Guild Wars 2

You get one tapestry for just talking to Gwen once you get there.

Electro.4173:

I prefer to craft the “tool sets” needed for the exotic back items when Daily Crafter comes up.

The 2nd-highest level of the tool set requires just 5 T5 refined crafting materials (mithril ingots, elder wood planks, ect), which is both relatively cheap AND something that most people should have lying around at any given time. With the leatherworker set being the cheapest.

Luck is cheaper (by which I mean its essentially free), but you probably need to do a bit of salvaging to get enough unless you have a stockpile of luck you haven’t refined recently.

Yep I’ve been saving a bit of luck on the side for these daily days so I already have it. It’s easy enough to save 4 green lucks or 2 yellow lucks.

Mental Paradox.3845:

To be honest, I don’t do dailies anymore.

I just don’t feel like doing what they want me to do, I guess I’m too used to being rewarded just for playing the game.

Your loss. The reward for doing the exotic crafter and nothing else is 3 ectos. Considering you get luck all the time anyway and it’s free its’ three free ectos.

That’s pretty rewarding compared to older dailies.

Fast day for the daily. All you need to do is complete a game of South Sun Survival or The Bell Choir (make sure you stay in the game until after the last round when the game ends and you’ll get credit).

Farming wood in Kryta. If you exit Lion’s Arch to the north and run down the path to the right, there are plenty of trees right there. Take you 3 minutes max.

Craft an exotic by saving up some luck from pretty much anything you salvage. Any artificer can do it. Even if you don’t have an artificer current. you can make a new one just to combine essences of luck. Alternately you can make your daily ascended crafting and that will count too.

Ten minutes, daily done.

Edit: PvE dailies, I should have mentioned.

Go for it. 15 chars

If you log in now, I’ll log in, just add Mythra Stark to your friend’s list.

I can give you a mini if you like.

munkiman.3068:

Ashen.2907:

If one is asking the questions, “why bother,” or some variation of, “what do we get out of it,” in regards to a community improvement volunteer program, whether in a game or in real life, then one should probably just walk away from the program and not look back.

One participates in such a volunteer program from a desire to help whatever community is involved. If one actually enjoys helping others in a situation such as this, finds the act of working toward the betterment of the community itself to be rewarding, then this sort of program is for you. Otherwise not.

I’m not of the assumption that this is a community improvement program. This is a business, looking for volunteers to do leg-work about feedback that may or may not make it into the game. That’s the continued stance that’s been taken all over the place. It’s also been said that devs read the forums a lot, is this program to eliminate that or lessen it? If so, why should people volunteer time, unofficially, to save them money so devs can do work instead of reading forums.

If i’m looking for this position, what is my motivation for giving my free-time to a business, especially so if i have no official capacity. Which ties into the question of whether or not an FS should even be publicly given a title. I already volunteer my time to the forums, i certainly don’t need to be here. What value is my role as an FS at that point? Gaile already said that my work holds no more weight than any other forumite, so what is it exactly that an FS does that improves the community?

It would be one thing if this was an intern program for a CM position. But, it just seems to me, given the information we’ve received that this is a cost cutting thing with the added benefit (a title) that appears to hold no merit for the volunteer, if anything they just put a giant target on their back. They are basically saying the feedback isn’t valuable enough to put people on staff. That seems like a real kick in the pants to me.

This is pretty cynical.

Let’s pretend that 10% of the forum suggestions are actually usable. A dev has to wade through 90% of the stuff he can’t use to get to the 10% he can use. I’m sure most of us would rather have the devs working on making content than looking through the forums trying to weed out stuff that can be used.

If I had the opportunity to take a dev away from that work so he could work on content, I’d happily do it free. Why?

Because that means he’d be doing what I want him to be doing and I’m here anyway. It would be worth my time.

Anything that gets people more involved in their hobby is a good thing in my book. What makes you think some people wouldn’t enjoy it? What makes you think some people won’t see this is an opportunity to help the community?

I can understand your view is yours, but it seems to say that there’s something intrinsically wrong with it. And I don’t believe there is.

You’re not missing out on a shiny per se. The rewards you used to get, with the exception of achievement points, have been moved to the login rewards. You get most of the rewards whether you do the daily or not.

Are you very into achievement points that you feel that you can’t skip days here and there?

naiasonod.9265:

zombyturtle.5980:

naiasonod.9265:

Not to attempt to put color blindness in the same boat as cancer, but Anet can’t even be bothered to throw in a colorblind recoloring option for for cursors and (way more importantly imo) ground effects and similar.

I wish it were otherwise, but if they care about the disabled population, its at the level of token sympathy, not actions.

But they did make changes to aid colourblind people..
They firstly changed the damage circle indicators from a solid red line to a wiggly red line so they were more movement based rather than colour.
Then they changed it again to a more solid block which should stand out better rather than a thin line.
I think both of these changes were suggested by colourblind people, at least the movement of the red circles was and anet acted on it.

As a colorblind person, I can safely say that (for me; not all that are colorblind are identically so) I couldn’t tell. The wiggling seems more like an art elaboration than much else to me. I could be wrong.

They should get a few colorblind people up there to help them refine that out some if you’re right, ‘cause honestly, I didn’t notice.

I’m colorblind and it’s in improvement for me. On the other hand, not all circles have been done over. I still have problems with guild rushes, where you have the old thin red circles on green grass for example.

But the more solid darker or more vivid new circles have helped me improve my gameplay immensely.

tigirius.9014:

One thing is not a slur and I use it often because it adequately describes why this game is in the state it’s in today (and why so many games have problems)…

Apologist.

When you have enough of these trying to play devils advocate you ruin the ability of customers to try to improve the game because apologists are able to send false messages to the development team that everything is perfectly fine. And I’m not talking of course of sensible arguments to thwart those who would constantly and consistantly try to break the game by making false claims, I’m talking about a genuine misuse of the excitement for a title to disuade any honest claims about where the game is heading when it’s indeed heading to a terrible place. Apologists have been responsible for breaking multiple games of late, ever since 2011 I’ve seen them allow tragedy to strike multiple MMO’s by sending the wrong message to developers, all because they took too much pride in something they didn’t make.

So while I agree that these words on your list are indeed slurs, let’s leave apologist off the list shall we so that we can be clear that there is a problem here when people become too prideful and allow bad things to happen to mmo’s by sending the wrong message to the developers and publishers about problems in the game that affect everyone negatively.

What’s the difference between an apologist and someone who likes a feature you don’t like? I like the NPE over all. That doesn’t make me an apologist (or a fan boy or anything else). It means I like the NPE.

When leveling with the NPE I feel I level faster and I feel the progression more than I used to. It could just be something as simple as that pop up at each level but regardless, it feels better to me.

If I like it better, and I state I like it better, how does that make me an apologist? At what point does someone become an apologist.

These words are used to discredit people not ideas and should not be part of the forums in my opinion.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

SO basically everything they did before launch… your list has not a single thing that came after launch… sounds about right

I agree with your list. I would also add that the CONCEPT of a story driven living world is something they got right.

