Guild Wars 2

kolompi.1287:

Seems to me like most of the people who complained about the rewards not being enough have already explored the world once.

The beautiful thing is, you don’t have to explore it on other characters. You didn’t even have to explore it once. You don’t find it rewarding enough to spend time on it? Don’t do it. If you like exploring, you won’t do it for the material rewards anyway, but for the sake of exploring or to satisfy your completionist side.

And what if they only did it once? Maybe they thought it was lacking and think the rewards should be better now that they have been there and done that. Someone that has actually experienced it is exactly the type of person that should know whether or not the rewards are lacking. Plus arenanet obviously wants players to get map completion and explore everything or else they would not have attached the traits to it. I do not like how they went about it but I agree with them that there needs to be something to entice the players.

We are all only new players once. After you have gotten 100% map completion the magic starts to where off for many players. Eventually everyone reaches the point where wondering whimsically through the world doesn’t cut it and the excitement is gone. At that point people will start looking at rewards and what they enjoy doing the most. After you get 100% map completion and 100% Explorer achievement the only reason to get 100% map completion again is for the completionist inside you and the rewards, as there is literally nothing left to ".

Farming Flats.5370:

i think the dungeons are ok .. how can you expect tons of loot when you can do it on auto-pilot and in a average of 10 / 20 Minutes on certain path ….the rewards must scale with the effort and difficulty and this is where this game fail at.

I have done over 300 fractals if not more and no fractals skin yet … you can get all the worst fractals and Mai Trin as the final boss in a Lvl 30 + and you get ZERO ring at the end .. when im getting one its a Healing signet or a Ouroboros Loop .. my bank is already full of both ring …. oh and if you get a exotic armor its account bound !!!

Why in this game the easy stuff is more rewarding then the difficult content !! … i get more loot in 30 minute in EOTM than in a high Fractals ??

Metrics, they want the metrics to show exactly what they want. EotM is so rewarding so that they could say players asked for more WvW development and we gave them a new map that is a huge success. If they didn’t make the rewards good then metrics would not be what they want them to be.

Einlanzer.1627:

The pace of content additions currently is too slow, and they need to improve it if they expect retain players. The method of delivery doesn’t really matter.

^^^This

If they want to keep going with the LS for content delivery then they need to add a map a month. Not a single map piece meal per LS season. They need to release a new playable class and race per LS season. They need to add more traits and skills per LS season. They need to add more weapons per LS season and I mean weapons not skins. It could be just reusing current weapons but adding them to classes that currently can not use them. Like rifles or bows for guardians. These are the kind of things many of us were expecting from the living story but arenanet failed to deliver.

Looking at arenanets recent track history with GW2 I have to say its very unlikely that we will see an expansions worth of content added to the game before any one unlocks a full set of achievement armor. That is even with including the stuff they have already added.

tofumon.5924:

Mister zeeRo.8561:

55Pages
when someone asks me if GW2 is a good game my answer is : not anymore, dont buy it.

Same. I can’t really recommend this game to anyone.

I agree. The sad thing is that arenanet doesn’t realize the power of word of mouth and how much faster the negative spreads compared to the positive.

Vayne.8563:

Giving more XP for map completion, when you consider every vista, POI and heart gives you XP already would make map completion over-rewarding.

There are people who really don’t like map completing who would feel pressured to if you made the rewards so vast.

If you don’t like it, don’t do it. If you do like it do it. That’s pretty much the way the whole game is set up.

That’s why the rewards are set the way they’re set.

Trait unlocks make you feel pressured to do these things. More XP would just make it not as much of a burden. Adding more rewards for things is the right way to pressure people in to playing your content. Taking something away, then locking it behind some task and then calling it a reward is the wrong way to pressure people in to playing your content.

Brother Grimm.5176:

While the suggestion is valid, it should be WAY, WAY, WAY, down on the to do list. How about they fix the tons of bugs that still exist from release before we cater to the 1% that want to waste money on 4K gaming displays….

The UI is in need of many changes that are not just for those 1% with a 4k monitor. This is something that should be WAY, WAY, WAY up the list. I use a 1080p monitor but I and many others would love to be able to tweak the UI with placement and size. There has been some decent size threads on this already and as the OP mentioned, the new 900 series GPUs from Nvidia make it even more important to get them implemented.

Lazuli.2098:

Kumion.7580:

I’m getting very tired of people making blanket statements about what type of players dislike the new trait system. Dismissing everyone who dislikes the new system as power levelers/ key farmers/ people resistant to change for change’s sake/ people who aren’t playing the game as intended is a cop out and it’s insulting. People who don’t like the new system have MANY and VARIED reasons for their dislike. You can read 55 pages worth of why, here. GW2 was billed as a game you could play the way you wanted to play and now it isn’t, largely because of the highly flawed new trait system.

I am not a power leveler. I am not a key farmer. I am not a ‘push to endgame’ player. I am not a Mists farmer. I am not resistant to all change and am willing to adapt to the NPE. I am someone who plays the game to enjoy the journey. I like to make alts and grow them, experimenting with different classes and character types or race/class combinations. In what category do I fall? The group for whom the new trait system ruined gameplay.

…
In my opinion, no game should have players resenting the time (and money) they spend indulging in escapist entertainment.
…

I totally agree (except the part about the NPE. I don’t like that either since it seems to be all part of the same thing.)

I think his point was that he can put up with the some of the bad changes but that traits were too much. I agree with you though, 90% of these changes are complete trash and ruin the experience. The other 10% that I actually like and think are good for the game (trait respect button) could have been done with out these other changes.

Jski.6180:

At this point i do not think ppl even understand what an expansion is and what it means for a game. An expansion is content that puts out at a given time and has ANY content you can even call LS a type of expansion. The talk about LS ways of expansion vs the longer time expansion (say 6 months) is only different in time NOT content.

Your right mmorpgs cant live with out updates and GW2 is getting a lot of them all the time even ones that are not talked about so yes there is a future as things stands from your point of view.
.

If the living story actually lived up to the hype people wouldn’t be complaining. The living story updates have not given even one expansions worth of content yet and its been two years. If they actually produced the same amount of content as in one Guild Wars expansion in the last two years then maybe people wouldn’t be so harsh even though they would still be behind in what they achieved with the original Guild Wars.

Yes they have released some content but its like a single appetizer. Appetizers can be filling if you get enough of them but if you only get one single chicken wing you are going to be left wanting no matter how good it taste. If you want people to get full off just appetizers you need to give them at least a dozen of those chicken wings not just one. If you keep the appetizers coming you may keep the customer satisfied but you will also have to mix it up so they do not get bored. I do not want to eat chicken wings every time, sometimes I want nachos or spinach dip. These appetizers need to be really good or else people will go somewhere else when their tummies start rumbling.

