Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Sure and when new stuff is released it often takes months in most MMOs to get the balance right. So we see new professions, they’re being used a lot, people jump on the band wagon and then stuff gets nerfed, just like warriors got a nerf at some point.
It doesn’t happen instantly.

Sure it happens, Death knights were op when they came out in wow, eventually they got toned down, no different than the Revenant. The difference also is those other companies usually have longer beta’s and test servers to test stuff out, a lot of times it’s just adding a couple new spells to the top end of leveling that needs balancing. GW2 meanwhile added 9 elite specs at once that changes entire classes and barely did any beta testing on them, we’re in fact still beta testing them.

Vayne.8563:

In a year from now, we’ll see if things haven’t balanced out but it’s not going to happen right now, and no one can say the game is pay to win just because it’s out of balance right now. It’s a misuse of the term.

A year from now? lol. Not when they’re trying to promote e-sports right now to grow their game. Balance patches need to come faster on obvious broken stuff, when a pro team had to quit a tournament match just to get some attention to a broken meta says a lot.

Please enlighten us on your definition of pay to win.

Vayne.8563:

When there were a zillion ham/bow warriors running around the situation isn’t much different than it is now.

Actually there is a difference, because everyone had the base game before so if you wanted to roll up a ham/bow warrior yourself you could, with the expansion not everyone has access to the new specs, there is now a line drawn between equal play to pay to win, whether that changes depends on Anet and how they go about their balancing and how long it takes them to even do so.

Again P2W is in regards to competitive play which affects all account types in this case because they are all forced to play together in pvp and wvw. I don’t care how much more damage you can or cannot do in pve with your old or new class unless of course your new class is suddenly doing like 20k more dps then obviously something needs adjusting. There’s no dps meters in gw2 so even there the pve is not very competitive.

Mmo classes are not built to be equal, but their have their roles to balance each other, and that’s expected more so in pvp. You will never achieve perfect balance but you of course don’t expect to have classes than can 1-2 shot you, or man handle the old specs so bad that it becomes expected to upgrade to continue to compete on a more even ground.

It’s like you’re playing vanilla iron man, and the expansion comes out and someone buys it and gets hulk and starts wrecking other players, you can still try to take on hulk but prepare for limbs being torn off, eventually you’ll be forced to just p2w and get access to the hulk buster instead.

Vayne.8563:

In PvP in most MMOs the level cap raises. This includes all the AAA MMOs I can think of except for Guild Wars 2.
Pray tell, can you name a single AAA MMO that you don’t need the expansion for to remain competitive.

The other mmo’s raise their caps along with access to new skills/traits, thus creating the separation in pvp between the old and new specs. A level 90 doesn’t have to face a level 100 character with the new skills, they would face others around their level. In GW2 everyone from free to play, regular, and expansion accounts are all pooled together, there’s no separation from the elite specs, now those with the expansion have the advantage until Anet manages to balance them.

So we know about the nerf to rewards for dungeons, it’s obvious Anet wants to just move players towards the fractal system.

I was thinking since fractals have now been separated, maybe they should move explorable dungeons into the fractal system, and make the fractal system available earlier than level 80.

Merge both systems, maybe give out fractal rewards with random dungeon tokens in the chests for the fractal maps, and the fractal rewards with the usual guaranteed amount of tokens if you run the dungeon maps. Fractals get a few new(old) maps to run with, dungeons get new life with new rewards.

Obviously tweaks would need to be made for the dungeon maps and fractal system, as they are not all level 80, but just scale them up like you do for wvw. Fractal rewards are only intended for level 80 so maybe just give out personal level 1 rewards for players under level 80 until they get to 80. Not sure speed running would be that big of an issue, since you can do that to some of the fractal maps as well. Still require the players to go to the dungeon and run the story mode before unlocking the explorable/fractal mode.

I’m not a dungeon runner, and only did fractals every once in a while, just seems a waste to just nerf dungeons and dump them to the side, when they have another entire system of dungeons with better rewards setup, just merge them into one system.

P2W is usually in regards to pvp, the competitive side of games. It’s when you pay to gain an advantage(win) over others (class, spec, trait, talent, skill, potions, boosters etc.). Which directly affects other players in pvp (hence why you get complaints), while in pve it doesn’t (they don’t usually complain about it in those situations). If you want to argue about P2W for pve for stuff like say, stat boosters, then GW2 has always been P2W because boosters have been available on the gem store since day 1.

