Guild Wars 2

Dusty Moon.4382:

Like Rift? That game was so messed up when the developers listened to whiners on the forum. It is an accident waiting to happen.

There is nothing wrong with constructive comments but most on this forum post, ‘I want the developers to answer my question’. This is not a question/answer session.

Give good decent criticism with information to back it up. Just don’t say, ‘BECAUSE I WANT IT’. Unfortunately, people on this forum are the latter not the former.

Actually, developers listening to players was one of the best parts of Rift (I can’t speak to whether it still is). I don’t know where people are coming up with this notion that Rift hurt itself by listening to players. They made the game better in countless situations by listening to player feedback.

That’s kind of been their calling card, is their ability to listen.

Does it mean the game is amazing? Not necessarily. But on the listening front, they have done remarkably well compared to other MMOs on the market and it helped them a lot.

Wanted to see what I could do with light, so I came up with this.

Pieces are:
- Acolyte Mask
- Cabalist Shoulders
- Masquerade Rainments
- Winged Gloves
- Primitive Legwraps
- Aristocrat’s Shoes

Weapons:
- Godskull Edge (MH)
- Norn Pistol (OH)

Dye is Midnight Sky.

chemiclord.3978:

And right there is what I dispute.

Because you DON’T have a “special kind of relationship”, and to be perfectly blunt and cold… you never did. “AAA” games are as much a business as movies, TV, music or any other form of entertainment. At the end of the day, no matter how much you think you are “invested”, the developers do not see you in the same way. They will do whatever they think will make them money, not what will make forum goers glow happily.

The emotional investment is ENTIRELY one-sided. Arena.net is a company. You are just a customer. If you are looking for the earnest interaction that comes from a handful of people just trying to create a fun experience for the niche they’ve settled on, then the indie scene is over in the corner of the Internet over there.

But in this section of the pool, don’t fool yourself. The “AAA” experience requires big money. It is corporate gray. It is big business, and people like you and I, my friend, are just a number.

Obviously devs can’t listen to every player because that’s just unrealistic, but I have seen situations where devs listen to certain individuals. I think you misunderstand; I’m not saying that we as individual players are particularly important. What I’m saying is that as a consumer base, feedback is more important than in most industries.

A lot of gamers have a pretty good idea of what they want out of a game, so they say what it is. It’s not like that in a lot of industries. To give you an example of the contrast, I have read a lot of fiction books, but the best I could tell you about what I enjoy from one is sci-fi/fantasy-ish and good characters – which is just a genre and a vague mention of quality.

Games have the benefit of being fairly transparent as to what you like or don’t like; a lot of it is segmented, so you can see, “Oh, I do like jumping puzzles, but I don’t like fighting other players” (or whatever the case may be).

Lilith Ajit.6173:

The one piece skins you can apply for free that you can’t alter except for dyeing are what I am calling “outfits”. Like the assassin’s outfit or ancestral.

CyClotroniC.4957:

He means complete outfits that don’t consist of armor parts, like these to be specific:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Outfits

Ahh ok, thanks!

Could you give an example of an “outfit”? I’m not sure what you mean on the restrictions.

chemiclord.3978:

If there is one thing that REALLY irritates me about gamers, is this idea that they are somehow owed, or should expect transparency or a road map. Gamers continue to push this narrative that they are somehow in a “relationship” or a “partnership” with the games and the developers.

You. Are. Not.

You are nothing more than a CUSTOMER. Period. One of millions of people. You are owed nothing but the product you purchased, a product you have been given for the money that has been exchanged. Anything you get beyond that is merely an added bonus.

Get it through your skulls. They do NOT have to listen to you. They do NOT have to do what you request. While it may certainly be a good idea to keep an ear on what your customers are saying, they are under ZERO obligation to comply to anything you say.

If you absolutely cannot accept the policies of a company, if you honestly think they are not listening to your wants and are actively ignoring you, you walk away and stop supporting that company.

THAT is your power. Nothing more.

On the one hand, I agree with you completely; we are entitled to nothing and short of an organized mass exodus from a game, we really have no way to impact their bottom line.

On the other hand, I think games have a special kind of relationship between player and developer because of the way they are constructed; with MMOs in particular, they are updated and changed to improve them, and often the active community gets some feature requests fulfilled somewhere along the line.

