The discussion is taking a hostile direction so I’m out, but let me say that whatever they said a year or longer ago has little bearing on the game we play now. The early wishes and dreams of the team have been replaced by the cold reality of managing a live game, and it shows.
Take the Fireworks as an example. Bugs aside it was only going on friday-monday wasnt it? It wouldnt have hurt to have it happen fri-monday of the week after. During that time the update was new and people were chasing after the achievements, so the slow pace is easily overlooked and forgiven (as long as its not as slow as early F&F). Then when most have the principal achievements done you can introduce the story events that unfold during the chapter, lighting ceremony and the follow-ups in this case. Give people two weeks for that again and a week of closure and we have 6 weeks per event.
I do like the idea of events overlapping, assuming they arent based on direct consequences. It also means they arent forced to tie them together with a weak story link, its just concurrent, unrelated events unfolding in the living world of Tyria.
The timeline could look like this (lets start Sept 1st):
Sept update: Serious story line using recurring characters running for 6 weeks in 4 acts until mid october (introduction for 2 weeks, build-up and finale 2-3 weeks, 1-2 week conclusion)
October update starts the second week of the month (overlapping): Smaller living story event with a stand-alone story, maybe early intros to later recurring cast or guest roles, self-contained. In the case of October it could be Mad King related, another example would be something taking place in a city that isnt LA for once, runs for about 4 weeks with just a 2-week intro and 3-week finale, ends during second week of Nov.
November update starts Nov 1st and again overlaps with the previous one Picks up the recurring story at another locale, runs similar to the September update;
December: Wintersday, 5 weeks
January: 6 week arc thats stand-alone,runs until mid-Feb.
Feb: Recurring story again… etc etc
Over time they could weave on seperate stories that have to do with different npcs that do not or only rarely interact. Run that for a year and you do indeed have a “living story”.
Of course, that might be what they are doing. We’ll know in 6-10 months… =)
Yea agreed thats a good idea that is probably easy to do.
Playing it the way Anet intended… do you have a step-by-step list of things to do that they intended? They provide a variety of activities in each update, but that doesnt mean you have to do any of them, and especially not all of them.
You can get the dragon bash wings easily, you could get the Southsun backpieces in one day. I dont see the constant grind you’re talking about. It is intended by Anet that you pick and complete the activities/Achievements you enjoy and skip the others. That is the reason you did not need every single achievement for the holo wings or the tentacle backpack. It’s pretty clearly intended that way.
So you are doing that, picking your favorites and skipping the rest as intended by Anet’s design? Because frankly, I dont believe you do .
I believe you try to get every achievement just to get the achievement. And yea that’s more effort, but it is also your personal choice. Nobody forces you to do it, nobody can even see your achievement page except yourself. If you are unhappy with and feel pressured by your personal choice on how to play the game, I suggest you change that instead of trying to get the game changed for everyone else to suit your personal preferences.
That said, I support the request for slower updates for other reasonsthat I mentioned above and also in the other thread on the same topic thats also in this subforum.
Making the world seem more alive with temporary updates is nice and all, but the permanent content in the game is also in need of improvement. That seems to fall by the wayside more and more.
The Halloween patch was still the best they made in my eyes. Interesting temporary content, new skins and gadgets, and a whole load of improvements to the permanent world. The November update would’ve taken that price if Southsun had been finished at the time instead of barren, and I assume fractals alone makes that most people’s favorite addition.
They said at various points before and after release they aim to increase the variety of events in all zones over time so each event comes up less often. I have not seen any effort towards that goal really, and eliminating the repetitive nature of quickly cycling events would go a long ways to maken open world play more interesting. Additional permanent events came with Halloween afaik, some of course with the southsun release and now it’s make-over. There are many zones that havent been touched and we’re closing in on the 1 year mark now.
I dont know how much work it takes, but couldnt they set aside the time to add one new dynamic event per region (Ascalon, Kryta, etc) in each of the monthly updates? Cant be that much effort, and after a year you’d have a dozen more events each region to increase variety. Otherwise, just make it a point to include one multi-part event chain per update at least and pick a different region to bolster each month.
Theres at least one other thread with the same complaint, they should probably be merged.
As I wrote over there, I agree that they could take a slightly slower pace in order to improve polish and QA.
