Guild Wars 2

Lostwingman.5034:

Vayne.8563:

Lostwingman.5034:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Actually, many “vets” should probably make new character and go through new tutorials (from my ingame experience).

So yeah, theres that.

I wasn’t going to say this, but it’s not untrue. There are a lot of 80s out there who really didn’t learn how to play the game that well.

Not to say having the new system would have definitely helped…but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t hurt.

The problem is the new systems teaches NOTHING. It just prevents you from using your skills until you’ve ground for them. If they couldn’t learn this stuff leveling to 80 then extending the grind isn’t going to help either. This new system is dumb.

I’m not quite sure this is true. The new system certainly teaches you nothing, because presumably you’ve been playing for a while. But a lot of this has to do with how people learn.

Take the example everyone is using, the downed state.

Now when downed state is first experienced in the old system, it’s almost always when you’re learning five, ten, a dozen other things. It comes often out of nowhere, you’re in combat, and you’re clicking really fast in a panic or many are. There’s no real time to stop and digest the skills and if there was, there’s still so much going on in those first levels in the old system, you might not retain most of it.

Now it’s a level unlock that Anet calls attention to.

Do you know, I’ve run into several people that don’t know that the 4th skill in the down ed state gets interrupted if you attack. If you’re healing and no one is attacking you and you hit any other downed skill, you interrupt your own heal. Many people don’t realize this.

But if the downed state is isolated and people can watch for it, it doesn’t come as quite a surprise and maybe, just maybe, they realize it’s more than just hitting buttons. Not all people, but some people.

I think not giving some people everything all at once is a blessing. I have a friend from DDO who I tried to get into Guild Wars 2, he bought the game a long time ago and never played, because he felt overwhelmed by it.

But he can play DDO just fine.

Still doesn’t have to be a kittened level lock system. Why can’t it be a competency system? They apparently understand that concept since they did it for dodge. I don’t want to have to be railroaded into doing a bunch of slow hearts (always the most boring part of this game) just so I can use weapon skills. It should just put you into competency checks. “Do this to move onto the next part”. People who have trouble with it will have to complete it before they go on and people who have done this kitten a million times can breeze through it and not be impeded. Wow, amazing, 4:30am and I can come up with a better system. This is just lazy implementation. Even if, even if you wanted to go with this system, why the hell is it still railroading older players into playing a bunch of grind content before they actually can play their characters? It makes no sense, unless you realize it was lazy implementation.

Ah the old lazy implementation argument. Do you realize how much work went into these changes? This was probably more work than anything Anet could have done. They’ve completely altered the first starting zones including hearts, adding tutorial stuff, adding tips, changing rewards. They could have just done a quick tutorial. That would have been lazy.

I don’t get why people call a change lazy that took more work than anyone would have thought they’d put into it in the first place.

The system is only a grind if you choose to see it as such. It’s so fast to level it’s silly.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

zenleto.6179:

I have a 29 character that has one sp to get in Wayfarer for map completion and can’t get it. And its the kitten one in the ice worm cave. Its either bugged or he has to get up to some other level to finish the map off.

Isn’t that the one you have to find the keg, get a mug, and drink it?

Yeah it puts wurm tincture in your inventory which you have to consume to get the point.

Lostwingman.5034:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Actually, many “vets” should probably make new character and go through new tutorials (from my ingame experience).

So yeah, theres that.

I wasn’t going to say this, but it’s not untrue. There are a lot of 80s out there who really didn’t learn how to play the game that well.

Not to say having the new system would have definitely helped…but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t hurt.

The problem is the new systems teaches NOTHING. It just prevents you from using your skills until you’ve ground for them. If they couldn’t learn this stuff leveling to 80 then extending the grind isn’t going to help either. This new system is dumb.

I’m not quite sure this is true. The new system certainly teaches you nothing, because presumably you’ve been playing for a while. But a lot of this has to do with how people learn.

Take the example everyone is using, the downed state.

Now when downed state is first experienced in the old system, it’s almost always when you’re learning five, ten, a dozen other things. It comes often out of nowhere, you’re in combat, and you’re clicking really fast in a panic or many are. There’s no real time to stop and digest the skills and if there was, there’s still so much going on in those first levels in the old system, you might not retain most of it.

Now it’s a level unlock that Anet calls attention to.

Do you know, I’ve run into several people that don’t know that the 4th skill in the down ed state gets interrupted if you attack. If you’re healing and no one is attacking you and you hit any other downed skill, you interrupt your own heal. Many people don’t realize this.

But if the downed state is isolated and people can watch for it, it doesn’t come as quite a surprise and maybe, just maybe, they realize it’s more than just hitting buttons. Not all people, but some people.

I think not giving some people everything all at once is a blessing. I have a friend from DDO who I tried to get into Guild Wars 2, he bought the game a long time ago and never played, because he felt overwhelmed by it.

But he can play DDO just fine.

Plenty of complaints in the feedback thread, why not use it?

MikaHR.1978:

Actually, many “vets” should probably make new character and go through new tutorials (from my ingame experience).

