You have yet to tell me why the examples I gave aren’t better polls. Not that I know much about them, so if anyone wants to teach me something he’s welcome.
I didn’t say it isn’t a better poll. (snip)
Then it is? Cool, we are making strides.
I don’t remember your specific suggestions, because it’s not my focus. However, yes, the poll needs to be reworded.
The next poll will probably be like
I like the new system.
I don’t like the new system.
I neither dislike or like the new system.Something like that.
why dont’ you just ask who like getting their skills/personal level/utility/traits level locked while leveling.
That is obvious because almost everyone don’t like it.
If you make another post about lvling faster and getting rewards, almost everyone like it.
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.
How is it sad. The game as a target, it can’t appeal to everyone, that’s life. It’s sad that baseball is slower than football and appeals to different people?
Well, it would be sad if they changed the rules of baseball that said you couldn’t hit a double, triple, or home run until you were in the 7th inning. That if you hit it on the ground in the infield you were automatically out – no trying to run to 1st. And you had to reach the 4th inning before you could steal any bases. Then, yeah, baseball would be sad.
Except that MMOs change rules all the time. Anyone playing an MMO that doesn’t expect change will be disappointed. Some changes you’ll like, some you won’t. Just like there are some changes I like and some I don’t. But you know, if you don’t like a game, or what a game is becoming, there are other games.
I’d like to point out that Vayne pulled out an analogy then declared his own analogy to be inapplicable the moment it became inconvenient.
Point it out. People stretched the analogy beyond the bounds where it was true, which is pretty much what happens when you try to stretch any analogy. Let’s try facts instead of analogies.
1. MMOs change. All of them.
2. It is unlikely that every change will be universally loved by all players.
3. Anything made four years ago talking about an MMO is likely going to be outdated on some level. MMOs change a massive amount in four years.
I think that covers it nicely.
You have yet to tell me why the examples I gave aren’t better polls. Not that I know much about them, so if anyone wants to teach me something he’s welcome.
I didn’t say it isn’t a better poll. (snip)
Then it is? Cool, we are making strides.
I don’t remember your specific suggestions, because it’s not my focus. However, yes, the poll needs to be reworded.
The next poll will probably be like
I like the new system.
I don’t like the new system.
I neither dislike or like the new system.
Something like that.
You have yet to tell me why the examples I gave aren’t better polls. Not that I know much about them, so if anyone wants to teach me something he’s welcome.
I didn’t say it isn’t a better poll. I’m simply telling you that this poll is done and we’ll do another one when the changes come in, with different options.
Not one time did you hear me say this poll is worded perfectly, or that anyone’s idea of how to improve it were wrong.
The only thing I’m arguing against is their intepretation of the results. It’s not like once the poll was posted you could edit it in the middle.
I take it that people want things changed because they actually dont’ like it. So that means very few actually like the change, and some just don’t care.
If you don’t like it why wouldn’t you just choose the option I don’t like it. The option is there. Presumably those who don’t feel they can choose that, choose it because they don’t dislike it.
Anyway there’ll be another poll when the changes show up, so it’s all moot anyway.
I’m talking in particular the unlocks.
the change is slight anyway, so change it back slightly of course will make people happy.
of course people like the faster 1-15 level, and getting rewards per level.
It’s my experience that most people don’t hate the unlocks either. They don’t love them, but they can live with them. The rest of the changes compensate for the unlocks, that’s how I read it.
that is a weird thing to say. They dont’ love them, but can live with them. You should just say they dislike it but don’t bother them that much.
You play with wording too much.
The patch won’t hurt new players that much, since they boost 1-15 level anyway. But anyone using a lvl20 scroll got hit it, since they’ll have much more level without utilities.
But dislike is active. In other words, the changes to leveling speed compensates enough where people just don’t care. They’re not disliking it.
They gave us an entire package. There was compensation in the package. Of course people only want good things, but seeing it as a package, it seems most people would be happy for an adjustment.
I still don’t see anyone who doesn’t like it not to choose that option.
I take it that people want things changed because they actually dont’ like it. So that means very few actually like the change, and some just don’t care.
If you don’t like it why wouldn’t you just choose the option I don’t like it. The option is there. Presumably those who don’t feel they can choose that, choose it because they don’t dislike it.
Anyway there’ll be another poll when the changes show up, so it’s all moot anyway.
