Guild Wars 2

We wouldn’t need 10,000 bag slots if there weren’t such an obscene amount of items to keep up with when questing. Way too many drops.

The NPE treats players like idiots. There’s a difference between pointing out facets of the game and helping to pace abilities and cutting players’ legs out from under them. Easier fights in starter zones is the norm, but this is sad.

Just did quick look at trends. Both WoW and GW2 have been and continue trending downward at about the same pace, as is Star Wars: The Old Republic. TERA, Vindictus, EvE and upcoming games like Black Desert Online are all currently showing more stability or are trending heavily upwards. Interesting results; while they don’t tell the whole story, they do speak to general curiosity about the titles, more interesting still because WoW is the only one that uses any form of robust marketing.

Part of this game’s end game is wardrobe, though, something which is noted quite often to the point of it being called Fashion Wars 2 in threads and discussions, so it’s sad that it has such a poor cosmetic system. It certainly helps to sell outfits to players, but it is still a poorly done system. Again, there are threads where this is gone on about at length, but with the amount of armor upgrades you will need as you level your options are limited for maintaining a look as you go, especially if you level more than one toon at a time.

This game doesn’t support a very good wardrobe system, unfortunately. There have been a number of threads going on at length about it. You can’t play your way and still change your look often unless you PvP, grind map completions, or pay real money for gems. Just how it is.

To be honest, most of what you said are a number of the complaints that players here have as well. Players are very much hoping for improvements and changes in direction with the upcoming Heart of Thorns release. Your concerns are definitely valid, and no surprise that they are universal.

Ezekel.6394:

Paul.4081:

It’s the Anet way, delete things completely instead of solve the perceived problem they cause.

I’ve said it before but there is a buzzcut hairdo that wouldn’t clip that wouldn’t make our toons look like cue balls when we wear hats. Suspension of disbelief would be easier with that one, instead we get chrome domes of don’t use thisity.

That should be the default hairdo that we get when we wear hats. It won’t happen though because it’s not cash shoppable.

Name an MMO that doesn’t delete hair when your wearing a helmet. In fact name any game with character creation that doesn’t delete hair when your wearing a helmet.

It is just the reality of the system that you cannot make 1 million different models for every helmet/hat to make them make sense with every hairstyle.

SWTOR doesn’t delete it on all of them. Definitely doesn’t delete your hair on Vindictus so long as you have a longer hairstyle, as in one you wouldn’t tuck under a helmet IRL.

examples(added attachments to make it a little quicker to view):
http://i.imgur.com/v3mio.jpg
http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg292/kurosaki_akane/MabinogiH-Rashler_incubus02.jpg
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/3235/silentq1.jpg
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/5484/lunapic1341934483172083.jpg
http://i48.tinypic.com/25ozcrt.jpg
http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/6256/summertimevindictus1.png
http://i.imgur.com/1mIjyl.jpg
There’s also Blade & Soul and Black Desert, but since they aren’t here yet we probably shouldn’t include them in the argument.

Repost police. You’re under arrest.

The big thing is: does it make players more excited to play the game? It certainly doesn’t make me want to log back in.

It’s strange that they refuse to promote the content that players have been begging for. With the limited PvP maps/modes in this game, promoting it and nothing else is silly. Dungeons are dead, Fractals are dead, and the large scale events that they could switch on they don’t. Anet definitely is not intelligently retaining it’s player base during this content drought.

This game does a horrible job of making gold available to players, casual or otherwise. End game is cosmetic, and you won’t be enjoying a variety of cosmetic goodies if you’re not grinding or throwing real money at the game. If earning gold to craft a full set of Ascended is your goal, be prepared for pain. That it takes time to gain the gold for Ascended isn’t the problem, the problem is that the most lucrative ways to earn that gold over time is by grinding it out in trains or doing one event chain over and over.

You have two choices: have fun playing a large variety of content and let it be a surprise when you finally have enough gold to get that crafting finished, or grind your mouse hand out until you have enough and hate looking at the game for it. There’s very little in between.

They claimed this game would be different, but the gold standard is the only standard for attaining items, and gold = grinding in Guild Wars 2.

While they are changing the Legendary system—or changing to one, I should say—and adding map rewards for old areas to get what your character needs, I doubt they’ll ever fix this anymore than they’d ever fix magic find to be a viable bonus for playing the game. Anet knows empty, soulless grind like old-school eastern MMOs, like Bo knows baseball, even.