So yeah, theres that.

I wasn’t going to say this, but it’s not untrue. There are a lot of 80s out there who really didn’t learn how to play the game that well.

Not to say having the new system would have definitely helped…but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t hurt.

Labjax.2465:

Vayne.8563:

Again, by design. Did you ever play McDonald’s monopoly when they had it out. One property was ultra rare and all the other ones you can get.

They want people to get the easy ones and be left with one.

Because if it was all RNG a lot of people wouldn’t do it at all. This is part of game design theory. Gamers often have inertia and need a push. It’s true in all games. The games are designed to push people in certain directions. It’s done with holiday content. In older MMOs it’s done with end game zones. Keeps people together and doing stuff.

This isn’t really any different.

Which is absolutely true…

Except that they introduced several sets that directly contradict this design methodology, such as the rare regalia and the exotic thingamajig-whatever-its-called.

Sure, that’s how the design works. You mix it up. You give some easier sets so people can get the feel for the process and get rewards. You up the bar for other sets. Up the bar even more for yet others.

The real collectors will work kitten getting everything the can, everyone else will go as far as they want. Again, that’s how I’d design a new feature.

It’s how most tiered achievements work in this game and it’s why they’re tiered. Even why they left monthlies tiered.

So you’re saying a mod removed it, instead of closing the thread like they usually do, when like well over half the first page is complaints anyway?

Based on what exactly? I don’t even think the mods are awake yet.

Labjax.2465:

Taygus.4571:

Yenn.9185:

You can already buy yourself an 80 anyways.

crafting method of leveling is EXTREMELY annoying. I imagine less people do that then run eotm train. ALOT less.
Not just because of gold cost.

I don’t think you can get much more than 40 levels anyway and that’s getting 400 on every profession. I suppose if you’re super rich, you could go to 500, but holy crap that’d be one expensive alt.

Yeah but even leveling to 60 would be enough for most people. I doubt most would worry about having to run 20 levels in EoTM, or just running around Sparkfly.

IceVyper.6810:

Not exactly. If 99% of the collection is: go to this vendor and buy this, locking the final items behind RNG is just frustrating. I don’t mind having full RNG collections, I am the one that wants wants the fractal collection to be implemented. Items from a collection should have a similar way of acquisition, thus allowing us to complete at least some of them.

Again, by design. Did you ever play McDonald’s monopoly when they had it out. One property was ultra rare and all the other ones you can get.

They want people to get the easy ones and be left with one.

Because if it was all RNG a lot of people wouldn’t do it at all. This is part of game design theory. Gamers often have inertia and need a push. It’s true in all games. The games are designed to push people in certain directions. It’s done with holiday content. In older MMOs it’s done with end game zones. Keeps people together and doing stuff.

This isn’t really any different.

This was never meant to be a content update, it’s a feature pack, and that generally means no content in it. Content takes time to produce. The game is designed so people can go away and come back to it. ESO didn’t hold a lot of people and neither did Wildstar. I’m not convinced AA will either, but time will tell.

I agree more content is needed, but I also believe more content is coming.

I’m not sure I understand the problem.

If you could buy this stuff 1 silver on the trading post it would be meaningless, you’d have the collection finished in a day and there’s be nothing left.

If you want to get the drops yourself, you can do content, casually, without focusing on it and fill in collections as you.

Encourages people to do that content so they can get stuff to sell if it drops. Working as intended.

Hope you guys bug reported it in game. Maybe post to the bug forums too.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Vayne.8563:

The standard complaints about this game usually involve the open world being way too easy. It’s much easier with everything unlocked. But you can still pretty much 1 your way through everything if that’s what you want to do and you know how to kite.

Breaking News: All weapon skill get removed to make the game more challenging!
Seriously, that’s a stupid answer. Making the game more challenging by cutting the ability of the player to react properly to certain situations?

I love how people take one paragraph out of a whole respond and then try to claim the answer is stupid. Totally out of context.

I’m not saying it’s better because it’s more challenging. I’m saying that the complaints about it being harder are quite silly to me. At least to me it wasn’t much harder at all. It’s all the other stuff that makes the change good for me.

I wish people would see the forest instead of the leaves sometimes.

Most people in my guild either like it or don’t feel it really affects them. There’s two people in my guild who don’t like it…that I’ve talked to so far anyway.

Ruhue.6582:

So I just went through using a level 20 scroll after I tried to log into my level 7 Mesmer. Every level unlocked something really important, like Asura gates (they came really late in the process, like.. level 18?!) Skill points! Vistas? This is terrible. Those were all the things I loved doing as a fresh noob. Being able to do those things right away, to go to different starting zones, to earn weapons skills by using the actual weapons… those are what made me love this game. It really set it apart. It feels more confusing and boring now, and more like you are being punished for being new, than being “rewarded.” The rewards came from being bold enough to explore, not afraid to die learning your weapons… so sad.

I think you’re making one mistake. Vistas were never locked only when they appeared on your map. Same with POIs. Same with PvP for that matter.

