Guild Wars 2

DevonCarver.5370:

With that out of the way, I have some more questions.
1) What is an acceptable amount of chat suppression for a commander? It’s important to realize that if the system remains as it currently does, with 100g for a tag, no chat suppression would mean that people can spend 100g to spam you with whatever they feel like. That’s not an acceptable solution. I think there are other things we could do, like provide a commander only channel that has no suppression but that people have to opt in to.

I advocate double the number of posts before being suppressed in zone chat and local chat/say for tag-up Commanders. With NO suppression in their own squad channel.

2) How would it feel to have a system that gradually unlocked more commander abilities and icons, but that required dedication to WvW? Let’s say we added a commander line to the ability panel and you unlocked it with WvW ability points. What is the right starting price for that? 100 points? more? If that happens, does it make sense for the system to remain character based? Would requiring commanders to spend their WXP in this way limit them to the point that they didn’t want to do it? What if you still acquired the current tag by spending 100g, but you upgraded to new shapes via the WXP system?

I’m keen on a Commander skill, but I still think that some of the other measures of WvW accomplishment have a lot to offer. Gaining new tag symbols based on some aggregates of WvW achievements still seems like it would allow specialized commanders to distinguish themselves (“Siegemaster”, “Raider”, “Home Guard”) and to create player goals beyond “must get enough wxp…”

I also think if we have tags that “show to squad only” and “show to entire map” as separate functions we can use those to distinguish beginning commanders from veteran warleaders. All commanders need to be able to have their squads see them on map, but do all commanders need to contribute to Dorito-spam?

I think the initial “squad leader” commander should cost about 20 wxp – its a modest commitment but it also indicates you’ve at least been around a few fights. Looking at a simpler progression that I was tinkering with before~

Level 1 (20 wxp). Can form squads of up to 20 players with full Commander UI. Gains squad chat channel w/ no suppression. Can activate squad-only map tag. Can ping supply total carried by squad members.
Level 2 (20 wxp). 5% wxp bonus for squad members within 2000 (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds)
Level 3 (20 wxp). 10% out of combat run speed bonus for squad members within 2000 (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds)
Level 4 (40 wxp). Can form squads of up to 40 players. Gains Commanders Only chat channel. Can activate public map tag.
Level 5 (40 wxp). wxp bonus increases to 10%.
Level 6 (40 wxp). out of combat run speed bonus increases to 20%.

That gives you 20 points to buy in and start leading squads, with 100 points to be a full ‘map commander’.

I also wanted to say that while I’d like to see commanders radiate some buffs, I believe those buffs should serve to encourage squad cohesion (wxp to encourage joining squad, out of combat speed to reduce stragglers as you move overland) and not to tip the balance of a fight (no direct damage or defense buffs).

Fortus.6175:

As a guy who is barely getting out of dolyak, should I give up on my dream of having those finishers now that they are gone?

Thats sad, I dont think I can farm all the glory I need even if I were to start playing now nonstop :’(

I think the “leave ranks alone” message is starting to penetrate.

Don’t give up hope! Go to the CDI thread on PvP rewards in this forum and answer the most recent Dev questions about PvP ranks – you’ll be glad you did.

Becka Williams.4978:

This Wintersday, we find out that Scarlet is the reason why Tixx Workshop went crazy last year.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday pushing things back further than anticipated, the page will go live tomorrow.

Sorry for the confusion.

Turkey-coma for everyone!

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

they add a new Zone to Level from 30-50 called the tenguzone for that reason all your character will be reseted to lvl 30. You can’t use your gear anymore till your 80 again HF!

If it lets me play as a tengu in the future, I’d take that hit.

John Smith.4610:

After that post the Mystic forge rates on precursors were increased. We’ve moved into more longterm plans for precursors (we’re still watching), as you know, but that promise was upheld.

It makes me pine for a streak-breaker mechanic like the Pristine Fractal Relics:

If each combine of 4 exotics (or 3 and a mystic stone) also returned a “Zomorros’ treasured shiny” and you could spend 250 of them at the Mystic forge vendor to buy the precursor of you choice, this whole process would be a LOT more satisfying.

Aye.8392:

Nike.2631:

This ‘all or nothing’ attitude is fine for what we have now (because ‘all’ is virtually ‘nothing’…) but if we start to add things like group buffs, increased survivability in friendly zergs, reduced costs for upgrading siege equipment, and other things that actually set a commander apart for building and directing squads, we benefit from some sort of progression scheme, and progression fueled by something other than Gold.