I’m talking in particular the unlocks.
the change is slight anyway, so change it back slightly of course will make people happy.
of course people like the faster 1-15 level, and getting rewards per level.
It’s my experience that most people don’t hate the unlocks either. They don’t love them, but they can live with them. The rest of the changes compensate for the unlocks, that’s how I read it.
I take it that people want things changed because they actually dont’ like it. So that means very few actually like the change, and some just don’t care.
If you don’t like it why wouldn’t you just choose the option I don’t like it. The option is there. Presumably those who don’t feel they can choose that, choose it because they don’t dislike it.
Anyway there’ll be another poll when the changes show up, so it’s all moot anyway.
+1 – does anyone on the dev team even play a low level character.. this has turned into the most frustrating leveling experience i’ve ever done…. what was wrong with the old system????
From the devs that no longer work for ANet, they saw this coming and bailed when the higher ups refused to listen to even them when they said this was wrong. They knew this was coming months ago.
I’m sure this is a factual statement and you know those devs personally and they old told you this.
People leave companies for all sorts of reasons. Drawing this kind of conclusion is a matter of confirmation bias. I seriously doubt you can verify what you’ve said.
Probably about as factual as your insider knowledge into how powerful their metrics are. Remember that loot bug people kept denying for months that they told us all was in our imagination? Or how about that drop rate problem they created with unidentifiable dyes. Yeah…
I’m at least going but stuff that was said by Anet and direct observation, as in the graphic for the first year that they did. And my knowledge of how companies work doesn’t hurt either.
If you don’t think they have metrics, I don’t really know what to say.
Well it’s not iffy, because I included an option for people to say they don’t like it or they hate it. That’s plenty of opportunity to express displeasure.
One would think that if people want to see it adjusted, then they don’t actually dislike it
So, you think that people want things changed because they actually like it?
That makes absolutely no sense.
Pretty disingenuous here. I like a lot of things that could be changed to be better. And there are a lot of things I see potential in that could be changed to be better.
I like my lounge room, but I think if we moved the computer desks to the other wall, it would be better. The thing is, in its current incarnation, some people can’t stand it and others can say, I see where Anet is doing, but it needs to be toned down a bit, or it needs to be switched around.
In other words they neither hate it or nor dislike it. They see that it could work with some changes.
I think a better poll would be, from 1 to 10 how much do you like the New Player Experience?
Don’t see why include the iffy “with some adjustments”.
Well it’s not iffy, because I included an option for people to say they don’t like it or they hate it. That’s plenty of opportunity to express displeasure.
One would think that if people want to see it adjusted, then they don’t actually dislike it, since those options exist.
The reason I included 2 negative options is because hate is a really strong word for some people and obviously some people really do hate it.
And we haven’t seen the fixes yet. It’s possible by the end of that that less people will hate/dislike it, or more people will like it.
My point remains it’s not the dire horrible thing that the forums made it out to be, even if some people do hate it.
…
Now, there are a few things where the bar was moved like weapon swap and elite skill, but Anet tells us that the time it takes to get those things through actual play has remained the same. I don’t find, considering how fast the leveling goes, that I’m unlocking things any slower.
…Then there is no benefit in putting them behind a leveling gate but only a detriment – some people rebel against new restrictions when formerly they were free.
I agree with you. I don’t think there’s a reason for it either. However, I don’t think it’s that big a deal considering how fast it unlocks.
Don’t even try to argue with these people Vayne, they’ve already decided what the game is going to be to them. The forums have created a stigma for players – if they’re here, they’re here to rage. And usually about things they personally have very little experience of.
Gah, my support is coming out of the woodwork today. Well I knew you guys were out there.
I argue with people because the act of arguing reveals both sides of the story to the vast majority here…who lurk.
When I moderated guildwars2forums.com, only 15% of people who read the forums ever posted. The same is true in other groups I’ve moderated.
Someone needs to give the other side of the story. I elected myself to do so.
The metrics situation is very much part of that. Anet has information we don’t have and has every right to use that to try to make their game better. Because such a small percentage of people ever post, we only get a small percentage of opinions on forums, and that’s of people who come to forums. There are plenty of people who don’t.
Many changes to the game have been asked for on the forums before. But people don’t seem to remember that.
The idea is that today it takes about as much time to level to 40 as it used to take to level to 30. So looking at an artificial level can deceive you, if you unlock at at the same number of hours of play.
humorous, clever rhetoric
Why, thank you, good sir.
