Guild Wars 2

tigirius.9014:

Vayne.8563:

Lord Kuru.3685:

LOL. Looks like the poll backfired on the OP.

Didn’t backfire at all, mate. Not even a tiny bit.

Nope it revealed exactly what a PTR would have revealed, that people don’t like these changes and would rather they work on what’s really wrong with the game.

A PTR. So no game with a PTR ever implemented something that didn’t go over well with the fans? LMAO.

Okay, whatever you say.

The fact is, and this is FACT, it wouldn’t have mattered if the public test server showed this to be unpopular, because Anet didn’t implement this change completely for it to be popular. They packaged it to try to make it less invasive, but gaining new people from free weekends > than a percentage of people not liking it.

Do you know the warrior changes are unpopular to warriors too. But you know the other seven professions are quite happy.

PTR. Yes, solves all problems. No game with PTR has ever been unsuccessful.

In fact, how many games with PTRs are more successful than Guild Wars 2? How many games with PTRs are less succesful.

Edited Edit: Rift had PTR almost from the beginning. Came out with a big PvP update. In this update, they made long term PvP players so powerful they were virtually unkillable. Made the game unplayable for anyone else. Huge backlash from the fan base. Where was the PTR then?

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Your right. The debate isn’t going anywhere, because you’re stuck in a mindset that says gating = bad, even though gating existed in the game. Now you’re saying gating necessary skills. Well weapon swap is a necessary skill and it’s always been gated. It just wasn’t necessary at level 7. And controlling a pet isn’t necessary until level 5, or at least it certainly wasn’t for me.

But more to the point, you’re still saying this is bad for new players and old players, but there’s no actual evidence of that. Anet has tested this out and they seem to think it’s better for new players to the game. They could be right, they could be wrong.

But the tendency of people to think that most people play like them comes to mind here. I know for a fact that I don’t need any level gating at all and I’ll still learn a game. I know for a fact also my IQ is well above average, I’m a self starter and that I can figure things out without a clue.

I have a friend who cuts down trees for a living. Well and other landscaping jobs. He used to play GW 1 with me no problem. Linear, tutorial, the whole bit. He has no problem playing DDO which is considerably more complex. But he comes into Guild Wars 2 and he doesn’t really know what to do. He’s not having fun. Why? because hes’ the guy who LIKES to follow the arrow, of which there are many. He’s come home from work, he’s had a few beers, he wants to go kill stuff.

He’s not the only guy like that, not by a long shot. If you were a company would you want to cut off every player like that?

Life is about compromises. You can’t have it all. You can’t make a game really hard for guys like me and still have enough people to keep it viable long term. Wildstar launched to appeal to hard core raiders and dungeon guys and it’s reportedly very hard. It’s also not doing as well as expected. It’s so bad in fact that they’re already offering free server mergers and saying a megaserver is coming and asking people who like the game to hang in there. That’s a bad look for a two month old game.

We’re not the rule. We’re the exception. We don’t need gating or hand holding. Many do. Those people are necessary to keep decent sized games running in this day and age. Even Eve, which is the most successful sandbox MMO to date has just had to close it’s California office.

Realistically, the bit of inconvenience I’m getting from it is worth the chance for new people like my friend who will spend money in the gem store and he’ll happily run around shooting stuff…even if he never beats Arah explorable mode or gets to a high level fractal.

I find it hard to believe that you can think that the mere existence of those buttons they dont have to use would cause your friend, and others to quit the game.
its one thing not knowing what a button does, its another thing for it to cripple you and cause you to uninstall.

for someone who doesnt understand the buttons, but doesnt like mousing over things and reading, they wont press any f1-f4 pet abilities, for those that do, they find fun new abilities they can use.

Once again this isnt about needing these skills to survive, this is about having access to skills that will probably be of some entertainment to you.

Hey, i can make my pet attack something before i attack something
hey i can make my pet attack whatever target i want
hey i can make my pet come back

and if you cant figure this out, you are playing the same exact way that you would be if you couldnt see the buttons.

there is no benefit to your new friend that those buttons dont exist, i dont believe that your friend was scared by its existence.

so there really isnt a logical reason that anyone should be denied 27 minutes of a more fun experience, for your friends benefit, because honestly he gained no benefit from skill locking f skills to level 5.

he may like a shiny shaky box, and he may like new gear, but he didnt gain anything by not having access to those skills for 5 levels.

Of course I don’t think “the mere existence of those buttons” would cause my friend to quit the game. But that argument is quite spurious.

The mere existence of too much too fast PERIOD would cause my friend to quit the game. You got to cut out something for him. Deliver stuff slower. Because he takes in stuff slower.

If you show many people a lot of options they close down, because it looks hard. This isn’t just guesswork, this is fact. Not all people, but some people. The more you show them, they harder it becomes.

If you’re teaching people computers, it’s easier to teach them with fewer icons on the screen, not because it’s easier or harder (they won’t be using advance icons anyway) but because psychologically the game feels more complex to them.

That’s why you limit information and take stuff off the map. Anet must have learned this during testing, because I’ve known it for years.

Cheiron the Centaur.1829:

Vayne.8563:

Why do you think it’s bad that they did this?

Experienced players tend to have enough skill points they can consume to buy whatever they want. New players tend to get what’s given to them and don’t look for a new skill point every level.

By the time you’re level 40, you generally have bought all the 1 point skills you need anyway, so 1 skill point isn’t very helpful.

That’s why they did it.

Hi Vayne, how have you been doing? Still hanging around here?

For new players, especially low level ones, every single skill point counts, as it helps you to unlock the earlier sets of slot skills (given that Skill Challenges are now also locked until you reach level 13). So as a lower level player I will go up several levels without receiving a single skill point, whic hmeans I don’t get to unlock any new slot skills, which again means I don’t have a choice in which slot skills I want to use for any given situation.

I really don’t understand ArenaNet’s need to ‘dumb down’ the level-up process for new players. Leveling never was hard to begin with, and all they did was make it more confusing (I get new players in chat asking: “this game doesn’t have a main story quest?”) and take away the choice from players who want it. So much for their “play how you want to play”. I can no longer do zone completion until after level 13, I can no longer do a personal story step beyond my current level (I can’t even see the next step on the minimap if I’m not at the appropriate level), and I can’t even get a single skill point at level up to unlock a new slot skill? sigh

Holy smokes are you THAT Centaur? lol

Yeah I’m still here, still fighting the good fight. I’m sure you remember. lol

The system definitely needs tweaking but I think, over all, the direction is a good one.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

Okay so ranger pet skills F1 and F3 unlock at level 5, Screenshot attached. This is the sort of thing I mean. If you can’t live for 5 levels in the current climate without calling your pet back….I don’t know what to say. And you know if you die, it’s not the biggest deal in the world either, because there’s no armor repair and waypoints are dirt cheap at that level.

Edit: The time between my two posts was 26 minutes btw. That’s how much time it took me to make a new character and level that character to five. I was using no experience booster, food or potion.

No WAI, that 26 minutes without recall pet RUIN WHOLE RANGER CLASS! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!

yeah ;P

Hey, I’ll have you know my old ranger in GW1 knew how to do that from the moment he first took that wolf into his care and said “go chase rats, stalker, I got a wolf and they’re better”.

Grandsire Tobias was just that much better. Pity he tried going R/W though, don’t know what major malfunction happened in his head for that choice. Didn’t even know how to really wield a hammer.

And don’t get me started on how much better his formula for Troll Unugent was.

