Guild Wars 2

You get links to all these news entries with dates and deadlines while logging in. Maybe you should not use the auto-login that takes you directly to character select if you dont want to bother about opening the websiteto look it up on your own.

Imo A.net learned from their timing and deadline mistakes and very clearly made durations and time limits on the different chapters known. If it wasnt for the mistake with the date for bonfire I’d call their announcements flawless. That mistake has been corrected and the resulting issues resolved by re-adding the bonfire for well over a week, longer then it was supposed to run initially.

If you can play video games and use the internet you really are old enough to look such things up on your own if you care about them. Handholding only goes so far. And if you dont care enough then why make a post? It’s gone so /shrug and move on, who cares.

So it really is black and white, you are aware you are dealing with temporary content and care for it, look it up. Or you dont care for it and consequently dont look it up, then dont whine about missing the deadline.

I find it interesting that lower level players are scaled up to 80 while in southsun cove during the event duration.

It begs the question, at what level is an area considered too high and will get people upscaled? Is it only done in Southsun because the code is already there from the island’s introduction in november? Would they scale up people in Sparkfly Fen if the next living story takes place there? I wasnt scaled during F&F except for the dungeon, which is understandable for Wayfarers but Diessa is not as newbie accessible and was part of F&F without upscaling.

Obviously they do it so the content is accessible by all (though they decided not to upscale in Diessa). Should it always be done the living story is in zones higher then the 1-15ish newbie areas? Only in level 80 areas? An arbitrary point between the two? Or maybe it shouldnt be done again?

Yea I see little point to it and you cant really believe Anet is going to take whatever results come out of it as gospel?

Let them make their own polls if they care for our feedback.

I do play a mesmer and while stealing the boons is ‘neat’, the cooldowns prevent me from taking them off all the time unless I carry 3 boon removals as utility. And most people dont seem to bother with it.

Since I like the mobs having diverse abilities this is basically a request to the devs for more skill variety!

OP is right, several aspects of this arc do seem rushed. F&F had more attention to detail. But so far it seems SoS has more meat to it gameplay wise, especially for a 5 week long transitionary story. I guess we can do a fair comparison in a few weeks.

I do expect more polish from the future arcs though, even if they perhaps have a transition time of 2-3 weeks without a story running to buy that time (although I expected the slow start of F&F to be laid out that way to buy time for production on the following chapters).

I love Lord Faren, too bad there wasnt time to write dialogue for human nobles that are supposed to be BFF with him. Imo that should be considered important for future arcs.

I loved how the guards in the Charr war room let me in because I’m pact commander but wouldnt allow my alt through. Little details like these bring the world alive to me. Weave enough of it into the temporary and also permanent content in the future please.

I doubt I will spend enough time on the mini game to get any of the titles, it’s not my cup of tea really. But I welcome it’s inclusion in the Living Story and that it has various achievements linked to it. Some people will enjoy it and play it all month, and good on them. If you dont enjoy dont do it.

I swear most complaints about the living story are at least partially rooted in achievement OCD.

Shanna.4762:

…It would seem really pointless to do all of this and not create something out of it for long term use and viability.

That’s exactly the thought I had about F&F and I expected some permanent content to remain in Diessa and Wayfarers. That didnt work out as I expected, so I dont have as high expectations here either.

Mainly because you have to keep in mind this content has been worked on for a while and the changes we demanded at the end of F&F could be included in later updates but probably not this one. So I still expect the later living stories to add some persistant changes, but will give this chapter a pass based on the time it would take to implement our feedback.

The bug in the dungeon with not getting credit is unfortunate, especially if that was the only chance you had. I wouldnt expect anything done in that regard though. It wasnt your fault but things like that happen.

The only proper solution to the date mix-up would have been to extend the celebration bonfire at least to the 16th and preferably a few days more. It’s much easier to correct and entirely their screw up.

I think you made a wrong decision. Unless you have insider info from A.net that the tentacles only move on ascended items, that line of thought leads to a very unlikely theory. I know I wouldnt put my gold into that kinda wishful thinking.

It would be possible if we didnt have the writer from A.net posting above saying that more personalized dialogue was cut because of time constraints.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I would like to know whether ANet actually lost out on any money by making the SAB skins obtainable through in-game tokens as well as non-account-bound RNG chest drops. Because that system WORKED for the player base.

