Guild Wars 2

This question is more regarding the future of WvW…

So I really like that you guys are starting to provide unique skins for rewards in WvW and PvP. I feel like it encourages people to play a variety of content, but also creates unique rewards for specific accomplishments in the game… which are both really great things to see as a player.

The question I have is, will we see more of this in the future, such as unique armor pieces, or maybe a “WvW battle scar” skin for character’s faces that does something similar to the new glowing red eyes (just an example of the posssibilities), or other types of unique things achieved through WvW achievements?

Thanks and keep up the great work!

Aren’t the top tier servers usually full, so you can’t transfer back to them after two weeks?

These changes are perfect. I’ll actually do PvP now on a regular basis! Good job, Anet. Really well done.

I feel like there’s not much to dislike here. The changes are all positives, which are… you know. Positive.

I think that sometimes people just expect too much. GW2 is like, the least restrictive MMO ever. It would be nice to have some new stuff, like zones and player housing, skills, new armor styles… you know. New stuff. But at least they’re continually improving things. Maybe after China is rolling along nicely we’ll get some cool new stuff too.

so I just wanted to say… this looks amazing. can’t wait to see it in game.

Really sorry to hear about this. He was a unique and special part of the SoR community, not just for IRON and those that new him best… but for the rest of us as well, who so often found ourselves fighting along side him. He will be missed.

Maybe people are just taking a break… living story just ended and WvW season 2 starts soon.

Skyrim has some amazing armors too. The Daedric, Ebony, Glass sets are all amazing. You know tbh though, that Scarlet’s Veil helm is some of their best work to date. That thing is amazing… and it’s not even using particle effects to achieve it’s amazingness!

Too bad I took a couple months off and just came back, so I’ll never be able to get it.

gw2 is a great looking game. For an MMO it has a load a really great features and conveniences. problem is, the story is god awful and there just isn’t enough content. PvP needs more maps and game modes. wvw needs specific rewards such as weapons, armor, trophies. the pve world needs new zones to explore, and accomplishment-gated content and achievables. if they can do these things, gw2 could live up to its great potential. if not, it will just continue along its current trajectory.

Lol… well this thread speaks volumes. I hope they get an expansion and player housing going. Maybe not even a traditional expansion, but a “world” expansion where they openup some new areas. I always have tried to stay positive because it always felt like GW2 was driven by good, hard working people with good intentions. However, the game has fallen flat on its face ever since the living story took over. Until they put together something compelling and add some new zones and player housing, I’ll be playing a different game that has those things. #cough SKYRIM #cough

I was disappointed before, but now I’m pretty thrilled. They seem to have identified that they need to completely overhaul the PvP aspect of the game, and are taking steps to do so. That in and of itself is remarkable. Sure, from a player perspective we all think it could have been done long ago, or in different ways. But from a design and development perspective, it’s gotta be so incredibly difficult to look at your creation and take the risk. I’m totally enthused by their decision to do so, not just for PvP, but for GW2 as a whole. By integrating PvP into the PvE game the way they’ve discussed, this could be the start of some amazing changes to a previously stunted portion of GW2! What’s not to love.

chronometria summed up my GW2 financial situation perfectly. I think I had 150g at most… spent most of it on chest keys. I’ve got everything I want except a Legendary, and those cost too much to be a realistic goal, so I just dump my money into random stuff.

The thing I’ve been finding myself thinking about alot lately is this: it will never be more efficient for me to farm in game vs. dropping 20 or 30 bucks of real life money on gems… and I think the game is designed that way on purpose. They’d rather us drop the 20 bucks than farm for a month for the same amount of gold, so they aren’t going to allow farming methods to become too lucrative.

You can see this in the way they control farming methods. So many of the most efficient farms have been nerfed before the majority of people find them, and when they introduce a living story farming method like the Scarlett events, EVERYBODY goes to them and the inflation evens out people’s individual profits, so you can’t really “get ahead”.