So in regards to this expansion being P2W? Absolutely, because in a lot of cases the elite specs are better than the vanilla specs with regards to pvp, and with free accounts, regular accounts, hot accounts all able to pvp together, it affects everyone. In pve who cares? they help you kill stuff faster. Other than raiding which imposes limits on players and classes, but then you need the expansion to raid, so you have access to all those specs anyways.

P2W has also in some regard entered WvW, because of the elite specs and also guild hall upgrades for stuff such as the new dragon banner. Mind you those can be set so that anyone has access to them at the claimed structure, so it’s not that bad.

I’m sure at some point Anet will balance them out, I’m sure that’s always the goal, well after they sell as much expansion boxes as they can anyways. But given that it’s 9 new elite specs, 1 entirely new class (and they’ve never managed to balanced the original specs in the first place), I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon if ever, so pvp and wvw will always be semi broken with class balance.

At least in other games the players with the new toys have to go higher in levels, and therefore end up in a different areas and brackets that doesn’t affect the rest who didn’t get the expansion.

With the current size of the halls and how much space the current buildings take up, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think they would add stuff to the guildhall later on. Maybe new buildings with upgrades, or just areas to build for show as well, maybe even areas for new mini games like the adventures.

I hear GW2 already has a “casino” with the Mystic toilet, Black lion chests, and the Ectoplasm gambler.

The game is already free to download and play. There are some restrictions with those accounts, but you get full content access to the core game. You’re asking them to sort through millions of accounts to give 10 people a free game? Then turn around 9 hours later and berate them for not complying with your request?

Alsopleasefortheloveofgod, usespaceafterpunctuationmarks. Happyholidays!

Fuzzion.2504:

A dev i spoke to said they were fixing old bugs of the wvw maps and that we should wait for the mid-late of next year.

LMAO, wow, can’t imagine what the state of wvw will be by the time they get around to the fixes.

Seems to me casual for this game meant having easy access to all areas of the game and play them at your own pace, that meant even having access to the greatest rewards in the game, legendaries, with the only group requirement being dungeons. The expansion has officially taken GW2 off to a more restrictive path with raids and the new weapon/armor legendaries.

As for raids… WoW did it better.
WoW has improved and changed their raiding levels to cater to anyone playing their game, from casual raid finder 25man, normal flex 10-25, heroic flex 10-25, mythic 20.
If you’re going to copy WoW and bring raids, then do it properly, GW2 is still 6 years behind WoW in raiding, and probably will never get to WoW’s level of raiding.

If this is the path Anet wants to go down with the smaller raiding player base, hey it’s optional you don’t have to do it!
Start adding more grinding rewards like the bat shoulders, hey it’s optional you don’t have to do it! or the snow shoulders, hey it’s optional you don’t have to do it!
Then so be it, playing this game is optional too, and if you want to keep adding more optional stuff for people to skip, players are just going to go with the option to stop playing, cause what’s the point when you start stripping long term goals away from casuals?

The only thing that isn’t optional these days is the amount of rewards they strip out of the game to boost certain other parts of the game, seems its mandatory for the livelihood of the gem store.

I’ve already had my time and fun with raids in EQ and WoW, I didn’t come to GW2 for raids, I came for it’s WvW. After 3 years of having a casuals paradise for the entire game, I’m not surprised at the complaints about the change in direction with the expansion, nor will I be surprised when more players stop playing.

Everything is optional!
Everything is cool, when you’re part of the hardcore team!
Everything is optional! when we’re grinding for our dream!

Your joke probably would have gotten more shock value if you changed the WvW restrictions to raids or fractals instead. XD

Hell, it’s about time.

Personally, probably too late for me, but good to see things that have been asked for years will finally be implemented soon’ish.

Well said.
I wouldn’t have a problem doing the achievements for the item, but is it worth all the grinding you need to do for it? nope not to me. I understand players out there who have physical limitations and problems with stuff like jumping puzzles, I never liked the linking of jump puzzles to anything other than achievements points, keep it in that role and don’t force to me to do them. Never mind that the jump function in this game never works properly well for me and maybe others.

I don’t like where these type of items are going, putting them in the legendary tier with heavy ties to the economy, prompting players to find gold one way or another. But nothing can do about that.

