Guild Wars 2

That’s another thing I forgot about. Speaking only of PVe now, PVe only skills were pretty OP in Guild Wars 1. So OP that it was very rare that in any profession, it wouldn’t make more sense to take one of those skills than a profession skill. You were limited to 3 of those skills.

That left five skills, for which you had two professions. Some of the skills were no brainers. One of them was usually a self-heal, which meant four skills left. You had an elite skill, and then three profession skills.

Yeah, it was fun to make builds, but really there wasn’t quite as much freedom as you were led to believe. Of course, it didn’t matter if you played with heroes, because if you specced them right, it didn’t matter what you brought to the table.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Weirdly it seems Anet dont like their own forum… Considering we have little to no information and i have just stumbled across a IGN article with some revealing info is makes me a sad to think that this place should be first and foremost when giving out information about the game and upcoming updates.

This has nothing to do with Anet liking their own forum. It has far more to do with Anet playing nice with certain sites. By giving the “scoop” to fan sites, they get people to visit those sites, perhaps even in exchange for commercial consideration, or ad space.

It’s good to keep the fan sites happy. The information was posted here on the forums anyway, right?

Giving scoops is fine. But there is no reason why the GW2 players should have to search for the info. The forums are one of the easiest ways the GW2 dev community has to communicate with it’s players, and there is no reason why the forum mods or community managers can not link pertinent sites and interviews in the News section of the forums.

Players ask why the devs don’t communicate more with the forums, and are told time and again that they don’t have the time to. But yet we see constant interviews, feeds, news stories appear on other sites that the devs have spent hours on. I’m not sure if anyone is asking for exclusivity for the forums, but keeping them in the loop isn’t too much to ask imo. Forgoing your official forums for face time on other sites does more to alienate people than it does to bring a community together.

You don’t have to search for info. In probably one more day, they’d update the page on the website. They just gave the sites a 24 hour exclusive. It’s not a big deal, because you can’t actually play the content until they release it. And someone will find and post it.

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

Weirdly it seems Anet dont like their own forum… Considering we have little to no information and i have just stumbled across a IGN article with some revealing info is makes me a sad to think that this place should be first and foremost when giving out information about the game and upcoming updates.

This has nothing to do with Anet liking their own forum. It has far more to do with Anet playing nice with certain sites. By giving the “scoop” to fan sites, they get people to visit those sites, perhaps even in exchange for commercial consideration, or ad space.

It’s good to keep the fan sites happy. The information was posted here on the forums anyway, right?

Drew.1865:

marnick.4305:

Vayne.8563:

kokiman.2364:

Dante.1508:

why should paying customers not complain, and ask for fixes?

You paid 50$ to get access to the game and that’s it. Do you expect them to send you loveletters now? You can complain and I am pretty sure the devs appreciate it if it is constructive but most of the time you just see people crying and begging for changes for their own benefit.

People are entitled to complain all they want. That’s fine.

Well thought out, constructive posts will likely get noticed by someone at Anet. Unfortunately, a lot of posts are either lacking in data, lacking in thought process, or worded so offensively, with so much hyperbole, that it’s hard to take them seriously.

I don’t think people realize if they worded their stuff in less offensive ways it’s far more likely to be passed up the line.

It has been confirmed that CMs take important stuff up to the devs on a daily basis. If all the trolls would post coherent posts, that would increase the noise in these daily updates and drown out some of the more important topics. Don’t encourage people to write proper suggestions

Hopefully they only take the complaints you approve of to the devs because those are the only important issues. And by coherent posts you must mean anyone that writes a post you disagree with is a troll? Yeah that makes sense….

You forget about a little thing called human nature. And human nature is human.

SO you see someone that just badmouths everything, and you know…it’s not a great look. You take what he’s saying with a grain of salt, because so much of what that person says is just negative assumptions. Not factual.

Someone else comes along and says much the same thing, but calmly, without offering offense. Language and use of language is very important. I’m sure you’ve heard people say, “It’s not what you say but how you say it.” That cliche exists for a reason.

Why should anyone take seriously anyone who behaves that way?

killcannon.2576:

It’s only partially if they have outperformed other mmo’s from the past or current generation, it’s also if they will outperform upcoming mmo’s. Now that they have released they also have to be aware of what other mmo’s will be doing in the future, or what current mmo’s will take from the the GW2 user experience.

For everything they do well, another dev team will be asking “How can we implement this in our game?”. For every misstep they make, another team will say " How can we do this better or not at all?" Gw2 is now in competition with itself, with it’s own good ideas that will be brought into other games, and with it’s mistakes that will not show up in other games. It will no longer be enough just to say “Look what we did, isn’t it great?”

Realistically speaking, I doubt any MMO is going to come out with bugs, without balance issues, full formed and ready to go. This is Guild Wars 2’s problem. It came out too early. I don’t think any MMO is going to be much different.

It’s easy to say, well other MMOs are coming and they’ll be better. That’s what was said about Guild Wars 2. The reality is, making an MMO is hard hard work. Bethesda, as an example, puts out single players games that are so buggy, their players have to fix the problems. And that might work for a single player game with a big modding community.

I’m not so sure that will work in an MMO. Again, time will tell.

Drew.1865:

Vayne.8563:

Drew.1865:

Vayne.8563:

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

That left one thing basically to do at end game for a PVe’er. Which was zone wide events, which gave the same rewards generally as Rifts. When I played, everyone basically ignored them and they couldn’t be soloed. So they’d fail. You couldn’t do them at all. You couldn’t go back to early zones, because nothing would even attack you. It was pointless.

They didn’t ignore anyone. They just did a “bad” job “by your standard”.

That is quite different from what you try to convey before.

By my standard and by the standards of lots of others. I was like Clay on those forums. I was the guy who thought the game might have a city that looked like more than a quest hub. Or it might have something to do other than dungeons. Or it wouldn’t put a raid at the end of the only epic quest line in the game.

