Guild Wars 2

OP, you do realize that adding flying mounts isn’t just as simple as throwing some wings on a Dolyak and having players download it, right?

You have to code the physics for it. How does the mount react when hitting a cliff face, does it fall? does it keep afloat? What happens when you try to land in water? does it sink?
What happens to rangers pets? You have to code auto-stowing of pets. Do a necromancers minions automatically pop out again upon landing?
And what about all those mountain tops in places like Lornar’s Pass and Timberline Falls? You know, the ones that need to have collision areas added to them.
And don’t forget that when you go from zone to zone, you have to currently use a portal. Do you honestly believe they put those in just because they thought they were cool? How will the players react to “you’ve hit a strong air current and can’t progress” every time they hit a zone border? Because the devs certainly aren’t going to restructure the entire foundation of the game just so you can fly freely from one zone to another.
Oh, and if they do, maybe they can direct all the complaints about zone crossing crashes, stuttering, and lag to your personal mail box.

Strange. I’d have thought “top demanded” would have been calculated based on unique buyers, not total number ordered, just to avoid this exact scenario. :/

Tongku.5326:

I think this is a very bad idea. To shift loot, would mean remove it from content that requires some attention and active participation and add it to content that requires AFKing while in a zerg with a ranged weapon and auto attack turned on.

I literally have gone alt-tab to post on these forums while in the game my toon was spamming 1 and getting me the rewards “as it already is”. Why would you want more of this instead of adding proper rewards for challenging content ?

First off, you are never going to get away from spam-1-zerging. Not until Anet completely overhauls the combat system. The only way it will happen is if all dynamic events are instanced and forced into 5 person parties. Outside of that the derth of loot in this game is what is driving zerging. Sources of anything of value are limited to champions right now as far as open world PvE goes. Rares, exotics, T6 mats, all of it, are best farmed in champ trains when it comes to open world PvE.
Dynamic events are dead. They are done by people who are either bored, or by new people who haven’t yet grown tired of all effort and no reward.
Dynamic events need an incentive for most to pay attention to them, and karma isn’t cutting it. The fact that they are constantly running with dead NPC’s and such just goes to show that a large portion of the playerbase is rewards focused.
The Champion Risen knight and the trebuchet event at Karst Plains have been in a defeated state every single day that I’ve gone to malchor’s for the last month. Even the world trains ignore them. The only people even trying are the ones who need the waypoint/POI/Skill Point for world completion.
The eyes of Ouou (or however it’s spelled) in Timberline Falls is another dead event.
Not to mention that a lot of these dead dynamic events are champion events also.
Unless Lyssa is being attacked, you can bet on just about any given day that Wren Waypoint will be contested. Areas of Genderran fields are untouched half the time, especially in centaur territory. Most of Hirathi is centaur controlled unless the world train does the champ event there. Centaurs usually control the areas just outside of Fort Salma in Kessex. The list goes on and on. Dead events everywhere. And no, it’s not my server. Last I checked Yak’s wasn’t “dead”.
People go where the loot is. If Anet wants people to spread out on the map, they need to spread the loot out and make it worth it.

Khisanth.2948:

Neural.1824:

Khisanth.2948:

If there are going to be trains either way I would rather they stay as they are now. Confined to Queensdale and Frostgorge Sound. I don’t want a giant blob at every event. The only time this is not true is when they design things to force minimum number of players for things like Tequatl/Triple wurm/Marionette.

I don’t think you’d run into a “giant blob” every where you turn. There are hundreds of dynamic events going on all day in GW2, and adding loot to them is a way to spread people out. In that respect it sounds to me like you want GW2 to be a solo game, which is not what many believe it should be about.

There is a huge gap between solo and giant blob.
You are probably correct about not seeing a blob at every turn but that will probably because it will fail to do it’s job at spreading people. It’ll just move to which ever map has the most optimal loop. If said loop happens to be too good it will be nerfed(see Cursed Shore).

Right, that’s why I also suggested that zone specific loot might be included, like the RNG chance at a dungeon token from a nearby dungeon. To give people incentive to spread out. It’s not a perfect answer, but I believe it’s better than what is currently going on.