Just a shame for a great holiday where it’s suppose to be about fun, cheer, and joy, we have to grumble and mumble our way to a reward, or not bother at all.

SilentKill.9586:

1. Shut down the bottom 4 lowest pop servers on both EU and NA sides.
2. Shut down the top 6 highest pop servers for recruiting (for a period of around 3-6 months.)
3. Offer those leaving a bottom 4 pop server a free transfer to any server besides the top 6. Yes, I understand some might not want to go but the loyal guys to the game will easily go to another server to play.
4. Make eotm up levels only. Anyone ranked 80 loses access to this game mode.
5. Re-work the server system. Round robin style instead of tiers and hold playoffs for tournaments.
6. Not sure if this is possible at all but, give the EU and NA servers a chance to play one another. (if possible)
7. If say the servers start to become to full again as far as optimal population. You open 1 server for both EU and NA timezones.

Like I said this is just my opinion on the matter.

If you want to fold wvw servers you need to do it in 3’s.

While I also agree they should have offered some sort of free transfers off the last 3-6 servers into the mid pack of servers then closed them, that in itself will cause another imbalance if it’s not handled properly which I wouldn’t expect it to be, much like we saw with HoD before tournament.

Free transfers should have also been offered off the top servers when they were full, down to the lower servers. WoW does this all the time offering free transfers to help over/underpopulated servers. Anet did not care to monitor the wvw population, it took them 3 years to even switch to that at the server listing.

Taking out Eotm at level 80 will take out the original purpose of it in the first place, a place to play while you’re stuck in queue. A lot more of that will happen if you stack the servers up again from transfers. I do understand the thinking in trying to force more level 80’s to play real wvw than eotm, there has to be a better way to do it, like offer better rewards for playing wvw over eotm, and leave eotm as a leveling area.

If populations happen to miraculously even out then we can talk round robin. Population imbalance is one of the reasons along with night capping, why they haven’t bothered with another tournament (also that they don’t care to anyways). In the end populations will never be close to “Even” but there should be efforts to try at least.

WvW should have been global from the start, maybe the night capping time zone population issues wouldn’t have been so bad at this point.

- Keep It Simple Stupid -

Should be plastered on an Anet wall somewhere.

It’s still a good chunk of change and I’m working on a legendary right now, so I ain’t throwing that much gold out for this. Like I said I ain’t that desperate for some snow around me, good luck to those that get it.

Hot Boy.7138:

I saw a comment on dulfy that said it would cost around 800 gold when you factor in the drinks.

LOL wow, I was gonna try it and bought one set of the sigils then I paused and thought… waitaminute, this is most likely like the halloween one… looked at the 10k drinks achievements and said nope I’m not that desperate for dandruff on the shoulders.

Well that’s what happens when customers get ignored on “official forums”, they get kittened off. It could have been fixed and avoided if Anet made an effort, you know especially after Mike’s thread last year about more communication.

But it is what it is, if they want to hurt their relations that way, that’s on them.
We just have to deal with it and flood on over to reddit instead.

Firelysm.4967:

DanteZero.9736:

It could be much, much worse than what is going on right now. At least there’s an option to pay for gems with gold, some mmo devs don’t even allow that option.

I dont want to pay it with GEMS or GOLD, they deserve neither, i want to earn it in game.

But then how would they make any money so you can play for free?

Nice job on the new skins! Seriously, I don’t usually like the style of GW2 weapons and skins except for the greatswords, and the staffs usually are a big let down.
This set looks really good though.

That shield is what the chronomancer weapon from the collection (Horologicus) should have looked like.

Wanze.8410:

xbutcherx.3861:

Warrior and thieves are still in rememberland?

Its all nerfs. You think warrior and thief needs nerfs?

My poor warrior, he had to drop his great sword for a sickle, flax farmer from now on!

AysonCurrax.3254:

Xenesis.6389:

Why are you fractal people freaking out? This thread is just a quick note on pvp hot fixes coming this week not the entire patch notes. Jesus people read and understand the post.

Because its not a PvP Only Fix. Its a Nerf to PvE aswell.

They nerfed the amount of targets on a 2sec heavy damage spammable aoe, seriously it’s not that big of a deal, the area that it will affect the most is WvW zerging. Come back when they bump the cooldown to 10s or drop the damage to 5k instead.