The locking mechanism is locking the visuals so new players see less, like nodes on the map as an example. But you can still farm wood when you see it. It’s just giving people time to learn what various markers mean as they play.

Sturmruger.3920:

“the boost to exp tapers off around 10, and your skills that you previously had to be 20 for are now 35. you get less skill points so you will have less options for utilities/etc.”

Was unaware the boost tapered off at level 10. That would be a bummer. I only leveled my new character to level 13, so I may be missing what some of you are getting at. I apologize for that. Ill try to hit 30 tomorrow and see how it works out.

Boost tapers off at level 10, because you can do 5 story instances in a row if you want at level 10. And it’s still faster till level 15 than it was before the patch.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Oh come on it was 100% from the Chinese Version of the game why we got this update, in 2 years on these forums I seen very little posts about the old levelling system / downed state, every now and then someone would ask a random question but nothing on a major scale like Anet are making out,

The only reason the new levelling system/ trait system was put into China was to slow the rate the person could level up, they didn’t want people farming Orr in 6 hours, it makes sense I suppose, giving this game as no end game, the longer they can keep you away from the 80 zones the better,

It was also stated by some that every update going forward after Chinese version was launched would be for them, and not for us, if an idea/ update etc does not work there, it will not be put into game, im still guessing we will see the VIP system before Summer next year.

The only thing Anet stated would be for them not us was the optional subscription called over there the VIP membership. To my knowledge, no other statement was made.

From a programming standpoint it makes great sense to unify the versions though and from my point of view these changes are mostly positive, not negative.

Particularly if you were going to say, start doing free weekends to get new blood into the game.

Some people like the changes. Some people don’t. Seems that not everyone will feel the same about every change. I didn’t like the trait changes from the April 15th patch, but with the exception of a few glaring omissions, I like the changes in this patch.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Actually they may very well care what players think. But some players don’t think the changes are bad and I’m one of them. I didn’t like the initial trait changes, and think they need work. But this recent change is better for me as an altoholic.

OP, you might not understand why, but I wouldn’t want to go back to how it was. I prefer this current method (though the trait system still needs serious adjustment).

you like it because you are a collector, and like reinforcement for goals. They could have appeased you without alienating so many others though.

Actually my favorite part of the new patch so far is the new leveling experience, not the collections.

yes, you mentioned you like getting something new every time you leveled, and unlocking things, i meant collecting the skills, and seeing progress with every level. Point is, they could have added things like that without neutering the more natural leveling experience.

there was nothing good about realizing that i should ignore every enemy in the inital instance, and that i would get nothing useful out of killing the centuars before the area boss. Walking around with 2 skills sucked, and 3 skills was like eh. Getting a blue warhorn than i couldnt actually equip until level 7. i hit 12 and i didnt even have a utility yet. (for engineer this is a huge blow)

I get that you like seeing new stuff when you level up, but there is nothing better about having skills locked out, and making the game feel like you should be trying as hard as possible to level as fast as you can. They could have added new interesting stuff for you to get/do as you level up that wasnt basic skills, like downed skill 2 and 3.

I’m convinced the sense of progression and it is a sense of progression is better than how it was, and I’m convinced long term it’ll probably be better for most players, even though at the beginning, it definitely won’t feel that way to everyone. Because people get used to A and think they A is how it has to be.

All the people who complain they don’t have all their skills while leveling aren’t convincing me that they’re using all their skills while leveling.

The standard complaints about this game usually involve the open world being way too easy. It’s much easier with everything unlocked. But you can still pretty much 1 your way through everything if that’s what you want to do and you know how to kite.

Yes there are probably people who do use those other skills but I’m not convinced they’re the majority. People are doing other things often while leveling alts and they just get into a mindless rhythm of moving and killing and the buttons seldom even matter. You don’t really need them. You had them so you want to have them now. But it doesn’t change much…not really.

If anything it makes it a tiny tiny bit more challenging, but not enough to help people who want challenge and not enough to justify the strength of the complaints against it.

I’ve seen a good lot of threads with people who hate this change, but I count about 20 people who seem to appear in most of them, saying similar things over and over.

I’m not seeing the same outcry on reddit (and reddit did freak with some of the other recent stuff).

So I’m attributing this to growing pains and not serious issues. We’ll see if I’m wrong or not down the road.

Lostwingman.5034:

Vayne.8563:

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

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

There’s nothing fun or challenging about level gating basic things over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over no matter how much you’ve already played. Veterans with level 80s should be able to skip past the pointless gating.

But there are ways in the game for players to skip past a lot of it. Birthday gifts give a year 20 boots. Other boosts can be attained from PvPing or black lion chests, plus people had a bunch of them from stuff like escape from lion’s arch. Double click a tome and poof a level. Double click a scroll and poof, 20 levels.

Anet probably needs to add more ways for this to happen, and make it so only people have an an 80 can use them, but they’re already in the game.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Vayne.8563:

Actually they may very well care what players think. But some players don’t think the changes are bad and I’m one of them. I didn’t like the initial trait changes, and think they need work. But this recent change is better for me as an altoholic.

