Guild Wars 2

Without reading every other reply, if I wanted to play a game with more rigid roles (aka trinity) there are many to choose from, and I’d be playing Rift (or less likely WoW and EQ/EQ2).

That said I do agree that A.net has to make up their mind about which aspect of the game to focus on and set some improvements in motion for either PvE, WvW or SPvP. Right now all of those are in need of changes, and spreading out little additions is not as helpful as getting one aspect fixed completely and then moving to the next one.

I meant from the company point of view. Why implement something that means you end up making less money? That isnt a problem they want to tackle, so presenting solutions here is pointless.

From my personal point of view i dislike that the only way to get some event items is through low odds on a random bag, and that they are account bound on top of that makes it even worse. But like I said you are not going to change that in time for next holiday event by throwing $100 after them and then making a forum post. You change it by spending no money on the random bag and some money on the fixed price items (if you care for them ofc)

There really is no problem to solve and no need for A.net to implement easy ways to get the pet after lots of people spent $50+ to get it, successful or not.

They have been aware of player concerns about cash shop RNG items from both previous events they held, so you can assume the odds for the pets and pricing of the shop item are both intended. Nothing to fix and nothing to see here.

(and before you start any attacks, I spent 2000ish gems on fixed price items for this event, thought about the RNG item and decided to vote with my wallet by not buying any)

I second the request for you to play one for a week and then reply to your own post. If you still have concerns at least they will be objective.

If they add any weapon I would want another underwater weapon first though, because right now there is no choice in that arena, you have two and you can use two. With a third everyone could drop the one they dont like at all (spear in my case). For caster types they could just make underwater versions of things like scepter/orb/wand, for more physical professions believable underwater weapons are more limited though.

And I am actually against main hand pistol because then you could dual wield them. One pistol is fine but for some reason dual pistols doesnt seem “mesmerish” at all to me.

Shield would be intersting for mesmer, although they need to add some stylish skins then! And I would like a very “against type” weapon like a mace or hammer.

well supposedly the whole game is on equal footing, but I think memorable encounters like Shatterer (whicht is not "endgame, being lvl50) should have more interesting an special loot. Not more stats though, but the idea of mini pets and special skins is spot on imo. Just as optional as other content with specific skins, like the dungeons or crafting.

mcwurth.2081:

Valhallen.1693:

For some reason I assumed they would be the “WoW LFR”

This is not World of Warcraft

You are right, luckily it isnt. The OP was unlucky to mention “that game”.

Anyway on to the post, most of it sounds really good to me. I’m no big fan of a window with event timers in game, but then again I did use the dragon timer in the past. Many huge dynamic event encounters that happen like every other day (once per hour is too much imo) so if you want you can do it every day (optional!), and give them fun loot as described by the OP. For the record I want similar fun loot on the dungeons since both the big events (currently only dragons really and some of Orr) and dungeons (the older ones, not FotM) are acknowledged as needing a loot upgrade.

Didnt the special event window that was at the right side of the screen the whole weekend specify whats going on? Honest question, I dont remember what information exactly was in that field. I just cannot relate to your problem, I was never without an idea of where to go except during the scavenger hunt steps, and even those were easy.

I had an ingame mail notifying me of the follow steps and the attacks in Caldon and Kessex. If you ignore your ingame mail then yea, you missed that. But I find ingame mail to be the best way to reach the players in-game, since most people dont actually follow the forum/website/twitter while playing, so imo they did that right.

The big ones are annoying I’ll give you that, but on the young ones outranged or otherwise avoiding the first attack makes them pretty easy. They’re certainly no match for reef drakes (which are also alot easier at range). I’d rather stumble into 3 Karka then 3 drakes for sure. I prefer the island to Orr I think but it being fairly empty means it is only a half-baked alternative for now.

With the event behind us I wonder if what we see now is what we get out of the zone, or if there is more to come.

For starters, they removed an npc that sold an item for 1k karka shells. That price must have been wrong or designed to stay in game. Why the change?

The whole island makes an unfinished impression compared to every other zone in the game. It has no vistas or skill challenges. It has no hearts (ok Orr doesnt either, but its more of a warzone then this). It has no map completion and didnt become part of the world completion (the new PoIs in LA were added to map completion for that zone). So will the area be finished gradually during the next few weeks (like the build-up with the warnings and the whales etc in the weeks before the event)? If not, are there plans to complete it in an upcoming patch?

Some areas make you wonder if theres more to them. Someone mentioned the many wrecks around, but theres not much underwater content around the island. The Asura cannons at the hive werent used I think? Is there any point to them?