That’s why I tolerate the guys who bash me all the time for being a fan boy. I was in their shoes on the Rift forums, along with a lot of other people. However, I was nicer to the fan bois than some people on these forums.

Tolerate? Lol!

I’m very tolerant of you guys. I don’t ever report you, even when you say things that are clearly derogatory. That’s pretty tolerant. I don’t even mind. I just figure it’s payback for stuff I said on the Rift forums. lol

I only report people who twist people’s words around and use subtle word play to insult them.

Seems a lot of people on this forum do just that. If you report them all, fairly, you’ll find them on both sides of the fence.

Drew.1865:

Vayne.8563:

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

That left one thing basically to do at end game for a PVe’er. Which was zone wide events, which gave the same rewards generally as Rifts. When I played, everyone basically ignored them and they couldn’t be soloed. So they’d fail. You couldn’t do them at all. You couldn’t go back to early zones, because nothing would even attack you. It was pointless.

They didn’t ignore anyone. They just did a “bad” job “by your standard”.

That is quite different from what you try to convey before.

By my standard and by the standards of lots of others. I was like Clay on those forums. I was the guy who thought the game might have a city that looked like more than a quest hub. Or it might have something to do other than dungeons. Or it wouldn’t put a raid at the end of the only epic quest line in the game.

That’s why I tolerate the guys who bash me all the time for being a fan boy. I was in their shoes on the Rift forums, along with a lot of other people. However, I was nicer to the fan bois than some people on these forums.

Tolerate? Lol!

I’m very tolerant of you guys. I don’t ever report you, even when you say things that are clearly derogatory. That’s pretty tolerant. I don’t even mind. I just figure it’s payback for stuff I said on the Rift forums. lol

Drew.1865:

I agree about complaining. My gm’s girlfriend didn’t log into her account for about a week then logs in to find her precursor was gone and all the gear from her toon was gone. She complained and nothing was done so I just explained to her that this is a game with no sub so we aren’t allowed to complain.

So other people had stuff done and your girl friend hasn’t? You mean she contacted customer service and they did nothing?

Reikou.7068:

Vayne.8563:

Reikou.7068:

Vayne.8563:

That’s a good point someone brought up. Some people are playing on machines that can’t keep up, or have intermittent lag spikes on their internet, or they are living in Australia and there’s sometimes latency issues. I don’t think any of that makes bezerker gear better for everyone.

Thats the fault of the player then, and the group shouldn’t have to carry a bad player, regardless of the reason why he/she is bad, be it sub-par physical or mental capabilities, or a sub-par computer/internet connection. Bad players are bad players.

So you’re saying everyone in another country is a bad player? LMAO. Okay there. Add to the list of people I’d never consider grouping with.

Anyone who performs worse than the top 50% of the population is a bad player by definition of being sub-par.

The reasons why they perform worse than 50% of the population is irrelevant, and the game doesn’t recognize this anyway. Only the fact that they don’t perform up to par.

I disagree with the use of the term bad to represent “sub-par”. Bad has connotations that imply lack of SKILL. Completely different than being unable to play areas of the game because of latency issues. It may have the same result, but the implications of the word is completely different.

Nope, you need EotN to actually get the points. What you can do is get to the end of each game without finishing them. Then, when you get Eye, run the last mission in each game, and you’ll get three statues you can put in EotN.

Reikou.7068:

Its still worth talking and discussing about.

Whether ANet actually reads whats going on here is rather irrelevant.

I don’t think it’s irrelevant, though I agree it’s worth discussing either way. But it would be better if Anet did see what was being said (and I’m sure they do).

Azure Prower.8701:

Vayne.8563:

That’s a good point someone brought up. Some people are playing on machines that can’t keep up, or have intermittent lag spikes on their internet, or they are living in Australia and there’s sometimes latency issues. I don’t think any of that makes bezerker gear better for everyone.

I live in Australia and have full berserker on my thief. I have no issues. Even though there is a little bit of latency.

I have been trying other stats other than berserker on other classes. But the lack of damage is making me think why did I waste my gold and not go berserker?

I’m down in Tasmania. Sometimes I have no issues, sometimes I have major issues. It depends on lots of factors. You can’t really go into a dungeon, and say okay I’m in my zerker gear, start having issues and expect to dodge every big attack. For that reason, not having zerker gear makes more sense for me, because if I don’t dodge some attacks, I still have a chance of surviving.

I can’t very well keep switching armor depending on how the connection is doing.

Kravick.4906:

I like this post. But… I have to share my feelings from the other side of the fence. Things that I feel didn’t pan out as I hoped they would.

First and foremost, ANet has kept up on the monthly updates, I am definitely seeing them making an effort to evolve this game. Unfortunately, I don’t think this evolution going fast enough. However, this might just be the nature of free to play MMOs. Long story short, most of my friends have already quit, and those that are left (VERY small amount) are now looking for another game to play. Once they all leave, I have no reason to continue playing GW2. Unfortunately, if they can find a game to invest their time in, they won’t come back.

Its been 8 months and we really haven’t seen anything new in the way of permanent content except fractals, and that got old quick. Most of what ANet has done has been focused almost exclusively on one time holiday events, which we no longer have access too at this time. SAB, while I won’t deny that its fun, is going to be gone soon too. Its also content that doesn’t even fit into the theme of the game. While the one time events were amazing (Mad King’s Clock Tower and Bell Choir are my personal favorites), I can’t help but feel that time could have been better spent on more permanent content we can enjoy year round.

The Flame and Frost story arch was interesting, but extremely shallow. They made it seem like they were adding a couple new dungeons, but instead we get 2 little story mode solo instances. I did all of it in a single day. I have no reason to go back and do them again. I was honestly expecting more. A lot more. The lead up to it was also extremely lacking. For an entire month we just got tiny little trickles of fed ex quests and camping a portal for an achievement. I wouldn’t even call any of that content.