OP, you might not understand why, but I wouldn’t want to go back to how it was. I prefer this current method (though the trait system still needs serious adjustment).

You mean spamming 1 all through the inital instance is good? You think that locking mechanics like the downstate until level 5 is good? Do you think locking the unique class mechanics is good? Hell, the ranger still has his pet since level 1, he just can’t control it. That’s utter nonsense. I really don’t see, not in the slightest, how the “A Fresh Start” changes should help anyone.

It took me less time with less skills to level than it does in the old method, but there’s more.

There were so many dead levels before. So many times I got, before the first feature patch, where I was leveling and I’d look and think, oh look 3 trait points. You didn’t even know you were leveling. It was like…nothing. No feeling of getting anything.

Unlocking the stuff this way, the feeling of progression is better for some people out of the box, even if they have several alts. If you don’t think many people like bells and whistles and SOMETHING when they level, you might be surprised. In fact, in the old system, if you didn’t note what your stats were and what they became you might not even know your stats had increased. Now you do…but it’s more than that.

I’ve been thinking about it, and thinking about the free weekends Anet hardly ever gives away. Why? Because those free weekends for people to try the game would maybe bring new players…but not if knew players couldn’t see definite progress early on like you see in most MMOs.

The leveling is fast enough anyway, if you enjoy it. It’s not fast enough if you don’t. But some people enjoy leveling alts and I’m one of them. I enjoy it more when I see change as I go.

It doesn’t matter to me if I don’t have skills 5-10 for a while, because I don’t actually need those skills to level. I’m trying it on a ranger now, but next I’ll try a mesmer to see if it’s too hard with the unlocks they give you.

Probably engineers have it the worst because of the kit situation. But so far, I’m enjoying it more. And if it helps people stay after free weekends, then I’m definitely all for it because no game is going to move forward if it doesn’t attract new people.

That’s a good business decision that long term is also better for me. Particularly now that we’ve seen games like ESO and Wildstar not doing as well.

Everyone seems to think the biggest MMO market are those people who already play MMOs. I’m convinced this market can grow and I’m convinced the new player experience is the way to go about growing it.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Actually they may very well care what players think. But some players don’t think the changes are bad and I’m one of them. I didn’t like the initial trait changes, and think they need work. But this recent change is better for me as an altoholic.

OP, you might not understand why, but I wouldn’t want to go back to how it was. I prefer this current method (though the trait system still needs serious adjustment).

you like it because you are a collector, and like reinforcement for goals. They could have appeased you without alienating so many others though.

Actually my favorite part of the new patch so far is the new leveling experience, not the collections.

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

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

Actually they may very well care what players think. But some players don’t think the changes are bad and I’m one of them. I didn’t like the initial trait changes, and think they need work. But this recent change is better for me as an altoholic.

OP, you might not understand why, but I wouldn’t want to go back to how it was. I prefer this current method (though the trait system still needs serious adjustment).

Coltz.5617:

Zoso.8279:

Coltz.5617:

Zoso.8279:

Coltz.5617:

Zoso.8279:

Vayne.8563:

It’s not just about making more sense. It’s about the feeling of progression you never really got before. A new person coming to this game from another MMO didn’t have a lot of bling in the leveling process.

So you know, your stats would go up every time you leveled, but nothing told you that happened. You used to be able to level without ever noticing. You can’t do that now. It always gives you something. There’s always something unlocking.

I’m guessing for a new player, it might be a bit more involving if nothing else.

And the speed to level to 15 has been dramatically increased, which doesn’t hurt me.

No point Vayne. Look at all the posts in this topic. 80% of the people here complain because they like to complain. People would focus on speed leveling through the game and then complain their is nothing to do. This game imo is the fastest game to level in but they are all “hardcore” gamers so they will attack anything that isn’t WoW (gear treadmill) or a game that forces you to have 5 skill bars open because THATS HARDCORE!!! YEAH!!!! HARDCORE!!!!! ( Hey I can be sarcastic too! Awesome! I never knew! )

Everyone is complaining on the their decision, presentation, planning, and thought process. Not the direction, You’d be in heavy denial if you think this is a great execution.

TP was fixed. Rangers fixed. You know whats annoying? When someone reads a build on a forum and comes here and gets owned because they don’t know HOW to run the build. The changes to leveling imo will help people with that problem. Just because you go to a forum and pick a build doesn’t mean you know how to use it correctly or when would be best times to us skills. Not everyone is born with the GREAT INTELLIGENCE that all the Q.Q here were born with. Honestly I’m sure a good portion of these people have bad W/L ratio in PvP because they don’t know how to run their build. LVL 100 with 30%/70% W/L ratios. And you level here then go to ANY OTHER MMO and level there and see who gets to level 80 1st.