That’s true. But your old ranger in Guild War 1 had to turn back when he ran into a log in the road. Just saying. lol

Changer the Elder.2948:

Vayne.8563:

Things have always been gated, even in Guild Wars 2. Your skills have always been gated. you didn’t unlock your first slot skill to level 5, your second till level ten and your third to level 20. If you believed it was wrong to gate, it should have been wrong last week too.

snip

Vayne.8563:

Elite skills were at level 30 before, now they’re at 40 but Anet tells us they unlock at about the same number of hours played.

I could live with that, in case that’s true. I’m not that strongly objected to that notion.

Vayne.8563:

Is this new method slightly more inconvenient. Sure it is. But if Anet is right and this helps keep people just starting out and from free demo weekends, it’s probably worth it. Having more people in the game benefits everyone.

Thank you for proving my point. What is the point of upgrading something to make it more inconvenient for both OLD and NEW players alike? Do you honestly believe new players will go through the map and tell themselves “Oh, this game makes me slightly inconvenient, that’s the right game to play then! Carry on!”? If so, you live in some very strange circumstances, mate.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think these inconveniences are so bad. They don’t significantly change the game for me. Experienced players often have level 20 scrolls anyway. PvPers have tomes galore.

“It doesn’t change the game for me, so it doesn’t change the game for anyone.” Right. Good idea.
And even better idea: Experienced players, just skip the first 20 levels…. you know, when you change content in a way that people want to skip it with a cheaty scroll, you juuuust maybe might be doing something wrong. Just saying.

Vayne.8563:

You can still level in EoTM. You can still PvP from level 2.

Newsflash: Not everyone in this game wants to play any kind of PvP (which EoTM IS). And even if they do, wow. The amazing fast levelling you get from the virtually NO experience until you’re high enough level!

Vayne.8563:

There is gating, but there has always been gating.

“So no problem if we make it significantly worse.” Okay, this debate is not going anywhere. It’s like debating a masochist whether stabbing yourself feels good.

Your right. The debate isn’t going anywhere, because you’re stuck in a mindset that says gating = bad, even though gating existed in the game. Now you’re saying gating necessary skills. Well weapon swap is a necessary skill and it’s always been gated. It just wasn’t necessary at level 7. And controlling a pet isn’t necessary until level 5, or at least it certainly wasn’t for me.

But more to the point, you’re still saying this is bad for new players and old players, but there’s no actual evidence of that. Anet has tested this out and they seem to think it’s better for new players to the game. They could be right, they could be wrong.

But the tendency of people to think that most people play like them comes to mind here. I know for a fact that I don’t need any level gating at all and I’ll still learn a game. I know for a fact also my IQ is well above average, I’m a self starter and that I can figure things out without a clue.

I have a friend who cuts down trees for a living. Well and other landscaping jobs. He used to play GW 1 with me no problem. Linear, tutorial, the whole bit. He has no problem playing DDO which is considerably more complex. But he comes into Guild Wars 2 and he doesn’t really know what to do. He’s not having fun. Why? because hes’ the guy who LIKES to follow the arrow, of which there are many. He’s come home from work, he’s had a few beers, he wants to go kill stuff.

He’s not the only guy like that, not by a long shot. If you were a company would you want to cut off every player like that?

Life is about compromises. You can’t have it all. You can’t make a game really hard for guys like me and still have enough people to keep it viable long term. Wildstar launched to appeal to hard core raiders and dungeon guys and it’s reportedly very hard. It’s also not doing as well as expected. It’s so bad in fact that they’re already offering free server mergers and saying a megaserver is coming and asking people who like the game to hang in there. That’s a bad look for a two month old game.

We’re not the rule. We’re the exception. We don’t need gating or hand holding. Many do. Those people are necessary to keep decent sized games running in this day and age. Even Eve, which is the most successful sandbox MMO to date has just had to close it’s California office.

Realistically, the bit of inconvenience I’m getting from it is worth the chance for new people like my friend who will spend money in the gem store and he’ll happily run around shooting stuff…even if he never beats Arah explorable mode or gets to a high level fractal.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne.8563:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

For the record, currently playing a fresh norn ranger. At level one in the prelude instance, I could dodge. I could equip bags if I had a means to fetch them, or other things with the right level. (I did not.) I could not control my pet, or open the pet window (K).

As designed, the end of the instance and reward for that story step jumped me into Level 2, during which I learned skill #2 on my longbow. I found I could charm a “Juvenile Raven” near the Raven Shrine and equip it. I could see Points of Interest and Vistas but no Skill Challenges.

Pet window unlocks at level five, along with the F1 and F3 ranger skills, tested and posted a screen shot to another thread.

Indeed, I just got it after a DE.

. . . yes, it seems you do level faster now. So you do learn to control your pet at level 5 and not 22. (What the heck made people think it was that far into the game?)

The F2 skill isn’t unlocked at 5 but all the others are, including the pet window. Apparently someone published a chart of when things unlock, but it may be that different professions have different skills unlock at different times. So in their profession F3 unlocked later.

But that’s just a guess.

Asmodeus.5782:

Vayne, and how can be removal of any semi-advanced mechanics from the starter zones made more palatable? If I was to dance with cows, rub corn and fight creatures without any kind of conditions and “confusing” attacks for my whole noobhood, I’d probably throw the piece of digital crap away. Or just “play with myself”, because it takes about the same amount of intelligence and coordination, just gives more pleasure. I’m simply too disgusted to enter starter zones right now.

BTW, with the megaserver crowds there IS a neverending competition to tag and kill in all the more popular events.

I don’t agree with them remove the cow bundles and feeding the cows. That’s one change I didn’t like. However, new people do not have the same expectations of the game as people who played it had have nothing to compare it to. I’d have thought it was dorky as hell, and shrugged it off and saw other stuff. I mean, I think that about the cow costume thing in Diessa Plateau already. I did that event exactly once and never again.

But I strongly suspect that that one event or example doesn’t change the fact that people, new people, will feel rewarded with these “unlocks”, until they get to the next unlock.

It’s sad you have to put stuff in games like this to capture market sure, but you probably do.

Frankly, I blame WoW. lol

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

For the record, currently playing a fresh norn ranger. At level one in the prelude instance, I could dodge. I could equip bags if I had a means to fetch them, or other things with the right level. (I did not.) I could not control my pet, or open the pet window (K).

As designed, the end of the instance and reward for that story step jumped me into Level 2, during which I learned skill #2 on my longbow. I found I could charm a “Juvenile Raven” near the Raven Shrine and equip it. I could see Points of Interest and Vistas but no Skill Challenges.

Pet window unlocks at level five, along with the F1 and F3 ranger skills, tested and posted a screen shot to another thread.

Changer the Elder.2948:

Vayne.8563:

Sorry but you’re wrong. I unlocked those pet skills to control your pet way earlier than level 22. I saw this claim when my ranger was level 18 and the skill to call your pet back was already unlocked. I’m going to go play a ranger right now, to level 5 to verify, but I’m almost postive those skills unlock at level 5. They certainly don’t unlock at level 23, because I had them before that on my new ranger.

In which case, I’ll readilly admit I’m wrong about set gate; I’m taking my facts from the official topic “Misconceptions (…)”, which clearly states that F3 skill unlocks at 22 and F4 at 24. No asterisk or note “For this class only”.