Yeah I lucked out that a guildy screwed himself first and kittened in guild chat a couple days before I bought my second ring. But that is still a really crappy way to learn something.

I seriously doubt they will ever make an actual raid. They don’t seem interested in creating any new content. They will probably just revamp another world boss to be harder.

So you are saying rolling back will mess things up further and that fixing all the broken trait unlocks will mess things up further. I don’t see how fixing the broken trait unlocks can mess things up more. If its already broken and its near impossible to unlock with out spending gold and skill points, how much worse can they make it? You have less faith in their abilities than I do at this point.

I’m not sure how they can mess up going back to what it was before except that it would ruin parts of their NPE which is trash also and needs to get flushed as well.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

I’m not sure why you make fun of and then agree with what I wrote. You have me confused.

Just because I agree with an idea does not exclude it from being a really bad idea.

what idea is that, rolling back a bad change or fixing the broken parts of it? Because that is literally all that I asked for.

tofumon.5924:

GuzziHero.2467:

This game feels more and more like an unrequited love.

I love GW2 and it keeps going its own way, expecting me to give up.

I’m kitten close to doing so.

---

Also, I am sorry I ‘yelled’ earlier. It is due to frustration caused by passion for GW2, being blunted by bad creative design decisions.

I literally visit the forum every day just to see if any progress has been made on the traits and haven’t played in 2 monthsish and don’t plan on doing so until they fix it.

I’m right there with you but I haven’t logged in since the first feature patch and quit playing a few months before that. I was hoping the first feature patch could bring me back. It didn’t. The second patch has pushed me farther away. For some reason I have hope in me that arenanet will eventually be able to give the game that GW2 had the potential to become at launch.

If they rolled back the trait changes(except for the trait respect button of course) and now the NPE changes I might think about coming back as there has been a lot of changes I really like. I could live with the cons that came with the megaserver even though I think there was way better ways to achieve the same goals there. There is other bad changes I can live with because they aren’t quite game breaking to me even if I don’t like them. If they reverted the traits and the NPE changes it would get me to come back as it would show that they actually do care about the players and not just making up metrics.

I don’t feel arenanet needs to fix every change they have done to fit my personal wants and needs. They just need to fix the stuff that is obviously bad for the game.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

There is many trait unlocks that are still broken and there seems to be very little if any work on the devs part to fix them. Fixing 1 or 2 of the unlocks to be slightly better every 1-2 months is not enough and shows the lack of even trying on the devs part. All of the trait unlocks should have been corrected by now if they were really trying. We have all heard the devs since launch say over and over its coming with tons of things and they have not delivered. People are done waiting and tired of excuses.

Then “people” should storm the offices and demand a revolution. And film it all for Youtube.

The new trait system is broken in many ways. If its going to stay then they need to fix it now, not in 2 years. There has been tons of ways mentioned on how to fix it in this thread. Now its on the devs to actually spend the time and fix it or roll back. When they actually start doing something besides ruining the game with horrible thoughtless changes then people will maybe stop being so harsh on the handful of replies the red names give.

Given statements like this, I suppose you have a point. I guess rolling it all back to release would be the best move. All of it. Remove champion bags, remove ascended, remove Living Story, remove Tequatl/Wurm, and erase Kasmeer/Jory. Start over and try again. It’ll be fun.

Shall we stop and be honest here? I’ll drop the sarcasm for now. Trait Masteries were a mess and terrible from day one. Several didn’t work right, several more were pointless, and most of what was left was so situational it might as well not exist. Worst of all, they were just . . . kind of there. And the worst part was the privilege to pay a nice sum of gold to find out your Grandmaster traits were mostly junk. Which brings me to the next choice:

Delete the whole Trait system and start over.

I’m not sure why you make fun of and then agree with what I wrote. You have me confused.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Illysharia.7286:

The “Communicating With You” thread was supposed to put an end to these problems. What happened to all the effort Chris Whiteside put in hashing it out with the community? I thought he was apologetic and sincere enough that there would be a genuine effort to, you know, communicate.

And very likely he is. But as awesome as Chris is, he’s not able to field every concern, and talk with authority about every part of the game. Neither can Gaile, whose job it is to try to talk with the community . . . whether or not the community wants to hear what she has to say.

So far, there’s also Jon Peters who shows up and discusses design bits here and there, but outside those three you don’t see much general communication. And Chris has the CDI project under his helming so he probably has that taking up a lot of his attention cycles.

Yet, every person who likes them trying even a little is accompanied by two more complaining about it. Some of them just seem to be trying to complain the players aren’t getting told what they want to hear, and aren’t grasping some of the reality here.

As it was stated twice, by red names, this system isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. What they’re looking for is another way of doing Traits & Masteries which is closer to working as we want it to.

At this point, though, I’m really wanting to advocate to them to just cave in on everything in the forums and wash their hands of decision-making. Let the players run the game and when the complaints start, remind them “gee, since you all thought we were doing a crappy job, we figured you should get the chance”.

There is many trait unlocks that are still broken and there seems to be very little if any work on the devs part to fix them. Fixing 1 or 2 of the unlocks to be slightly better every 1-2 months is not enough and shows the lack of even trying on the devs part. All of the trait unlocks should have been corrected by now if they were really trying. We have all heard the devs since launch say over and over its coming with tons of things and they have not delivered. People are done waiting and tired of excuses.

The new trait system is broken in many ways. If its going to stay then they need to fix it now, not in 2 years. There has been tons of ways mentioned on how to fix it in this thread. Now its on the devs to actually spend the time and fix it or roll back. When they actually start doing something besides ruining the game with horrible thoughtless changes then people will maybe stop being so harsh on the handful of replies the red names give.

Labjax.2465:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

The problem is the bad change in all of those situations you mentioned. Yes the longer it goes on the worse it gets but I have never seen a company revert a change and fix something later. With out anyone ever actually doing that there is no way of knowing how people will really react. Yes of course people will talk crap about that bad change for years but they would do that anyways. Because it was a bad change. In my opinion its better to suck it up and later is better than never. I think the real reason we do not see changes like roll backs is because some people are stubborn. Especially in the corporate sector. Many people would rather go down with the ship rather than admit they were wrong. It doesn’t make sense but that is what I have seen in my life experiences. It is also backed up by watching all the crap in the news where CEOs run companies in to the ground and walk away with millions. To them they never made any mistakes. They made millions. It doesn’t matter that the company failed.

I don’t think it needs demonstration to see what the horrible consequences would be. It’s easy to say, “They should just try it and see what happens” when you’re not the one whose job it is to keep a company afloat.

