Guild Wars 2

penelopehannibal.8947:

Transmutation Charges.

The thing you can get 6 at a time for making a new character and walking around the 6 safe cities for a little while before deleting the character? The things the fall like rain if you SPvP? The stuff you get 3 of a month just for logging in?

No, really, I want to hear where you think you’re going with this argument. I mean, I know I get antsy when I have less than EIGHTY of them laying around.

Deleena.3406:

I would just be happy if we could simply show headwear armor while in outfits

So you’re 1/6th of the way to wishing it was armor. Now all you need is to wish you could turn off the shoulders or use costumes with the aura’s that take up shoulder slots and you’d by 1/3 of the way to wishing it was armor.

Then maybe it’s wishing you were able to wear the gloves you want with an outfit and you’re half way there…

…Or you could just skip to the punch line and join the growing chorus saying “Anet, the costumes are BLATANTLY built on armor rigs. Please make those pieces also available as armor of the same weight as it’s already designed around.”

Then people who like cookie cutters/leveling skins can have their cookie cutter/leveling skins and people who like to mix-and-match can do so using the same assets twice. (all without trying to hide behind a “but it’s the clipping” defense that doesn’t even pass the laugh test…)

It literally makes my head hurt watching them throw money on the ground like this. Fortunately after seeing that their “lets hide 9 suits of armor behind zone-wide event omega-grinds” scheme pretty much blew up in their faces, they might finally dump the “armor ONLY comes from in-game activities” as the steaming skritt droppings decision that it is.

I like to believe the mistaken (and widespread) belief that MMOs are a license to print money is dying. That’s a good thing. Especially given how few of MMOs have the same people running them as built them. The builders tend to jump on to the next boat and never see the consequences of their decisions that make it impossible to maintain the game they’re leaving behind.

Not many developers get it that an MMO is more like a portal than a game and when you stop moving content through that portal it withers. Instantly. Keeping the game vibrant and prosperous requires constant reinvestment and that’s just too much work for most investment house/publishers. They paid wages for 5 years without return (usually) so they should be able to coast profitably with a skeleton crew for at least 5 more years, right? Right??!? Not so much.

The successful MMOs run more like Steam itself than like a game on Steam – it’s a framework in which to deliver new activities.

DoctorDing.5890:

Legal challenge: not going to happen. Everyone is an armchair law expert. Most of them are wrong.

Refund: also not going to happen unless you bought the game very recently. Even then, good luck.

If you believe anything else then, frankly, you are dreaming.

Gem buying suspended indefinitely? Gonna happen. A lot.

Pre-order for ex-pac 2 given the sharpest scrutiny with every single bullet point being something that might get ‘suspended indefinitely’? Gonna happen. A lot.

The butcher’s bill for this decision is in the far off future… and they’re gambling that they can win people back or that it’ll be forgotten before then… but its still a huge gamble and one that could very well gut their revenue when those 70 Ex-pac Devs finally do put down their pencils and hand in their work.

DivaCeryn.2673:

So costs for scribe are going down because as Gaile said scribe was not how it was intended. What about the scribes that have large guilds and fully open halls that have spent 1000s and 1000s literally of gold already besides what little their guildies have donated to them? is that really fair since “scribe isn’t how it was intended” as stated by Gaile? and will anything be done about this?

No. Absolutely nothing will be done to reward/compensate early adopters. You paid a premium to have it early. Its a situation that happens all the time in the game and scribing will be treated no differently.

Abelinkkin.9315:

I’m not level 80 so I don’t know what half of this means. I’m sure there is something in this post worth grabbing a pitchfork and rioting over… :P

Rioting over? Not really.
Finding some other game to sink your time into until the July update? Oh yes.

mrauls.6519:

So, does this include class balancing?

I’m sure we will see some thumb-twiddling micro-tweaks that do nothing to the meta while still managing to enrage PvE’ers. They have standards to uphold, after all.

Behellagh.1468:

This is how the community sets itself up for disappointment, reading what’s said and then saying something entirely different.

Because ANet obviously has no responsibility for confusion caused by releasing a post about “what’ gonna be in the April update” that’s filled with stuff that won’t be happening yet in April . It’s called ‘bringing it on yourself’.

Shadows Creed.3902:

The bluntness and cut and dry of the post by MO is great to see in my eyes. There isn’t a wondering about what is going on. Even if it is unpopular I am glad that he is just being communicative and forthright with what is going on and the direction it is going.