Please God, never let anything like this happen! This would be horrendous for the game!

Why? Why is it ok to have hundreds upon hundreds of points of wpx options for DPS, more DPS, and EVEN MORE DPS and not for command/support roles?

The basic functionality can be unlocked by the first pip – BAMM! Commanders as we know them now.

Soren.9316:

Alcyone.8695:

No to a special WXP line for commanding. New commanders are already at a large disadvantage in terms of a lack of player support in the field and it would not help them to have a restricted set of tools as compared to other commanders; we want to make it easier for them, not harder.

100% agreeed. We shouldn’t be trying to do anything that will limit/handicap a new commander. It’s hard enough when you pop the icon and have evryone flock to you. If you don’t have all the tools how can you be expected to lead properly? May as well give the new leaders a fair chance at getting things right the first time. Everyone has to start somewhere right?

“Starting somewhere” can and should be at the bottom.

The thing is right now commanders are nearly toothless. They get a map marker and some intel on allies (supply carried). We have the possibility of giving people Tools with actual mechanical value and bite, but to do so there would have to be appropriate costs. Right now commander tags are one of the closest brushes the game has with Pay2Win. Instead of having a time play in WvW or skill displayed to make it on stage to even attempt being a commander its “Do you have gold/did you buy gems?”

This ‘all or nothing’ attitude is fine for what we have now (because ‘all’ is virtually ‘nothing’…) but if we start to add things like group buffs, increased survivability in friendly zergs, reduced costs for upgrading siege equipment, and other things that actually set a commander apart for building and directing squads, we benefit from some sort of progression scheme, and progression fueled by something other than Gold.

Everything we have now can stay purchased with the 100g commander book. The possibilities open up from there for those commanders willing to invest in more.

The fact you have so many tells you how worthless they are. They drop far, far too often to convert to anything useful.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

I know there are a lot of suggestions about a whole commander system with points, ranks, ect.. and I think that could be neat but one of our big goals is deep systems and as few of them as possible, as having a lot of small shallow systems all over the game can make it hard to maintain and keep up to date. Some examples are we could just roll the whole commander system into the Guild System and make new ranks and abilities part of guild upgrades. Another way to simplify this would be turn commander into WvW abilities and have a few lines that focus on commanding/following. (Granted this approch does make things more messy for PvE commanders). Just a few examples of how to design in a more simplistic way by folding this into another system, and some of the discussions and debates we have internally every time we go to improve/update a system.

I go back and forth on what price should be paid/trade-off accepted to become a commander. I still favor Achievements over raw wxp as a measure of commandery-ness, but the existing WvW skill system is just so easily adapted as a framework… Just puttering with a quick example of a Commander Skill:

Level 1 (2 wxp). Can form squads of up to 20. Gains squad chat channel. Can activate squad-only map tag.
Level 2 (4 wxp). Can ping supply total carried by squadmembers.
Level 3 (6 wxp). Squad members within range 2000 gain a 2% wxp bonus (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds)
Level 4 (8 wxp). After being CC’d, gains 1 stack of defiance if there are 10 or more squad members within 1500.
Level 5 (10 wxp). Can activate public map tag. Can form Squads up to 40
Level 6 (12 wxp). Squad members within range 2000 gain a 4% wxp bonus (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds)
Level 7 (14 wxp). Grants 7% speed buff to self and squad members within 2000 if there are 10 or more squad members within 2000 (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds)
Level 8 (16 wxp). After being CC’d, gains 2 stacks of defiance if there are 10 or more squad members within 1500.
Level 9 (18 wxp). Squad members within range 2000 gain a 6% wxp bonus (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds)
Level 10 (20 wxp). Can see Commander tag over the head of enemy commanders (and their clones…) up to draw distance. Can form Squads up to 60
Level 11 (22 wxp). When you are downed, grant Aegis for 5 seconds to all allies within 1000 (max targets 20; internal cooldown of 1 minute).
Level 12 (24 wxp). Squad members within range 2000 gain a 8% wxp bonus (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds)
Level 13 (26 wxp). When you are killed, inflict AoE damage based on the number of allies within 2000 (max targets 20; internal cooldown of 1 minute).
Level 14 (28 wxp). Grants 15% speed buff to self and squad members within 2000 if there are 10 or more squad members within 2000 (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds).
Level 15 (30 wxp). Squad members within range 2000 gain a 10% wxp bonus (non-stacking 30 second buff, pulses once every 15 seconds). Can form Squads up to 80
Level 16 (32 wxp). After being CC’d, gains 3 stacks of defiance if there are 10 or more squad members within 1500.

