Guild Wars 2

phys.7689:

Also I’m sorry but the dev comment was meant to placate, and she uses subjective phrases that no one can challenge.

We can both interpret those phrases in our own favour; you, because people needed to calm down and it was a good thing to say; me, because there’s been a lot of cases where “Completely New And Exciting!” turned out to be barely noticeable – the initial “smart” megaserver sorting as a good example, or the “increase” in ascended drops in Fractals which was statistically proven to be broken (if not a decrease), and so on. So I’ve seen enough to conclude that barely noticeable changes can really happen, even though they get a lot of attention from the PR point of view.

The only thing which can prove you or me wrong is a statistically significant sample from a trustworthy person. Which a 30 minute one is not.

Esplen.3940:

Dunno if they fixed it, but if you got a bundle equipped, it would “open” all your slots (the “Locked” skills were removed). This allows you to change your skills and equip skills before unlocking the slots.

At level 16, I was running around on my Thief with 4 Signets and a Mistfire Wolf (only equippable Elite pre 31).

I believe that was the intention of the change, but something went wrong.

Brother Grimm.5176:

I also NEVER use tonics, so that may also be a reason.

You get transformed in Dry Top (aspects), in Fractals, and you must be using bundles every now and then anyway. Some skills also transform you and change your skill bar.

MeGaZlo.9516:

I believe that such a thing would not hurt. But would not bring any benefit, as well. Therefore, it is simply useless. I have about 2.5 dozens of maxed characters, though I’m playing only 2-3 hours in the evenings.

“I don’t need it, so it’s useless!” Yeah, been there, seen that…

I’m happy for you that you have enough +20 scrolls and tomes of knowledge. But you know, not everybody played since beta or made all characters at their first day or plays only PvP daily. And these people do not have stacks of tomes. If I push it, I can get 2 tomes per evening from PvP; do you think I gonna enjoy 40 evenings of pure PvP as a primarily PvE player? Is it the definition of “fun”? That’s why we need alternative ways of leveling.

MeGaZlo.9516:

If u really want get 80lvl it can be done in 2-3 evenings. The game is oversaturated with all sorts of boosters and scrolls that simplify lvling several times. If you add the ability to lvl the characters without even logging on them, the game will turn into some kind of soulless grnid.

I’ve tried it. Leveled with boosters and food and such, but it’s impossible to level in 2-3 evening by only playing the character… which is, incidentally, that very soulless grind you mentioned.

MeGaZlo.9516:

And, what is worse, sink deeper into a completely armless comrades who absolutely do not understand their own profession and use everything that has no CD. Sure, you’ve seen these.

I’ve seen a 15k AP guy with a legendary and world completion who asked me “What’s a sharpening stone?” I’m also seeing the pew-pew knockbacking rangers daily and hate them. Will my change let more of these people play here? No.

If you look closely, the requirements for crafting an Experience Accumulator mean that you should play all aspects of the game for a long time and will most likely know the game well enough to learn a new profession in a couple of days.

MeGaZlo.9516:

What really would be useful – some kind of account level, such as what on WvW now, but more… global. (like “Paragon”, you know where)

…which is called “Achievement Points” and is considered by many to be the worst measure of experience of the player.

My guess is that the initial purpose of the change was to block the “exploit” of slotting in locked skills at low-levels when using bundles, but something went wrong and hiding of the arrows is now triggered incorrectly.

Khisanth.2948:

Different issue. Right now the arrows are always around. Even while I am in the middle of fighting a champion. The arrows just doesn’t ever go away.

Not always:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/out-of-Combat-bug
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/In-Combat-bug

These can appear in combat as well as disappear out of combat. It seems to randomly happen when using any kind of transforms and is most likely a bug.

phys.7689:

Lishtenbird.2814:

I do not think that 30 minutes are in any way a representative sample for such kind of statistics. I can get 3 exotics within one 30 minute window on one char and 0 on another char; does it mean that one of my characters will always get exotics?

you have a point in theory, but in reality it is inline with the design intentions of the last patch. A change that was unnoticeable would serve no purpose in their intentions.
While his data may be slightly off, its highly likely it closer to accurate than it is not.

