Guild Wars 2

More options for dealing with Ascended Materials bloat would definitely be welcome.

Game On

I very much understand and share the desire to want to do everything optimally, but speaking as a player who plays all races and classes and has leveled 27 characters to 80, my advice is: just get out there, explore, play and have fun.

That said, it is indeed natural to want to know more, and for that GW2 has the best wiki of any game I’ve played:

Guild Wars 2 Official Wiki

You can access the wiki while in-game by typing “/wiki” in a chat window. This will alt-tab you out of the GW2 client and open a browser window, so be in a safe place when you do.

As for best professions, I play them all and enjoy each of them in their own way, but when I just want to have fun, I inevitably find myself coming back to play one of my Mesmers.

Once you get dodge clones, the world just seems a lot more hilarious.

On The Level

“I will commit to you that your max-level characters with your top-tier gear today are still going to be your max-level characters with your top-tier gear tomorrow.”
— Mike O’Brien, Co-Founder and CEO, ArenaNet

“We will never add more levels to the game, we will never add more tiers of gear to the game. The tiers and levels we have today will be the tiers and levels we have for the rest of the life of Guild Wars 2.”
— Colin Johanson, Game Director, Guild Wars 2

While I have various complaints about GW2, it’s still the best game I’ve ever played and has ruined other MMOs for me. So for good or ill, it’s my MMO “home”.

The NPE/trait fiascoes pushed me away for a lot longer than I expected, and I’m still waiting for changes before I start playing again on a regular basis, but the idea of permanently leaving GW2 has never entered my mind.

If ArenaNet would have chosen to raise the level cap for Heart of Thorns, however, or at some time in the future, I would have scrambled my password, deleted the GW2 client from my PC and had nothing more to do with GW2. Ever.

Thus I’m very, very pleased that ArenaNet has promised to never raise the level cap, and is instead committed to other forms of character progression.

An excellent decision, and one more reason to love both the game and the bold, talented visionaries who make it.

Hidden Costs

Ashendale.2165:

Exactly. But the behavior doesn’t make much sense. Sure they get more money in their pockets from selling a copy. But the long term (greater) gain from the Gem Shop (because, let’s face it: the temptation is there and most of us end up giving in) is gone

I’m sure ArenaNet knows this, and certainly has the numbers to know what’s profitable and what’s not. My sense is that they’re quite savvy about such matters, so I’m not worried about that.

Determining what keeps people from playing, however, absent exit questionnaires, can be trickier, and the official forums of any game are notorious for painting a misleading picture of what players like and don’t like — which is why, despite all the negative feedback in these forums, I can understand why ArenaNet didn’t and wouldn’t act solely on what’s posted here.

Lest my previous posts give the wrong impression, I’m not suggesting they don’t care about existing players — I think they do — but it’s much too easy to feel otherwise when something really bad happens to the game and they don’t seem to notice or care for months on end.

Granted, that’s just how it can “feel” and I don’t think ArenaNet is consciously apathetic to the player base.

But man if it doesn’t feel that way sometimes, and anything they can do to reassure distressed players otherwise definitely earns appreciation.

Anyway, I realize this has all been more of a rant than constructive criticism, and am sorry about that. But it’s been good to at least get this off my chest, so thanks for your patience in all this.

And now, ironically enough, despite Colin’s recent comments and the big Heart of Thorns reveal, the current reality is that things are no different today than they were yesterday, and like my former GW2 partners, I find my interests wandering to other pursuits.

Here’s hoping, however, that next time I check back, the light at the end of this dark NPE tunnel will be both closer and brighter.

Like Grandpa Used To Say

Ashendale.2165:

I’m interpreting this in two ways: by “grandfathering” are you saying completely excluding old players from the new leveling system? Or giving them a choice?

Characters created before the NPE hit have all the previously existing traits unlocked, even if they were level 1. Characters created after the NPE are subject to all the restrictions inherent to the NPE.

That exclusion mechanism is/was already in place, so applying it to all new characters created on an existing account is what I think should have been done, and would have avoided alienating a large number of players.

