Guild Wars 2

Sartharina.3542:

Pezz.4758:

are you for real, WvW, dungeons, difficulty, confusing maps, guild hall issues ARE NOT different things, they are all HoT complaints!

But different HoT complaints.

Yes, different hot complaints. TO make it easier to understand you might solve the guild issues for small guilds and the people who want hot to be made easier wouldn’t necessarily be appeased. You could then make hot easier and kitten off the same people you helped by making the guild halls more accessible, because they wanted more challenging content.

This is a deeply divided community. HOT was never going to please everyone, but I do believe it pleased more people than the forums would suggest.

Pezz.4758:

are you for real, WvW, dungeons, difficulty, confusing maps, guild hall issues ARE NOT different things, they are all HoT complaints!

Yes but most of the people complaining about how hard it is, are NOT complaining about the dungeon nerf. Most of the people who stay in WvW all the time aren’t complaining about raids being hard.

In fact the WvW popluation has rebounded considerably since HoT came out. People didn’t like the new borderlands. Many people do like the changes that have been made.

But to say that one guy who finds the game to hard and has complained about that one thing incessantly (ie the guy I was responding to) doesn’t mean his demographic, ie those who find HoT PVE too hard are the majority.

It doesn’t matter if a majority of people don’t like HoT (a fact for which you have zero evidence in the first place) if they all don’t like HOT for different reasons.

The poster I responded to says Anet doesn’t listen to what players want. Well there were plenty of players asking for more difficult content. What they didn’t ask for is what HE wanted, which unfortunately is just one demographic.

It’s not like this playerbase speaks with one voice and anyone who says they do is probably more part of the problem than the solution. Because this is a deeply divided player base with people who want very different things.

Pezz.4758:

Vayne.8563:

Daddicus.6128:

Trinnitty.8256:

I feel bad for anet they put all this design into HoT and then had to redo that design to balance it out (delaying upcoming content even more). Anet needs to focus on getting things done right the first time. Look at those mini adventures in HoT and how poorly that was done. Guild halls are almost pointless.

You are correct. Completely correct.

Unfortunately, ANet doesn’t bother asking their player base honestly what they want. They decide what they want to give us, and then test the waters, with a tiny subset of what they’re thinking, to see who screams.

Worse, the “waters” they test against are almost universally hardcore players (Reddit users and to a lesser degree, forum participants). So, a tiny percentage of extremely vocal players get their way. Why are they surprised when it fails miserably?

If they really want to do it right, they need to survey a statistically-valid randomly-chosen portion of their entire player base. They need the survey to include EVERYTHING they are thinking about doing.

NOTE: The survey could be skewed towards people who spend more money on the game. It doesn’t have to be a completely random list.

If they had done that, they would have learned a year before HoT released how badly their designs were going to be welcomed. Maybe even longer. Certainly in time to avoid publishing the worst of the features.

You keep saying Anet doesn’t ask players what they want. Anet has some idea of what some players want. That’s what forums do. Anet does have people that read forums.

The problem is you still insist your demographic is some sort of majority and I not only believe it’s not a majority, I believe it’s a very small but extremely loud minority.

Saying Anet doesn’t ask us what we want is silly because we know for a fact that a lot of the stuff HOT gave us, some people asked for.

The recent in game population and the fact this this thread sat at the top of the forum for 4 hours without moving leads me to believe maybe people who werent happy arent just a tiny minority, but theyve already left.

First of all, you have no idea of the recent game population. No clue at all. Unless you can give me numbers from somewhere reliable, I’ll say that I don’t really see any difference in the population over time.

However, more to the point, none of that is relevant because people leave for DIFFERENT reasons. If 50% of the population left the game, but 10% left because it was too hard and confusing, which is Daddicus’s agenda, then you might have something. But some left because of WvW, and some left when the dungeon nerf happened and didn’t come back and some left because of the guild hall issues, and some left because they felt like they had to grind and some left because the game was too hard, and some left because it’s summer and they play less and they intend to come back.

Saying the game’s population is lower means zero if A) you can’t prove it and the people complaining are complaining about completely different things.

That could very well make your particular population a minority. It doesn’t mean that most people feel the way you do.

Every summer in the US the population dips. New games come out and people play them. Then the living story comes out and tons of people pop back in to play it.

It’s all meaningless unless you have some actual numbers to back up what you’re saying.

I saw the movie Titanic after my wife saw it. When she saw it, the boat sank. Magically, however, when I saw it, the boat sank again. Obviously, the boat didn’t magically get fixed and sink again.

All zones in the game are locked in time. Orr isn’t healed, even though we healed Orr. Every time we kill the great Jungle Wurm it doesn’t spawn the next day again.

That’s the nature of an MMO. Unlike single player games that can advance in story because you’re the only one playing the game, MMOs need to have areas frozen in time so other people can appreciate the story too.

Anet did actually try to rectify this was the Living World Season 1, but too many people complained that they were missing content if they weren’t here at the time.

Edit: I probably should also mention that the beast doesn’t wipe everyone if you win. It only wipes you if the server you’re on doesn’t win.

Daddicus.6128:

Trinnitty.8256:

I feel bad for anet they put all this design into HoT and then had to redo that design to balance it out (delaying upcoming content even more). Anet needs to focus on getting things done right the first time. Look at those mini adventures in HoT and how poorly that was done. Guild halls are almost pointless.

You are correct. Completely correct.

Unfortunately, ANet doesn’t bother asking their player base honestly what they want. They decide what they want to give us, and then test the waters, with a tiny subset of what they’re thinking, to see who screams.

Worse, the “waters” they test against are almost universally hardcore players (Reddit users and to a lesser degree, forum participants). So, a tiny percentage of extremely vocal players get their way. Why are they surprised when it fails miserably?

If they really want to do it right, they need to survey a statistically-valid randomly-chosen portion of their entire player base. They need the survey to include EVERYTHING they are thinking about doing.

NOTE: The survey could be skewed towards people who spend more money on the game. It doesn’t have to be a completely random list.

If they had done that, they would have learned a year before HoT released how badly their designs were going to be welcomed. Maybe even longer. Certainly in time to avoid publishing the worst of the features.

You keep saying Anet doesn’t ask players what they want. Anet has some idea of what some players want. That’s what forums do. Anet does have people that read forums.

The problem is you still insist your demographic is some sort of majority and I not only believe it’s not a majority, I believe it’s a very small but extremely loud minority.

Saying Anet doesn’t ask us what we want is silly because we know for a fact that a lot of the stuff HOT gave us, some people asked for.

Sartharina.3542:

Vayne.8563:

Soon.5240:

Vayne.8563:

So some people are essentially doing all the work, while everyone else benefits.

It’s just unfair.

But how EXACTLY is it unfair? How EXACTLY does it hinder your advancement/enjoyment of the game, or give someone else a leg-up over you?

If someone gets home from work, and can only spend 30 minutes in the game before fixing dinner for the kids, should he abstain from entering a meta-map mid way to completion in order to avoid offending your definition of right or wrong?

Vayne, what are your now? 32k Points Earned? Still doing 40+ hours a week in the game?

Edit: Let me add: If Anet handed out free Legendaries or Ascended armor it wouldn’t bother me in the slightness. In no way would it prevent me from enjoying the game. You sound like someone who needs others to fail in order for you to feel good about your “success”.

First of all, I’m not talking about me, and pointing out the number of hours a week that I work is completely pointless.

Because there are people who work every day and have little time to play and don’t know how to map hop or that it’s even a thing. And to those people it’s not fair.

Many casual players don’t get on forums. They don’t go to reddit. They barely know the game compared to people who do.

Like many people, you assume when I’m talking about fairness, I’m talking about fairness to me. It’s an unwarranted assumption.

It’s unfair to the people who don’t know better.

I know better.