1) The change was supposed to be unnoticeable:

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

The adjustments to the loot system are fairly subtle and the goals are that, after a certain time, your characters will effectively have more components you can use. So it may take some time for you to see a difference, or not, but it’s not going to feel like a very visible change each time you loot a mob. We want players, in particular new ones or those creating alts, to more often be able to use the items they loot directly or get something that is relevant to their profession. It does not mean that you’ll get less varied loot overall. We’ll keep monitoring the changes to kitten its affects.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

Morsus.5106:

Does this mean that it will affect level 80s?

Yes it will but the change will not be easily noticeable.

2) A barely noticeable change at the very minimum serves the PR purpose of “making the game friendlier” and having something nice to put in the blog about the Feature Patch.

SKATE.1394:

Lishtenbird.2814:

I do not think that 30 minutes are in any way a representative sample for such kind of statistics. I can get 3 exotics within one 30 minute window on one char and 0 on another char; does it mean that one of my characters will always get exotics?

Not even gonna bother picking this post apart. Add to the discussion then, post your own results.

I added to the discussion the most important part: the reliability of the data on which you based the whole discussion. Again, 30 minutes of killing a random amount of random mobs on most likely randomly geared classes is not a representative sample.

As our statistics professor used to quote, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, kitten ed lies, and statistics”.

P.S. I can also add that on my staff guardian I’m getting tons more loot than on my mesmer, and that I didn’t feel like I got enough profession-specific loot as drops on the warrior which I’ve been leveling for around 50 levels.

This is even more frustrating than the “in combat” bug, and sometimes even game-breaking. I’ve had it repeatedly happening to me in Dry Top yesterday because of the aspect transforms; I had to receive damage and get transformed again or some combination of it to get the arrows back when out of combat.

I do not think that 30 minutes are in any way a representative sample for such kind of statistics. I can get 3 exotics within one 30 minute window on one char and 0 on another char; does it mean that one of my characters will always get exotics?

Finally found the original thread, as well as several others with the similar “make leveling alts easier” idea:

• Experience Orb
• I want to Pass EXP gain to my alts
• Selling Experience Scrolls in the Gemstore
• Badges for Tomes of Knowledge

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/In-Combat-bug
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/out-of-Combat-bug

Confirmed, very annoying and confusing.

Prediction: ground-targeted Feedback will be a Grandmaster trait in the tree where another Grandmaster trait is already commonly used.

Fay.2357:

There is no LoS restriction, and this makes it incredibly versatile.

Just like the teleport to dead iLeap clone and non-revealing Decoy. Oh skri—

Various crafting materials miss their description.

I wasn’t able to determine any logic behind the absence of these descriptions, it happens across tiers and types.

I believe it started happening after the 9/9 feature patch, but it might’ve been the case for a longer time.

7 as a hover is better than no projected profit at all.

And both taxes now have extra info when hovered over (I believe they didn’t have it previously).

You never know, but I would give a slight chance for Halloween and a very high chance for Wintersday holiday sales.

I don’t think there’s a particular reason besides some coding peculiarities from the past. Meanwhile, to be on the safe side, it’s better to unlock tabs/bags by clicking on the lock icons in respective places as those won’t be active otherwise.

This idea has been brought up at some point in the past, but I decided to rework it a bit and review again with the new leveling changes in mind, both NPE restrictions and different (not cost-efficient) leveling items. I’ve recently finished leveling the 4th character to 80, and I can say that the best way to level a character for me at the moment despite all the XP and Killstreak boosters is… playing PvP on another character and getting Tomes of Knowledge.

So, what is an Experience Accumulator?

An item which, when activated for the first time, gives you a buff and consumes the levels your character gets, and when activated on another character for the second time, returns the levels at a 3:2 ratio (so, you receive 2 levels for each 3 accumulated levels; extra levels are preserved inside the accumulator). The “level”, not “experience”, functionality is required to deal with uneven experience required for different levels.