Khisanth.2948:

If there are going to be trains either way I would rather they stay as they are now. Confined to Queensdale and Frostgorge Sound. I don’t want a giant blob at every event. The only time this is not true is when they design things to force minimum number of players for things like Tequatl/Triple wurm/Marionette.

I don’t think you’d run into a “giant blob” every where you turn. There are hundreds of dynamic events going on all day in GW2, and adding loot to them is a way to spread people out. In that respect it sounds to me like you want GW2 to be a solo game, which is not what many believe it should be about.

[Can we have guild housing?]
[Zerker still has 10% of original power, nerf again plz]

Well, she certainly dies faster now.

Vol.7601:

Then either two of these things will happen, or both:
-Even more people will go to the Queensdale champ train, considering they will get both champ boxes and DE boxes
-There will be more DE trains created, such as the currently feasiable Harathi chain. DE chains would be no different than champ trains.

I get that, Vol. That’s sort of the idea. Set things up so that if there are going to be trains, they are all over the map, or focused on certain regions due to specific loot desires. And since the Champions in Queensdale are part of the dynamic event, I would assume there would only be one loot box. Additionally, it would allow smaller groups to get better rewards for completing events on their own.

I’ve run events solo and with a couple friends just to dink around for some karma, but as a loot kitten, I’d love to see more than a measly blue or white bit of armor as a reward. I think that’s primarily why dynamic events are so often skipped. It’s not that they are too hard, they just have no rewards.

Lately I feel like I’m struggling to deal with more than one mob at a time, and that the ones I’m killing (even to my level) are not dying as fast as they should.

Right now I’m level 52 running toughness/vitality (armor and trinkets), with traits of 15/17/10/0/0 (why yes, I do suck at builds, what gave it away?)

I’m open to re-organizing everything at this point. What I’m hoping for is a build that will carry me through to 80 in PvE. Once I hit 80 there are tons of builds available to go through, but I’ve not had a lot of luck with trying to hack them together from 80 to a lower level.

Simple suggestions are welcome, but if you are willing to elaborate as to why your suggestion works, I’m open to learning. Mesmers are the last class for me to learn, and I’m obviously doing it wrong.

Thanks.

lordkrall.7241:

It is rather unlikely that the devs are part of the group that high level Fractals are aimed at, and thus this is a rather silly request.

Is it unreasonable, though, to expect developers to be able to win their own game?

Setting aside my own theories, why not add loot boxes to completed Dynamic Events?
Sure, they might need to reduce the respawn time of certain events (I’m looking at you Karst Plains), but adding box loot of various levels to the end event in a chain (including a small box for finishing non-chain events) would certainly encourage people to cover a lot more places. If done right it might also reduce the issue that some people see with champ trains.
To encourage diversity in the locations being farmed (because you know they will be), give the boxes something unique to drop, like a chance at a dungeon token for a nearby dungeon (i.e. if you are in Fireheart Rise, you might get a CoF token).
Or, gasp, add zone specific rewards or collectibles.

chemiclord.3978:

Man, if you honestly believe people within Arena.net manufactured their own bot crisis in order to justify a crippling diminished returns mechanic with the purpose of pressuring players into buying gems with cash dollars… not even Christ Jesus would be able to resurrect the spirit of that company.

That’s a company that has no scruples from the top on down… because if that REALLY happened, and there was ANYONE with any shard of a soul remaining within that company… that person would have talked to someone. That sort of underhanded manipulation of their own game would not have gone without a peep.

Put that sort of scenario out in the political arena, and Oliver Stone is begging you to make a movie about it.

It’s personal experience. I’ve worked for companies like the one I describe. No matter how much you can’t stand what is going on, when the company is working within the law, there is nothing you can do about it. Speak up and what you’ll end up with is no job, because, as I said, the company is within the law.

Nothing that Anet has done, and none of the things I believe they’ve done, is against the law (to my knowledge anyway).

chemiclord.3978:

Okay, so in other words, you DON’T think Arena.net is conspiring to cheat you or bleed your wallet dry. You just think they’ve “lost their way” I guess is one way to put it. Good on ya; I find I disagree with a lot of the things you want (based on previous things I’ve seen in other threads), but that’s fine.