This I agree with 100%. If he can keep this up once-or-twice-a-week from now on, it will put GW2 back on the list of games to watch. For a lot more than just current players. Solid communication reaches out to lapsed players and help bring in new ones too.

Having Alpine back will be great!

…Then there will be no hiding how badly the WvW community has been devastated when those borders are empty too.

Fortunately I have about 60 times as much disposable income as any whipper-snapper and courting me and my ilk can get you a lot more money over time than some of the action titles pull in.

X-Com 2 says ‘hi’ to that action-is-everything mindset.

Honestly the bottleneck is their own corporate culture they’ve built up that says its ok to let small teams screw off for 8-12 months without any tangible progress.

Seriously how long have they been saying “Oh yeah, the Tribal armor. We sure do want to get that back in the game…”

These are the people who dream themselves a relevant competitor on the E-sports scene and yet haven’t noticed their successful role-models deliver meaningful balance adjustments on a two week cycle not a ’we might address that maybe in the next SIX MONTHS" cycle.

Their internal accountability to deadlines is in shambles.

Yeah, I’m not interested in “hush gems”. I’m interested in them finishing what they start.

It does look cute, and I’m glad people are enjoying them even if it’s not something I’m likely to buy this year.

When this is the speed things move when they want to do something, you can see why people know “suspended indefinitely” actually means “never”.

Really? Nobody else takes screen caps on the log in screen and wonders where their stuff went?

My necromantic follower of Raven…

I recommend the conjuror mantle over the Orian shoulders. Try it, you’ll like it .

First, a reality check:

For those excited about there finally being some communication with the players — Mike O’Brien is NOT a new face at ArenaNet. He’s been the president since GW2 was nothing but some bullet points on a whiteboard. While we haven’t heard from him in four years (since the manifesto) he’s always been the guy in charge of the guys we do hear from. Let that sink in a moment… We’re hearing from him now because after the departure of Chris Whiteside and Colin Johanson he’s literally run out of people to do it so he doesn’t have to.

Mike, I’m glad you’ve decided to finally engage with us. It unfortunate how many opportunities you’ve missed to do so before delivering this particular bombshell. It would have been great to have a stock of personal goodwill in hand before setting this particular fire.

Now some genuinely friendly advice:

By my casual napkin math, counting the final butcher’s bill when the 2nd Expac goes live, Arena Net lost at least a million dollars the day you made this announcement. I figure it’s still bleeding out about another million dollars a week this floats around without delivering a powerful counter argument. And I don’t mean promises and hoopla, because that well’s gone dry. I mean something delivered and in-game you can point to and say “See, GW2 is back on the path to greatness.” Something that will MAKE people nod their heads agreeably… when they’re not logged in and playing the new shiny.

You probably want to take a few more minutes out of your unquestionably busy President-AND-Studio Design Director duties and try to damp down the fire you started, but more importantly is gonna be a few days mysteriously popping into Every. Single. Office. on the main floor and cracking the whip. The abject failure of your “Legendary Team” has embarrassed the whole company. Somebody needs to deliver SOMETHING and they need to do it RIGHT NOW. And no, another limp, glacial, barely noticeable so-called ‘balance pass’ that doesn’t shake up the meta at all is not what I mean.

Good luck out there.

James Quall.6029:

YEAH! And outing some poster will totally prove that suspension of legendary development isn’t a horrible decision that countermands what they previously promised they’d do!

Honestly I’m trying to be patient with Wolfey, because I know he’s thinking of the other one (‘Euronike’ I think?). And most days he’s a credit to the fan base who uses his title chiefly for good.

I’ve never been a Tester. I’ve also never discussed GW2 or its players on other boards.

minbariguy.7504:

Communication is always good, even if it communicates bad news.

That’s true, but you do have to appreciate the artistry that goes into coming out and telling us stuff in a way that you can actually hear the income from the next Ex-pac pre-sale boiling away to nothing over a fire built out of burning credibility.

This decision wasn’t just hard, it was COSTLY. Both in terms of torched goodwill and straight to the bottom line loss of faith.

Whoever was on that Legendaries team that couldn’t deliver, they’re gonna be in the doghouse for a year.

Witte.3160:

Perhaps I should suspend GW2 for some BDO as well.

And just think: if you wander off long enough, GW2’s 3rd ex-pac will come out and give you the second ex-pac for free .

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,
…
I know this will be a controversial decision. I’ll hang out with you here on the forums for a little while today to discuss it. And I’m always available by email.

Mo

So, a question Mr. O’Brien?