The reason this makes sense is that games are a highly subjective product; they aren’t like cars, for example, where certain kinds of objective functionality are going to be highly desired no matter what. Games can be a lot of different things for a lot of different people, so to a certain extent, the manufacturers have to be in touch with the customers, or else they are slinging colors at a canvas at random.

Granted, some of that “in touch” can be through metrics and that’s where the whole “we’re going to change the game by providing feedback” mentality goes sailing out the window and crashes into the nearest telephone pole. But I think it’s healthy for these companies to be “in touch” in a personable way because, quite frankly, when they are, they’re already 2 steps ahead of half the industry. And that endears them to players very quickly.

So yes, they don’t have to do kitten when it comes to communication. And maybe it won’t mean a thing for their profit margin because the other options out right now are comparatively poor for a lot of people. But the opposite – having good communication – will yield positive results. I can pretty much guarantee that.

It’s just a question of, “Are they willing to spend the extra time to get those positive results?”

nightwulf.1986:

This all sounds reasonable. I’m still stuck on the issue of how this is accomplished for issues they aren’t ready to discuss. I get the feeling these ideal circumstances are more likely to be met for a) scripted interviews or b) interviews discussing things already announced. I just don’t see how trying to get devs to talk about unannounced features is ever going to be fruitful. I’m open to suggestions if someone has an idea on how to accomplish this or feel that I’m going about this matter the wrong way.

For issues they aren’t ready to discuss period, they can just not talk about them. But I don’t think that’s going to be many issues, honestly. You can say a few words about most things without handing over the current development plans. Just ask politicians. :P

It’s more of an unintentional troll than an exploit, considering how easy it is to screw over the people that are trying to do it.

And now that you’ve posted about it, it will probably get trolled even more in its last legs of existing before a fix comes firing in, by a crowd of people who somehow believe that two wrongs make a right.

nightwulf.1986:

Let them know exactly what it is you want from this sort of communication. Where do you want the lines drawn?

I don’t remember what it was called, but I thought the german video interview with the lead design guy (I’m forgetting his actual title) was solid communication.

In my experience, good communication from game developers includes (but is not limited to) one or more of the following:
1) Succinct and pointed answers about implementation of requested features, or modifications to existing features.
2) Hints of what is to come (or could come) in a way that generates excitement (sometimes hints are all that can be given, but they are also sometimes all that is needed).
3) Sufficient knowledge of the development path (and few enough restrictions for talking about it) to answer questions that are asked (should be a no-brainer, but humans are human).

And that’s really about it. I think the main problem is that they don’t have a go-to-guy (or gal) with the right amount of knowledge, greenlights, and time to address peoples’ questions.

Yeah, that’s the thing. I don’t think it’s fair at all to those particular employees. But for Anet to make an oversight like this in communication reflects poorly on the operation of the company, not those two employees (especially considering Anet’s apparent trend with communication).

And I think the criticism of the company itself and the answers that were given is warranted – I don’t think the sky is falling or that it’s the fault of those two employees, but poor communication is poor communication, regardless of the cause.

Vayne.8563:

Okay reality check. The people answering this interview are the end game guy and a WvW guy. They probably expected the interview to be about that.

These are the wrong guys for these specific questions. They might not even HAVE the answers and they tried to answer as best they could.

Well right. That’s my point. The whole interview screams, “We are way out of our comfort zone here. Halp.”

Vayne.8563:

Fans: Anet never communicates with us.
Anet: Says stuff fans don’t want to hear.
Fans: Why even bother answering the interview.

Give me a break.

Well there’s saying stuff people don’t want to hear and then there’s skirting around questions with answers that sound like they’re coming from overworked, shy developers who really aren’t comfortable talking publicly about their work, much less figuring out what can and can’t be said in the process.

I have seen people articulate “no’s” infinitely better than that interview.

chemiclord.3978:

I do apologize, because the shot was misdirected and it was not appropriate.

It just gets… tiring (that’s the word I’m looking for), that every time Arena.net says ANYTHING, be it in an interview or feature pack post, or stream, or whatever… players come out of the woodwork screaming like Chicken Little that Arena.net doesn’t care, they’re lazy, they don’t listen, they hate their fans, it’s the end of the world, the game is going to die tomorrow if they don’t change their mind, etc… etc…

I get it, you’re not getting what you want and you don’t like the reason given. But for crying out loud, they’re not doing it to spite you. Their reason is given, and frankly, I’m more willing to buy the reasons given of the people with the code right in front of them and the limitations they have than the legion of armchair developers who have decided “NO! YOU’RE WRONG!”

