Guild Wars 2

Adapt or die.
-Darwin

:)

Seriously though, I can’t understand the leveling changes. I’ll have to try another new character to see how I really feel, but I expect to be as disappointed as new Trait update. But at least leveling might get you some sweet gear. Eh.

New TP has its good and bad. Search function’s better, quick-sale is not. Take it or leave it. Again, eh.

I’m just glad to have new goals in the Collections.

Redenaz.8631:

This is an odd, pointless change that makes /me emotes look idiotic.

We have a pretty short list of emotes, frankly, and now the catch-all emote is ruined.

And after they re-fix it, they can work on adding more emotes. :\

Donari.5237:

As to my (1) I see in the patch notes:

“Blocking a player now hides their /me emote commands.”

So that’s something.

A very good something! I can finally block those people who think they RP when they are, in fact, recreating CW shows with Charr.

Seriously though, can we please lower the emote range? PLEASE? I realize not everyone can /p or /g their RP sessions, but if I’m halfway across a zone, I don’t need to know what these good folk are doing.

And yes, change the /e /me text, color and display. It’s weird to look at in chat while I’m crafting.

Thromos.7038:

Ability to send something COD through the mail would be nice. Works well in another MMO. If buyer doesn’t pay, they don’t get the item. Great for trades. Avoids scams.

And ANet could put a 15% tax on the COD amount, too. To prevent COD spam.
Those little flying birdies need to eat. ;_;

Eulolia.2467:

If I want to sell some ores fast when clearing bags, what used to be 2 clicks from the sell list (select item, hit sell) is now 5 clicks (select item, select top buyer, drag slider to max, hit sell instantly, hit ok to close the popup).

Also fewer items are displayed at once on the sell list and they aren’t in alphabetical order by default, making it harder to find things.

There are some decent improvements to the trading post (the searching) but the main selling functionality got a whole lot more inconvenient and time-consuming.

1, not a fan of the extra clicks. Actually pretty irritated that Sell Max isn’t on there.

2, I did find a way to sort alphabetically, so that’s a blessing. I found it less baffling than “which bag was it in” or “omg are those unique bags for sale somehow? wtf is going on?” when I first saw the bag interface.

Vayne.8563:

Let’s say you have a son and a daughter. It’s time to go out for dinner. You ask okay, where do you guys want to eat?

Son: Let’s go to McDonalds.
Daughter: OMG No. That’s gross. Let’s get pizza.
Son: You always want pizza. Can we have chinese?
Daughter: I dont’ like chinese. Indian?
Son: The spices make me sick.

So you care about what they think they’re your kids. But eventually you say, I’m taking you to a dinner. You can each get what you want.

The real problem comes in when we get:

Dad: I only have time and money to stop at one place, so we’re getting Polish food and you both better not run away from home.

…Being a single parent is hard.

I’d post one of my Charr with Rytlock-senpai, but it seems I can’t get him to notice me.
T__T

Behellagh.1468:

Now that you can’t list items at prices where it would have been better to sell to a vendor, it doesn’t matter to me anymore.

True! I appreciate that change. No more 16c runes sitting about. While I wish they could get rid of the below-minimum buy offers, (or did they?) JS mentioned that it might be more trouble than it’s worth to execute that.

The only things I need to know when doing a listing:

How much money will it take up front? The listing fee.
How much money will I earn? Expected profit.
If the game wants to be nice enough to tell me the taxes too, that’s fine, but it’s not relevant information compared to what a seller should know at a quick glance.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

“This game is really fun and interesting! You’ll see as soon as you hit level 40!”

Considering my friend had to tell me “Aw, you should’ve hung in there until level 14, that’s when it really picks up” about WildStar, but I was bored to tears at 13…

Yeah, I can’t see how I’d recommend GW2 to my friends anymore. :\

I had an odd glitch with my Mesmer last night. One of my clones decided that he would no longer remain solely in the mind of his victim, but instead attain his own sentience.

He just stood there like a turret, shooting at things that came by, so I swapped out clothes and took a picture with my new buddy.