The first year of festivals were also fun, the second year was decent as well. The third year got the rewards better, but the content is now stale.

The idea of fractals was also something they did well, but they killed them with their “revamp” and stopped adding new ones on a regular basis making them become stale as well.

Anet has very good ideas, they execution seems to fall flat sometimes though.

Logically speaking, they have five years to create a game. They’ve had two years since to add to it. That said there are several parts of the game that have been well received since launch. Now, they’re not all in the game at this time, which is part of the problem. I’d agree that the game’s foundation is amazing and that much of the best stuff comes from that foundation. But there have been quite a few good features since then.

If I’m not mistaken lots and lots of people enjoyed SAB, The Nightmare Tower, the Marionette fight and Escape from Lion’s Arch. I personally think the wardrobe is one of the best updates of the whole lot. And yes, there are people who really like the Living World, including me.

Fractals came out after launch and a lot of people seem to enjoy them. The fact that they came out and didn’t get huge updates well, you know.

There are a whole lot of people that like Edge of the Mists. I know some WvWers don’t, but a lot of other people do.

And there are plenty of people that really enjoy the Silverwastes and Dry top.

Not to mention the new jumping puzzle which a lot of people seem to enjoy.

But added content is not core features and core features is what makes the game. So obviously the stuff that they spent five years building without having to worry about fans in game would resonate most.

Nick.6972:

Is anyone actually really hyped about this?
Maybe it’ll be an interesting story update, but hyped, don’t think given their track record, but hey, please arena net, prove me wrong.

Yes there are people really hyped about this. There are people who really enjoy the living story. There are people who don’t see Anet’s track record the same way you do.

I love how people are so vested in their own view, they assume other people all feel like they do, when there is obvious evidence to the contrary…such as, I don’t know, people actually saying they’re hyped. lol

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Galen Grey.4709:

Ashen.2907:

I seem to recall the precursor thing as being, “absolutely,” in 2013, not last year. Even so I think the given reason for putting it on hold is perfectly valid. The reward system in GW2 is sufficiently poor as to make me want the company to be very careful when implementing any changes. I would much rather they got it right than see another trait change situation, “you guys asked for changes so here is something worse than you had before.”

I wouldn’t mind some updates in the precursor thing though. Its been over a year now.

They never said absolutely to anything infact quite the opposite both of those posts include a little disclaimer:
" As always, the content above is subject to change as we test and iterate on these systems."

actually last update on precusors was 9 months ago as far as I know:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/crafting/gw2-precursor-recipe-scavanger-hunt-news/first by Mark Katzback

“We want to let you know that the ability to build your precursor will not be in our upcoming Feature Pack. The way progression and rewards work in Guild Wars 2 have changed quite a bit since we initially talked about that feature, and our main horizontal progression systems are about to get some additional updates in the upcoming feature pack. Because of that, we are looking into several ways to integrate building your precursor into our new updated reward and progression systems we’re working on, which is requiring additional development time and iteration. As always, we’ll share details on this system once it’s far enough along in production we’re ready to discuss it.”

Wow that’s some pretty hard spin you got going on there…

Just to fill in the things you missed (probably too dizzy from all that spinning):

“We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds” -NOPE

“We’ll expand all crafting professions to allow them to reach a new milestone: 500 points!” – NOPE

" I can say is you will see a specific way to build precursor items on your way to a legendary." – NOPE

“On top of this, you will also see new legendary weapons and new types of legendary gear in 2013” – NOPE

“As these additional skills and traits are added, they’ll be automatically unlocked and available for competitive PvP just like all existing skills/traits work today.” – NOPE, gotta pay for them.

“we’re building a new comprehensive “level zero” optional tutorial that teaches the core basics of the game” -NOPE… forced, and tedious…

So yeah… a few more than 2 things… and the ones that veteran players most wanted were pretty much all trashed along the way…

What the veterans wanted? Can you give me percentages on that?

Many veterans already have legendaries and don’t care about percursor crafting. I’m working on my fifth.

I certainly don’t care if crafting goes up to 500. It’s nothing but a huge gold sink and I could do without it.

I’m sure many if not most people want more skills, however.

Anyway, things were added to the game that were never discussed. Like the account wardrobe. That’s better for me than anything else on that list.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Pretty sure I’ve got a post of Allie’s saved up somewhere where she clearly dismisses certain arguments because ‘1%’ is not representative of the playerbase as a whole (the number was referring to the forums in general; it was a reference made in a certain thread where users discussed the results of voting on a particular issue).

Seeing I won’t be getting an official clarification on that, it appears it’s still both a yes and a no, depending on the type of feedback under discussion.

Also, you might not have used the exact words (I don’t intend on scaning past posts to prove the opposite, at least), but the underlying meaning has always been present in your arguments in various shape and form.

Nope,. you’re pretty much wrong about that. It is my belief and I’ve said so many times that we’re all minorities here. That is, no one group probably has enough people in it to be an outright majority or even a hands down winner.

People who just PvP or Just WvW exist. But they’re probably not the majority of the playerbase. Even people who just PvE and do nothing else are probably not the majority of the playerbase…at least I don’t think they are.

People who run dungeons as a main source of content, definitely not the majority of the playerbase. People who demand vertical progression, not likely a major percentage of the playerbase.

My MO isn’t to say that you’re a minority as opposed to me being a majority. My MO, and this has always been my MMO, is to get people to talk for themselves and not some perceived group.

When I talk about what I like I use the phrase me and players like me, because there are players like me. But I don’t assume or imply that’s some kind of majority and I’ve even said I don’t think it is.

You’ve got the wrong guy.

Allelya.6830:

Dyonisian.8610:

I bought this game almost a month back now and I’ve barely played it. Couple hours spent on it, thats all. I was looking for an MMORPG because I’ve enjoyed them in the past. Played Runescape for years. Played SWTOR for a month and only stopped because I didn’t have much time on my hands. I enjoyed Runescape a LONG time ago, and SWTOR recently.

Did some research on MMOs, found this, saw great reviews, how its the MMO that breaks the norm of grinding, saw an awesome review by Angry Joe. In particular, he mentioned he couldn’t get into SWTOR despite the awesome concept because of the lack of interesting game play. He struck me as someone who was looking for an MMO experience that actually had a soul to it.

So I spend 35$ on this, start playing, and what do I get? Maybe a few minutes of interesting story and then hours of follow the arrow, kill stuff for WAY longer than should be necessary, level up, move on. Seriously? This is exactly what I was told this game DOESN’T have. Why do I have to spend 15 minutes dancing for cows and killing worms by spamming a key to fill up a bar?

Honestly this is the reason I hate spending money on games these days.

The only reason I’m still trying is because I feel guilty for spending money on this.

So please help me find ways to make this experience more “fun”, since the game refuses to do that for me. I discovered the random events already. Besides that so far I’m just following arrows and doing side quests that involve killing 20 of something. Does this end? When does this end? Is there any other alternative to progressing in the game and hopefully getting somewhere better? What else can I do except be the NPC’s kitten?