Why are you fractal people freaking out? This thread is just a quick note on pvp hot fixes coming this week not the entire patch notes. Jesus people read and understand the post.

P.S Spammable aoe on a 2sec cooldown that can crit for 15k?, most other classes would give an arm and a leg for that. Most aoe’s in the game are already capped to 5 targets.

What WvW BLs Will Look Like in the Future….

EMPTY

Seriously though, they’ve already screwed over small groups with the changes. The price for the upgrades are insanely stupid, there’s no other way to put it. Upgrade prices need to drop to under a gold and less in order to be worthwhile, either that or they adjust the material requirements for the schematics.

They had already planned on doing a general balance sweep of all classes at the end of jan, which I agree is too long a ways off, but nothing we can do about it they need that time to do it.

These are just quick fixes to tone down the 2 classes taking over the meta, be glad they did it rather than having to wait until end of jan for them to even address mesmers and revenants.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

1) NPE:
Back in old days , ppl where able to unlock every spell+utlity+trait till 49 lvl (using the Hero challenges too) , and whinned that they didnt have enything to aim for

2) Dungeons:
Now that the core game is Pay for Free , do you wanna see more gold infations in the market ?
What goldsink do those account has ?
The free repairs ?
They can excange gold>gems (nope) ?

3)Fractals
Check Reddit : they are assebling team to create new Fractals + you 15/12/15 you will see their rewards reforms

4)PvP
>_>
Balance every 2-3 months (after the tournaments)

5) WvWvW
These where the ideas where asked by the community in the WvWvW megathreads …
A) Less PvD =hence you get the laser in themiddle of the map for blob vs blob .
B) Even in tier 1 server , not all oof them has the same amount of ppl , and they have asked for bigger maps to split the zergs and Defending/Scouting becomes an option

6)Raid
>_>

1) In the old days traits were fully unlocked at level 60. It gave you 20 levels to actually play your class with your full skills unlocked. Nothing to aim for? How about level 80, dungeons, fractals, wvw, world bosses, ascended and legendary crafting?

2) That’s a pretty poor excuse, sorry but there are dozens of other ways to gain gold just as well in the game in both the core and expansion zones. What they did was slap the dungeon runners for playing in their favorite area of the game, maybe to try and push them into fractals instead.

3) Well hot kitten ! they’re assembling the avengers to fix and create fractals, just in time for after the expansion.

4) Balance is crucial in pvp, with the limited time that the elites had for beta testing to the masses, seriously a few beta weekends with major changes happening in each of them, and then no balance patch for 4 months after the expansion release, not even one in time for the leagues is pretty ridiculous.

5) It has been asked for repeatedly, Less PVE.
Community asked to split the zergs? then why create a big fat pve event in the middle of the map to promote blob vs blob? Defending/Scouting is not really an option when you have auto upgrades and sentries spotting enemies nearby, really no point for scouts to stay on a dead map bored to death waiting for enemies.

6) (<>..<>)

Vayne.8563:

Wasn’t this the game that had to close down for a couple of years because it launched so badly they had to press the redo button on it? Yeah that’s what I thought.

HoT has changed many of the systems in the game. In a way, it’s the redo button that FF XIV did, before they started doing good things. Anet has told us that HoT is more of the roadmap forward than just an expansion. That was my understanding of it. Masteries, specializations, elite specializations, even the change to dungeons and fractals are all in preparation for what comes next.

So yeah, if you’re going to talk FF XIV, their first big “expansion” was actually a complete rewrite of a game with an abysmal launch.

The difference is FFXIV launched as a mess, they admitted it and they redid the entire game over and relaunched successfully in the eyes of the fans. GW2 was not a mess at release, it was very close to what the fans wanted out of the game, but from that day forward Anet has taken a different path that continue to disappoint a lot of fans (you can debate that all you want too I don’t care).

Now you say GW2 launched the expansion as a rewrite for their systems and future roadmap for a game that wasn’t really broken in the first place (they did the same thing with the NPE and trait systems, which they had to go back and fix again because of the backlash they got). Repackaging earned guild perks behind a material wall in the guildhalls was a good thing? Nerfing dungeons and discontinuing their support was a good thing? Messing up fractals rewards and scaling and can’t even be bothered to add 1 new map for the expansion was a good thing? Adding new p2w meta of classes in spvp was a good thing? Killing wvw with the new map and features while still continuing to not actually listen to wvw feedback was a good thing? Now they’re moving on to raiding which caters to a smaller subset of the player base is a good thing?