Re the subject at hand: I, personally, don’t want to give up, but at this point I cannot help but feel it is what is expected – perhaps even desired – of me, by the perpetrators of the game.
See the smoke and mirrors of your wording. Perpetrated, like a crime. That’s evocative, but it’s also misleading.
Au contraire, mon frère. It would seem I spoke with great clarity, for you instantly grasped my meaning! I do indeed feel that what anet is doing to this game is a crime. Not like murder or insider trading, of course. Merely a misdemeanor, in the grand judicial scheme of things. A crime, nonetheless.
Carry on!
But it’s not a crime, even if you want to compare it to one. It’s perfectly legal. Anyway, I only responded, because you accuse me of using smoke and mirrors.
I’m using reasoned response to stand against what was pretty much a riot. Many have calmed down since then and we still haven’t seen all fixes/adjustments yet.
One final word: metaphor.
One final word: hyperbole
Using the language to make something sound far worse than it actually is. Many on this forums do it.
humorous, clever rhetoric
Why, thank you, good sir.
Re the subject at hand: I, personally, don’t want to give up, but at this point I cannot help but feel it is what is expected – perhaps even desired – of me, by the perpetrators of the game.
See the smoke and mirrors of your wording. Perpetrated, like a crime. That’s evocative, but it’s also misleading.
Au contraire, mon frère. It would seem I spoke with great clarity, for you instantly grasped my meaning! I do indeed feel that what anet is doing to this game is a crime. Not like murder or insider trading, of course. Merely a misdemeanor, in the grand judicial scheme of things. A crime, nonetheless.
Carry on!
But it’s not a crime, even if you want to compare it to one. It’s perfectly legal. Anyway, I only responded, because you accuse me of using smoke and mirrors.
I’m using reasoned response to stand against what was pretty much a riot. Many have calmed down since then and we still haven’t seen all fixes/adjustments yet.
Same thing I always did, including leveling alts.
This includes a bit of everything: dungeons, living story, achievement hunting, collections, hanging with my guild, WvW, even some SPvP. Open world, jumping puzzles, holiday events.
This patch hasn’t changed my play style at all.
humorous, clever rhetoric
Why, thank you, good sir.
Re the subject at hand: I, personally, don’t want to give up, but at this point I cannot help but feel it is what is expected – perhaps even desired – of me, by the perpetrators of the game.
See the smoke and mirrors of your wording. Perpetrated, like a crime. That’s evocative, but it’s also misleading. You use language so well. You should be a writer.
But it doesn’t change the fact that just because you don’t like the way a game is going doesn’t change the fact that others are happy.
I think people hang onto this game so long, because of the potential they see. If the game didn’t have that potential, there wouldn’t be so many people hanging around the forums.
By the same token, to some of us, many of us even, it’s still a fun game and we’re enjoying it. And every person who hangs around hoping it will change isn’t really helping themselves or us.
Do you realize that if you can use the elite early in the game the game would be pay to win and people would go nuts, absolutely nuts.
Even before launch there were people complaining about the possibility of it.
I kind of use the lvl20 scroll so lvling faster 1-15 is irrelevant to me anyway. Your a veteran too right? So dont’ you have enough lvl20 scroll yourself?
Well I was testing the system. It would be impossible to test if I used a scroll. I have scrolls, I just decided not to use them until I see what’s what.
There was a pretty good description of the sate of this game currently on Reddit :
Get Gold, Get Gems, Get Pretty, Repeat.I don’t think the game is all that bad, even with all the changes, it’s simply lacking new supranational content, an expansion, new skills, new weapons, new dungeons, new multiple zones to explore, jumping puzzles, etc. Living Story and the pace of it is simply not enough.
You wouldn’t see people arguing about NPE if it was introduced with a new Content Pack.
It’s a matter of priorities. Anet needs more people in game to deal with attrition and that has to be their first priority, because no matter what a company does, there will be attrition. They found they weren’t getting people to buy the game from free weekends, they said the turnover from trial to sale is not good enough period. That’s what they’re going to focus on. The more people push them to fix it and the longer they take to fix it, the longer it takes to get to the next step.
I don’t think people realize how much having to deal with the reactions slows down progress sometimes.
I’m pretty sure anet’s internal politics are a mess. I bet a lot of people working there would love to work on dungeons or other fun content, but their upper management won’t give them the go ahead. I don’t know how you fix that. Pool our money and buy out the company, maybe?