Right now the zone is only good for a round of harvesting imo, I hope it gets fleshed out a bit more. Maybe settle into the tourist attraction it should be with Karka contained on the western half and some lighthearted events/hearts on the less alien looking parts of the island.

1)graphics (1-bad…10-amazing) – 8
2)sound(1-bad…10-amazing) – 7
3)story concept/originality (1-boring…10-captivating) – 7
4)loot/reward (1-lost all my money…10-gained amazing items) – 7
5)stability (1-extremly buggy…10-no bugs) – 9
6)network connection/speed (1-laggy,disconnections, 10 – perfect connection) – 6
7)mini events length (1-to long/short…10-just right) – 9
8)overall event length (1-to long/short…10-just right) – 9
9)overall Satisfaction (1-worst experience ever,10-best experience ever) – 8

I dont know those zones from GW1. The main question is can I do something useful like work on my daily, farm crafting mats, gain xp and so on in that lobby? If no, its no better then LA aside from reducing spam (might be your goal but I think faciliating better group finding without automation is needed).

I like the idea of improving the existing LFG feature, which is very minimal to put it friendly. I dont want any auto-grouping or teleports into dungeons to happen, I have had too many negative experiences with that in several past games.

That aside the LFG window the OP describes is a good idea. Have one to search for players that are lfg which alot of options you to filter the results, and one for groups looking for more members that a lfg player can use to find a spot. Players would have to whisper each other to form the group just like now. The big plus is you filter the potential members down to those with the same interest as you and everyone can do other things instead of sitting in LA.

Myrdreth.6829:

Thanks for this thread, zzled. I feel the same. The happy feeling I got because we all defeated the ancient karka dissappeared rather fast after everyone posted about their rewards. My rewards were so disappointing, it’s not even funny anymore(light and medium armor for my Guardian. Haha.)

I dont even, so everything was ok, you were happy, but at the very end someone else got a shiny and you didnt? Well skritt, that attitude is why we cant have nice things.

+1 to the OP, exactly my feelings. I wish more of the forum would see it like you. I enjoyed this event, I hope they improve the coming ones in the aspects that were found lacking during halloween and this one, and bring us many more unique events in the future.

Besides the obvious concerns about timing and connection issues my main wish would be to let the even run longer then 3 days. I guess it would have been a bit more work but they could have easily had it for a week like this:

2 days LA under siege while players search for a solution (instead of 30 minutes siege then business as usual on friday).
1 day retaking LA (instead of 30 minutes) and the discovery of the island.
3 days scouting the island and establishing a base via DEs each day (again instead of doing that in 1 hour) and finally 2 days of herding lets say 3 ancient Karkas (on different times for EU/US/AUS) into their hive, finale is to blow it up. Track credit and give out rewards per character after the finale.

A suggestion like that is spilt milk with regards to this patch, but I really expect future ones to follow a similar pattern because I find it solves most of the issues we had this weekend (except lag/performance, but that can be solved with better planning like not using LA and/or splitting up the players between several attacks).

By your definition I am in the loser category, thanks for judging. You couldnt be more wrong though, I’m happy with last nights event (I took part but got no loot to speak of) and the only thing souring my enjoyment of the event after the fact is the self-entitled loot envy on this forum.

What gets me is that there are real complaints (you mention them too, connectivity and time zones) that get drowned out by all the “moar loot” whining. I am afraid Anet will focus on the loudest complaints, provide better loot with the next event while still screwing over the oceanic players or neglecting performance planning. Those two points should be the only focus of complaint and not how the guy next to you had a precursor and you didnt.

Rhaegar.2417:

I’m sorry but the posters who keep commenting on the ‘moaners’ or ‘haters’ seem to be missing the point. There would be much less complaining and much more praise for Anet had we been allowed to play the actual amazing content and ‘great Ancient Karka fights’ and join in on the ‘friendly appreciative chat’.

But you know what us thousands of oceanic players got? We go to sleep, we wake up (event started around here some time?), we go to work (it’s a Monday), we come back from work, we log in… We heard all about this ‘fantastic event’, loads of people got Ascended gear, and 20 slot bags, and even precursors!! Now, I know there are a lot of patient, tolerant, good folk out there, grats to them for their good character. But you know what I truly felt? Disappointment. I was disappointed by Anet and how they handled this ‘one time event’.