And off topic: I still have less than 30k points and don’t play as much as I used to. Not that it should matter, since what I said remains true either way.

On the other hand, those who only map-hop to fight the vinewrath miss out on a BUNCH of events and rewards from them, can miss out on killing Legendary Monsters, and may end up on a poisonmap. And, thanks to the people who do nothing but taxi, players on a map that’s just kinda chugging along (Whether they’re just screwing around for shovels, chests, and crests, or doing map completion, etc) can open a taxi when the Breach/Vinewrath start, and find enough willing players to turn a quiet map that would end up failing into a successful and rewarding one instead. And maybe get a chest train going afterward.

None of which addresses my concern. I’m not saying no one will ever taxi people onto a map that’s at 10%, but it’s not that often and it’s not that common. Usually people look for maps that are more than 75% or even 90%, taxi and it get their rewards.

As much as I’d love to believe in the benevolence of most players, game mechanisms are what keep people relatively honest, not some deep desire to do well for humanity.

I tend to help out in Silverwastes if I see someone doing some stuff, because that’s how I’m wired, but believe me when I tell you, there are often only a small number of people wandering around those maps, asking if anyone ever does the Silverwastes anymore.

I can tell those people I run into that they should use LFG to get to a populated map, but every time I go there’s more people just like the first.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Soon.5240:

Vayne.8563:

It’s unfair to the people who don’t know better.

You, yet again, ducked my question. HOW IS IT UNFAIR??????

If someone is doing none of the work but reaping the benefits, well, that’s considered leeching. Even actively participating in some dungeon groups — if you aren’t playing meta — is considered leeching and can result in the alleged leech getting kicked. If people think it’s not fair for one player to reap the benefits while only participating to an extent, how more unfair is it for players to benefit from doing nothing?

Now, that’s not how I think — but I do think that some others think that way.

I’ve explained more than once how it was unfair. I’m not sure how else to explain it. But I think IndigoSundown did a good job of it.

It’s not unfair to people who know how to use LFG and get to a map about to pop. I just wonder what percentage of the game’s population is aware of it.

Soon.5240:

Vayne.8563:

So some people are essentially doing all the work, while everyone else benefits.

It’s just unfair.

But how EXACTLY is it unfair? How EXACTLY does it hinder your advancement/enjoyment of the game, or give someone else a leg-up over you?

If someone gets home from work, and can only spend 30 minutes in the game before fixing dinner for the kids, should he abstain from entering a meta-map mid way to completion in order to avoid offending your definition of right or wrong?

Vayne, what are your now? 32k Points Earned? Still doing 40+ hours a week in the game?

Edit: Let me add: If Anet handed out free Legendaries or Ascended armor it wouldn’t bother me in the slightness. In no way would it prevent me from enjoying the game. You sound like someone who needs others to fail in order for you to feel good about your “success”.

First of all, I’m not talking about me, and pointing out the number of hours a week that I work is completely pointless.

Because there are people who work every day and have little time to play and don’t know how to map hop or that it’s even a thing. And to those people it’s not fair.

Many casual players don’t get on forums. They don’t go to reddit. They barely know the game compared to people who do.

Like many people, you assume when I’m talking about fairness, I’m talking about fairness to me. It’s an unwarranted assumption.

It’s unfair to the people who don’t know better.

I know better.

And off topic: I still have less than 30k points and don’t play as much as I used to. Not that it should matter, since what I said remains true either way.

are you running the game as “an administrator”?

Rauderi.8706:

IndigoSundown.5419:

In SW, it’s a lot easier to drop in, participate and have fun, whereas in HoT if your timing is off you might as well not show up. Also, the abomination that is taxiing was less of an issue in SW for the same reasons.

I cite Dragon Stand as further evidence. If you don’t taxi, you have a dead map, period. Even then, you have to show up at just the right time to taxi in. It’s not healthy for that area, which is a huge chunk of HoT’s content.

It’s true most of the time. Not allt he time, but most. But if you’re not running at prime time you can definitely taxi into maps late, because I have, and I get the job done as well.

Prime time weekends you’d probably get more full maps.

Soon.5240:

Vayne.8563:

The problem with player driven maps, a problem Anet was trying to get away from, is the problem of people just going from map to map that’s ready to pop, leeching, while a couple of people do the events on those maps, to progress the meta.

The Silverwastes maps are a perfect example. A few people who don’t know sit on a map and play it, until it’s about to pop and then everyone jumps in and cleans up the rewards..

While what you say is, no doubt, true. How does this negatively affect your experience of the gameplay in anyway? Why should you care if someone “jumps in a cleans up the rewards” ? And how is this leeching? If the chests were limited in number and “first come first serve”, then you would have a point – but they are not. Anet specifically designed event drops to be available to all. You seem to just want to see others “punished” for not playing as many hours as you do.

I don’t care a bit if someone joins late. I don’t cry over it.

The SW event progresses by finishing events. Someone has to finish them. If every single player in the game did nothing but jump maps there wouldn’t be maps to progress TO.

So some people are essentially doing all the work, while everyone else benefits.

It’s just unfair. They don’t know any better, so they don’t jump around and they end up progressing the meta for people who do know. Not cool in my book.

Donari.5237:

There were enough roleplayers at launch to completely fill two servers (Tarnished Coast and Piken Square, having been selected by rp’ers as the unofficial rp servers pre launch, became near impossible to get on soon after launch). That’s a good hunk of players, enough to be an important demographic to consider.

And yet my guild went to TC and none of us roleplay. Saying that there were two servers full of roleplayers is not necessarily accurate. We don’t know what percentage of the people coming to those servers actually RP.

For example, I come to RP servers in every game I play because I like the people on them better. They tend to be more helpful or carebear which appeals to me. It matches my in game temperment, even though I don’t RP. And I’m sure I’m not alone.

Several servers filled up pretty fast at launch and none of the others were RP servers, so it’s hard to say that even most people on TC or Piken Square RP. I don’t really believe that was every the case.

Not to say there isn’t an RP community but there’s no way to tell from an unofficial server being full that it was mostly RPers. In fact, I’m wondering how many people who chose TC didn’t even know it was the unofficial RP server.

People run the Silverwastes every single day by the hundreds. Very very few of them complain the mobs are to hard. Not to say I’ve never seen a complaint, but most of us have figured out how to deal with the mobs.

If something you’re doing isn’t working, there’s a reason it’s not working. Its’ because the core game was so easy you never really had to learn to play your class well. Hitting pretty much any keys at all was going to get you through most areas.

End game zones are meant to challenge you. To change up the way you do things. So if you’re having trouble, you have to analayze why you’re having trouble.

I don’t die in the Silverwastes very often at all, even on poorly geared characters.

So what profession are you using. How is your build? How are you approaching enemies?

It all makes a big difference to your success at end game.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

But everyone is on an even footing. Everyone can show up late, because we have a time. It’s the same time for everyone.

So, in other words, nothing prevents a player from showing up 20 minutes into VB night and just doing the bosses, while leaving the day and first part of night to others. How is that different from SW, again?

The fact is, if the AB meta weren’t being gamed, it would be very different because if they made it player driven, you could keep getting the same chest over and over, like Silverwastes, which they didn’t want to do.

It’s like that in VB and TD. You can’t really get the same reward over and over.

So, what. If I do VB multiple times in a day, I can’t harvest nodes with crowbars over and over? Bosses don’t reward drops if done more than once/day? How is that different than SW?

AB is bugged or it would be like that too.

See italics, above.

Has there been an acknowledgement that AB is bugged by ANet? Otherwise, it isn’t.

We may have to agree to value different approaches differently. I prefer SW style content because — unless I show after the VW has been defeated and before the next cycle — I can move things forward no matter who’s in the zone or when I log in. I really don’t care if people show up later just to do the VW. This less possible in VB, even less in AB, and afaics, impossible in TD and DS. In HoT zones, if I show up at the wrong time, or have to use the abomination that is taxiing to have a chance to participate, I tend to just leave because I will be wasting my time.