HONESTLY despite being a WoW clone I found SWTOR a lot more fun.

This is a completionists game. Clear all the zones, get all the achieves, do all the events, collect all the skins. That’s it. That is all there is to do in this game.
There’s no “progression”. The living story is a joke- the new zones are dreadful and boring. I stop in the forums once about every 3 months and the fanboys are still here while those of us who wised up are off playing something else.

P.S. The most they add to this game is in the Gem store. No content.

You don’t like the new zones. You don’t find them interesting. They’re neither dreadful or boring to some people.

And oddly enough, I used to be a completionist and this is the game that cured me of it. There are just things I know I won’t complete, so I don’t bother anymore.

KarlaGrey.5903:

You even formulated the sentences to signal it’s an asumption rather than fact, which is perfectly fine. It’s still guesswork thou.
I merely asked for a yes or no answer.
I could have taken the implicit ‘yes’ – atfer all, initiatives such as this probably wouldn’t be happening if forums were as negligable as some posters, both official and other, fancy them to be – but an official confirmation of ‘yes, they count/are an important source of feedback’ would be a rather strong argument against all the strawmen invoking the powers of ‘silent majority’ (which, just to remind, is often used by you yourself).
It seems unlikely that a definite answer will be given at this point though.

First of all I’ve almost never (perhaps never) used the words vocal minority or silent majority because I don’t like the implications of them.

But you will look for any angle to support your theory. If in fact, this forum has more than other forums, which have 1%, what are the odds that this forum has more than 50% participation? I’d say pretty low. That means that most players no matter what are no likely to be here. It’s a very simple calculation.

Even if we have ten times the number of forum posters as other typical forums, unlikely too, it would still only be 10% of the playerbase.

No company is going to come right out and say you guys don’t matter. It’s not going to happen. Given 1% is the industry average, and we know that we’re above the average, we can still pretty much assume less than 10% of the playing population post.

But the bottom line has always been, the most vocal forum members MAY NOT represent the bulk of people playing the game.

KyeXema.9370:

Dyonisian.8610:

I bought this game almost a month back now and I’ve barely played it. Couple hours spent on it, thats all. I was looking for an MMORPG because I’ve enjoyed them in the past. Played Runescape for years. Played SWTOR for a month and only stopped because I didn’t have much time on my hands. I enjoyed Runescape a LONG time ago, and SWTOR recently.

Did some research on MMOs, found this, saw great reviews, how its the MMO that breaks the norm of grinding, saw an awesome review by Angry Joe. In particular, he mentioned he couldn’t get into SWTOR despite the awesome concept because of the lack of interesting game play. He struck me as someone who was looking for an MMO experience that actually had a soul to it.

So I spend 35$ on this, start playing, and what do I get? Maybe a few minutes of interesting story and then hours of follow the arrow, kill stuff for WAY longer than should be necessary, level up, move on. Seriously? This is exactly what I was told this game DOESN’T have. Why do I have to spend 15 minutes dancing for cows and killing worms by spamming a key to fill up a bar?

Honestly this is the reason I hate spending money on games these days.

The only reason I’m still trying is because I feel guilty for spending money on this.

So please help me find ways to make this experience more “fun”, since the game refuses to do that for me. I discovered the random events already. Besides that so far I’m just following arrows and doing side quests that involve killing 20 of something. Does this end? When does this end? Is there any other alternative to progressing in the game and hopefully getting somewhere better? What else can I do except be the NPC’s kitten?

HONESTLY despite being a WoW clone I found SWTOR a lot more fun.

I’m also a new player, and i also came here because of Angry Joe, and i also played SWTOR for a month, whew, small world eh? Honestly i don’t understand what you’re saying, this game is such a breather from all other mmo’s ive played in my life (played quite a few) and none has even come close to what this one offers, i mean, Jumping mazes? vistas? random events? i had never seen that before, it was usually “Hello npc, want me to kill 10 bunnies? k” go and do it then comeback, i really apreciate the questing system, completly eliminated backtracking which was always a chore, in my time here i keep hearing how the old leveling system was better, it might just be, but this one is pretty good too….I don’t know mate, if this wasn’t different enough for you i got no idea what is.

PS-SWTOR only offered a cool story line and light sabers, besides that good luck pressing your hotkeys and standing still like a robot…that month was horrible.

I talk about this all the time, so thanks for posting your thoughts on this.

This game is not your typical MMO and that’s the reason I like it. That’s what makes it interesting and special, even unique.

Others say all the stuff done here has been done elsewhere, and that may or may not be true. But no one else has combined the features of this game together to make the product I’m playing. If they had, I might be playing that game and not this one.

It’s not a game for everyone. But I think there are enough of us to keep this game moving forward for a long, long time.

KarlaGrey.5903:

I preceed the paragraph intentionally with ‘if I understood that correctly’, yet you accuse me of ‘twisting everyone’s words’. Rather than ‘not understanding it correctly’, I am apparently deliberatly assigning false interpretations. A rather sound value judgement, and nothing less to be expected from the veteran of shady forum maneuvers.

I was asking for clarification on whether forums are being held as representative or not, but apparently she has not given quite that information.
As you’re not Gaile nor do you represent an(y) official source of information, you need not toss your guesswork as some sort of replacement answer for my perfectly legit question.
I also fail to see any relevance my question has with other mmos, which is why I’m not sure why reference thereto was made to start with.

I"m not tossing guesswork. You’re the one making the unwarranted assumption and asking if that’s true. There’s no reason to even pose the question the way you posed it, unless you were intending to steer the answer.

Why not just ask, so what percentage of the playerbase does post on these forums.

I’m pretty sure it’s not 50%. I’m relatively sure it’s not 25%. If the typical MMO has 1% and we have twice the number, we’d have 2%. Even if it were 10% it’s not a huge dent in the game’s population.

Tristar.2687:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Just leave it ?

You come here spouting nonsense , without evidense and then you tell me to drop the ball ?

Really ?

I’m not gonna review the past 3 years for you to be honest. That’s what happened:

1. They announce a roadmap. They never ever gave updates on that roadmap. After two years they blame a demanding community for not giving any updates on it even though it was their freaking roadmap.

2. Community expects results in the framework of the roadmap. The publisher does not deliver. Does not deliver at all (the roadmap did not only contain Pre crafting). That’s the point when I, as a project manager, would get fired. ASAP.

3. The publisher decides to change its communication policy and in an interview one of the developer justifies that step by calling it a toxic development between publisher and community.

4. State of today (and the past two years): No information. No announcements far ahead which causes kittenstorm after kittenstorm due to unneccesary changes nobody truly wanted for the game. Revenues get damaged too because of changes a lot of people I know do not purchase gems and don’t have any intention to anymore (NPE, gem conversion dilemma, new daily experience). Just examples.

That’s all I am gonna say about that ‘nonsense’. I’m not gonna respond to your provoking posts anymore.