But which is the real Chagra Fademist? >>:3

Yeah, I’m a little put off by the new interface as well. Love the faster load times, but not starting my sale stack at max is really going to grate on me.

Vayne.8563:

And you think veteran players universally like challenge OP? All veterans? Most veterans? Most veterans who happen to post on forums?

I’m a veteran and I think the leveling experience is one of my favorite parts of the new patch.

Now I’m curious. And not in a sarcastic way. =P

Would you mind expanding on your thoughts of why the new leveling ‘experience’ is a good thing? I just find it hamstrung and another deliberate drag on progression.

Nutjob.9021:

“the money isnt in alts.
the money is in the new players.”

Actually, the money is in both of these things. New players certainly bring money in, but players who are emotionally invested in the game and are willing to buy gems are also a major source of income for the game. In the long run, the willingness of established players to keep forking over more money matters more than new players. Presumably as the game ages, the influx of new players will decrease to the point that GW3 will become necessary. But, long after this point, if players who are thoroughly invested in the game keep pouring money into the gem market, the game will stay afloat long after it is considered obsolete.

To this end, it is important to design the game in such a way that it encourages players to consider themselves invested in the game, such that if they quit, they “lose” their imaginary investment. One way for players to become invested is for them to create multiple characters and raise them to high level. If the game is designed in such a way as to discourage this, players end up only having one main character, and there is less for them to walk away from when they fall in love with some other game.

That being said, the impact of these changes is fairly trivial, although it is rather annoying to make experienced players put on training wheels and a diaper. At least put in an option in the options menu for experienced players to restore full functionality to their new characters.

Agreed.
The trait system changes were bad enough, and now the serious drag on the early game experience is terrible. I actually feel sorry for new players who want to do crafting. If you were diligent, you could have level 5 blue gear almost right out the gate, but now…

I don’t know if I’ll be making many alts after this, but since I have experience scrolls, I can at least unlock a few utility skills.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I understand there’s some charr vendor in Lion’s Arch somewhere who sells apples. You might go look for him sometime. Though it might be finding the unfindable.

…
/cry
bwaaaaaah!
T_T

nexxe.7081:

Veterans keep getting screwed over with every patch. First traits, and now this.

Just like players get Veteran Slayer as daily/monthly, I think the devs might get a Veteran Slayer achievement too. =P

Logos.1306:

guys new info

some Renown Hearts will change after patch.

Taking food to feed cows were too complex, so now you only have to F-click the cows.
Taking water buckets were too complex, now you only F-click the plants.
and so on..

so yeah no more fun thinks like running with water and other like that. Now we just F-click everything because this game want to be PEGI 3

Holy kitten, I noticed this already. The little staff bundle outside of Rata Sum was gone. Y’know, with all the backfiring skills? …I miss that quest thing now.

Random Aha moment:

For all those times I heard people kvetch about WoW getting “dumbed down” because Blizz trimmed down the skill point fat and spread out the talent/ability leveling, I never considered it dumbed down. They replaced needless, trifling complications and presenting streamlined but potent choices that affected character play style.
It was simpler, yes, but it gave players choices that mattered.

…ANet, this change does nothing of the kind. There are no meaningful choices to justify this spread-out progression. All it does is hamstring the ability to explore a character, much the same as the trait redesign did. Between traits and now this, and I hate to say it, but I’m kinda hoping some heads will roll and tighten up the design team. :\

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Anet thinks 5 weapon skills, healing skill, 3 utility skills and 1 elite skill is too much for people here to cope with.

Meanwhile in other games:

Haw! My friend tried Hunter and quit because “it has too many buttons.” That’s been my main since I started. =P

Azure The Heartless.3261:

khulse.4896:

As I stated in a post in the Game Updates: Wardrobe, Transmutation, Outfits feedback thread, the exchange rate they implemented for transmutation stones to charges left me feeling cheated. I am not happy about it.

So, you left because Anet was silent on responding to a thread about consolidated transmutation charges, when the update that provided them:

allowed you to keep all skins you obtained
Allowed you to project these skins onto any item of the same type, as many times as you wanted

because the exchange rate wasn’t good enough, and anet wouldn’t say sorry?