Anet hates your money, they hate my money, they hate all monies everywhere. They refuse to do the things that would make them money. That led me to playing other games. That led me to playing other games that are more challenging. That led me to playing other games that are more aesthetically appealing. That led me to playing games that clearly want my money for cosmetic items. That led to Anet getting zero dollars from me anymore.

Insert zero stones, zero crates Zorg meme

Rarely does Anet reply or respond to these thread about what players want in the Gem Shop. Players begged for a year to throw their money at Anet for bunny ears and nada. Players beg en masse to give Anet their dollars, Anet plays dead. They hate money.

There’s an entire gem shop suggestion thread; your suggestions will go unheeded, but have a look see and post there if the mood strikes you.

Ithilwen.1529:

@John Smith

The equalizer already exists in the form of Magic Find. I’m in my third year playing and once got a look-alike of a precursor in Arah. So the chances are very low.

Still, every player has an opportunity to improve their loot through building Magic Find. Mine is at 169% at the moment. I don’t see why things need to be changed.

Normally I don’t endorse the more conservative type of opinions.. but in this case, I don’t see why people are complaining.

Please don’t remove the occasional lucky drops, they add a lot to the fun.

You do realize how that only influences drops off of mobs, not off of World Bosses, not from opening chests. Even if it does improve the system, it still falls way short. There are players who have been logging regularly since open beta who have seen zero drops of worth. No rare skins, no precursors, not even Ascended chests off of bosses. Pretty sad to put in so much time and never see the rewards you’d like, especially when doing harder content. This isn’t real life, this is a game. The majority of items should be attainable through skill and effort over time.

wwwes.1398:

Am I the only one that has just never ever run out of transmutation charges? I have 8 toons, change various stuff every week or so, and still have a bank of well over 100. It’s never been something I’ve even had to think about.

Level multiple toons at once without PvPing and you will either be spending real money to keep up or doing map completions that in no way relate to your current story for the charges. I was updating my armor every 15 levels and had to scrap that because the charges just weren’t sufficient. I instead just ground out levels in dungeons where my gear would be adequate starting around 50 and didn’t touch story again until I hit 80 so that I wouldn’t have to walk around in a mismatched set or keep doing map completion.

Leo G.4501:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Prototypemind.4026:

……
There’s no one crying to the heaven’s of their love for this game’s wardrobe system, and in its current state I doubt that many ever will be.
…..

Either you are relatively new player or have a very short memory. The Wardrobe and Dye system are now VASTLY superior to the original ones, but nobody wants to hear about those improvements that every player got for FREE. The only players complaining about the Wardrobe system are those that have not accepted this game’s convention of having to pay for cosmetic alterations. I get it’s something that takes getting used to, but it’s not going to change.

One can still accept something but still think it’s kitten and crap and should be improved. Like I’ve accepted that I probably will only have 1, maybe 2, looks for a character and only ever bother changing that look to update a particular skin I like. I’ve accepted that most players will look like a mish-mash of random skins because it doesn’t take into consideration the player’s desire to build around specific pieces. And I’ve accepted that, if I decide to change my character’s look, it precludes doing extra stuff like PvP I might not feel like doing or map completion.

The thing I don’t get is, they created a system for comsetic changes (and the gem store in general) so that you can grind to change your character’s appearance but at the same time, made it clunky and unintuitive for people that decide to use cash to “pay for convenience”. Ultimately, it’s not convenient and limiting at the same time.

Again, I’ve accepted all that, but compared to other games, GW2 leaves a lot to be desired (among them being more variety of skins).

Leo has hit the nail directly on the head. I said nothing about the current system not being an improvement over the old one, I said no one is singing its praises in comparison to other games. Let’s do some quick side-by-sides. Assuming a player has $40 to spend, we get the following:

SWTOR: $40 Will get you two months worth of sub time with $10 left over. You could also simply play as preferred after spending money in the Cartel Store and use all the money on the outfit of your choice to play in and various unlocks for your character. You have an included wardrobe tab where you can place whatever outfit you like as your cosmetic appearance, which will remain unchanged as you level regardless of the armor changes you make as you upgrade your ‘active’ stats. You may alter the cosmetic tab as you like, or purchase additional ones for Cartel Coins.

TERA: $40 will get you a number of outfits to choose from. Unfortunately like GW2, those outfits can’t be mixed and matched any longer. That said, you have $40 to spend as you like on those cosmetic pieces.

Vindictus: $40 will get you a number of complete outfits which can be mixed and matched with others, or your selection of whatever pieces you like from different outfits. You may swap out purchased avatar outfits at any time you like, and may toggle their appearance between the armor your character has equipped and those outfit pieces at your whim. You can also fuse the appearance of different in-game items with one another to keep the stats of one and the look of the other.