If it was better before, then there is only one consequence that can happen. The game goes to a better state. How is that horrible. It may be horrible for the few peoples egos that were involved in making the bad change but that is all. I’ve been around long enough to realize that the only reason horrible changes do not get rolled back is because of egos. Worrying that doing the right thing will hurt the rep of a product when the change already did that and is still doing that is just being stubborn. If a company like Coca Cola can realize that their customers do not like the change and then roll back later then a video game company can do the same. Again I will say the reason it does not is because of egos.

They won’t give out any info unless it shows what they want it to show. Even then they will never show the data. I’m sure most people are interested though and we would all really like that info though.

Labjax.2465:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Maybe that’s the reason so many MMOs fail or go into life support mode after the first couple of years. So the devs should stop being stubborn and leave the egos at the door. Then admit they were wrong and start giving the players what they want and not what the devs want us to want.

If you really want to go there, then no. That’s not why MMOs fail. Reverting a major change months later is more likely to be a death knell than the other way around.

The main reason it’s so bad is because it sets a precedent that says, “We’re unable to stand against player criticism. If you criticize enough over time, then eventually we’ll cave.” It’s roughly equivalent to a parent refusing a cookie to a child and then relenting after the child whines for an hour straight; it sends the message that the kid just has to whine enough and he will get what he wants.

I’m not saying we’re all whining children, mind you – many of us are far from that. But the point is, the last thing any company needs is for consumers to think that they will always cave under pressure. Then it becomes a game of who can scream the loudest and longest.

Reverting changes shortly after they have happened is a different story and sometimes it’s ok because the company can save face at that point by saying that they are adjusting to what players want. But even then, usually what happens is that the company makes some kind of adjustment to the changes to make them more palatable.

Bottom line is, the longer a company waits, the more harm it’s going to do to revert something major. And they have long passed the threshold of “significant harm to their reputation if they were to revert.”

The problem is the bad change in all of those situations you mentioned. Yes the longer it goes on the worse it gets but I have never seen a company revert a change and fix something later. With out anyone ever actually doing that there is no way of knowing how people will really react. Yes of course people will talk crap about that bad change for years but they would do that anyways. Because it was a bad change. In my opinion its better to suck it up and later is better than never. I think the real reason we do not see changes like roll backs is because some people are stubborn. Especially in the corporate sector. Many people would rather go down with the ship rather than admit they were wrong. It doesn’t make sense but that is what I have seen in my life experiences. It is also backed up by watching all the crap in the news where CEOs run companies in to the ground and walk away with millions. To them they never made any mistakes. They made millions. It doesn’t matter that the company failed.

Lighthammer.3280:

As someone who is near to 24k ap, i’d dare to say those armors are where they should be, extremely hard to get, behind a massive wall of ap.

Now don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying its not near impossible to get them at this point, it really is, but the thing is, anet will sooner or later have to release new content, and ap with it that will reach the 50k ap points, or even slightly over it.

It would be highly optimistic of anet to expect that people would play this game for 10 years, and gain 1k ap each year to get the armor, so its more likely they will release content, and mark my words, ALOT of it in the next year or so. They were buying time for over 2 years now with this living story experiment, now its time for some old school actual content.

TL;DR, give us more content->more ap->more fun->radiant/hellfire full armors will come in due time

It would be highly optimistic to think arenanet is going to release an expansion after the few things they have said about that. The only thing we can count on is what they have given, taken, and what is currently in game. First season they gave out tons of AP. Second season totally different. Looking at what they have done to all other rewards in the game, when they take it away it does not come back. So the one thing I would assume is that from now on you can get 1k AP per year. We all are hoping they will release an expansion or large amount of new content but there is no proof its coming.

fellyn.5083:

SonOfJacob.7396:

fellyn.5083:

People are claiming these sets are meant to be rare but anet has never said as much.

Anet putting them at 3k AP apart from the very beginning means they are meant to be rare. It’s inferred, it shouldn’t have to be stated.

I’m certain they will put more AP progress in the game.

The fact that they are 3k ap apart means nothing. The fact that they are ordered the way they are means nothing.

The only reason they are placed where they are is because that is the order in which they were added to the game.

The only thing it means is they are lazy. They started with a definite order and then stopped that and just made the order into the order that they made them in. Its sloppy and lazy.

Labjax.2465:

Tachenon.5270:

Please: just put it back the way it was.

“Alright fine, since you begged enough we’ll revert an entire game system months later.”

- Said no game company ever

Maybe that’s the reason so many MMOs fail or go into life support mode after the first couple of years. So the devs should stop being stubborn and leave the egos at the door. Then admit they were wrong and start giving the players what they want and not what the devs want us to want.

They should make it a toggle if they are going to have a profession based loot in the game. If you want to have profession loot on okay and if you don’t then that’s okay also. Plus they should fix the recipes. It’s bad enough that silk is used in all armor crafting, it should not also have such high recipe cost.

Since they won’t fix the silk recipes they really should not have this in game. Having certain professions being better for certain things like farming totally messes up class balance. The game shouldn’t be XXXX is best for dungeons and XXXX is best for event farming and XXXX is best for open world farming and XXXX is best for spvp and XXXX is best for wvw. Everything should be just as viable or at least only slightly off from each other. Sadly I think they want it this way so that they can get everyone to get more alts so you have a character for each type of content. Rather than just one character that does it all.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

“Every decent MMO out there”

Heck of a way to start off your post. So you’re stating that GW2 obviously isn’t a decent MMO, by your apparent standards.

The devs stated before launch that they weren’t going to allow 3rd party add ons, which really isn’t a surprise, given their stance on third party software period. That stance hasn’t changed since GW1, and I support them in that decision.

I think he meant it is as
GW2 is a decent MMO so why doesn’t GW2 have this?

I agree that they don’t need add ons though. They just need the ability to rearrange and resize the current UI. Everyone likes things differently so the one size fits all is kind of lame.

Vayne.8563:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Vayne.8563:

They’re taking icons new players don’t need off the maps in order so that they can focus on the icons they’re supposed to focus on. I learned to ride a bike the same way you did. My dad was a big believer in going out and doing stuff yourself and try and if you fall off, get back on again.

It doesn’t change the fact that a lot of dads aren’t like that and a lot of people weren’t raised that way.