Experience Accumulator can be forged in the Mystic Forge and requires:

• 1x Gift of Exploration
• 1x Gift of Battle
• 1x Gift of Competition – can be acquired free of charge upon reaching rank 20 in PvP.
• 1x Gift of Experience, requires:
  • 1x Vision Crystal
  • 1x Mists Stone
  • 1x Crown of Laurels, can be acquired for 10 Laurels and 100’000 karma by a level 80 character only. The amount of Crown of Laurels required can be discussed, but with all the other stuff in the recipe in mind, I believe that a single one is enough. Can be accompanied in some way by a completed Personal Story requirement.
  • 1x Gift of Dungeon Offerings. Ideally, I would prefer Gift of Dungeon Offerings to be replaced by Gift of Gauntlet which is granted upon beating all bosses and Liadri in a dedicated Gauntlet instance, but I see that it would require a lot of extra coding; however, it would be more skill- than grind-or-get-carried-or-buy-a-path-based as in the dungeon case. Alternatively, Gift of Gauntlet can replace Crown of Laurels. Gift of Dungeon Offerings requires:
    • 1x Offering of Baelfire
    • 1x Offering of the Sanctuary
    • 1x Offering of Knowledge
    • 1x Offering of Zhaitan

On the other hand, this looks like something to forge a precursor or a commander tag…

Why Experience Accumulator should exist?

• Because many people think that, despite ANet’s initial intentions, the real game starts at 80, not at character creation. Everything else is a drag – you can’t have your skills, your traits, your gear/runes/sigils, your looks for a long time, and you have to do things you’ve done several times already over and over again.
• Because you can already get Tomes of Knowledge and (skill point Scrolls) for PvPing (and PvEing depending on the current LS rewards) on another character.
• Because you can already level significantly by crafting, which is something that requires no skill but a lot of gold to buy mats and a browser to open gw2crafts.net.
• Because you do not need a month of camping a character to learn how to play it because
  • you know how to read and simply study Wiki and guides,
  • you’ve been seeing what other classes do since you first started playing,
  • most skills aren’t that different between classes apart from the looks and names,
  • you understand that there’s little point in “learning” something that is available for several levels but you won’t be using at level 80 – which is very often the case with the trait changes in mind,
  • you understand that the only way to learn playing a level 80 character efficiently is playing a level 80 character.
• It has an initial time/material sink, especially the Gift of Exploration sink tied to the most expensive items in the game.
• It’s optional.

Rising Dusk.2408:

The Molten harvesting tools they just releases have horribly lame effects. Where is the molten lava welling up from below? The tree doesn’t even burst into flames, it just gets a puff of fire per whack? Why is there an obligatory phoenix thing completely unassociated with the molten alliance bursting forth from plants? These are lazy, and as much as I want to complete the set, I am not going to buy effects that look like garbage.

The logging one is okayish, though lackluster, but the sickle makes no sense and looks silly IMO. As much as I liked the Molten pick and thought of getting a set for an alt, I definitely won’t be going for those.

Apart from the mentioned CM and CoF:

• Blinking past lasers in CoE.
• Blinking out of Subject Alpha’s AoE if you team was bad at stacking and you’re out of dodges.
• Skipping in TA, especially Fw.
• Avoiding gravelings, recovering from knockbacks, and moving fast to graveling burrows in AC.
• Blinking half-way through the hot room in Thaumanova fractal and dropping a portal.
• Escaping from mobs when carrying hammer between the arm seals in Cliffside fractal.
• Skipping shockwaves, AoEs, closing gaps in Flame and Frost, Mai Trin, Maw fractals.
• Generic stun breaking.
• Keeping up with a group in champ trains, map exploration.

Possibilities are countless.

Some people should really do their math for armour and weapons properly before talking about some hilarious 0.6% and naming threads “Ascended gear is trash”. Even Wiki can tell you the difference.

I make several gold a day simply by crafting gated materials. I also make gold by refining (which you think is pointless) and promoting stuff. So yes, making money when I don’t feel like killing monsters in lvl 80 maps or dungeons but want to relax in the game fits my definition of “fun”.

Also the crafting UI became a whole lot better with the new patch. And yeah, can you level an alt just by riding a mount?

Quoting myself from a similar thread.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Please, no. Unless console players play with a mouse and a keyboard (which I doubt, because what’s the point playing a console then?) these players will become a liability in parties and group content. Better fix that Mac client many players are complaining about.