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’d make the dungeons so that they can be run optimally by 8 players but if someone wants to go in alone, or two people want to go in together, or three, or four, they’d have a selection of modifiable heroes/henchies to fill out the party if they wanted to use them. And while I was at it, I’d lose about 9/10s of the god kitten red circles. And I’d make the rewards commensurate with the time and effort required.
Might even consider megadungeons for larger parties. Maybe even customizable dungeons.
Now, the big question: has the thread been sufficiently derailed yet? Have the OP’s points and comments been obfuscated with sufficient smoke and mirrors?
Smoke and mirrors, huh? How about perspective. You like to phrase things in humorous, clever rhetoric that often obscures the fact that what you’re saying isn’t necessarily fact, but you do it anyway. We all communicate in our own way.
As for the topic, I don’t think I’ve been off topic at all. I’m discussing complaints people have with the game and the reasons why some of them might not want to stay with the game, which after all is the topic.
How is it sad. The game as a target, it can’t appeal to everyone, that’s life. It’s sad that baseball is slower than football and appeals to different people?
Well, it would be sad if they changed the rules of baseball that said you couldn’t hit a double, triple, or home run until you were in the 7th inning. That if you hit it on the ground in the infield you were automatically out – no trying to run to 1st. And you had to reach the 4th inning before you could steal any bases. Then, yeah, baseball would be sad.
Except that MMOs change rules all the time. Anyone playing an MMO that doesn’t expect change will be disappointed. Some changes you’ll like, some you won’t. Just like there are some changes I like and some I don’t. But you know, if you don’t like a game, or what a game is becoming, there are other games.
There aren’t enough games like Guild Wars 2 for me, so I’m pretty much limited.
Let’s say your a dungeon guy who like raids…well there’s Wildstar right? They’re supposed to have good dungeons and raids.
But that doesn’t mean it’s has to be the focus of every game.
If you dislike the trait change yourself, why do you like having utility skills locked behind levels, Vayne?
Because you level so fast it’s irrrelevant. And anyway I didn’t say I don’t like traits to unlock differently than they did, I just think Anet handled it badly. I think there should be multiple ways to unlock each trait, not just one, and I think the event selection was very poor.
So the question is, do I believe you should need to vanquish a zone to unlock a trait? No, I don’t think forcing people to do that kind of specific content is good for the game.
But skill slot unlocks unlock no matter what you do. It’s not the gating that’s the problem, it’s the method of gating to me.
If it takes you two hours to unlock all your slots, or three, I’m not very stressed about that.
And according to Anet it’s around the same playtime now to get to level 40 that it used to be to get to level 30, so I’m not all that stressed about an elite skill.
You don’t have to go out of your way to unlock the skill slots. The trait selection is a whole different ball of wax.
I agree with you OP. The system – whilst it has it’s good points, it also has it’s flaws, but with some adjustment. By making the new leveling system more palatable (giving more weapon skills early on), they can make the game as a whole more enjoyable.
The key word Anet is looking for is balance.
Great word…balance. Couldn’t agree more.
I can see what you’re saying there, Vayne, and I have thought about it before. I’m not suggesting ArenaNet go back to the old pacing for the story, but if each instance within a chapter were just one level apart – perhaps some on the same level – I think it would still be possible to do the whole chapter in one go, and one would be able to access it that little bit sooner.
I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have new players unaware of the personal story in the first hour or two. It’s one of the most powerful assets for getting a player invested in the game, and for making them want to keep going. And yes, level 10 is a lot faster to reach now, but my personal experience was that it was still too long to have only one gameplay option open.
First of all, the personal story is not probably a selling point for a good number of people, maybe even most. I don’t have numbers, so I can’t say. But there are many people who don’t like the personal story at all, don’t do it, find it boring. So I don’t think bringing it in two hours into a game is all that bad.
More to the point, I know of no one that plays MMOs that doesn’t expect things to unlock as you level. I mean the first dungeon doesn’t unlock till level 30 and at least some people play MMOs for dungeons. Should we have the first dungeon at level 3.
There’s a lot going on when you start this game for the first time. And Anet wants the attention focused events, more than the personal story, I think. Because events are always there and were meant to be the meat of the game.
I can see what you’re saying OP, and I agree with quite a bit of it. What I can’t agree with is the personal story issue.