One new chapter every 6 weeks maybe, with the finale if there is one happening in week 5 so there is a week of wind-down and we also avoid the usual “omg its over I wanted to do it” complaints that litter the forum when each chapter closes.
That way Anet can take the slower start to polish the main content of that chapter up, and the last week to hammer the exploits out of the upcoming chapter.
Alternatively, if they are married to the idea of monthly updates (its a good idea) have some of them be more fluff that doesnt equire as much effort to balance and QA (and also gives the OCD achievement hunters time to catch their breath). Maybe load more balancing or WvW/sPvP into those patches then.
Constant living world updates are not the probem here. Your obsession with getting the achievements is the issue, and that’s really a personal problem and not game related.
I do agree that having like 2 weeks between the updates would be nice though, because they can use those 2 weeks for some quality assurance effort and additional polishing. F&F was well done in this regard, I assume because it was a more drawn out chapter and they had the time for QA. But the chapters since then have been released back to back and only lasted a few weeks each, and QA and polish have been lacking.
I would prefer Orr to stay as it is, at least for now. An eco-system recovering from a century of submersion doesnt happen within a year, not to mention recovery from corruption by a primal dragon or infestation with undead. It would be plausible if GW2 is still running in a decade or two though.
Edit: that also saves them from the problem of redoing the entire personal story.
Assuming that there will be RNG boxes crew checking in! Once it’s live and running I’ll believe otherwise.
Log in and chop down 5 trees, salvage some junk i had to go get off low level mobs, maybe do a boring easy dungeon, and talk to the laurel vendor. I then receive my anet issued 1 laurel per day. Then Proceed to find a group for fractals a dungeon I have run 9001 times so I can have a shot at a ring and my anet issued 1 pristine relic per day. Look down at my keyboard and think well guess i have no reason to be online anymore till tomorrow, but hey in 2 months ill have a piece of jewelry that is 5% better than the one that took me 5 minutes to get.
This is the endgame in GW2… doing dailies. Who would of thought a company could take one of the worst things introduced in world of warcraft and build a game around it.
Are they ever going to make this game interesting past leveling up and exploring?
You’re not forced to do dailies. I wont say this game isnt for you, but if you arent playing for something else (preferably for fun) and just log in to daily and fractal daily, you should probably spend your game time on something else for a week or so. See how you feel about it then.
I like that dailies influence my decisions on what to or where to go on that day. I dont feel forced because I can choose not to complete a daily at any time. I missed plenty of dailies by choice or because more important things happened and did not complete roughly half of the monthlies since release, either. I am not forced to do them, you are not forced to do them. The whole topic is all about entitlement.
You get enough people together to retake all the settlements and then fight the Karka Queen. Once she is beaten you can buy those items. You already knew that though and dont want to bother, I guess. Fair enough, but no settler gear for you then.
I doubt the dragon coffers stay as drops but Dragon Bakitten most likely a recurring festival, so you get them in the trading post throughout the year until the supplies are replenished next June.
Eternity – please just refund the owners both of the other swords and focus any work on legendary items that are not greatswords because there are already 2 of them out there.
I do think they should have covered gem purchases for the pre-release days in the promotion. It is unfortunate that they overlooked those pre-release purchases (I assume that to be an oversight, it would be daft to exclude them on puprose)
I also agree that the terms are spelled out clear as day, so ranting against a support drone thats just doing their 9-5 day job is pointless. If you want to get that changed you have to escalate it with the proper reason. I dont give it much of a chance anyway though.
I havent used Moa in a while but its nice in some admittely uncommon/rare situations.
However, Maul’s suggestion of replacing it with a stronger PVP skill thats useful in more situations and not just fringe cases is a good one.
Everyone keeps saying they are forced to do things in game – free yourselves from those shackles. Nobody but yourself is forcing you to do anything.
I do know where you are coming from, though. I had my take of mild gaming OCD in another game. It really is something you need to recognize for what it is and work to overcome it. Otherwise leaving for another game isnt gonna change the situation because you carry your baggage with you.
I opened 2 regular dragon coffers and got 1 ticket and one mini.
I thus conclude the drop chance for both is 50% and you all are just unlucky.
LOL. Yestarday i open 500 crates with 140%MF. 0 tickets and 2 mini. This game is a joke.