But that doesn’t really answer my question. He seems to believe that Arena.net is simply out to fleece their customers before the inevitable collapse once other titles launch. Personally, the Arena.net that he paints… there’s no redeeming them. There’s no bringing that company back. That company would be rotten to the core.

In other words, the Arena.net Neural sees… there’s no hope. So why is he still here?

1.) Because I stupidly believe in miracles, and that it’s possible the devs will win out over the monetization dept.
2.) Because I have a number of friends that play the game to whom the game is still brand new, the world unexplored, and the deeds of Anet still unknown. I intend to do my best to help them enjoy it to the fullest, and be there to soften the impact when they start to get tired of the grind.

As a game, on it’s own, Guild Wars 2 is amazing. Otherwise I’d be back playing Rift. It’s unfinished, but a great game none-the-less. Coming from a casual perspective, the combat is fun with the exception of one-shot gimmicks, and even those can be adjusted for with a little patience and practice.
Yes, I believed at one point that Anet was rotten to the core. I’m starting to believe that there are some devs in the company that may not be happy with where things are going, yet can’t do anything about it because it would mean no-paycheck. The rotten part of the company is the monetization department. They are obsessed only with short term ROI, and from where I stand it certainly looks like they will do anything, including kill the game, to make their numbers.

Suddenflame.2601:

DR was introduced due to bots. I was playing back then. Not sure if you were, but there was a lot of bots back then. DR if your being hit with it you really need to rethink what your doing cause it doesn’t kick in for hours of you playing in place without logging out and switching zones. Also, you aware there is more and more games having RNG boxes. WoW from what i am aware is going to add them if they have not already. So do not think this is just Anet. It is only pressure if you allow it to be. If you allow it pressure you should go get checked out by a councilor or a therapist for an addiction issue.

As a few people pointed out they do not feel pressured but if you do then you have a problem that should seek professional help with it. I have missed dailies, LS, and other things without much of a care as I do not feel pressured to keep playing. If I was paying a subscription fee i would feel pressured to play to get my moneys worth. Since GW2 does not have you should not feel pressured.

I’m not really in the mood to answer this but I will try to do so clearly. First, it’s clear that you are the type who will never be shown any other way than what you think is true. That much is obvious from your comments on this and other threads where you are given plenty of evidence contrary to your statements but you continually argue semantics.

Second: Bots were the given reason. Anet is in this game to make money any way they can. There are, in fact, no rules on the table that prevent them from running bots themselves, or running automated Trading Post accounts that are there to deliberately inflate the market rates. Sure, it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it’s a fact that this is something they can do. Bots were a convenient excuse for adding a function to the game that deliberately forces people to grind for gold, as opposed to farming for specific items. On a side note, I’d like to know your source of info, since you seem to know so much about how DR works, especially when Anet is so secretive about it.

Third, thanks for assuming that I have a gambling problem (FYI, I don’t).
The fact remains that thousands of people don’t even understand that they are addicted to gambling in situations like the RNG here. Because they’ve been lead to believe that it’s not gambling. Additionally, players do not have to feel the pressure for it to be there. This is not a time-share-condo high-pressure sales meeting. It’s about subtlety and illusion.

Yes, other games use RNG, so what of it? Guild Wars 2 is using it with an iron fist. In all the other games I’ve played, I’ve never felt it was completely hopeless to farm/grind for what I was after. In GW2 I have one choice, for my playstyle, to obtain the things I want. Grind gold.

Perhaps though you’ve never gotten good at something in real life and then had it taken away. Perhaps you’ve had your life handed to you on a silver platter, never needing anything other than to occupy your time. News flash: there are people out there who find MMO’s to be a great way to let off stress, to have fun, and to keep their minds occupied with productive projects, because they cannot, for whatever reason, do things in RL to fulfill those needs. I love working with my hands. I used to create jewelry. Real jewelry. Life stepped in and took that away for a time length that I’m not sure of yet, so I turn to games and such to work with the metals and gems that I enjoy. Do you even understand what it is like to create something on your own, with your own hands? Or do you just buy everything and have it delivered and assembled for you? I love working with wood too, but we’d get evicted if I set up my tablesaw in our apartment.
My side of this is just one story among thousands. There are thousands of reasons why people turn to games for some mind relaxation, and not all of them can be pigeon-holed into your narrow viewpoints on how things work.
And don’t go and pull the “then find another game” bullkitten commentary. People invested a lot of time into this game before discovering that all was not what it seemed to be, and they aren’t willing to just up and throw away what they’ve been able to scrape together.