Alternate colors for tags are unlocked by combined grades of related WvWvW achievements.

One of my fav quotes on simplistic design
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” -Albert Einstein

A friend of mine thought this was a fitting insight for game designers~

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – Leonardo da Vinci

Slushey.8236:

The image attached below is my idealistic view of a Commander System in Guild Wars 2.

I suspect there are some significant system resources eaten up by a continuously updating supply and proximity count, but if you replaced those with buttons to ping that information (with a modest internal cooldown to keep resources from being gobbled up spamming them) your panel example could work quite nicely .

Malchior.5042:

As a PuG commander in both PvE and WvW, I would like to present a few extra “ranks” or “tiers” of commanders which would better represent the ideas of different colored tags that most people here have posted…

<snip>

That is some nice development of the concept. I like it .

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Hi. The name’s Penguin. Nice to meet you. Here’s a tip to speed up the Dredge Fractal: Thieves have Stealth, and can run bombs without getting hurt.

I wonder if panther-form’d Norns can pick up bombs…? Will have to test this…

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

A lot of awesome ideas here.

I’m hoping the final round up for this thread will be amazing.

Here are some questions I’ve been wondering about.

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

As one of the squaddies, rather than the commander, I’ve joined them when the commander asks us to, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen any of the additional functionality – or its used so rarely I literally don’t know what to look for/what I’m looking at.

How much is spies a problem with commander system?

Speaking from Fort Aspenwood: some. I’d say I hear a zone-chat hissy fit over spying about one day in three that I’m playing WvW.

Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

Have to ask a commander that one . I dunno.

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

OMG that could be so cool. I can see two places that it would rock like something that rocks very much:

A pip in the “Commander Skill” itself that allows you to spot enemy commanders with lower Commander Skill pips than yourself. Or just allow all commanders to see each other once they have a certain number of Commander Skill pips so they can be drawn together across the battlefield for some epic face-smashery! Just make that benefit high enough in the sequence of pips that people aren’t just dipping into the Commander Skill for that alone.

A pip in a new “Assassin” skill line. Some sort of zerg-busting skill line that maybe gives you bonuses that only kick in once there are 6 or more enemies close to you. Plow into the enemy’s vanguard, find the commander, and put a blade through his eye. If commanders become more effective, having a clear counter-strategy build at hand will elevate the level of play.

I’d also like to make a comparison between commanders and Champions. It would be neat if a high-skill/dedicated commander got some kind of defiance mechanism based on the number of allies around them. Something they can’t abuse (easily) dueling or roaming, but when about 15+ allies are present, you get some defensive perks that help make up for the time you often have to spend typing and otherwise directing the battle.

morrolan.9608:

DevonCarver.5370:

Okay, so before we get too far into this discussion, here is something else to think about:
Would you rather see us make some number of small improvements in the short term and larger changes long term or just tear the whole thing down and start from scratch?

To be a bit more specific, we could probably do something like multicolor markers without too much work, although it is not a given, but that would likely be the extent of things for a long period of time.

When I’m working on process improvement projects once we’ve worked out what we want to change we divided them into quick wins and longer terms goals. You should do the same. I imagine this is fundamental to any process improvement project. Quick wins will show the player base that you are making changes.

I find this is extremely untrue for MMOs.

As a whole MMO players dislike change. They want a stable, steady, persistent world. They want to make choices that won’t bite them in the backside or force them to reallocate points from scratch every time another quick win plops on the field.

If you’ve got a solid plan its vastly better to promote it to live in as few stages as possible. Often the number of shocks to the player experience is far more damaging than the size of the individual shocks. I’m sure John Smith can wax poetic about this from there inside the ANet offices if someone asks him .

It’d be a lot better to roll out “Commanders 2.0” than rattle the cages over and over with quick wins, then less quick wins, then mostly winnables, then ‘oh, here’s the big item we’ve been meaning to do all along’…

Commanders 1.0 was an exercise in theory-craft. You have over a year of real play and MASSIVE changes in the very nature of WvW since launch (World Exp and new skill systems). Take stock and build something that fits the game and systems you have now rather than the game you were looking forward to maybe happening back before launch .