I am having difficulty not finding that silly. I will mail you transmutation charges if your problem is that simple.

they’re not expensive, and for the system we have now, the revamp was worth it. Sometimes changes happen that don’t benefit you, though. Why you’d cast an entire game off for a minor setback that benefits you long term is beyond me, though.

As for Anet’s silence, maybe they just don’t see it as a problem, especially considering the work they put into the system as a whole.

For what it’s worth though, they are speaking to the community via forums a bit more, and the CDI is up, so.. there’s that.

I dunno, man. I had one extra yellow crystal. And I was kittened that I couldn’t use it. Absolutel-

Yeah, I’m being sarcastic. I’m still waiting to use some of the other seasonal items that I kept squirreled away, just in case. Like the 100+ gauntlet tickets. =P

I’m going to go with no.

ANet’s had this disturbing trend of making the game more convenient to live with, but terribly inconvenient to actually play.

Vayne.8563:

Or you can just convert gold to gems to buy them. Not efficient but it works. Because you can farm gold anywhere.

And at least trans stones are reasonably priced, unlike keys. :\

Devildoc.6721:

Point is they’re unnecessarily gating CORE FEATURES OF THE GAMES COMBAT SYSTEM behind higher and higher levels.

I’m saying that’s backwards, as I’ve never known anyone who got overwhelmed by game systems early on, I have however known people who quit games because they were doling out skills and systems too slowly at too high of levels and they actually got bored.

I know I’d have gotten bored by level 10 of only being able to use 4 skills and a self heal, no weapon swap.

Exactly this. I’ll just out and say it. WildStar. I hit 13 in the beta and was bored, bored, BORED with my character. I had all of 5, maybe 6 skills, the bullkitten amp system which had hidden item locks, and a wide swath of nothing to do.
The most boring part was the limited skill bar, though.

I was actually proud of the fact that GW2 had a fair amount of flexibility by the same point. By level 10, I had two weapon bars full of skills, a self-heal, and two utility traits. Thirteen skills available, with additional swaps for utilities. That was actually empowering.

This late-gating garbage has got to go. -_-#

tl;dr
’k
Gonna file this with the other uselessly repetitive threads. Like mounts. Or GvG.

Because.. shortbow..on thieves?
OP doesn’t seem to have a grasp of the classes. :\

Lishtenbird.2814:

I’m okay with it since

• it’s optional and insignificant in terms of the core part of the game
• it lets ANet get more money from people who want to pay to do more stuff for people who don’t want to pay.

With tons of AP and treats hidden behind people who bought GW1, somehow I don’t think they mind people paying cash to get a few extra points.

pdavis.8031:

Seriously though. Although it’s fun to think about, I just don’t think that it would work. Clipping issues, mechanic issues, server and model limit issues, excessive on screen clutter, and that anyone who didn’t have one would be QQing that they were way OP and needed to be nerfed. That and adding them either in game, or via the gem store, would kitten people off even more as it would surely be seen as a “shameless money grab” and prices on the TP for them would be about the same as precursers, which leads to “Inflation! Unfair! QQ, whine”

Yeah, just not seeing it happen.

You have a deep understanding of the forum culture here.
I. Am so. Sorry. =P

Still don’t need mounts. =P
But at least the mount-request frequency is down to once a week again.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Simple market principles.

Simple market principles.

Simple, bad game design.
Well, for a very specific facet, anyway.

People have come up with a dozen different ways to make attaining precursors more palatable, but nothing’s changed so far. Is the Maudry II a test run for it, as whispers suggest? I hope so. There’s much more agency in that method, foxfire clusters included.