IF it also worked for ANet, financially, then there’s no excuse to not use it for living story content in the future.

If it means though that people wasted significantly less money on RNG chests and in consequence Josh Foreman has to move back into his parents’ cellar and eat only cheap ramen for the rest of the month, then, well, tough luck for us players.

Duh, OF COURSE they lost out on money with SAB. Lets say the bauble baubles were not there, and instead they had sold the skins for 100 gems, or in a RNG trap, both ways would have had people buy them, so they make money. They make zero money from you farming bauble baubles. So no, it doesnt work for them financially to make the special items freely available in game every time. they need the money.

I do feel their approach to the limited time offers is not yet good enough, but I’m hoping they slowly work towards a solution that brings enough money without everything being a RNG cash grab. Wintersday was harmless in this regard with many direct offers for gems alongside the RNG minis, SAB was barely monetized at all, so its not like they always do it the worst possible way (F&F was worst so far imo).

Did we have the same whine for Wintersday too or is the playerbase getting worse? These minigames arent actually PvP, and they’re not required, so do them if you want, dont do them if you dont want.

As pointless as both sides of this argument are, I got 3 rares from random mobs in about 2 hours and 2 rares at once from the instigator chest (no idea if MF even works there), then another 2 hours without rares.

I was playing with 300% MF during that time. Take that as you will, I’m not even sure if that supports the argument for or against MF’s usefulness.

Lamefox, considering it wasnt just me but every other post that apparently misread your OP as a complaint about difficulty, maybe it has to do with the way you presented your argument. For example of the bit about being afk-attacked wasnt relevant to the point you’re making, leave it out.

Anyways, being annoying is very much a matter of individual perception and I dont find anything in Southsun ‘too annoying’. sure a Karka doing his roll attack entirely on your head isnt ideal, that’s possibly annoying – but it’s also probably not intended and I judge it as such. Latency and individual pc performance (and bugs) can all be very annoying, and you’re right that to some degree they can plan for that, but it’s always going to be a factor that varies too much to account for completely.

There are some spots in GW2 (in Southsun and also elsewhere) that for some reason half my fps, and certainly some attacks I consider no problem usually are annoying under these conditions. It’s also something that might be fixable on A.nets side of things. But I wouldnt say the mobs need a redesign based on that to reduce potential annoyance.

Edit: one thing that became apparent to me that often stings me is the limited choice of skills I have. GW1 was leagues more flexible in this regard. I do usually tailor one or two skills to better deal with the local opposition, and found my choices in condition removal lacking (on Mesmer, mostly due to cooldowns being too long – they are AE or have secondary effects that justify the cooldown, but here I just wanted to remove one boon). I think mobs using special boons and conditions beyond the standard ones is underused anyway and improving on that would open the door for more special skills (pve only maybe) to deal with it – in place of the annoying features.

Your wish is granted, farm southsun all month for very rare cash shop chests.

All these suggestions just lead to not including temporary content as their final conclusion. That would be Anet admitting that their current model failed and going back to permanent content creation. I have to say, between only temporary content or only permanent content I prefer the permanent content, by far. The better way would be a good balance between the two, though. Having permanent content does include players accepting that they wont always get to see and do everything. Its kinda like the drama about Endgame raiding in older MMOs only being for 5% of the playerbase because nobody else could do them.

Personally, I havent done everything that Halloween or Wintersday had to offer, because I wasnt willing or able to commit more free time to the game during the time frame in which that content was available. I accept that and move on. Imo too many people are expecting everything to be made for them. No, there are players with other preferences they are also trying to please, so some things will not be to your liking. Deal with it.

I think this first chapter was a learning experience for them and I’m willing to wait till the first year is over, end of August to decide how I feel about this. But F&F certainly had many aspects that could be improved upon.

Raire.7983:

DistantStatic.6098:

And you could solo what required 12 man groups in GW1? Tell me more.

Misinformed much? Two entirely optional elite missions had 12 man teams. That was how GW1 handled it’s team-only content. It was just there if you wanted it – much like PvP. No pressure.

I couldnt solo the whole Prophecies campaign when it came out. Much of it was group content that also gated access to later soloable areas, plain and simple. GW1 storyline content when it came out was difficult to impossible with the henchmen, they werent even close to as capable or useful as the latter heroes.