LOTRO: $40 will get you additional wardrobe unlocks, with their appearance remaining independent of the underlying stats pieces.

Guild Wars 2: $40 will get you the game. If you want additional transmutation charges so that you can keep your appearance set to gem store armor—which itself is an additional cost—you will have to PvP, grind out map completion, or pay real money. This system does, in fact, work on the old standby of F2P MMOs where it’s much more appealing to spend real money so that time in-game can be focused on playing rather than grinding undesired content so that enjoyable content can be more immersive/entertaining later. Unfortunately, GW2 is not F2P, so there’s that petty annoyance as well.

Many of your points are valid, but as you yourself are noting by your reply, your statement about the trinity system reads as though it’s trinity or the highway, and that’s something that I really no longer have any desire for. I enjoy not needing a tank in PvP or PvE to have a viable team. It’s fine having a class that brings other benefits, but cookie cutter trinity action doesn’t generally bring more enjoyment. Most healers spend their time watching health bars rather than seeing the action; not fun.

You are right about this game not doing very well to set up a system to retain current players, but very wrong about micro-transaction games being a fad. It will continue to succeed for a few reasons. One, it appeals to casual players. They can drop in, spend some coin while they’re playing for a bit, and return whenever time/desire permits without being tied to the game. Two, it means that players dedicated to the game get to speak with their dollars. If devs roll out crap content, the dollars dry up; if they continue to showcase quality work, the dollars continue to flow.

Lastly, players tend to be willing to spend more on micro-transactions over time than they would on a simple subscription. Some of that is a willingness to reward the publisher/devs/etc for continuing to provide enjoyable content. Players are people, and people are more willing to open their wallet over and over if the enjoyment merits the expenditure. Some of that is the same impulse buying that gets you to grab a pack of gum at the register, only on a much larger and more lucrative scale. There’s a reason that successful F2P MMOs, while delivering relatively steady content—hint, step your game up Anet—also release a large number of cosmetic/QoL items through their cash shops. Players like what they offer, designers like seeing their product enjoyed, and companies like the revenue.

Regardless, subscription based MMOs are going to become a harder and harder sell, for the reasons listed above and for others. For instance, many players are looking for content that translates to mobile platforms as well these days, and I don’t know of any subscription-based titles as this point capitalizing on that part of the market right now. I do know that is something that the devs at Black Desert have specifically noted in some of their Q&As.

I just want to note that the points of view presented are generally as follows: those who say live with it and those who think it needs a fix because it is no where near as robust or accessible as cosmetic systems in other MMOs. There’s no one crying to the heaven’s of their love for this game’s wardrobe system, and in its current state I doubt that many ever will be.

As an aside, locking the dyes to the type of RNG system that exists here isn’t exactly the most inviting either. To have such a great dye application method but such a weak means of acquiring those dyes isn’t the greatest prospect. The customization system here is asleep at the wheel.

A large number of the top grossing/most profitable titles are F2P at this point. They build a quality game, give players the content they want, and offer those players the means to achieve the best experience possible in those games via real money—this is speaking to offering QoL/cosmetics, not those that are entirely P2W, though they make as much if not more in some cases. Regardless, there are already games out that are much more pleasing graphically/stability wise than Guild Wars 2 at this point, and without updates, titles like Black Desert and Blade & Soul—if it ever shows up—are just going to leave it looking that much more dated.

This game is perhaps in need of an even more thorough overhaul, but there are things the Anet team can do to rectify some of the shortcomings. FFXIV bit the bullet and did a full engine overhaul. We’ve seen what Blizzard did with WoW to at least try and keep it relevant for as long as possible. I haven’t seen a single post praising this game for not being able to give players the stable frame rates that they experience with many of their other MMOs of choice. Dinosaurs will die, and in this case it might be a slow decay, but it won’t be any less real.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Beast Sos.1457:

Zaklex.6308:

Beast Sos.1457:

Kal Spiro.9745:

I’m pretty sure that if you’re doing this all for loot, you’re already failing. If gaining things is your measure for having fun then there are much better ways to find your enjoyment. I also feel sorry for you. You really should be playing games because the games are fun, not because you get things in the game.

There should be better rewards for more complex content, but the rewards are still unimportant. This game isn’t about the gear, it’s about the game. It was intended to be about playing the game since max level and a full set of gear capable of doing any content is easy to achieve.

If you didnt know we’re playing a MMO. A big part of MMOs are the rewards. If the game was about having fun and not getting the next big thing or a bad kitten skin you like then there wouldnt be so many skins in the game to begin with.