Southsun was just… I have nothing positive to say about any of it. The in game event that started it all was just… eh, moving on. I can’t even stand going back to Southsun. The entire thing left such a bad taste in my mouth that I never even want to look at that place again. The Karka are even some of the most annoying things to fight in this game. The ONLY redeeming quality Southsun had was the rich orichalcum vein, and that got taken out. Now, the only reason to even go to Southsun is if you get unlucky and manage to draw a guild mission that forces you to go there. Even the guild rush event in Southsun is terrible. It is unanimously regarded by everyone in my guild as the worst rush mission. You can just hear the anguish, dread, and torment in peoples voices whenever we get told the guild Rush event is in Southsun.

Speaking of Guild Missions, these are pretty cool, sort of. I honestly can’t explain it, but Guild Missions don’t really feel very impactful. They feel more like a diversion or just something you do on the side. I was hoping they’d be large scale events that required your entire guild to participate in. Like a series of events that lead to a champion boss at the end, or defend a town from a massive invasion force or something.

The WvW update was also not what we expected. While the elimination of culling was great (no seriously, we love it), there was no new content added there. All we got was an experience system that ultimately means nothing. We can’t actually DO anything with our rank. The siege specialization certainly wasn’t the “Game changing” content we were expecting, either. All in all, it was a huge disappointment. WvW is still the same old thing it has always been.

Game is still amazingly crafted, but it doesn’t seem like it has the draw to keep people playing.

Most games at the 9 month haven’t added even as much as the fractals. I think your expectations are out of line with reality. In the time that the game has been out, in addition to the Fractals, they’ve also revamped a dungeon, added two new PvP maps, and other things as well.

As far as permanent content, well, you can bet the stuff from Christmas will be back next Christmas. It wasn’t a waste…it was an investment. Most of these games have holiday events. Making good ones that will last for a long time (which they can also build on) is pretty important.

I don’t remember Rift adding nearly as much as this game in it’s first 9 months. I don’t recall any pay to play game adding this much in the first 9 months.

Sure it’s a couple of instances. I agree. They should have never promoted it the way they did, and then no one would have expectations. But the only way Anet is really falling down on the job is if other MMOs in the same time frame have out performed them. I haven’t seen that happen yet.

Reikou.7068:

Vayne.8563:

That’s a good point someone brought up. Some people are playing on machines that can’t keep up, or have intermittent lag spikes on their internet, or they are living in Australia and there’s sometimes latency issues. I don’t think any of that makes bezerker gear better for everyone.

Thats the fault of the player then, and the group shouldn’t have to carry a bad player, regardless of the reason why he/she is bad, be it sub-par physical or mental capabilities, or a sub-par computer/internet connection. Bad players are bad players.

So you’re saying everyone in another country is a bad player? LMAO. Okay there. Add to the list of people I’d never consider grouping with.

kokiman.2364:

Dante.1508:

why should paying customers not complain, and ask for fixes?

You paid 50$ to get access to the game and that’s it. Do you expect them to send you loveletters now? You can complain and I am pretty sure the devs appreciate it if it is constructive but most of the time you just see people crying and begging for changes for their own benefit.

People are entitled to complain all they want. That’s fine.

Well thought out, constructive posts will likely get noticed by someone at Anet. Unfortunately, a lot of posts are either lacking in data, lacking in thought process, or worded so offensively, with so much hyperbole, that it’s hard to take them seriously.

I don’t think people realize if they worded their stuff in less offensive ways it’s far more likely to be passed up the line.

@Space Cow

Prophecies and indeed all of Guild Wars 1 was not an MMO. Anet has said so. It was a cooperative RPG, which is quite different than an MMO (though there are some similarities). One of the big issues that an MMO has (that Guild Wars 1 didn’t) is the balance of not just a group of people (at most 12 in Guild Wars 1), but also groups of hundreds of people. It’s a whole different level of programming.

Aside from that, saying if no one complained things wouldn’t change is unprovable, since there was never a time when no one complained. You’re assuming Anet is happy with the state of balance. I don’t think they are.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

That left one thing basically to do at end game for a PVe’er. Which was zone wide events, which gave the same rewards generally as Rifts. When I played, everyone basically ignored them and they couldn’t be soloed. So they’d fail. You couldn’t do them at all. You couldn’t go back to early zones, because nothing would even attack you. It was pointless.

They didn’t ignore anyone. They just did a “bad” job “by your standard”.

That is quite different from what you try to convey before.

By my standard and by the standards of lots of others. I was like Clay on those forums. I was the guy who thought the game might have a city that looked like more than a quest hub. Or it might have something to do other than dungeons. Or it wouldn’t put a raid at the end of the only epic quest line in the game.

That’s why I tolerate the guys who bash me all the time for being a fan boy. I was in their shoes on the Rift forums, along with a lot of other people. However, I was nicer to the fan bois than some people on these forums.

That’s a good point someone brought up. Some people are playing on machines that can’t keep up, or have intermittent lag spikes on their internet, or they are living in Australia and there’s sometimes latency issues. I don’t think any of that makes bezerker gear better for everyone.

Cloud.7613:

Vayne.8563:

It works both ways though. It’s laughable to compare the quality of things like graphics, for example, but what about the amount of content. There’s no way in hell a new game can compete with 9 years of content output.

Does that mean no one should ever make a new game?

Same with balance. Most MMOs during their first year have pretty bad balance, which gradually improves (in some cases anyway). Can you compare a new game to a game that’s had a bunch of years to get it right?

Not in my mind.

Yet again, as I said, It’s a laughable comparison.

Apologies, I think I misunderstood your post.

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why so many people are interested in making this game a pay-to-win scenario.

If the pick wasn’t overpriced, then it would be an economic advantage to those who can afford it. Essentially, people with real money or lots of gold right now will have a clear advantage over people without (especially new players who come in after the pick is removed).

Why the heck would you want something like that in the Gem Store?

If people wanted an economic advantage, all they have to do is buy gems and sell them for gold. It doesn’t represent pay to win, because it’s so easy to get top level gear anyway, it’s ridiculous. It’s nothing more than a short cut, and not a long one.

The highest stat gear in the game, like ascended gear, can’t be sold on the marketplace and can’t be bought in the shop.