Beldin.5498:

All we have so far is this :
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2dv4ev/update_armor_viewer_bonus_datamined_armor/

Lishtenbird.2814:

Not only this, also this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2dt4t4/datamining_new_armor_sets_with_textures/

Branden Gee.2150:

Huh, I can see how it would be frustrating for it to restart the spinning. Perhaps there is a happy middle ground where it starts out spinning then once you move the camera it stops.

I would still prefer it not to float at all. There’s no reason in it apart from “it’s pretty”, and since many threads have popped on the forums again, we can say that many people find it very annoying instead.

Automation is good when it helps and is on demand (“consume stack of 250” button after 2 years, anyone?); automation is bad when it starts on it’s own will, without a reason, making players perform unnecessary actions to stop it, and serves no practical purpose.

Or you could attach a tracker to the camera spin and after a while check how many people (who aren’t browsing the map) in different game modes cancel that spinning and after what time

duckideva.6358:

Something has been tickling the back of my mind since the April update, which became clear focus after the 9/9 update.

…

Thank you for your post. I’ve studied some psychology and read on game monetization, so your post is close to what I feel – and it was very interesting to see these thoughts delivered in such a sensible way. I really do hope ANet won’t turn to the evil side and will instead work on the game to make it (once again) worth supporting with your money. Draining money from people today is easy – you just showed us how it can be done; having these people next to you tomorrow to get some more money out of them again is hard and requires dedication and loving your product and your customers.

I think that you’re too focused on “manly/girly” thing; that’s probably because of your age, at least that’s what I can conclude from the manner of your speech. I’m not saying it as a personal attack or in an insulting way though, mind you – I just want to deliver to you the idea that you’re paying too much attention to small things at the moment, while the dominating majority won’t ever think about your, say, manly huge norn guardian (or you, if you’re associating yourself with your hero) in a girly way because of some birds in a finisher. At most, in video games such things turn into sarcasm and irony – just take a look at the quaggan finisher, or some pink-coloured norns with fancy mustache out there

And another thing: unless there’s a huge, overwhelming reaction from the community (examples: Flamekissed armour; watchwork pick), things which have already been rolled out should not been changed or it will lead to a lot, a lot of buyers being dissatisfied and claims being sent to customer support.

Leveling a warrior, pre-patch and post-patch. Don’t really see any difference.

My guess: you’re having heavy lags, which affect your skills which require good sync with server the most (the same happens with aspect skills in Labyrynthine cliffs and Dry Top).

Beldin.5498:

All we have so far is this :
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2dv4ev/update_armor_viewer_bonus_datamined_armor/

Not only this, also this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2dt4t4/datamining_new_armor_sets_with_textures/

(IIRC it’s not against forum rules to link to datamined materials.)

Nothing which makes completing the content you do not want to complete obligatory to play efficiently is an improvement.

For a great example, see the Trait unlocking “improvement”.

A wild “Changes Coming to the NPE” thread appears! You ran out of endurance and cannot attack.

Vayne.8563:

Seems to me most of the complaining has withdrawn, one week after the patch. So I’m not sure why this is such a huge issue. Some people will still complain of course, but the pendulum, if you haven’t noticed, is swinging back.

For a whole week, people have provided ANet with extensive feedback.

For a whole week, people have been creating separate threads, each about a personal experience (because nobody likes megathreads where you get lost on page 2!), receiving similar feedback from other players from similar threads and defence from the ever-present forum’s White mANetle.

For a whole week, people have been wondering what has actually been heard and what not, what is a bug and what not, and had to keep repeating their criticism over and over again to counter the force of the same people from White mANetle who kept repeating the same “everything is awesome” in every thread they saw.

After a week, people got sick and tired of it, they ran out of will and had no desire to repeat the same things again and again. Someone left the forum, someone stopped reading the threads, someone left the game. The White mANetle stayed, feeling that the victory is near and the “toxicity” is finally being driven away.

After a week, a “Changes Coming to the NPE” thread finally appears. The White mANetle says that everything is fine and that people are getting confused by the amount of dissatisfied people because having to read forum names is overwhelming; red post in the thread agrees that repeating your feedback is baaad – missing the point that for a week that very feedback had to be repeated over and over again without being acknowledged and because it had to be repeated to counter the forum defence forces.