Sharingandid.1540:

So far every event has been about Weapon Skins, well a lot of people would really enjoy armor skins also…

Armor skins would be nice, but they won’t even let the devs spend time on fixing current clipping issues. I doubt they would be given enough time to get new armor sets done properly.

I’ve never set foot in GW1, but going off what I’ve read in the forums, as well as having watched my wife play GW1, I get the feeling that what is missing is the “my world” feeling.

That emotional attachment that let’s you step into your character and say “this is my home. This is where I grew up, and these are the people I call friends”.

GW2 is “just a game”.

The RNG and grind in GW2 is mind-numbing. NCSoft and Anet are obsessed with squeezing as much money out of the playerbase as possible in the shortest amount of time. The end result is a game that comes across as kitten in the “finished product” department, and a loot system and economy built soley on the push to get players to open their wallets. For the majority who fall on the “lose” side of the kitten RNG, everything is a grind. Want T6 mats? Grind gold to buy them. Want a special skin? Grind gold to buy it. Want a mini? Grind gold to buy it.
The entire game is focused on forcing people to grind for gold, and it is deliberately designed that way. They are creating a high pressure environment where the only thing that matters is gold, because psychologically it has been proven to bring in more real cash.
You know why we don’t have a large number of emotes/animations? Because they were seen as superfelous to the end goal of making money. They were additional development work that was seen as “no cash flow”. Same applies for fixing a number of QoL issues. The Monetization Lords see it as a waste of time because players aren’t leaving the game over it and it doesn’t bring in more money.
By design everything is forced into being an issue of gold. Diminishing Returns is not about bots, it never has been. It’s about limiting loot drops so that players need more gold to buy the items they want, because needing more gold is another pressure to open the wallet and just buy gold.
Then there’s the “urgency” pressure. They introduce gem and gold valued items that are only a round for a short period of time. “buy now, or miss out!”. People feel pressure to open their wallet to get that item they want. RNG plays a massive part in this. “Buy black lion keys with gems and you could get a Black Lion Claim Ticket!”. Anet is actively, and knowingly, feeding off of people who have money and don’t know they have a gambling addiction. It’s worse than gambling, in fact, because all the items are virtual and have no real value. So people are not even gambling real money to get a possible cash prize.
Every aspect of it works together to apply as much pressure as possible on the players to pay real money.

Yes, Anet needs to make money to stay in business. What they are doing however is abuse. It needs to stop.

January 2018
DevPost[Loot removed, all items in gemstore]
[we want flying mounts!]]
[12,000hours and still no precursor]
[no new animations since launch..]

Suddenflame.2601:

your point was that many smaller people are selling a small amount at a time. Evidence to the contrary however as when you look at the TP there are only a few sellers at each price point but selling in a massive quantity. There is thousands of people generating materials but very little are selling them but yet there is individuals are selling them in a massive quantity. So either those people with a massive supply are trading post flippers or are farming the materials.

They are TP flippers. They put in a buy price and buy hundreds of items from people who don’t care to set their own sell rate for the 2 or 3 items they looted, then they turn around and sell them in large quantity.

Additionally, there are people who simply have tons of resources who can sit around at the mystic forge and make clovers all day as a method of obtaining more T6 mats.

Meryn.6875:

Why should you put money into this company anyway?

Ive made my mistake of buying this game, and they wont get any more money from me until they learn how to push builds with more fixes than bugs.

Theres alot of bugs that exist since launch that hasnt been fixed yet. But hey, at least we can play new (temporary) bugged content every 2 weeks with the bugged stuff we already have. So thats nice.