I think maybe you have a different definition of pay to win than I do. Hint: Saving a few coppers a day because you don’t have to buy a pick is not pay to win.

It works both ways though. It’s laughable to compare the quality of things like graphics, for example, but what about the amount of content. There’s no way in hell a new game can compete with 9 years of content output.

Does that mean no one should ever make a new game?

Same with balance. Most MMOs during their first year have pretty bad balance, which gradually improves (in some cases anyway). Can you compare a new game to a game that’s had a bunch of years to get it right?

Not in my mind.

SPvP isn’t a solo event…it’s a team sport. So you get rated by your team. If you don’t want to make a team, that’s okay too, but don’t expect to be the best at PvP.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

In fact, that’s what this game is doing. Offering different things to different groups of people, like a true theme park. Not one thing for one group while ignoring everyone else.

You lost me there. I’m not sure why you think other game isn’t doing exactly what GW2 is doing by offering different things for different groups of people.

Okay I played Rift at launch (and I’ve repeated this story often enough, so sorry about this everyone). In Rift, you had one single epic quest chain that ran through every dungeon and eventually a raid. That was the only epic quest chain in the game.

The PvP at launch was pretty unbalanced, and not playable if you didn’t start playing from launch, because everyone was leveled and you weren’t. A rank 1 guy could do nothing but die, no matter how good you were. That left PvE.

The only thing Rift really offered in PVe was 3 end zones, which if you did dungeon at all, became obsolete. There was no downleveling. You also had rifts and zone wide events. Rifts were amazingly repetitive, much worse than DEs are, and on top of that, the reward for Rifts was planarite, which was completely useless at end game. I kept buying the squirrel minipets, because I kept hitting the planarite cap.

That left one thing basically to do at end game for a PVe’er. Which was zone wide events, which gave the same rewards generally as Rifts. When I played, everyone basically ignored them and they couldn’t be soloed. So they’d fail. You couldn’t do them at all. You couldn’t go back to early zones, because nothing would even attack you. It was pointless.

The game literally funneled you into doing dungeons. There was very little content compared to Guild Wars 2 at launch and even six months later. All they realliy gave you was a succession of daily quests, that’s it.

Not 1500 events you could go back to. Nothing like WvW. A very very imbalanced PvP which you couldn’t do if you didn’t live there to grind up levels, or dungeons and raids…the only way to finish the only epic quest in the game.

People complained and eventually, down the road, things were added. It might be a very different game now, but at launch, the game was designed for people who did dungeons and raided. And people left in droves.

I wasn’t the only person who felt disenfranchised.

Well, I guess for people doing very high level fractals, this may be true. What percentage of the playerbase is that, though? That’s the question.

I think that in most dungeons, being more survivable helps me, because I don’t LIVE in dungeons. I run the occasionally for fun. I’ll miss tells because I don’t see bosses enough enough to learn them. Because I’m colorblind, in some dungeons I can’t always see red circles on the ground. So yeah, toughness and vitality helps me some.

I think it depends on your play style and what you do in the game.

No, but if you think about theme park games like an actual theme park it makes sense. Some people go to Disney World to ride Space Mountain and Flash Mountain. They wait in long queues for this experience. I prefer Epcot center and hardly ever have a long queue for the stuff I like.

In fact, that’s what this game is doing. Offering different things to different groups of people, like a true theme park. Not one thing for one group while ignoring everyone else.

Which is why some many of us who feel disenfranchised with other MMOs like Guild Wars 2.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Vayne.8563:

Just about every MMO site out there called Guild Wars 2 an AAA title. I don’t know why you think you know more than they do. What makes a title triple AAA is partly the money spent to bring it to market, partly the size of the company making it and partly the expectation around it.

Guild Wars 2 is certainly considered by the media to be a AAA title.

Because I don’t read MMO websites at all and I believe this to be the case for many of the players. What makes me know more about GW2 than those websites is the number of hours I put in the game. I most certainly wouldn’t comment on WoW and SwTor for example. I find it odd that a “AAA” game does not have widespread brand recognition. Prior to GW2, I haven’t even heard of Guild Wars at all and I play a lot of games, read many gaming articles.

The lack of a LFG tool is an unreasonable complaint to some people. Gah, why am I wasting my time with people on this forum when I could be playing some other game that is not GW2.

If people don’t follow MMO game sites, that’s fine. But they also don’t get to decide what industry jargon is used for. It doesn’t make sense for a million people to all start making up their own defintions. There are industry sites, they do use certain language and the part of the playerbase that follows those sites picks up on that language. This is how language evolves. You may not like or choose to use the language, that doesn’t mean it’s not there or isn’t right.

Saying two games that are coming out about now have a feature, compared to the dozens of games that have come out that didn’t, isn’t really fair to say that it should be in the game from an older game. It’s simply not a feature most AAA MMOs launch with. You can argue it all day and all night, but it’s a fact that SWToR had a bigger budget than Guild Wars 2, is made by a different company, was released as a triple A MMO and it didn’t have a looking for group tool for many months after launch.

Anet is a smaller company, with a project just an ambitious, no monthly fee, less funding, and they’re working on a looking for group tool.

You can say it should have it in game because you believe it’s important, but apparently most developers don’t put the same importance on it as you do.

Mathias.9657:

Vayne.8563:

Assyrian.4827:

CakeGuy.4735:

@vayne finally someone who also sees at least a noticeable part of the picture.

I’m just a new former so I don’t know this forest trees thing. But I totally understand your views.

Now let’s just leave this thread because I know that you know that everything we are talking about here is 99% pointless.

Perspective… It decides the people who will be stuck as mere gamers and those who will move onto the next level.

Good day young ones.

Like you and Vayne we all love GW2 and we don’t want to change it to GW1.
We just need it improved to be a better game.
How many players left ( or taking long break) GW2 because they found it boring to like only one weapon and using the same skills for months.
the question is do you want them to come back and play again?