Some people need more guidance, or more encouragement or more direction. They need to assimilate stuff more slowly. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I know what the NPE looks like to a brand new player though. I made the free account specifically to see it with “new” eyes. The problems I ran into though were jarring to me (a vet), and I could just imagine how jarring it would be for a brand spanking new player. To continue the bike analogy real fast, it would be as if you had training wheels on the bike and after riding for a block, someone suddenly threw some confetti at you, but you had no idea why, then after a few more blocks and some more confetti at random points someone blasts an airhorn in your face and hands you a small present for going 10 blocks. No explanation WHY you got the confetti and the small present, just that you got it. This is what “finding” POIs that you can’t see and doing dailies or monthlies before they are made visible to you is like for a new player. Not to mention the frustration of seeing someone walk up to a skill point communing spot, do something funky and have that plum of light shoot up around them and when you get there it tells you that its not for you. No explanation. Just not for you. Or when you see someone who knows what a Vista is running up to it and an icon appear above their head, you still may not know what its there for or if you should check it out because the icon isn’t there. Then suddenly…ICONS. Then suddenly…SKILL POINTS. Then suddenly…wait, i though there wre training wheels on this bike. Nope, those were just torn off and you have a personal story to start now that you have your last weapon skill unlocked on your bar. Oh, and those other weapons you have…yeah, those might be fun. Learn them while you do that story. Good luck.

That, to me, is a broken system that does nothing but hurt a new player.

Well, as I said, at least one of my friends likes it better and feels it explains the game better than the old system. But you know, he’s one guy. It might be that some people will find it worse and some people will find it better.

Supposedly Anet tested it. This free weekend will give them the answers they need. I’m sure if they have to tweak it they will.

If they don’t do surveys on those free weekend accounts then they won’t get any answers. How can you find out what someone likes or dislikes with out asking? Only things the metrics will show is what they did and for how long. Not why.

Its like saying the EotM is a great addition to the game because the metrics show tons of players there. Well when you make the rewards 10x better than the other wvw maps and one of the best farms in the game of course it will have the players. Its not because they like it though, its because they like rewards. If you switched the rate of rewards between the other WvW maps and EotM I guarantee you EotM would be empty compared to the other maps. They want the metrics to show how successful it is though. So they will keep EotM karma train and leave the other WvW maps untouched.
This is why they won’t do surveys. They don’t want the why because it will change the results of their made up metrics. The BS and metrics may work on the higher ups but the players are getting tired of it. With out the players there won’t be a game for them to make up metrics for.

Galphar.3901:

MassIneffective.2364:

Vayne.8563:

8 years ago, Anet provided more content to a lobby game. So noted.

I’m not sure what you’re calling a “lobby game”. The original Guild Wars was a fully-fleshed MMO. Granted it had three separate storylines that didn’t really intermingle (although they tried to force this somewhat with the advent of heroes in Nighfall).

I really hate to defend Vayne here but he is correct. Guild Wars, by A-Net’s own description, is not a MMORPG but a CoRPG. In order to really be called an MMO you need the Massive part and the biggest party you could have in GW was 12 for DoA. GW limited your party size in every aspect of the game and also you had to leave an instance and come back to it in order to respawn enimies

Dungeons and Dragons Online is considered an MMO and it is identical on the surface. They are both instanced games with parties rather than open-worlds. They both have/had huge populations were you could have tons of people in your friends list and chat with. Both have the same limitation of not being able to enjoy content with large groups but that doesn’t make them not MMOs. I don’t care what the developers want to call it. Marvel Heroes 2015 is considered an MMO also, its just an ARPGMMO. All you need to be classified as an MMO is a massive amount of people in the game at the same time but they don’t have to all be in the same instance at the same time.

DaveyC.4398:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Casmurro.9046:

I dont think the example that the OP is bringing up is very relevant. He basically had to drag his girlfriend into playing gw2, he even had to buy the game for her. I bet that after 20 hours of playing the game she will get bored and stop playing, and no matter what changes you recommend that wont make her hold more attention to the game.

The game should catter to people that are interested in playing it, if you buy a game you should do a little research about what you are buying before spending money on it, and not expect to be hand-holded all the way through the game.

So, basically she doesnt know how mmos work, didnt even bother in buying a copy herself and after only a few hours she felt overwhelmed by everything the game has to offer so lets dumb down the game even more so more and more people that dont give a kitten about the game can complain less until they reach lvl 80 and get bored anyway.

QFT

Catering to those that aren’t going to hang around anyways makes me think they don’t want the kind of players that will end up staying for the long haul. I could understand making the starter zones in to proper tutorials to explain some of the things like dodging and combo fields that are completely different than other MMOs. The changes they did do though show a total disconnect from the playerbase.

Agree with all of the above. MMORPGs have a target audience. When you bring randoms off the street and watch them play the game, of course they’re going to be confused.

ANET’s problem is they don’t know what this game is on a fundamental level. If it was meant to be a farmville game, catered to as broad a swathe of the public as possible, the marketing and advertising departments failed heavily years ago at launch. I bought this game because I like the MMORPG genre, I have a fundamental understanding of what comes along with that genre, and I am the type of player who would have stuck around for a long time.

It’s like ANET made “Game of Thrones” and realized that it doesn’t cater to the “Teletubbies” crowd. Well, duh?

End game and new player experience are worlds apart. A new player experience can be informative without it restricting the level of end game.

I feel that the core reason most players are upset about the change is because the end game has been neglected.

Sure there are living world updates every couple of weeks but they hardly present a challenge to an experienced player.

I would love to see the underworld and FoW make a return, that would at least give some elitist content back into the game whilst sticking to the original lore.

Its not just that the end game has been neglected. Its also that these changes(the NPE and the traits especially) did not need to happen and they shouldn’t have happened. The game did not need dumbing down. It just needed better descriptions and some tutorial steps added to the starter zones. Adding a part in the starter zone where you get downed and have to fight to get up with instructions popping up would have been better than level gating getting downed. Adding a part where you have to do a combo field with detailed instructions and an explanation why, would be huge for a new player. Adding better descriptions to skills so that you know what kind of effects happen with each combo field/finisher would have been a huge help for even veteran players. Having a part in the starter zone with instructions where you have to dodge through an aoe trap to continue or it knocks you back would teach you the benefits to dodging. All of these could have easily been added to the starter zones and would remove tons of confusion and for a veteran on an alt they could go through them fast and ignore the instructions and not feel hindered. Only the downed part would be kind of slow but since we know what to do I don’t think anyone would mind it that much.

lordkrall.7241:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

I hate it when people use that lame excuse. Yes they do need to make money and they are making tons of it.
Arenanet already showed they could make money off just selling the game with out a real money store or a subscription needed. Now they are doing the same business model plus they have the real money store. They should being doing extremely better and have plenty of resources to invest in the game and not just the store. The only reason they wouldn’t be making that money now is because people are tired of spending money on a stagnant game. If they want to be stubborn and keep saying we know you really enjoyed the game at launch but that is all the content we are ever going to give you except for the LS and gemstore, then the game is going to die. The game already is getting a bad reputation on the internet. How bad does it have to get before some positive change happen here?

If the bold part is referring to Guild Wars 1 you are missing the fact that it did have a in-game store for the vast majority of its life. Which contained actual in-game advantages no less.