Problem is, I still believe ANY kind of gating this function is plain wrong. What is the tutorial instance for now? You can literally run through it, not attack anything, stand in front of the final boss and go for a coffee break. It doesn’t teach you how to fight, how to stay alive, how to control your basic functions (because yes, I’m positive F key IS locked in those instances completely, so a beginning ranger has their pet run around with no control). I’m sorry, but that very notion I find wrong.

Things have always been gated, even in Guild Wars 2. Your skills have always been gated. you didn’t unlock your first slot skill to level 5, your second till level ten and your third to level 20. If you believed it was wrong to gate, it should have been wrong last week too.

Switching weapons was gated at level 7. No one talked about gating until the gating changed. Now nothing should be gated. Most of it was gated before in some way.

Elite skills were at level 30 before, now they’re at 40 but Anet tells us they unlock at about the same number of hours played.

Is this new method slightly more inconvenient. Sure it is. But if Anet is right and this helps keep people just starting out and from free demo weekends, it’s probably worth it. Having more people in the game benefits everyone.

I don’t think these inconveniences are so bad. They don’t significantly change the game for me. Experienced players often have level 20 scrolls anyway. PvPers have tomes galore.

You can still level in EoTM. You can still PvP from level 2.

There is gating, but there has always been gating.

Okay so ranger pet skills F1 and F3 unlock at level 5, Screenshot attached. This is the sort of thing I mean. If you can’t live for 5 levels in the current climate without calling your pet back….I don’t know what to say. And you know if you die, it’s not the biggest deal in the world either, because there’s no armor repair and waypoints are dirt cheap at that level.

Edit: The time between my two posts was 26 minutes btw. That’s how much time it took me to make a new character and level that character to five. I was using no experience booster, food or potion.

Changer the Elder.2948:

Vayne.8563:

See this is the kind of post I find most objectionable. Demanding an explanation from a company that’s already explained. Ridiculing them because you don’t agree or understand something.

Feel free to object, that’s what the forums are for. But to clarify my intent:
I’m not demanding an explanation. I’m asking if the one who came up with the idea and believes is good could come up here and enlighten us stupid and not understanding and explain why the idea is good. If I believe in something, it’s natural I believe it’s worth defending. That person should believe it too. If they don’t, well… that does explain a lot.

And no, the system wasn’t explained. Notice that the level gates are absent from the pre-patch teasers. Only rewards with each level. Only thing that’s mentioned to be gated is the personal story, and that’s a vague mention at best. I wonder why that is.

Vayne.8563:

Take the ranger pet controls. The main controls unlock at level 5. Level 5!, it’s like 20 minutes into the game.

Okay, let me enlighten your horrible lapse of judgement in here. You unlock skill F1 at level 5. That is. NOT. Main controls. That’s only being able to tell your pet to attack a certain target. Which it does automatically anyway. You unlock “main” controls – the ability to call your pet back – at level 22. Until then, the pet is uncontrollable. That’s a very fine notion, teaching the early rangers the pet is a completely uncontrollable appendix they don’t have to care about.

It’s the one thing I find inexcusable and undefendable. The game is locking basic skills, which when unavailable, actually hamper and actively damage your play.

Vayne.8563:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but there’s no room for this kind of post on the forums.

I activelly suggest you go ahead and look up the definition of a “forum”. It’s the beautiful thing about forums. There’s room for EVERYONE’s post on it. Even a post you disagree with.

Vayne.8563:

If you have a problem with the patch, it’s possible to state it without insulting staff members who worked kitten an update, just because you don’t like a tiny percent of the upgrade (and the NPE really is a small percent of the update).

I do have a problem of the update. I also consider myself a levelheaded individual. I never said the rest of the update isn’t genuinely good, if you think I did, you’re mistaking me for someone else. I like the levelling rewards, I even like the new Trading Post.

But I firmly believe the level gates and changes made to early play are activelly damaging the experience for new AND old players alike. The system is just botched and implemented in all the wrong places. The fact that tutorial area now doesn’t require any actual tutorials (you can’t die and NPCs do ALL the fighting for you). The fact that on one hand, the starting areas are now insultingly easy but at the same time, downed state has been gated (and not just downed state “at level 5, 20 minutes into the game”, but also the skills in it are gated for later).

And let me clarify here: I never insulted ANet staff, I never intend to. I only called this very idea stupid, which I still claim it is. I do and will call out people I respect on stupid decisions, because humans are prone to error. All of them. Even you, I, the ANet staff. So please, get your reading skills straight before you start calling me out on something I didn’t do.

Sorry but you’re wrong. I unlocked those pet skills to control your pet way earlier than level 22. I saw this claim when my ranger was level 18 and the skill to call your pet back was already unlocked. I’m going to go play a ranger right now, to level 5 to verify, but I’m almost postive those skills unlock at level 5. They certainly don’t unlock at level 23, because I had them before that on my new ranger.

Sokia.3710:

Ant.3415:

NPE isn’t all doom and gloom, but the way they implemented skill and utility gating (and going further back, traits) is actually broken (in some specific cases) and just isn’t fun. If I wanted that experience I could get it in every other cookie cutter mmo on the market.

The more this game becomes like a F2P cookie-cutter MMO, the more players it will lose. Many of us liked GW2 because it was different. Fast leveling, no grind for max gear (until they added ascended), jumping puzzles which are far better than what other MMO’s had to offer, WvWvW mode (although it had a few major problems at launch)

Instead of improving on GW2’s assets, instead we just get the same level-gating features that we’ve played in every MMO before this one. GW2 was great because it tried to reinvent the wheel, and succeeded at various levels in some of those attempts (well, not so much with the focus on the Living Story). But, the game has taken a complete 180 from where it was at launch, and now it is becoming any other MMO with boring quests and simplistic gameplay.

I logged in tonight to play, and it seems that map chat is dead even in WvWvW mode. When it’s not dead, it’s somebody complaining about NPE. It seems that a lot of people have already decided to give GW2 a pass until Arenanet makes an official announcement on which of these changes are here to stay.

You know, I agree with your first line. But I don’t feel that this game is becoming like an MMO cookie cutter game.

They have changed gating at the earlier levels of the game, but nothing near what most MMOs ask of you while leveling. We’ve gotten a single tier of gear in a year, and no sign of another tier in sight. We have a living story that most cookie cutter MMOs don’t have (whether you like that or not), and no annouced expansions which most free to play MMOs do have.

The core differences are still there. Active combat, no competition for nodes and kills, no trinity. These are still in game.

People are saying a few of the recent changes make this a cookie cutter MMO, but it still feels completely different to me. You can do most stuff from level one, even though it takes longer to unlock skills, and you can turn off the tracking thing, which is something a lot of vets will likely do, but it’s there for you to use as well.

Adjustments will be made to make it more palatable, and life goes on. But if this was like the other MMOs out there, I wouldn’t be playing it. It will take a lot more for early level gating to make this a cookie cutter MMO.

Using the report button in that case won’t get you in trouble.

That warning is for people who intentionally report people to get them banned, just because you don’t like them. So 20 people in a guild don’t all report the same guy who did nothing. If you have a personality conflict and report it as him being rude, you won’t get into trouble.

Getting kicked from a dungeon for no reason is the kind of thing I’d report. It may take several reports or even many for Anet do to something, but if a person is reported enough by enough people, something can happen.

I really don’t think it’s constructive to tell people to leave the game. I don’t think it’s particularly constructive to get feedback from people who’ve already left and aren’t playing but that’s another issue. I’m not sure how you can judge a game you’re no longer playing, because the experience keeps changing.