Reminds me that I need to head back to Dry Top~

Grok Krog.9581:

Pretty sure it’s been stated in lore that a single Norn can take on a whole Warband of Charr

Only if those Charr are NPC™ brand tissue paper.
Or if the Norn is fake-Eir with her cheating arrows. Then it still requires fake-Zojja and the other fake-Destiny’s Edge. =P

fourhim.3584:

There may be a third group, which I am in. I am a casual player and I just want more beautiful places to see, scary monsters to kill, etc. I could care less if I get any “stuff” while doing so. I just want to explore the game and marvel at the beautiful zones they create. This is why we have been so excited (my son and I) with Dry Top. I hope more stuff like that keeps coming. But I’m probably in the minority

The quiet majority, probably.

Though, I’m starting to get a fix on how to extend game life a bit.

Randomness.

I don’t mean RNG rewards. I’d sooner drop a tank on my head. Tokens, yes, complete RNG, no. But I look at Diablo 3’s adventure mode as an example.

They extended the play experience on their sparse map layout by having random encounters. They could have any mobs from the game, champs with variant abilities, and a choice of difficulty. They picked “bounty” spots at random, so players have something different to do for increased rewards. When they finished a particular thread, they got a few tokens that might help get better gear.

Lankybrit.4598:

You don’t HAVE to pay a subscription for Wildstar either. Nor for TERA. Nor for the upcoming Archeage. What’s your point?

Uh.. Wildstar’s threashold for “subscription free” is basically shelling out to their internal gold farm.
It’s the same as if GW2 told you to gather 1200 gems per month to keep playing.
That’s about 153 gold. Per month.

I’ve given ANet plenty of cash, just because I wanted to support it, specifically because it offers the good will to tell I don’t have to. And buying gems actually gives me something for the buy-in.

CalamityO.2890:

And the problem with Liadri, which did cater to the hardcore / vets / challenge seekers – was the players that couldn’t beat her. They complained on the forum about how hard she was. I didn’t beat her, but I didn’t complain either. Instead I just thought “run an alt that can or will beat her in the future”. Come on, even in LS, LS we’re talking about here!. Where people were complaining on not being able to beat the bosses.

Eeeh, I never bothered with Liadri. There’s a difference between “challenge” and “computer should just say it’s cheating”. She required specific builds, some of which were exploitative, and instant death is a cheap way to include ‘challenge’ in a fight.
Kudos to those with the twitch and the patience, but ANet’s romantic liaisons with one-hit KO effects is irritating to the point of boring. And the punishment for losing was a huge wait with equipment damage. Not good for establishing a learning curve.

The Mordy-draggy fight was.. rough, but I managed to do it without getting completely downed. That fight felt challenging enough, partially because I had time to recover after a mistake. It was still annoying at kitten, though. :P

As for actual “endgame” content, that’s a tough one. It’s completely tied to the notion of rewards and what new things we can get for playing. If the rewards are guaranteed, the content won’t last long, but if it’s tied to RNG, it’s not fair to the players.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I tend to like the new trait system – the going out and finding them. It still needs work (like, I don’ think any trait should be locked behind map completion for example), but I think with time they’ll get it ironed out. I’ve made 3 new characters (warrior, thief, ele) specifically to play with the trait hunting.

Concept was fine. Execution was horrible. :\

I’m an altaholic, but trying out the new system on my ranger, even with a friend, just felt lame. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a good revamp of the system, like mini-dungeons or summonable dynamic events from a starting point. That would give me something to do, even after I hit 80.

Being below 80 is even more boring.
#Traitsthread

Tachenon.5270:

Well… heh heh, okay then.

That grin. /shudder
…I need an adult.

tl;dr

THAT’S WHAT THE FEATURE PATCH IS FOR.
Polish.
Not “content”.

It’d be great if we could merge some of these “not enough content” threads. And the mount ones. And the…

Many Doritos
So Yum
Wow

Celestial.4381:

Are you ever going to fix the way conditions work, so that I can actually run conditions builds (and not feel like a dweeb for doing so)?

Not “are” or “if”, but when ghatkitten it. I don’t think they initially planned to have 70 people dogpiling a boss, but now they do and it feels weak to be condition in PvE. :\

Galespark.7835:

Those reactions…

Anyway, congratulations, and what an exceptional act of kindness on the stranger’s part. I hope he gets lots of good karma for it.

For as much as one of those things cost, I’m sure he got some ‘karma’ already. =P

Still, grats pdavis!