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Once ladders are implemented, ranks will be retired.

To honor the effort that players have put into the rank system, existing players will be able to keep all unlocked rank finishers and will earn a special title based on your rank to show that you were there from the start.

Variants of existing rank finishers will move to the ladder system and will be used to show your current standings on the ladder from season to season. The original finishers will not be earnable again.

we will see “variants” of the existing rank finishers if we move up in ladder.

And lose them a day/week/month later when the ladder closes/resets.

Infinite treadmill – Your accomplishments blow away like dust. I can see why the Devs like it, but (some) players will HATE it.

Cyhann.2609:

I would love a way to turn off commander tags on screen and on the minimap, and maybe a way to whitelist certain commanders.

Yeah, whitelisting changing the icon would be very handy.

I don’t mind trying out new commanders from time to time, but if I have direct experience with a proven champion I’d love to be able to pick them out of the ‘corn-chip clutter’.

titanlectro.5029:

Long term, the commander system needs to be scrapped and rebuilt.

Why? Because we really honestly need some sort of a squad UI. And not just a crappy squad UI, a full fledged one that lets you re-arrange groups, track supply, set objectives and draw permanent things on the map and everything.

Short term, limit the changes to easy quality of life fixes.

• Extend the radius of /supplyinfo to at least 600
• Un-hide other commander tags when you are in a squad (if possible, give the squad commander a different icon)
• Allow commanders to change the color of their tags or make them invisible. (Only if this will not be a significant drain on resources for the overhaul.)

Keep in mind he just said you can’t have both. We can get a quick set of changes and then it moves to the bottom of the priority stack for a loooong time, or we might be able to get a single hard reboot/rebuild.

Given that the means of access is flawed, the functionality is minimal, and potential for excellence is great, I’m hoping for some idea of what the Devs feel could be accomplished with burn-it-down-&-start-fresh go at it.

How great can we actually dream here?

I think being able to use Glory to buy gold would bring greater parity to the reward tracks, but eliminating Glory in favor of gold is basically saying “PvP has no currency and any purchasable PvP rewards are now more efficiently acquired by playing the Trading Post, without PvPing at all…”

Justin ODell.9517:

Although ladder rewards will be time gated, PvP will also likely have other rewards that are not time gated as well rewards relevant to living story and holiday events. It depends on what you guys would like to see.

I’d like to see an overall “Rank” that unlocks various permanent finishers as I advance.

Just think how easy it will be to code it…

(Leave the Rank system in place and ADD divisions and ladders to it!)

Justin ODell.9517:

• Ranks are being removed in favor of ladder divisions and tiers.

Heh… No. Currently ANet’s planning to do this awful thing.

Hopefully we still have some time to talk the PvP Devs out of it .

Ladders and tiers are cool as an addition to Ranks. As a replacement? Ick.

I think people are seriously over-estimating how good the corrected/replacement set for the flame-kissed armor is going to be. To be on par with the medium and heavy sets it’ll be a simple re-skinning of an existing (non-cultural) light armor set.

Not that I’m going to care one way or the other until they get off the ‘flamez iz kewl’ kick and STOP WITH THE TRENCHCOATS ALREADY.

The Blog

Once ladders are implemented, ranks will be retired. To honor the effort that players have put into the rank system, existing players will be able to keep all unlocked rank finishers and will earn a special title based on your rank to show that you were there from the start. Variants of existing rank finishers will move to the ladder system and will be used to show your current standings on the ladder from season to season. The original finishers will not be earnable again.

Oh for pity’s sake.

We just spent WEEKS trying to convince the Living Story Devs that one of the worst things you can possibly do is take away existing content and create short time spans to complete achievements… and here you are DOING IT AGAIN.

Leave this part of the rewards scheme alone. I’d be far more interested in playing PvP for a permanent recognition built up over months than to fiddle-fart with it for a just-for-a-moment place on the ladder of the hour.

Draygo.9473:

^ that removes pve players from being able to use the system, thus it doesn’t seem to be an ideal solution.

I tend to think that WvW and PvE tags can and should be separated. While they both help with herding cats, the reasons for doing so are very, very different between the two play environments.

I’m unclear on how “Spend 100g” does a better job of identifying good commanders… or of filtering out jerks who just want to spam the map with ‘look at me’ icons.