Yeah, saving my money for quality stuff

Same here. I’ve not bought any gems with real cash since last August, and Arenanet is a long way from getting any more money out of me at this point.

lordkrall.7241:

Judge Banks.9018:

“It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards.” -Colin “The Deceiver” Johanson

Oh?
I am rather sure that you never need to do Dungeons or WvW or DEs in order to get the most powerful rewards. They are made by crafting (and/or drops from several different kinds of places).

Keep on twisting the truth, it’ll look the way you want it to no matter what.

Sirendor.1394:

Some ideas have already been written over these forums multiple times:

• Deleting “soulbound” (and replacing it with accountbound)
  won’t happen because Anet makes more money with it as it currently is
• Adding a skin database with unlimited unlocking of skins you unlocked.
  won’t happen because Anet makes more money with it as it currently is

Others can be added:

• Making experience convertible from character to character.
• Allowing us to unlock hair-styles and colours permanently for the whole account (by purchasing them in the store)
  won’t happen because Anet makes more money with it as it currently is
• Allowing characters to use gear you bought on others.
  won’t happen because Anet makes more money with it as it currently is
• Making certain stat combinations unlockable for the whole account.
  getting the picture yet?

Im Mudbone.1437:

As with the multitude of other threads started on this I say no.

+1

All this “manly” talk about how easy it is to get to r30 is complete bullkitten. I’ve run in WvW on and off since January of 2013, and after countless doors, keeps, etc., and a lot more kills than I ever thought I’d get, I’m only r11. You have to be some special sort of mental if you think there’s no grind to get to level 30.

Forcing casuals into WvW will have a detrimental effect on a servers ability to hold objectives and maintain status.

@OP: This is a great idea for WvW, if they can make it a requirement for activating the commander tag within WvW, however it shouldn’t restrict it from use in PvE (let some other factor restrict that).

As for the Rank 30 issue, it’s like Anet is trying every last means possible to jump the shark.

That is utter bullkitten. They’ve basically made it impossible for a casual player to obtain a legendary without (shocker!) buying one outright off the TP.

I’ve done my map completion, I’ve gotten everything but the precursor, and I’ve played a lot of WvW just for the heck of it. I’m not exactly a casual player, but I’m not hardcore by any means, yet I’m only rank 11. I could understand if it was rank 10. That is achievable and by the time you hit that you’ve learned a lot about WvW.
Making it rank 30 certainly won’t help the issue of zerging either.
What next Anet? Require completion of fractals up through level 50 in order to get world completion?
They should just stop this crap and remove the legendary crafting process and sell them directly in the gemstore for RL cash only purchases. That’s what they want.

the Lovestruck Protector is absolutely beautiful. I’d love to see more effects like that on weapons in game.

Sad that they chose to skip the Spear, Trident, and Harpoon gun. I was hoping to outfit one of my characters with those since she doesn’t have any special underwater weapons.

Devata.6589:

Like I said before. I do think there is still a market for the B2P+expansion and it would also be interested for a company when it’s looking for long-term income in stead of fast money.

And there is your primary problem with GW2. Arenanet’s montization department is terminally obsessed with “fast money”.

I find it difficult to believe GW2 will ever see an expansion like what you are thinking of. They barely care to invest time in finishing the game they released, let alone an expansion to it.

One point about the issue of there being no more need for quality in an expansion than exists for micro-transaction items: The reason micro-transactions affect the game negatively and promote lazy/poor/cheap design is because of the quantity. If a company is going to make an expansion, they have that one expansion item to create and get right. All the parts of it need to work together to follow it’s theme, etc. Any given part of it that might be broken would need to be patched, and the company, having sold the expansion, would be pushed to do so, or risk having people choose not to pay the money for the expansion.
With micro-transactions, like in GW2, they get to do the “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” method. They throw cheap stuff together and put it on the gem store and see what sells. If something doesn’t sell, they can remove it. If it’s broken, they can ignore it because it only represents a small amount of money.

187 crucial T6 mats out of 1500 bags. I’d say I’m shocked at how low it is, but I’m not. Not anymore.

Corpus Christi.2057:

It is not forbidden to farm. Ask for explanation and supporting evidence of you “botting”, otherwise, if none is provided, demand exculpation.

Anet will pretty much laugh at that. It’s their game, and therefore their way or the highway unfortunately, and they like the “highway” option, especially when someone might be getting ahead.