So I guess the question becomes, how do you get ahead of the inflation? Or rather, is it worth it to try if a Legendary is the only thing you can’t really afford? It’s an odd conundrum.

I don’t think Anet is dumb enough to put that into the game. Could you imagine the backlash if it was discovered? The credibility of their entire company would be instantly destroyed.

I feel like Darmikau’s post was great. That being said, I also feel like somebody saying on the forums that a writer should be fired, should result in an immediate forum ban. It goes against everything the CDI initiative stands for, and its honestly just trolling. People care a great deal about their jobs, and calling for somebody to lose their job is so destructive to a person’s peace of mind and self confidence… especially on a forum of the company they work at. Its gotta be tough not to take something really personally when its directed in that manner.

Well I guess I did the 5 bad things, so here’s 5 good ones.

1. The game is beautiful
- graphics on this game are amazing. The scenery is gorgeous and varied.

2. Combat
- combat in this game is fluid and intuitive. Classes are balanced and fun to play. PvE is relatively easy with all classes I’ve played.

3. Crafting, item bank, Inventory management in general
- GW2 is fantastic with the way you’re able to store items. Inventory is never a limiting factor for me, which is really great.

4. Waypoints

- So many MMO’s I’ve played have tried to make traveling a time sink in and of itself… it’s nice to have instant access to any spot in the world.

5. Potential

- I guess this is the biggie for me…. and it’s the reason I’m still playing. GW2 has built a foundation that is amazing. Great graphics, fun gameplay, good crafting and inventory mechanisms, intelligent and player friendly design… I could go on and on, but what it really comes down to is potential. If they can get their ducks in a row and create something enduring on top of the foundation they’ve laid, GW2 could be the greatest thing ever.

So I saw this and decided, what the heck! I love GW2, but here’s mine.

1. Emphasis on new story arcs vs. old lore.
– This is a big letdown in my opinion. They keep introducing new living story stuff, and have pushed all of the old lore to the back burner. There are so many areas I’d love to see any one of… those being, Northern Shiverpeaks, Crystal Desert, Deldrimor Front, Ring of Fire, Cantha and Elona…. even the continuation of Orr would be nice. This game needs to open up the world.

2. No customizable home instance.
- In a game where 99% of character advancement is cosmetic and 99% of the content is solo-friendly, you really need other things to do. A home instance that was upgradable with trophies that could be earned through gameplay would fill that gap and provide another way to connect with the world.

3. PvP having no rewards carry over into PvE

- I find PvP moderately fun in most games I play. But when your progress there does little to advance your character and rewards aren’t represented in the PvE world, there’s little motivation to do it other than the desire to improve at a class, or boredom. A home instance would also be a great place to display accomplishments and trophies from PvP.

4. Zergs are too powerful in WvW

- kinda speaks for itself. WvW matches are won and lost based entirely on who’s zerg is the biggest and stays online the longest. It was fun as hell from time to time, specifically when tactics played a part, but mindlessly running with the zerg and/or getting yelled at by hardcore WvW’ers to stick on a commander’s icon gets old after a year.

5. Developer’s lack of direction

- It seems apparent to me, that through various comments made by the devs, there is no real direction in the game. I feel like they are trying to be unique and groundbreaking, while simultaneously not take risks and sell their product to the largest possible audience. Unfortunately it is impossible to accomplish both of these at the same time, and it feels like no forward progress is being made.

In defense of GW2, what you’re seeing is this:

Typical MMO’s have an expansion come out around the two year mark after release, and are designed around a sub-fee where the company benefits financially from keeping their players grinding. That’s probably up for debate, but of the ones I’ve played it’s been about two years. With GW2, it’s been a year and a few months now, however the game is designed to be player friendly in regards to the time it takes to level a character to max level, so most of the players are ready for new content earlier than you’d typically see.

So, arguably GW2’s greatest feature (it’s high level of player-friendly design), is working as a catch-22. People are further along faster because the game is easier to be further along with, and are looking for content to be released at a fast pace and in large quantities.