However, asking people to leave the game is pretty rude even if their comments annoy you.

Suggesting that they aren’t in the target audience if you feel that way is about as far as I’d personally go.

Malkavian.4516:

MVP.7961:

If they did this because of players complain that will be very stupid thing.
You get praise from the other characters all the time and Trahearne got it like once. If players spend two minutes talking to the NPCs after completing the mission you can see that in their dialogue.

I know, right? Personally, it’s almost as if some of them are just jumping on the Trahearne hate bandwagon without a clear understanding as to why he’s a good character. Granted, he is not a great character in my eyes, but he isn’t terrible by any means.

I always felt Trahearne got too much hate and I never felt that he was stealing my thunder. However, as a point of interest, I made a poll a while back on reddit, asking about people’s feeling’s about Trahearne and what race you first did the story on.

It seems very likely that those who started the Sylvari story are more accepting of Trahearne than those who started other races.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

However it’s also not illegal. It’s illegal only if it’s intentional.

This may be the case where you live, but it is not the case everywhere (and I admit that the laws that apply here in California do not apply everywhere either).

The company for which I manage a store runs a weekly sale where special price tags are applied to the sale items. At the end of the week the sale tags are removed. If, as has actually happened, a store is short handed (in one instance it involved most of the staff being down with the flu a couple of years back) and the person pulling the sale tags (hundreds if not thousands of them) rushed and missed a few, and an auditor happens to visit the store the next day before the oversights can be fixed, the store faces a thousand dollar fine for each missed tag. Intentional or not.

This is not a hypothetical situation. A single store missed almost a hundred tags (one aisle) and had a close to $100,000 fine levied against it.

I was talking about a published ad, not a tag on an item. That’s the same in most places. But that’s not an “advertised” item, it’s a tagged one. Companies need to be protected to and typoes that aren’t their fault, as far as I know ANYWHERE, the law does not require you to honor them. Typoes in media like newspapers.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

What I meant by the merchant being held to a different standard than the customer was specifically about communication.

This is almost (and I am saying almost only because for all I know there is some weird exception that is all but unheard of) always the case because there are far more legal requirements placed on a merchant’s communications to the customer than on the customer’s communication to the merchant.

While this is absolutely true, it’s sometimes also true that the way a customer communicates with a merchant can cause problems for the customer.

Someone brings a computer for me to repair. If they don’t tell me what the problem is (and it happened more than you know), then I can’t really fix it easily or on time. If they give me the wrong problem and I correct that and it’s really another problem they may get angry at me for doing it, even though it was their communication that causes the issue.

And if a customer was abusive, I had every right to ask them to leave my store and not come back. And sometimes I did.

However, there’s a difference between law and not being a kitten. You can insult people. As far as I know that breaks no law. I’m not sure why that should matter.

It at very least breaks forum rules.

Even so, I was posting in response to comments about misinformation being spread by merchant and customer. If a customer tells everyone on his e-mail list that computer repairs at the shop he frequents cost only $20, and is mistaken because the actual price is $50, he made a mistake. He may upset his friends who go into the shop expecting to get a $20 computer repair only to face a more than double price tag.

If the shop owner tells everyone that computer repairs at his shop are only $20, when in fact he charges $50 he is engaged in an activity that, if caught, will end with him paying some pretty serious fines. If he continues he can have be denied the right to operate a business in his state. This is the case even if the entire matter was a mistake.

The merchant, when speaking of misinformation, is held to a different standard than the customer.

Except that even big businesses have had typos in ads that give the wrong price and all they need do is apologize. It happened to us a couple of times. Ad goes in, newspaper prints a typo, people think we’re being “clever”, but in reality, there’s no way that’s a win for the company.

However it’s also not illegal. It’s illegal only if it’s intentional.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne.8563:

aliksyian.7642:

If they wait long enough, the people who want new sPvP and dungeon content will move on to other games. I guess that’s like a win for them, somehow?

It might not be a loss. Depends on how many people leave and how many new people come.

I closed the mac department of my computer store, and focused entirely on PC. I lost every single mac customer and I had a quite a few. And man they were not happy about it and they made no bones about telling me so.

But I made more money getting rid of that department than I did keeping it.

. . . as a part-time Mac user, I feel slightly sad. However, given that I am a gamer first, that means I really have to avoid Macs as being really sorta kinda maybe a little outside a sane budget for me to work with anyway

The money it costs to run the mac department didn’t justify the staff I had to pay to man the mac department, the complaints about service, which were usually due to parts that Apple wouldn’t ship to us because they were back ordered, and other fun stuff like that. It wasn’t an easily made decision. I didn’t laugh aloud and rub my hands together in glee, counting the dollars I made from expanding my PC selection. I did what I had to do for the business while feeling bad for the mac customers.

I think Anet is doing that to some degree with some of it’s customers. They’re not some evil villain in a cartoon twirling their mustache and laughing at our misforune. They’re a business that has to make decisions all the time. Some of those decisions will be good, and some will be bad. Some we won’t understand because we’re not in that business. We dont’ see what goes on day to day. And no amount of posts on the forum are really going to give us that perspective.

aliksyian.7642:

If they wait long enough, the people who want new sPvP and dungeon content will move on to other games. I guess that’s like a win for them, somehow?

It might not be a loss. Depends on how many people leave and how many new people come.

I closed the mac department of my computer store, and focused entirely on PC. I lost every single mac customer and I had a quite a few. And man they were not happy about it and they made no bones about telling me so.

But I made more money getting rid of that department than I did keeping it.

Ashen.2907:

What I meant by the merchant being held to a different standard than the customer was specifically about communication.

This is almost (and I am saying almost only because for all I know there is some weird exception that is all but unheard of) always the case because there are far more legal requirements placed on a merchant’s communications to the customer than on the customer’s communication to the merchant.

While this is absolutely true, it’s sometimes also true that the way a customer communicates with a merchant can cause problems for the customer.

Someone brings a computer for me to repair. If they don’t tell me what the problem is (and it happened more than you know), then I can’t really fix it easily or on time. If they give me the wrong problem and I correct that and it’s really another problem they may get angry at me for doing it, even though it was their communication that causes the issue.

And if a customer was abusive, I had every right to ask them to leave my store and not come back. And sometimes I did.

However, there’s a difference between law and not being a kitten. You can insult people. As far as I know that breaks no law. I’m not sure why that should matter.

It at very least breaks forum rules.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

It’s the difference between me asking my wife, is this dish supposed to look like this, and me saying, this dish sucks, it’s terrible, it’s horrible, I’m never eating your cooking again.

LOL.

Not sure that the analogy holds up…can Anet make you sleep on the couch ?

Vayne.8563:

I mean we hold Anet accountable for every communication gaff they’ve made (and there have been many).

I am not going to pull out the old, “customer is always right,” adage because it has never actually been true.

But.

The merchant taking customers’ money for a service should be held to a different standard than a random customer.

I’ve been in business and this is almost never true.

Let’s say I repair a computer (because I used to run a store that did that). We repair your computer. You pay for that repair. It doesn’t give you the right to tell me that I can’t change how I repair computers after that fact. I doesn’t give you the right to tell me not to put less energy in my mac section and more energy in my PC section. It doesn’t even give you the right to tell me what to stock in the store.

I make business decisions on the needs of the person. Your entry price into Tyria entitles you to access to the servers and a game. Not an unchanging game either, because games change all the time.