Devata.6589:

But after some time people will get burned out of grinding gold and buying the rare / cool looking skin/ mini / dye (they might be already seeing that now and that might be the reason to now add stats to items). Thats also why I said this might be a good tactic to squeeze out money now and then move on to the next game, but that it’s not a good tactic for the long run.

I am at this point, honestly. I’m tired of grinding gold for everything I want. Want a legendary? grind gold. Want a different skin? grind gold. Want to craft something worth using? grind gold. Want a Mini? Grind gold. and on and on and on.
There is not one item I have across 8 characters and in 2000+ hours of playing that I obtained through a drop, and with the exception of two ascended weapons, not one item I have crafted was one that I wanted (as far as skin type goes).

2000+hrs here, and only had one giant eye drop. It’s sitting in my collections.

Wanze: I’m curious. Are you tracking loot drops from a specific bag type in general? Are you tracking just one or two items? I’d be interested in seeing how you set up your spreadsheet if you are tracking a lot of data.

I’ve had 5 or 6 keys drop over the past year, as well as received them for zone completion once in a while, and so on.

I have yet to get anything of worth from a black lion chest. Most I’ve ever gotten out of one as far as overall silver value would probably be around 15silver.

chemiclord.3978:

1) The cash shop is a non-starter. It literally has nothing to do with product quality. It’s a revenue stream. If a company is putting out cheap, lazy content… they’d be doing the same thing with a sub-model or expansions.

I have to disagree here. The cash shop has everything to do with product quality. They have the option of retaining players by putting out cheap gimmicky “buy it now” products that act just like fads, or they have the option of producing quality content that retains people for a longer period of time. Anet is clearly going the quick-and-dirty-short-term-cash-now path. I highly doubt that their monetization department looks further than a year into the future. They are the tools for short term minded investors to pull in profits, and, like the investors, couldn’t care less about the players experience. We are simply suckers to them.

Devata.6589:

When squeezing out money that risk is smaller and the amount of money you can make in the short run is bigger but the people will get tired of the game sooner so the long-term is smaller. So from an inverters viewpoint I get it (squeeze out money and move to the next game). From a company that makes the game on the other hand you want a company that runs for many years so the long-term profit would be more interesting. Maybe that learns us that in the future it’s wise to go for a game that is developed and payed by it’s own company.

From a gamers viewpoint of course I wants a high-quality game for the long run. Not some squeeze out the money product.

This touches on a point that I’ve wondered about regarding GW2. I’ve wondered if NCSoft never intended GW2 to be a long term game in the first place. If the financial data shows that the bulk of the consumer money moves from game to game in 1 year segments (people play the game out, then move to the next new game), it would make financial sense for a company like NCSoft to create a cycle that follows that. Pump out a new game once a year, and just sideline the previous ones. Focus on providing new games for that majority who move from game to game to game. In our case, Wildstar is the next big one. We also have no idea if NCSoft considers GW2 to be successful as a model. Sure, it’s made a bunch of money, but did it do as well as they expected?

It’s a very high level stick and carrot game, where the playerbase burns through content faster than an individual company can churn it out, so you use multiple companies to provide the carrot.

All of this depends, of course, on whether or not that sort of model recoups investment costs, but with the numbers that have been thrown about for GW2, it wouldn’t surprise me if the answer on that is “yes”.

Unfortunately, it leaves those of us who are looking for a long term “home” MMO with gimmick ridden themepark worlds where the updates are lacking somehow.

Psykotik.2691:

At the end of the day – there is absolutely no reason not to, and everyone will benefit immensely.

Only from a players perspective. From the monetization perspective, there is every reason to keep it as it is, because their wallet will benefit.

The gem-store and Monetization are strangling GW2.

People complain about “mindless zerging” of content, but it boils down to people who don’t want, or can’t, fork over cash for a paltry amount of gems needing to grind insane amounts of time just go scratch out a few silver from mountains of absolute trash loot.