I think you’re simplifying the situation.

Four years ago (maybe five by now) Anet came out with the MMO Manifesto. Four years later, people are still quoting it saying Anet broke promises, ignoring the fact that it was a) a manifesto and b) the parts they were quoting were open to interpretation or explained by Anet subsequently at the time.

This is one example. Anytime Anet says anything, fans hang on their every word. This fan base is like none I’ve seen for that. More detail oriented.

For example, at one point, Anet quotes they’re going to have precursor crafting early this year…well last year. At another point they say look it didn’t work because of changes we made to the reward system, so we’re back to the drawing board.

But with the exception of a couple of things like precursor crafting, we sort of do have some idea of what we’re getting at least with regard to Living Story which Anet has said was their focus at this time.

You may not like their focus, but they did say it.

When they’re ready with a road map that’s more ironed out than the last one, they’ll share it. There’s zero point in giving this community a roadmap that might change, because even though they said that anything can change in the last road map. a lot of people ignored that line and just focused on the fact that Anet “lied”.

Maybe if this community weren’t so prone to hyperbole, Anet would feel more comfortable talking about stuff that might not happen. But the community is not innocent in this, any more than Anet is.

Anet, in my opinion, has overreacted, but they were still reacting to something.

blakdoxa.7520:

Vayne.8563:

The only part of leveling new characters I don’t like is the trait system. I prefer the NPE however. I feel like characters level much faster.

And now, with the tomes I get in both PvP and even PvE, it’s less of a chore, assuming I want to use tomes to level. I hardly PvP at all as a percentage of time played, and I have over 40 level up scrolls.

But the trait system is admittedly frustrating. It means I’ll unlock or buy only what I need and not experiment with anything else.

Sorry to pick on you but I had to bold this part… Seems like Anet did what they wanted to accomplish.
For those that say it’s not bad… Of course it doesn’t feel bad if you’re going to just use tomes to skip all or the majority of the leveling. Actually experience. With a mesmer. All the way to 80.

I’ve leveled a mesmer since the patch all the way to 80 without using tomes or scrolls and I had little problem…but I’m very good on a mesmer. It was the second profession I leveled and the one I played the most. I surmise anyone who wasn’t intimately familiar with mesmers would be at a loss.

I don’t mind the leveling system as it stands now, except for the trait bit. The trait stuff I hate, because I have a lot of alts and I don’t want to buy traits on all of them, nor do I want to repeat the same specific content 20 times to unlock them all.

So I make less characters now.

It’s worse than it was, but it’s probably not as kittenome people make it out to be…except maybe if you’re leveling a mesmer. lol

@Stale when you say the devs repeatedly made claims and not followed through on them. How many are we actually talking about? Five? Six? Ten?

How many claims did they make that they did follow through on?

When I managed a store, I made thousands of decisions a week and if 10% of them were wrong, I was still considered a kitten good manager.

I don’t think anyone could be held to the standards that people try to hold developers too. I don’t think I could, anyway.

I don’t necessarily disagree with most of what you’ve said, but the implication that the devs have made all these promises or said all this stuff they haven’t delivered on is really just taking a handful of examples from hundreds of examples and trying to make them the rule.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Gaile Gray.6029:

KarlaGray — The comments about forum participation percentages do not represent Guild Wars 2 forum statistics but are industry numbers. Our forums are more active and include a larger percentage of accounts holders than the average game. We apologize for any misimpressions that that comment may have created.

Ty for the reply.
So if I understood that correctly (not quite certain what the part on industry numbers is referring to), it means forum feedback is treated as representative of the playerbase as a whole and not considered mere venting by the ‘vocal minority’.
I’ll be quoting you directly whenever I come across arguments backed up by those dubious numbers then, if you don’t mind.

@Tobias Trueflight, while I have nothing against Wiki, it ultimately comes down to how the phrase is typically used today, not how it was used in the past, and that usage is laid down in dictionaries and grammar books. Modern usage of language tends to differ from the past and is often subject to changes through use. Here’s a paragraph from the Oxford Online Dictionary on your concern:

The original meaning of the phrase beg the question belongs to the field of logic and is a translation of Latin petitio principii, literally meaning ‘laying claim to a principle’, i.e. assuming something that ought to be proved first, as in the following sentence: by devoting such a large part of the budget for the fight against drug addiction to education, we are begging the question of its significance in the battle against drugs. To some traditionalists this is still the only correct meaning. However, over the last 100 years or so another, more general use has arisen: ‘invite an obvious question’, as in some definitions of mental illness beg the question of what constitutes normal behaviour. This is by far the commonest use today and is the usual one in modern standard English.
(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/beg)

Thank you for the heads up, however. I wasn’t that well acquinted with the 2nd definition of the phrase until you brought it up.

So you not only twist everyone else’s words, you twist Gaile’s as well. Good job that.

They didn’t use the words that forum members are treated as representatives of the whole. All she said was these forums provide a higher participation rate than the average MMO.

Those two things don’t equate.

Basically, if they hear something from the forums and see something different when they look at metrics in game, I’m pretty sure the metrics will trump the forums.

It is entirely possible that a bigger percentage of the playerbase reads and or participates in this forum compared to other MMOs.

But since Gaile hasn’t stated what that percentage is, it’s still likely a minority and possibly a large minority.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Behellagh.1468:

You read the lack of a formal reply as being ignored. I’m sure they are well aware of it but simply aren’t in a position to do anything about it in the short term. That is they can’t simply revert it back. To many changes in too many places in common code to unscramble the egg so to speak.

Which is fine, but they haven’t said that. They said, at one point, that they might make minor changes, and asked for a tl;dr version of the months of feedback. Then they repeated this a few months later.

We still don’t know why the changes are there, or what they’re supposed to achieve (it obviously isn’t for the build diversity that the marketing suggested it was, as it achieves the exact opposite).

If they’d just account bind unlocks, this would have been done with months ago. But as it is they’ve left a fundamentally broken core system, that is actively repelling players, in place for nine months.

Account bind which unlocks. When I leveled a second character, I didn’t have vistas or skill points locked. What’s not unlocked now on your second go through?

tolunart.2095:

Vayne.8563:

What some see as a problem, I see as a design decision.
.

Psychology also plays a role. It’s well known that the design of a classic MMO involves the “Skinner Box” – the company wants the players of the MMO to stay subbed as long as possible so they set up the game to offer the reward periodically to keep players repeating the content while the devs prepare the next installment of content.

Players don’t run dungeons and raids because they love to play “jump out of the red circle,” they do it because there’s LOOT in it. The best loot typically comes at the end, so you have to fight your way to the last boss to get it. If the good stuff came with the first or second boss then a lot of players will go that far and quit. Like when daily/weekly quests require players to kill a boss partway through a dungeon, groups will form until they complete the quest, then fall apart. Because the focus isn’t on enjoying the dungeon they’ve already run through 100 times, the focus is on the reward that comes with completing the daily/weekly.