Its not just about “fun” its the fact that Anet doesnt appreciate the effort we put in their game. It clearly shows when someone with 70 hours has 2 precursors already dropped for them and someone with 3k+ hours playing since launch hasnt even seen a charzooka.

Like I said before, this is a MMO and when it comes to MMOs rewards are huge. Part of that is the way high quality rewards/loot are obtained, which is terrible in Gw2.

Not everyone plays for the reward, some people play as an escape from reality and have learned to make their own fun out of it. I’m personally ambivalent about the rewards, do I like getting good stuff, sure, but I don’t require it to keep playing. I play for my own amusement and let off stress/anger.

I didnt say people play for loot. I said that loot is a huge part of MMOs weather you personally play for loot or not has nothing to do with it.

It has become a huge part of MMOs, when I started playing MMOs it wasn’t at all. It was just a thing that happened. The purpose was to exist in another world, not to run around randomly in the hopes of acquiring some special thing.

That has been the gradual “growth” of MMOs because of the need for constant gratification, a diminishing imagination, and excessive materialism.

Even playing tabletop D&D/Pathfinder, players can pretty much expect to come across at least one amazing piece in their travels. The rewards make the adventure that much more interesting for most people. That’s the same premise that Anet mentioned in their desire to change the Legendary system back in 2013, and why it’s finally happening now. Players don’t need a new shiny every five minutes, but most do want something to look forward to, especially with more difficult content.

Games that have the possibility of rewarding players with absolutely zero no matter how many times they attempt and clear the hardest content, not a trophy to speak of for doing so, aren’t going to leave the majority of players feeling very satisfied. It’s nice to have a “tangible” reward for those accomplishments. This is a digital world, and the rewards are temporary, but they still check the pleasure center in the brain quite nicely.

If you’re doing the SW events/breach you’ll get enough Bandit Crests to get your shards quickly, even if you don’t get lucky and get them from bandit chests or the labyrinth.

Zanshin.5379:

No, you DO NOT necessarily make a profit. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.

The other day I opened 3 chests and got exactly 0 money back because all I got was boosters and other useless crap.

You have to look at the key farm in the entirety. Sometimes you will get nothing, sometimes you will get two scraps per chest. RNG does come into play, and the RNG gods may hate you. I theory you could open chests for the rest of your life and never see any scraps. Aside from outliers, though, key farming is the most efficient method for gold/hour aside from flipping items on the TP.

That said, it shows you where this game is. In both my former main MMO and my current one, if I want to farm gold efficiently, I can do so by actually playing the game and enjoying myself. If I want to farm for a return here, I grind SW trains, deal with the tedium of running around in circles, opening 10,00 bags, salvaging 100,000 items, and still having to post to the TP. Even doing a daily dungeon train I have to stop between runs, especially after certain dungeons like AC, and clean out my bags so that I have room to continue.

Making and deleting characters over and over to be able to make cosmetic or equipment changes on the ones we like to play doesn’t make for an exciting premise. If any of us read a description of a new game and it mentioned that doing so—or running in circles opening chests—would be the most effective way for the majority of players to earn in-game currency I doubt too many would sign up or recommend it to friends. An aside, but a factual one.

Again, unless you PvP as part of your daily routine, then the transmutation charge system does very much appear as something out of a F2P game, and in actuality is worse than what many F2P/Sub-optional/Hybrid MMOs offer. It’s a system that induces grind if you want to keep your look as you level or change it often once you have leveled. Perhaps the idea is to push more people towards outfits, but considering how many games now have some type of system that allows the exterior to be changed relatively easily—individual parts of said exterior, or the whole—via in-game currency or remain static when changing the underlying stats, GW2’s wardrobes/outfits aren’t up to snuff.

As to players getting upset if they change the system, MMOs do this when there is compelling reason, and the majority of players usually accept it. Noting that we’re talking about a change that would bring more customization to characters, it would be far more widely accepted than decried. What amazes me is that games like TERA go from having full customization in their cash shop to fixed outfits like we have here—all to suit one new class mind you—and get away with it. Of course this game did have the Town Clothing debacle, but it survived, and here we are.

I went on at length about this in the thread discussing the issue with transmutation/cosmetic grindiness in the game, but to keep it short the greater the level of customization available, especially when dealing with cash shop items, the happier players are. What we have here in terms of costumes is far too rigid and it is why many players, myself included, have refused to buy outfits from the gem shop.