People running around with other people’s builds not knowing anything. This situation is a flaw by design. Accessibility is of course welcomed but I honestly don’t think people are as.. In need of help as you imply. Taking more time to get to lvl 80 is fine and perhaps preferred for people that enjoyed the progression aspect more. However without the meat that fills the husk just getting to 80 slower or quicker is meaningless and pointless.

Well idk I think the point for low level areas is to learn the game and I think this update does just that. Neither you or I can say how much help a new player needs because we obviously are not new players. Looking back at when I started playing GW2 I didn’t feel a sense of direction now with this new patch you have those guides.

And can you please explain what “meat that fills the husk” means because I honestly don’t understand you on that one.

You can get to lvl80 very fast in gw2 compared to other games but it doesn’t matter how fast or slow you get to level 80 without content,game,events, gatherings, objectives, goals, rewards,punishments, blood , sweat, tears.. or anything that makes it memorable or fun. so the comment on gw2 getting to lvl80 faster than other mmo’s is pointless. the husk is your comment from getting 1 – 80, meat would be the meat of the game. Anet should really make the meat of the game better instead of extending the time from lvl1 to 80 by menial tasks, monotonous means, and grinding frustrations.

I think Anet plans to change the meat, which makes sense because so many people don’t care at all about DEs.

At a guess I’d say that beta weekend retention was bad, and they did research on why. The research led to the conclusion that in a weekend, people didn’t have time to learn the system to appreciate the game. Anet wants more retention for people who start, particularly during free weekends.

Now they have that, they can run a free weekend or even a free trial.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Vayne.8563:

Im Mudbone.1437:

Vayne.8563:

Im Mudbone.1437:

Fernling.1729:

It’s the same thing politicians do when they campaign. This big ol’ list of things they do to mislead you into thinking they are the right choice. Anet did the exact same thing. They acted as if they had all these awesome innovative things and they just didn’t deliver on much of it. I don’t think they ever had plans on half of the things said leading up to release.
I mean, they pretty much admitted to giving up on dynamic events as they weren’t played enough to waste resources on.
The game has slowly been made easier since the game launched. If they are trying to appeal to everyone, they should have made a facebook game. The game is starting to be good at nothing and just okay at everything else.

This^^^^ and it’s called BAIT AND SWITCH which is against the law and prosecuteable in many states, but, "they have a little disclaimer buried in the ToS that protects “them”.

Bait and switch is advertising a product and trying to sell someone a different product when they come into the store. What you’re probably thinking of is false advertising. I don’t think that this would qualify as that either, for various reasons having nothing to do with a disclaimer.

What do you think “bait and switch” is if not false advertising.

They’re different complaints legally, that’s all. I know this from being in the retail electronics industry in NYC. Bait and switch is a very different complaint.

It’s when a store advertises a model of TV or VCR that they don’t actually have in stock and then they try to upsell you on a different product.

Selling you a product that you advertise as having features it doesn’t is false advertising. They really are different.

Still not good business either way.

I’m not saying they did false advertise, only that your actual accusation doesn’t match the description of the problems. If they engaged in false advertising then I’d agree with you. I don’t believe they did.

Fernling.1729:

Im Mudbone.1437:

Fernling.1729:

It’s the same thing politicians do when they campaign. This big ol’ list of things they do to mislead you into thinking they are the right choice. Anet did the exact same thing. They acted as if they had all these awesome innovative things and they just didn’t deliver on much of it. I don’t think they ever had plans on half of the things said leading up to release.
I mean, they pretty much admitted to giving up on dynamic events as they weren’t played enough to waste resources on.
The game has slowly been made easier since the game launched. If they are trying to appeal to everyone, they should have made a facebook game. The game is starting to be good at nothing and just okay at everything else.

This^^^^ and it’s called BAIT AND SWITCH which is against the law and prosecuteable in many states, but, "they have a little disclaimer buried in the ToS that protects “them”.

Most gamers see a trailer that talks about all this awesome stuff and assume that the game will be like this because they were told so. I believe most wouldn’t dig deep into what exactly the game entails and would just base it off of the single video that Arenanet was linking ad nauseam.

It’s not a bait and switch or false advertising because of themselves labeling it a manifesto. Very smart on their part to say whatever they want without any true repercussions. Just like every politician.

Not to mention it was made two years before the game launched and Anet went into huge detail about the game after that. If anyone bought the game on a single five minute commericial and didn’t read further, with all the pages and videos that were out, I’d say it’s their own lookout.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Vayne.8563:

Im Mudbone.1437:

Fernling.1729:

It’s the same thing politicians do when they campaign. This big ol’ list of things they do to mislead you into thinking they are the right choice. Anet did the exact same thing. They acted as if they had all these awesome innovative things and they just didn’t deliver on much of it. I don’t think they ever had plans on half of the things said leading up to release.
I mean, they pretty much admitted to giving up on dynamic events as they weren’t played enough to waste resources on.
The game has slowly been made easier since the game launched. If they are trying to appeal to everyone, they should have made a facebook game. The game is starting to be good at nothing and just okay at everything else.