Agreed! Glad to see some gratitude on the forums for once.
Sept. 9th can hurry on up.
…After my weekend of farming a few keys. =P

Sadly, I have to cringe nearly every time I go to Black Citadel, now. There’s usually some group saying/emoting things that are just uncomfortable, and allegedly RP. I really don’t need to know what Teehee Kitty Cub is doing with her favorite dagger…

For the sake of us all, please lower the /say and /emote range. It’ll lead to less trolling in the long run.

Also, can we get a clickable name on emote lines? It’d be great to take action on /sit/dance spammers or people using emotes to say things against the TOS.

pdavis.8031:

Rukh.9287:

Queen Jennah sealed parts of her soul in to mini dolls and handed them out to players all over the world. As long as even one Jennah survives, she’s immortal.

Also her nose is fake.

Wait, so the bunch of mini Jennahs I have are actually horcruxes!? NOOOOO!!!!!!

How many souls has that wicked witch murdered? ;_;

…and do centaurs count as souls?

Tutara.4906:

Short Version: Dead levels are boring and turn people off. Laundry list trait unlocks are not conducive to entertaining play. Adept traits should be unlocked automatically. Return trait tiers to their previous levels. Please.

Fully agree.

To point out my beta experience for another game, by the time I hit level 13, I knew what I needed to know for game basics, and I was ready to go through more. In fact, when certain options opened up, but they were locked, I was actually pretty ticked.

Synopsis of that experience: “My traits are locked behind skills books? Okay, cool. Been there, done that. …I have to find them in world drops? …F this game.” Not only that, but it held me back from crafting and trading. I never got that far, because of the boredom and frustration. Turns out, I could’ve purchased those skill books from the auction house, if only the game hadn’t assumed I would be too confused to know how to use an auction house. -_-#

And the dead level thing is a real issue. Aside from Personal Story chunks, there’s very little to do as far as direction in the leveling experience. This is made worse by how badly the traits are spaced out. Especially worse because the trait unlocks are so back-loaded toward 80. It’s actually fairly insulting and discourages exploration of the traits I did get.

I can understand using the lure of traits to getting people to do content, but shouldn’t they be based more on how players play rather than seek rewards?

Goatjugsoup.8637:

I noticed on the first page of this topic some complaint about the watchwork sprockets not being available any other way than the pick, dont know if it has been addressed since then but you can in fact buy the sprocket node for your home instance from the laurel vendor. It is in the season 1 rewards tab and costs 25 laurels and 15g.

I did not know that was there! Good eye, soup.

blakdoxa.7520:

Doing Free to Play Wrong – How Bad Monetization Harms F2P Games – Extra Credits

A balance must be achieved between fulfilling the customs desires AND making money. Putting one on the table and forgetting about the other leads to a game you end up being unable to maintain or a game where the customers are generally displeased with having the money bleed out of them and leave anyways.

Thanks for linking that. Extra Credits should be mandatory viewing for all game developers.

Lheimroo.2947:

To be fair, rallying IS confusing to a new player.

You’re in this state with zero time to read your tooltips and figure out what all your suddenly new abilities do, and then you’re dead.

I don’t mind that. Any of the other changes I have difficulty seeing the motive for, but that is absolutely the least confusing part of this dev blog for me.

There’s a bit of a problem with a lot of the limited-time skill switches: downed, Death Shroud, Transformations…

Those should all exist in a skills tab somewhere so players new to a class can actually have time to look at them and have them for reference.

It would also help in skill-buying decisions, especially since several elites are Transform abilities that last about 30 seconds. That’s barely enough time to use the skills, much less read them.

I like my pick.
<3

Still gonna play my warrior. Oh well~

Of course, I have one of every class at 80, so if I want cloth, I can get cloth.

Dondarrion.2748:

I propose a solution:

Coats for all!

Except the charr because they’re hunched!

Charr + leggings.
No seriously, who designed that? I totally love having a stretched tarp around my legs when I run on all fours.
Oh, and ambivalence about cloaks. Eh.