Exactly. The whole point is to burn through the process as quickly as possible. It takes me 25-30 mins because my runs aren’t back to back, I do them when the mood strikes, so when I go to do them I’ve inevitably run out of butter, grapes, or something else I need and I’m going back and fourth to the TP merchant. If you’re stocked up it’s toon, skip to the back of the castle, town, blessing for swiftness, items from bank if you don’t have immediate bank access, cook, armor on, quest, key, put bags and armor into bank, crafted food sold on TP, delete toon.

Your method of searching for what’s profitable on the TP, Just, means you take more than twice as long as many who do it regularly. They’re getting two BL Keys to every one of yours, and over the long-term they’re killing you in terms of gold to time spent. You’re literally wasting your time doing it that way. You’re also wasting tomes, unless your excess from PvP or whatever is just that high.

The way real money to in-game return works in this game is just very poorly done compared to others. Some games can get away with having a system where what you buy with cash stays yours because they take in a monthly sub, but this game doesn’t and it needs to make the reward for spending real money more lucrative. One oddity is the BL Chests themselves.

In most other games that rely on cash-shop revenue, there are new boxes made for each item set release, said boxes are bought from the cash shop, and there’s no additional RNG luck needed to obtain keys to open them. If the equivalent were here in this game, boxes containing a number of the currently-unobtainable skins would still be purchasable through the gem store and could be resold on the TP for in-game currency. The way Anet’s system works, wanted skins go out of circulation for too long and they lose out on money, both from players trying to get the items themselves and from players who want to turn their gems into gold, something that they’d see a higher return on through the TP than buying gems and turning them into gold through the additional TP feature.

Secondly, this is the only MMO that I’ve played or researched lately that has such a horrid system for maintaining a customized appearance as you play. There are F2Ps that have 30-day cosmetic features as well as permanent, but none making top dollars that I know of where you literally have to pay real cash as you level or play as the devs denote—PvP for your transmutation charges, do map completion, or wait until your log in rewards build up—just to maintain your toon’s look from start to end game.

Again, let’s note that completely P2W games like World of Tanks and that out-of-nowhere eastern Counter-Strike clone obliterate Guild Wars 2 in terms of revenue and profit. Games like Star Wars: The Old Republic take in a large percentage of their income through the cash shop as well, and generally put some of the best looking items on said cash-shop. I do prefer a balance of both in-game and cash shop acquired cosmetic gear, so I take it where I can get it.

The bottom line is that when players literally have to stop their leveling, PvP, questing, etc. experience in order to get more charges so that they can keep a desired look when changing armor, it becomes either an annoyance. Both having to buy more gems or giving into the grind because of the need to do side content that the player doesn’t want to do in order to gain more trans charges take away from the gaming experience.

SWTOR: rip mods, put in new ones, outer appearance stays the same. They also just recently added a costume tab so that if an entirely new piece is desired the base armor can be switched and the outer look remains unchanged; LOTRO: costume tabs; WoW: acquire trans charges for little in-game gold; Vindictus and Black Desert: purchased outfits remain as cosmetic outers no matter what armor they player swaps to if they keep them visibly toggled. In Vindictus lower-level armors can be fused with other sets to maintain a look as armor is upgraded.

If players could buy all the sets they liked for this game, or acquire all the sets they like in-game, and change them more easily it would be beneficial. Buying outfits should not be the only way this can be accomplished.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

My preference is to get to level 7 by doing hearts in Queensdale. I use the lunar fireworks that give an extra 10% exp from all sources and rice balls for 10% extra exp per kill. Takes me about 35 minutes to get to level 7. Then I use 3 tomes to get to level 10, go to PvP to get weapon swap, and then do the key run.

For me, the 35 minutes is shorter or about the same time it would take me to find profitable things I can craft before each run, put in buy orders and then the time to craft.

To each his own, but my key runs are completely over and done in 30 minutes—cooking, into story, warhorn, armor set, mostly following the standard videos—where as you haven’t even started the personal story yet. Why waste time doing it that way when the point is to make as much gold in the shortest time possible?

Zaklex.6308:

MrHeartless.9164:

They messed up the loot system in this game. Rewards for content, RNG mechanics, all of it. Its all very very bad, very very unrewarding and very very unsatisfactory. Just like real life, the 1% get everything handed to them while the other 99% have to grind and scrape to get anything.

Actually your percentages are wrong(even the real world people had it wrong), it should be 2% and 98%…that can be backed up by mounds of data(enough to fill up the Grand Canyon 100 times).