I’ve never ever said the game doesn’t need to improve. I’m just against knee-jerk improvements like Rift did where they changed the game too much, too frequently. It was, in my opinion, much worse than what Anet is doing.

The game WILL change. Real change takes time. In a year, the stuff we’re complaining about now will not be valid, and we’ll be complaining about completely different stuff.

I dunno, its already been almost a year and some things have actually gotten worse like the addition of ascended items. Who the hell knows what they have next on their agenda. All we can do is hope for the best that maybe someday they’ll remember the game that started it all and stop trying to forget it ever existed and the philosophies behind it.

Yes the game will change, but it could go either way as ANet have proven time and time again. The day GW franchise saw vertical progression was the day a lot of us lost all hope.

Remind me, when was that scavenger hunt for legendary/pre-cursor coming out? It was mentioned months ago… lol, time indeed. So tired of the grind.

First of all, gotten worse as the addition of ascended items is an opinion, not a fact. I don’t care about them one way or another, but a lot of people seem to like them.

Second of all 9 months is 75% of a year, not almost a year. Within regards of the MMO industry, the game is still young. MMOs really do take years to mature. I don’t know why you think even a year is a long time.

Most MMOs at the 9 month mark are still babies. You don’t have to believe it, but it doesn’t make it untrue.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Shootsfoot.9276:

clay.7849:

7. Just enjoying the scenery. GW2 is pretty and beautiful but you just can’t get lost like you could in GW1. And I still think GW1 had a magical feeling about it’s geography.

Wait what?

How did you get lost in GW1 with it being on rails like it was?

There were a large number of areas you never entered if you just did the story missions. Lots of them were rewarding to explore: unique bosses with a chance to drop weapons with rare skins, beautiful (for the time) landscapes (waterfall in The Falls, the Lonely Vigil in the Arid Sea, and so on), unique/elite skills to hunt and some interesting quests.

Taking a party out into the unknown was probably my favorite part of the game. For example, I was absolutely stunned when I happened upon the connection between The Crystal Desert and The Desolation.

This is relevant to the topic: all this enjoyment took place long after I had reached max level, finished the game and collected a good deal of cosmetic gear. I don’t get the same sense of exploration in GW2; I’ve stopped completionist at 71% with little interest in fully exploring the remaining zones.

This is completely correct. If you just followed the story line, you missed more than half of Guild Wars 1. And if you just do map completion you miss a big part of Guild Wars 2.

On topic: I’m enjoying Guild Wars 2 at max level in much the same way I enjoyed Guild Wars 1. And I did enjoy making and trying builds in Guild Wars 1, but the game was much more to me. They obviously left out the build wars aspect of Guild Wars 1 in Guild Wars 2 (for good reason in my opinion), but they did capture some of the exploration aspect, which is part of my end game.

I’m always finding and seeing things I never saw before. The difference for me is how often you go to a wiki to find things, and how often you find things by exploring. Turn off you map markers. Explore the game without knowing where vistas and POIs are. Make the game less about a checklist and more like an old-fashioned RPG. Those who have played those games will have a unique end game that’ll last a long, long time.

Assyrian.4827:

CakeGuy.4735:

@vayne finally someone who also sees at least a noticeable part of the picture.

I’m just a new former so I don’t know this forest trees thing. But I totally understand your views.

Now let’s just leave this thread because I know that you know that everything we are talking about here is 99% pointless.

Perspective… It decides the people who will be stuck as mere gamers and those who will move onto the next level.

Good day young ones.

Like you and Vayne we all love GW2 and we don’t want to change it to GW1.
We just need it improved to be a better game.
How many players left ( or taking long break) GW2 because they found it boring to like only one weapon and using the same skills for months.
the question is do you want them to come back and play again?

I’ve never ever said the game doesn’t need to improve. I’m just against knee-jerk improvements like Rift did where they changed the game too much, too frequently. It was, in my opinion, much worse than what Anet is doing.

The game WILL change. Real change takes time. In a year, the stuff we’re complaining about now will not be valid, and we’ll be complaining about completely different stuff.

Darkdanjal.3401:

TO the OP, sorry to say this but the game has been out for 8 months, when are you going to get it into your head that we dont live in the times when WoW first came out.

Arenanet had done some really good things in the MMO genre but the truth is they lack content no matter how you look at it. Yes there is every month a new sort of content thingy but the fact is I rather see some permanent content en some open world focus then adding new stuff en removing it the next month.

The truth is Im really looking forward to wildstar at the moment, it will be buggy as hell but at least it will have all features an MMO truly needs

But in spite of the fact that this is today, 2013, the laws of programming haven’t really changed all that much. No company can produce content faster than people can consume it. It’s not reasonable to expect them too.

Guild Wars 2 has more content at the 9 month mark than most MMOs had at the same time frame…maybe than all of them.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Vayne.8563:

But SWToR didn’t and I’m pretty sure TSW didn’t. Neverwinder is coming in 2013, so you can’t count it as 2012. I’m not personally familiar with Defiance, but I’m assuming it’s not a AAA title.

Funny I dont recall GW2 being branded as a AAA title. Maybe that is your own personal definition of a AAA title? Is Neverwinter a AAA title? I means it F2P not B2P. If AAA games lacks the features of a BBB game then I really question your rating system.

And SWTOR came out in 2011 i believe.

Just about every MMO site out there called Guild Wars 2 an AAA title. I don’t know why you think you know more than they do. What makes a title triple AAA is partly the money spent to bring it to market, partly the size of the company making it and partly the expectation around it.

Guild Wars 2 is certainly considered by the media to be a AAA title.

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Vayne.8563:

Like the complaints about how could any game not launch with an LFG tool when most games don’t.

This crap again.
In order not to derail YET ANOTHER thread I suggest you kindly take the LFG discussion here

This isn’t about derailing the thread. The OP is about all the good things in the game, and thanking Anet for them. Someone then comes into the thread and says the value of negative posting…which I agree with to a point. I then point out the difference between negative posting, and unreasonable negative posting. That’s actually on topic and part of the conversation. If you dont’ like the conversation…there’s not much I can do about that.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Vayne.8563:

Like the complaints about how could any game not launch with an LFG tool when most games don’t.