Not sure if serious.jpg
Disregarding the fact that the odds on the 10th and 2010th coffer are the same, I find people complaining before say 2-3000 coffers are somewhat unreasonable and act too entitled. (opened 100ish, no ticket, not surprised)
With the odds being what they are, I might feel unlucky once I approach 3000ish, bfore that not getting a ticket is just the expected result. If I get lucky earlier all the better, theres still that thought of “maybe in this batch” when I open them (tend to open 10-30 in one go).
The drop rate is not reduced. It’s just impossible to get the free +200% magic find as before, so you get less of them.
That is most likely correct. However stating the drop rate is not reduced is a bit bold unless you were responsible for writing that code. Might as well be a double-hit with losing the MF buff and the drop rate being reduced.
I like the idea actually, makes it really unlikely to get them but if someone’s life depends on getting such a skin, he can farm his heart out.
Let’s be really clear, no one is being forced to do anything.
Want the shiney? Accept to do what it takes to get the shiney.
Don’t wanna do that? Don’t expect to get the shiney.
Don’t like what you gotta do? Don’t do it. Go ahead and even complain about it.But don’t make up some kitten that you’re being forced to do it.
So, unless that’s a dev with a loaded gun standing behind you and giving you no alternative but to sit there an press buttons, wake up and accept it’s your choice to play however it is you chose to.
Sure, but what have the players who have not wished to waste their money on RNG boxes got in the past few months. Just look at the settlers weapons we got at the end of the last living story. It really shows how much anet cares about those players. This has turned into a f2p model MMO.
This has been a f2p model MMO from the start. B2p just means they take a first cut for the box, they WILL deliver content you feel pressured to spend money just the same as f2p. I was expecting that before I bought the game, and I’m sure many did. This company (and especially their publisher…) arent a charity, they want a revenue stream that enables them to work on other projects in addition to keeping this one running. Now there are various rumors that Anet gets the short end of the stick in this regard but that doesnt change the situation much. The share Anet gets is still bigger if the gem store is more successful any way you cut it.
I do agree that the comparison of the “free” settler weapon skins to the various gem store RNG skins highlights a reality that most people here are aware of but refusing to accept.
If they bring down the cost now they’ll have another 100 page thread on their hands, that ship has sailed. I would have liked the cost at 20s (if they wanted the same odds use 7 racers or something, or adjust amount of win tickets).
I also dont like that there is only 1 item of interest on the vendor, otherwise you can only pick gold bags. I hope they expand the selection eventually.
It’s just Halloween with new skins… (piñatas = carving pumpkins, holograms = doors, zhaitaffies = candy corn, etc.).
Not quite. What you said is correct, but there are differences too.
Halloween had more interesting mini games, Halloween added alot of content that wasnt related to the holiday at all, Halloween had the entertaining scavenger hunt for the backpiece. At the time that was something special, now you get backpieces at every corner. And instead of a interesting scavenger hunt interwoven with lore that meshes well with the existing lore you get “acquire a million candy”. Halloween weapon skins were very on-theme and droppable so anyone can still get them.
I do like Dragon Bash though, many of the flaws arent Dragon Bash specific but based on the profit-over-everything direction anet is following since the start of the year.
Personally I hate the idea of making a crafting material salvageable.
This.
Entirely rubs me the wrong way too. If they want to increase dust supply, add more sources of dust or increase the drop rate at the existing sources. If they want to increase the cost of ectos (though I question that would be needed), introduce more recipes that use them.
Solution for Anet – not required, everything is fine, they are getting money as intended.
Solution for player – recognize trap, navigate around it by not spending real money on RNG items.
Eh, sounds like alot of work-arounds that could just be fixed by proper level scaling.
Would help if there werent so many teleport hack exploiters cleaning them up the very moment they spawn. Only way to get any on my server currently is to sit and wait for spawns. Moving around to the icons on the map gets you nowhere.
Yea I dont like crab toss and would never go back after getting the achievments, but it should’ve stayed. Some people might like it, and even if none like it being there doesnt hurt anyone.
They already solved that question when they added new PoIs to existing areas like Lions Arch or Orr.
If you have zone completion you do not lose it, if you have map completion you do not lose it. If you dont already have that area completed you do need those new marks to attain map completion.
I consider that a perfectly fine solution, erring on the side of the less complicated solution of not worrying about ‘spilt milk’.