So yeeeah, after a week, “the pendulum, if you haven’t noticed, is swinging back”… if you avert your eyes from the facts that people are not only sick and tired of repeating the same things, but also told to stop posting their negative feedback, and only the most stoic people still care to write and oppose the White mANetle which are now the ones claiming to officially representing the “vocal majority”.

Now, to keep this post constructive, I’ll quote my tl;dr of the patch, because I have no idea whether it got noticed in the hundreds of other threads or not:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Highlights of my view on the leveling changes:

Best:

• Rewards. Rewards are always good, but only if they’re something new, not if that’s something you take away from someone and then present as a “reward” back. So, a trinket or a booster is a good reward; unlocking downed skills is a bad reward.

Worst:

• Weapon skill gating. Learning skills for each weapon one by one was the most intuitive, best and exciting feature when I got this game – and I never played a serious RPG or an MMO before! I killed mobs and searched for events to kill more to check what that next half-learned skill with a cool name did… then I searched for new weapons and did it again, because it was fun, and fun is the best reward I can get from a game. This should definitely be brought back.

My personal “fix-it-fast-and-make-it-better”:

• Stop calling “Asura Gates”, “Trading Post” and other core features “rewards”! That’s a very large part of that widespread misconception. Instead, turn them into hints and clearly name them as such, even if it stays in the same reward pop-up; like, “HINT: Trading Posts are now displayed on your minimap! You can do X and Y with them! Check it out if you haven’t done so yet!”, not “You have unlocked Trading Post, yay!”

As for leveling experience in practice… I can only say that I never felt like making alts after the Traits update, but I’m still leveling a warrior and it is at level 30-something at the moment. About 5 of those were from Tomes from PvP; and even though I don’t really like PvP, I think I’ll be doing more of it because after 3 lvl 80s, doing all the things over and over again to get to 80 and start actually playing the things I like – Dry Top, Orr, Dungeons/Fractals – is really, really boring. The trait system make it worse; the new level-gatings – even further. Instead of “learning something new” and altering my build, I’m just grinding monsters and hearts over and over again with the most efficient weapon set, until I can finally do something new and fun if I happen to unlock some traits… and if I am allowed to use them at all.

And by the way, do you know what I’m leveling that new warrior alt for instead of using an older one? To gear it with Leyline weapons and armour. And if I drop it now, these money won’t be spend by me and people like me anymore.

Cheers.

Please, no. Unless console players play with a mouse and a keyboard (which I doubt, because what’s the point playing a console then?) these players will become a liability in parties and group content. Better fix that Mac client many players are complaining about.

• Half of the points – working as intended. Encouraging non-braindead group work, giving sense of progression, flexible economy, absence of trinity constraints, new content in small intervals, etc. I still have no problems getting money – and I even rarely “play TP”; the new content gave me more ways to make money. Understanding it, though, requires to step up from a “I’m the only gamer in the world” point of view towards the “I’m a developer who makes products which entertain hundreds of thousands of different players”.
• Another half of the points – give them time, you’ll get content you want (SAB, dungeons) in due course.
• And just a bit – things they really overdid and will have to fix soon.

Overall, that’s just another “this game is not what I want, so I leave!” thread. Nothing really wrong with it – only the tone which says that it’s “truth”, while it’s just an “opinion”.

Daroska.9427:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Daroska.9427:

This community has certainly changed for the worse in some aspects.
2012 had it better, with less restrictive mindsets and a more casual attitude.
More openness to the individual, rather than adherence to a certain Batman quote.

When everyone is level 35 masterwork, no one complains about full exotic zerk level 80s. What a surprise

Honestly.. is that your response?

Yes, this is my response. “Honestly.” Because, you know, people who have been in the game for 2 weeks have more in common with other people who have been in the game for 2 weeks, compared to people who have been in the game for 2 years with other people who have been in the game for 2 weeks and still fail to read LFG description, let alone check Wiki, forum, Dulfy and Youtube to see what the best practices developed over that time are (and developed with a sole purpose of replacing the time consuming and frustration causing “less restrictive mindsets and a more casual attitude” from the times when people didn’t know any better with something that makes life easier).

Ramza.9421:

So much whining and rage in these forums, especially those veterans!!!

But what about forum hatchlings?

Do you at least get a Volunteer buff prompt when you turn up in an empty map, or do they just kill the instance with you?

rapthorne.7345:

Why is enabling people to play dungeons of their level range out of the question?