I abhor timers because I just don’t play as much, or as long, as you seem to, and I really abhor the idea of basing my life around the schedule of events in a bloody game. I much prefer to log in and be able to do rewarding stuff regardless of how many people there are in a zone or when I log in than to have to find the 1 or 2 viable zones and participate in timed bull-crap that sucks the spontaneity out of playing.

It’ll be acknowledged when they fix it. There’s no other event in the game where you can do it, so it’s obviously not intended. You might not call it a bug, but I’m relatively sure it’ll be fixed.

I’m guessing they haven’t fixed it because during the draught it keeps people in the game.

Lyp Sao.1375:

After all this time I bought HoT today. 29 Euro was okay for me.
Yeah, I smell the grind after two hours. Navigate in vertical maps is meh (Verdant Brink).

BUT: Gliding is soo coool. Gliding in Tyria is even more cool. My little Asura girls are so happy

anet – you earn a big point for HoT-Gliding.
Now we are waiting for the grind.

Instead of actually grinding, just play the game naturally. If you follow the outpost chains in each outpost in HoT and just do them once, preferably with boosters, you’ll have almost all the masteries you need at the end of the day. Everything else will be optional.

It’s only bad because you haven’t really figured out how to do it. But lots of people have and many say it’s not as bad as the naysayers make it out to be.

Dashingsteel.3410:

HoT would have been more accepted if it had started with an offering of a character slot and a lower price?? That was the real issue? lol

No, HoT got negative reviews because of the cynical nature of the expansion. Most of the HoT ingame requirements are overly expensive which required excessive farming to achieve. These requirements were seen as being cynically used to cover up the limited amount of playable content that HoT offered.

Even some of the things that are a positive for some are seen as a negative for others. Guild halls(cynical gold sink), Raids, Vertical maps and emphasis on platforming

I think the contents of HoT were what led to the negative response.

Yes that’s a big part of the real issue. A lot of people said it was fine, but it wasn’t worth the money for the amout of content. Once you start hearing that over and over again its’ going to affect sales. Why wouldn’kitten

The grind is in your mind. So many people finished those masteries in the first week it’s silly. It’s not something you had to do thursday. It’s not something you had to grind. People had it in their mind they had to grind.

Heraldusluminare.2946:

@Vanye: A fair point. I just wonder if we can really create a pure objective checklist of things that ANet can go through before they decide to roll out a new release. :/

Not really the way a creative project works though. I’ve been part of creative projects on the writing side and I know for a fact that there are things you just can’t predict. You can go to market with a certain formula that’s worked before and it doesn’t work because of intangibles. In fact, very often if you bring up a great idea to a group of creative people it’ll get shot down immediately and if you bring up an idea you’re tentative on and you’re not sure will work, it’ll be embraced and applauded.

Some of the stuff that’s worked for me in the past required the least amount of work, essentially throwaway work that I didn’t think twice about when I produced. Where as the stuff I worked hardest on didn’t always or even often get traction.

There’s no checklist for producing a game.

The other issue is testers. People who test games tend to be people most into games. That’s just logical. They’re the people who can see flaws.

In a game like HoT, those people didn’t see it was too hard for a percentage of the population because it wasn’t too hard for them. They probably have a good idea of their professions. They don’t test everything in zerker gear spamming one.

HoT’s real issue had more to do with the price being too high for what was offered, combined with bad publicity around stuff like the character slot, and small guilds and dungeon nerfs.

If we’d gone into this as a happier community HoT would have been more popular and more accepted. I went in with a positive attitude, and enjoyed it.

There are people who went in already expecting more, because they were unhappy to begin with. They were looking for reasons to be angry. It doesn’t take much to set off the disenfranchised. But there were so many disparate groups that were disenfranchised. HoT just has a really bad launch.

There are at least a couple of people on these forums who didn’t like HOT at all until I played it with them and now I see them in HoT all the time.

It’s not perfect, obviously but it’s not as bad as many make it out to be. And lot of people complaining, are complaining about the prepatch HoT as well. The April patch was very well received.

Heraldusluminare.2946:

As a graphic artist myself, I believe I know firsthand the pains of having to sell an emotion. Can you imagine having that masterpiece you worked on for months being crushed in 3 seconds by a customer who skimmed over your work and felt ‘it just wasn’t good enough’?

Nonetheless, I think for an MMORPG, HoT should have been priced based on the ‘number of hours of gameplay relevant to the core storyline’.

I love the game a lot, and GW2 definitely has a team of top-notch graphic artists, musicians and level designers, but I feel that for HoT, ANet veered away from an RPG’s basic focus – telling a story – and placed too much emphasis instead on visual fluffery.

But as some of you have already pointed out, ANet is learning (ever noticed the increased frequency of Gaile and other Devs’ replies after people said they should have improve on their PR?) and I’m pretty confident that ANet is trying their best to refine their work continuously.

There’s still hope, people!

(Edit: Just wondered if we should also include the Living World stories under ‘number of hours’?)

Actually I disagree with this. As a program, the game is valued perhaps at how many hours you play it, but we set completely different rules in this department for MMOs that we do for most other games. Many people bought Tombraider for $60 and got less than 20 hours out of it. For an MMO that was be tragic, but it’s roughly average for most games today, and certainly most non-competitive games.

At the end of the day, a businesses charges based on how much something costs to produce. If I made a car and it costs me $30,000 to make it, I couldn’t very well sell it for $25,000 and expect to stay in business.

HoT was a complete rework of many of the systems and it took many man hours of labor to create. As such, a company could justify selling it for more than you might expect just based on content alone.

This is even more true in the case of HoT since we were told before hand that would be the case. That HoT would be lighter on content, but that many of the systems of the game had been redeveloped to allow the game to move forward.

With that knowledge, each person could then decide if HoT is worth it to them personally.

I don’t have problems with many of the original complaints, though I believe some of them were warranted.

HoT was definitely too grindy to start with for my taste, even though I didn’t grind personally. And HoT pushed people to spend too much time on the map which is something I also don’t like. Now you can come and go more or less as you please, with the exception of DS.

There are a lot of things that go into determining the price of the game. But different people will get different amounts of play hours out of it. I’ve already spent over a couple of hundred hours in HoT. It’s definitely possible to do this if you’re working on collections.

So I’m not really sure hours played is the best criteria to judge by, though it should probably be one of the criteria.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

The problem with player driven maps, a problem Anet was trying to get away from, is the problem of people just going from map to map that’s ready to pop, leeching, while a couple of people do the events on those maps, to progress the meta.

The Silverwastes maps are a perfect example. A few people who don’t know sit on a map and play it, until it’s about to pop and then everyone jumps in and cleans up the rewards. People stand around leeching the whole time sometimes, afk and never do anything until it pops. This is a problem for those of us who actually play the game.

That wasn’t working. There were complaints about it. Anet tried something else.

Now, since these events are on a timer, everyone knows when to show up and they show up if they can.

That has obvious issues as well. And now, with the AB loot meta gone crazy, people will do that over and over again, which means other zones don’t get as many people coming to them. 10 maps filled at AB most times and only one map full at TD because why would you ever leave farming AB?

If people wouldn’t exploit or just go for their own personal gain, Anet wouldn’t have to do stuff like this. I wish it were different.

The thing is, people still show up later in the time cycle and still get the lion’s share of rewards. I see it in VB and AB. It’s better since April, but it isn’t fixed. We also have Tarir multilooting, which I cannot believe was intended. I’m not saying that the SW issues you cite are trivial, but the solution has not really solved them, and it has also created its own problems. In SW, it’s a lot easier to drop in, participate and have fun, whereas in HoT if your timing is off you might as well not show up. Also, the abomination that is taxiing was less of an issue in SW for the same reasons.