Let’s look at the whole picture. We both agree the personal story is important to the game. However, now the personal story doesn’t start till level 10, at which point a new character can go through the entire story arc all at once. And leveling to ten is actually pretty fast.
In the old system, people were doing the level 3 story, and maybe level 4 and suddenly they were unleveled. Because the personal story is the only quest actually marked, they felt that the game was somehow broken, that they weren’t leveling fast enough. This isn’t a complaint I’ve seen once or twice, I’ve seen it quite frequently on the player helping player menu.
If a new player doesn’t see the personal story, they won’t know if it’s there or not, and by the time they’re a couple of hours into the game it starts. By then they have an idea of how to play, but they can play an entire story arc. I think that makes the personal story more memorable and feel more contiguous.
Just my opinion of course, but I’ve always felt the story was too disjointed. It was too hard to remember characters from one story to the next and many didn’t make an impact, because you know, you have to stop and start and stop and start, doing a bunch of other stuff in the middle.
I really do believe this is much better for new players.
I don’t know what to vote. I’m kind of indifferent to the newest changes, there’s a mix of good and bad in there. But I hate the trait changes that are still in effect since April.
This has nothing to do with the April changes, only the current changes in this patch.
GW2 at release was magical base-foot-basket-cricket-tennis-golf-snowball. You may not remember or understand that, but it had the potential to be all those things, and it still does. That was the vision, and it would indeed be quite sad if it does not live up to that, because it would make a lot of people happy if it does.
It never really had that potential, because there aren’t enough devs in the world to give it that potential. It doesn’t exist. For one thing making changes to the game for one demographic kittenes off another. So for some people it will never be all things.
There are people who say without open world PvP this game isn’t worth it. It’s not their demographic. That’s it. If they put it it, it wouldn’t be my demographic.
MMO players are very much divided about what they want in an MMO.
ANet stated multiple things. They defined what were their targets. They end up focusing on less and less targets. That’s the problem. If they couldn’t keep up then it was their duty to not advertise for that as much as they did. Since they didn’t it’s our right and duty to be disappointed and to tell them so. It might not have occured to them but their passion is nonexistant without the players. One day people will see GW3, and they’ll think whether “great, I loved gw2 and ANet was such a great compagny and stuff”, whether “another Molyneux in the video games industry”.
Actually most people would totally pay for an add-on if that meant some true change. If that means that their targetted audience would be satisfied, then what’s 40€/$ or bit more ? The playerbase like their philosophy as long as they can hold to it, once they start disappointing it’s just a vicious circle, they’ll get less and less and do less and less. GW2 / ANet was the game/compagny that kept our expectations really high, and it could have been that : the reason it wasn’t the case is that ANet screwed like COMPLETELY season 1 of LS and waster a whole year, they made a super-grindy game when they said “no grinding”, they didn’t care about sPvP or WvW much, they based the endgame mostly on alts while screwing low levels with traits coming up at sloth speed, & such. They avoided making too many promises yet they made so many empty ones. They made mistakes and players told them countless times that they were screwing up. Now it’s their problem, whether they fix it (which they won’t do since they’re gonna focus on a story basically written by a two years old this year apparently) whether it’ll just get worse and worse. I love the game, yet I feel like something is wrong so much I’m writing a hate post on the forum of the game I love. Like so many others I just want it to live up to the expectations, yet…
Anet didn’t really say much they didn’t deliver on though. They made thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of statements leading up to launch. They didn’t deliver on a handful of them. It’s a pretty good track record.
People have very high expectations, because people haven’t worked in the industry. Very few MMOs can deliver everything they want. Hell, even the manifesto, which people continually bring up is just that…a manifesto…a statement of intent, not a guarantee of delivery.
So I gave leveling a new character another try today, this time instead of a Sylvari Necromancer, I decided to go with a Norn Guardian. Norn are epic, and I’m usually a fan of heavy armor classes that can do some bashing (my main is a Warrior).
My one redaction in my complaints is the personal story. Vayne argued the merits on having the chapter quests all played right after each other, and despite my dislike of the grindy feeling in-between, I do like the chapters being played as a whole, and am willing to sacrifice the grind being laid in more thick in-between.
However…
1) Weapon gating + No offhand weapon til level 7: I still dislike this heavily. My solution would be to at least allow the first offhand to unlock with the second main weapon skill, and second offhand with the third. Still paces the introduction of things, but allows offhands to come into play fairly early.