Prodigal Children

In my case, altaholic that I am, I have a couple of sub-80 characters who were grandfathered with traits unlocked, but still suffer from the “delayed development syndrome” that makes them too tedious to play.

I also created three characters after the NPE to give the new system “a fair go”, but all three are stagnating in their low 30s because playing them without traits for so many levels was so boring I just couldn’t maintain interest. Until that changes, I won’t be leveling them at all.

In the meantime, I already have 27 level 80s, so I just play them when I do play — which is a lot less than before the NPE struck.

I enjoy creating new characters and enjoyed leveling each and every one of those 27 level 80s from start to finish, but I can’t stand playing sub-80 characters at all since the NPE.

It is literally intolerable to me, which is why I went from daily play to stopping in for a few days every now and then and going off to other interests for weeks or months at a time.

If ArenaNet had simply let me continue enjoying the game instead of treating me like a “new player”, none of this would really be an issue to me — or anyone else in the same boat, which is my point.

But since they screwed it up, that’s not the case. We don’t have a choice, except to either play the “new way” or not play.

Turnover Filling

I agree that “unwilling to listen” isn’t a fair way to characterize ArenaNet’s approach. They have always been willing to listen and quite gracious about even the most blunt of feedback, which is awesome.

I think a more accurate way for me to describe it would be an apparent unwillingness to consider the negative consequences of decisions like these on established players. Or maybe they don’t care.

I’m trying not to sound glib; I honestly don’t know. With so may months having gone by, it’s hard not to feel like they expected N% of players to quit over the NPE but considered it worth that cost in exchange for perceived benefits to new players.

Which sort of dovetails with your final comment: they need to bring in new players. I’m all for that.

But if the tradeoff is losing existing players, it’s worth considering that new players eventually become old players, and if the game is indifferent to retention, they all inevitably become ex-players.

Like too many good people I no longer have the option of playing with, because they left over this, and I don’t think they’ll be coming back anytime soon.

Old Player Experience

About 90% of the grief the NPE has caused could have been prevented by simply “grandfathering” the accounts of existing players so they would not have to contend with all the restrictions being foisted on them after playing for as long as two years without them.

Instead, the NPE was dumped on veteran players in a manner similar to the NGE, with results that were just as predictable.

The idea that this could have come as a surprise to anyone at ArenaNet is frankly rather disturbing, and I hope isn’t going to manifest itself as a continuing trend.

GW2 is an outstanding game, but is plagued by bad decisions such as these and what seems to be a growing unwillingness to listen to what existing players are actually telling them.

Colin’s post in the Traits thread offers some hope, but antics such as the Great Trait Nerf and the NPE Fiasco have already pushed a lot of otherwise enthusiastic players away from the game.

Here’s hoping we’ll begin to see a greater sensitivity to how destructive sudden sweeping, ill-conceived changes can be to the existing player base, and greater care taken to avoid them except where absolutely necessary.

Iteration is a core principle of ArenaNet, and one I admire, and I’m not advising against innovation and experimentation, but please understand that in an increasingly competitive business, alienating loyal customers is a short-sighted and ultimately dead-end direction to take.

Sony Online Entertainment learned this lesson the hard way.

Bottom line: When customers tell you they dislike something, they won’t put up with it forever. Those who have already left the game over these sorts of missteps won’t even tell you that much.

Better Than Never

ColinJohanson.2394:

Thank you for all your passionate feedback on this topic – it not only helped our dev team lead to this decision, but has played a large role in helping us define how to build our exciting new account based mastery system for end-game progression in PvE as well.

As tempting as it is to say “about freakin’ time” after all these many months, the bottom line is that — warts and all — I still consider GW2 the best game I’ve ever played, so…

Thanks.

…

P.S. Now if you could make some much-needed improvements to this great game’s horribly clunky camera system (e.g., FOV adjustment, zoom-pumping mitigation and zoom-to-first-person-view capability), we can finally enjoy all that beautiful, high-verticality content you’ve been sending our way.