I don’t mind if there are some of these cool events, and I’ll suck it up and say ‘ok Anet can’t cater to everyone, fair enough, we still get awesome other content’. But you know what isn’t ok in my mind? That Anet makes this big deal about this amazing one time event that you absolutely shouldn’t miss out on, and then make it impossible for us to be there. And that they hand out some of the most expensive and hard to obtain items in the game, and loads of other goodies etc only to those who can actually make it, as though missing out on the event wasn’t bad enough. Then to hear about how you totally loved this just rubs the salt deeper into our wounds.
That’s how I feel and that’s why I’m posting.

Glad you had fun though.

I think its unfortunate that the event was not laid out better for all time zones. Its a legitimate concern and I hope after Halloween and this they get it straight in future events. But realize that all those “it was fun, stop hating” posts are mainly about all the precursor rage and envy and not about time zone complaints, although those get dragged into the argument quickly. That isnt helping the oceanic players either because their legit concern is drowned out by the loot haters. The last thing I would want is Anet taking the wrong lesson from this and the volume of precursor complaints might do that.

For the content that stays after the special event they delivered roughly what I expected.

The FotM dungeons are very awesome and above my expectations, while the new island trails behind what I expected of it. The size of the island is about right but to me it feels unfinished. They need to add a few skill challenges and vistas. Maybe hearts (I think hearts should be in all zones not just low-mid level ones).

Antisceptic.9174:

Mastruq.2463:

Not signed, I want more one-time events out in the open world, not instanced at-your-leisure-just-for-your content (there are several other games for that).

If I may twist your meaning, I DO want them to design the events differently in the future. Should run from fridays for 9 days with like 3-4 phases during that, so the beginning and end fall on the weekends. Have the phases be long enough so people can schedule for it easier if they want to. Halloween was good in that regard aside from the video sequence you had a day or more for each step.

Weekends are different for everyone. Today’s event happened on a Monday morning for me. When I got to play in the afternoon I was surprised to find an event happening on a specific overflow. When I eventually got there after an hour, followed by another hour or so, we got booted by a new build. I missed out.

I fully agree with the original poster.

I suggested running it for over a week with the first and last phase covering a weekend (not 2 hours on a specific day) because of the reason you are describing. There will always people unable to make it because of life, but thats how life works.

Totally agree with this, I had a blast during the event (despite some lag issues) and want more of that in the future.

Not signed, I want more one-time events out in the open world, not instanced at-your-leisure-just-for-your content (there are several other games for that).

If I may twist your meaning, I DO want them to design the events differently in the future. Should run from fridays for 9 days with like 3-4 phases during that, so the beginning and end fall on the weekends. Have the phases be long enough so people can schedule for it easier if they want to. Halloween was good in that regard aside from the video sequence you had a day or more for each step.

Edit: in the band metaphor, the valuable items from this event are the autographs or photos with the band you only get when you go to the concert. You can still buy them on ebay though (TP here).

This is such a strawman. Your $250 items still drop in the game so get on with the farming instead of wasting the time with a longwinded complaint post.

While I did have fun during the event, I found several other outdoor “zerg” encounters fun too, the Shatterer for example. Whats fun is a matter of taste of course.

But I think the OP really means this is the first good loot pinata. Is that something the game should have? You decide! (I am in favor but anything repeatable should give much less per kill, more then current dragons though.)

Whats with these arguments that giving items is SO unfair but giving a cosmetic item (i.e. skin) would be cool? I think its the other way around, the items (aside from those 2 that all participants got) can be gotten any other day, a rare drop skin thats only in this event would be an even greater outcry from the masses.

The whole game, or really the whole genre exists on rng items that few people get. Either through rng or massive time+money sinks. If someone is so 110% entirely opposed to that he should probably switch games. And this isnt a “dont like it? Then quit” but more a "why do you make a bigger deal out of it just now instead of every day for the last few weeks (on an item that can be rng-dropped for you any time you play)?

Loot is random anyway, dont act like you would have gotten a 60 gold item just for being on the other character. Read this very forum to hear plenty of 80s whine just as loud about not winning a lottery. Entitlement is out in full force tonight.

Playing the WoW card is so outdated, anyone that wants a game to be WoW is already/still/again there. People can desire changes or additions to this game without any relation to WoW. Besides afaik Stormwind didnt manage to repair their walls in the last 3 years after some dragon trashed them, so if Lions Arch gets a new fountain soon they win in that regard! (P.S. thats supposed to be funny, lighten up).

Please allow me to pay 400-600 gems for a “rare crafting items” tab in collections. I just dont want it to clutter the regular bank slots.

I was doing some events in lost shores the other days with a guy and he got a precursor off a veteran we killed while I didnt.

You arent entitled to anything, and at the end of this event everyone received a box with two fixed items and 4 random rares/exotics. If you got that you have no room to complain. All those people that lost out on it due to connection issues at least have a reason to be mad, but those adding up the market value of their drops and comparing it to the best case scenario of a RNG are just pathetic.