2) Underwater gating: Underwater skills should unlock at the same pace and time as land skills. I ended up exploring underwater in the starting zone, and didn’t like that I could be attacked but not defend myself. A Norn should never have to run from his enemy, dagnabbit! They fight!
3) Skill point challenges: Should be available from the start. And they should appear on the map, along with vistas. I never found the map to be cluttered, and at the very least even if the map starts off without them, I should have the option to check this back on if I’m an experienced player and I know better.
4) Gated downed options: The downed state, as mentioned many times by many people, should be a tutorial. Knowing that I have an option to fight back at later levels makes me grumble when I realize I can’t do it in the beginning. The dodge tutorial is a nice, simple addition (with a loot reward to boot!), so a downed state tutorial in the game opening would be a nice way to introduce it without depriving players of the ability.
5) Despite several claims otherwise, leveling to 15 has not been a half hour deal at all, even with hearts and events. I imagine some routines are better than others, but at this point, I have not noticed a huge difference in the time it takes to level in the beginning, only more bold pronouncements that I’ve reached the next level.
Overall, I am still enjoying the personal story (around level 68 on my main, so just finished retaking Claw Island!), but still much more reluctant to start new stories. So the changes above would be my suggestions to kind of smooth things a bit. My sense is once I’ve gotten to dungeons and reach level 80, I’ll have a bit more insight. So onward, to adventure!.
Well, I’m glad someone liked something I said. lol
I’ll be interested to see what it’s like after some adjustments as well (which I’m sure will come).
So let’s think about this. Carefully.
No one wanted this. No one likes it. No one asked for it. Yet a company goes ahead and does it. Makes a huge bunch of changes, and it is huge…for what reason? To do nothing? Because they have nothing else to work on?
Or maybe, just maybe, they know something you don’t, and without knowing that something, you can’t judge whether or not this is justified.
Colin said, straight out, that retaining new players as they level isn’t good and that they’ve tested this and this system does better. Every MMO needs new players, because natural attrition exists. Even if 20% of the playerbase hated this change and left, it wouldn’t be enough to stop the change from going through, if it was going to get more new players into the game, to stay in the game longer.
Businesses do things for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with what existing players want. Sometimes they do it because its’ good for business. And if it’s good for the business, the game will have more long term success, even without the people who don’t like it.
It’s a gamble like everything else, but if you think Anet made this change without any data or forethought, I don’t know what to tell you.
Vayne, I agree with you, you’re spot on.
The toughest decision any business has to make is what customer segments they’re NOT going to go after. Businesses that don’t make that decision, and try to please everyone, go downhill. It’s just not possible.
But it’s not fun to find out you’re in that not-wanted segment, especially when there’s a lot about the product that you love. And that’s what all the screaming is about.
Most of the screaming, 90% of it, is about the NPE and I’m 100% sure most people didn’t try it with an open mind. It is simply not that bad. It really isn’t. The only way people can make it that bad is if they make stuff up about it.
It limits you very little for a relatively short period of time and that’s it. In the mean time you get rewards for the character all the way up until 80.
The personal story changes make sense from a story telling perspective, because people did complain that the personal story is disjointed and this actually solves that problem.
People always have trouble adapting to new stuff, but the longer this goes the more people get used to it, the less bad it seems.
Anet will adjust it a bit, probably not too much, but a bit, and life will go on.
The bottom line is that if the game doesn’t have new player retention it won’t be here in a couple of years and that helps nobody.
I’m curious to know who took part in “over a year’s worth of research”
Was it Western or Chinese audience?What was the defining factor that tells them players didn’t find it enjoyable in the previous iteration, and why did that lead to prolonging certain aspects of the game in it’s very early stages?
Would players play more with this current setup but eventually still stop playing, just at a later level? (The assumption here is that the gating becomes redundant if that same type of player is going to quit anyway, regardless)
If that demographic was the US/EU market, then it’s most likely just metrics speaking, if it’s the chinese market, then it’s most likely just a cheap way of “explaining” why they made the change even if it’s not really created for our demographic.
Also: Did this not come up AT ALL – like, not even a whiff – during the years of work on the game, internal and external testing, (I can only assume they did some general market testing) as well as a bunch of BWEs? Were they so oblivious to it back then?
Most companies don’t talk about testing. Why would they? Why should they?