You paid for the game you got your money’s worth or you didn’t….and within the allotted time, if you didn’t like it, Anet gave refunds. They have a far more generous return policy than any game I’ve come across.

Paying customers as in buying gems are entitled to the gems they buy and the stuff they buy with them. If they’re not happy, logically they should stop buying gems.

It doesn’t give them a lick of right to order companies to change or not change things. Or to insult representatives of the company. Or to give ultimatums.

Naturally smart companies will want customers to give feedback, but most companies won’t tolerate abuse. I never did when I ran my shop and any abusive customer was asked to leave.

Stiofan.6720:

Vayne all you do is argue with people on here, that’s all you do all day. I haven’t seen one constructive post from you, Even that little poll you made was for one of your arguments.

It’s starting to get a bit tiring vayne.

I think it’s quite constructive when I reposted Colin’s answer to people in a thread in the main page. I think it was constructed when I helped a new person today deal with not being able to get friends on their server. I think it was very constructive when I stop the spread of misinformation.

I think it’s even constructive to stop people from being offensive. Maybe you and I have a different opinion of what is and isn’t constructive.

Zoso.8279:

Honestly I don’t think Vayne is all so bad lol he is opinionated just like everyone else. Heck i’ve had my goes with Vayne about things we did not agree on but it was always civil. I understand what people are saying. They are frustrated and want to help make the game better but some are showing that in a very strange way. Love for me is unconditional so if someone I love is doing something I don’t agree with ill let them know but won’t throw them on the street. Ill show them support always but reminding them that I don’t approve I feel that way gets to the person more then throwing them out on the street. What I think Vayne is trying to say is if you love GW so much why would you insult/attack/try to incite riots? Why Stomp your feet and tell everyone to destroy the game if the game is what you love? Lol honestly it is a bit funny because a fews of the complaints people had I also had them too but I did not agree with them (the complainers) because of how they were expressing themselves (aggressive and insulting) The topics that were civil I joined in and voiced my concerns the topic filled with hate id defend the thing that I loved.

It’s okay mate. The more they throw stones at me, the more desperate they look. Because when your only point is defending your right to be rude and insult people, you’re probably wrong. Critiques are not the same as complaints.

As for people who want to talk about my personal life or make judgements about me, go right ahead. I have no problem with it. It’s not making you or your arguments look better to those reading.

And you know the funny bit is, I’m far more aggressive in real life than I am on the forums. I come off as more passive aggressive here, because if I said what I really felt about some of this, I’d have been banned for life a year ago.

We’ll know if this gambit is successful only after the first free weekend is done…probably a couple of months after that.

Because I’m sure that’s why these changes were made. Not to inconvenience us. To grow the player base.

Sokia.3710:

Vayne.8563:

Yep but you’re making statements in a number of threads, at least one of of which is inaccurate, because you forgot.

So, I don’t have a perfect memory. Sue me.

If you like, I can go back and edit the post to correct it, assuming there is no time-gating for editing posts on the forums.

But you know, if you can forget something so big and obvious, and you haven’t really played the new content because you’re not paid to test it, I guess I’ll have to take your comments with a grain of salt from this point out, because you’re commenting an awful lot on something you’re not testing.

Considering how many people on the forums are blatantly defending or attacking the new patch, you should have been taking just about everyone’s comments with a grain of salt, and a whole package of salt in a few cases.

I tend to be skeptical of claims made in forums, anyway, particularly when people claim to site numbers and statistics.

But, since you seem to have a decent memory and you play the game so much more than I do, I trust that you can correct any inaccurate statements that I make. So, at least I have that going for me.

And it’s not just you. I don’t want to single you out. There’s been quite a bit of misinformation being spread in a number of threads, by people who have supposedly tested the patch.

I haven’t seen that much misinformation being spread, other than perhaps the various rumors and theories for Arenanet’s motivations for making the changes.

I think a lot the misinformation had to do with the fact that some of the new features are very confusing, for example the new level-up screens making it appear that you’ve unlocked features when it is really just informing you of features. This is the main reason that on 9/9 I was having difficulty telling what was actually locked and what was just people trolling in map-chat. People were saying that Diving Goggles were locked, or that salvaging was locked, or that jumping puzzles were locked. I had no way to test any of this in-game as my character was already level 10 at the time, and I didn’t want to have to delete any characters just to free up a character slot to make a level 1 so I could see what Arenanet level-gated and what they didn’t.

Even it it’s spread by being confusing, it’s still misinformation being spread.

It’s the difference between me asking my wife, is this dish supposed to look like this, and me saying, this dish sucks, it’s terrible, it’s horrible, I’m never eating your cooking again.

People make assumptions, post them as facts and that is, in fact, misinformation. Everyone gets stuff wrong. I’ve gotten stuff wrong. Everyone makes a mistake every day.

But when you base your communication and your actions on those mistakes, you need to be held accountable for them. I mean we hold Anet accountable for every communication gaff they’ve made (and there have been many).

Sokia.3710:

Vayne.8563:

That’s the patch you’re commenting on though. You must have tested it very thoroughly.

I tested it enough to know that it was a bug-laden mess that was poorly designed without proper testing before it was released to the live servers. I didn’t feel much desire to test it beyond that. I don’t get paid to test every change made in a patch. I play computer games to have fun, which is something I was no longer having.

Yep but you’re making statements in a number of threads, at least one of of which is inaccurate, because you forgot. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt (which you never gave me) and assume you’re not being disingenuous. I believe you really did forget.

But you know, if you can forget something so big and obvious, and you haven’t really played the new content because you’re not paid to test it, I guess I’ll have to take your comments with a grain of salt from this point out, because you’re commenting an awful lot on something you’re not testing.

And it’s not just you. I don’t want to single you out. There’s been quite a bit of misinformation being spread in a number of threads, by people who have supposedly tested the patch.

And yeah, there are bugs. It was a major patch and it is far more bugged than it should be.

Which means, to me, that until the bugs are fixed, it’s hard to fairly judge what Anet is attempting to do. By all means complain about it being bugged. But we won’t actually know the finally result till at least monday.

NewTrain.7549:

harrison fang.1874:

I bet more than 50% of the people taking the poll haven’t even tried the new leveling experience

I bet leprechauns are made of chocolate and I have the exact same amount of proof as you do.

That’s why he said I bet. It’s his opinion, or guess. I’d agree that a percentage of people didn’t play it and still commented, and I’m quite sure a number of people didn’t give it a fair shake, because they went in angry. That’s just human nature. When you’re already angry about something, you tend to exaggerate it’s importance in your mind. Everyone has had big fights with a loved one about little things that don’t matter.

I think part of the backlash of this patch comes from an overall discontent with part of the community, who was looking for a reason to attack.

Sokia.3710:

Vayne.8563:

For someone that doesn’t play the game much, you’re sure disparaging about it. I think there are probably a lot of people who gave only the most cursory test to the new systems, before jumping on the I hate them bandwagon.

It’s only since 9/9/2014 that I don’t play the game much. I played a fair amount before that date.

That’s right. That’s the patch you’re commenting on though. You must have tested it very thoroughly.

Sokia.3710:

Behellagh.1468:

Then why did you say this then?

Because I genuinely forgot that the window doesn’t automatically pop up. I really haven’t been playing the game over the last several days, except for to log on occasionally and help other people.

For someone that doesn’t play the game much, you’re sure disparaging about it. I think there are probably a lot of people who gave only the most cursory test to the new systems, before jumping on the I hate them bandwagon.