But everyone is on an even footing. Everyone can show up late, because we have a time. It’s the same time for everyone.

The fact is, if the AB meta weren’t being gamed, it would be very different because if they made it player driven, you could keep getting the same chest over and over, like Silverwastes, which they didn’t want to do.

It’s like that in VB and TD. You can’t really get the same reward over and over.

AB is bugged or it would be like that too.

Djinn.9245:

Vayne.8563:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Djinn.9245:

Starting with Dry Top, Anet decided that they needed to make the game MUCH more complicated than it was. Not really sure why – but I’m thinking that someone Higher-up at Anet loves Jumping Puzzles so much that they wanted the ENTIRE GAME to be one big JP. This was a sad day for those of us who don’t really appreciate Jumping Puzzles.

I’m with the OP and I’m glad that the “old” content is still there. After being frustrated by HoT, I go back to one of my lower level alts and enjoy the comparatively relaxing fun of the rest of Tyria. So much better.

It was a great day for those of us who didn’t appreciate your average flat generic mmo maps though. Luckily even the base ones were already taking a departure from that old trope.

Not to mention calling Drytop or even HoT a jumping puzzle is simply wrong. I’ve done jumping puzzles and they’re really nothing like either Drytop or HoT.

I mean there is a minimal amount of jumping that has to be done in Drytop and once you get the waypoints, it’s even less.

A ground targeted skill that moves you to a location you target, not really jumping imo.

Saying that maybe one of the people at Anet really loves JP and would like the rest of the world to be more like JP is not the same as saying they are JP.

As for “a minimal amount of jumping”, there are many more things in Drytop and HoT that require regular jumping than your average Tyria map. (Not counting JP which I generally don’t do.) In regular Tyria, the only content that requires jumping is normally Vistas. In Drytop / HoT (and maybe Silverwastes but I don’t spend a lot of time there), you have to jump to get to other content like the Inquest Leader, find Coins, Masks, etc. And no I’m not talking about crystal skills.

Vistas are not really optional content. Finding coins is absolutely optional content. If you can ignore jumping puzzles, you can ignore finding coins.

The tiny bit of jumping you need to get to two of the events, are two optional events that aren’t needed for anything. The rest of it is all crystals.

I mean, if you want to get to the potato farm in Metrica province you have to jump. But you don’t really need to go to the potato farm. I’m guessing 90% plus events in Drytop require nothing but crystals or nothign at all to reach, once you have the waypoints that first time.

Want to do the kite event? Prosperity waypoint. Want to do the Colocal Queen, same waypoint. Want to do the devourer queen? One jumping crystal. Want to defend against the skritt thieves? One waypoint.

It’s silly to even compare it to a jumping puzzle, because it’s really not. There’s less jumping skill involved, and just the use of crystals.

It’s just a bad comparison.

Djinn.9245:

General Health.9678:

Actually it took me a couple of minutes max to figure out something like Donari did. Your solutions will probably never be implemented (not saying they aren’t good suggestions) and given how simple the solution provided by Donari is, you can see why they wouldn’t be.

I love people who answer a post about how some players are having difficulty with a subject and the response is “it was easy for me”. Great for you. I’m not sure what your point is tho – the OP said it wasn’t easy for his friends, you calling him a liar? You saying there’s something wrong with his friends cause it was easy for you?

I happen to agree with the OP. I hate TD with a passion. Spend as little time there as possible. I’m glad it’s “easy” for some people. Maybe they enjoy a “tangled” path or maybe they think or see things differently than those of us having trouble. But its like people who enjoy / are good at math. People who don’t enjoy it or aren’t good at it aren’t inferior or have something wrong with them.

Those people are providing an answer for those who have problems. I did this for my guild and since I did, suddenly no one has a problem.

The solution is there, but not obvious, sort of like a game. If it’s too frustrating you use the hintbook. Either a video or whatever.

Too many people want everything served up on a silver platter with a nice little green arrow pointing to a nice little green star.

I wish we had a lot less of that.

Ashen.2907:

IndigoSundown.5419:

There is an objective value factor related to the contents of a product.

That value is still subjective because it only has value based on the desirability of the product to a consumer with the ability to pay for it.

The John Carter of Mars movie was lengthy, it had a lot of content. Every bit as much as any other movie of comparable length…and yet it lost money where others were profitable.

We are talking about two different things. What you’re talking about isn’t what I’m talking about.

When you review a product, say a car, you know the car, whether you like it or not, isn’t worth $5. You know that objectively.

If you look at the rhetoric of some people, particularly those calling it a $10 DLC, it’s simply wrong. It’s like saying a car is worth less because they don’t like it.

It’s about how the complaints are phrased. We’ve seen enough complaints using phrases like only four maps, or not enough content to justify my comments. Your opinion about it being subjective is just your opinion.

There is also an objective component to it, in my opinion. And nothing you can say is going to change my opinion, so we might as well agree to disagree.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

I’m sorry but it’s not always subjective and saying so doesn’t make it so. It may not be worth $10 to you, but a certain amount of content can be said to have a certain value.

Actually it is, in fact, always subjective. If it were not subjective then it would be objective, meaning that it would not be possible to honestly say, “it isn’t worth it to me.” Remember, “entertainment product.” If it isn’t entertaining to someone what do you think its worth is to that someone?

Of course a certain amount of content can be said to have a certain value…to you. And it will have a different value to someone else. And a still different value to yet another person. Just personal income alone affects this. I consider a hundred dollars spent on a game that I end up not liking to be inconsequential while someone else, perhaps on a tight budget, might consider no game to be worth more than ten dollars because more than ten dollars spent on a game means not making rent, or buying food, or whatever.

Completely subjective.

Way to miss the point.

People are saying the amount of content is comparable to a $10 DLC and that’s demonstrably wrong, no matter WHAT it’s worth to them personally.

They’re saying only four zones and 1 profession and the specialzations and the story is a $10 DLC, and that’s wrong. Factually wrong.

It may not be worth ten dollars to them, but I’m guessing it’s more in line with a $30 DLC would be my guess.

People are using hyperbole to attack a product that’s demonstrably wrong. If you don’t believe so, that’s your perogative, but I disagree with your assertion.

You can get an idea of what something is worth by the amount of content in a more objective sense. Subjectively, whether it’s worth it to you is still not what I’m talking about.

The problem with player driven maps, a problem Anet was trying to get away from, is the problem of people just going from map to map that’s ready to pop, leeching, while a couple of people do the events on those maps, to progress the meta.

The Silverwastes maps are a perfect example. A few people who don’t know sit on a map and play it, until it’s about to pop and then everyone jumps in and cleans up the rewards. People stand around leeching the whole time sometimes, afk and never do anything until it pops. This is a problem for those of us who actually play the game.

That wasn’t working. There were complaints about it. Anet tried something else.

Now, since these events are on a timer, everyone knows when to show up and they show up if they can.

That has obvious issues as well. And now, with the AB loot meta gone crazy, people will do that over and over again, which means other zones don’t get as many people coming to them. 10 maps filled at AB most times and only one map full at TD because why would you ever leave farming AB?

If people wouldn’t exploit or just go for their own personal gain, Anet wouldn’t have to do stuff like this. I wish it were different.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

To those people who believe HoT isn’t worth more than ten dollars, or calling it a light DLC, they’re absolutely fooling themselves. Hell most games sell an extra character profession for $10 and HoT comes with one, plus elites specializations for every profession.

People who raid would certainly think it was worth more than $10 to raid and get a new profession and new specialization and that’s before you look at the four new zones.

I’ve shown a lot of people, not a few, but quite a few, who didn’t like HoT how to get around and function in those zones, even before the zones we redone.