They don’t need to constantly trash stuff in order to implement new stuff. As someone stated in the reddit thread, HoT was literally our paying Anet to nerf our rewards. Spin it all you want, people are starting to stop turning a blind eye to it all.

The story behind FFXIV and it’s relaunch.
http://www.gamesradar.com/why-final-fantasy-14-failed-and-how-it-was-reborn/

Near the end of his GDC presentation, Yoshida pulled up one final slide, entitled: “What we have learned.” Its bullet point lessons were the exact opposites of the mindset that went into building the original FF14:

1. Never forget the fans. Without them, there would be no ‘us’
2. Fun comes first. If it isn’t fun, you’re doing it wrong
3. Never back down. Always aim to amaze
4. Don’t forget your roots. It’s what fans crave

“Breaking a promise is the worst thing that you can ever do, and I promised the people that I would make this game happen,” Yoshida said. “The fact I was able to deliver on that promise is a great relief.”

Have all 9 classes and unlocked all 9.
Only playing the reaper at the moment, mesmer warrior use to be for wvw, rest have retired to become flax farmers.

Motivation, didn’t want to worry about unlocking skills later if I wanted to jump to something else for a bit, feels good having it out of the way. Also figured it would be easier to unlock them while there were players still regularly on the map.

Sure no one has to buy gems, but there are lot of people paying more than monthly subs worth which covers for the freeloaders. Doesn’t mean you exclude it from the entire business plan either, unless of course Anet is not actually making any profits off the game, which is not the case.

Gem sales are another version of monthly subs, it’s just not guaranteed numbers like a regular monthly sub. The numbers will fluctuate, that’s why Anet releases new black lion skins and outfits once a month, along with other stuff like gathering tools, to keep those numbers in line each month. There are games that make more money off of f2p sales than even monthly subs, which is why most games have turned to that direction to keep their games going.

If you want to include monthly subs into the cost of an expansion, then it’s only fair to do the same with gem sales, and frankly since Anet didn’t develop much content this year but continued to pour gem store items out, only fair to put some of that back on the expansion too.

Vayne.8563:

Was it cheaper in price? If you’re paying a sub every single month it’s part of the entire business plan. You can’t isolate the price of the expansion if you’re ignoring the sub. Well you can, but you’d be comparing apples to oranges. FF XIV players pay $15 a month for the priviledge of logging in. So yeah, their expansion can be cheaper.

So why are you ignoring gem sales?

The $15 a month also gets them major content updates every 3-4 months, that includes new areas with new stories, new dungeons, new raids, new game features, new pvp game types and areas, even new classes.

P.S discussion on the same topic on Reddit as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3wk61u/mmorpgcom_heart_of_thorns_best_expansion_2015/

Dawdler.8521:

Why do people still keep talking about these “alliances”? Its freakin impossible that it would be guild size based. We cant even fill 4 maps with entire T1 servers. You could probably slap together 3 servers and still just barely get enough coverage for one “alliance”.

Clam down buddy, was only using the rumored number as an example.

mmorpg.com

Heart of Thorns, the first expansion to Guild Wars 2, divided players with its many changes. But one thing’s for sure, it’s one of the most complete expansions to an MMORPG in years.

Every facet of the game was touched, polished, tweaked, or overhauled. More shockingly, most of the changes were for the better!

ArenaNet says that Heart of Thorns is all about laying the groundwork for what’s to become of their MMO sequel.

Wait what?

Someones been smoking too much of something something, or they’re counting a little something something between their fingers right now. Cause they certainly didn’t play every facet that was squeezed(economy), sandpapered(spvp), twerked(guilds), or mutilated(wvw), most of the changes were for the worse!

PS. the FFXIV expansion was cheaper in price.

Dayra.7405:

4) Alliances do only make sense, if all alliance members are places together onto the same maps such that they can fight together. That may be complicated and I’ve no idea how ANet will do it (but some ideas how it could be done) and is likely the reason why ANet needs over a year to implement it.

What they’ll probably do is give alliances their own maps for the week, in matchups of 3 alliances. Alliance members will probably have a certain amount of space reserved for them on in the maps (300 members over 4 maps = 75 each, or lower if map caps are only 100 players or less). While the rest of the space is filled out with randoms who are not part of the alliances, this is how they will keep those maps populated at all times.