Anet has tried to shift the focus from the loot to the experience, but with only partial success. Most traditional MMO players remain focused on their Skinner Box Loot, and get upset if they keep pushing the button without getting a big enough reward to keep them interested. It’s the reason why saving up their pennies to buy a precursor from the TP is seen as unrewarding, and why Anet’s plan for “precursor crafting” would likely get the same reaction. They are not interested in a progress bar with a precursor at the end, they want the endorphin rush that comes from opening a chest and seeing DUSK appear.

But that’s it exactly. Most traditional MMO players have a bevy of choices if that’s the style of game they want. That’s particularly not the style of game I want, which is why I’m here.

I really hope that this game doesn’t end up like every other game out there, because the only reason I’m here is because I like this game better than those games. It’s one of the few alternatives out there.

Tristar.2687:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

Tristar.2687:

Galen Grey.4709:

and then people wonder why arenanet decided to keep communication to a minimum.

You mean why they managed to announce a roadmap back then and never gave us any updates on it for over a year so the community got pretty mad about the silence (understandable).

And then they had the audacity to call the community toxic as a consequence of their major mistakes?

Then change their communication policy dramatically to everyones disadvantage (Arenanet’s revenue suffered from it, I would bet on it) and blame it on the community?

Where does that relate to harmless ironic posts in this thread after the disaster ArenaNet wants to sell us as communication? For almost 2 years now.

When did they say that the ‘’community is toxic’’ ?
And when tey say it they ‘’blame the community’’ ?
kitten kids , spouting nonsense 24/7 ……

They did say it while defending their communication policy. Too lazy to research the article now. And they stated that a consequence of multiple community reactions lead to their change in policy.

What does that have to do with kids? I’m 25 years old.

My kid is 26 year’s old. But he’s still a kid. You’ll understand when you’re older. lol

Saying that the way the community reacted is the reason and saying it’s toxic are completely different things. Did Anet actually use the word toxic, or are you “interpreting” for them?

Pockets.3201:

Vayne.8563:

According to the last NCsoft report (the company that owns Anet), Guild Wars 2 is still making money. There have been no lay offs. The company is still hiring. We’re still getting regular updates.

Companies that are about to close their game usually lay off people and stop making more content. What’s the point of making more content if you’re closing? Why not just fire those devs?

This game isn’t anywhere near closing.

That is not totally true.

City of Heroes was still making money and still making new content when NCsoft killed it.

Hell, they never got to release Issue 24.

It wasn’t make a lot of money though. Look at where it was on the scale of NCsoft’s other projects at the time. And no one really knew if it was making a profit. That’s another thing. Guild Wars 2 is performing to expectations. NcSoft has said as much. Obviously City of Heroes was performing below expectations. In public companies, sometimes expectations are everything.

Edit: Anyway it is true because I used the word usually. If you look at 90% plus of the MMOs that closed, I’m pretty sure you’ll see what what I said was usually true.

All any MMO really is is just a list of things to do. If you like doing the things then that MMO will resonate with you. If you don’t like doing them, the MMO will not resonate with you.

I don’t enjoy raiding so in a game that game out with six raids a year wouldn’t do anything for me.

I do enjoy WvW and some PvP, which helps keep things fresh. And I do enjoy mini games as well. South Sun survival is fun as hell sometimes.

I make goals for myself. Right now I’m working on crafting a legendary, arachnophobia and mad moon. A got other things on my list when I finish those three.

I’m mostly working on getting the skins I like the most, both weapon and armor skins.

Also working on the PvP armor.

According to the last NCsoft report (the company that owns Anet), Guild Wars 2 is still making money. There have been no lay offs. The company is still hiring. We’re still getting regular updates.

Companies that are about to close their game usually lay off people and stop making more content. What’s the point of making more content if you’re closing? Why not just fire those devs?

This game isn’t anywhere near closing.

tolunart.2095:

Vayne.8563:

And to think I posed that as a rhetorical question. lol

Rhetorical questions have always bothered me. If I ask a question, it’s because I have a question I want answered. If I already knew the answer, I’d make a statement instead, not a question. Know what I mean?

I do know what you mean. But sometimes we learn more from questions than statements. A statement is something you make and someone then has to agree or disagree with it. But a rhetorical question asks a person to draw their own conclusion and the speaker is assuming it will be there same as theirs.

A rhetorical question can lead to less automatic argument. Know what I mean? lol

What some see as a problem, I see as a design decision.

In most MMOs you end up playing only in the top tier zones. There’s a very small percentage of the world where you can get the best drops. Anet has made it so you can get the best drop in the game almost anywhere. Queensdale, WvW, EoTM even PvP. That means that you have to get those great drops less often. It’s the only way to make it so that everyone has a chance.

If Anet increases drop rates of rare items that make money, and everyone had more money than the inflation would be much higher and everything would cost more money.

I’ve said more than once to people that this is a game if trickles. You don’t count on that big drop because you might not get it. But there are plenty of ways to have a steady stream of income coming into your account.

The problem is people want it faster than the game will deliver.

The idea that you don’t get the best rewards is a design decision that makes this game what it is. If they changed the game so the best drops came from the hardest content, there’d be a lot less people playing I think.

By design only a small percentage of people ever do the hardest content. And yes, you might think it’s fair that that small percentage of people get the best rewards.

But since the largest percentage of the people won’t do the hardest content, that leaves us with the largest percentage of people feeling unrewarded.

There isn’t any way I can think of to reward people equally and to give away great drops to everyone frequently. This is a better system for me, even though it’s often not as exciting as a game where you can get that great drop more easily.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne.8563:

But there’s no harm in getting input from here as well, is there?

. . . I’m cautious, but I’d say “yes, there can be”.

Getting input just means that. It doesn’t mean they have to act on it. More information is better than less information…unless you have information overload. Which is why more people scanning the forums for useful posts is probably beneficial in my opinion.

And to think I posed that as a rhetorical question. lol

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Vayne.8563:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Does it though? Does it really help new players? If it even confuses veteran players like me and make it harder for us then how the heck is this supposed to help new players?

I don’t know many new players, but I know one, and I know he is super confused with the NPE. He just couldn’t understand how/why he had so much trouble defeating a lvl 9 bandit as a level 9 guardian. He started blaming himself. I told him it wasn’t his fault and I told him about the “thresholds” and that at lvl 9 you’re really just lvl 4. Then he was even more confused.

I would really like to hear input from other new players who started playing after the NPE. I don’t think the NPE achieved what Anet hoped it would achieve.

Well I know some people that tried the game before the NPE, tried it after, and found it much easier to figure out the second time. But I also know some people that found it confusing.

The thing was, originally, there was no real guidance of where to go and what to do. The NPE also includes that nifty arrow, and that helps lots of people. Some people really do want to just follow an arrow around it seems.

No real guidance? Are you kidding me?

So scouts and hints and mail notifications about new content you unlocked isn’t real guidance? LOL okay….