Now we have people here that bought GW1 4 years after it came out, with tons of additions that made the old content easy and soloable and claim it was always that way and designed for it. That’s just false, and still it is repeated over and over here.

People will complain about any change, then they’ll adapt and a few weeks later the situation is back to normal. I welcome making the raid content in game more difficult when many players are present. It doesnt have to be impossible but the current state of most of the bonus events is just hilariously lame. Orr temples might be ok now or too hard, I couldnt tell (only done Lyssa and Dwayna recently, Dwayna seemed unchanged and Lyssa was with very few players so nicely difficult anyway).

But Shadow Behemoth or The Maw? They die within two minutes of the pre concluding, a real newbie wouldnt even have time to run there because they dont have all the waypoints or know the way. These events, although in low level zones are pure high level farm content right now.

CETheLucid.3964:

Angelus.1042:

Ah “soft” has the iron ball grip of death on “net” I see….

Or, they’re saying exactly what Anet has said themselves.

They’re interested in and will likely produce an expansion or so in the future, but will be continuing to strengthen and reinforce the current game at present.

GW2 is still fresh off the assembly line, very new and young for an MMO. It’s not even a year old yet.

Even so, we’ve been getting small free content updates on a monthly basis no more then a few months after launch.

The story is really being fleshed out. They’re very devoted to the core game right now, and that’s awesome.

What they’ve done and what they’re doing now is nothing short of incredible.

That’s a nice way of looking at it, fitting for a player or maybe even a dev, but the decisions about when/how and IF they make an expansions arent made by those people, they’re made on the business side of things. The If is important because that quote only does PR lip service to any plans about expansions. They might decide not to produce one.

Someone translated it quite correctly as “we’ll do it when we think it will have the most impact on our revenue – currently that’s not the case”.

Prestige through rarity in general is something I appreciate. How they implement is of course the question, but I think temporary items like these can be attainable by all and still have some rarity prestige later on.

On the other hand permanent content has to require alot of effort to retain any prestige value, preferably an effort specific to that item (as in I like the legendaries in theory, but not that you go to mostly the same motions no matter which one you do).

Safe afk spots arent designated as such, outside of cities you can always assume to be at risk because even spots where no regular or event enemies appear might have a player run by with a near enough mob that attacks you instead of reseting. So that part of the complaint is just venting.

The rest is opinion of course, mine is that the game is too easy as is and difficulty like this is welcome. That it is artificially inflated by lag or pc performance is unfortunate though.

The only change from Anet’s side I want in this regard is a graphics option to limit or reduce skill particle effects so you can better see whats going on in a fights with many players.

Undeadkemea.4865:

Anyway, I spent my remaining cash on 10 southsun supply crates, also nothing. The only thing worthwhile was a mini faren.

TL:DR
Why did it have to be RNG chests again

You gave the answer yourself: It did have to be RNG chests because fools keep falling for it hoping it only sucks for everyone else but they will be fine.

Bottom line is they’ll keep doing the RNG-trap style sales as long we you keep buying into it.

Dont buy RNG cash shop items at all. If enough people abstain from that then after 2-3 such offers failing to generate the expected revenue they’ll start to try other ways of generating the income, hopefully through direct sales. If you buy the RNG items in the store (no matter if you bought the gems with dollars or gold), then you are the reason we cant have nice things.

Yea likely they’ll drop down during the coming weeks, possibly rise again towards the end.

If Anet finds creative ways to break up the zerg sure, but open world content that is attractive to the playerbase have a tendency to become boring zerg fests.

I’d love for open world dungeons that arent instanced or limited to 5 players, but you would literally have to teleport players into random spots in a labyrinth to break up the zerg. Come to think of it that sounds like a fun maze area. Just make it big with many arrival points and old school rpg traps like invisible teleporters, illusionary pit traps and walls, hidden triggers etc.

Well Vulpis there certainly are more complaints because the people that are happy with the dungeon are out there playing instead of writing posts. But I think in the case of F&F you accounted for 80% of the negative feedback so in total players complaining the number is low, but total posts about it is high.

Regardless, apparently they went back to not requiring all achievements but 25 out of however many it will be in the end, that’s a step forward. I do hope there will be some epic Karka fight at some point during this, inside a dungeon or not.