I should not have to be level 80 to run level 35/50 dungeons, plain and simple

I should not be forced to run AC with lvl 35 players not even having elites, either. Plain and simple.

Why the respect to “play how I want” should go only one way?

Daroska.9427:

This community has certainly changed for the worse in some aspects.
2012 had it better, with less restrictive mindsets and a more casual attitude.
More openness to the individual, rather than adherence to a certain Batman quote.

When everyone is level 35 masterwork, no one complains about full exotic zerk level 80s. What a surprise

As for mentoring within the current system, you can check out this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-Mentors-Noob – and point people to guides: http://gw2dungeons.net/

Yes, the new targeting is even worse than it used to be. I keep getting targeted random things I don’t even see again and again.

Leaa.2943:

Why is it always either or with you guy on a-net, why can nothing be somewere inbetween. I mean it is a huge difference between achivement grinding taking like 2 weeks to make and something that takes me 3 min. Why can there never be a middle way?

It is same thing all the time. Like with the banner of the lord. Yes it was heavy used and a nerf is fine, but why remove it totally? Why not put a buff on him instead to reduce the possibility to do it 57 times in a row?

Or with the new siege disablee. Why make it so abuseble so it ends up with a lockdown, why not put a buff or cd on it?

Or new gate leveling system. It is gated to a point were i don’t want to make an alt, because of the heavy gating were you even have to unlock downed skills (ffs), i mean ok i get the gate system, good thing to add, but why complicated it to a point were you just don’t want to do it due to the dumbing down on the game.

Or the tc, awsome that you finally made the changes we wanted for so long, but instead of making it easy it is now complicated as hell to use it, and i actually have to focus, making sure it is done the right way .

It just kind of goes on an on this way, either it has to be 1000% or 1% whats wrong with a middle way, were we all get the good stuff and the bad but it is ok to deal with. Would for sure satisfies more people

I’m often wondering the same. I guess there’s a Sid Meier’s principle called “Double It Or Cut It By Half” which is loved by ANet. In a perfect environment with prompt balance changes, it works miracles; in real life scenarios with 6 months between balance updates, it means overbuff and overnerfs for a long time. The solution IMO is rather simple: either make changes more often so that you can tweak it back really fast, or make gradual changes which can stop at the point where people start saying “yeah, that’s just about right!” – just like it happened with LS Season 2.

Valdemas.4960:

I do not care if some random pve newfriend gets the same shiny finisher or weapon skin as I will at the end of it.

You do not. I do. We’re both customers.

Valdemas.4960:

I care about killing the enemy, preferably sticking a finisher up his bottom, slaying his lifestock and burning his keep to the ground.

You do not do wvw for achievements, skins, bags or titles. You do it because at the end of the day when all is burning arround you and the enemy is at your doorstep you give out a call and see your guild and community stand beside you, thick or thin.

You do not. I do. We’re both customers, even if you are driven by the urge to dominate over other humans on the other side of the screen, preferably in a humiliating way, and I’m driven by the shininess of a Mistforged weapon.

And “King of the Castle” should be removed because there’s no Stonemist Castle in EoTM.

I’m a primarily PvE player and I find these achievements disheartening. I completed them in 10 minutes in EoTM while waiting in the queue, and it felt like, you know… getting a mini llama for joining a single PvP match.

The previous achievements made you work hard and feel like you get rewarded for helping your world in WvW – especially if you weren’t a WvW player. For me, the amount of work I have to put in something is an important factor in how valuable that something becomes. Now… now everyone and their mother will have WvW weapons, and they start looking as “good” as Zenith skins.

Yes, the “kill X amount of WvW rats/cats/pets” categories had a problem of confining playstyle, but “5 events” is not a solution. I think that once again, just like with NPE, you overdid it. 75 or 50 events – yes, maybe… but not 5, definitely not 5.

If the purpose was to pull more people into WvW – then it failed, because on day 2 of the Tournament I thought “Why bother? I already got it, let’s go grind some dungeons instead!” – heck, I even thought so in EoTM before my queue even popped up. If the purpose was to let more people enjoy the “rewards” because of the QQ on the forums, then your decision had a side effect of aggravating people who worked hard to get a particular content-gated reward.