I’m by no means an MMO expert (I only really played 2 MMOs, WoW and GW2) yet I thought vanilla GW2 already had too much hand-holding at the start of the game. It most certainly didn’t need even more hand-holding (though the new compass is nice, I’ll give you that).

Besides, you forget to address my biggest complaint, the arbitrary “stat thresholds” and needlessly hiding class mechanics until I reach a certain level. How is this supposed to help anyone?

I don’t notice the stat thresholds, I do fine either way, so I’ll take your word for it that its’ a problem. It wasn’t a problem for me on the four professions I’ve leveled since the NPE.

That leaves the hand hold comments. You know, if you took half a minute to read the players helping players forums, or the reddit forums, you’d have seen a whole bunch of posts by people who were lost. Nevermind scouts and whatnot. Really lost.

In WoW and almost every other MMO you have breadcrumb quests that take you right to an NPC with a mark over their head, telling you to do a quest what appears as an star on your map. It’s breadcrumb all the way through. You don’t just wander around.

Hearts weren’t even supposed to be in this game, and they were added because people couldn’t figure out what to do. Really. There was a test player running by a burning field and the dev nearby said why didn’t you go and help out and the player said, because I didn’t have a quest to do it.

You act like this sort of organic dynamic event system is a thing that everyone can easily grasp. It’s not and never has been. Without that arrow, people floundered…and not just a few people. People who came from other MMOs specifically didn’t get it…and some still don’t.

Anyone who read the players helping players forum can tell you there were always posts about people not understanding where to go or what to do to level.

You had the other side too, people posting about following the story line and then being underleveled and not realizing the personal story wasn’t the only or main quest line, because the main core of the game was supposed to be DEs.

Serophous.9085:

Vayne.8563:

Interesting opinion OP. I can see where you’re coming from. The only one I’m not sure about is 3.

I’m not sure that depth and breaks should even be listed together really. They’re different things.

But it’s a pretty fair list of the five things about the game I like the least. I suppose in all fairness there are more things I like than dislike but there are definitely things I dislike.

My own list would look like this.

5. The way the personal story was changed in the NPE.
4. The introduction of Ascended Gear
3. Lack of strong guild features (among them inability to send a message to everyone in the guild)
2. The New Trait System
1. The Communication Policy

Some of the things in my list could broken down into other lists, but I felt at least that because of the pieces working together, it can hurt as a whole, so I based my decisions on that.

As for the red mark, I’m OK with there really not being a post. I would’ve liked to hear whosever thought it was, but I’m satisfied knowing this was read, which is all some of us want.

I guess what it meant was, I’d expect more depth with even more longer breaks. That is to say, the shorter the time frame for each chapter, the less depth it would be likely to have. But that’s just my thought on it.

Interesting opinion OP. I can see where you’re coming from. The only one I’m not sure about is 3.

I’m not sure that depth and breaks should even be listed together really. They’re different things.

But it’s a pretty fair list of the five things about the game I like the least. I suppose in all fairness there are more things I like than dislike but there are definitely things I dislike.

My own list would look like this.

5. The way the personal story was changed in the NPE.
4. The introduction of Ascended Gear
3. Lack of strong guild features (among them inability to send a message to everyone in the guild)
2. The New Trait System
1. The Communication Policy

I really don’t like threads like this. I find them unnecessarily judgmental. They end up being rallying points for people who like the game under fire and frankly, I don’t think that any good can come of it. It’s not constructive.

Every game has issues…Guild Wars 2 included.

But I can’t see anything positive coming from this thread.

Game still has plenty of people playing..and a lot of people got it for Christmas, so you’re certainly not too late.

KarlaGrey.5903:

This is all fine and dandy (after all, the devs don’t have time to dig through hundreds of pages to weed out ‘contructive posts’ from the rest), but the entire idea first begs the question, or rather a clarification of a self-contradicting phenonenom commonly noted in controversial threads – are the forums representative (enough) of the playerbase to warrant all the effort put into this?
After all, based on official statements over the span of time, it is but 1% of total playerbase that posts, and less than 10% that actually reads.
In the same breath, however, these same forums are touted as the main source of player input for the devs (the closest thing to a PTR, if you will), with this initiative being the first tangible ‘proof’ of Anet’s interest to consolidate and make something of all the ‘constructive feedback’.

So, are the forums not representative enough (common argument against negative feedback), or are they actually a pretty good and accurate source of information as regards ‘constructive feedback’.
Moreover, defining exactly what Anet understands under ‘contructive’ would perhaps in place, too, because different people find different things constructive (I, for example, find the thread on Lost Potential really constructive).

Oh yea, the forum slave…specialists shouldn’t get any special tags, as they don’t have any special rights or powers (on paper, at least).

Why is this like an off/off switch? Even if only a minority of people post on the forums (which we know to be true) doesn’t mean that there are some good ideas on the forums. Creative people take good ideas from wherever they come from.

It’s like publishers slush piles…unsolicited, unagented manuscripts. Publishers get a thousand a month easy. Well over 900 of them aren’t good enough quality to even think about publishing, so they hire first readers to get rid of them. At the end of they day, they maybe get fifty manuscripts from the slush pile to look at, almost all of which will end up rejected.

Anet can set up a system with first readers to get some good ideas without making the forums the be all end all of information.

Anet will get information from a number of sources, including the forums. They also go into the game incognito and listen to our conversations, they have metrics to track player movements, they look at reddit as well.

But there’s no harm in getting input from here as well, is there?

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Vayne.8563:

if it helps some new people so be it.

Does it though? Does it really help new players? If it even confuses veteran players like me and make it harder for us then how the heck is this supposed to help new players?

I don’t know many new players, but I know one, and I know he is super confused with the NPE. He just couldn’t understand how/why he had so much trouble defeating a lvl 9 bandit as a level 9 guardian. He started blaming himself. I told him it wasn’t his fault and I told him about the “thresholds” and that at lvl 9 you’re really just lvl 4. Then he was even more confused.

I would really like to hear input from other new players who started playing after the NPE. I don’t think the NPE achieved what Anet hoped it would achieve.

Well I know some people that tried the game before the NPE, tried it after, and found it much easier to figure out the second time. But I also know some people that found it confusing.

The thing was, originally, there was no real guidance of where to go and what to do. The NPE also includes that nifty arrow, and that helps lots of people. Some people really do want to just follow an arrow around it seems.

Beldin.5498:

Vayne.8563:

Rift had one single epic quest line that took you through every dungeon and culimated in a raid. That was it. It because very obvious to me that Rift was trying to funnel every player into raids, but I didn’t want to raid. It doesn’t interest me. I don’t find it fun. And I don’t want to depend on 20 people to maybe have a good time.

That was also just “stolen” from EQ2. I even did that epic line in EQ2 classic but it
was already a big pita how much time we wasted wiping at Darathar each week,
and the first group finally even disbanded without ever beating him, and then
finally someone postet the trick in the forums and we managed it with another
group of people.
However 1 month or so after i finally had my epic weapon we got the first addon
and that already invalidated alle the hours i wasted into that.