Vulpis.8063:

Mastruq.2463:

Vulpis.8063:

Hmm. This is the second thread in a row to use the term ‘CORPG’, and again, no clue what it stands for…nor am I sure why you’re making a distinction, as both are massive, multiplayer games.

Just to clear this up for you the ‘Massive’ is usually used to denote the games with an always existing outdoor world where any number of players can gather (could because servers will just fail at some point if you pile more and more people in). This is in opposition to games that have a lobby setup where the players gather to start their adventures in an area instanced specifically for them. GW1 is still a lobby albeit a pretty one (full 3d environment towns, as opposed to a chat room or just a town square or whatever else). GW2 features the persistant outside world like UO or EQ, hence it is considered a MMO game as opposed to Co-Op game.

Interesting way of looking at it—and completely honestly one I’d never have thought of, as compared to ‘Multiplayer RPG is Multiplayer RPG, as compared to Multiplayer FPS’. Just to make sure I’m understanding your meaning, Phantasy Star Online (also with a lobby, progressing into mission areas) is also a CORPG, correct?

I dont know that game, so I cannot comment.

Examples of MMORPGs I know would be EQ1, EQ2, WAR, TOR, Asherons Call 1+2. GW1 carefully avoided calling itself an MMORPG back before and when it was released, because of that distinction. No idea what their stance was later on at the time you played it.

Its also noteworthy that the concept of instancing didnt exist in the early MMORPGs like Ultima Online, DaoC, Asherons Call or Everquest because the whole point of those games was having that persistant world that everyone shares. So the distinction between that crop of games and a game with a lobby from which you launch seperate copies of the same area for each group of players was much clearer then it is these days with the rampant instancing on everything (if you cant tell, my wish game wouldnt have any or very little instancing).

Edit:
I want to repeat the reminder that GW1 at release was NOT something that the casual player soloed or duoed through. Everyone describing it as such seems to look at it from a perspective of a GW1 that has aged for years and added many features that made soloing easier (Heroes mostly, but also more skills and professions that could do things you simply couldnt in Prophecies proper). Maybe GW2 group content is as soloable in 4 years, its even likely.

Matter of fact if I couldnt solo my way through a mid-story key mission in GW1 Prophecies I was stuck at that point. Unable to progress into any new areas I had to beat it solo or (more likely if I already failed often) seek out the help of fellow players.
Contrast this to GW2 where practically nothing is out of your reach while solo except the instanced dungeons. There are eight of those, you’re blocked from nothing at all outside of them. The very final personal story mission is the last story dungeon so you need to do it it to see Trahearne dancing, but that’s it. I find GW2 puts way more focus on solo play then GW1.

They open a subforum for each living story arc where the dungeon was discussed at length, this subforum is for more general living story topics.

Anyway to your specific situation, not sure if you got the dungeon done before it was removed but even if not, dont let that discourage you. I do suggest you find an casual but larger guild, that way you’re not forced to participate in anything but will get opportunities to check out dungeons.

This is a clash of perspectives that’s not going to be solved, Vayne. Vul kitten ees the development GW1 experienced with almost everything becoming solo content a good thing, he wants a total seperation of solo content and group content.

Me for example I’d like it both to be interwoven. That are really opposed views where you might get a solution that’s “good enough” for both sides at best. See my suggestion above for such a solution as it pertains to F&F.

But ultimately he would be happiest with everything being soloable or a clear division without any overlap, not even in the achievement list. I would dislike such a solution or maybe even lose interest in the game. How does a developer keep both parties happy enough to stick with the game? Or do you write one off and focus on pleasing the other? That’s not even accounting for other interest groups like those that want more vertical progression or instanced raids added to the game (as opposed to the open world raids we already have).

I visited all locations that were part of the story after completing the last achievement at the bonfire and was happy to see both those areas are in a state of rebuilding. I especially enjoyed the references to that F&F events that were placed in Cragstead.

I wonder though, will those areas stay as a story instance past the patch tonight, will there be just an impassable door again, or will Cragstead (and the Hatchery) become a permanent part of the zone with the repairs all completed?

Medron Pryde.6850:

In really short, allow us to get the “Avenger of the Dispossessed” title, finish that achievement, and see the story we’ve worked to see if we have done most of the other achievements.