Now, it’s better than it was. And a lot of people who hate it, never gave it that second chance. They made up their mind, and that’s it. They’re done. And it’s their loss.

But this absolutely malarky about it being only worth $10 is silly. In MMO space HoT may not have been worth $50 (which is good because DLGamer regularly has it for sale for less than $40), but it’s certainly worth more than $30.

And that’s before we talk about story (short or otherwise), guild halls (which some people do like) and other changes to the major systems, including gliding and quick loot.

On that note, I’ve read a lot about story. People think the HoT story was contained only in instances, but it really wasn’t. The meta events of each zone are part of the story as well, and juding the HOT story solely in instances, means you’re only getting part of the story.

What an entertainment product is worth to a consumer is ALWAYS subjective. HoT is not worth more than $10 to some people, it is worth more than the asking price to others, and for some the price is just right.

I’m sorry but it’s not always subjective and saying so doesn’t make it so. It may not be worth $10 to you, but a certain amount of content can be said to have a certain value.

The people who say it’s not worth $10 are sighting things like the story being short, or there are only four zones, or it’s too hard for them to play. That has nothing to do with the objective value of the price being charged.

Saying HoT is not worth ten dollars to me, is very different from saying its’ a $10 DLC which a lot of people have said.

Whether a person personally likes it or not, it’s not a $10 DLC. That is to say the type and amount of content is not found in a $10 DLC in any MMO I’ve ever played.

Edit: I might add one of the people in this thread saying it’s not worth $10 doesn’t own it and hasn’t played it. He can only conjecture what it is and isn’t worth, because there are several people on these forums who have posted that they delayed buying HoT for for a long time due to reviews on these forums only to find out it was a lot of fun.

I’m not sure people who haven’t played something are so qualified to say what it is and isn’t objectively worth.

Note, I’m talking about the difference between the amount of content for the money vs the appeal of the content, because they’re two different discussions.

To those people who believe HoT isn’t worth more than ten dollars, or calling it a light DLC, they’re absolutely fooling themselves. Hell most games sell an extra character profession for $10 and HoT comes with one, plus elites specializations for every profession.

People who raid would certainly think it was worth more than $10 to raid and get a new profession and new specialization and that’s before you look at the four new zones.

I’ve shown a lot of people, not a few, but quite a few, who didn’t like HoT how to get around and function in those zones, even before the zones we redone.

Now, it’s better than it was. And a lot of people who hate it, never gave it that second chance. They made up their mind, and that’s it. They’re done. And it’s their loss.

But this absolutely malarky about it being only worth $10 is silly. In MMO space HoT may not have been worth $50 (which is good because DLGamer regularly has it for sale for less than $40), but it’s certainly worth more than $30.

And that’s before we talk about story (short or otherwise), guild halls (which some people do like) and other changes to the major systems, including gliding and quick loot.

On that note, I’ve read a lot about story. People think the HoT story was contained only in instances, but it really wasn’t. The meta events of each zone are part of the story as well, and juding the HOT story solely in instances, means you’re only getting part of the story.

I don’t really see an issue with the trailer. First of all, it’s obviously meant to be a teaser more than a trailer.

My problem with most trailers is spoilers. Half the time I go to the movies and see a trailer and every good bit from the movie is in the trailer and I’m thinking, oh good, another movie I don’t need to see. I didn’t see Titanic for years, because I knew how it ended. The boat sank.

Teasers are fine. I’d prefer not having spoilers. I feel like I have too many already.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Djinn.9245:

Starting with Dry Top, Anet decided that they needed to make the game MUCH more complicated than it was. Not really sure why – but I’m thinking that someone Higher-up at Anet loves Jumping Puzzles so much that they wanted the ENTIRE GAME to be one big JP. This was a sad day for those of us who don’t really appreciate Jumping Puzzles.

I’m with the OP and I’m glad that the “old” content is still there. After being frustrated by HoT, I go back to one of my lower level alts and enjoy the comparatively relaxing fun of the rest of Tyria. So much better.

It was a great day for those of us who didn’t appreciate your average flat generic mmo maps though. Luckily even the base ones were already taking a departure from that old trope.

Not to mention calling Drytop or even HoT a jumping puzzle is simply wrong. I’ve done jumping puzzles and they’re really nothing like either Drytop or HoT.

I mean there is a minimal amount of jumping that has to be done in Drytop and once you get the waypoints, it’s even less.

A ground targeted skill that moves you to a location you target, not really jumping imo.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The OP is both factually correct and yet wrong about what’s going on:

Any game that lasts 4 years has people who leave because they are bored or dislike the inevitable changes made to the game. So of course, there will be haters, sometimes very loud ones. Because people are passionate about a game they love, those posts will increase as a fraction of new ones.

However, the existence of lots of salty comments doesn’t mean that the majority of players hate the game. If that were true, ANet wouldn’t be working on LS3 and a second expac.

So the question isn’t “guild wars 2 — what happened?” Instead, it’s, “after nearly four years, what do you like better? what’s worse for you?”

tl;dr the OP asks a leading question that presumes a single point of view, rather than inviting comments across the spectrum of our complicated feelings.

Your posts are always so balanced. I agree with this.

In many ways, I think the game is better today than it was at launch. A lot better.

But people seem to forget that we had no guesting or megaserver, that we had no wardrobe, that we had culling in WvW, that we had no gliding, that we couldn’t even preview the trading post. We had no wallet, no group looting, no auto-looting, the list goes on and on.

Did Anet make some mistakes? Sure they did. Many. But they did many really good things too.

You should visit some MMO forums, OP and take a look at the posts. If they’re to believed, there are no good MMOs ever. They all have issues. They all suck. None of them are balanced, and there’s not enough content.

This is how MMO forums are. And of course, people who like an MMO love to go and bash other MMOs even if they don’t play them.

Welcome to the real world.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Vayne.8563:

BrotherBelial.3094:

LouWolfskin.3492:

Aside the fact that they announced this year would be about adding depth rather than “more” content to the game, people consistently asked for an expansion and less living world/live story.
Then, with the release of HoT, almost immediately they screamed for a return to living world, which probably was still on the table anyway but needs work to be done.

I can be patient here, still have lots of things to do in game with my friends so for me, this is a Little waiting, i’m still busy after all.

In essence this whole back and forth from the community is just a big comedy show,
especially considering that higher quality of content is demanded while people scream content drought at every corner.

Maybe you should decide what you want exactly because here’s the thing: Updates with more content and higher quality to appease everyone do take time to make.

And i’m pretty sure why they make one thing players are already screeching for the next 20 things that have to happen and can’t wait further.

On that topic: How much time do think should pass between updates?

Biweekly was too fast for the community, an expansion makes them feel like nothing happens, quarterly updates to ensure the updates are better? Even that is not good enough.

I’m glad you have lot’s to do, I really am. But by ANet own admission, there are a lot of people working on the live game, that includes the LW, around 120 if I remember correctly. 3 months is a good window for content, but that’s just it, we’ve had no content for 9 months! 9 F******g months. I wont go into the other things that have happened with in that time to make people wonder where the content is, we know and it’s been discussed to death.

So far we have had nothing of any real depth, as you put it from the quarterly updates. All we have had is QoL updates, a reworked world boss, and Gliding added to core, so people see people gliding and think “That’s cool! I need to buy HoT”. The LW had better be stellar after 9 months of work.

If you’re going into it with that attitude, you might as well look for another game now. Anet isn’t going to become Shakespeare just because the content released isn’t your cup of tea.

If you say I waited so this stuff better be better than what they can produce, you’re setting yourself up for a fall.

The same limitations that have always existed still exist. Anet is writing a story for tons of people. Not the small percentage that reads fantasy and wants an actual story.

The stuff in the story has to hit us over the head because most people only follow the story very very casually. Most people don’t care or don’t care enough.