Defiance launched with LFG tool. I am quietly confident that Neverwinter open BETA will have one too since it already exists in closed BETAs.

The most games should mean most MMOs pre 2012.

But SWToR didn’t and I’m pretty sure TSW didn’t. Neverwinder is coming in 2013, so you can’t count it as 2012. I’m not personally familiar with Defiance, but I’m assuming it’s not a AAA title.

Shootsfoot.9276:

Vayne.8563:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Vayne.8563:

laokoko.7403:

Morphisor.7290:

BlackhawkSOM.6401:

I really hate it when people say ohh you can make your own end game—-seriously stfu..
this game aint no sand box.

Reason this game lacks real end game because there is just lack of things to do. Once you hit lvl 80 and get map completion the only thing left is spvp…wvw..fractals..farm for legendary/exotics(cof p1).

Thats what most people do anyway: Spvp was supposed to be the ultimate end game and has a lot of potential but with 8 months passing and no significant content(game modes, working tourny system, pvp specifc skins ect) its dying very fast.

I like how you say “once you got map completion the only thing left is….” and then proceed to name four different activities that can be done indefinitely.

Take any other MMO, and tell me, how amazingly many things there are to do in it after you reach max level and max gear.

Oh, right.

That is the thing. In other mmorpg I never see all the content, I never killed all boss in the game, I never get maxed my gear, some of which I never even reach max level. And I’m a game addicted that play way too much video game.

I’m in no way saying GW2 design is bad. I’m just saying this game is designed to be much more casual. Which is a good and bad thing depend how you look at it.

How many of those MMO did you play at launch? Because you could kill and do everything in games like Rift in a couple of months after launch EASILY. Even WoW when it launched, you could have done all the content in a couple of months.

Content takes time to produce. If you play an MMO with years behind it, you’ll have more to do. It’s simple logic.

Come on, Vayne, you’re completely abandoning intellectual honesty with this post. To say you could complete WoW heroic raids “in a couple of months” couldn’t be any further from the truth.

If you want to argue your point, that’s fine, but don’t make crap up like that.

I’m thinking about games at launch. WoW didn’t have any heroic raids and launch and I’m pretty sure they didn’t have them 9 months into the game’s life cycle. What’s truly disingenuous is comparing the content of an 8 year old game to the content of a 9 month old game.

I think we should compare the 2 games are 9 months old. Are you sincerely saying WoW had more content, or it took longer to complete than what Guild Wars 2 has?

Man, you’re fast.

I deleted the post because I misunderstood what you were saying. Didn’t realize at first you meant when WoW came out originally.

:)

After writing and editing for a living for more than a decade, you learn to organize thoughts fast and type fast too. Deadlines suck. lol

Shootsfoot.9276:

Vayne.8563:

laokoko.7403:

Morphisor.7290:

BlackhawkSOM.6401:

I really hate it when people say ohh you can make your own end game—-seriously stfu..
this game aint no sand box.

Reason this game lacks real end game because there is just lack of things to do. Once you hit lvl 80 and get map completion the only thing left is spvp…wvw..fractals..farm for legendary/exotics(cof p1).

Thats what most people do anyway: Spvp was supposed to be the ultimate end game and has a lot of potential but with 8 months passing and no significant content(game modes, working tourny system, pvp specifc skins ect) its dying very fast.

I like how you say “once you got map completion the only thing left is….” and then proceed to name four different activities that can be done indefinitely.

Take any other MMO, and tell me, how amazingly many things there are to do in it after you reach max level and max gear.

Oh, right.

That is the thing. In other mmorpg I never see all the content, I never killed all boss in the game, I never get maxed my gear, some of which I never even reach max level. And I’m a game addicted that play way too much video game.

I’m in no way saying GW2 design is bad. I’m just saying this game is designed to be much more casual. Which is a good and bad thing depend how you look at it.

How many of those MMO did you play at launch? Because you could kill and do everything in games like Rift in a couple of months after launch EASILY. Even WoW when it launched, you could have done all the content in a couple of months.

Content takes time to produce. If you play an MMO with years behind it, you’ll have more to do. It’s simple logic.

Come on, Vayne, you’re completely abandoning intellectual honesty with this post. To say you could complete WoW heroic raids “in a couple of months” couldn’t be any further from the truth.

If you want to argue your point, that’s fine, but don’t make crap up like that.

I’m thinking about games at launch. WoW didn’t have any heroic raids and launch and I’m pretty sure they didn’t have them 9 months into the game’s life cycle. What’s truly disingenuous is comparing the content of an 8 year old game to the content of a 9 month old game.

I think we should compare the 2 games are 9 months old. Are you sincerely saying WoW had more content, or it took longer to complete than what Guild Wars 2 has?

Edit: While we’re on the topic, why don’t you explain to all the non-wow players what lockouts are, and why it takes so long to beat that content.

Welcome back and have fun!

IndigoSundown.5419:

clay.7849:

That’s because Vayne wants you to believe that Ascended Gear came from people asking for it in the forums. It didn’t. It was part of ANet’s plan all along. They have said that many times.

What they said long before launch was that exotic was top tier. What they said after the game hemorrhaged players left and right, amidst complaints of “nothing to work for,” was, “We’re adding Ascended, and by the way we’d planned this all along.” You can believe the public relations speak if you like, but we are unlikely to know what really went on.

Now, I’m not complaining about Ascended. It is what it is. However, I’m not keen to believe ANet was intending to add it all along. They had to know it would kitten off many GW1 fans, so why plan its inclusion absent the evidence that it would be wanted?

It’s one of those spin situations. Ascended gear was probably discussed. Some people probably wanted it and got vetoed. So some people at the company, in fact, did start designing it pre launch.

When people felt they had nothing to do, they dusted it off, made some changes to how it was, most likely, and then said, its’ been here all along. Not exactly a lie, but not exactly the truth either.