On that note I’d also like to get the ‘Closer to the stars’ title without completing the prerequisites, if you could patch that at the same time?

JubeiTM.5763:

Medron Pryde.6850:

In really short, allow us to get the “Avenger of the Dispossessed” title, finish that achievement, and see the story we’ve worked to see if we have done most of the other achievements.

I returned 4 posessions out of 6 and i Still get “Avenger of the Dispossessed”.

That title is for the Rox and Braham story lines, i.e. the Cragstead and Hatchery story instance, the molten facility and the dialogue instances that happened in between. It’s unrelated to the bugs which are a pretend reason to get the title without the dungeon completion.

The issue is that many players that refuse organization or grouping jump at every bit of content that lies out of their self-defined comfort zone and demand changes towards their preferences, without considering that others might like it that way and it’s the turn of those other people now.

As is GW2 has a TON of solo content, but that’s not enough. They demand a clear seperation of solo content from group content (see the drama about the F&F conclusion in that forum). The suggestion that some players like me might enjoy content design that flows back and forth between solo and group play is ignored by them, instead players like that are put into the “evil group player” category in their minds.

I dont see grouping oriented players whining about all the pointless solo content, its always the other way around.

These ‘its unfair because I wait to do everything until the last minute’ posts in each thread are all starting to sound like ‘the dog ate my homework’ …

ZudetGambeous.9573:

They have said that they have no plans for an expansion at this time. It takes 2+ years to fully develop an expansion so if they haven’t even planned on one yet then we aren’t going to see one at least for two more years.

I don’t know why they are doing this. IMO it seems like the worst decision in the history of MMO’s, more content + more money seems like a win for everyone. I naturally assumed that if they weren’t doing an expansion it was because they couldn’t fund one since there is literally no other good reason not to do it.

Expansions are not the only means of adding significant content to the game. They could add a continent through the living story if they wanted, actually.

You dont always have to pay for the big content additions either, although I concede that bought expansions are the most used method for that. EVE Online for example had 1-2 expansions per year for many years all of which added content (sometimes alot, or entire new gameplay aspects) that all were entirely free to the subscribers (which if turned around is similar to no sub and paid expansions cost-wise, I guess).

So no plans for an expansion in itself is not bad, they steadily patch new stuff. Imo they just need to add a bit more meat to their patches.

Are there any plans by ArenaNet to do something more with the Home instance?

I would love for some new permanent residents or changes to my home instance based on which stories I take part in. Maybe have a refugee family take up residence in one of the houses there as a result of F&F (can do it later based on achievements, although people will rage of course). Unrelated to this subforum you can also make changes based on WvW or sPvP activities, personal story parts or guild missions, basically home instance changed for anything you can do in game.

Do that and more going forward so in a year or three everyone has a home instance that is different and reflects their experiences.

I hope they turn those instances into regular parts of their zones once their reconstructions is completed.

Re: dungeons: I wouldnt mind a dungeon under the Karka cave where you are going in to scout and find alot of Karka eggs and have to cause a volcano eruption to end the main Karka threat on the island for good. The outdoor story to go with it is the karka-fied southwestern half of the island turning into a volcanic lava stream area instead. That would make for a nice cinematic ala Mad King Thorn’s breakout or the death of the Ancient Karka, and give them cause to rework the dreary half the island a bit.

The early parts of F&F that people apparently put off until the very last minute were in game for weeks or months. Yea some were bugged in the patch that added the dungeon but still, you could’ve had all the other parts ten times over before that patch ever happened. So I echo the above poster in saying it is your own <expletive deleted> fault so accept it and move on.

Everyone complaining about the epilogue not rewarding you with shinies: There was a dev comment weeks ago that the epilogue is story bits and flavor with no special rewards given, so really anyone actually using the forum could have known.

If you complain about F&f in general, by all means carry on.

The OP is mostly right, the game is too easy and is lacking some features that foster longterm interest.