Hopefully they’re working on player housing and just keeping it mum. They’ve never said anything about not doing it, and now with WoW doing it they’ll be the only mmo without it, which is never what you want when you’re selling a product. That being said, I’d love to commission Eir to carve me an ice sculpture of Tybalt! What a great idea that would be.

I do!!! I made a warrior first, not realizing they weren’t in the game at release. I was totally shocked when I saw that they weren’t a weapon in game.

The tower is actually pretty cool. Its hard as hell to run to the top, with an instance that is soloable but pretty tough as well… and the various villainry going on is intriguing. It might not be enough for some people, but there’s some improvement in things that have been lacking lately! I liked it.

I don’t know if everybody feels the same, but I felt like the requirements to get that key were pretty steep. 225 sentries? 225 caravans destroyed? That takes alot of time. Hopefully the rewards go something like:

Unique finisher for the winner
Unique skin for everyone who completed achievement
varying level of gold/tokens/karma/laurels depending on end result

I guess I’d be happy with that, seeing as we don’t have personal housing to put a trophy in. :P

I’ll be dissapointed if its not a armor or weapon skin… and probably still be dissapointed if its an ugly armor or weapon skin. So yeah… I expect dissapointment.

This is the biggest reason I want player housing. Once you find a job you like, level it to 80 and find armor/runes/dyes you like, and experience the content, there’s not a lot left. Personally I’m just doing dailies and PvP while I wait for wvw queue.

I can’t wait for this! Being on tier 1 really sucks when you can’t get into WvW… and also, it effects the mentalities of the players. Commanders are harsh on people not staying on their tag and following their orders, because the slots are limited and they feel if you’re not following them, you’re wasting a player slot. It’s annoying as hell when you finally get in and all you hear is complaints towards the players from the commanders and their groupies, so maybe this can function as a “casual” WvW and ease that frustration on both the commander and player’s parts.

Anyway, here’s my questions:

How will the new zone interact with the queue’s of the existing zones? For example, will we be bumped higher on the queue to get into a BL if we’re actively playing in this zone vs. playing in a PvE zone… Second, will we be able to stay in the new zone without jumping into a BL or EB when the queue pops? And lastly (I believe this was already stated as being the case, but I just wanted to verify it)…. will we be able to earn achievements towards our WvW seasons while in the new zone???

Thanks guys!

I’d actually somewhat agree with the OP. Its designed for people too busy to grind an MMO, and for kids too young to be attracted to a typical one.

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Regarding Thief,

As a thief main, I support most of these changes. Nerfing D/P is a step in the right direction for our class, in that I think a good number of our nerfs in the past were encouraged by the community due to the perma-stealth capability of D/P. Now that it’s going to be dead in the upcoming Dec. 10th changes though, could we have our 1200 range back on cluster bomb and/or trick shot please?

Here’s my justification for the 1200 range. First of all, cluster bomb/ trick shot work as little more than a mob tagging mechanic. It does decent damage as well, but is by no means overpowered. However, with a 900 range, there are many locations in WvW where I have a difficulty even hitting the ground below me when I’m on the wall of a keep or castle or whatever. It’s really frustrating to be unable to contribute to a battle while standing on a wall because my shortbow range isn’t capable of hitting someone below me on the ground…. it seems like many of these locations in WvW were designed with ranged distance limits of 1200 in mind, and 900 seems to always be just frustratingly too short to hit anybody.

Thank you very much for your consideration, and good job on the changes in general!

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Hi guys,

Thanks for giving us a chance to speak our mind! I love guild wars 2, it’s a great game, and I’ll be playing it for many years to come. Just wanted to say that off the bat.

In terms of living story there is one thing I think it’s truly lacking, and that is what is called in storytelling, the antagonist’s “kick the cat” moment. In GW1, there was the searing. In star wars, there was princess leia’s planet getting destroyed. In the movie Gladiator, there’s the scene where he finds his family murdered. In the series Deadwood on HBO, there was the moment wild bill gets murdered. I mean, in virtually every genre of storytelling when you see a good story, there’s moments where you suddenly start to care. That’s what the living story needs. It needs a searing. It needs an area destroyed and decimated by the forces of evil. It needs a reason, a source of emotional investment. It needs something to truly fight against, where you’re not quite sure how it’s going to play out and you might lose.