You’ve taken over Chris Whiteside’s job tittle… a little staffing change that got far less attention that Colin’s departure, yet ultimately a FAR more serious change in the way ArenaNet produces content than most people realize.

When are you hosting the next CDI?

ozma.3498:

Yep. I firmly believe that there will be one and only one raid ever added to the game.

I firmly believe that’s all that ever should be in this game, and that only because it’s already done, not because it was in any way shape or form an improvement over the fun and accessibility of big budget fights we’ve already seen the game can deliver.

If you’re in the mood for a little honesty and contrition, could we maybe get an explanation how it came to pass that you somehow built a structure of complex nested multi-tiered collection-grindfests so mind bogglingly elaborate that six people working full time have only managed to complete one new weapon in six months?

Then contrast that with the gemstore turning out new entire sets of weapons like clockwork.

And then maybe a word on the armor/outfit fiasco.

Seriously, I’d like to believe you that the game is changing course for the better, but there’s a LOT more to that than just “Whoops, I guess we’re dropping a feature”.

Keeping absolutely everything behind the curtain is NOT serving you well. Just one more of many things I hope you’ll rethink as the numbers for this game’s playerbase and income continue to come in.

Well, I think we’ll all remember this conversation the NEXT time ArenaNet tries to pre-sell an expansion.

New rule: no ANet market-speak bullet point to ever be taken seriously until it’s actually delivered, because the ‘priorities’ excuse is “always on the table”.

Please add a checkbox option to display our backpacks on the character select screen. This is a common area for taking screen captures and it would be nice to be able to see our complete look.

Additional check boxes to display our weapons, either stowed or drawn & ready would also be welcome. It’s always surprised me that with the focus on Legendary weapons we can’t display them on the select screen.

Checkboxes makes this a voluntary choice that affects no one who prefers the current minimalist selection display.

Thanks!

Aidan Savage.2078:

How long is it going to take for you people to realize anet has stated that the god kitten armor sets are going to be obtained INGAME ONLY?

It not a law of physics. Its a strategy put forth by a marketing hack not some unquestionable messiah. And we’re seeing quite a few “strategies” they had going into HoT under review if not outright reversal.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

How could they sell separate pieces of Outfits without redesigning each piece so that it would work with different armor weights? Which would make them Armor pieces and not Outfits.

The outfits are PLAINLY built on the standard armor rigs and could be broken up into pieces for the weight class associated with that rig. Does Balthazar’s blatantly heavy armor need to be made to into pieces that work with the medium and light rig? No. It does not. Freeing it up to be mix-and-match’ed with just heavy armor professions will be fine. People who are used to designing their look via armor pieces are well acquainted with the differences between the rigs. Similarly the Crystal Nomad outfit is blatantly built over the medium armor rig and so on.

Considering the amount of work that would involve, would the playerbase be willing to pay the same price (or nearly the same price) for a piece as for an entire Outfit?

I’ll pay what I was paying before or even a bit more. Absence doth make the wallet grow wider.

Would the playerbase lament, yet again, that these Armor pieces were not attainable in-game?

There comes a point when you realize its ok to ignore the lamentation of people who aren’t giving you money. They’re not actually customers. And as I’ve been told a million times before, nothing in the store is unattainable in-game since you can BUY GEMS with coin.

Would the playerbase be content to wait months and months for Outfit/Armor offerings?

As opposed to years or never? Yeah, try me. I’ll cheerful take armor at the pace they proved they could produce it prior to the Evil Dictate.

Would the designers/creators have to put other game content on hold because of the time (up to 10 times as much) spent creating these Outfit/Armor offerings?

The character art team seems to be able to keep up with their non-make another *@#ing outfit every month duties. I think we should see if they can handle it rather than try to imagine obstacles into existence.

Hiyas. Welcome aboard.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I’d much rather see armor sets in game. Outfits are just that, all or nothing. You like it or you don’t.

I’d be ok seeing armor sets in the game if they weren’t coming out at a pace best measured in geological terms. You’d think leystone armor had to actually be pressed into existence over the course of thousands of years on the bottom of shallow magically-charged lake beds.

At least when they were in the store the bean-counters saw a direct and tangible connection be tween “make the Character Art team do the 10-times-as-much-work” and “Getting Paid For It”. This “Make the Players do 600 hours of Repetitive Nonsense for Armor” backfired and THEY KNOW IT.