No Love For Traiters

My alts have been on hold for months due to the screwed-up trait system, so at first I didn’t really pay attention to it and instead played some of my level 80s like I usually do these days. I finally decided to give Dry Top and the Silverwastes a look, and spent most of the weekend there.

On Sunday afternoon, however, I decided to at least dust off the two alts that were “grandfathered” and already had their traits unlocked. The other three that aren’t might as well be empty slots — I can’t stand to play them at all.

Unfortunately, they still don’t get trait points or tier unlocks until absurdly late in the leveling progression, so playing them is still about as interesting as watching paint dry, and I finally gave up after giving them my best Harvard try.

So while I think the idea of the Double XP Weekend was great, it was marred by the scandalously longstanding problem with traits that have kept my alts on ice for almost a year, which ultimately rendered the idea of double XP meaningless.

Sort of like adding an extra ladle of delicious soup to our bowls, but without removing the big, buzzing fly floating in the middle of it.

They really should have a dedicated forum for these threads.

Be sure to work the expression “puny mortals” into your criticism to maintain the proper tone.

Then refer to anyone who doesn’t see things your way as a “hater”.

Success is inevitable!

Skritt First!

Yes?

You don’t have to buy it.

But I sure as kitten do.

Sylvari troubles, therefore Tengu.

Seems legit.

I volunteered to move to a new map due to few players, and before the resulting buff expired, I got another notice asking me to move to a new map due to few players.

Something is definitely wrong here.

It’s all buffs, so it’s hard not to love it.

…and at this point, we can now safely splice in one of the hundreds of generic PVP versus PVE debate threads posted in these very forums over the past two years — or even a different game entirely — and no one will ever notice.

US and EU players had better start receiving our own versions of these attendants soon.

I’m lonely, thirsty and can’t stop playing.

If you haven’t seen it yet, this is worth a look…

Game Updates: Traits

Policy: 3rd-Party Programs; Multi-Boxing; Macros

Ironically, the title of this thread is also the solution to the problem.

Less Than Zero

Arikyali.5804:

Why do you have it, if you never use it? ._.

I’m holding on to mine in the hope that it will someday be fixed.

Until then, it is slightly less worthless when sitting in a bank slot than it would be sitting in my character inventory actively getting in the way of loot.

I realize, given the trend, that it is more likely this item will be made even more worthless in the future, but I still can’t bring myself to delete it.

A rather sorry and depressing state of affairs, frankly, but there it is.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Here’s an update:

We’re sorry for any confusion related to the in-game mail messaging and want to let you know the dev team is aware that all in-game mails from another account presently display this warning, even if they come from an ArenaNet employee account.

Wait… how do we know you’re the real Gaile Gray? .

Yet another great way to make the game less enjoyable.

Attack Of The Clones

Risen, “smarter” mobs, bosses and bears, of all things, seem to be the ones who most consistently ignore my clones when I open with them, all other things remaining equal.

There are definitely differences in how “gullible” some mobs are versus others, and I assume there are different tables for each mob type that determine their aggro mechanics and targeting priorities.

I prefer it when they attack my clones (I have four lvl 80 mezzies whom are all clone spammers of some sort), and really get a kick out of it when they never go after me personally.

However, when they do, they leave themselves wide open to my clones, who pound them without mercy (my clones are all about doing damage) and take them down while I dodge, phase retreat, block, knock back, kite or just banzai charge them, depending on what I’m fighting and what weapons I’m rocking at the time.

Though mobs who always beeline past my clones for me can be annoying, any mob that is consistent makes itself predictable.

And any mob that makes itself predictable makes itself my inevitable victim.

.

P.S. I predict “Eau de Clone” will become a very popular perfume among Mesmers.

PU = Prismatic Understanding

And yeah, all the acronyms can get confusing, even for those of us who’ve been playing since beta.

Crysto.7089:

ANet should add a FPS mode and add headshots and body specific damage values

Maybe GW2 is the game for you!

Lady Celtaine.3760:

Majic.4801:

Warriors are masters of stealth and evasion.

Working as designed.

Wrong profession there buddy.