Then in two months time, the rage froths over, just in time for another statement to stir up all the dander all over again. It’s like people on this forum (and the Internet as a whole, I suppose) WANT to be angry, and will seek out reasons to rage like a hatred-seeking missile.

It’s just tiring. And I’m sorry for lashing out.

Hey, no worries man. I think it happens on every game’s forum.

But honestly, tiring is probably the same thing that some of these long-time players are encountering; tired of hoping for certain improvements and getting bad news instead. I know the feeling of sticking it out with a game way longer than I would on my own time because of the people I know, friends I’ve made, etc.

So sometimes it looks like baseless chronic complaining, but it can also be people who really just want the best for the game and have too much stake in it to leave easily.

Edit: And you are right that there is a lot of attempted armchair development that goes nowhere. I have mixed feelings concerning that; there are some great ideas sometimes from people who are closely in tune with a game and the community – but more often than not, suggestions are not looking at the larger picture or missing important data that would change the landscape.

I have seen enough suggestions in games that did yield positive results to know that once in a while, players do have some valuable ideas. After all, many of these industry veterans are players from the old days of games who found their way into development.

chemiclord.3978:

And here we have further evidence why Arena.net doesn’t talk to their fans.

Every time they do, the players lose their kitten.

Not exactly… people are getting annoyed because Anet is basically saying nothing 90% of the time and then popping in at 10% to give a lot of bad news. Also, a lot of what was said in that interview could have been said in like 2 sentences per question on the forums.

For example, SAB answer can be summed up as, “We feel it would detract from the more serious direction we’re taking the living story in, so at this time, we have no plans to bring it back. But we hope that with this new direction, the living story will be an experience that is more memorable and vivid than what you’ve seen before.”

I feel kinda bad for these guys because it’s clear that their area of expertise is making games and they were not trained for communicating with the public but are being asked to do so anyway.

Good thoughts so far guys.

It seems the main point of contention here is that people believe “no prestige” will not dissuade folks whose only intention is to troll or use the tag as a cosmetic piece.

I think if that part is handled, then there is no major reason remaining for them to be costly.

I like the ideas you have, Mithran, though I’m afraid there is too much to it, which means the development time would be difficult for them to justify. Is there a way we can simplify some of those ideas? Perhaps this alone would be enough to address the troll problem:

Whenever you block a commander, their tag won’t show for you.
Add a limit of 6 public tags in PvE maps. Increase the limit to one per scoring location in WvW.
After the limit has reached, a player with less players blocking them will have priority to show their tag over someone else.

Or at least, is a good premise for it. But I’m also not sure that restricting people is the right way to go about it; I think that mainly the feature could use a more overt indication of its functionality.

Perhaps some sort of cost for using it that would not hurt an actual commander, but would discourage random people from popping it. The fundamental problem with the one-time cost (something I believe we need to get rid of, regardless of what alternative we get) is that it only discourages poor/casual players from getting a tag – rich kittens will still be rich kittens.

For example (and this is just a brainstorming idea) a way to do it that could help guilds specifically is:
- Make tags cost a certain amount of Influence to activate for a duration (something like 24 hours, unless you choose to de-tag before then, in which case you’d get back a portion of your spent Influence).
- Along with this, you would need certain guild permissions to activate a tag on yourself or another member of your guild.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Is this the future of the MMO genre?

I think it’s more like “the present” of the MMO genre and the sad reality is that these games keep repeating other games because apparently their standard techniques – some of the same ones that we love to hate – are effective. (Plus a lot of the same devs end up working on these games, so there’s that too.)

These companies kind of have their hooks in you when the only thing you’re required to pay for is the box (if not less). It becomes a matter of, “If I want to play an MMO for free, I have to find the one that is screwing me over the least.”

The main trouble with games like these is that once they’re driven by a cash shop, there is no security from long-term subscriptions, so development is just as much a battle of improving the game as it is a battle to stay afloat. In an ideal world (ok, more like a dream world) devs would be able to improve these games at their own rate, without being super concerned about making sure that money keeps coming in.