Are you trying to say that the store that was added years after it launched was the primary focus and that it made them more money then all the boxes sold? I remember when the store launched and all you could get was more character slots and the expansions. Then when they made it so you could have a pvp character with everything unlocked for balanced arena pvp they started selling skills in the store. I will agree that is an advantage for PVE but everything was on an even playing field for PVP. Are you saying there is not more in-game advantages in the current gemstore? Day one in Guild Wars I could not pull out my credit card and buy what ever I wanted including the best weapons in the game like I can in GW2. Trying to make Guild Wars sound pay to win when GW2 is 10x more pay to win is silly.

And what does that one thing you picked really matter out of everything I said anyways. Arenanet made tons of money with the original Guild Wars and they did not focus on the real money store. Now they are making even more money but they are putting out less content. It does show they figured out how to make more money with less work but from what I see its not sustainable. Then again maybe if they make the same amount or more money in less time maybe they don’t care if the game dies out. Especially since they have the megaservers to keep things looking populated until everything goes down to one instance each so they can milk it for every last penny they can get.

ipan.4356:

Anet’s mistake is that they don’t yet realize how to get more people to spend money in the gem store.

Clue: it’s not by focusing on the gem store exclusively.

Make an awesome game. Update it with lots of new content. Make sure there are plenty of cosmetic options in the store for people to support the game with. Keep putting out lots of new content for people to play.

Publish how much money revenue you are receiving every month (transparency). This helps fans know how well the game is doing, and when it needs more money (prompts people to spend).

Anet doesn’t know how to adapt to the era of social media and transparency.

Look at how well Star Citizen is doing – they’re in the Guinness Book of World Records now, btw.

Everything Anet does is backwards – it’s indicative of the failure of corporate culture.

Instead of continuing their failed secrecy policy, instead of continuing their morbid fixation with squeezing fans for cash (without delivering new content), they need to pull a 180 and do the following things:

Be 100% transparent with your fans about where the game stands, why you are doing what you are doing, and exactly what your plans are for the future, and how you plan to fix your mistakes. Be transparent about the gem store – publish figures. Let us know where that money is being spent and how it’s being used to develop GW2 further.

And, above all, put out more content. Lots of it.

Build it, and they will come.

People are becoming disillusioned with GW2.

I’m having more fun right now playing Skyrim and Star Citizen (Arena Commander alpha).

Your game is stale, fix it.

QFT

too many people are telling them this and they are just being stubborn. People like me want a reason to come back. No matter how bad arenanet wants that reason to be the living story, that just won’t be it. And making lame changes to the leveling experience to drag out current content is an easy to see through ruse. We want real content not stuff that is only their to make your metrics say what you want them to say.

Fernling.1729:

They have to make money somehow without a subscription and at this point in it’s life it’s probably not making much at all from box sales. I’m sure they have NCsoft/nexon pushing sales as well.

Living story has been their focus and seems to be that it will stay their focus. They haven’t been shy in saying this.

I hate it when people use that lame excuse. Yes they do need to make money and they are making tons of it.
Arenanet already showed they could make money off just selling the game with out a real money store or a subscription needed. Now they are doing the same business model plus they have the real money store. They should being doing extremely better and have plenty of resources to invest in the game and not just the store. The only reason they wouldn’t be making that money now is because people are tired of spending money on a stagnant game. If they want to be stubborn and keep saying we know you really enjoyed the game at launch but that is all the content we are ever going to give you except for the LS and gemstore, then the game is going to die. The game already is getting a bad reputation on the internet. How bad does it have to get before some positive change happen here?

Casmurro.9046:

I dont think the example that the OP is bringing up is very relevant. He basically had to drag his girlfriend into playing gw2, he even had to buy the game for her. I bet that after 20 hours of playing the game she will get bored and stop playing, and no matter what changes you recommend that wont make her hold more attention to the game.

The game should catter to people that are interested in playing it, if you buy a game you should do a little research about what you are buying before spending money on it, and not expect to be hand-holded all the way through the game.

So, basically she doesnt know how mmos work, didnt even bother in buying a copy herself and after only a few hours she felt overwhelmed by everything the game has to offer so lets dumb down the game even more so more and more people that dont give a kitten about the game can complain less until they reach lvl 80 and get bored anyway.

QFT

Catering to those that aren’t going to hang around anyways makes me think they don’t want the kind of players that will end up staying for the long haul. I could understand making the starter zones in to proper tutorials to explain some of the things like dodging and combo fields that are completely different than other MMOs. The changes they did do though show a total disconnect from the playerbase.

DaveyC.4398:

I would like to give perhaps a different perspective to the NPE. So to give a little background to this, I am not a new player. My first MMO was GW1 and have played others in between the two games.

MMOs in general have core concepts such as armour, weapons, upgrades, crafting, loot drops and countless other things that most players who are GW2 veterans or gamers who have played other MMOs will take their understanding of for granted.

So my Girlfriend decided that after a few years of moaning at me for playing GW2 all the time she would give it a try during the free trial. I ultimately brought her an account as it was in the sale.

My Girlfriend has no experience of an MMO, her typical computer games are things like Sim City and the odd PS4 or Xbox One game like Kinect Sport.
At first when she created a character and did her first starting levels, she was getting really into it. I followed her around in the low level areas trying to explain the basics like navigating, killing mobs etc.

At the end of her first few hours she seemed quite into the game. Yesterday she went back onto it and continued doing hearts until she hit level 10. At this point she had what can be described as a mini melt down as to how confusing the requirements are. She got very frustrated at not knowing what the armour types are for, what to do with loot, why we have bank storage, what to do with crafting materials, why we needed crafting materials, what the purpose of food buffs are and all of the things that a seasoned MMO player would know instinctively.

She felt that the game did not do a good job of explaining these elements during the initial game play.

Based on my girlfriends experience so far, I believe that the changes to the NPE are most definitely a good idea as having everything available from the get go would have been even more overwhelming.

I also believe that the NPE should introduce some of the points mentioned above at an earlier stage so her confusion could have been minimised.
She hasn’t rage quit yet but we will see how her next few days go.

I think the point I am trying to make with this post is that most people who are moaning about the changes are not new to MMOs or GW2 and should think about what it would be like to start this game with no understanding of the mechanics or MMOs in general.

I believe further changes could be made in order to help new players learn these concepts within the game, perhaps tutorials that could be accessed within the game rather than having to access the wiki.

I think that’s nice that you got your girlfriend to play with you but is she playing it to spend time with you or because she likes it? Do you think if you stopped playing she would keep playing? Do you think if you broke up she would keep playing? Would she have ever played any MMO with out your input? Is she the type of player that will be profitable for a game developer to cater to?