Well there wont be a poll like that because no matter the results it will be a whinefest. Here’s my take though: I am…

Happy with the game itself, although I see alot of areas for improvement (a common situation for new MMOs).

Not entirely certain to trust Anet’s judgement in some regards, like WvW+PvP, Economy management/Goldseller or opening the door for a new gear tier with a very tacked on mechanic (no fan of infusing, call a spade a spade and add the gear if that is your solution).

Happy with the speed of updates. Three content patches/ holiday events before year’s end is more then I expected considering they have all the release issues to work through.

Overall I am continuing to play and have fun but realize there are some things undecided that Anet could take in a direction I support or wouldnt support (in which case I would stop playing). The trend is overall positive.

World changing means a piece of architecture in Lions Arch is created and/or removed. Halloween killed the fountain, this event toppled the lighthouse. Stay tuned for Wintersday painting a shack at the farms in a different color!

Thats exactly how I see, the events could have used some fixes and tuning, but overall it was very fun, told a story and had a grand finale that was worth doing it.

Lets hope they see this as a success and deliver more of it. Practice makes perfect so I would assume the next event of this type to have less issues (the event did have problems on every day, mostly lag related).

So many people here that envy their fellow players instead of congratulating on a lucky drop (precursor). I got some rares and exotics I wont use, but that doesnt mean I rage at the guy that looted a dusk. Its not related to the event either, the same could happen in Orr during your daily farming. Do you hate on everyone on your server that got a named exotic drop while playing the game just because you didnt?

Instead, be happy about the box and earring and taking part in an overall fun one-time event.

I found it was worth it, I had fun during the whole 2 hours both from playing (though laggy at times) and the map chat, plus the rewards were more then just a random green. Would do it again.

It was very entertaining on my server all the way through. i liked that it lasted a while and the reinforcement stages were a bit drawn but ok with lively map chat. Its a much much better finale then a short 30-60 minute event. Count me on the side of everything done very well and more of that please. The two stages in LA cant compare, they were far too short. I am also very happy that Anet included rewards that are obviously from this event instead of only random exotics/rares.

I like the difficulty, where I actually have to think and react based on the monster and what it does, possibly even switch in a different skill instead of the setup I used the last 2-3 months. Not a huge fan of the zone visuals but thats a matter of taste. I wish it was a real zone with skill challenges, vistas and so on. It feels unfinished as it is now (also small but that was announced to be the case).

P.S. I also second that the constant pulls in Orr are most annoying.

Challenging enemies are needed to keeps things interesting, and npcs wont have human AI so they have to overpower them a bit. Surely beats the usual stand there press 1-2-4-target dead all the time.

P.S. Glass cannon builds should know what they are getting into and adjust instead of complaining. Might not be each of you but so many players build glass cannon for max dps and then demand on the forums the game be changed to suit the needs of their build.

Talking to Miyani has an option to continue the talk with Zommoros, who points out the aquatic races and the general direction, then you are supposed to go there and search on your own. That hint doesnt come in the mail.

I prefer it to be per character, simply because playing up another profession for FotM is easy and fast since you already know what you are doing, and on the other hand prevents the notion of people without proper agony protection joining in higher tiers just because they did on their other character and being a drag.

I very much disagree with the notion of “just instance everything”. If I wanted to play a single player game I would do that.

That doesnt mean I want server-crashing lagfests, but they have to find solutions (and there are several in this and other threads) that keep the event public and reduce server load.

While I did suffer through the same lag, culling issues with invisble players and monsters and all, I do NOT want events like this to be instanced. Even with the frustrating side effects my overall feeling towards the event this evening in LA is positive.

I do feel Anet did make some planning mistakes that might reduced the lag impact though:

Offer the free trial the days before the event, or after the event. If they want their free trial players to experience something unusual then make an event like the halloween portals that are all over and disperse the population. A lagfest like this doesnt generate box sales anyway and the extra free players also impact your paying customers.

Secondly, spread out the event. Even if thematically it is an attack on LA coming from the sea, have the monsters come in through different beach areas and offer some activities behind the lines to spread the players out.

I think thats both fairly simple and would have helped alot.

I would prefer reasons for people to spend time in midlevel zones even at 80 instead of merging servers or any underflow shenanigans.

Add more mini dungeons like provernic crypts, make the chests worthwhile, and improve downscaling of players and upscaling of DE rewards. Then players will find their time is as well spend in kessex hills as in Orr, and you solve two problems. Underpopulation in most zones, Overpopulation/zerg mobs in Orr would both become less of an issue.