It’s kind of like the presidency problem in the US; presidency only lasts for 4 years, so the president can’t really plan to fix the country long-term – he/she instead has to focus mostly on getting reelected and not tanking in polls.

CeruleanRevolver.6085:

Play the game, :p

Run dungeons, sell drops etc. Comes up to average 10g a day in a few hours.

Oh ok, I see where I was confused. You have a different conception of what “a few days” is. I have no trouble making as much as 10 gold a day if I put the time in, but that takes ten days worth of it just to get 100 gold.

Even pushing it and managing 20 gold a day (avg) would still take five days to reach a single hundred.

Perhaps I’m taking your “hundreds” remark too literally?

Ragion.2831:

Its funny how for a lot of people, combining armour has turned to an art. I mean look at this, im very restless about finishing this look.

I wish transmuting didn’t have to cost something. I think I would lose myself in wardrobe if it was free to change your look.

Xiahou, I believe it’s the principle of the matter that’s being questioned here and not so much the choices you could make as an individual. People say stuff like, “Just make money off of the impatient people and then make it later,” but for one thing prices don’t always go significantly down and for another, the insinuation is that the impatient people are “doing it wrong” and you’re “taking advantage of them.” Which just sounds messed up to begin with when we’re talking about a video game that’s supposed to be fun.

But that aside, the OP’s point – as I interpreted it – was more that the principle of putting a bloodstone dust sink behind a costly grind / timesink is kind of wacky.

Yargesh.4965:

100 is very very easy now, 300 will be very very easy in the near future. Money (gold) in game is not the hardest thing to get your hands on.

The problem is, as some have explained in other threads, the people who do WvW most of the time are barely breaking even on coin with all of the consumables and siege stuff that they buy – not to mention the fact that they are the main crowd who was asking for the colors – so it is a losing situation for them.

The problem with a monetary barrier to something like this is that it attracts people to investing in the tag for the wrong reasons. I can make gold at a decent rate, but unless I was rich, I would not even consider dropping 100-300 gold on a tag. If I knew that I wanted to lead other players during most of my play time, that might justify it, but the truth is, you can lead people without a tag just fine (people have been doing it in games for years); it is a feature that eases keeping large groups on track, particularly without voice communication software (a convenience, essentially).

So as a convenience feature, I would expect it to be convenient for leaders to obtain. Otherwise, it doesn’t fulfill its purpose as a feature.

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

First there should be option to untag some idiots specialy for www(but also pve voting to tag down and this person cant tag for next 10 min ) and reduce number of tags running on single map . Lets say they add 4 colors+different guild tags(visable only to guild mates+cmds taged up on border). And if there is blue cmd you cant tag as blue cmd . Lets be serious I have never seen event which requires more then 4 tags so even if they give us 5 it will be fine . PVE cmds are best one LOL it looks like map full of brainless farmers.

Yeah, I see what you mean. The PvE “tag cause I can” crowd seems to be the worst of it. Perhaps some kind of feature to /activate and /deactivate tag display (on your screen) for a particular person would be enough as an anti-obnoxious-tag-use measure?

Serophous.9085:

Can someone link me the full article on the commander tag changes since the Dev post isn’t out yet?

Here you go: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2djnv8/interview_with_devon_carver_commander_tag_will_be/

I will edit it into the OP as well.

With the upcoming tags changes that we’ve been hearing about, a lot of people have been decrying the apparent 300 gold cost for each color. Many are pointing out that the WvW people – the main crowd who would benefit from colors – are going to be struggling to afford these tags to properly utilize them.

On the other hand, it seems there is an issue with people abusing the existing commander tag as a mark of wealth and prestige. And although making the tags cost a lot means less potential for people abusing them in some way, it also hurts those who just want a tag to operate more effectively as a leader.

What I propose
Make commander tags extremely easy to obtain. They don’t have to actually cost nothing as the title says, but I propose giving them a barrier that is easily surmountable by even the poorest players.

Why?
If people are abusing tags as a prestige item, then making them cost nothing will mean that there’s nothing prestigious about them anymore.

This has two benefits:
1) Less reason for people to use commander tags for something other than the intended functionality.
2) Low barrier of access for players who want to use them for the intended purpose.

But what about trolls, etc.? Won’t everyone start wearing a tag?
The concern here is that if tags have no significant barrier to obtaining them, then everyone and their mother will put one up just for the heck of it.