Smokesacks, the same applies to GW2 anyway, I’ve defeated Zhaitan and cleansed Orr, and still his eyes roam the island, corrupted priests hail his name, etc. But that is really secondary. The important part is this:

They could have made the Molten weapons facility follow the same design as all other dungeons with one story mode (the one we currently do) and several different aftermath scenarios. It would be lets say 3 different dungeons each using parts of the Molten facility zone and presenting the consequences of the MA assaults. Have one with a splinter group of the MA trying to rebuild a power base, one where you deal with the consequences by beating back destroyers that are pouring out of the caves opened by the massive explosion, and one where you lead a Priory team in search of the secrets of the MA and defend them from various underground challenges (oozes * cough cough*).

Voila, story-intact explorable modes for the MA (leave the original story mode in, its a bit paradox but so is me doing AC or TA story after completing other dungeons, or take it out along with all other story modes to preserve the time line), easy as pie and a good permanent addition to the game that came as a result of all our actions. Thats what makes it a living story just as much as a monthly new tale.

They could use the three asuran mega lasers in a big meta event, maybe one similar to the Ancient Karka but with a lesser beast.

Not waiting for guild halls. They are a far-away future maybe and the statement a while ago was none at Anet is working on them, so its not in the cards in 2013.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Some fun ideas in here, we’re also actively discussing ways on how we’d best like to alleviate having to make players choose between having better stats, or using magic find. It’s not a choice that’s great for game play and there isn’t really anything that fun about it, even more so when group composition is taken into account. Ideally we’d also like to keep the ability to slowly build your magic find over time, but doing this at the cost of using better stats isn’t the right way to do that.

No ETA on any changes here, just want to point out we agree there is an issue here that goes against what we want Gw2 to be, and is something we want to address.

I’m very glad to read this. I dislike the concept of magic find gear, downright hated it in various Diablo clones and while its not as lame in the MMO setting as in those games, its still a bad idea all around based on the OPs explanation.

My suggestion to Anet would be to remove it entirely, and instead of figuring out how to change the whole thing just figure out a sensible way to allow people to replace the MF gear they worked for with other stat combinations.

Mirta.5029:

Sure you’ll get into the low tier ones, but the game is up to 15 tiers by now. Only about 5% of the whole game population actually seen the end game.

I dont even play WoW and know this to be false. You shouldnt lie to make your point.

For years now WoW has made raids easier month after month to make sure everyone that wants to see them can do so. Yea you are not the very first person to see everything, always. But you can see everything if you care to queue for it (they even have automated raid finding to spare you the hassle of social interaction).

There’s no real rushing and you cannot miss any of the story bits. just join a PuG that sounds casual enough to have fun. You have your hardcore optimize everything players just as with other content, but anyone that can push there space bar and move out of the red circles will be able to do the dungeon.

If there are no obvious reference to the events of this past chapter of the living story in the zones that were affected, to me that would be the one reason the living story concept has failed.

Design decisions like loot chances, dungeons or solo content etc can all be forgiven but if the very concept of the living story doesnt include leaving a permanent mark, I consider it a failure.

You’ve already seen it, you just werent up to the challenge. Largely due to going with an upscaled character, lacking traits and skills.

I wouldnt call the dungeon hard or easy, but it relies alot on awareness and positioning that takes some getting used to. You really can avoid almost all damage if you focus on that. So maybe you didnt try that enough because in most of the game it isnt as big a factor.

And you posted this in the wrong forum.

Aside from the saturday morning cartoon attitude of the flame legion in general, I never got the impression that the MA wanted to take over all of Tyria. There isnt a real conclusion at the end anyway but apparently they were just puppets for someone else. Tbh I’m not expecting much from this on a grander scale and believe they should stick to localized stories with tenous connections at best. They can deal the large tales about saving the world in the personal stories for the expansions (eventually).

Vulpis.8063:

Hmm. This is the second thread in a row to use the term ‘CORPG’, and again, no clue what it stands for…nor am I sure why you’re making a distinction, as both are massive, multiplayer games.

Just to clear this up for you the ‘Massive’ is usually used to denote the games with an always existing outdoor world where any number of players can gather (could because servers will just fail at some point if you pile more and more people in). This is in opposition to games that have a lobby setup where the players gather to start their adventures in an area instanced specifically for them. GW1 is still a lobby albeit a pretty one (full 3d environment towns, as opposed to a chat room or just a town square or whatever else). GW2 features the persistant outside world like UO or EQ, hence it is considered a MMO game as opposed to Co-Op game.