How they will place players is no different than the current megaserver/eotm tech, match player alliance, then guilds, then friends, then server mates, etc. If any alliance members can’t be placed on a specific map because they already hit the 75 alliance player cap and map cap, then then they are placed in the queue, or they can choose another map which has space reserved for them.

Browrain.7346:

You guys do realize that “next week” from last week can mean any day of this week, ending on Sunday. Also, they promised an “update”, not a fix, so don’t get your hopes up on it coming back this week.

Not that I care. I personally hate the map more than I did Raid on the Capricorn.

They don’t work on weekends. It’s just stealth not breaking on minions, put a buff on them so they have perma reveal on or something.

Also cupcake day delayed progress, expect a fix to come after the new year!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3wak1v/cupcake_day_at_arenanet/

With the mess going around in every part of the game, it’s getting stressful.
Chill, relax, take a break from the game, grab some eggnog and have a cupcake!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3wak1v/cupcake_day_at_arenanet/

I think players are more on to community or guild loyalty than server loyalty at this point. Too many servers have already been destroyed by players moving away, and sometimes multiple guilds will move together to another server because they like playing with each other. Just like what we saw when some T1 guilds moved to YB to ride them to T1.

Megaserver tech definitely hurt recruitment and defense call outs for wvw, which is why they should have left LA as a server based city and not put every single zone on megaserver.

The eotm system could work, it’s just a matter of whether or Anet wants to put the work into making it work properly. What they need to provide is something else to rally behind instead of server identities made by the players. Besides guilds, players need a bigger purpose to rally behind, the other games that do this actually make it a war with distinct sides, which GW2 just makes it a war with servers.

I’ll use examples that they could use, world of warcraft alliance and horde sides. Both sides are distinct, they have lore to back it up, and there are players who are fiercely loyal to either side. Warhammer online, also 2 distinct sides that players were fiercely loyal to. Remember Dark age of camelot? the game that wvw was insipred by, same concept with 3 sides. Same thing another game called Planetside features, 3 distinct sides in lore to fight behind.

What Anet needs to do is create 3 new alliances, let’s just use this as a quick example say Durmand Priory, Order of Whispers, and the Vigil. There’s a lot of lore in game to back it up, there’s distinction between all 3 sides that players can support and rally behind, the rewards for them could also be unique as well.

Let’s take it further and use the Gods as sides instead:
6 gods that players are matched to from their character creation, Balthazar Dwayna Grenth Kormir Lyssa Melandru. (Option to change one time upon implementation).
So basically 6 separate pools of players (instead of 24-27 servers).
3 sides of 2 gods alliances, so 2 gods randomly matched into alliances every week.
You want to transfer? pay 1800 gems to transfer and get a prayer book back piece as a blessing to your new god, lol.
Offer new wvw season rewards with art/fashion that match the sides you’re playing for, such as the lyssa balthazar and dwayna outfits.

What we don’t need is 3 faceless sides, green blue red to fight for, or the stupidity of putting all the green ranked servers (usually the top server of the tier) player pools together. Nor do we need player made mercenary alliances filled with 3 guilds and 300 players to fill maps for a week.

Palador.2170:

Sometime this spring we’re due for another of their announcements on it. It’ll be the usual “We’ll change. We’ll talk more about our problems and our plans. We’ll open up. We’ll be honest. We’re a team, devs and players.” with a bit of “It’ll be different this time. We’ve changed, we know we have. We won’t backslide again. You can trust us! We love you, players!”

Within a month, it’ll be back to what it was before. And a month is being generous to them.

Pfft we don’t need to wait until spring. Let me save some time.

A year ago in a galaxy far far away

I know some are concerned about whether ArenaNet is communicating with you and listening and responding to your feedback. As you saw with yesterday’s announcement, we do. All of us at ArenaNet play the game with you, chat with you and read your forum posts, on Reddit, and work on the, gem store, things that we think will most delight and entertain you.

We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development. We don’t want to string you along. Creating fun grinds is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t; sometimes we go back to the drawing board over and over before we get something right. If we make optimistic promises and then can’t deliver on them, everyone suffers. So when we attend a trade show or give an interview, we’re there to talk about what we’re getting ready to ship, not to speculate on what we might ship someday.