Valky.2574:

It’s why allot don’t even help with the defense of the forts in Silverwasts they don’t drop loot so why should i fight them mentality and just sit at the wp until breach i gave up on farming shovels they are to rare i get 1 maybe every other day

I don’t know what maps you’ve been on, but I can regularly get a good 5 – 10 shovels during 2 cycles of complete SW maps. It’s just not the defend events that award them, I’ve gotten them from bull escorts, from helping Solus get plant oil, as well as the normal capture and defend events.

Because RNG has been favorable for you. One of my toons has two shovels from a total of 6 defenses and clears. That said, shovels aren’t so scarce that their rate needs to be fixed, especially since trains are how chest hunting gets done.

The RNG rate for fractal skins is horrid. You can go to the deep, dark Dungeon/Fractal forum if you want to see real posted evidence of not only how bad it is, but how much worse it’s gotten over time. It’s also noted by Anet themselves that they don’t think the current Legendary system is enjoyable and that they were planning to change it back in 2013, but are just getting around to it in HoT.

It’s sophomoric to argue that RNG in this game is fine when the hosting company itself has stated emphatically otherwise. What remains to be seen is how well it will be fixed and if it will be adjusted outside of the new Legendary questing system. Something needs to happen to bring it in line with what was stated as the vision for this game, though.

Honestly, this game handles skin/item rotations and availability very poorly. SWTOR is horribly managed at this point in terms of general content development, dev support with bugs, and other issues, but they are cleaning up with their cash shop, and I can guarantee that if you log on there now 98% of items that have ever been in their Cartel Market are either currently available or will be back in rotation within the next few months. Furthermore, because players can buy excess of said items or get them via RNG-gambling boxes—which sell like crazy in all games for whatever reason—and sell them to other players on the game’s equivalent of the TP, highly-sought after items are profitable to EAWare at release, profitable to players wanting to make in-game currency off of them, and allow players who weren’t in the game at the time of release to still get them. SWTOR manages to get not only $15 a month out of its subscribers, but said subs are the major purchasers of the Cartel Market coins that pushed that game to two $100M+ years in a row despite an outdated game engine and numerous other troubles.

Guild Wars 2 is relatively shallow when it comes to what to do once you hit 80. As I was leveling my first characters I bought things that would make the experience more fun and more my own. There were many items that I would have loved to have but because of the slow as molasses or non-existent re-release schedule for some items they couldn’t be had. That’s real money missed out on for Anet.

I just started a new MMO about two weeks ago and have already dropped about $50 in the cash shop because they have a much better overall skin system. It’s not perfect, but I found a better selection of items that I wanted and I didn’t have to continually PvP grind, map complete, or spend real money to maintain that look as I leveled. The majority of their skins also remain available at all times. Maintaining the same look as you level in this game is utterly painful as a new player if you don’t take breaks to allow daily trans rewards to accumulate, PvP—a grind if you don’t enjoy it here, which I don’t—or throw real money at the game to continue buying charges.

This has really devolved into another topic entirely, but bottom line is that Anet sees huge spike with the way that they handle the release and removal of certain items, but they are not seeing the continual payouts that they would if they handled the cash shop better. F2P games see faster roll out of content and cosmetics than we’re getting here currently, and higher dollars earned at the end of the year. There’s no way this game’s cash shop is doing as well as it could be if it had more items available.

Honestly, all of the human “biggest regret” choices are half-baked, if that. Actually, so are the Norn choices.

I’ve been enjoying playing another title with a real stamina bar, and one in which certain bosses can wear themselves out as well if you handle them properly while dealing damage. Accepting that you’re going to get your skull cracked in this game unless you have energy sigils, and even then if you have a thief turning the boss over and over, just doesn’t add excitement for me.

The biggest thing that’s missing to me is a game that continues to be story driven, to keep players interested in Tyria. Once you take down Zhaitan there’s nothing really pulling you in. You can buy LS2, but why? There’s nothing that leads my characters towards it, there’s nothing that I feel that they’re missing by just hopping into the Wastes for the grind. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything by playing another game at the moment.

I still check the forums to see if there are any developments, but I saved myself the foolishness of false hopes in this vein and just moved on to another game to get my jollies. I’m kind of unsure why I even bother still logging in for the dailies log in rewards, but I do.

How about instead of more and more and more slots to comb through we get fewer drops with more mats per salvage? The amount of crap that has to be sorted through is just dumb. It’s one more thing that makes this game less enjoyable. I’ve started playing some other MMOs recently and it is so nice to be able to go through multiple raids and a few hours of playing without having to stop to clear out my bags, and that’s without any additional storage.

Inventory management is not a fun mini game, and on top of the other shortcomings present at current and the lack of other things to do, making what there is to do more tedious isn’t a way to keep players around.