*cough* *cough* …

I’m Positive This Thread’s Going To Go Negative

There’s a bunch of things about GW2 that I would like to see changed, but I still consider it the best game I’ve ever played.

I think that’s pretty positive.

Warriors are masters of stealth and evasion.

Working as designed.

Under Way

I like underwater combat, and think the weapon skills are, by and large, fine, but I hate how limited the utility and elites tend to be.

Fixing that will fix a lot of what’s wrong with underwater combat in GW2.

Bow Knows

Scandalous! This problem must be rectified at once!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist teasing just a little with the attachment, but I do agree it’s much nicer when the details in a game aren’t wrong, and hope this eventually gets fixed.

Bad Company

Irrledd.3508:

For real, why do people do this stuff.

Because they have emotional problems that they can’t cope with in “real life”. Mean people aren’t mean because they’re happy, and misery loves company.

And though most PvPers are as well-adjusted as anyone else, PvP in any game tends to attract people who crave a sense of power over others to try to compensate for feeling powerless in the rest of their lives.

Like most people, if approached in the right way under the right circumstances, they can be helped.

Unfortunately, the context of a video game is neither the right way or the right circumstances, so the best course of action is to use the “Ignore” option if necessary, and report anyone actively harassing you or otherwise violating the Guild Wars 2 Rules of Conduct if things become more problematic.

Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of GW2 players are great people, so it’s really not at all hard to accentuate the positive and appreciate the fact that, all things considered, the GW2 community is a lot less toxic than most.

SRoode.7318:

After playing since the 3 day head start, I finally got my first precursor dropped from killing an enemy.

Congratulations!

You have received one more precursor than I have over the same period (and with an embarrassingly large number of hours I’ve played to boot).

All hail the Random Number Gods!

Gaming For The Ages

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

In the future we ought to consider repeat rewards or even a prestige system for voluntarily replaying one-time content.

Definitely this. Opening up content for replayability is an incredibly powerful “force multiplier” for content (and I daresay the very idea of “one-time content” is a good one to move away from).

Replayability, in turn, is a great way to keep players playing. After all, it’s been working quite well for Chess for quite a long time indeed.

No reason GW2 can’t do the same.

I think they should use the Lion’s Arch lion pieces to build a new statue honoring the Skritt King, who is the one who really saved Lion’s Arch.

Or at least the shiniest parts, anyway.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

The idea of having a dye template is a common suggestion, and a great one. It’s been floated to the development team before, but I just raised it again as an idea to remind them about it.

Thanks Regina.

.

(Sorry, I know this is basically a content-free post, but seriously, thanks.)

It’s Been Worse

I think it’s getting better, but that never happens as fast as we want it to.

ArenaNet is still digging out from the disastrous decision to build Living World Season One as one-time-only “throwaway” content and leave little more than some torn up landscape, novelty backpieces and fond memories to show for it in the end.

Replayability suffered almost to the point of permadeath as a result.

However, they have learned from the experience and will hopefully start making up for lost time with a more aggressive pace for new replayable content in Season Two — and perhaps some separate parallel content initiatives to shake some of the cobwebs off of Jolly Old Tyria.

Either way, I think GW2 is going to continue to improve and be around for a quite a long time to come. Or I may be smoking crack.

You decide.

Adding minis to the Wardrobe was an awesome player suggestion and it’s equally awesome to see this actually coming to the game.

Awesome.

I’m happy.

Plenty of room for improvement, of course, but that makes me happy, too.

I miss Season One more than I thought I would, but admittedly, that’s not saying much.

Still, it would be pretty cool if they do end up bringing some of it back as instances.

Time will tell.

Awkward Looks

Thanks, Branden, for boldly going where few devs dare to go.

GW2 is the best game I’ve ever played, and its camera is the clumsiest of any game I’ve ever played (and I’ve played hundreds of games since the ’80s).

I first noticed the problems back in BWE2 when I came over from LOTRO, which has a much more natural-feeling (if not perfect) camera scheme. Things were bad enough in beta that I figured they would be fixed reasonably soon, but well, two years later, here we are.