Arenanet’s monetization department will apparently stop at nothing to get people to open their wallets, even if it means killing GW2 in the process.

penelopehannibal.8947:

However, the champion train, especially in Queensdale, is getting very toxic that even I am starting to question it. There isn’t a single day that goes by when someone isn’t calling someone a bad name just because the train got ‘de-railed’ when someone kills a champion through normal means.

Between the champ train and the people who deliberately take out champions just to cause grief for those in the train, it’s amazing new people get to kill champions at all.

It would be nice if skills that apply a condition could be defined out of combat as to what condition they use. It would open the door for more skill types as well.
Imagine a selection set similar to how you select utilities, only it would be for your #2 through #5 skills. Such as Bladetrail (#4 GS Warrior). Instead of cripple, you could choose, instead, to have it apply poison, weakness, or burning.

For Rangers, “Hunters shot” (LB #3) could be changed to weakness, stealth, poison, cripple, etc. (which ones would be up to Anet, but I’d suggest a wide variety for more build variation).

At the same time, implementing new utilities that allow people to diminish or completely ignore a given debuff would provide an excellent counter. If you have, for instance, a theif who has double daggers completely stacked for poison on all skills, an elementalist with a anti-venom utility would only need to fear the theifs base damage. A well rounded Engineer, using various debuff options for his skills, who enters battle with all utilities set to resist fire, would be in deep trouble against a warrior using a full set of chilling skills (yes, I know, anybody is in trouble going against a warrior in the first place, it’s just an example). After respawning, the engineer, out of combat, could instantly change to raise chill resistance to improve his chances the next time he runs across that warrior (unless the warrior switches his skill flavors)
In PvE, this also allows you to choose your attack types for various mob types. Going against earth elementals? Use a utility that reduces or defeats cripple if you don’t like their initial attacks.

This would, additionally, bring food back into the spotlight, because instead of new utilities, it’s possible that food items could be used to create the resistances and anti-venoms, etc.

There are pros and cons to the idea, but it’s just a general concept for how to bring more variety into the game in both PvP and PvE combat.

I’m not really seeing how the EotM update won’t be anything but full WvW/open-PvP. Most game devs these days are former PK “elites” so they have that as a foundation for designing games. Pushing PvE players into unwanted PvP content is a common goal.

+1 on this one.

Having a separate sub-forum for the CDI threads is a good idea, but it would be helpful to have a clearly labeled sticky in the general forum that lets users know that the CDI forum exists and what it’s for. Just a thought.

Vayne.8563:

2. Anet should list topics they’re willing to discuss and then let players vote on those specific topics. Alternately, let players suggest a range of topics, let Anet pick the ones of those they’re willing to discuss and then have the vote.

I disagree with this. While Arenanet has final say in what gets changed in the game, if they are going to allow the players to influence things, they need to accept that the players may in fact be concerned about something that the devs might wish to brush under the rug. Allowing Arenanet complete control over what topics are discussed in regards to the future of the game would turn the CDI stuff into nothing more than a choreographed dance in which the lines were pre-written and the end determined. This isn’t aimed at issues like mounts and all that, but at giving the players the ability to say “hey, we really would like more emotes/animations” and for the devs to face the reality that maybe they need to dedicate more time to that specific problem*.

*not to say that the devs have extra time or don’t care, but if Arenanet is serious, they should allow for some resource shifting based on what the players are interested in

Nike.2631:

I just have to say it:

TL;DR… Have people gone bat-droppings CRAZY?

What are they teaching in schools now that after you go to the trouble of boiling your entire screed down to a couple of one-line statements that encompass your complete thought in stand-alone easy-reading form… you then BURY IT at the absolute back end of your post?

If you can deliver your core thought in a couple of one-liners *&(#$^!@ LEAD WITH THAT. Make those points when people are still extending you the courtesy of their polite attention rather than assuming their eyes glazed over and hoping you can pick them up at the end when they are more likely to have gotten up and fixed themselves a sandwich than they are to be still scrolling down past a wall of blather.

Rant over.

True. Usually a summary goes at the start, however with forums I think the TL;DR works at the top or the bottom of a post because you have to scroll past the entire post anyway to get to the next one.
However, the disparity between where people put a TL;DR does break away from any form of format that this thread is trying to nail down.