Gaile—I assume she’s the only Gaile who regularly posts here—was in a SW train that I was with last week. They’re definitely out and about.

chemiclord.3978:

Simply put… a company does NOT owe you transparency. Period. They are under no obligation to discuss ANYTHING with you.

You are NOT a shareholder. You are NOT an executive. You are the CUSTOMER. They owe you nothing but the product they put in front of you. Is it nice to get more? Is it courteous? Yes. Does it make you feel good to be “involved”? Absolutely.

If you don’t like Arena.net’s policy with communication… LEAVE. Walk away. I don’t know when that became a dismissal, because it’s not. Your power, the customer’s power, is in your wallet. Walk away. THAT’S how you deliver your message.

Not quite sure why you’re being so vehement with your post. Many people, myself included, have already done just that. Players were excited by the reveal of HoT, discussed it, made suggestions, and waited for more. There hasn’t been more. Those who have felt it worthwhile have continued to make what they consider salient point. Many of us have simply started playing other games, and putting our money into those other games.

As there is a large time investment with MMOs in particular, players expect open communication to at least some extent with those who provide the product. If you look around, even horribly managed games like Star Wars: The Old Republic provide yearly road maps, notes on upcoming releases, and in some cases public test servers where what’s coming next can be seen. Even those with completely closed testing are proactive enough to make sure their community is informed and excited about the product. At this point, even the most diehard GW2 fans are probably idling pretty low when it comes to any excitement about HoT because there is nothing to keep the discussion going. Some players simply choose to articulately voice their thoughts on the matter; it’s not a strain to let them do so.

To sum it all up: dinosaurs will die.

It’s garbage that dungeons aren’t ever part of dailies. Ever.

Black Desert still shows lag here and there, but relatively little considering how huge some of the battles are. Nothing interfering with the fights, and negligible for people on top end rigs. Not to mention it’s just in its initial stages. That said, there are a lot of major issues that are going to destroy it’s potential here in the west if they aren’t fixed. It’s supposed to be an amazing, challenging sandbox MMO with open-world PVP, and at the moment it’s been turned into the most casual thing on the market, something noted by the devs as desired in Korea due to a changing player base.

That said, when new players are checking out new games just based on superficial looks, BD will destroy GW2, as will others in GW2’s current state. Add in the fact that it’s F2P, so there’ no investment to give it a go and it’s going to be a further loss for this game. I’m playing Vindictus now specifically because the action combat interested me, and that is what BD is most heavily advertising. Again, Black Desert has major, major issues at the moment in regards to the final experience delivered, but if enough fixes are made it’s going to hurt number here unless HoT/LS3 deliver massive amounts of content and something is done to increase the performance and optimization of this game.

slamfunction.7462:

Games come and go. The best ones have fans that play it for a very long time…

Outside of having a guild to keep players involved, GW2 really doesn’t have the content to keep players playing for a long period of time. Heck, outside of guild missions and WvW there’s really not that much guild content. Ironic as always for a game with guild in its title.

It seems that whatever HoT brings, it will largely be simply a boxed season three. We won’t see all of the content at once, but those who buy it will get access to everything as it’s released. There will be more Legendary quests over time, perhaps additional masteries. Looking at it on its surface, I honestly think anyone who’s expecting a full-blown expansion will be heavily, heavily disappointed. Perhaps I’ll be wrong, but regardless, at the moment I’m spending more time on these forums every week than in the game by far.

Ignoring new dungeons wasn’t a mistake? New content every two weeks, but making said content also go bye-bye every two weeks wasn’t a mistake? The unrequested NPE wasn’t a mistake? Making the majority of Tyria irrelevant once players hit 80 wasn’t a mistake?There have been mistakes made, as will happen in any game. Far more than one hand would be needed to list them, same as listing all the things done correctly to be fair.

Other than achievements and the chance at specific item drops there just aren’t many things to make them worthwhile. There are much more efficient ways to earn gold in game, and unfortunately despite all their claims that they wanted to keep the game away from the grind, at the moment it’s just mainly a grind for gold or a tear-filled grind against RNG for certain item/skin drops in content like fractals.

Perhaps HoT will save us all from this fate. Only time will tell.

Just browsing around lately it seems to be much more common to Western MMOs that items outside of seasonal ones do not remain reliably available for purchase. It’s interesting because certain Western versions of Eastern MMOs claim that they can only have so many available at a time, yet the entirety of the catalog is available in game in Asia.