Rift also stole the lore from Aion with barely any changes, without even bothering to change the name of the “good” capitol city. lol

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Vayne.8563:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Well i died today on my level 9 guardian to two or 3 scale monsters. How is that related to NPE? Well, maybe if I had my virtue of resolve (passive regen), first slot skill (sword of justice for example) and most of all my downed skills fully unlocked it would go differently.

But no, game wants to make this easier on me, but taking away my ability to properly defend myself at earlier levels when i screw up with my first 4 skills (cause 5th is still locked at lvl 9).

How is this better then the old system that gave me freedom far earlier and let me battle with with all my downed skills available from the start? You figure it out, i’m writing this off as abomination of a change that should be removed a.s.a.p.

You’re right. Anet really didn’t think this through. Right now you should always stick to content that’s at least 4 levels below your current level or else it will be much harder.

Before the NPE I could easily finish the starter map (for example Queensdale) on a new character without much trouble. I would usually fight against mobs 1 or 2 levels higher than me but that wasn’t an issue, it was doable. Then at the end of Queensdale I’d be roughly lvl 13, that’s 2 levels below the recommended level for Kessex Hills but again, no biggie, with proper gear, weapon swap and all my class abilities available I could easily handle it.

Now, after the NPE, I struggle going through the content designed for my own level. I can no longer do Queensdale in 1 sitting because right now I can barely kill enemies my own level, nevermind enemies 2 or 3 levels above me. I’m forced to do bits and pieces of the other starter maps to level up more quickly and then stick to content that is below a few levels my character level until I reach lvl 31. Only after lvl 31 does this problem somewhat go away, but the first 30 levels are a pain in the butt to go through now. lvl 1 to 15 are the worst.

I’ve yet to struggle through any content with an NPE profession of any class. I mean people have been complaining for ages that the game is too easy in the open world. Add a modicum of challenge (and that’s all it is) and suddenly people are up in arms.

I’ve leveled 4 characters after the NPE, including a mesmer and necro and had very few problems with any of them. At times it might have seems a bit more challenging, but only a bit…and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

I do dungeon/factals speedruns on a daily basis and I know Arah like the back of my hand. I’m more than familiar with the mechanics of this game and the most difficult PvE content of this game. I’m not a newbie nor am I incompetent by any means.

I agree that GW2 is too easy. But does making the early game content frustratingly limited by removing 90% of all the mechanics from the early game fix that?

I’m all for more difficult content or increasing the difficulty of the game, but not in the (unintentional?) way Anet chose with the NPE. Taking away previously available mechanics and redistributing stat gains to arbitrary and confusing “thresholds” is not challenging or fun in way, it’s simply frustrating and kittening off both new and veteran players.

What’s next? Taking away our number 6 heal skill until you reach a certain level? How about removing the dodging mechanikittenil you reach a certain level? Would you support that? Would that make the game more challenging in a fun way?

You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Considering I get to level 15 in less than an hour and a half, this is just a non-issue. It’s easy and fast to get to level 15 when most of the locked stuff is unlocked.

On top of that, we now get level up scrolls just for logging in, as well as PvP.

Is it a minor inconvenience for many people? I’m sure it is.

But since 1.5 hours is only a tiny percentage of a character’s lifespan, it’s hard to really imagine it being that big a deal. It’s fast, you get through it, if it helps some new people so be it.

Beldin.5498:

What i’m really interested to know is how many players FFXIV does have in the west,
since if we count the eastern market, that is still very different, we then have also to
talk about Lineage I + II and Aion for example.
However in the west L2 was celebrating 64k users when i played it while it had over
2 millions subscribers in the east, and was at that time (before WoW release) the most
successful MMO ever.

It’s not as high as people are saying. Last April the game hit 2 million registered accounts total. I’m pretty sure Guild Wars 2 is as or more successful. That said, because of the subscription fee it’s likely that FF makes more money over all.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think Guild Wars 2 dungeons are par or sub par. I never implied it.

Alright. I somehow get the idea from your previous post dungeon just aren’t important in this game.

Maybe I’m reading too much over the line.

I generally really like dungeon in this game. And many of my guild mates do too.

You have to understand, in most MMOs, dungeons are what you do at max level period. Dungeons and raids.

Rift had one single epic quest line that took you through every dungeon and culimated in a raid. That was it. It because very obvious to me that Rift was trying to funnel every player into raids, but I didn’t want to raid. It doesn’t interest me. I don’t find it fun. And I don’t want to depend on 20 people to maybe have a good time.

I wanted more open world stuff. When I was playing that stuff wasn’t really supported. The currency from open world dynamic events was planarite. I’d already hit the cap for it, but there was nothing to buy with it anyway. There was simply no reason to do the open world stuff and many people ignored it.

I wanted a game that centered around the open world because that’s what I prefer. In Guild Wars 2, the dungeons aren’t a game requirement for most things. I can get max level gear without ever entering a dungeon if I want. That’s the difference I’m looking for.

I can go to any zone I enjoy to level or even just run around on my 80 and still get some rewards at level. You can’t do that in most MMOs.

Knighthonor.4061:

Beldin.5498:

Vayne.8563:

I do believe (as in this is my belief), that most players log into the game, kill some stuff, farm some stuff and log off, without ever visiting the forums or ever being aware of the deeper issues.

That doesn’t mean that’s said on the forums has not value. But it doesn’t mean that what’s said on the forums has absolute value either.

Just for the numbers .. our german CM postet a while ago that only 1% of the player
post at the forums, and 7% read them.

So really 1% only post .. and i think it don’t really need much proof to say that people
go to the forums either if they have problems with the game like bugs, or simply that
they dislike parts of it .. or they are really dedicated to the game and those are more
often the so called “hardcore” gamers.

I hear this argument all the time. So tired of it. It’s BS!
SWTOR forum had lots of bad talk. But was the the vocal minority? Because that game went F2P within a year after release…
What about Warhammer? That game shut down. Guess that was also the vocal minority on the forum there giving feedback that wasn’t praise.
What about Rift, or Darkfall, etc?

I guess the developers had a reason to ignore that “vocal minority”,,,, and we see that results of it…

This is terrible logic. Every MMO that fails or succeeds has crappy negative forums. They’re all filled with complaints, unless they sensor their forums. It’s relatively normal.

Not every MMO failed, though, even the ones with a lot of negative comments. So you can’t say those games failed because they didn’t listen.

In fact, there may well be some games that failed because they did listen.

There doesn’t, in fact, seem to be any correlation between the quality of a game and what is posted on its forums.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

Completely irrelevant though. The game you’re describing is still a trinity game, based around dungeons and raids for the most part and for a lot of us, we’re here to get away from that.

ok GW2 dont’ have raids, I grow to accept that.

But are you suggesting GW2 dungeon are subpar or suppose to be subpar to other games?

I’m saying I don’t want to play a trinity game. I don’t like fixed roles. I’ve never particularly liked dungeons anyway, because I wanted an MMO I could play for the open world instead of instances. I mean the thing that defines an MMO is the open world. Lots of games have instances that aren’t MMOs.