If we go with a set format for posting in a CDI thread, it needs to be clearly stated with each post (with perhaps a link to an example), and the moderators need to enforce the format heavily.

Overall the format I’d like to see would be unrestricted length, but two part:
1st – A small paragraph summary (“small” because some grammar troll will write a four page paragraph just to spite the rules.). This part is required, posts without it would be removed by moderator.
2nd – The main body describing in detail what the individual is trying to convey, but at the same time this part is not required to be present

Both parts of the format are vital to keeping things flowing. The folks who truly do not have time to read everything in depth can get a quick view of what others are thinking, and have the ability to add their own thoughts without having to add the 2nd part. It also provides a quick review for any devs that might read through.

I’d also suggest that to provide visual accuity, the first part, the summary, should be bolded.

Malchior.5042:

At Chris’ request, I’m going to further define the structure I laid out in a previous post regarding User Stories.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, user stories are a method of determining requirements or opening discussion for the development of a software project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_story

• The story is written as one or a couple of sentences where the developer (in this case, each one of us) makes a request or statement that they want the piece of software to perform. The statement is usually written in the most simple language or vocabulary as possible, as if a user (or in our terms, a player) were speaking to the developer directly.

For example – As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>

“As a WvW player, I want stronger defensive tools/rewards, so that zerging across objectives is lessened and defense is more valued.”

• After the basic story is established, the poster could spend a couple paragraphs detailing their design. Again, whenever possible, the most basic language and vocabulary should be used. This way, any player of any language can understand the design, critique it, and offer their own insight.

• The idea of simplified user stories would allow people like Chris and other contributing Devs to get a quick overview of what the player wants and why they want it. If the Dev agrees with the player or the player touches upon an aspect or design that may already be in discussion or development by Arenanet internally, then the developer can read through a player’s detailed design suggestions.

• Interesting user stories Devs can “Favorite” or “Tag” to be explored further, or used within the final proposal at the company roundtable.

Essentially, it puts us, the players, in the developer’s chair as if we were at one of Arenanet’s SCRUM or Sprint meetings.

Personally, I feel establishing a format for a concise presentation like a user story would help us cut down on a lot of the redundancy, confusion, and length that have existed in previous CDIs.

As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>

Something akin to this structure or user story template at the beginning of every player’s post would make elements like type of player, intent, and scope much more visible from a simple statement.

This is a great idea, and has my vote so long as the post length is not changed from the standard forum length. Brevity is important for communication of ideas, but we are talking about a multimillion dollar business, and the Devs need to be able to go back to that short idea and look at it more in depth as to what the user wants.

When you only use one sentence to impart a concept to someone else, it opens the floodgates for misunderstanding and bad conclusions.

To take a much maligned but oft spoken of subject, let’s say user x.1234 posts in a CDI thread “I want to see mounts in GW2, because I think it would make the game more enjoyable.”
It’s an easy one to understand, but looking at it from a completely outside point of view, how do the devs know this person is asking for mounts that you can actually ride? Perhaps they are just requesting an addition to the NPC landscape where you might pass by a stable and see a horse or two?
And if the devs move on the idea that they perceive, and just add NPC extras like horses in a stable, look at the mess it would cause on the forums from people assuming that it means ridable mounts were in the future, etc. (note: this is not to say that the devs would do such a thing, it is merely a silly example).

The ability to elaborate on such simple concepts allows Arenanet to come back to the threads and see an in depth description provided by the player, thus removing the need to ask for clarification of the idea, and when you start getting into subjects such as changes to the economy, or trait systems, and so on, the elaboration of information can quickly become a lot of words.

Mystic.5934:

An easy precedent:
when infinite tools were made account-bound, they upgraded old ones for free. People complained that they bought 12 for all their alts and they wouldn’t of if they knew had known they were going to be able to get account-bound instead. I see no difference here.

I have a few sets of the perma-tools, and while I don’t like the new one with the sprocket bonus, I don’t really regret buying the ones I have already. Going account bound was a nice bonus, because I can move them among 8 characters, but account bound is something they should have done in the first place.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Do you know that guy who purchased 10 character expansion slots?
Turns out he just wanted to post “LOL” on the forum.

Good lord that is awful. ROFL