This^^^^ and it’s called BAIT AND SWITCH which is against the law and prosecuteable in many states, but, "they have a little disclaimer buried in the ToS that protects “them”.

Bait and switch is advertising a product and trying to sell someone a different product when they come into the store. What you’re probably thinking of is false advertising. I don’t think that this would qualify as that either, for various reasons having nothing to do with a disclaimer.

What do you think “bait and switch” is if not false advertising.

They’re different complaints legally, that’s all. I know this from being in the retail electronics industry in NYC. Bait and switch is a very different complaint.

It’s when a store advertises a model of TV or VCR that they don’t actually have in stock and then they try to upsell you on a different product.

Selling you a product that you advertise as having features it doesn’t is false advertising. They really are different.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Fernling.1729:

It’s the same thing politicians do when they campaign. This big ol’ list of things they do to mislead you into thinking they are the right choice. Anet did the exact same thing. They acted as if they had all these awesome innovative things and they just didn’t deliver on much of it. I don’t think they ever had plans on half of the things said leading up to release.
I mean, they pretty much admitted to giving up on dynamic events as they weren’t played enough to waste resources on.
The game has slowly been made easier since the game launched. If they are trying to appeal to everyone, they should have made a facebook game. The game is starting to be good at nothing and just okay at everything else.

This^^^^ and it’s called BAIT AND SWITCH which is against the law and prosecuteable in many states, but, "they have a little disclaimer buried in the ToS that protects “them”.

Bait and switch is advertising a product and trying to sell someone a different product when they come into the store. What you’re probably thinking of is false advertising. I don’t think that this would qualify as that either, for various reasons having nothing to do with a disclaimer.

Tharomir.6985:

Vayne.8563:

A manifesto isn’t a promise of delivery. It’s a statement of intent. Did they deliver? For the most part they did.

In what way? Almost every statement they said about the gameplay did not make it into the final game.

*It is very much a mmo for mmo players. If you hate mmos, you won’t want to check out GW2.
*People have made lists about things that they miss from GW1. Long lists.
*I would hardly call the storyline branching.
*You have fun tasks occasionally and alot of grind (purely opinion).
*Everyone around you is doing the same thing.
*The boss you just killed is going to respawn.
*"Dynamic events" are actually scripted, repeated events.
*You have no permanent effect on the world.
*There is no cause and effect.
*Villages you rescue don’t stay rescued and they don’t remember you.

Now to be fair, a few did make it into the final game
*Combat is more active.
*The art direction was excellent.
*Dynamic events actually happen.

Answered this in another thread. You’ll have to find it because I’m going afk right now, but the short answer is, when you take stuff out of context (and this is four years after it was made, ignoring the clarification published the day after), you’re going to get the short end of the stick.

Tharomir.6985:

I literally made a post about this a few hours ago, taking each statement and comparing it to the game we have today.

Almost every statement they said did not make it into the final game.
*It is very much a mmo for mmo players. If you hate mmos, you won’t want to check out GW2.
*People have made lists about things that they miss from GW1. Long lists.
*I would hardly call the storyline branching.
*You have fun tasks occasionally and alot of grind (purely opinion).
*Everyone around you is doing the same thing.
*The boss you just killed is going to respawn.
*"Dynamic events" are actually scripted, repeated events.
*You have no permanent effect on the world.
*There is no cause and effect.
*Villages you rescue don’t stay rescued and they don’t remember you.

Now to be fair, a few did make it into the final game
*Combat is more active.
*The art direction was excellent.
*Dynamic events occur, though they are not actually dynamic.

This is a pretty selective reading of the manifesto, which isn’t just a bunch of quotes. it’s a bunch of paragraphs.

The “everything you love about Guild Wars 1” line is clearly promotion. Obviously everyone likes different things about Guild Wars 1, if it was all in here, this would be Guild Wars 1. It would presuppose the devs knew what I liked about the game. Not even possible. Aside from that, the rest of the manifesto stands up.

The day after the manifesto came out, due to confusion it causes, a clarification came out. Colin was talking about dynamic events, and Ree was talking about personal story. This is the danger in bringing up a four year old video, produced two years before the game came out.

But the biggest misnomer are the grind comments. The paragraph starts “I swung as sword, I swung it again, hey I swung it again, that’s just great.” That’s how Colin describes grind. He ends the paragraph with “we want to change the way people view combat.”

To MMO old times grinding isn’t the same thing as farming. We used to grind out levels. We had to kill mobs to level, and that’s really what Colin’s referring to. Because nothing in that paragraph suggests otherwise. We want to change the way people view COMBAT. That’s what he’s talking about. Making combat more interesting. You can move, you can dodge, you can do other stuff to level not just kill stuff.

When I first played Aion there weren’t enough quests to get you to the next quest hub and you just had to grind mobs, over and over. A lot of older games were like that.

That’s what Colin was saying four years ago.

Well, it’s different, that’s for sure.

Some of the doom and gloom crowd have valid points. A lot of them are angry because they feel let down by the direction the game has gone.