It’s a company trying to mollify those offended, of which there were many, and still provide something for those who needed that extra bit of something to work towards.

And some people call the devs lazy. lol

Thanks so much for this post. This is pretty much how I feel. There’s so much going on, so many changes, so many fixes…and more will come in time.

Keep up the great work, Anet!

I don’t mind complaints. I mind complaints when they’re phrased in ways that cause the major issue to be sensationalized.

It’s different to say the ranger needs some love, the pet AI isn’t good enough for dungeons, etc. It’s another thing to say this game has the worst balance of all time or that the ranger is completely useless. Neither of these things are true. At best they’re matters of opinion but at worst they’re hyperbole. Trying to make the situation sound worse in an attempt to manipulate those who make the game to do something that may or may not be necessary.

People talk about the game saying it’s “dying” with not a shred of evidence to back it up. They say things about how bad thing is compared to other games, which is of course a matter of conjecture, not to mention that every game is at a different stage of development.

I don’t post in every complaint thread. I just post in threads where people have lost the plot. I try to rein it back in till it’s reasonable.

Like the complaints about how could any game not launch with an LFG tool when most games don’t.

RebelYell.7132:

People on the forums say PvE is easy. People who have just been handed a repair bill by their GW2LFG pug may not agree.

I wasn’t talking about dungeons, which were meant to be hard content (and still end up trivialized for people). I’m talking about every single creature in the open world. There’s a whole world outside of dungeons that would be laughable if suddenly everyone was more powerful.

Dynamic events, for example, scale now. Aside from the most frequented events, like the maw, most event chains are pretty okay. You have a decent chance of finishing them, but you can also fail some. And that’s fine.

But if you have five people suddenly show up to an already balanced event, which used to be doable if you worked at it, suddenly it becomes much easier because three or four of that group are now more powerful. The entire event scaling would have to be rewritten for 90% of the events. The wandering creatures who just spawn randomly would all have to be changed too.

With the ultimate problem of still having to balance out what happens when you do rewrite all that stuff and suddenly some professions are being complained about as being under powered. Because I play a ranger and necro and engineer in the open world and they don’t feel under powered at all right now.

I also run a lot of dungeons and I always make a whole lot more than my repair bill.

Karizee.8076:

Progression is a weak illusion propagandized by subscription fee games where you don’t actually progress, your gear does. You don’t get better, you get better gear.

That type of subscription model gates that gear behind horrifically teensy drop rates on ginormous loot tables which is further gated behind reputation or daily grinds.

It’s an awful way to play an MMO. Boring as sin.

I agree with this. I don’t want my character to be a coat rack for greatness. I want to be great myself. There’s a big difference between these two states of play.

laokoko.7403:

Vayne.8563:

laokoko.7403:

Morphisor.7290:

BlackhawkSOM.6401:

I really hate it when people say ohh you can make your own end game—-seriously stfu..
this game aint no sand box.

Reason this game lacks real end game because there is just lack of things to do. Once you hit lvl 80 and get map completion the only thing left is spvp…wvw..fractals..farm for legendary/exotics(cof p1).

Thats what most people do anyway: Spvp was supposed to be the ultimate end game and has a lot of potential but with 8 months passing and no significant content(game modes, working tourny system, pvp specifc skins ect) its dying very fast.

I like how you say “once you got map completion the only thing left is….” and then proceed to name four different activities that can be done indefinitely.

Take any other MMO, and tell me, how amazingly many things there are to do in it after you reach max level and max gear.

Oh, right.

That is the thing. In other mmorpg I never see all the content, I never killed all boss in the game, I never get maxed my gear, some of which I never even reach max level. And I’m a game addicted that play way too much video game.

I’m in no way saying GW2 design is bad. I’m just saying this game is designed to be much more casual. Which is a good and bad thing depend how you look at it.

How many of those MMO did you play at launch? Because you could kill and do everything in games like Rift in a couple of months after launch EASILY. Even WoW when it launched, you could have done all the content in a couple of months.

Content takes time to produce. If you play an MMO with years behind it, you’ll have more to do. It’s simple logic.

I dont’ like to talk about other games because it is like marketing for them. Let me put it this way without naming the game.

The gear is so hard to get in that game, there is exactly “1” person on the entire server that have the best pvp weapon when the game released. The fraction of people that killed all the raid boss is 0.1% on the entire server. Only 5% of the people even get the best pvp gear in the game, because the developer keep making new tier of armor when other people get close.

I never reach max level in another game, and I’m already the top 10 highest level player on the entire server.

I hope you get the point. Because in other game seeing all the content, and getting the best gear or max level is so freaking hard very few on the server even reach that goal. And when people get close, you know what happened, new level cap, new tier of armor, and new dungeon/raid.

You should definitely play that other game. Because I don’t see where it pays for a developer to make content so hard that most people will never see it. It seems a shame. I’d want to see it, and I’m not going to kill myself to do it. Getting through the three paths of Arah, or DOA in Guild Wars 1, or the Deep and Urgoz’s Warren in Guild Wars 1 were about as hard as I want to get. Worse than that, I’m not interested in.

The problem is, most of the playerbase probably wouldn’t be either, because they’d have no chance of seeing it.

That’s why I like what Anet did with the Fractals. Competitive guys can work their way up to high level fractals, guys like me can enjoy them in easier modes, for lesser rewards. I got to see the fractals. I’m not worried about seeing them at level 40 plus. It’s extremely likely, I’ll never do a fractal higher than level 20.

I’m not sure it’s about effort. Most people say the PVe in this game is already laughably easy. So if you buff every profession to meet the requirements of the top build of the top profession, what does that to do an entire world of PVe content?

It makes it more trivial than it is now. And the people complain everything is too easy. Nothing is worth doing> It’s a joke. So Anet would then have to buff everything in the open world. All of it.

At which point does it get to hard, or is it too easy? If they buff it too high they’ll have to keep buffing the builds to keep up. It’s a never ending cycle.

This is nothing to do with easy and hard. It has to do with practical and impractical.

