing by any standards. Also, seeing as she’s currently the “main” villain, since the dragons are apparently having a tea party and scratching their collective asses, the story needs her to be exceptional character to fill the role, not some poorly written, barely tolerated mess that’s compensating by being all-powerful for no apparent reason.
Readers may like or not a character, but they can’t expect to tell authors how to write their books.
GW2 story is not some fanfic. Here in the real world, there are many people involved in the creative process, the most important of which are the people who are giving you money. Games, and the vast majority of books as well for that matter, are written for people, not the author’s self-gratification, so you can be damn sure that we can expect to tell the author how to write the story. Criticism is the only way both sides can profit, the only bad thing you can do for an author is to say nothing.
You can’t choose your enemies, you know.
We can chose our enemies, actually. We can also ignore content, express our dissatisfaction with it, and/or quit playing the game because our perfectly valid concerns are falling on deaf ears.
That’s what people are doing. En masse. To date, about 90% of my friends list is no longer active because the game is heading in all the wrong directions. In spite of all the constructive criticism given at every point in the development, it’s always one step forward and two steps back. And it’s not okay. Not if they want to keep their playerbase.
People who like Scarlet are the distinct minority. Even my 8-year old niece recognized how badly written this whole thing is. I don’t expect ArenaNet to write the next Lord of the Rings. I do expect their writers to, at the very least, follow some basic principles of quality fiction writing and character design.
Signed wholeheartedly.
We were promised dragons, and what we got was the most poorly written Mary Sue villain I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’ve played and read a lot of fantasy stories over the last 30 years, so that’s saying something.
I tolerated her during the Clockwork Chaos, but she should have been killed there and then, and the story reins passed on to someone who actually knows anything about writing quality fiction.
Every new story arc is just another predictable disappointment. Please stop.
So you want a reward that gives people that missed this arc of the living story a disadvantage? Putting real advantages onto limited time items is quite stupid.
How is it an advantage when I clearly proposed that it ought to be functionally no better than the dodge-jump which is already possible? Have you even read my post, or did you just decide it wasn’t worth straining your gray matter? If anything, it would level the playing field for people who have trouble performing a dodge-jump with the standard method. Plus, there’s nothing preventing the devs from including a different means of acquisition post-event, just like with the Ancient Karka Shell which is still available for 1000 shells.
I merely suggested that the reward be something that is not entirely subject to taste and has a function that most players are gonna want to use. I don’t play tanks, so Sentinel Gloves are of no real use to me, and I don’t need yet another skin in my storage that I’m never gonna use, especially not one that I can’t even sell to make a little bit of profit and buy myself something I actually want or need.
Rewarding your players is a subtle art—I should know, I’ve been a DM in PnP games for decades—and finding the right kind of reward is based mostly on experience. I am voicing my dissatisfaction so that the developers are aware that there are players who are not happy. Otherwise there’s no way they’ll ever learn how to please a larger part of their customer base, it’ll always be just hit-and-miss.
Let me begin by saying that I enjoyed the living story content quite a bit. It started somewhat too slow, months of foreshadowing with generic “do this 500 times” tasks are not really fun (not to mention the whole “let the refuges die so we can rez them” bit), but the last two content updates made up for it. The arc ended with a bang (literally), and the dungeon was challenging and well made.
What was really a huge disappointment, however, was the reward at the end. Not the chest rewards, those are fine, I’m talking about Fused Gauntlets. Never mind the fact that there’s only one appearance for all three armor classes, so if you don’t like them, you might as well throw them in the storage for eternity, but those things just don’t give me any satisfaction as a reward since they’re functionally just standard exotic Sentinel Gloves. I really liked the reward in the Lost Shores, you got a 20-slot bag and a kickass unique accessory, both of which were very useful and appreciated. Compared to that, I don’t really want to use the fused gauntlets on any of my 8 characters.
I noticed there’s a jetpack skin as a possible drop from the chest at the end. If you really wanted to give players a unique reward, you could have created a usable jetpack that gives players a double jump ability. Not a full jump, that would trivialize jumping puzzles, just a small boost, like the equivalent of a dodge-jump, just with a different activation (for people who aren’t keen on pressing two buttons at the same time). That would have been a good reward and far more appropriate for having raided a weapons/tech facility.
Obviously the point is moot now, but I’m hoping the reward in the next story arc will be something more than “here’s a skin, if you don’t like it, that’s tough luck for you.”