However, I don’t think this would be a problem at all most of the time. If there is nothing prestigious about wearing a tag, then most people will have no motivation to wear one. Furthermore, we should have some faith that this community would be largely cooperative about delegating tag use to those who actually want to lead.

In fact, the only time I have run across a large number of people putting up tags to be obnoxious also included those people talking about how special and unique they are, so it was clearly driven by the “prestige” problem.

Thanks for reading. Add your thoughts. Please be constructive – let’s get this feature on the right track.

Edit: Here is the link to the article on the color tags for those who have not seen it – http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2djnv8/interview_with_devon_carver_commander_tag_will_be/

lordkrall.7241:

Well, as have been said after every single S2 release (since this exact thread have been created multiple times after each one) they did it this way because otherwise people would focus on the achievements, miss out on the story and then whine about not understanding the story.

Where did they say this? This is a poor justification from the way you’re wording it.

I am super frugal in real life, but I burn through gold like mad in comparison. I try to stay over 50 at least – once I pass a certain threshold, it feels weird to burn way below it. But there are so many things to spend gold on in this game, compared to other games I’ve played, so I am constantly gaining it and spending it.

Have you bought any other Charr T1 armor (the medium or heavy)? All I can think of is that I got confused once, thinking you’d be able to buy each T1 set and get credit, but you actually have to buy one full set of T1,_ T2, and T3 for the full 18 for that race.

So it winds up being a very costly achievement.

The problem is that although adding new weapons or expanding the use of old ones is (probably) simple to do with their existing system, doing so would have a huge impact on class balance. Which means they need to have time to do major balancing patches both during and after the adding of these new weapons, or else competitive play would likely become a mess.

I mean, say each class gets to use another weapon now, a two-handed – that’s 5 new abilities for each class, for a total of 40 new abilities to balance. And the unfortunate part of balancing and abilities is that people always come up with builds you couldn’t have predicted, and then you have to nerf them.

CeruleanRevolver.6085:

Personally I thought the scavenger hunt process is pretty interesting, and for all we know this is Anet testing on the feasibility of a precursor crafting trial.

Gold sinks? I dunno, I spent 100s of gold on skins and stuff, then in the next few days I find myself with 100s of gold to spend again. Perhaps google up gold sinks and understand what it actually is before hating it.

I’d love to know what you’re doing that’s just “finding yourself” with hundreds of gold in a matter of days.

Morte.5916:

Why can’t I craft them in much the same way as gloves, with whatever inscriptions I want, at under 10g for an exotic?

Good question. I’d love to know the rationale behind back items not being a craftable item. I imagine it has to have been asked somewhere along the line.

It’s only a publicity stunt if you don’t do it tastefully. There’s nothing wrong with tributes as long as they are tributes at heart and not tainted by other things.

It’s plausible, though it would be really lame because everyone would be going, “We would have punted him off a cliff earlier if you’d just given us the option!”

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Labjax.2465:

Anyone with a working brain can see that when it comes to precursors, the gap created from rarity and difference in demand is completely absurd.

TIL I don’t have a working brain. (Yes, I’m joking, but perhaps the above poster can tune down the incendiary rhetoric and still make their point.)

Yes, I could have put it more kindly. But in context, I’m responding to someone who is generalizing an entire group of people and saying that they don’t understand the market, so I felt a little aggressiveness was warranted.

Obviously not everyone is going to be aware of precursor prices and they are not stupid if they don’t see it. But a quick glance at the difference between Dawn selling for 1.1k gold and Rodgort’s selling for a little over 100 gold is a monster-sized difference in price.

And it’s entirely driven by demand.

I think one of the simpler ideas they could play around with (as a sort of “here’s something to ease the pain”) would be to make the weapon type that is returned to you only be random if you are mixing 1 or more different weapons out of your 4. So if you put 4 greatswords in, you would get back a guaranteed greatsword, for example.

My instinct is that this would alleviate some of the frustration of finding the precursor you desire and bring down the sell prices a bit for the high demand precursors. The only downside I can see at the moment is that you might see a distinct lack of less-desired precursors for sale at all.