It can be argued thakittens unfair towards people completing the zone at a later time. But anyone seriously bringing up that argument would be nitpicking, because while working to complete a zone and get even 5 PoI/vistas more comes down to a couple of minutes more.
This thread is too long to read entirely but I wanted to add my opinion anyway.
I dont like this new change with salvaging ectos. I understand the need for a change for dust, and maybe also for ectos. But making one turn into the other is a lame solution in my eyes.
I would prefer they look for economy fixers that actually add content to the game. In this instance that would have been more sources of dropped T6 dust in different areas of the game. Like ghost sailors in an underwater wreck near a tropical island (hmm how to tie that into the story?).
And if they want an ectos fix then add more interesting recipes that use them up (although I’m not sure ectos needed a fix, their price dropping from 35 to 18 isnt automatically bad).
That’s my .02c
Also giving the exact odds would kill the revenue stream from RNG boxes because most of the suckers (I mean, customers) only fall for it by assuming “it cant possibly be that bad”. Truth is it IS that bad and giving the odds would mean far fewer people buy into it.
You are right, Veldan, doing them out of order wouldnt make sense. Thats why I at least want the results to be permanent, like the changes to Southsun. F&F failed to deliver in that regard thats why I pushed that notion a few times since then.
About doing things out of order though: The entire dungeon chain is the ongoing story of Destiny’s Edge getting back together and facing Zhaitan in then end (with our help). Doing them out of order presents the same issue, so obviously matching it chronologically is a secondary concern, if any, to Anet.
I actually played like 2 rounds solo on the weekend, first to get my crabholding completed and then I didnt want to leave so someone else could take it over for easy achievements, and it took another couple of games before someone joined in. I had to search some but cooperation crab toss games werent that rare on the weekend either apparently.
All in all I have all achievements from it but would never had even bothered if I had not gotten crabtacular as the very first one. I figured now that I have the luck-based one out of the way I can grind the rest – and still wouldnt have made it without cooperation because of limited time.
If they include such time-limited minigames in future updates I hope the achievements are a bit more friendly towards people that dont want to spend a week straight in it, from the 3-4 weeks that it was there. Like 20 grab and 50-100 holding points would have been enough imo.
Nice protip, landed you in an overflow without Queen where you died to the contested camp occupants within a few seconds. Hopefully the overflow matter is gone now without the 200% MF buff, then it might make sense.
Give it a couple of days for the shiny to wear off from the new patch and people might start doing it again. Holding the camps is more effort then most pre-events, but then again the queen also gives two rares for certain.
I have to believe that they could have made more money with a continual stream of direct purchase skins, but it seems as if some at the company much prefer the “thrill” of fleecing suckers than the concept of making an “honest living” selling desirable goods at a fair price. IRL, those people are usually called criminals, but I guess virtual currencies and virtual items provide a sense of cover for an otherwise obvious lapse of ethics.
Ignoring the slur against the company here, but lets talk about the bolded part: Each skin they produce is bringing them more money if thrown into the RNG box as opposed to sold directly – otherwise they wouldnt be doing it. So a ‘continual stream’ of new skins would still be better, revenue-wise, if sold in RNG boxes.
You say you have to believe to the contrary, and at that point it cant really be discussed any further. But I question your beliefs here. Their aim is to max profits, not antagonize customers. If direct sales would max profits they would do it that way. Having yet another RNG box coming out today is all the proof you would need to question your ‘belief’ if think about it rationally.
Not that I think ethics or fairness figure in the decisions of large corporations these days.
Its the same discussion every month. The make more money with RNG. Accept that. Think about it from a business perspective, especially one like theirs were they have contracts and debts towards a publisher. I dont like it at all, mind you. But its pointless to tell them to stop making more money and instead focus on making less money to make us happy. That’s not how a business operates.
If you can come up with a way for them to make even more money that also makes us happy then suggest that. But “sell them directly in the shop” doesnt make them more money then RNG so think of something else. I’m all ears.
For anyone wondering how you can tell that RNG makes them more money: because they keep doing it. They keep doing it because we keep buying it.
My problem isn’t the odds, it’s that they put in a negligible money sink that only the super-rich can afford with rewards that are geared more towards casual players.
This game just doesn’t make sense. (Outside of buy gems > get stuff.) >:C
Another money sink is great, a money sink for the rich that doesnt affect the poor without their consent is even better.