Power creep means you are incentived to play the game in the optimum way to keep up with the pack, if you stop to smell the roses you fall behind and are shunned by your former peers. The need for that is of course part real, but very much of it comes from psychological reasons or social/peer pressure. Unfortunately the last decade of MMOs has trained the player base pretty well, you arent going to reverse that in two months. These days, if you dont take a step towards +gooder on your items during an evening of playing a game you have wasted your evening (regardless of the amount of fun had, it is wasted. True fact.).

I havent seen a thread on this part of the announcement, with everyone focusing on the gear treadmill that comes this weekend (or not).

Anyway, I was hoping it is something similar to the halloween event for the back item or the old Everquest 1 epic weapons (example here: http://eqthieves.com/class-enchanter-epic10.htm). I had much fun gradually collecting the parts for the epic back in EQ1. Some of the game mechanics wouldnt fit into any 2012 game obviously and some others are unsuited for GW2, but I think the core concept could well be adapted into this game.

So what are everyones expectation on this topic? Just handing one of each lodestone and any gift to an npc for the precursor of your choice, or something more involving like the mentioned quests?

The “need everything now moar moar” attitude is going to cause Anet to make Legendaries freebies for passing your second month eventually, very unfortunate. (Dont have a legendary and dont aspire one currently, but I like how they are expensive enough to retain the status symbol effect they should have).

You cant just go and take the karma rewards out of the low level zones, because not everyone wants to equip themselves through crafting. I did crafting at first until I run into a fine component bottleneck, and then switched to karma gear for 20-50ish. That wouldnt have been possible without early event karma, and more ore wouldnt have solved my weak blood bottleneck either.

I see the core of your post more as a “review crafting requirements or node frequency in for lower levels” which belongs into another subforums so I wont go into it here, but to some extent I do agree with it (not with your proposed solution though).

That Krait witch sure needs a chest full of rares for how hard it is to get people to take part.

Better karma scaling for downleveled players is a great idea. It should go hand in hand with better downscaling of fully equipped 80s though, because sub-50 content is really trivial currently. If they dont find a good balance there you will have 150 players camping the meta event chains in the newbies zones.

I was wondering if the dragon fights can be lost by the players.

I would appreciate the addition of more “raid-level” open world encounters that are more challenging. Since you arent limited to 10/15/25 people everyone can take part to the best of their ability regardless of itemlevel or affiliation.

I assume one of the main factors to keep them hard is proper scaling, and DE scaling in general does need some tweaks imo.

Quaz.4931:

Aside from the mechanical problem of scaling, I think adding stuff like catpults etc. on a tonne of events might be a waste of resource.

More level 80 explorables with their own dynamic events that work like plinx would spread out the number of players. The game isn’t really fully released yet, lost shores isnt an expansion – its something that is part of the game you have already bought, Anet is just introducing it incrementally to avoid too many bugs and to ensure they don’t stretch their resources too far (I would assume).

I think a focus on more DEs, rather than better scaling for current DEs is a better way to attack the problem. More advanced scaling would probably also mean more potential bugs.

I absolutely disagree. I also resent the notion that the game is not fully released. The full release was well over a month ago. That Anet keeps adding to the game in order to gain a continous revenue stream doesnt mean this is a beta.

On the Topic of DEs though: Improving the scaling of DEs is a very important issue that has to be adressed. Both to equalize the playing field for professions with different game mechanics that have an uphill battle competing for tags (mesmer is a good example) and, more importantly, to keep the game fun. Right now DE scaling too easily slips into a total yawn, with several waves but each obliterated within a second of appearing. That’s simply not fun. There are workarounds that usually involve leaving the area and doing something else. Not exactly a solution that should become standard.

To fix the described problems I suggest they add slight hp scaling based on amount of players participating, add some veterans at certain player number thresholds and if it makes sense for the event include different monster types (ranged and melee) so not all of them are caught in the same AoE spam.

Your suggestions of more DEs all over the world are still good too, of course, but you cant just slap more paint on a rusty spot and expect the underlying problem to go away. Fix the DE scaling first, then work on more events and variety.

Story is just a side dish in this game, that’s ok-ish with me though. I did enjoy 1-50 alot more then 50-80, both in story and npc development (Sieran really grew on me, oh god the puns) and encounters (battle of Klaw Island felt like a dire situation turning worse, then during the similar mission in fort trinity it was all very lifeless and boring).

I think with the ability to instance any portion of the game world, if they decide to make good future stories they can do that. Should probably put a bit more time into it though.