I just want to say, after seeing Trahearne again in the latest Episode, I’m finding that he’s doing the opposite of growing on me – I dislike him more as time goes on LOL.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The whole point to this is that there’s nothing wrong with current Precursor prices. All Precursors have the same drop rate as other Precursors. One you can buy for 90 Gold, the other you can buy for 1,500 Gold. All the complaints about Anet not “fixing” the market come from people who don’t understand the market.

It’s the same scenario with rare and exotic drops, but you only see greatswords (one of the highest demand weapons) being about 40 more silver in the case of rares and something like 3 gold more in the case of exotics (on average) – compared to other weapon types.

But you don’t see people complaining about the rares and exotics because the gap is completely manageable. Anyone with a working brain can see that when it comes to precursors, the gap created from rarity and difference in demand is completely absurd. It is Anet’s responsibility to make this gap more reasonable by giving players a reliable way to obtain the specific precursor that they’re looking for (other than buying off the TP).

Ravenhunt.2735:

I’ve crafted the backitem on the first day in the first houeres of the patch. Yes… im crazy…
And i dont used a guide for it.
You can do this without any outside resources.
But you have to think a little bit… and this is a point many players forget.
They ask everything… they dont read… dont look… and so they dont know what to do when the information is not directly on the table.

When you wont craft it, dont do it.
Its to expensive? Dont craft it.
You want it? You have to “pay”/“farm” whatever.

Its a ascended backpiece.
Every of this backpieces cost a bunch of mats or time.

You will get it without any work? Well…
You have to do more than just farm foxfire clusters.
But so much players are angry about everything.
I liked the way to craft it. The last steps are awesome.
But no… all is bad… blabla.

And you dont know what the item do?
Well… its a backpiece, ascendet… what information is unclear about such a item?
Only Mawdrey II was not clear. And this is only a funny item you get for free when it comes with the backpiece.
A hint to a movie.

I think it’s funny when people somehow turn “grind is too much” into “I don’t want to put in any effort.” I mean, is there some kind of association between complaining and laziness that people just automatically assume is present?

I guess all of the thought and time that some people put into writing constructive complaints is not enough testament to the fact that they’re not just asking for handouts.

Kalavier.1097:

No, the main complaint I see here looks to be more like “Why can’t I completely screw over the summit and kitten off the Asura rep who agreed to possibly come to the meeting. kitten thieving adults robbing from disabled children. CURSE THEM ALL!”

I can see possibly talking about granting more rights to Taimi over it, or at least making sure she’s involved in any tech problems about it… but I’m seeing people saying they’d rather completely lose the Asura race support instead of having Taimi give up a device.

Where?

Vayne.8563:

Well I doubt there’s only one reason why Rift went downhill.

No doubt. I was just present for most of it and I don’t recall feeling like their listening to the playerbase detracted from the direction of the game (there were some moments probably, but nothing major that comes to mind). I think like most games, there were some fundamental design choices they made that hurt the game in a big way, and there was really no going back from it.

The main problem I recall was that too much of ones activity in that game hinged on vertical gear progression – there was no support for competitive PvP and although they added something similar to WvW later on, it didn’t have the same kind of tools that this game does for encouraging a thriving community of people playing for the game, rather than for the rewards.

Fluff content was next to nonexistent for too long and most content relied on pushing people into it to get rewards, which meant you would be bored as kitten once you got said rewards.

Not that it’s dead or anything. AFAIK, it’s still going pretty strong. But yeah, that is my take on it from memory.

My preference (since magic find is not anywhere close to being maxed) is to salvage them for the luck that I get. If you’re going for short-term profit, you’re probably better off selling them (I have heard of people vendoring them rather than selling on TP, but haven’t checked the numbers on most items for that myself).

I’m going for the long-term gain from better loot chance, so that’s why I salvage.

Vayne.8563:

Rift is mediocre because Trion listened to the wrong people. Listening to your customers assumes they know as much as you do. That’s not always the case.

No, Rift went steadily downhill over a long period of time because it had a number of fundamental problems with its design that ate away at the longevity of the playerbase.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this game has some of that too.

Boneheart.3561:

I wouldn’t call what Faux typed “critique”.
Lacking or complete, it represents their talent. I’ll not stand by while someone hurls insults because of the possibility that it isn’t affecting their target.

No, calling it crappy wasn’t critique and I don’t blame you for standing up for other people. Under different circumstances I might be doing the same.