Know what I’m sayin?

I swear to god, I wouldn’t buy gw3 if it came out within the next 5 years.

Alts are alot of fun, but after you’ve leveled a few characters it definitely gets boring going through all the old zones again. I think part of it is, so much of your exp comes from hearts, poi’s, etc. that you’ve done a few times already, that it’s just tedious.

GW2 is definitely alt friendly in that if you really WANT to level an alt to 80, there’s several ways to do it quickly. I think for me though, that desire vanished after the 3rd go around. Maybe if they released a true expansion I’d probably start a new player from scratch, but that’s probably it. There’s just too much to do both in game and in life to make it worth the time leveling anymore alts, at least for me.

Just give it some time… soon it won’t be the flavor of the month event and you’ll start seeing some of the fair weather players moving on. If you really need your wvw fix, try for some off hours. I got on SoR BL with no queue at 6 am this morning, and we’re currently winning tier 1, so I can’t imagine a queue anywhere else.

If you don’t get in after a few minutes, just refresh your queues. Some people say to try from a new zone as well.

1. Player Home Instance
2. Guild Halls
3. lack of continuity between fantastic lore from GW1 (Human gods, dwarves, etc) into GW2.

Thanks for the opportunity to discuss these things in a productive manner! The game is amazing, and we all just want to see it become everything it can be in the future.

for wvw…

1. Unique skins for WvW rewards
2. More rewards for defense
3. more functionality with controlled locations

1. Guild Housing/ Customizable Player Housing

I think this would add alot to the game. Not only could accomplishments be rewarded through unique items that could be displayed through housing, but the idea of a “home” provides a strong emotional attachment to the world.

2. Dwarves

I love the dwarves from GW1. They played such a large role in that universe, it’s hard to imagine GW2 existing without them. In terms of future explorable areas, crafting of unique weapons using dwarven artifacts, and perhaps playable races, there are few possibilities that are as unlimited as the dwarven race & history provide.

3. Northern Shiverpeaks

I’m a big fan of all things Norn, so i can’t wait to explore those areas.

4. WvW exclusive skins & armor

I’d love to see some unique rewards achievable only through WvW… either through rewards based on server success or individual success, nothing would inspire me to be as involved as possible in WvW as rewards specific to those accomplishments.

5. Craftable Precursor/ Legendary Armor/ Ascended skins

It’s hard to take the idea of a legendary weapon seriously until precursors are craftable. They’re so expensive it’s just insane, and the chance of getting one is absurdly low. I actually have a good amount of the other work done, but knowing that I need to get a precursor somehow has completely ruined my motivation to work on a legendary weapon.

That being said, i can’t wait for legendary armor or new ascended skins.

I’d buy almost any type of expansion, more than likely. Assuming I had the money to burn, that is.

The thing about the devs you have to understand, is that they’re human beings. Show a little empathy. Sugar coating things might feel like an unnecessary hoop to jump through, but put yourself in their shoes. How would you feel if somebody walked up to you and critiqued something you created? If its productive and positive, your reaction is going to be different than if its rude and condescending. This isn’t rocket science, people.

That’s a great idea.

You know, don’t kill the messenger but I’m pretty sure they already announced that they would be crafted. They’re definitely upping the crafts all to level 500, which you kind of would assume means the armor crafts would craft ascended armor at 500 just like the weapon crafts did. I think the only real question was if they’d use the same ascended materials for precursor crafting as they do for the ascended weapons and armor.