Absconditus.6804:

If my relative is doing something I see as being destructive to their lives, such as taking heavy drugs and/or doing crime, I will easily call them stupid for it and wish for them to change the direction they’re taking themselves. Now I’m not saying this patch relates to drugs, nor is it criminal, I’m just saying as an analogy, you can call your relative stupid, even though you love them. You do so because you love them. If it was John from TS, you don’t actually care. Let’s be honest here. Nobody cares about John from TS.

People are vocal about this because they see it as something negative for the game, for the thing they enjoy and love so much. For all the negative feedback, there is a positive side to it as well, the people complaining, are very much invested and in love with the product. Otherwise they’d just drop it and leave without saying a word.

I also think the majority of our little community of forum users here are rather civil overall. We may be calling a company stupid, but that’s the company, we’re not directly assaulting specific developers. “Oh, Colin! You.. just, you! Gosh darn your handsome smile! It’s distracting me from being mad at you! I hate you! Call me.. xoxo” —We are mostly all aware that these decisions are multiple individuals takes and iterations on an idea thought up by multiple people. Not one person is really to blame for something that we dislike. But you’d think someone would say “Isn’t this going to upset x, y or z”?

But yeah, I think although it seems like a weird thing to do, being negative and upset, does still in an underlying way show that we care. That we love the product, and perhaps a tiny bit the company with its handsome men (like Colin) and beautiful women (like Colin) that makes it what it is. It’s easier to see the negativity over the positive sides to something. The same way it’s easier to complain than it is to praise. If we’re not upset and/or “bored”, we don’t tend to use forums, we are busy playing. Praise tends to be more through word of mouth or when telling someone about how much you want them to try out the thing you’re excited for anyways. Or when they do something brilliant, like the Super Adventure Box. The forums was full of praise during the release of that.

Sorry mate, but calling your relative stupid isn’t likely to help a drug problem either. Saying you’re acting in a self-destructive manner is.

Stupid is a thing that lowers one’s moral and has massively negative connotations. Using the word stupid affects someone’s ego and if they are doing drugs, it’s not going to help them stop doing drugs. It’s just reinforcing something they already know. They’re not taking drugs because they’re stupid even if it’s a stupid thing to do. They’re taking drugs because they’re addicted.

So yeah, calling them stupid is not helpful. Calling Anet stupid is also not helpful. Nor is it constructive.

Saying the patches aren’t good is not that same thing as calling devs stupid. It’s not acceptable and it should NEVER be acceptable.

pessimist.7294:

They want you to have more playtime until you reach lvl 80 without putting in new content.

I’ll wait till they fix the bugs before I decide that it’ll take significantly longer, or even a little longer to get to max level.

How does this save on costs?

Sarabande.8260:

Alright I only know Tarnished Coast, so what’s another really good server with a great community. Maybe I’ll just have them roll on another server and I transfer my char there.

I will admit I am somewhat confused about how Megaservers work. Asacledhae is saying there are no servers (and I am not refuting that), but if there are no servers why is it asking them to select a server with some being marked high pop, medium, full, etc.?

There used to be physical servers for PvE. They simply don’t exist anymore. If you were on Tarnished Coast, you wouldn’t get into a Tarnished Coast server. You’d get into a server. That’s it. Not Tarnished Coast. Just a server.

There’s an formula that determines where you’re placed. It’s based on “home server”, guild and your friends list.

If one person is on Tarnished Coast and another is on Jade Quarry, you can still play PvE together or even SPvP. The only thing you can’t do is WvW together.

If you end up on different maps of the same server and you’re partied, just right click on the person’s portrait and click join in that server. Then you’re all playing together in PvE no matter what server you’re on.

Hope this helps.

My wife rolled a new ele yesterday. It took her one hour to get to level 5. Dynamic events are always going, even if you finished hearts. You were never ever able to level on just hearts.

You can still craft and you can still go to edge of the mists to level. You can do vistas and points of interest and complete your starter city to level. Skill points and personal story are the only leveling things actually locked. Weapons skills are but those won’t make you level.

I think people who way they can’t level past five in the new system aren’t really looking to level past five in the new system.

This is MY story.

Stiofan.6720:

Like these guys have said gw2 is a good game but they want it to be better, I personally loved gw1 I think gw1 will go down in history as one of best mmo’s ever made, But I want to see gw2 be bigger and better than gw1, Imo the gw2 devs don’t really seem as passionate for the game as the gw1 devs were, I personally dislike that they keep dumbing the game down making it even more casual and the snail pace release of small bits of content, Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way maybe not, Right now gw2 feels like a good game not a great one like its predecessor and that annoys alot of gw vets, In life when humans are passionate about something they don’t just bottle it all up and stay silent, People come on these forums not to vent but because its the only way they can communicate with the devs so they can tell them about their concerns about where the game is heading.

Do you really equate telling the devs their concerns with what we saw this week after the patch though? That wasn’t a group of people calmly stating objections to a patch. That was a mob using threats and insults to try to get changes made to the game. If there’s a real reason for the reaction I saw, I’d sure like to hear it.

If you love the game, you don’t take the hard work devs made to a patch, which is usually publicity for the game, and drive people away from it. That’s not how you love a game. Telling people to leave, boycott the game etc isn’t the way to talk about things you don’t like.

Sure you’re free to say it. But don’t do that and then claim you love the game.

It’s like saying you love a relative, but threatening to throw them out if they do something you don’t like.

Einlanzer.1627:

pessimist.7294:

Einlanzer.1627:

It’s a good game. It really is. I think some of the negativity of the forums can be attributed to the passion people have for it – wanting the best for it and getting very frustrated by missteps and lack of communication.

Only that this miscommunication and failures have been happening for a long time now. And at some point the patience is gone.

That is correct.

I think people hold Anet to a higher standard than is healthy. It’s one one guy doing something and trying to communicate it. It’s 300 guys doing all sorts of stuff, not even necessarily on the same page.

The point is if we treated family members the way we treated Anet every time they made a mistake, we’d be up on abuse charges. It’s neither reasonable or fair to expect anyone to get everything right, or even communicate well all the time.

As an example, which just got a patch probably 80% of which was good. But the 20% that people don’t like was enough cause to have people calling for firings, boycotts, leaving the game.

Without even waiting for a response from Anet, who said there were bugs. Shrugs.

I don’t find it reasonable.

Changer the Elder.2948:

Djinn.9245:

Yep, they nerfed the wonderful heart where you turn into a fern hound in Caledon. I loved that heart!

SERIOUSLY?! This update is getting more stupid by the minute. No pet control until you have driver’s license, removing renown hearts that were actual FUN to do because new delicate babies might die of the awesomeness overdose or something…

Could someone on the forum staff please parade the individual who thought all these changes were a good idea to present and defend WHY they were a good idea in their twisted little personal universe?

See this is the kind of post I find most objectionable. Demanding an explanation from a company that’s already explained. Ridiculing them because you don’t agree or understand something.

Take the ranger pet controls. The main controls unlock at level 5. Level 5!, it’s like 20 minutes into the game.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but there’s no room for this kind of post on the forums. If you have a problem with the patch, it’s possible to state it without insulting staff members who worked kitten an update, just because you don’t like a tiny percent of the upgrade (and the NPE really is a small percent of the update).