As a cost, 100g doesn’t reflect what’s being bought. Spending WvW ranks on a Commander Skill would mean that the player wants to direct traffic enough that they’re giving up all those other things they could have bought to further their own personal glory. After paying a price like that, its appropriate they get some tools worthy of their commitment.

It also creates a working distinction between the ‘officers’ who blew 150+ ranks on their command-tools, and the ‘frontliners’ who spent that 150+ ranks on the offensive or defensive capstones that give them huge stat bonuses. With Account-shared WvW ranks, now one player can set up separate characters for both roles.

Ok, radical thought.

If we were to start over on the whole concept of commanders, then you could~

Make “Commander” a skill you build up with WvW ranks, like any other WvW skill.

It allows you introduce a clear hierarchy of commander abilities/effects and creates room for future expansion. Maybe like extra supply it costs a fairly large number of points per pip, but each rank gives you progressively more of the features being discussed here. Now those features can be mechanically strong, because the player is paying a steep opportunity cost to access them. As a follower, you would now know that that person wants to serve as a commander badly enough that they bought the tag with ranks instead of gold.

It also has the advantage that with Account-wide WvW Exp, the player can choose which of their characters to make commanders, and which will spend their points elsewhere.

DevonCarver.5370:

Okay, so before we get too far into this discussion, here is something else to think about:
Would you rather see us make some number of small improvements in the short term and larger changes long term or just tear the whole thing down and start from scratch?

To be a bit more specific, we could probably do something like multicolor markers without too much work, although it is not a given, but that would likely be the extent of things for a long period of time.

I really don’t want to see a quick, half-hearted fix be used to justify a huge delay in a more complete meaningful fix.

If you see the current version as only doing one thing well, and that one thing is easily port’d forward to the next major revision, lets move on so that the role and duty of serving as a Commander is awesome.

Nike.2631:

Could you describe what the Dev’s feel the Commander System does well now?

DevonCarver.5370:

I can, and it will be brief.

The commander system provides recognizable guidance in WvW and in PvE for players to follow on the map.

It has other functions that are useful but are opaque to most players of GW2.

I’d say there is significant room for improvements of functionality as well as the possibility that a completely overhauled system would better serve the needs of the WvW community and the PvE community.

I notice “Gold Sink” is NOT on that list .

Would you consider going so far as to revoke all existing tags (returning 100g per tag removed) and switching entirely to a system based on merit/earned tags?

I had three idea from my limited understanding as a person who just follows commanders around . (I don’t own one myself)

Tag Colors: It would be nice if after you own a tag ‘basic’ blue tag you could spend, say, 20g, to buy an additional color. If you made 5 more colors (red, orange, yellow, green, purple) available, and did NOT arrange them in a hierarchy (all 5 colors be come accessible at the same time rather than an ordered series of purchases), commanders could differentiate themselves better while you still get a little gold sinking, and having the complete array of colors would cost as much as a second tag.

Earned Tags: It would be cool to have earned tags use a different shape. I’d like to see black ‘Shield’ and white ‘Sword’ tags that are earned by completing enough defensive (shield) or offensive (sword) WvWvW achievements. This would give you declared offensive and defensive commanders who likely know their stuff considering how they got that tag. I’d avoid granting specialized tag shapes just for WvW experience (partially because its an undifferentiated blob of all activities and partially because you can buy it with laurels without actually WvW’ing…)

Limited Visibility: It would be nice if the commander could set their tag to be “Map wide”, “Guild Wide” or “Party Wide”. This would allow commanders to still direct traffic for smaller, focused groups without cluttering the display and to allow them to act with discretion when there are concerns of spies for other servers on the map.

Added to the fractal at what difficulty level?

Could you describe what the Dev’s feel the Commander System does well now?

(That should reduce the amount of barking up the wrong tree )

I don’t feel toxic.

I regularly end up walking new players through this or that convoluted by of procedure when I see requests for help in zone chat. We were all newbs once. I have a lot of help that was given to me when I was clueless I need to play forward .

solrik.6028:

It is within the game triggered (and is counted) as a signet, which means that it will be compatible with runes and traits that affect signets.

Yeah, having this trigger the Runes of resistance could be pretty tasty.

I’ve bought hundreds of dollars of gems and my drops are exceptional. I just received 2 exotics out of chests in the last week and an exotic out of a level 4 fractal run.

RNG is RNG.