I feel like one of the biggest problems is that ANET is terrible at controlling expectations. Think about how many mixed signals they send us…. they respond sometimes to complaints by changing things to make people happy, but then they tell us to stop complaining. They tell us they’re not going to create a gear grind, and then they create ascended weapons. (I actually love ascended weapons, but its a perfect example of my point.). They tell us they are going to create an expanding world, and then they focus on “organic improvements” and bi-weekly events in the existing world. They tell us that personal housing will be in the game, and they keep adding mining nodes to an uncustomizable home instance. They tell us guild activities and community building is a priority, and then they exclude guild halls from production and give us no concrete info on when they will be released, while wild star is being developed to have housing.

I think its difficult sometimes to be a player of this game. Its so close to everything you ever wanted, but that connection skips a beat sometimes and its a little tough to accept. Some people definitely handle it better than others though.

I actually have some decent advice for the dev’s… the only way to control an internet community is through mass bannings and fear. Using phrases like, “shut up, that’s why”… would be a good start. It would save time too….. using all those pretty words and corporate-speak must have taken a good amount of time!

That’s a great post! I’m glad to see that you guys are willing to continue to try to communicate with the players, despite the negativity on the forums. It must be hard to do. I check these forums once a day and find maybe a topic per page worth reading… I can’t imagine looking through them all!

Edit: I guess if this is going to become the official “I want this and I’ll shut up and be happy” thread… all I want for christmas is personal housing, and maybe some dwarves and great axes.

Edit the 2nd: Oh yeah, and new zones to explore.

I’ve had better luck salvaging exotic weapons over exotic armor. In fact, all 20 I’ve got so far came from weapons, while I’m 0/10ish on armor. Small sample size, I know.

My guardian is only level 26 or something so I could be wrong, but it seems like you constantly have to use skills and weapon abilities to keep your movement speed up.

I really doubt they’re afraid of that, given how well the game sold initially. I think they’re just hoping that the living story and gem sales can drive the game while they clean things up. There’s no point in putting out an expansion on an unpolished game unless you really need the revenue.

Tbh I don’t think people want an expansion necessarily…they just want to know where the game is headed in terms of new zones, plot lines, player/guild housing, etc… and expansions traditionally provide that structure for future development. Nobody knows what’s happening next week in this game, let alone next month or year.

I’d say it is. Between everything in the wallet, and the fact that dungeon gear is purchase able by any character through the wallet system, its hard to argue that the game is unfriendly towards alts. What I would like to see however, is more things like the rich ori node in areas where only a 80 level character can get, so that we’d actually be rewarded for having max level alts. That’s what the game is missing in terms of alts IMO. They made strides with chests rewarding empyreal fragments to all 80 characters, which is nice. That way you can get ascended stuff faster. But once you get where you wanna be in terms of ascended, the advantage dissapears because you can’t sell those items. They really need to continue finding ways to reward players for having alts. It helps the people who want to do them, which also provides longevity to their game because alts take a lot of time. Its win/win.

My vote would be for the shiverpeaks, because I love the Norn. At this point I think we’d all be happy with anything, when it comes to new areas.

I like these armors quite a bit, but for the highest stat armor in the game it’s nothing too exciting. Thank goodness for the few really awesome-looking things they have in this game, because a good majority of the weapons and armor are really quite terrible.

I guess they could do cutscenes and stuff, that would probably be more like what you’re looking for. On a two week release schedule though, that’s probably too much to ask… especially with other concerns. I mean, they’re trying to fix bugs, add content, create living story crap, add skills & items in the shop, add weapon tiers (and eventually armor tiers), add new legendary weapons, all before the end of the year… while still doing holiday stuff. I’d rather have any of those things worked on than a cutscene, along with a number of other features i’d like to see.

Sure! cutscenes would be great, too. But who really cares? You see them once and then never again.

I don’t feel like anybody should be surprised, or even upset. Everyone wants something in this game. For me, its personal housing. But in a free to play game, its the constant job of the game devs to find a way, each update, to sell something new and fun in the shop. The existence of that motivation is a mandate of the ftp model, and has no correlation with player housing, or clipping issues, or anything else really.

yar… if they were going to give them for free, they wouldn’t be in the gem shop. Nice thought though! Free stuff is good.