So why should the focus of games be on dungeons and raids, which are instanced content? It wasn’t what I wanted and it is one of the reasons I’m here.

If you mean people can get good gear without doing dungeon, “that’s fine”. So people aren’t forced to do it if they don’t want.

But it’s a bit disheartened if you mean GW2 dungeon is subpar. Especially hearing from someone who is so passionate on defending GW2 for the past 2 years.

I don’t think Guild Wars 2 dungeons are par or sub par. I never implied it. I personally prefer running dungeons without a trinity. There are some dungeons I like better than others, but I’ve not played dungeons in FF XIV. However, I have played Trinity dungeons in other games (including Rift, WoW and Lotro).

In general, I don’t enjoy the trinity as much. For me it’s a matter of feeling contrived. Imagine how stupid Lord of the Rings would have been if Frodo was never in danger. People would only attack Boromir and Gandalf would heal him. To me, that’s all about the mechanics and not about the game.

Now in Guild Wars 2, a lot of people stack and kill stuff. That feels just as cheesy to me and I dont’ like it.

The difference is, I can run Guild Wars 2 dungeons in a group with people without stacking, and yes, it’s harder and takes longer, but that I prefer.

You can’t do that in most games with dungeons unless you’ve outleveled those dungeons, at which point it’s just as cheesy (to me).

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

Completely irrelevant though. The game you’re describing is still a trinity game, based around dungeons and raids for the most part and for a lot of us, we’re here to get away from that.

ok GW2 dont’ have raids, I grow to accept that.

But are you suggesting GW2 dungeon are subpar or suppose to be subpar to other games?

I’m saying I don’t want to play a trinity game. I don’t like fixed roles. I’ve never particularly liked dungeons anyway, because I wanted an MMO I could play for the open world instead of instances. I mean the thing that defines an MMO is the open world. Lots of games have instances that aren’t MMOs.

So why should the focus of games be on dungeons and raids, which are instanced content? It wasn’t what I wanted and it is one of the reasons I’m here.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Well i died today on my level 9 guardian to two or 3 scale monsters. How is that related to NPE? Well, maybe if I had my virtue of resolve (passive regen), first slot skill (sword of justice for example) and most of all my downed skills fully unlocked it would go differently.

But no, game wants to make this easier on me, but taking away my ability to properly defend myself at earlier levels when i screw up with my first 4 skills (cause 5th is still locked at lvl 9).

How is this better then the old system that gave me freedom far earlier and let me battle with with all my downed skills available from the start? You figure it out, i’m writing this off as abomination of a change that should be removed a.s.a.p.

You’re right. Anet really didn’t think this through. Right now you should always stick to content that’s at least 4 levels below your current level or else it will be much harder.

Before the NPE I could easily finish the starter map (for example Queensdale) on a new character without much trouble. I would usually fight against mobs 1 or 2 levels higher than me but that wasn’t an issue, it was doable. Then at the end of Queensdale I’d be roughly lvl 13, that’s 2 levels below the recommended level for Kessex Hills but again, no biggie, with proper gear, weapon swap and all my class abilities available I could easily handle it.

Now, after the NPE, I struggle going through the content designed for my own level. I can no longer do Queensdale in 1 sitting because right now I can barely kill enemies my own level, nevermind enemies 2 or 3 levels above me. I’m forced to do bits and pieces of the other starter maps to level up more quickly and then stick to content that is below a few levels my character level until I reach lvl 31. Only after lvl 31 does this problem somewhat go away, but the first 30 levels are a pain in the butt to go through now. lvl 1 to 15 are the worst.

I’ve yet to struggle through any content with an NPE profession of any class. I mean people have been complaining for ages that the game is too easy in the open world. Add a modicum of challenge (and that’s all it is) and suddenly people are up in arms.

I’ve leveled 4 characters after the NPE, including a mesmer and necro and had very few problems with any of them. At times it might have seems a bit more challenging, but only a bit…and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

IcarusMelody.5312:

Vayne.8563:

My dislike for FFXIV isn’t just the game revolving around traditional quest hubs and raiding mentality (which personally sucks for me. I wouldn’t play it for free, nevermind pay monthly for it).

But even more than that, I get dialogue from strangers that say “I can tell by how you’re dressed that you’re an adventurer”. People say the dialogue in Guild Wars 2 is bad, but at least in Guild Wars 2, when I’m just starting out, I’m not “an adventurer”. I’m not just some random guy looking to make a name for myself.

Just playing those first few hours in FFXIV (when I’d already been level 15 in Guild Wars 1) and just listening to the inane NPCs that are beyond generic to me, it just makes me feel like I’m wasting my time.

I mean yes, I can go kill 3 giant lady bugs and then go back to the quest giver and get my reward…but why would I want to.

Guild Wars 2 still feels organic to me when I play it. FFXIV feels completely contrived.

XIV is as quest centric as you wanted it to be. You can literally just run the main scenario and dungeons to go from 1-50. I did it 3x on separate characters. First at launch,then with my brother, and later some friends.Dungeons teach you how to play with others. Teamwork is what made MMO’s great and addicting for me personally and despite how much GW2 likes to bunch up strangers it hardly requires it.

Triple wurm, and tequatl are also basically washed down versions of raid encounters that casual players can do in XIV.Except you do it with 24 players so its naturally more engaging because your actions matter much more than fighting it with 99 other randoms.New players might feel the game is stagnant/archaic in combat but any piece of the endgame would convince them wrong immediately.

That being said anyone with little to no experience with XIV still doesnt have 2cents worth noting. Not to mention the writing in XIV is definitely better and wittier where it matters; the story. GW2 doesnt have quest dialogue for a comparison anyways but I bet you’re still hearing the same 4-8 one liners from different npcs across Tyria.

I say the same to XIV players who say absurd statements about GW2 like: “I installed GW2,laughed, and uninstalled 10 mins later”. And thats fine and dandy thats there choice but also their loss.I Give credit where its due. GW2 did a hell of lot right and I still encourage friends to give it another try (because they basically did the above.)but how its being managed is so disheartening.

Anet had a year headstart on launch and Yoshida’s passion for improving and delivering XIV passed them up in no time in quality updates. They listen to their players and are open with their future plans.No signs of slowing down, they’re not taking breaks every other update. They create polls for what new things should take priority outside steady content. Not to mention every Primal they introduce amazing boss themes and is akin to adding another Giganticus Lupicus encounter which I thought Anet would’ve tried to 1up by now but go figure.

TL;DR -No MMO gives you the best they have to offer in 2-3 hours. GW2 doesnt either.
XIV has a bright and exciting future.
GW2 : Anet wont say.

Completely irrelevant though. The game you’re describing is still a trinity game, based around dungeons and raids for the most part and for a lot of us, we’re here to get away from that.

My experience is the opposite. I had nothing but problems with logitech mice, including the G600 and only ended up happy after I switched over to Razr.