So if you want stellar, you’re probably going to be disappointed. The story is written for the audience the game has, not one segment of it.

Oh Christ on a bike. How about you don’t tell me what I should and should not play? Do I tell you? no, I don’t tell anyone they should stop playing the game, that’s up to them to decide. I’m not expecting the story to be Shakespeare, where the hell did I say that? I was talking about content, please keep up. The content had better be something special for 9 months gestation. I’ll put it in simple terms so you can understand. There had better be more to it that what we’ve had in a single LW release in the past, seeing as the stuff we’ve had in the past was done in 4 months ish, asking for something to be better than what has come before when we’ve waited 9 months for something, that we may or may not get every 3 months from the point it drops is not asking too much.

You need to learn to read more carefully. I said IF this is your attitude, then you won’t be satisfied. You’re setting the bar at “this must be ultra-amazing”. That’s a recipe for failure in anyone’s books. It’s common sense. No where did I tell you what to play. I did say you’re setting yourself up for failure. If you’re setting that kind of ultimatum I don’t know what MMO is going to reach it.

BrotherBelial.3094:

LouWolfskin.3492:

Aside the fact that they announced this year would be about adding depth rather than “more” content to the game, people consistently asked for an expansion and less living world/live story.
Then, with the release of HoT, almost immediately they screamed for a return to living world, which probably was still on the table anyway but needs work to be done.

I can be patient here, still have lots of things to do in game with my friends so for me, this is a Little waiting, i’m still busy after all.

In essence this whole back and forth from the community is just a big comedy show,
especially considering that higher quality of content is demanded while people scream content drought at every corner.

Maybe you should decide what you want exactly because here’s the thing: Updates with more content and higher quality to appease everyone do take time to make.

And i’m pretty sure why they make one thing players are already screeching for the next 20 things that have to happen and can’t wait further.

On that topic: How much time do think should pass between updates?

Biweekly was too fast for the community, an expansion makes them feel like nothing happens, quarterly updates to ensure the updates are better? Even that is not good enough.

I’m glad you have lot’s to do, I really am. But by ANet own admission, there are a lot of people working on the live game, that includes the LW, around 120 if I remember correctly. 3 months is a good window for content, but that’s just it, we’ve had no content for 9 months! 9 F******g months. I wont go into the other things that have happened with in that time to make people wonder where the content is, we know and it’s been discussed to death.

So far we have had nothing of any real depth, as you put it from the quarterly updates. All we have had is QoL updates, a reworked world boss, and Gliding added to core, so people see people gliding and think “That’s cool! I need to buy HoT”. The LW had better be stellar after 9 months of work.

If you’re going into it with that attitude, you might as well look for another game now. Anet isn’t going to become Shakespeare just because the content released isn’t your cup of tea.

If you say I waited so this stuff better be better than what they can produce, you’re setting yourself up for a fall.

The same limitations that have always existed still exist. Anet is writing a story for tons of people. Not the small percentage that reads fantasy and wants an actual story.

The stuff in the story has to hit us over the head because most people only follow the story very very casually. Most people don’t care or don’t care enough.

So if you want stellar, you’re probably going to be disappointed. The story is written for the audience the game has, not one segment of it.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I’m not, but i might be that one single guy who’s thinking “dropping my money into gemstore?….i dunno”. Unless i clearly see the money not only gives me virtual (let’s keep that in mind) items, but also is used for the growth of the game i spent it on, rather then feeing another project i don’t care about or fattening shareholder’s wallet for his new mercedes..

When I buy a bottle of coke, I don’t buy it because I expect future development by coke. I buy it because I want a bottle of coke.

When I buy a book I buy it because I want the book. That’s what most people probably do.

But I also like the direction of the game right now, and I like where it’s going, so I’m happy to spend money in the gem store, because I understand that it takes time to do stuff.

Anet fixed HoT. Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you but it’s made it a whole lot better for me. That was only in April. It’s three months since a very large work intensive upgrade.

It wasn’t just rewards redone. It wasn’t just a few events added. It was a rework of stuff like de-linking day and night cycles and working on scaling and population density in certain areas.

I’m not sure why people think that isn’t worth supporting because I believe it is. Anet listened to the community and made changes. Changes that were asked for.

No doubt work on the LS has continued through that, but I have no doubt it would have been slowed.

Had Anet not made those changes, though, it would have been worse.

Sometimes you have to look at the big picture. I know you’re not the only one who feels disenfranchised but I also know I’m not the only one enjoying the new zones. Plenty of people there.

You stop buying gems, I buy more gems.

It all balances out in the end.

Danikat.8537:

Back during Season 1 (and presumably Season 2) they had 4 separate teams working on Living Story stuff with each team working on a separate release. (Meaning each one took 4 months to be made, and after it was released that team would start on their next one.)

Between that and the fact that they recruited new people to make raids (or at least advertised for developers with experience making raids long before it was announced) I think unless Anet have lost A LOT of staff they should have more than enough people to work on both raids and Living Story without one delaying the other.

But Anet did change the way the living story team works. They once had four teams working on it, and rotated them and they changed to a different team structure, though I don’t remember the detail, if we ever got any.

The problem is that during the living world, which made people like me happy, lots of people were unhappy like PvPers and WvWers. Too much emphasis was put in the LW and it affected part of the playerbase, even if it wasn’t my part.

I think Anet is trying to find the right balance, and so far, I don’t think it’s working. But I think they’re going to keep on working on it until they do find the right balance.

Unfortunately such things take time.

Gendou.9620:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Nope, not because of Raids. The Devs stated the reason Living Story was pushed back (it wasn’t Raids), and stated that few Devs worked on Raids.

Patience…something should be dropping quite soon.

Yes I understand we were told that, but considering the history of Arenanet not fully being honest, do you truly believe that? If a few devs can push out that much raid content, lore content etc, then that does not make any sense! If you want to compare amount released to developers used, then this living world has to be bigger than the whole expansion. You can’t help but be skeptical, actions are not reflecting the claims you say. I want to believe, but faithfulness can be quite detrimental and give false hopes. Why push something back? Why wait? It is easy to say because they want to make it right, but is that really why?

Side note to patience, soon led to weeks, months, and now almost a year.

It’s one raid, three wings. It exists an a vacuum. It’s all instanced. Instances are far easier to program and take less time than open world content.

That’s why Anet was able to create cotent so much faster for Guild Wars 1.

We’ve seen one raid that was put out in three patches. It’s three wings of the same raid. In other games, this would all be one raid, all three updates. By those standards, it took 9 months to come out fully.

Anet is working on other stuff as well, but they can’t release it until it’s done.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Well it looks like Woodenpotatoes released a new video discussing the content draught and stated that he thought S3 wasn’t going to drop until the end of the Summer, he expressed a lot of concern and I though disappointment as well.

Seriously ANet your biggest cheerleader, your YouTube White Knight thinks you’ve dropped the ball , and given up on the season so to speak like you’re the New York Jets in the NFL competing for last place.

When videos like that drop from WP then you’re really doing something wrong, period.

I’m going to start dusting off other MMOs on my PC, hopefully for ANets sake none of us gets hooked some where else.

Okay WP never said in that entire video he’s given up on the season, he never implied it. That video said, if anyone actually bothered watching it, that he’s having fun in game again, doing things he’d never have done and appreciating the new zones in ways he didn’t realize existed.

If people bothered to actually listen to what he’s saying he’s saying yes, the content drought affects some people but there are still goals and there are still people taking advantage of those goals. I’m one of them.

He also said no matter where he went in HOT no matter the hour he always saw plenty of people.

This whole I don’t have the content I like so HoT is dead commentary is silly.

This whole Anet isn’t doing anything about it is silly too.