I take offense at you saying the rewards are geared towards casual players. This game doesnt have an item grind so leveling your fractal score, maxing achievements and collecting rare skins+minis are the few efforts you can actually dedicate your “hardcoreness” to.
It’s probably better to call it ‘geared towards players with surplus gold’, which it is. So if you are a player without surplus gold (like me) that also collects minis (like me) thats not so good, but I’ll deal with it. Like I said before, other minis were just as expensive before so its not new and its not a big deal.
I dont know if the only thing you get there is the mini though, I hope not? Especially if its permanent.
I dont know what else you can get out of the winning tokens. 50 silver par bet seems expensive.
On the other hand, I find a hard-to-get mini costing between 10-70 gold acceptable. Most of the more elusive ones that were attainable in various ways throughout the last year are 20-70g as is. If anything I would be in favor of having 2-3 minis with a token spread in a way that puts the average cost at 10g, 20g and 50g, which is even more then your worst case cost if you want several of them, but also gives you easier to get alternatives. Should have been easy to do with some palette-swaps on the mini color (something they should do more often instead of using just 1 and making it very rare).
Yea felt very incomplete without proper locations for world completion, they should finish it as a side project while taking the living story elsewhere.
Add a few vistas (should be easy, there are nice views out there), a few skill challenges and ‘maybe’ hearts, make it count for future world completion. As it is now, even after the event, without vistas and skill challenges it will always have this “uncompleted” feeling.
Yea it would be less unrelated clutter here and less double topics once the subforum is open.
This whole debate would be pointless if Anet had used the drawn-out 4 months of F&F to integrate their new main feature ‘Living story’ in the UI, instead of relying on makeshift mails and map markers that are far from ideal. Well the ship has sailed for this chapter and probably the next, but they need to get their act together and do this.
> go into a crab toss game
> “everyone” is match fixing and ganging up
> place 1st or 2ndWhenever I read these kinds of stories I take solace in knowing that it never happened. And on the unlikely chance that it actually happened as described, I’d argue you were farming completely incompetent noobs for an easy win, and were equally undeserving of any achievement points.
Nah I believe him. When I cooperated with others for achievements we would talk to the rogue guy trying win to get him to work with us, and during that time if they just ignore you they score alot of points. Starting out with insults hardly gets anyone to play nice so I bet they talked to him for a few minutes as well, and after that might or might not have insulted him for not cooperating.
Forgive me for not reading the entire thread, but isnt culling a feature concerning player models? Do npcs get culled (i.e. not displayed intentionally), or is that just a result of the server/pc/internet failing to deal with the high data bursts?
Any of Techenon’s ideas would be easier, quicker to execute and a lot less shady looking than what she actually did though.
Do any of them provide a nice video sequence about 15 seconds long that leaves no doubt to the outcome and is easy/quick to implement (ship sails away and goes boom is easier then a dozen sailors fighting a fire in the cargo hold but losing it)? I think that drove the choice of methods to destroy the contracts here more then anything.
Yea no it wasnt because they didnt have the whole living story concept at the time. But they can easily retcon it to be one of course.
I agree that his argument seems a bit empty since I dont see him arguing to the death against an in-game almanach that details the story if Anet were to implement it.
However this isnt about what TOR or WoW or WAR had (although I agree the presentation of story line, achievements and all the other things in that WAR Almanach was excellent). If TOR jumped off a bridge should GW2 jump too? Well, TOR actually did kinda jump off a bridge at launch…
I dont see how anyone would argue against including more story bits inside the game to add more life to the world, add more gems to find in game for people interested in the lore. Because that’s more fun then reading up on the wiki. Discovering is part of the game, and its a part I enjoy. When I come across a book I read, I talk to npcs, and Anet has done wonderful things in this regard with the release. We just want that approach to be used even more instead of less often.
P.S. Living story tab similar to the Personal story tab that chronicles your actions throughout the various chapters would be awesome too. I feel they need to anchor the living story system to something else then a mash of mail, achievements and the main screen blurb.
If you burned out because of playing too much, I would just pick it up again and see if you’re having fun.
If you left because something about the game was fundamentally lacking in the experience you expect from the game, there’s really no reason to come back. There havent any significant enough changes to change the game experience as a whole.