The FOV change was very welcome on widescreen (I don’t crane my neck quite as much now), but the left-right slider is worthless for jumping puzzles because it’s actually harder to jump in a given direction when looking at it from an oblique angle.

Add in Charr, with their huge occlusive bodies and hunched center-of-gravity-defying posture, and well, there’s a reason I don’t even bother attempting jumping puzzles when I’m playing one of my Charrs (I switch to an Asura).

First Principles

I know first-person-view is something of a pariah with the developers, but it solves a lot of problems with relatively little coding effort.

In many other games, you can simply zoom in your third-person view to a first-person POV smoothly, and adding that simple change (which already occurs automatically when backed against a wall) would make a HUGE difference.

I would gladly trade a little “immersion” for the ability to see what the heck is happening or take a screenshot that doesn’t involve an upskirt character selfie, and frankly, wrestling with an awkward camera is a lot more immersion-breaking than not seeing the back of my character will ever be.

Please consider giving us this. It’s not like we haven’t repeatedly begged for it passionately enough over the years.

Pumpin’ And Jumpin’

The second-biggest problem I’ve seen with the camera is the prevalence of small world objects that force the camera to zoom.

Things like resource nodes, twigs, small boulders, tiny bushes, transparent objects and other things that don’t actually block line-of-sight cause the camera to rapidly zoom in, resulting in a “pumping” or “zoom jitter” effect that can induce nausea. This is featured in countless YouTube videos.

Going up Asura steps with an Asura, for example, causes a violent pumping effect that feels like being repeatedly punched in the face.

Fixing this is actually something that would require changing world assets rather than the camera itself, and would involve changing the attributes of smaller or transparent objects so that they don’t force the camera to zoom. That may be labor-intensive, but once fixed, and guidelines established for modelers to ensure new objects don’t cause similar problems, it’s done and pays off forever.

There is absolutely no way anyone could play GW2 and not know exactly what I’m talking about here, so I’m hoping it will finally get the attention it needs.

A Certain Point Of View

I play on a very large widescreen monitor, and though the effect is subtle, it’s really painful to play GW2 for long periods because of FOV mismatches. Adding a slider for this is long, long overdue, and I pray we’ll see it sooner rather than even later.

Actually, I recommend two sliders: one for vertical and one for horizontal. This will help players with a wider variety of monitor configurations (e.g., multi-screen, laptops, etc.) play the game without so much discomfort.

Anyway, thanks for looking if you made it through this interminable screed, and thanks again for letting us know somebody cares.

Selfish
adj
Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

Have A Heart!

Reset hearts periodically? No.

Make hearts replayable? Yes.

I actually enjoy some of the activities needed for some of the renown hearts, and regret when I can’t do them anymore because they become locked out when the heart is completed.

Dynamic events don’t make these activities available. That’s a separate system and, in my opinion, irrelevant to what hearts themselves bring to the gameplay experience.

Allowing players to replay hearts would allow them to choose whatever heart-related content they want whenever they want, and choice is a good thing.

Andred.1087:

It’s 45 minutes of waiting for 15 minutes of playing

Is it fun?

I like it.

Make it so.

I demand they use the word “titillating” instead.

This discussion is very exciting!

Louder Than Words

Communication is never easy when it comes to games and gaming communities. Having observed the process for quite some time, it rarely amounts to anything other than a no-win scenario, regardless of how well done.

ArenaNet has made some major changes, and the China launch has been a very big deal for the company. Shifting from the disastrous “throw-away” content model of Living World Season One to the far more sustainable model of Season Two is a HUGE improvement, but its cumulative effects will take time to become more apparent.

The Feature Packs make sweeping and significant changes, and another one will be here very soon. I’m very impressed by the last one (though I think the trait system revamp needs some serious adjustment), and am excited about the next. These are literal game-changers, and quite welcome.

And though it would be nice to hear more about ArenaNet’s plans and proposals, what matters most is what actually happens.

Talk is cheap. Let’s see this stuff in-game.

I’m still waiting for the Commando to go live.

Because anime.