Content takes months to create and another month to release. We all know that time was spent by Anet to fix the new zones and most of those changes were met with a positive reaction from the fan base. The April quarterly patch was a big big update on more than one front (WvW and HoT).

Sure there’s a less new content for people who like open world stuff to play. But this has happened in every single MMO I’ve ever played. Every single one.

You can go to the forums of any MMO and see complaints about not enough content or not enough fo specific content.

For years, we saw people who wanted challenging content yelling and screaming about not having it. Now we don’t hear those people, we hear different people.

No game company is big enough to do it all, so it rotates. And yes, people will get frustrated that companies can’t make content faster than they do.

But it doesn’t mean they’re not working on content, it doesn’t mean they’ve given up on content and it doesn’t mean content isn’t coming.

It just means people have unrealistic expectations of how long content takes to produce.

April, less then three months ago, Anet released a HUGE patch for open world PvE. Since then they’ve put bandit bounties in the game, they’ve put the coalescent events in the game, they put new bandit champs in the game, they put leyline events in the game.

It’s not much, but it’s also not nothing.

People need to get a grip. Particularly with a quarterly patch coming out this month.

I’ll be happy to show you guys around in game. I’m told I’m a pretty good tour guide. If you’re on a US server, send me an in game whisper.

Halandir.3609:

Sartharina.3542:

slashlizardy.9167:

Vayne, I am glad that works for you. I hesitate to pop a commanders tag, then ask for help, as map chat is already toxic enough, that would just be asking for more vitriol. For now I will just wait for the game to get good again, then I will come back.

Okay… where the heck are you that you can find vitriol and toxic behavior in map chat? We’re all on the same servers here, aren’t we?

Great you never experienced that. I have not seen a lot of it in map chat but I HAVE seen more than enough in /g /p and pm’s.
kitten seemed to escalate HoT+2weeks: Not too bothered, I simply ignored the gnats. Too bad Anet decided that the game needed to devolve.

And I saw it at the Marionette fight long before HOT came out. I’ve seen it at Triple Trouble. I’ve seen it even at the Vine Wrath.

This is because any time something more challenging is added, someone is going to get mad when it fails and look for someone to blame.

Don’t you guys remember Marionette fight, the second platform where the creature had to turn and face away from you so you could hit it, and you had to keep moving and some ranger with a pet not on passive or some minion master would be out there and people would lose their minds.

I met one of my guildies defending someone in that sort of situation who the map was attacking.

This isn’t a HOT problem ,this is a challenging content problem. Some people don’t like to waste their time.

It’s been in the game since Living Story Season 1 and stuff started to get more challenging.

People trot it out with HOT because HoT is more challenging.

Of course, this happened with challenging content in Guild Wars 1 as well.

You can’t change human nature.

The only way to make it so that it wasn’t like this is to make it so that there’s no challenge at all and we never lose and we always get max loot.

And frankly I don’t think that would be good for the game.

HoT does offer a different experience than the core game. That’s WHY it’s an expansion. It literally expands the game. Expansion doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing over and over again. That’s what some people seem to have forgotten.

If you expand you’re understanding of something, you’re understanding things you didn’t understand before. If you expand what your restaurant servers you’re adding new things that weren’t there before.

Guild Wars 2 has woefully undelivered on challenging content, particularly challenging open world content. Triple Threat was something that most people have never done but some people really enjoy. There is a market for harder content.

For some of us, HoT has found the sweet spot. And yes, some people will react in annoy ways because some people see failing events as a waste of time.

Dragon Stand is probably my favorite meta event in the game. Because I really am more interested in feeling like I’m part of an invasion force than just fighting bosses. The dragon bosses, don’t really do much for me. I think Triple Threat is silly. Particularly the wurm that swallows you and you have to find a spear inside him, over and over. This is so immersion breaking to me it’s not funny.

But I can completely immerse myself in Dragon Stand.

Hexs.8015:

Wildstar went to steam. NCsoft backs them as well

Wildstar is dying. It’s got a tenth of the sales Guild Wars 2 has. In an effort to get more people into the game, they went to steam, because losing 30% of that might be made up by getting some new players.

On the other hand, Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have Wildstar’s problems. 30% of eight million dollars a month is a lot of money to give to Steam.

Beldin.5498:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know about you but I remember quite a few forum posts about LS 1 and how people missed stuff and about how pressured some people felt to keep up. There were many reasons for changing the forum, and player reaction was one of them.

Yeah .. so much better to have no updates at all than maybe missing something.
The same with having no new armor sets at all than having them in the gem-shop.

Good job community .. destroying the game with your complaints.

In the end the dying of the game started after LS1 when we got the wardrobe, after
that content updates got less and less .. and they stopped giving us new armor-sets
and in the end most of the time i was just grinding gold so i could buy all old stuff
for the following 2 years.

You’re fooling yourself if you think this game is dying, except maybe in the abstract we’re all dying. This game is doing better than you think.

You can’t compare this game to itself you have to compare it to other MMORPGs that have come out in the same time frame.

It’s up there with the top games in the industry, except WoW which is losing subs so fast they stopped reporting them altogether. And WoW isn’t dying either.

When games start dying you see staff layoffs. We’re not seeing that here.

Was the expansion as popular as they’d hoped? Nope, it wasn’t.

Doesn’t equate to the game dying. From my personal point of view, the game is in the best shape it’s been in as far as offering a variety of content to disparate groups of players.

We finally have silence from people who were asking for more challenging content, for example. The WvW community seems to be happier than it was. The PvP community is never happy in any game, so I don’t know what to think about that. lol

But yeah, this game isn’t even close to dying. I’ve played dying games, this isn’t one of them. Wildstar is dying. Guild Wars 2 isn’t even close.

Acknowledgement might be seen as tacit agreement. I don’t actually believe Anet does anything in a vacuum. I think they have meetings and get teams together and discuss things. So a forum post goes up, who should respond? Which team member? When? After they bring it up at a meeting they schedule?

One would think meetings would already have an agenda.

How many ideas should be parsed at these meetings. 2? 3? 50? Which 50? How long will it take?

Who then gets the job of going back to the forums and responding to each of those threads.

I used to work as the acquisition’s editor for a publishing company. We had a bunch of authors we dealt with regularly and received another thousand or more submissions every month from authors who’s work we didn’t know. Those manuscripts went on a slush pile.

We didn’t, I promise you, read every one of those manuscripts in detail. We skimmed. Many of those manuscripts were rejected halfway through the first page. We didn’t need to read the whole thing. We wouldn’t have had TIME to read the whole thing.

This whole we need to be acknowledged stuff feels a bit ego-centric to me. You put ideas out there, and someone should respond, but they can’t because no one person is in charge of responses or what can and can’t be said. No reason to acknowledge an idea they’re not going to use. It’ll end up being seen as some sort of promise by a community that jumps on every phrase.

And after the next meeting when these ideas would ideally be brought up…most of the people who work on games like this, or in publishing for that matter, are flat chat all the time.

I didn’t have time to personally response to authors who spent months working on manuscripts. Almost all the work submitted received form letter rejections, not because I don’t care about writers. Not because I wasn’t interested in getting manuscripts.

They were given form letters because I physically wouldn’t have had time to read a thousand manuscripts a month and respond personally to all of them. It’s ludicrous.

So I did what I had to do to get the job done.

Game developers work hard at trying to get coding done and they work hard at finding bugs in codes. They don’t have the job description of reading the forums, nor should they.

Bigger publishing companies have first readers who read the manuscripts that come in and only the best get to the editor’s desk. I didn’t have that luxury.

The best, the very best Anet could possibly do is have an intern go through ideas and list them out, however, by the time they met and discussed it and came up with some kind of plan/answer, those threads would be weeks old already.

I think there are a whole lot of people who have never been in the business posting in these threads who have no idea of what it is to work on deadlines and try to get stuff out in a timely manner.