Some people like the direction the game has gone.

You won’t know how you like it until you log in.

Invictus.1503:

Lady Celtaine.3760:

Behellagh.1468:

Makes those level to 20 scrolls a lot more valuable now.

Thankgoodness I had one in my bank. I had certain unlocks pop up retrospectively having used the scroll to jump to lvl 20. This kinda peeved me though… it seems new players wont be able to join a guild and benefit from the experience of other more experienced players until they are level 16.

This is bad for multiple reasons if I’m reading it right. If you are already part of a guild, you can’t talk to your friends while leveling an alt. If you are in a 100% rep. guild, this could cause a lot of confusion since you can’t represent them. And if you are part of a guild with buffs, you won’t get the experience buffs with them.

I’m not sure what you’re talking about here. I was repping my guild the entire time I was playing, on a level 2 character.

zenleto.6179:

Astral Projections.7320:

andrew.1798:

So they removed hard-hitting, condition-applying enemies in low level zones… while also removing the ability to dodge and heal early on. Take more things away and dumb the game down more, please!

They didn’t remove the ability to dodge or heal. I dodged an attack in the starter instance and dodged whenever I wanted at low level. There is also the heal skill right there, same as always.

And I was just hit by conditions in Caledon. Doesn’t look like people are really giving it a go.

Yeah I got hit by a condition in Queensdale too by a Veteran centaur.

Tharomir.6985:

Vayne.8563:

laokoko.7403:

so what makes it faster to level early on? did they reduced the exp?

I’m confused, beside making renown heart easier.

Seems like everything is giving more experience. I’ve made a bunch of alts, and this is by far the fastest I’ve ever leveled, without even trying. I’m getting a level about every ten to twelve minutes.

Is this true from 20-80?

Nope, only 1-15 as far as I know. They’ve turned 1-15 zones into tutorial zones and moved the “real content” to the next zone up.

ipan.4356:

Tharomir.6985:

More importantly, what mmorpg should I play instead now that I have lost my faith in GW2?

Archeage
Star Citizen
EQN
Destiny

Notice how no one is listing ESO or Wildstar, which people said would drive Guild Wars 2 out of business. I doubt very much it’s going to happen. Certainly not with Arch Age. Completely different audience. No PvE servers. Yeah, good call that.

Free unless you want to open bags. lol

Grind has more than one meaning. Why not quote the whole paragraph instead of the tiny bit you quoted. You know, “we want to change the way people view combat.”

Grind in MMOs is not about farming. It’s about killing. That’s why it starts with I swung a sword, I swung it again.

In many MMOs you needed to grind mobs to level. Grinding was about leveling. You’d grind out levels. If you take the whole paragraph, instead of pulling a sentence out of the middle, the context of what Colin is saying becomes clear.

laokoko.7403:

so what makes it faster to level early on? did they reduced the exp?

I’m confused, beside making renown heart easier.

Seems like everything is giving more experience. I’ve made a bunch of alts, and this is by far the fastest I’ve ever leveled, without even trying. I’m getting a level about every ten to twelve minutes.

Moonsphere.4295:

Vayne.8563:

Moonsphere.4295:

This new update really makes me want to stop playing this game, since this game feels like every other game. I feel bad for spending my money to this and all those gems.
I actually felt good to support devs and buy gems. Since I thought: Hey I’m helping them.
And now this…changing the whole game. I thought this supposed to be new and different mmo not like any other.

How is it like every other game? Because it slows down the way people get new stuff. Dynamic events are still there. Scaling still exists. The active combat really isn’t any different.

All this system does is make it so leveling feels rewarding to people. That’s why they did it. To return to the game for new players a feeling of progression that’s been missing.

That doesn’t make it like every other game. No one can steal my node, still. No one can steal my kill. I still get experience and loot if I participate.

Putting in a tutorial (which this game lacked) isn’t making it like every other game. It’s putting in a tutorial.

Firstly, to earn new skills and “moves” you have to level up. Before you just used weapon not levelled your character.
How its reward to get to do your personal story when you could get it in first place. I thought it made game more interesting it had “quests” that were interesting and then you could do stories that felt like events just made for you. Now you just have to level up your character to even touch them. I dont see how this would bring people back to game.

Yeah about nodes. Every game that has similar gathering has also “own” nodes.

I thought this game had pretty good tutorial already, we also got instruction manuals! And I dont like idea someone guiding you all the time how you do things. It doesnt feel rewarding, it feels more better when you actually figure it out yourself.

Actually the story was causing problems, because people assumed it was “the” quest line. People would come into the forums and talk about how they weren’t high enough level to do the next story. A lot of people felt they weren’t leveling fast enough because they didn’t realize that they had to do other stuff too. This sets the pace by giving people hearts and events first, and adding the story in, so they know it’s not the “main thing” in the game. The game is centered around open world and dynamic events, and the story is a sideline.

A manifesto isn’t a promise of delivery. It’s a statement of intent. Did they deliver? For the most part they did.