Absconditus.6804:

I don’t quite agree. No profession can really match the Warrior’s Hundred Blades in terms of cleaving damage. That’s simply not true. We’re talking insane damage bursts from one skill here. They also have pretty much the best mobility in the game (some argues thieves do, but I think they’re more on par if anything). They are simply put, the single most effective way of clearing out content in a dungeon setting. A controlled setting with very little challenge to it, which allows them to shine. It’s literally 2-3 second kills on practically every single boss within a dungeon these days. The dungeon-running community is basically based around this knowledge. They want their quick “rewards” out of a relatively boring and non-challenging setting, so they can actually get the rewards they want elsewhere with the coinage they earn.

I wouldn’t blame anyone for that. It’s not all that much fun, it’s not challenging, and the dungeons themselves are not really rewarding you with anything. I never found them interesting, because they don’t really provide me with anything I considered “neat” or “cool”. I didn’t like most of the sets, and after a while we got Ascended and their Exotics-stats were no longer interesting either. There’s very few unique and cool things that comes out of a dungeon as a drop. It’s basically, like so much else in this game, lacking on the rewards side.

Plus well, they need to figure out a way to make more interesting builds desired in this setting too. Like I said, why have a interrupter, when they can’t even interrupt a boss more than once before it dies, when the boss doesn’t even need you to interrupt it, because it melts in seconds to one professions skill? And no, I’m not saying “nerf” here.. I hope they don’t tread that path. I’m saying, find ways of making it interesting to bring a condition player, to bring someone with some support, to bring a interrupter. Perhaps even a tanky build. We’re on the doorstep of the trinity here, but everyone can do everything, is that so bad? Make it interesting, make it more engaging. Make it rewarding through drops and the ability to gain Ascended armor/weapons from dungeons as well (Hard Mode for that perhaps?).

Before the patch, elementalist fiery great sword. After the patch, warrior greatsword was nerfed along with it.

I’ve done dungeons with and without warriors, it doesn’t always, or even usually go faster with warriors.

Just perception as usual.

The idea of berserker warriors running a dungeon fast together depends on 5 people doing everything right.

It’s a bad bad starting assumption that no one will make a mistake.

Drlightningbolt.1754:

Vayne.8563:

LMAO! Yes, I’m sure that would work.

But what do you do if you get into the company and find most people don’t run dungeons? I’m not saying they do or they don’t…but what would you do if that were the case?

My guess is that if more people ran dungeons, more work would be done on them, because it’s just logical.

People ran dungeons when they came out 2years ago, Maybe if there was some new dungeons that people hadn’t exausted. then maybe people would do more dungeons. I mean what do you expect when you only have one years worth of new contant that no one can actually experience anymore…

What’s your evidence that people ran dungeons two years ago. In fact, I’d argue that less people ran dungeons two years ago than do now. I don’t think more people ran than two years ago.

When they were harder, even less of the population would be attempting them. Because people like fast and easy, at least a lot of people do.

Now I have zero evidence of this. But I suspect you have zero evidence that more people ran dungeons two years ago.

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure Anet knows how many people ran dungeons two years ago. In fact, the dungeons were harder on launch at least because we didn’t know them, and that very difficulty might be why people think less people like dungeons.

Maybe not enough people by percentage back then ran them because they felt they were too hard. And today not enough people run them because they feel they’re too easy or they’ve done them too much.

The thing is Anet knows how many people have done and do dungeons. You and I can only guess.

phys.7689:

Vayne, the problem with all your logic, is it starts off with arenanet are the guys who know everything, therefore, they will make few mistakes and in general choose the best course of action at any time.

But this has proven not to be the case, its not even their companies self percieved style of development.

They believe, not in finding the perfect answer, but making an attempt, then trying it out, then iterating on that attempt. Therefore its not a good idea to assume that their solutions to any problem are always the best answer.

Also your idea that you have a package, and cannot alter that package, because it would throw off your data is a very very poor tool for the scientific method, or testing an engineering solution.
For example, even if their new system is retaining players, they dont know what facet of it is retaining players.
Is it new graphics/visual stimulation on level up?
Is it a content guide?
Is it locking of core abilities?
Is it less information?

by taking it as a package, you have the worst information on what changes are producing the effects you want, and what changes are not, or are effecting other things.

anyhow point is, the system isnt good, to be honest, even though a lot of people speak loudly here, usually the poll results are usually more balanced. I agree that new players wont know that it sucks, because they will never have played a superior system. But what this poll actually shows you is that it is not that likely that even new players would enjoy the system as much as old players did.

Which ultimately means, less people will enjoy the game as much. Which no matter how you slice it will probably lead to less profits at some point down the road.

Also consider this version of the game is not doing as well in china as it did over here, even though china has a larger market. I wouldnt say that this system is a winner for actually making a more appealing game overall. Retaining a higher % of players with less players being interested/reccomending the game may be a losing strategy.

But I don’t think Arena Net knows everything. I think they simply, on the whole, know more about their own game than most forum goers. Not all forum goers Most.

There are people on these forums who’s posts I absolutely respect. Your posts are one of them and I take your posts very seriously. Do you want to know why?

Because you don’t attack people. You don’t threaten. You don’t make ultimatums. You back up what you say with fact, and you don’t state opinions as some kind of gospel. You don’t use hyperbole. You simply speak what you believe to be true, which is fine.

But when people intentionally try to cause a panic, when they say no one likes this update, when they say Anet is lying or Anet is trying to kill the game, or whatever other stuff they want to concoct to support a point, they’re simply not being reasonable.

I don’t think Anet is perfect. And I think Anet makes some mistakes. But the degree to which some people will go to vilify is absolutely unacceptable…to me anyway.

Aedelric.1287:

MikaHR.1978:

Well, OP seems to have same idea, but i dont see you saying anything about that.

Rants and tantrums are also not constructive or helpful in any way.

Because I, to a degree, think the OP is right. Arena Net rely too heavily on metrics, but if you read the posts in this topic you already know what I think.

I also agree with what you say about rants and tantrums though not many here in this topic are doing so, mostly people are just nitpicking each others words. Or in the case of Vayne, arguing with people because no one is allowed to have an opposing view.

One day you should count the negative threads that I don’t post in.

The fact is, I post in relatively few negative threads, but in those threads I post a lot. I have no problem with constructive criticism.

I have problems with people saying the sky is falling, generally over-reacting, and using hyperbole to try to make points that they could make just as easily without it. Making stuff up doesn’t make any post stronger. Exaagerating for effect is okay sometimes, but not when you’re trying to prove a factual point. Saying that no one likes something when some people like it is factually wrong.

But there are plenty of complaint threads I never post in and some I even agree in. You just choose to see the ones I’m most vocal in.

NewTrain.7549:

Vayne.8563:

People aren’t all going for their pitchforks anymore, only a few really disenfranchised people are still moaning.

Yeah, that real slight 48%. How very minor.

Do you understand trend. 80 to 50% in what, two days. lol

We’ll see who’s right in two weeks time. I should also point out, I posted that poll to reddit before I posted on the forum and the poll was far far more equal.

Then the forum people came in, voted when I posted it here and downvoted the post, so less and less reddit people would end up seeing it.

Not that I expected anything less.

The fact is, off the forum, on reddit, before the forum voted, the poll was a whole lot different.

That tells me something too. Anyway that’s my last post for today. G’night.

Lostyus.4250:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

The Manifesto is currently presented by Anet on the GW2 main website. Today, not jsut four years ago.This makes it a current point of reference, not some outdated and no longer applicable years old irrelevant data.

As long as Anet chooses to offer it up as current and official it is perfectly reasonable for players to reference it.