The black wings were something highly requested by players for use with the Lich set apparently; they were in the store for a day, with some unknown return date. We know that Anise’s outfit and Balth’s were both ready in the same timeframe, but it seems their release has been separated to in theory max returns from both. I’m not a marketing major, so I don’t pretend to know all things in relation to U.S. and UK markets. I also understand that for whatever reason the design of the BL interface only allows for so many items at once. That said, there could certainly be a better rotation for items.

At this point I don’t have a dog in the fight. I’m spending most of my time in other games currently and also spending my money in said titles. In a game where cosmetics come so heavily into play, though, and players are begging you to take their money, it doesn’t seem like they’re really maximizing their returns to me.

I don’t think I’ve ever played a game where where a group of all new players sans one—with a late 3rd quarter sub—clearing content on their first try isn’t pretty much the highest standard. Of Bladex’s post, Dhorgar, let me say, * waves hand * these are not the bads you’re looking for.

Does it not disappear if you set it to “Disable Personal Story” in options?

As I mentioned in the other thread, the fps drop is noticeable and much more so than in other games that I play. It was one of the many headaches that helped move me away from SWTOR, and is one of the reasons that at the moment that I only log in here for my daily rewards and some guild events. We still have many, many dragons left to kill, this game is clearly on a decade or so plan of existence, and choosing not to update it as necessary when it’s under-performing is not the way to go.

If stable frame rates are able to be achieved then updates in the future will be less of an issue. Anet can choose to ride it out and hope that players stick around, or they can bite the bullet as other games have had to and do what needs to be done to put this in place. FF needed an entirely new engine, Warcraft needed heavy optimization, but both franchises spent the time and money for the long-term. These threads would not be as long and detailed as they are if it weren’t a real concern for players. This is one issue that can be eliminated, at least if the type of occlusion mentioned above isn’t going to outweigh any optimizations brought to bear.

I’ll say this of VW and Teq: the strats are out there for both, yet both still fail. I’ve actually only been in on one fail Teq, an zero actual VW fails, but both happen, VW more often because of the smaller cap limit for players in the area. Part of it is that VW adds, elites, and champs are all at level 80 and there’s more accountability.

If a few players pop all the bubbles on silver and gold when the champs aren’t on them and there aren’t enough people down there to make up for the loss, it fails. If there aren’t enough reflects in mid or people don’t pop pustules, if people don’t use the flowers, etc, then failure can still be rampant. The level 80 areas see the biggest influxes of new players, with no over-leveled players in abundance to carry them the way it can be done in some other locations.

The funny thing is that a lot of players complain about content being too easy, then scream there heads off when new players make it more challenging. The only time that I feel like I’m really doing something other than rote playing is when I’m having to make up for other players who aren’t picking up on what needs to be done.

As to those who say content can’t remain challenging over time, that’s not entirely true. EAWare screwed up a LOT of things in SWTOR, but Hard Mode and Nightmare encounters such as Operator IX, Nightmare Brontes, Bestia, Tyrans, and the Dread Council—look them up if you like—are well designed in that it does not matter how over-geared you are, there are mechanics that will one-shot you or make the bosses unable to be killed if conditions are not met. I’m honestly not sure how the initial damage will hold up as they coded it so that once you’re a certain number of levels above NPCs they can’t break your armor class, but the mechanics are still one-shots that ignore your gear, total health pool, etc.

That said, I’m not sure where the line should be for an MMO like this when it comes to making open-world events. I do know that I see few to no posts in most threads asking for Fractal-level difficulty, where one-shots can result from improper play or missing a dodge. It really comes down to the fact that outside of the possibility of having your face taken off from one wrong move in the fight, all encounters will eventually get to the point that they’re borderline guaranteed successes for experienced players once they’ve been out long enough.

Just not much to do after you’ve been around for a bit if the main part of the game is what you’re wanting. There’s no incentive to go back to the Straits, etc, unless you’re after certain item drop. SW gives the highest returns by farming chests, not exactly thrilling, and there are only so many times you’ll want to take the forts and do VW.

PvP, WvW, and Fractals, and grinding zones you’re over-leveled for to get map completion—three of which do little to make you more connected to the lore of the game, which is a pretty important part of the MMO experience for many MMO players—are all you have left at 80. You could spend more money on LS2 if you like, but most players make it seem more of a chore that’s essential to Luminescent armor rather than something worth playing.

I’ve started playing and putting my money into other games at the moment. Logging in for the daily rewards and guild events here and there but that’s about it.

Yeah, those are not at all the only mistakes the game has made. As to polar bears, maybe they’ll add the Kodan eventually. There are issues a plenty elsewhere though.

Part of the LS2 quest is still bugged. May want to take a look at that before you drop your coin on the chapters.