I’m pretty sure they were having problems keeping people after free weekends, which is why they haven’t had many. It’s a lot of work for relatively little return. Logic would say that those weekends aren’t people who are complaining about Arah being bugged. They were complaining about the leveling experience. They didn’t buy the game.
Anet probably tested it on US audiences, because if it’s been going on a year, the China game wasn’t far enough along to test it. My guess is the China stuff was implemented the way it was because of the testing too…and since the Chinese players who are already playing say they don’t like it, I sort of doubt it was made with China in mind.
Colin says more people played longer with this system than the others. He says they’ll watch it and if it’s not the case they’ll change it.
Needless
Pointless
Editorial
not that i’m saying you are wrong, but for this particular feature, no one was wanting it, or asking for it, or even thought of it. They came up with it on their own and messed it up royally, judging by the level of backlash that rivals those of Scarlet.
So let’s think about this. Carefully.
No one wanted this. No one likes it. No one asked for it. Yet a company goes ahead and does it. Makes a huge bunch of changes, and it is huge…for what reason? To do nothing? Because they have nothing else to work on?
Or maybe, just maybe, they know something you don’t, and without knowing that something, you can’t judge whether or not this is justified.
Colin said, straight out, that retaining new players as they level isn’t good and that they’ve tested this and this system does better. Every MMO needs new players, because natural attrition exists. Even if 20% of the playerbase hated this change and left, it wouldn’t be enough to stop the change from going through, if it was going to get more new players into the game, to stay in the game longer.
Businesses do things for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with what existing players want. Sometimes they do it because its’ good for business. And if it’s good for the business, the game will have more long term success, even without the people who don’t like it.
It’s a gamble like everything else, but if you think Anet made this change without any data or forethought, I don’t know what to tell you.
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.
He should’ve worded it better then. It’s silly to assume that someone would think that ABSOLUTELY every single person in the game hated the patch anyway.
If you look at the forums some people where trying to say just that. (ABSOLUTELY)
Hyperbolic vs categorical
Which is the argument being tried anyway – the patch was terrible and kills puppies and if you disagree you must be fanboy white knighting.
if you are trying to swing this poll into, people arent that upset, thats not what the poll shows.
I’m not talking about the poll, I’m talking about the . . . atmopshere, around here. Though I should point some guildmates at the poll – they were really liking it.
well my personal feeling is less sour, because they say they are planning to change it by next week or so. However many people probably didnt hear that. But the reason it is so negative is because really, they should have known, if they even looked at the result on the trait system, they would know people really dislike being locked out of basic traits, how do they think they would react to skills?
when this info first came out as part of the china plan, it was overwhelmingly negative, they were like hey guys thats just china dont worry about it.
they should have known people wouldnt like the skill lockouts, they should have edited that out. They also really didnt need to do some of the new level streamlining of hearts, they really killed the atmosphere of some of those low level hearts. no feeding of bear cubs? that was kind of the point.
its a bad trend for a lot of people. They did this change that almost anyone could have seen would be poorly recieved, (which is why people think they arent listening) and they seem to be changing the game direction to more of a grind exp, checkbox philosophy.
they really underestimated how many people alt, or plan to alt in the future. i would guess the large majority intend to level more than one time.
What’s ironic a lot of chinese players bought the game to get away from the overwhelming grind of many asian mmos.. and here comes anet with their changes which was opposed by people used to grinding games and they think it’s going to fly here? Not sure how they expected that to fly or attract new players.
Yes because leveling to 40 in this game is very grindy. lol
Have you ever played an Asian grinder?
GW2 at release was magical base-foot-basket-cricket-tennis-golf-snowball. You may not remember or understand that, but it had the potential to be all those things, and it still does. That was the vision, and it would indeed be quite sad if it does not live up to that, because it would make a lot of people happy if it does.
It never really had that potential, because there aren’t enough devs in the world to give it that potential. It doesn’t exist. For one thing making changes to the game for one demographic kittenes off another. So for some people it will never be all things.
There are people who say without open world PvP this game isn’t worth it. It’s not their demographic. That’s it. If they put it it, it wouldn’t be my demographic.
MMO players are very much divided about what they want in an MMO.
The vote is kinda bias imho, should just be “Do you like this new changes? Yes/No/Not apply”. Breaking down the not-like into so many categories while like in just one is an attempt to divert the Nah votes.
Btw. I voted “not apply” option, since the trait update already kill my desire to make new alts, this update really just reinforce it.