They didn’t have that data before. Now they do. Time to iterate.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

And, from someone else they got all the dollaz from them. If enough people are willing to give up all the dollaz as opposed to none of the dollaz like you did, then they make more. Likely more than if both groups of people only gave up some of the dollaz. That’s where pricing analysis and market research come into play… like any successful business does.

I agree. Intellectually. But if I let myself do a coldly rational analysis of this all I’m left with is HATING MY FELLOW PLAYERS AND THEIR STUPID LACK OF CREATIVITY.

…and I’d rather not do that.

You have to appreciate a resource node SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to reward the owners of unlimited sickles over those who use in-game coin sickles.

Its not like the Outfit buyers are entirely pleased either…

“Please let me turn off the shoulders”

You mean like armor?

“Please let me use it with the bats/snowfall aura!”

You mean like armor?

“Please let me dye the top and bottom separately”

You mean like armor?

“Please for the love of the Six and all the Spirits (and the Eternal Alchemy too!) release an uncoupled version of each outfit — so we can USE IT LIKE ARMOR!”

So rather than confuse me they get absolutely zero dollars from me.

Well played?

I’m about to venture out and try a few more rounds of Outside’s nail-biting vehicular PvP system called “Rushhour Traffic”

Wish me luck.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Everyone’s mileage varies on this topic, so there’s pretty much nothing ANet can do to satisfy everyone, except hire more designers and, last I checked, no one much seems interested in paying more for the game or for gem shop items.

I would be HAPPY to pay more for gem shop items I want. As proven by my owning all the armor they’ve ever released save one of the flame armors and the three zodiac armors. I have and will continue to pay for armor at every opportunity they give me.

Conversely the only outfit I own is the freebie they gave everybody, and the only outfit I’ve ever considered buying is the one that took 5 times as much work (hmm…), the Wedding set.

The no more armor in the Gem store policy is ridiculous. If it wasn’t selling why does it keep reappearing in various combinations of sales and offers pretty much year round?

I get that people like outfits for leveling even if my account is pretty much at the point where my characters are either 80 or skip 60+ level on the way to being 80 thanks to tome upon tome upon tome. But unlike most “I want this over that” discussions, Outfits and Armor actually DO compete for the exact same staff man hours.

Thankfully at this point even ArenaNet has finally had the light come on that the new zones are grindy as kitten and hiding the pittance of new armor sets behind that instead of just letting me buy it and get on with prancing around in it (for real cashy money!)may have been a soul sucking, income withering MISTAKE.

Here’s the funny thing about work: it has value.

When you try to sell something that takes only an hour instead of 10 hours (using their ratios), it shows.

A set of armor is something I can tinker with and experiment with and ENJOY for hours.

An outfit you either put it one or take it off. Done. Bored now. Never going to buy one of these ever again.

Vayne.8563:

We’ve seen it time and time again, games that were going to kill this game. Neverwinter, ESO, Archeage, Wildstar, Blade and Soul and now Black Desert. Why hasn’t it happened?

Because it’s easier to make an MMO sound cool than it is to produce a really cool MMO. Words are always easy.

Man, for a moment there I would have sworn you were talking about the Manifesto.

GW2 did a lot of things really well. I hope it can get back to that place.

Johnsen.6253:

Raids are made for a small portion of the playerbase and it will backfire soon.

It remains to be seen if the surviving MMO studios can absorb the lesson of Wildstar bleeding out.

Right now I have a hard time imagining I’ll buy it at all, much less pre-order it.

I think raids are an interesting addition to the menu of things to do in game. I have greatly enjoyed raiding in other MMOs… while the raids here are definitely a contributing factor to my having all but entirely stopped playing GW2.

I think Developers’ widespread belief that they have to treat raiders’ time as a quantum leap more valuable than the time in-game of every other type of player by grossly over-incentivizing raids is a manifestation of mental illness. It’s misguided and it’s insulting.

Basically there’s an unwritten understanding setting up raids SUCKS. It is for the adventure craving typical player with limited free time one of the single worst things you can possibly get bogged down in. And so Devs keep tying an enormous porkchop around their raids’ necks to get the dog to play with it in the form of ‘exclusive’ advancement instead of improving the watching-paint-dry level of boredom brought on by the pre-raid logistics.

You should be raiding because you enjoy that kind of gameplay, not because they’ve jammed a hook in your mouth with a shiny you can get nowhere else and have been dragged into it with blood running down your torn cheek.

Lord of Rings.5371:

Where are the lawyers?

Ignoring it… like everyone else who knows the slightest thing about trademark law.