As the oldest video in a chain of videos. There are a lot of old videos there. I don’t think anyone expects four year old videos to be accurate and in this case it’s mostly no inaccurate.

However, everything after that tells a story too. There’s really no excuse to quote one line from a four year old video. I mean if you have the strategy guide, it’ll tell you all about dye seeds.

That’s life in MMOs.

Wow!

Did he even read what he quoted?

I’ve seen him do that a lot when he can’t answer.

Or it’s 3:05 am and I’m losing track of stuff. That’s possible too. I’m going to bed.

NewTrain.7549:

Vayne.8563:

Yep. What’s your point?

NewTrain.7549:

If the intention of this poll was to show that the forum reaction is overblown, it did not succeed.

Thought I made myself pretty clear.

You did. I thought I made myself pretty clear too.

The overall reaction was that everyone was leaving the game, everyone was not buying gems, they were going to burn down town hall.

A couple of days later and the guys who didn’t like it dropped from about 80% to about 50% from the first poll to this poll.

People aren’t all going for their pitchforks anymore, only a few really disenfranchised people are still moaning. This is called a trend. It’s the pendulum affect.

The extreme over-reaction is over, in two weeks time, the tiny percent of you that can’t deal with it will either leave or never level an alt again and everyone else will go on playing and maybe, just maybe, when the next weekend comes out, more people will stay with the game.

I’m fine with that.

Never saw the quotes, I’ll have to take your word for it. I know it’s definitely not like that in PvE.

NewTrain.7549:

Currently 48% of respondents hate or dislike the changes.
33% think adjustments need to be made.
10% like the changes.
9% are indifferent.

At the most conservative interpretation a plurality of respondents have a negative view of NPE, with the majority of respondents in that plurality having a hatred for it.

If the intention of this poll was to show that the forum reaction is overblown, it did not succeed.

Yep. What’s your point?

I’d say far more people in the game didn’t like the addition of ascended gear, and the outcry over that was more far reaching than this by far. That was a reaction I could understand. This one? Not so much.

Because ascended gear affected aspects of the game. The gave us stuff to compensate for that.

I’m happy with the poll results and I’m sure I’ll be happier still with the next poll results. I just wish that every time Anet did something people didn’t like they didn’t go for pitchforks and torches.

There’s no need for the type of drama we’ve seen here.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

No, I’m saying the entire change was made for a specific purpose. Anet has outlined that purpose for us. They told us why. They told us the way it was wasn’t working period. End of story. There’s no room to argue there.

Anet tested what would work better and came up with this. If 25% of the player base hates it and leaves, but more people take up the game on free weekends, it’ll probably be a decent deal over time for Anet. They’re a business. They don’t make changes to the game only because players like them. They make changes to the game to grow the game financially as well.

So you don’t get to pick and choose in this case. If you don’t like it, and Anet won’t modify it to your liking because they have other concerns than just what you like, you can choose to leave or you can choose to stay.

You can’t dictate terms based on just your likes and dislikes. It doesn’t work that way.

Yes I have read what Anet wrote. My take is they “think” more new players will retain if they did it that way.

but does the new system work better for veterans? Especially those that already is accustomed for the old system?

quite honestly I dont’ know the answer. I think most people hate grind for legendary, but that is what many people end up doing.

veterans says they hate the unlocks, but will more of them actually want to level up alt? Maybe they’ll felt more rewarding so they’ll end up grind to 80? Apparently ANet think it works for new players. That is my question.

besides, anet already says they are going to make changes to traits for veterans with multiple alts. I’m not sure what Anet will do.

I’m sure Anet will fix it, more or less. I’ve been sure since day one. I’m extremely disappointed in the kneejerk reaction to fans, because this happens all the time. People freak out, Anet makes some changes and life goes on.

There were calls for people being fired, mass boycotts, threats of leaving and telling all your friends not to buy the game…this forum just reacts so strongly to everything.

Changes will be made, it’ll be, for the most part, fine.

This up and down roller coaster just gets tiring.

I’m sorry where did Anet state this, blatantly or otherwise. I’ve never seen Anet state this. And I’ve always had to unlock the new traits on each character separately.

Ok I Did It.2854:

You know Vayne I sometimes swear you are an Anet employee, I think that if Anet set fire to a box full of puppies ud find a good reason why they did it,

As you have played the game since launch im sure, do you really think that NA/EU are getting so many new players to the game that they did not understand the old levelling system? Keeping in mind apparently this game has a 13+ age on it, and most 13 yo’s now a days grew up in an era of smart phones/ tablets etc and some of the most advanced computer hardware in history,

We ALL know you love the update, you love the game, and you cannot accept that some people do not agree with that, but this update was not meant for NA/EU, and if it was truly meant 100% for “NEW” players then when they updated the client, anyone who had an account registered before 9/9/14 should have had the old system by default with the option for the new one, and any account made on 10/9/14 is automatically part of the new system.

I cannot get friends now to come play this game at all, they have read the other sites etc where its telling them the update is bad bad bad and they want no part of it, it seems really strange in a time where games come and go online a lot, that 1 with a decent community size that the mean devs seem hell bent on pushing us away.

Well you obviously didn’t read my comments against the trait system, which I didn’t like the implemetation of. I have no problems talking out against something I don’t like.

But I do think the community massively over-reacted to this patch, and I like the leveling better over all.

No, I don’t love being gated, but I’m through it so fast, I barely notice it. I like the level up rewards better. I like the personal story rewards better. And I’ve always disliked how disjointed the personal story is. This fixed it for me.

Just because I like something you don’t, doesn’t mean I don’t like other things. I don’t like the dungeons in the game, I don’t like the new trait system. There are things I don’t like.

This update isn’t one of them.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

Because it’s a package. Anet believes, and no one can prove otherwise at this time, that doing it like this will keep new players in the game longer. You can argue they’re wrong if you want, but they have tested it and we haven’t.

So to ask the question, would mean that you’re defeating part of the update. They didn’t do this update just to give you better rewards. They did it to keep new players playing longer, which they say this can do.

Taking out those changes would undo the update….or at least would put the reason for the update at risk.

No one is going to say I prefer being more limited and I’m pretty sure most people won’t say no to better leveling rewards. Not much of a poll.

The update is a package, you can’t pick and choose what you want from a package, because Anet has reasons for the changes they’ve made. The question has to be about the overall experience.

I dont’ understand the reasoning.

If people hate something from the game and like something from the game… dont’ it make sense to keep the things people like, and change the things people don’t?

So you’re saying Anet should add things people hate just because they added things people like?

If all Anet want to do is keep new players from being happy, they should consider trying to make veterans happy too…

I dont’ mind what Anet did for new players, but they should consider making some changes so people with multiple alts, wont’ be put behind such heavy unlock.

No, I’m saying the entire change was made for a specific purpose. Anet has outlined that purpose for us. They told us why. They told us the way it was wasn’t working period. End of story. There’s no room to argue there.

Anet tested what would work better and came up with this. If 25% of the player base hates it and leaves, but more people take up the game on free weekends, it’ll probably be a decent deal over time for Anet. They’re a business. They don’t make changes to the game only because players like them. They make changes to the game to grow the game financially as well.

So you don’t get to pick and choose in this case. If you don’t like it, and Anet won’t modify it to your liking because they have other concerns than just what you like, you can choose to leave or you can choose to stay.

You can’t dictate terms based on just your likes and dislikes. It doesn’t work that way.