Yes the vote is pretty well worded to divert people from the dislike vote. Pretty sneaky.
Nothing sneaky about it. It’s simply that so many people seem to HATE this change and others might not feel as strongly.
The truth is if peoiple are voting it would be okay with some changes, they’re probably closer to liking it than not, because I gave them that option.
I could have put I like it but it would be better. I didn’t, to make it fairer.
The bottom line is it’s not as dire as some are painting it, period.
How is it sad. The game as a target, it can’t appeal to everyone, that’s life. It’s sad that baseball is slower than football and appeals to different people?
It’s better since the patch.
According to your poll, 68% of respondents say that the changes are not good as-is.
And 1% say “meow” . . .
But they could have voted don’t like it or hate it. They haven’t.
I only did this to show it’s not the end of the world. They way people are going on about it, there are people who absolutely despise it, but they’re not in any kind of majority.
A new patch comes out, the patch needs tweaks, the patch will be tweaked, and somehow life goes on.
People are talking about leaving, boycotting all that stuff. It’s all a storm in a teacup. This isn’t going to have a major affect on the game’s bottom line, with one possible exception.
If Anet is right and new people do end up staying longer, the game will be more successful in the long run.
And the long run is what MMOs are inevitably about.
Not really the point though. So many people are saying everyone hates it. At this moment in the poll 14 hate it but 10 like it and my wife couldn’t vote because we have the same IP.
All I’m saying is it’s closer than people here would lead you to believe.
I’ll just leave this here…
“- Upper Management is poor: Some directors and design leads pay more attention to graphs and data then what people both in and outside of the studio are saying, and this often ends up with projects either being poorly prioritized, scoped beyond what a team can handle, or just driven in the wrong direction.”
A single quote from a single review. But how many reviews are there that don’t say that, that’s my question.
I bet I could get someone to tell me my management was poor too when I ran a store, but most people didn’t think so and we had great working relationships.
Percentages are far more important than individual opinions.
For every person here whining and complaining about all the changes and how they feel this update blows donkey honkers, there are 10 satisfied players in the game playing.
;D
Just sayin’…
Not toast.When you finish your first character and then perhaps your second; if you stick around long enough to try and make 3rd or 4th and so on..After you become veteran player, come back here and tell me how you feel abouit this change.
I bet 100% you’ll be singing a different song.I’m on my 27 character, I like the changes.
never!!!
You are 24/7 in this forums and spam all day. Someone who sit this much in forum while he could playing cant like the game ….. you get paid for this?
I can play and post on load screens. I do it all the time. I can take time off from the game after patches to bring a bit of balance to the forums as well.
Unless you think I am approaching 20k achievement points by not playing.
Hey everyone I created a straw poll to see how people feel about the new leveling experience.
Have at it.
I’m pretty sure anet’s internal politics are a mess. I bet a lot of people working there would love to work on dungeons or other fun content, but their upper management won’t give them the go ahead. I don’t know how you fix that. Pool our money and buy out the company, maybe?
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.
Everyone go look at the glassdoor.com entries for arenanet. A fair amount of people who worked there agree that the upper management is out of touch. Important people have left.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ArenaNet-Reviews-E255820.htm
What percentage is a fair amount? Just curious.
I’m not sure what algorithm glassdoor uses, but enough that it is the second of two cons it shows in the overview header. (The first is their “sink or swim” attitude for new hires.) I assume glassdoor shows the most relevant pros and cons in the top section because that is the sensible thing to do.
You mean were 82% of the respondants approve of the CEO and 74% would recommend the job to a friend? That page?
Or is the CEO not part of managment somehow?
Here’s the link to the page I was look at.
http://www.glassdoor.com.au/Overview/Working-at-ArenaNet-EI_IE255820.11,19.htm
(edited by Vayne.8563)
I always said I wanted to work at ANet as the “Manifesto Enforcer” …
Well people keep bringing it up and each year it gets a year older, as does the point they’re trying to make. Less and less people remember the clarification about it Anet posted. Less and less people remember the extra explanations that were given out at the time that the manifesto was produced, giving it depth and helping people to understand it better.
It’s like a time capsule. Do you realize how long four years are in this industry?
Everyone go look at the glassdoor.com entries for arenanet. A fair amount of people who worked there agree that the upper management is out of touch. Important people have left.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ArenaNet-Reviews-E255820.htm
What percentage is a fair amount? Just curious.