I just don’t think calling it crappy is harsh or means much of anything. For all we know, he could be saying that the item itself is simply unappealing overall, not that the art is poorly made.

Personally, I would almost laugh if I created something and someone said, “It’s crap” with no other information. My reaction would just be like, “Why exactly? The hell does that even mean?” It’s kind of hard to take offense to something like that.

Arnath.2319:

If they do not have precursor crafting this patch this game is dead to me.

It is disgusting that the number one most requested feature since the games launch has been delayed for this long.

I would also like to see new legendary weapons added, different weapons added to classes, significant class balance and new armour sets.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/gw2-precursor-recipe-scavanger-hunt-news/first#post3780700

Lostwingman.5034:

Stop being so logical. The forum is too busy crying that we didn’t side with the child going into brat mode.

I don’t know why I bother, but I’ll say it once again: The main complaint here was the lack of any option to have your own personality. The fact that people disagree on whether to side with Taimi is testament to why personality options are good.

You would expect this sort of “can’t do anything about it” character disagreement from a TV show or a book, not a video game.

Boneheart.3561:

This is somebody’s baby. Someone drew this item, and quite possibly the same person designed it’s model, and at the end thought ’I’m so proud of this design’. Then you took all of two seconds to flip them off. Everyone knows you won’t be liked by everyone, but we’re still made of flesh and that kitten stings.

Have some godkitten civility, please.

I kind of agree with you in that these are human beings, not machines, whose work we criticize. But on the other hand, as someone who has artistic inclinations, I can be 10x more critical of my own work than other people ever will and if you’re in the thick of a development process, you may not actually have time to get your idea to a point that you’re fully satisfied with it.

So although the scenario you described is possible, it’s equally possible that someone made it and wasn’t satisfied with the final product, but had to say it was done anyway because of time constraints.

Artistic people tend to have stuff that they are really proud of and stuff that just didn’t happen right to them, and you might be surprised sometimes which projects they’re most proud of – often, it will have little to do with how well or poorly it was received.

Zackie.8923:

i don’t get the pvp pve split stuff.

it’s like people who pvp are not playing guild wars 2 in the eyes of the pve people

It happens in every game, it would seem, and still doesn’t make sense years later. The silliest part of it is that PvE involves a lot of different things with players who have different mindsets – anything from jump puzzles to organized dungeons. And in GW2, PvP involves different things with different mindsets – WvW, which is, as I understand it, more about long-term strategy than direct confrontation. Or sPvP, which is, as I understand it, more about short-term competitive matchups.

Point is, a certain crowd of people love to lump both of them into single-glob definitions that are supposed to magically cover a kittenload of people with varying expectations and preferences concerning the game.

It’s kind of like the whole Democrat-Republican divide in American politics. It’s a farce more than anything, used to push agendas. You can’t lump everybody into these shoehorned definitions of play, or claim that the devs are favoring one definition over another, when the reality is that most game modes aren’t going to get a lot of attention, regardless of what definition they fit; it’s just the way development works.

VOLTCIEAGE.3029:

but if i know that i am not good basketball player I dont go to world championship and I dont cry over it on forums that they should lower hoops to make it easier for me . I just realise that I can practice more to win or just understand it that it is not for me . Some people here think that if they bought game it means that they deserve everything what is inside , no it is not . Switch sport or dont expect reaching every reward , this thing is called life , sometimes it is brutal sorry

Analogy fails. It’s actually more like going to a super-mega-large gym built to appeal to all levels of skill and requesting that their hoops and courts are built accordingly.

I mean, if you think the living story quests are an analogy for the world championship, then LOL. They are more like a pick-up game or something. And quite frankly, if it was reversed and I was playing basketball instead of a video game, I’d probably be the guy with his head bent down in the corner in shame because I can’t play for kitten.

But you don’t want people to feel that way in a video game because people who feel that way don’t come back. That’s why you try not to put them in situations where they feel like a moron for not succeeding easily; which is not to say that you hand them victory, but you have to inspire them to desire to keep trying until they succeed and then make them feel like they’re an NBA all-star for pulling it off.

Tedious fights that look like the shell of a raid encounter gone wrong are not the way to go about it.

Enjoyed putting this together.

300 gold per for different color commander tags? Um…. LOL. I can die now. I’ve seen it all.