Don’t read that as meaning that we don’t want to talk with you about the longer-term roadmap. The intention of the CDI threads is to talk with you about the roadmap. We want to talk design philosophy with you and hear how you want to see the game evolve. When those discussions trigger development, we’ll work internally until we have something we’re proud of before we’ll announce it.

A lot of the questions I’ve seen posted this week are as simple as this: does ArenaNet have an agenda to never do something? That’s almost never the case, and if it is the case you deserve to know and we’ll make sure we get more clear. In general the simple truth is this: when we’re not currently working on something, it’s because we’re working on something else instead that we think is more important for the game and community.

Our developers post on these forums Reddit on a voluntary basis, and in addition to developers, we have a community team who can clarify and be the bridge between players and developers. They’re ready to engage you on these topics. And I know it’s hard for the community team to engage players across all the forums and sites where these questions are being discussed, so I’m going to support the team in consolidating and focusing as necessary, to Reddit, so that we can be clear to the community where you can go to get a response.

See you in-game,
Mikey OB

[Anet]DrStephenCW 10 points an hour ago
Yup, sorry 64-bit client is not patching. That 1k or 2k a second is probably the error code – it’s never going to finish! We’re working on fixing it.

[Anet]DrStephenCW [score hidden] 21 minutes ago
I’m patched up on 64-bit!

Posted on the official forums!

This is becoming a regular thing. Wish they wouldn’t do end of day updates.

Kerin.9125:

Anet have said many times the forum software was provided by a third-party who no longer maintains it and they [Anet] don’t have the skills or resources to do so.

If they have 200k to sink into a pvp tournament, I think they could afford to hire someone to fix the boards up.

VladR.9827:

Ara.4569:

Can’t you, pro players, protest ? Like both teams of each match refusing to fight ?

You could still have a winner by running internal matches to determine the team that will cap a point on stream. That would require trust, while there’s money to win, so I don’t expect much…

But I expect absolutely nothing from Anet for the next 2 months, and that’s just infuriating.

this! +1

CANT YOU PRO PLAYERS JUST GO ON STRIKE?! – all of you make an agreement and just demand a fix?

Anet is clearly ALL about the money so this will hit them the most – the kittening wake up call ANET !

What I would find funny and would make a statement is if all teams ran 5 bunker mesmers or 5 condition revenants, would be embarrassing to Anet for slacking on balance patches.

But that won’t ever happen cause…
Money.

Dang some nice looking outfits and color matching in here, nice job guys.
Some of mines, necro, mesmer, ele, mesmer, dragonhunter.

Wanze.8410:

Players as gold eaters arent good for me because i can only send 500g per week, thats only ~25k gold per year i can get rid of that way. And everybody who offered me this, couldnt keep up their end of the bargain because when i told them to send me account bound mats and tokens in return, they didnt.

Slaves defeat their purpose of existance, if they can simply refuse to do what they are told.

You could always just buy stacks of the very expensive materials like ascended stuff and send them in the mailings instead. XD

Doggie.3184:

Isn’t this current expansion supposed to have more elite specs added? Since it’s unfinished and all. Still waiting for new LS. Would hate to have to wait for another 50 dollar xpan.
Also you can always just not use druid. Ranger is the only one that got additions to their core class, which is new fluffy pets.

Where did you get that idea? all 9 classes got their 1 new elite spec/weapon/skills, there isn’t any more to add. Only things coming down in the near future is the other raid wings, and possibly living story. Seriously wouldn’t expect another expansion for another couple years.

At 95% completion you should have a good chunk of the points already, go to dulfy and read/watch the guides for the new zones, there’s quite a few you will be able to reach and solo and finish up your points.

http://dulfy.net/2015/10/25/gw2-verdant-brinks-hero-points-guide/
http://dulfy.net/2015/10/26/gw2-auric-basin-hero-points-guide/
http://dulfy.net/2015/10/27/gw2-tangled-depths-hero-points-guide/
http://dulfy.net/2015/11/02/gw2-dragons-stand-hero-points-and-strongboxes-guide/

The only problem you will run into now is the maps are more empty than they were 2 weeks after release, so some of the group hero points may require some map chat assistance, maybe ferry into one of the event maps and then ask.

Glad I got all of the 9 classes done two weeks in, and glad they dropped it from 400 to 250 points or it would have been a major pain. Once you do them once or twice you’ll get the hang of getting from one to next in a easy map flow and get it done easily.