My daughter used to play with me. She had fun playing and played like most the white knights say you should play, with out real expectations or goals. Just wondering around exploring and enjoying the world. When I quit playing she quit also. Even though she enjoyed the game, she was really only playing to spend time with me. Which is great for arenanet as long as I kept playing so I’m not sure we should be catering to her.

PS, I hope you never get to answer some of my questions and you and your girlfriend have many years of playing MMOs together.

Solandri.9640:

Countess Aire.9410:

Nothing happens. He disappears and the timer resets. It is a beginning zone boss. Nothing changes, it just resets. At least that what use to happens.

I’ve seen it fail twice in recently, and that’s exactly what happens – nothing. Last fail was about a month or month and a half ago. With the way megaservers work, sometimes you end up in a new instance with very few people.

I’ve always been curious what happens if you kill Jormag during the first phase.

If I remember correctly, you can’t. He will just bounce to the other spot quicker.

Vayne.8563:

Sokia.3710:

Someone mentioned that you have to kill Overgrown Grub to unlock one of the traits. That reminded me of that last time I was in WvWvW and someone was trying to get a group together to kill the grub. The chat went something like this:

Casual: Hey guys let’s kill the grub boss!
Me: Why would you want to kill the grub?
Random1: Go back to PvE, n00b.
Commander1: Everyone get to the keep!
Random2: Swords at keep!
Casual: We need more for grub, there’s only like 4 or 5 of us.
Commander2: If you aren’t on my tag, just uninstall the game.
Random3: Why are there a bunch of people fighting the grub?
Random4: More like, why are there a bunch of people dying at the grub.

Last time I killed the grub it went something like this.

Guildie: Can anyone help me kill the grub.
Other guildies: Give me a sec, just finishing up this event…I’ll go…sure thing.

Five minutes later the grub was dead.

People say there’s no value to guilds in this game. I just don’t get it.

Some people had guilds that dropped down to only a couple of people. The 3 guilds I was in went from huge to only a couple active in each one. Its not easy finding guilds that you fit in with and not everyone wants to be in a guild with players they don’t click with. Plus some of us are a little stubbornly loyal and don’t like hopping from guild to guild. I think the amount of people that find being in a guild has no value is very few.

I am happy that you personally have a guild that will help you with these chores when needed though. Its just not that simple for many others.

Edit: Plus you shouldn’t need others for personal character advancement. That’s just bad form.

Donari.5237:

For those complaining it would be unfair to move the armor pieces to earlier AP tallies because those with higher AP would have missed their chance at them, there’s no reason they couldn’t be retroactively awarded.

I’m another who’s been playing actively since headstart with few breaks and with a lot of dailies, monthlies, and LS achieves gained (no WvW or sPvP though) and I’m just past 12K. I sort of burned out on the game after the town clothes fiasco, and haven’t tried real hard at the Dry Top achieves (lack of a meta-achieve reward contributed to that), or I’d likely be around 13K.

I’ve been gung ho for this game from the Alpha days, and hope to have that rekindled when the “big things in the wings” come to light. But even I have lost the oomph for regular AP gathering; I doubt I’ll see 18K any time soon, let alone 36K. Imo the skins are just priced out of reach for far too great a proportion of the player base. Sure there should be some rewards for years of play; the birthday gifts can cover that (putting aside the general opinion on the quality of the gifts).

I agree, a long term goal in a video game can take a couple of years but asking it to take a decade is over the top. Birthday gifts can and should cover that and they should be increasingly better rewards every year. For 5 years maybe something like choice of a precursor or maybe even a special 5 year anniversary suit of armor and then have another suit that unlocks at the 10 year mark. Make it like the first unlock but with special effects.

Yeah, everyone knows the only reason its like this is because of the order they created the stuff and added it in to the game. They should make it like the weapon skins so you can choose what skin out of all of them to pick but changing the order so that you can at least get 1 full set at 18k I think would suffice.

At 18k it would still be extremely rare. And those that like to be special and have what no one else has can have a special title and both sets unlocked at 36k. The few that make it to 36k will be alone for a decade and the few that make it to 18k will be able to feel special for about 5 years before they start seeing anyone else wearing the armor. Is that not good enough or do you really have to have everything with out anyone else getting there for an entire decade. talk about entitled.

PS. I just wanted to add that the only reason people are so far ahead is because there was a lot more ap being handed out in the start. If everyone could still get the same amount of ap now as when the game launched then it wouldn’t be as much of an issue. Currently though, people could put in as much work or even more work into getting the APs as the leaders but they will not earn as much in the same amount of time. People aren’t asking for hand outs. They just see that the deck is stacked in one direction. If arenanet actually figures out a way to balance the AP rewards so they are equal to what the leaders had the option of getting, then leaving the unlock system the way it is now would be more acceptable.

What I mean by this is that people should be able to get over 20k AP in 2 years if they start and try right now just like the leaders could. Telling people they just want a free hand out when that is exactly what you got is hypocritical and shows you’re just a selfish person.

That sounds a like a good QoL change. Kind of surprises me as it takes away a reason for having multiple alts. that would have been nice to put all armor and jewelery on one character and all weapons and cooking on another.

So why the hell couldn’t they have done that sooner.

:P

EotM is more rewarding because arenanet wants players in it for the metrics. This way they can take it to quarterly meetings and say look at the new WvW map its doing amazing. Even though we all know its because they stacked the rewards there. It won’t be changing for the simple fact that if normal WvW had the same rewards then their new map wouldn’t look as good on the bar graphs.

There is a trend with all the updates they have done that show they only care about items that they can manipulate for the metrics.

Vayne.8563

I’d say anyone who doesn’t get up to level 20 before they judged an MMO, probably isn’t suited to MMORPGs.

This is exactly how I feel. So I wonder WHY THE HELL is arenent investing time in to players that obviously are not interested in the game and that are not suited to MMORPGs. Because that is what the NPE is here for, correct. To try and sway those that won’t stay. I think right there you just made the case that many against the NPE have been trying to make. Thank you Vayne.

The people that like the game are playing. You don’t need to change the game in to something else. These players have already shown that they are profitable. So why not give them more of want made them like the game. So that they keep showing you how profitable it is to keep them happy.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I appreciate the feedback. I just wonder how such a survey could work. Most surveys are not essay questions. They’re like this:

• Should we change [this thing]? Yes/No.

That seems unhelpful. First, things are seldom answered with just a yes or no answer. Instinct is to react, “Well, I need to know more about why you’re looking at that area,” or “That’s not as important as [these other things]” or “Yes, please change it [this way] and not [that other way].”

Or maybe you’re thinking:

• Which of these things should we focus on? [list]

And we all know, given we’re forum members, that those opinions — about priorities or changes — could number in the dozens. Nah, probably in the hundreds.