Because brevity is a skill. Practice it.

Grats. Now find something else to do.

I’m still having some fun, though my time spent playing GW2 has tapered off dramatically. I’ve been to the third HoT map all of twice and the fourth map never because I have zero interest in play spaces where the only way I’m supposed to have fun is with lots other people all facing the same direction. If I wanted to be in a group instance, I’d use the LFG tool. And that’s all they gave us: 4 big dungeons where soloing gets pooped on by spawns designed for the zerg.

Industry norm is about 60% of players are NOT interested in socializing/group play outside of other people they know prior to starting the game. Its a lesson ANet seems really slow to absorb. You’d have thought the debacle that was 3 months-after-launch unplayable Orr maps would have taught them better, mega-servers or no.

Taobella.6597:

i would really love for you guys to try make op build using this idea i do not see how it could break the game just make it more fun.

If you don’t see how you could warp the game with this, you have you eyes squinched shut. You can’t have a meaningful conversation about MMO game mechanics without being aware that any change will be analyzed to the Nth degree in a matter of hours. Any breakdown will have 14 you-tube videos praising the glory by the end of the day.

Moreover, it should be pretty obvious the Developers are scurrying away from more build-flexibility as fast as possible. The Revenant in its initial release state tells you everything about the class designers’ dreams of chopping your options down to the point were they can predict every build before it even happens.

The game has all but abandoned underwater play – you can rule out Bubbles.

The servers will go dark before the do the work required to rebuild Hoelbrak in a way that makes sense if we were to do battle with Jormag.

That leave Primordius and Kralkatoric, both of which are well positioned as enemies we can trounce without wrecking the existing content. Fighting Kralkatoric would mean more edits and changes in existing content than Primordius, but I also think Charr are more popular than Asura, so they’ll probably put us up against the crystal dragon first despite the costs.

FogLeg.9354:

Not going to argue if they were too good or not but their usefulness compared to other classes is currently low.

You can say that, but it doesn’t make it true.

They went from bloody mandatory to yeah, that’s still amazing.

There are situations where I think pure Mesmer is better then Chrono and that means as elite specs it has failed.

((snort)) Your expectations are so skewed they’re not even wrong.

I had a streak doing the 10x recipe where I got so many lodestones I was kind of annoyed when clovers popped.

FlashAhAhh.4307:

This game is the least grindy MMO in history and here is why. Exotic equipment.

You can play the VAST majority of content and be very competitive in exotic equipment. There IS another level of gear you can get after this (Legendary or ascended) and while it DOES give you an advantage it’s designed that the return on the effort to acquire it is absolutely minimal.

And yeah, Legendary and Ascended take some time to get (still nothing compared to other games, go play DDO and get a full set of best-in-game, will take you YEARS) but the point is that you can grind this gear out while actually PLAYING the end game content in exotics.

In my experience MOST MMOs have a “serviceable” tier of gear that’s readily acquirable by max level characters. GW2’s serviceable tier is maybe a bit more trivial to acquire than most (6-7 minutes browsing the Trading post…) and its endgame tier is not as massive an upgrade as some but you’re not talking about some sort of revolutionary improvement over the industry norm. Pre-introduction of Ascended there was something unique going on here, but GW2 sacrificed that on the altar of the expectations of players who had played almost any other MMO before coming here.

If GW2 has done something truly unique, its been holding the line at a fixed level cap and the downscaling tech that makes returning to old zones not a complete blowout. And we’re seeing a certain amount of shakiness on both fronts with the proliferation of HoT-only stat mixes and limited development time going into old Tyria. I feel like the expansion of glider functionality and re-working the Shatterer are good signs that they’ve realized they can’t just abandon the older zones.

I want to know where anyone got the idea Guild Wars wasn’t grindy?

Like any game, you can of course just arbitrarily stop trying to move forward and pretend the grind isn’t there waiting for you and beckoning to you, but if you’re after a fully empowered character you’re looking at an ocean of grind. May the Six Gods help you if you take it into your head that you want some particular and popular cosmetic frippery to go with that optimal set of stats. There’s 5 million accounts and every one of them is ready to pay more gold than you ever wanted to look at for that skin you thought might be nice, be it one of the 150,000-to-1 drops or the just the components you need for the most Legendaries. The competition is fierce and well funded.

There is no universe where a sudden surge of income — regardless of source — is going to do anything except be treated as validation of the very choices you’re trying to see reversed. That’s not even some sort of malicious spin, that’s just basic corporate functionality and mindset.