If you’re telling him to wait 3 more years for the next expansion and the next ranger elite spec, just do him a favor next time and tell him to roll up a dragonhunter instead.

PopeUrban.2578:

True story:

They started putting notifications up there because during LS1 people complained that things were going on in the game that the game didn’t notify them about.

Basically, those notifiers are present because the community complained that they didn’t have them.

Now, we just need a way to dismiss them. right click or something. I dunno.

Players wanted a notification of when and where the world event was going on, since it it was hitting multiple zones at certain times. Situation would have been comparable if there was one announcement just for the Scarlet invasion and a separate one for when and where the invasion was happening, and another for winterfest. Two of them are not needed.

Yes I get it you have spvp leagues going on, you have the esl thingie going on as well, you also have the buff on my bar for the esl. I get it already now let me turn them off when I want as well.

Qugi.2653:

Colin say if you argue about PVP esport hurt game and you should have shame.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3v24hg/the_reduced_visual_noise_changes_have_to_stop_gw2/cxk2o2z

If you don’t like it more power to you, don’t watch, but it’s absolutely helping our marketing folks make Gw2 a bigger game which I’d hope we’re all excited about. If you want to see the game fail I’m not sure what you’re doing here, but rooting against programs like pro league is basically rooting against Gw2 growing. When folks come here and rip on stuff like PvP, you’re basically hurting the games ability to grow – and personally I would say shame on you, if you truly love the game, be constructive and give awesome feedback and suggestions: but don’t knock it just cause it’s not PvE.

So if love GW2 must like PvP esport. If not you want GW2 fail and should have shame for that.

SHAME!
/throws rotten tomato
SHAME!
/thows a pointy carrot
SHAME!
/thows a cabbage with a rock hidden in it
SHAME!

Shame on you ANet for spouting cleaning up visual clutter then add in a highly visible icon to players names, shame on your marketing team for placing unremovable announcements to the information area of the UI, stuff I click to close and wish I could remove much like participation medal info because I don’t need useless information staring at me the entire play session. Finally shame on you Colin for ripping on people for ripping on pvp which you think hurts the games growth, when your development teams ignores WvW for years, how’s that for hurting a games growth?

Shame indeed.

Pug.9784:

They are advertising other parts of their game….. not product adds. The more area’s you play in leads, potentionally, to more gear that you need to buy….. one way or another…
Already incrased the number of my “banks tabs” because of all the stuff that does not stack with HOT…. times that by a million players… you do the maths…

Used to be easy to play this game without spending a real penny….. now… not so much

Where’s the WvW one?
:P

EOTM releases…
WvW players: “Oh gawd please don’t ever turn wvw into eotm.” /starts making gagging noises.
2 Years later…
Some WvW players: “Oh gawd wvw is dying let’s get megaservers in here to save us.”
More gagging noises in the background, from across the hall down in the arenas.

Ding!

Anet WvW Dev1andonly: “Bwahahah, YES! FINALLY! our plan worked!, they’ve broken down and finally accepted megaservers!”
Anet PVE Dev1: “My idea to turn the rejected pve maguuma map into a borderlands map to drive them from wvw was super genius!.”
Anet PVE Dev2: “Ahem don’t forget my input on the guild halls to drive them into pve to redo their upgrades again!”
Anon dude from Reddit: “Hey where’s my gems for the alliance post?”
Anet SPvP Dev1: “Hey, can we run another golem event? the last one was super fun to watch!”
Anet WvW Dev1andonly: “Yes yes, fine fine, you all did well, flipping reset night to Saturday also helped you know. I’ve been waiting for this for two years, now… flip the EOTM switch!”

The End… or is it.

So instead of having 3 empty maps for wvw, you want them to create 32 empty open pvp maps? I’ve played on pvp servers on WoW, it always came down to being a gankfest than anything else, high levels preying on low levels.

Maybe it would be different for GW2 since everyone gets scaled to same levels, but the majority of players in GW2 are pve’ers, and I doubt they would be happy about pvp’ers cluttering up their maps.

I’m sure this would be a paradise for roamers and maybe small groups looking to gank people, not so much zerg groups as they want to find other zergs to fight and the quickest way to do that in 32 zones would be just pick one zone and go there, lion’s arch battle royale! all day every day!.