Maybe it’s an essay question. Maybe it’s “We’re looking for feedback on [this thing]” where you can provide your thoughts in detail. If that’s the case, may I introduce you to the CDIs?

You make good points, it’s not possible for any human being to read every thread. And certainly when their job is making a game — design, programming, art, writing, and all the other facets of development — reading the forums in large amounts could take them away from their job at a cost to the game.

But if 300 Anet Team members are reading the forums, even if lightly, it starts discussion. Heck, I’ve sent notes about threads to various teams, and I know just about every other person here has done the same. Like this: “I don’t work on [such-and-such], but I found [this linked thread] really interesting.” Or maybe, “This is for your team. I think we can support it by doing [our stuff] if you are going to work on this.”

So surveys? Maybe they’ll happen, I’m not sure. Could you outline your thoughts on how they’d look? Input on something topical? CDIs are great — are you participating? Have you made a suggestion there that we have one on a topic near and dear to your heart?

Please don’t see this as a “never happen” response. I’m mostly just asking questions, that’s all.

Why can’t the survey be something like
on a scale of 1-5 how happy are you with XXXX
out of these 5 things which was your most liked
out of these 5 things which was your least liked
please rate these 5 items in order of most liked to least liked
on a scale of 1-5 how would you rate your experience from levels 1-5, 5-10,10-15, etc
on a scale of 1-5 how would you rate the speed at which you gain skills, the speed at which you gain traits, the speed at which you unlock the ability to do XXXX
what things would you like added to the game out of these 5
what things would you like changed out of these 5
how is your overall satisfaction with XXXX

I think some of these could help you with interpreting what your metrics are telling you. Rather than telling everyone what someone thinks or wants the metrics to tell them.

Penarddun.6827:

I’m surprised at the avoidance of in-game surveys. Even during this trial week, people may play and then not buy the game, but how can anyone know why they chose not to buy it if there isn’t some sort of survey/feedback in the game. It could be anywhere from “the artwork is not my style” to “I’m confused where to go.” Something as simple as a textbox asking, why are you uninstalling the game, would give real-time feedback. Why reject using this resource?

Because if they have straight answers they can not make the metrics say what they want them to say. And then the genius making all these decisions will probably get the boot.

Einlanzer.1627:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Gaile Gray.6029:

If you’re considering how the GW2 Team can best hear your input about the game — such as what you’d like to see in the future, how things are working now, etc. — I personally don’t think a survey is necessary. Honestly and truly: These forums are a huge and very effective medium for communication. They are read daily by members of the team — probably more people than you think! — and the forums, as a whole, give us a much better view of what’s important to Guild Wars 2 players than most surveys would do.

Too we have interaction here that’s incredibly effective. Yep, I’m thinking CDIs and I’m glad they’re back! (Even if I marvel how Chris is able to keep up the pace! )

Surveys are difficult to devise in a way that makes them unbiased and statistically accurate. That’s not to say it cannot be done, and the idea of surveys linked to an active game account certainly sounds better to me than those random Internet surveys, like “Who’s your favorite singer,” which get gamed through fan groups, artist management companies, publicists, agents, and the use of “ballot-box stuffing” methods, like vote, clear cache, vote again; vote, change computers, vote again; vote, set up 100 fake e-mail accounts, vote again.

Anyway, just wanted to add a couple of pennies about the subject, fwiw.

I honestly believe that they are read often and things are discussed internally but that’s where the issue lies, no final information is ever given to the players. I don’t blame anyone specifically just the policy of not trusting us with any real information about the future of the game. It’s getting very old for a lot of people and it’s disturbing to a lot of your player base so frankly and please don’t take it as an attack on you, all the pep talks given won’t really help until real information is shared, at least for me and everyone else who’s asked for the same openness.

PS. welcome back into the lion’s den….where’s the froggy?

Not to mention that it’s not how most games are managed because it’s not very smart business-wise.

You have to generate hype to keep interest sustained. The way you do that is by actually talking about what your plans are. Additionally, doing so allows you to take corrective action when a concept proves to be very unpopular before you castrate your live game with it.

And yes, I’m talking about you NPE and trait system. There are reasons why these implementations have had so much backlash (and why there’s so much unrest in general) that go beyond typical player whining about any x random change.

I thought after SOE showed the world what not to do when running an MMO that no one would ever be dumb enough to do it again. Least of all arenanet. The fact they are calling it the NPE makes me think they are doing this on purpose but I just can not fathom why.

Selene.9415:

Vlad Morbius.1759:

I honestly believe that they are read often and things are discussed internally but that’s where the issue lies, no final information is ever given to the players. I don’t blame anyone specifically just the policy of not trusting us with any real information about the future of the game. It’s getting very old for a lot of people and it’s disturbing to a lot of your player base so frankly and please don’t take it as an attack on you, all the pep talks given won’t really help until real information is shared, at least for me and everyone else who’s asked for the same openness.

PS. welcome back into the lion’s den….where’s the froggy?

I think people are forgetting the pitchfork wars that happened when they did tell us about what they were planning for the game. People automatically take a “we want to do this” as a “this is coming in the near future! Everyone get on the hype train!” Even if they don’t make promises, people will take it as a promise, which is why I can’t begrudge them of their “Don’t talk during development” policy.

That said, they probably shouldn’t leave full reveals to streamers or youtubers (like they did for september feature pack). The patch notes, which the streamers use for those videos, aren’t incredibly detailed and they miss a lot, which leads to situations like what happened earlier this month; where everyone thinks the NPE is working exactly as intended when it really isn’t.

tl;dr: I don’t begrudge them their information during development policy, but there really are places where they should be more open, ie. release notes.

There are games that have shown that active communication works. Eve for example has made mistakes but has done what they can to correct them. They actively listen to and work with the community to provide the best game for their current players. This has caused them to grow in players rather than shrink. There is no reason for arenanet not to communicate. If arenanet know that the direction they are going is going to kitten people off and make people rage on the forums then it is obviously a bad decision and should not be done. If they are staying silent because of fear of kittening people off and people raging on the forums because they aren’t sure if is something that will go over well or not, then that is exactly the time they should be communicating. The player base will be divided on many things but some things like changing traits and dumbing down starter areas I’m pretty sure the player base would have agreed on, that its a bad idea and to spend your time on something better for the game. If arenanet really felt that the starter areas were issues or traits were issues they should have created an in game survey and asked. If they want to know why people quit they should create a survey upon uninstalling GW2. Not use some metrics to try to guess what people want. Telling people this is what you want the metrics said so is dumb. Its like trying to read someone’s mind that is willing to tell you what they are thinking if only you would just ask and then listen when we speak.