All and all, I hope that at least weeks 2-4 get changed to 50 events (after the first 5 “introductory” events in week 1 for people who found WvW Tournaments confusing and overwhelming).

Colin,

just wanted to jump in and say thank you for saying what you said. While I still have a very negative impression of the changes in leveling system, and still a very skeptic view on metrics you’re talking about, publicly admitting problems and publicly defending your reasoning goes a long way from the grieving silence of the 1st Feature Patch. I really hope that admitted problems get fixed and not just admitted and left for good, and I wished that reasoning had more official data for us, the community, to analyze and believe in… but I also understand that formal policies put a lot of limits on what can and should be said.

Highlights of my view on the leveling changes:

Best:

• Rewards. Rewards are always good, but only if they’re something new, not if that’s something you take away from someone and then present as a “reward” back. So, a trinket or a booster is a good reward; unlocking downed skills is a bad reward.

Worst:

• Weapon skill gating. Learning skills for each weapon one by one was the most intuitive, best and exciting feature when I got this game – and I never played a serious RPG or an MMO before! I killed mobs and searched for events to kill more to check what that next half-learned skill with a cool name did… then I searched for new weapons and did it again, because it was fun, and fun is the best reward I can get from a game. This should definitely be brought back.

My personal “fix-it-fast-and-make-it-better”:

• Stop calling “Asura Gates”, “Trading Post” and other core features “rewards”! That’s a very large part of that widespread misconception. Instead, turn them into hints and clearly name them as such, even if it stays in the same reward pop-up; like, “HINT: Trading Posts are now displayed on your minimap! You can do X and Y with them! Check it out if you haven’t done so yet!”, not “You have unlocked Trading Post, yay!”

ColinJohanson.2394:

SkiTz.4590:

Colin, just clear up one thing – There is 0% chance EU/NA GW2 gets a VIP system?

We’re absolutely not bringing the China VIP system to NA/EU, correct.

Are you also absolutely not bringing the NA/EU VIP system to NA/EU?

Shanks.2907:

Lishtenbird.2814:

You should be happy you’re not a mesmer. We don’t have a speed signet, no out of combat speed traits, and one reliable (but unreliable) source of swiftness on one off-handed weapon.

Don’t worry, guardian feels your pain. Though at least you have some sort of combat movement speed.

My second main is guardian with Pack runes. Retreat, Staff, GS, Judge’s Intervention – and mesmer is left behind Plus, aegis lets receive some hits from trash mobs without being put into combat.

You should be happy you’re not a mesmer. We don’t have a speed signet, no out of combat speed traits, and one reliable (but unreliable) source of swiftness on one off-handed weapon.

Draknar.5748:

Most of the ones screaming about how terrible these changes are have not actually played the changes themselves.

Source please?

You’re doing the same thing you’re accusing other people of – assuming.

Happened to me when I picked up a F.O.O.L. ooze in Caledon Forest and could slot in another utility.

…I don’t really want it to get fixed, if you ask me, but it’s a bug, yeah…

Have you checked the latest patch? It should be fixed now.

Noticed it too. Really annoying. If I’m dead and have a reason to stay dead for some time (dungeon), I usually sort inventory and salvage/sell things, not watch a black and white movie; that rotation actually distracts and makes me want to hold the camera manually or alt-tab out of it.

Devildoc.6721:

This video needs its own topic, it must be highlighted and arenanet MUST see it.

Here’s the thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-perfect-video-describing-our-NPE

Paradox.1380:

Also Level 6 happens in the course of about 5-15 minutes if you follow the new guide they put in for the most part.

You said “you can do these things on level 1 if you know how to”. I said “you can’t, the game doesn’t let you”. Saying “okay, but you can in 5-15-150-1500 minutes” doesn’t really change the fact that you can’t do it straight away

Devildoc.6721:

Im actually QUITE surprised that there aren’t threads complaining about the guide leading them to zones where they get one shot, but then again, if they are the type of player to need and use the guide, forums are probably WAY too complicated and confusing for them.

If no one complains about something, good chances are that nobody (who can and want to report problems) really uses it. An example of it are some mesmer bugs on skills which turned out to be bugged and got fixed to the surprise of bug section frequenters.