The only real way to do this is to seperate SPvP from WvW from PvE and balance them all separately. And that’s more work but that also had downsides too, particularly for casual players.

It’s hard enough for some people to learn one set of builds and strategies, Now someone wants to take their character into WvW and boom, they have a changed set of skills. They have to start learning all over again. Their builds don’t work the same, they get frustrated, they come here and cry on the forums.

Everything is easy when you’re telling people how to do things. But often, when you actually try to do them, in real life, they often become much harder.

Nerfing the top builds is pretty much the only way to go, unless you want to rebalance every encounter in the entire open world.

Too late to argue with you pointless stuff like this…it’s off topic Clay and time for me to get some sleep.

None of this has anything to do with your THEORY about why the blog posts were taken down. It’s an interesting theory.

But it’s just a theory. I won’t be able to reply again, because I’ll be, hopefully, sleeping.

I’m not changing the argument at all. At no point did I say that the combat system in Guild Wars 2 is fully fleshed out, or that everything is peachy. Guild Wars 1 was build wars, as far as I was concerned, particularly in PVe. My success for failure at doing anything was over as soon as I walked out of an outpost, assuming I was doing hard content, anyway. The build was more important than the skill in PvE, because your heroes could do everything. Didn’t matter what anyone else in your party did.

But also, we talk about depth and things like the number of viable builds. Anet isn’t happy with the number of viable builds in the game. They said so. They have ways they’re testing to fix that.

We have been talking about all sorts of stuff including depth. As the game matures, there will be more builds, and the meta game will evolve with it.

What is you about forests? Why can you only see a tree?

Balance will change as the game matures. Skills will get added as the game matures. Those who want it all now can keep wanting it…but it won’t happen now. It’ll happen when it happens. If people don’t wait for it, they’ll leave.

I’m willing to bet a lot of people enjoy the game enough that they’ll be here when it changes.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

digiowl.9620:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Milennin.4825:

Strange, didn’t know they removed the blogs. Maybe to prevent people from digging up old ‘promises’ they made in some of them (such as account-wide dyes).

I’d go with this theory until someone proves otherwise.

Because it’s easier to go with a completely unproven theory than to not judge. Says tons.

Have you read some of those blog posts? It’s pretty obvious why they pulled them. Much more kitten than the “manifesto” compared to what we have.

I’ve read all of the blog posts. Every single one of them. It’s not obvious why they pulled them. It’s your opinion why. Some of the blog posts are years old though and probably not relevant to an evolving game.

No, it’s pretty clear as to why. There are lots of things they made definitive stands against that now appear in the game. Some things specifically contrary to what you continue to say.

It’s only clear to you, and maybe a couple of guys like you. As you get older, you start seeing more shades of gray and less black and white. I hope you remember some of these conversations when you’re my age.

Odd, my experience is the opposite. As people age they become more set in their ways, resulting in more black and white thinking (also known as their way or the highway).

Actually, a lot of people when they’re in their 20s are young and idealististic. They think they’re going to change the world. This is right and this is wrong. They campaign actively for things quite a lot.

And some keep doing it, but many move on. Look for the lyrics of the Billy Joel song the Angry you Man. It talks about this. And it’s not uncommon.

It is exactly those people that have changed the world. Because, unlike older people, they have little to lose and a lot to gain.

Right, young guys change the world. No old people ever do anything. I’m pretty sure they guys who formed the USA and broke away from England weren’t “young guys”. I’m pretty sure John Adams was in his 40s when he signed the Declaration of Independence.

Many people don’t really make a huge difference until they’re older. The world has changed, grasshopper.

I’m still not convinced you’d lose many, if any fights if someone had slightly better gear than you did. Because there’s so much more besides gear that determines the results of a fight.

Two guys meet…if they had the same profession, the same builds, the same skill, then the gear would be the deciding factor. But that’s not how it is.

Of course, in SPvP everyone is equal. That only leaves WvW.

Aside from the fact that the game was more or less designed to be played in groups, if you end up 1v1 with someone in WvW, your profession and builds (skill selection and traits) will have far more to do with defeating someone than a few points in power or crit. And the % chance of that deciding the winner of any fight would be pretty small.

Aside from that, when compared to Guild Wars 1, well often those victories were decided before you ever left an outpost. It was Build Wars…your build against their builds….maybe the best build win.

Arguably, if you chose the wrong skills for the team you were facing, you were gone.

Not to mention stuff like random arenas, where the team with the healer always won.

Guild Wars 1 has some definite skill things going on, but there was plenty of room for a good build just winning.

And those who went to PvX wiki and took builds off of there often did quite well, in spite of the fact that their own skill wasn’t all that crash hot to begin with.

digiowl.9620:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Milennin.4825:

Strange, didn’t know they removed the blogs. Maybe to prevent people from digging up old ‘promises’ they made in some of them (such as account-wide dyes).

I’d go with this theory until someone proves otherwise.

Because it’s easier to go with a completely unproven theory than to not judge. Says tons.

Have you read some of those blog posts? It’s pretty obvious why they pulled them. Much more kitten than the “manifesto” compared to what we have.

I’ve read all of the blog posts. Every single one of them. It’s not obvious why they pulled them. It’s your opinion why. Some of the blog posts are years old though and probably not relevant to an evolving game.

No, it’s pretty clear as to why. There are lots of things they made definitive stands against that now appear in the game. Some things specifically contrary to what you continue to say.

It’s only clear to you, and maybe a couple of guys like you. As you get older, you start seeing more shades of gray and less black and white. I hope you remember some of these conversations when you’re my age.

Odd, my experience is the opposite. As people age they become more set in their ways, resulting in more black and white thinking (also known as their way or the highway).

Actually, a lot of people when they’re in their 20s are young and idealististic. They think they’re going to change the world. This is right and this is wrong. They campaign actively for things quite a lot.

And some keep doing it, but many move on. Look for the lyrics of the Billy Joel song the Angry you Man. It talks about this. And it’s not uncommon.