We’ve seen the skins by data mining. We’ve seen the mats in our bank tab. We’ve seen the basic model of material used with the weapons.

Pretty much the only reason they haven’t launched is to avoid tweaking the first WvW season. No reason to think they won’t come out on the 10th.

Zee.1294:

This is the armor i want….

Common Anet make it happen xD

I want that hair and tattoo pattern too…

Scarlet did it.

I believe this calls for…

SQEEEEEE!!

Thank you. That is all.

digiowl.9620:

“New on gem store, common armor with extra dye slots! Get them while they last!”

That picture was done by photoshopping two images together to create a 4th color area for the Duelist armor.

Hells yes, I’d pay 800 gems to get that effect in-game.

Sad, but true.

(…and probably 1,000th the controversy of the flame-kissed armor )

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

At first people want to learn more about Scarlet…

No, many, many people do NOT want to learn more about Scarlet, they just want her gone, so…

…when Anet gives her more background, people whine again. Hmph.

I’d call it “the completely predictable outcome” ANet keeps bringing on themselves.

She is single-handedly dragging this game under. And it sounds like we have 4 more months of it locked in. So if you like Scarlet, enjoy! ((sigh))

Gasoline.2570:

Uh, yes they are. The droprate of t6 is beyond awful. No less if you want something certain – good luck getting them!

2 things~

First, I said the rate hadn’t changed. If you know how to farm them, you’re getting them. Not a lot, but enough to make just as good of an income as the typical dungeon runner.

Second, you just explained in detail why they are expensive – because people think they should just go grind gold and expect the people doing the killing to hand them over on the cheap.

Norns are short Jotuns, not tall humans .

I’m sure they start wondering why humans look like them when they’re all stumbling around drunk at the end of a moot…

Battle Presence Guardian with empowering might, 60% crit chance, and +90% might duration!

Xae Isareth.1364:

They easily could make healing matter quite a bit.

For example, they could introduce an encounter where there’s constant uncleansable DoTs thrown around such that you need a healer to constantly group heal to keep the party on the safe side.

You mean like the third floor of the tower of Nightmares?

Believe me, my support characters found that place pretty much a stroll, with time left over to use a spatula on some of the glass cannon remains I’d stumble over on the way.

Between the upcoming reduction of vigor dodge-o-rama and things like constant toxin, I’d say there’s a concerted push to make berserker gear actually quite questionable as the load-out of choice.

There are quite a few armor sets that would become more versatile and attractive if the rectangular ‘color 1’ were split up into 2 color regions. The system clearly supports up to 4 separately selectable regions. Hopefully this would not be a terribly difficult way to add value to the assets you already have .

In particular the heavy banded armor could have the metal plates and the triangular scales (both controlled by color 1) separated out.

The medium Duelist armor (high level exotic) is also a great candidate for this

Thanks!

That’s how Guardian Spirit Weapons used to work and they changed those so they could take damage.

They’re not going to go backwards.

Will it happen again?

In the broader sense, yes, absolutely they’ll make another hair-brained mistake at some point and have to redact it. Humans: they do that.

Will this exact error of judgment be repeated? Probably not.

Lesson to be learned? Don’t buy new Gemstore stuff the first day or two.

Funset.7893:

The truth is that the whining minoroty on this forum does not represent the opinion of the majority.

The truth is that appeals to minority or majority are both guesswork AND meaningless.

It doesn’t matter if it infuriated 2% or 88%. They offended a basic principle. They should have known better but someone was asleep at the wheel. Now they get to settle for the lesser evil to cover a stupid mistake. There is no “fairness” involved. Just damage control.

Osujin.4280:

If I can make a suggestion to Anet: please use the “Rubric” armor skin as the base for the new light set, seeing as it’s currently unobtainable in PVE. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Rubric_armor

While its a set I like, I’m pretty sure that its the complete opposites of the style that people who bought the new flame-kissed armor were looking for.

I think the best any of us can hope for is that they use the polygons people have already paid for, and do a (million times) better job of creating a new texture that lays over it.

Then we can address the tiny nagging detail that the amount of work that when into medium and heavy armors is similarly trivial and slipshod. But I’m guessing their sales numbers will tell them that far more eloquently than our posts.

Kiayin.3427:

Ohh that sort of made me curious XD. So I drew a very quick horrible sketch with the mouse. [I can’t draw]

Don’t sell yourself short. That conveys the effect quite serviceably .