Crossplay.2067:

I’m wondering what grind you guys are talking about. I’m a day away from making the first back piece and I found it rather easy. I parked a few characters at the a ring of elder saplings that grows around a god statue and just farm them once every hour. With 7 characters, it takes about 3 to 5 minutes each cycle and I usually gain 3 to 5 foxfire per cycle. The rest of the time, I do whatever I want.

Was this supposed to be sarcastic lol? How is parking 7 characters in one spot and cycling through every hour not a grind?

Xiahou Mao.9701:

I’m happy to give the heads up. Better you realize it now.

Of course, I think you’d be better off trying to gather friends to try the organized group scenario first rather than just quitting outright, or trying to do it with random people. I’m not one for doing dungeons with random people, but I do know others in the game and will do dungeons with them. You should explore your options before giving up, at least. Who knows? Maybe you’ll have fun?

Well, I initially tried this game from the recommendation of someone who only ever played it casually and doesn’t really touch it anymore. And I have e-buddies that I could go play games with or I could just join a guild, but I don’t want that kind of obligation right now, however “small” it may actually be.

So I appreciate the effort to help, but it’s just a matter of what I’m looking for in games right now. I’m not saying I’m going to quit playing today and never come back, but I will probably find my way back to single-player or something.

uberkingkong.8041:

Dude don’t even talk about you not wanting to do organized group content. Tequatl is organized, those instances your in that aren’t organized end in failure. Triple Trouble is organized, extremely high failure rate even while organized.

If you had to do Triple Trouble for this, I’m sure you’d be whining again about “oooh why do I have to be in super organized group to get such and such”

FOTM isn’t even that hard until you get to high fractals. Nothing hard or super organized about running up to a tentacle, smacking it, grabing a crystal when you see something above your head, throwing it at maw.

Even easy dungeons like CoF Part 1 is organized, everyone has to get inside a pillar while 1 guy goes and smacks something until it breaks.

I’d rather do fractals anyday over high failure rate pve events like triple trouble to advance in getting a better backpiece.

This is a high quality item as well, least you don’t have to do any major raiding or anything, because I’d consider this raid quality gear in any other MMORPG. Yall whining about this are spoiled seriously.

Do you feel better now that you’ve put me down for having different preferences than you?

I helped run a raiding guild in another game for over 2 years and did every absurd grind that was necessary to keep up with our progression level – and often went above and beyond, to carry the weight of our less-skilled players. I’m no stranger to investing time and effort into a game. Nor have I ever been obsessed with gear progression (it is just a mini-game to me).

I just want to feel like I can participate in new stuff in an MMO, if I desire to do so. And my preferences for doing so are not fitting the picture in this instance, despite what my expectations were from the way it was released.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Well, they are being consistent, as I said. The entire personal story is build-up to an organized group dungeon. The original Living Story was entirely soloable up until the Molten Facility. The Living Story investigation of the murder of Theo Ashford was entirely soloable up until the Aetherblade Retreat. This isn’t anything new. Maybe you haven’t played all two years, but if so, consider yourself now informed that solo play and group play is going to overlap at times.

There is no warning at all that the personal story is going to end in a group dungeon until you see “Victory or Death” at the top-right of the screen in green and you realize what it entails.

Well it may be time for me to start looking for the door then, if that is their unchanging, unapologetic trend. Thanks for the heads up.

AdaephonDelat.3890:

Actually I’ve just started typing kitten to save the poor censorship bot from working too hard.

Me too, haha. It’s going to change my words anyway, might as well do it myself.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

It means that after two years you should have adjusted for it, or at least not be surprised by it. There is some content in this game that requires you to group with other players to complete it. No matter how much you might wish or plead, that’s not going to change.

Again, you should be thankful that you’re not missing out on story this time, rather than being upset that you have to do something you think you won’t enjoy to get a certain skin.

Excuse me, some of us haven’t been playing the game for two years and maybe that longevity is a little bit contingent on the people running this game not making choices that could have been avoided through learning from mistakes. Why in the heck would I spend two years “adjusting” to something that I dislike in the first place?

Also, your strawman is noted, “Ahhh, you got me!” Happy now? I never said that all content should be soloable. I’m talking about a highly specific piece of content that is handed to you through solo play and then (without any warning) leads to unavoidable organized group content.

It’s a simple matter of being consistent, rather than pulling a bait and switch.