TrOtskY.5927:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

TrOtskY.5927:

How the new trait system should have worked

> Go to map X and complete Y number of Heart quests

> Go to map Z and complete W number of Vistas

> Complete a total number heart quests across all maps

> Unlock all your tier 2 utility skills on your character

> Kill 1,000 enemies in PvE total

ETC

How it works

> Go to this obscure place and do this obscure quest

> Complete an entire specific map that is at the opposite end of the world to where your character starts

> Go to WvW and kill the absolutely huge boss that takes an entire zerg like 15 minutes to kill

Basically what I am saying is that the direction was ok, but the application was god awful.

I think your system would have been terrible too, for the record. I mean, sure, it doesn’t include the Grub from what I see but . . . still looks bad.

Hey I’m not saying I want a system at all, I would much prefer it as before, but I am saying that I can see what they were at least trying to do.
Like I said, the execution was terrible, however the idea of traits unlocks being tied to some sort of achievement is not inherently awful, by any means.

I disagree, I believe this entire new system is awful. They should have only done this with the new traits and new skills. That way people could still experiment with current builds but have new build options open up through exploration and tasks.

Palador.2170:

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I will just tell a little story that I hope ANet can take a lesson from.

I work in an accounting firm. Right after tax season we were told that we were getting a new computer system to track our time and billing. The admin staff were given weeks of training so they could help teach the rest of us noobs. The company who made the program sent in people to give us days worth of training. We used the system for about a month before realizing it was much worse than the previous system. Our firm owners owned up to this and announced they made a mistake to implement the system and had decided to uninstall it and go back to the old one.

Every person in the office cheered. We now call it the program that will not be named. We ALL had 100% respect for the owners for accepting they made a mistake and then for fixing it FAST. I’m sure they spent tens of thousands of dollars, at a minimum. Yet they sucked it up and made the right call.

So…… seriously. What the hell is up?

I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t get at least part of their investment back because the system didn’t live up to what was promised.

ANet, on the other hand, will recover NOTHING of the money they’ve invested into this system.

They would start getting a lot more missing revenue from all the players that stop boycotting the gem store and start referring people again.

I think that when people say we need more “end game” they mean more to do at end game. People have been asking for more for a while. We all fell in love with the game at launch and want more of it. The little bit that has been given after 2 years is pitiful. We who played Guild Wars and all its expansions know that arenanet is capable of so much more. 1.5 maps is not anything compared to the multiple continents that came in the expansions in the same amount of time. They say this type of content is going to come from the living story. At the current rate it will take the LS 10 years to give the same amount of content that Guild Wars first expansion did in 1 year.

How is anyone’s in game experience negatively affected by arenanet adding more dungeons, skills, traits, weapon types, classes, and update more on pve, wvw, and pvp like maps and bosses and game modes. I’m happy for you if you are still satisfied with the status quo but does it hurt you if they give you more of any of these things.

Vayne.8563:

Aliven.4056:

@Vayne
That is problem for that players. If you skip tutorial in a game you dont know how to play this is only your fault. The devs give you tools, and if you dont want to use them then be ready for consequesnces.

Also there is not a single reason to NOT make a tutorial and a tutorial section of the game should be THE best part of the game.

Gating things is not the answer. Teaching how to use tools you gain is a way. Giving more solution for the problems is the way. Not striping us from the tools.

Actually it’s a problem for the devs. If a player skips the tutorial and leaves the game, it doesn’t help the game. Sure it’s his fault, but it’s Anet’s problem. That’s the problem in a nutshell. More people need to stay after starting.

Just make it so you can not skip the tutorial on your first character and make it a fun experience.

Game devs need to learn to accept that maybe their game is a niche experience and it just won’t appeal to everyone. Then they need to realize that after 2 years that probably 90% of the players that will play your game are already playing. Then they need to give those players that are playing their game what they want so that they will not get bored. Many players have asked for certain things and instead we have gotten an NPE. Just like with SOE the NPE is not what the players asked for. All you are doing is hurting your game. The players want more dev time put into new pvp, wvw, dungeons, weapons, pve, classes, skills, traits, and world bosses. Pretty much more of what you gave us at launch.

I don’t understand why that’s such a difficult task and why dev time goes in to anything else. The people that will play your game already are and they want more of it. They don’t want it changed in to something else.

Silvercyclone.1462:

Terrahero.9358:

Silvercyclone.1462:

I have created a new character to experience the new changes and I don’t think they are bad at all. The thing everyone needs to understand is most players who have negative feelings about the leveling either haven’t created a new character or stopped playing the game a while ago and just like to troll. The best thing to do is experience the stuff yourself before reading anything and also remember that they made this game subscription free and haven’t put any play-to-win items int he gem store.

And what do you base your stastitics on? Or is it just a gut feeling?
Because we’ve actually seen some stastistics on how 1500+ people feel about the new changes. And it was overwhelmingly negative.
Good for you for enjoying it, but you are part of a very small group.

Also, what does “no subscription fee” have to do with this?
They spend a lot of development time making their game, in the eyes of many players, worst. Are we suppose to be cheerful over this fact?

I base my statistics on how may people i see on forums that say they have quit and still have negative remarks. I would like to see a link where u have seen 1500+ people say its negative. The no subscription proves that Anet is about players and not just for themselves.

the hybrid b2p/f2p/cash shop model is generating more for them than a subscription model would have. That is not done for the players, it is done for dollars. Many developers realize they can stretch smaller amounts content out and charge more for it. You see it with shooter games. Battlefield series when it started with 1942 had expansions that added huge amounts of content for very good prices. Now they sell small DLC packs that when all is tallied together gives you almost nothing compared to the expansions and also ends up costing more.

So if they were doing it for the player base they would be adding a lot more content in to the game directly and not gating it behind the gemstore. Right now they are doing less work and charging more for it. This game was not hurting for cash. They made plenty of it but now the people at the top would rather invest in their own bank account rather than the game.

Amalia.2879:

“Who the heck figured this was an alright thing to do? This is quite posibly the worst idea I have ever seen applied in an MMO ever”

I disagree…

SWG:NGE

That is all.

They are really trying very hard to one up SOE. They are even calling it the NPE which makes me think some guy at the top is trolling us. Like he has some bet going on that he can ruin a game more than SOE and still get people to give them money.

Edit: forgot to add that they are not done making changes yet. We still have a ways before we are at the same build as China. So really the only difference between what arenanet is doing and what SOE did is that SOE did the change over night but arenanet is dragging it out over a 1 year period.

Spiderbite.8049:

Sokia.3710:

The people who call the shots and dont care about the american or EUROPEAN playerbases are ruining their VISION for the game.

FTFY

FTFY

They are removing everything from the game until all that’s left is living story