FireproofHeretic.3860:

Vayne.8563:

Moonsphere.4295:

This new update really makes me want to stop playing this game, since this game feels like every other game. I feel bad for spending my money to this and all those gems.
I actually felt good to support devs and buy gems. Since I thought: Hey I’m helping them.
And now this…changing the whole game. I thought this supposed to be new and different mmo not like any other.

How is it like every other game? Because it slows down the way people get new stuff. Dynamic events are still there. Scaling still exists. The active combat really isn’t any different.

All this system does is make it so leveling feels rewarding to people. That’s why they did it. To return to the game for new players a feeling of progression that’s been missing.

That doesn’t make it like every other game. No one can steal my node, still. No one can steal my kill. I still get experience and loot if I participate.

Putting in a tutorial (which this game lacked) isn’t making it like every other game. It’s putting in a tutorial.

It doesn’t feel rewarding to me! They’ve taken away skills and locked them to higher levels so I can “feel” rewarded when I earn back what I used to just have?
The active combat is the same, but you’re going to be doing a lot more of it than you used to have to in order to gain progress. This game wasn’t a mob-grinding engine before, and now it will be.

A heart now gives you about a third of a level in the new 1-15 experience. I played for an hour, got to level 8. I’m honestly not really seeing a problem here.

Almost every game teaches people how to play it. Guild Wars 2 did this badly. Now it does it better. It’s called taking one for the team.

Kuldebar.1897:

Vayne.8563:

I like it.

The one thing this game really lacked while leveling was a feeling of progression. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve leveled without even noticing, or went to spend a trait point (in the original system) and found I had three to spend, because I hadn’t noticed. The drops mostly couldn’t be used. I was level 20 wearing some level 1 stuff still. It wasn’t the best way to introduce people to the game.

Now, tutorials pop up when you level. Rewards come when you level. Hell in the old system, you didn’t even learn your stats went up unless you looked for it. Otherwise it was just a level.

And due to the increased speed of the 1-15, I’d say this is a fair trade off.

Extra Credits: The Skinner Box
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

I’m not sure what your point is. If it makes the game more enjoyable, it makes the game more enjoyable. Yes people do often play MMOs for rewards.

If you take the rewards out of the game, who’ll be left playing.

The skinner box is actually more akin to black lion chests or what they do in WoW when you raid but you’re not guaranteed a reward. Getting an automatic reward really isn’t a skinner box anyway.

But thank you for sharing.

Moonsphere.4295:

This new update really makes me want to stop playing this game, since this game feels like every other game. I feel bad for spending my money to this and all those gems.
I actually felt good to support devs and buy gems. Since I thought: Hey I’m helping them.
And now this…changing the whole game. I thought this supposed to be new and different mmo not like any other.

How is it like every other game? Because it slows down the way people get new stuff. Dynamic events are still there. Scaling still exists. The active combat really isn’t any different.

All this system does is make it so leveling feels rewarding to people. That’s why they did it. To return to the game for new players a feeling of progression that’s been missing.

That doesn’t make it like every other game. No one can steal my node, still. No one can steal my kill. I still get experience and loot if I participate.

Putting in a tutorial (which this game lacked) isn’t making it like every other game. It’s putting in a tutorial.

I like it.

The one thing this game really lacked while leveling was a feeling of progression. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve leveled without even noticing, or went to spend a trait point (in the original system) and found I had three to spend, because I hadn’t noticed. The drops mostly couldn’t be used. I was level 20 wearing some level 1 stuff still. It wasn’t the best way to introduce people to the game.

Now, tutorials pop up when you level. Rewards come when you level. Hell in the old system, you didn’t even learn your stats went up unless you looked for it. Otherwise it was just a level.

And due to the increased speed of the 1-15, I’d say this is a fair trade off.

Whether or not you see your minipet is likely due to how your cullling is set in options.

OP have you actually tried it? I’m leveling a character right now, as we speak. I’m already level 8. The leveling up to level 15 is so fast, it’s actually easier for alts.

All this patch did was change 1-15 zones to tutorial zones, so people can relax into a character. They’ve greatly increased the speed of leveling. It took me an hour or so to get to level 7. So level 1-15 you level through super fast (or use a 20th level scroll if you have to) and most of the major unlocking is done.

But what this has done is given people more information about what happens when they level.

Anyone who doesn’t think this was necessary hasn’t spent much time on player helping players forums.

It’s not just about making more sense. It’s about the feeling of progression you never really got before. A new person coming to this game from another MMO didn’t have a lot of bling in the leveling process.

So you know, your stats would go up every time you leveled, but nothing told you that happened. You used to be able to level without ever noticing. You can’t do that now. It always gives you something. There’s always something unlocking.

I’m guessing for a new player, it might be a bit more involving if nothing else.

And the speed to level to 15 has been dramatically increased, which doesn’t hurt me.

If those champs don’t exist then I’m sure they can be added. I do believe that Anet should not make someone have to roll a new character just to get a level. These are the kind of things that are definitely worth discussing.