Many people are telling us we’re in the middle of a content drought. Hey, I have a great idea. Let’s let the devs sit and read all the forums too.

It’s a full time job, and it’s not in their contract.

Dashingsteel.3410:

HoT made the game better in “lots” of ways???? I would say that it made the game worse in more ways than it made the game better. I don’t like the direction Anet went with HoT. Gliding was nice……..

You would say that, and you would be right…for you. Unfortunately you aren’t necessarily a majority and you can only speak for you, and people like you.

For example, some people seem to like raids. A lot of people seem to like gliding. A lot of people seem to like certain elite specs. A lot of people seem to be playing Revenants. A lot of people seem to be doing the HoT meta events, at least I often find myself on full maps.

Even WvW seems to be getting some much needed love after a fairly shakey start.

With the exception of a hard core few people who complain about it endlessly, most of the complaints faded after the April update.

Neffero.3678:

I’ve heard some unfairness by Arenanet about legendaries and also some PvP imbalance for WvW and the like. I’ve read about people complaining that each profession now has a special weapon that is the meta for anything in the game.

It’s not exactly sounding like an enjoyable experience. Has this changed?

Has there ever been a time when people haven’t been complaining about balance? Ever? Even once?

slashlizardy.9167:

For now, I’m fine with just waiting for the game to get good again. I’ll keep checking in on any progress and when it is once again fun and not just a HoT mess, I’ll be back.

If the game gets good again, it’ll end up being worse for some people, including me. You may not believe it but a lot of people are happy with where the game is, with the exception of the content drought perhaps. But otherwise, there are tons of people doing events and getting around the new zones.

The game isn’t going to go backwards, nor should it. In a lot of ways it’s better than it used to be. I wouldn’t want to go backwards.

Bit of revisionist history in the OP. Anet didn’t do the two week updates during season 2. They announced the two week updates during season 1. Season 2 had very few instances of two week updates.

The Living World Season 1 was touted to be two week updates and mostly kept to that. The Living World Season 2 obviously changed.

Anet is not a single person or entity. It’s a company that’s ever evolving, trying different things to see what sticks.

Take the Living Story as an example. Even though they were producing content every two weeks, it wasn’t one team doing that. The teams were staggered. There were four of them.

Those four teams, therefore, had two months to make content, not two weeks. And it wasn’t everyone in the company either. People could be rotated on or off those teams.

Anet felt it was sustainable, but at the end, there were too many complaints about the lack of replayabiility, and the calls for an expansion instead of Living Story. To say that Anet stopped doing that because it wasn’t sustainble…well it might be part of the reason, but it’s a big leap to make.

I don’t know about you but I remember quite a few forum posts about LS 1 and how people missed stuff and about how pressured some people felt to keep up. There were many reasons for changing the forum, and player reaction was one of them.

From the outside looking it, it’s hard to see how a creative endevaor can overlook things, but it can, because no one ever really knows how fans will react.

To add to that, once LS 2 was under way, there was suddenly a few people saying how much they liked LS 1. But while LS 1 was out it got notably less support.

Which brings us to what most of us has likely figured out already. When people are happy they don’t have to come to the forums, they’re busy playing the game. Those that complain will always have the loudest voice, even if they’re not a majority.

Xillllix.3485:

In comparison to how good Verdant Brink is it’s quite clear that less energy and time went into developing the other maps.

Expansion would have been amazing if it would have been released with Silverwaste and Dry Top map + Living story content for these maps and a few dungeons, then Verdant Brink would have been the climax of quality in the middle of the expansion.

One of the problems with HoT was that starting from Verdant Brink afterwards every map just got less interesting with no multiplayer instanced content at all beside unplayable raids.

I don’t buy this at all. Quite a few people find TD to be their favorite map and it’s obvious a ton of work went into it from anyone who spent time there.

In fact, you can’t possibly make a map like TD without spending a huge amount of time on it. It’s very well thought out. There are short cuts you can take to get around, that you have to find and learn but it’s clear they’re intentional and part of the design.

This isn’t a case of VB got more work. This is a case of too many players want maps that don’t make you think.

slashlizardy.9167:

Yea i tried it and the maps are still dead

Then you didn’t try it. Unless you ignored LFG, and just went onto a map looked around and logged off, I call BS. I’m in HoT maps at least 4-5 times a week and different hours. It’s never dead.

slashlizardy.9167:

As someone who actually purchased FOUR copies of HoT as soon as it was available. Two for great in-game friends and Two for my accounts so I could farm my home instance twice as much. The final product of HoT was highly disappointing. Now, 9 months in, of the four accounts, at best we log in for 10 mins a month. The highest mastery points obtained is 70, with the average around 33, as they are a boring grind. I took a break from HoT and just worked on another leggie back in Feb. to bring my tally up to 10 leggies, but even that wasnt enough to re-kindle any love of the game as it stands now.

So you never tried HoT after the April revamp? That sounds very strange to me.

kurfu.5623:

Vayne.8563:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Much of the fanbase indeed does not share my viewpoint. The problem is that a huge chunk of GW2 players are not *fan*base. Majority of F2P players came no sooner then launch of HoT and before shelling out $50 for HoT they decided to try core game for free. Why buy something you’re not even sure you like?

By the time they decided what their stance on core GW2 is and grew their characters to 80, initial hype died down to reasonable levels, and both reviewer and player feedback about genuine content and issues with HoT has surfaced giving them far more objective view on the purchase of HoT. Now let’s summarize a F2P player’s perspective:

- huge, engaging core game = $0
- 4 maps (+ 2 guild halls if you’re in one, not everyone is) if you’re a PvE’er (most are) – extra 50$.

And a-net wonders why sales are not meeting expectations….
With core players disappointed (mostly about amount of content vs hype+price) and F2P delaying their decision to jump ship to HoT (it costs 50$, and come next xpac it’ll be free!) it’s nor surprise sales are rock bottom on the F2P front…

Let’s be honest here: Milk got spilled, no use crying about it, but a-net can either mop it up and be done with it, or leave it there to rot and start smelling.
Soon we’ll know the answer as the issue can’t stick around forever and now is really the time to take action, such as:

a) LS3 delivering huge chunks of new HoT content – that’s probably best choice for them – with this addition HoT may become worthy of its asking price and they both save face and get those xpac copy sales moving, along with regaining some of the lost trust from fanbase.

b) they bend their neck, lower official HoT price, admitting the mistaken price/content appraisal. Yes they can lower it via 3rd party retailers, but doing it officially is like publically admitting their mistake. While it may hurt their pride and upset some players that recently bought it at full price, it is a way to gain back respect of many players.

c) they start HoT sale. Not much in terms of regaining player sympathy but it will get many undecided core players to jump ship.

Regardless the time has never been riper to do something about the current situation of HoT sales and player faith in company.

I don’t think I can disagree with this post more. If they like the game, they get three extra character slots, get daily log in rewards, have all their restrictions removed. And I don’t believe most players even read forums or reddit. It’s just not how people are. They play a game they like it and they either buy it or don’t. That’s why the 80 level thing came out. People weren’t leveling fast enough.

The problem is that by the time they reach 80 and experienced a huge chunk of the game, a large number of people are no longer incentivized to purchase.

The FtP version should have taken a lesson from WoW – FtP only up to level 20.

Not sure I agree. They haven’t experienced gliding which changes the game profoundly for a lot of people. For me it was one of the best additions Anet made to the game. They also can’t experience raids, they can’t get legendary precursors, can’t get to max level fractals or even get all fractal rewards, it’s far far harder to make any ascended armor and weapons.

And of course they’ll be locked out of all story moving forward.

More and more stuff will come that people are just locked out of.

I don’t know about you but if I were walking around this game and I looked up and saw people gliding over me, I’d want the expansion just for that alone probably.